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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60227	The life and death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt., or, A short narrative of the main passages of his earthly pilgrimage together with a true account of his purely Christian, peaceable, spiritual, gospel-principles, doctrine, life and way of worshipping God, for which he suffered contradiction and reproach from all sorts of sinners, and at last, a violent death, June 14. Anno, 1662 : to which is added, his last exhortation to his children, the day before his death.	Sikes, George.	1662 (1662)	Wing S3780; ESTC R19959	148,120	164

man that is of the new-creation frame Their glory wisdom righteousness are but shadows of his and to be done away Their goodness is but a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away Hos. 6.4 Their wisdom is comparatively but foolishness and their lesser shadowy glory of the Law or ruling powers of their first-creation state is to be done away as no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth in the spiritual man 2 Cor. 3. 10. Every man at his best estate renewed enlightened gifted man is altogether vanity He was so in his first-creation he is so in his greatest renewal Nothing below the new-creature the spiritual man is exempted from this title in Scripture Vanity is of larger extent than sin Any thing that will vanish that is corruptible and perishable is vanity The whole first-creation is vanity and was sowne in corruption that is was a corruptible not a corrupt thing Angels and Men the choicest flowers in it have withered and corrupted their way before God and so lost that life of communion with God wherein they were created The natural body that 's interpreted to be the first Adam at best with his living soul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45. is but the vile body or inferiour first-creation state of man that is to be transformed into the likeness of Christ's glorious body in the new-creation Phil. 3. 21. How too generally and universally are professors in all variety of form judgement and way lodg'd in a kind of invincible conceitedness that the revival of first-creation principles and life in them towards a conformity with Adam in innocency or Christ in the flesh is the only attainment beyond which they are not concerned to look All this is but the natural or vile body Yet how strangly are men captivated to this day under this embondaging and incorrigible dotage Every thing that they are have see or desire while in this case can be no other than vanity Their wisdom glory righteousness all are vanity vanishing things Men that are vanity love vanity ou●ward visible vanities that gratify sense inward vanities that gratify reason Man's reason is vanity How oft have we heard and seen mens reason to vanish before their bodies All the inmost thoughts of mans heart all the more overly imaginations of his fancy all the reasonings and desires springing from both are vanity There is nothing man is or does till he come within the sphere of the spiritual world the new creation but it 's vanity Outward visible Thrones Crownes Scepters great Revenews and all possible flourishing accommodations of bodily life amounts but to the more glittering splendid sort of bruitish vanities and often fall to the share of beasts the vilest most bruitish men Rational parts together with their advance and ornament by acquired and infused humane Learning Arts Sciences excellent Gifts the tongue of Men and Angels these are far choicer and more eligible things than the above mentioned Lordly circumstances of bodily or bruitish Life and yet these all fall within the compass and sphere of vanities vanishing things as sounding brass and tinckling Cymbals Nothing below the very seed of spiritual new-creation Life gets out of the sphere of vanity Those that have all possible outward and inward gallantry too of the natural man or vile body are exhibited to us as to their duration and continuance under the allegory or parable of a green bay tree They may be in great power spreading themselves like a green bay tree but they soon pass away and are not we may seek them while we will their place can no more be ●ound What a stage of the choicer sort of vanities glory righteousness wisdom of man excellent gifts high illuminations dexterity of expression tongues of men and angels has England been these twenty years We have seen a praying Ministry Parliament Army going forth in a way of Righteousness in Covenant with God and no weapon that was formed against them could prosper No Army no Counsel could stand before them All opposition proved a feeble infatuated thing What is all come to They were not stedfast in the Covenant they started aside like a deceitful Bow Their righteousness vanished ●● a morning cloud an early dew and the bodies of the chief Leaders in that Ministry Parliament and Army are in their graves All is vanished save a few faithful chast-spirited men who for being true to their trust stedfast in their Covenant and undertake have been and are daily delivered up ●s Lambs for the slaughter by their apostatized friends What a Scene of vanities and shadows is this earth at best how little worth minding Things seen things temporal are the things that are not Things eternal things not seen are the onely things that are Man thinks quite otherwise That matters not Did we truly know our selves we might the more easily be perswaded in another sence not to know our selves If we knew but the vanity of our whole first-creation state the goodliness thereof comparatively with what we are capable to be made in the second we would not know our own souls no though we were perfect yet would we despise our life Iob 9.21 All the wisdom righteousness thoughts reasonings imaginations and desires thereof are vanity Did we thorowly know this we would be content to resign all not think our own thoughts speak our own words do our own works find our own pleasures and so enter into the true mystical Sabbath and rest of God in the new creation If we lose the temporary life and righteousness of our first-creation we shall find it again with usury in the eternal Life and everlasting righteousness of the second If not we shall lose it for ever in the eternal or second death If we lose our litteral shadowy Life and Image of God received in the first creation we shall find it again with usury in the mystical substance spirit and truth of the second Then let the letter and figure of Scripture be interpreted into spirit and truth we shall know what to make of it not before Could man be content to be baffled out of himself allegorized out of his first-creation shadow into spirit and truth he would be content Scripture should be so allegorized too out of its letter and shadow into spirit and truth The true allegorizing interpreter of the Scriptures does and must expound them into things not seen things eternal into a sence quite out of the reach and discerning of all the sense and reason in mankind Spiritual things things eternal are discernable onely to the eye of faith the spiritual discerning the hearing ear He only that hath this ear will hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches Heb. 11. 1. Rev. 2. 29. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Men then do seem concerned in this point for the allegorical sence of Scripture leaves them quite at a loss If they will not therefore be content to lose their sense and reason with a full assurance and stedfast perswasion

6. He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not 1 Iohn 5. 18. That which the Believer hath in common with his Persecutors flesh and blood that cannot enter into the Kingdom of God is all that Divel● or Men can touch And this no farther no● till such time as God permits which never is till he hath served his Generation done his Work and it be great gain to him to be stripped of his mantle that he may come fully to experience what he hath been long obscurely guessing at amongst his fellow 〈◊〉 Mortality swallowed up of Life 2 Cor. 5. 4. Spiritual or divine Life and the things 〈…〉 righteousness glory and all concerns thereof have more of essence and so of intelligibility in them than any first creation Life or things They are therefore in themselves more intelligible though less yea not at all understood by man 1 Cor. 2. 14. What 's the matter where lies the fault In man's understanding The objects are too dazling and bright for it over-master over-set it That is not all They are quite out of its reach shut up in an utter invisibility It can receive no notice of them but in a type and if this condiscention be made for the expression of them it decries allegory runs away with the shadow and rejects the substance But if God please to enlighten and raise mans understanding in some hopeful measure towards its first-created capacity will that do it No. There is utterly a fault an inability in it at its best to take the immediate view of these things This seems a hard saying But God himself who pronounced of every thing in the first-creation that it was very good Gen. 1. 31. doth yet comparatively find fault with the very best things in it Heavens Angels Men and that at their best estate 'T is written His Angels he charged with folly Job 4. 18. The Heavens are not clean in his sight Job 15. 15. and Every man at his best estate is altogether Vanity Psal. 39. 5. The first Covenant or first state of Life in man and communion therein with God was faulty comparatively with the new-creature-state of man and the new and everlasting Covenant-communion with God that he forms and sets up the Believer in by true Regeneration Think we what we will if God say so shall we contradict and blaspheme He tells us If the first Covenant had been faultless there had been no place for the second Heb. 8. 7. and Gal. 3. 21. If there had been a Law or a ruling power of Life given and set up in man at first or renewed since that could have given Life or have carried us through for eternal life everlasting righteousness and Life should have been by that Law there would have needed no other by a new creation God will not do any thing that is impertinent or redundant So Rom. 11. 6. If eternal Life be by Grace or by the Law of the Spirit of Life Rom. 8. 2. brought into man by a new creation then it is no more of works proceeding from the utmost activity of the Law or ruling power of natural Life and perfection set up in man at his first creation What shall we say to these things How is man out in his divinity God's thoughts are not as our thoughts nor his ways as our ways they are 〈…〉 8 9. his footsteps are not known To be 〈…〉 unequal He will be Judge Every way of man is right in his own eyes but the Lord pondereth the hearts Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right Can he do wrong God is 〈◊〉 a man that he should lie He giveth not account of any of his matters Job 33. 13. neither is there need for he will not do wickedly or pervin● Iudgement he will not lay upon man more then right that he should enter into Iudgement with God Job 34. 12. and 23. But the person here character'd as he affected not to be mystical in his person so nor obscure in his language 'T is the fleshly veil on mens understandings as to his matter that makes them carp at his expression and cry obscure obsucre doth he not speak parables Ezek. 20. 49. The mystical reach and significancy of Scripture as exhibiting the peculiar form of new-creature Life under the letter or most significant figures thereof that are to be found in the first-creation by a sound of words lies so remote from the veil'd understandings of men that they make nothing on 't They are willing to be blinded and deceived as to Gods Truth that they may more 〈◊〉 please themselves in their own lie 2 Thes. 2. 10 12. and the 〈◊〉 Serpent the God of this World is as ready and willing to beguile and blind them that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God may not shine unto them 2 Cor. 4. 4. In this discouraging posture of the present World did this believing Pilgrim wade through it waiting on the Lord and seeking out such acceptable words for the explicatiug of Divine Oracles as were most exactly calculated and accommodated to the understandings of men so as to unlock insinuate into and gain them by a holy guile into the entertainment thereof upon convincing demonstration of their grand concern therein He did most industriously set himself to bring forth the most inward thoughts of his heart in characters to be seen and read of all as to the Life hid with Christ in God experienced in his person and held forth in the Scriptures of Truth This was his essay in his Retired man's Meditations even to present to our view this mystical life in the most intelligible form language or certain sound of words he could any wayes hit upon which yet how subject they have left him to misconstructions through the ignorance and presumption of his confident undertakers is sad to see in their most groundless calumnies of his Person and gross mistakes of his Doctrine and Principles To obviate such causeless misprisions of him I shall briefly present you with some chief Remarques of his Life He was born a Gentleman My next word is so much too big for that that it may hardly seem decorous to stand so near it He was a chosen Vessel of Christ seperated as Paul from his mothers womb though not actually called till 14. or 15. Years standing in the world 't was longer ere Paul was called during which time such was the complexion and constitution of his Spirit through ignorance of God and his wayes as rendred him acceptable company to those they call good fellows yet at his worst restrained from that lewdness intemperance sometimes leads into which he hath been oft heard to thank God for and so long he found tollerable quarter amongst men Then God did by some signal impressions and awakening dispensations startle him into a view of the danger of his condition On this he en● his former jolly Company

came presently to a parting blow Yea this change and new steering of his course contracted enmity to him in his fathers house Mat. 10. 36 37. It was also suggested by the Bishops to the then King concerning him That the heir of a considerable family about his Majesty was grown into dislike of the Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church of England and that his Majesty might do well to take some course about him On this the then Bishop of London took him to task who seemed to handle him gently in the Conference but concluded harshly enough against him in the Close In fine seeing himself on ●ll hands in an evil case he resolved for New-England In order to this striking in with some Non-conformists which intended that way his honourable Birth long Hair and other Circumstances of his Person rendred his fellow-travellers jealous of him ●● a Spye to betray their Liberty rather than any way like to advantage their design But he that they thought at first sight to have too little of Christ for their company did soon after appear to have two much for them For he had not been long in New-England but he ripened into more knowledge and experience of Christ than the Churches there could bear the Testimony of Even New-England could not bear all his words though there were no Kings Court or Kings Chappel Amos 7. 10 13. Then he returns for Old-England Shortly after the leading and preparatory passages to the Long Parliament and the late great publick changes drew on From the beginning of that Parliament he became such a drudge for his Countrey so willing on all accounts both in Person and Estate to spend and be spent in his chargable circumstances and unwearied endeavours for the publick Good and just Liberties of men as men as also for the advance of the Kingdom of Christ in these Nations as I know not any former age or story can parallel His Principles Light and Wisdom were such that he found the bare mention of his utmost aimes amongst his fellow labourers would in all probabillity so expose him to censure from all parties and sizes of understanding as would disable him for doing any thing at all He was therefore for small matters rather than nothing went hand in hand with them step by step their own pace as the light of the times would permit He was for quitting still the more gross disorders in Church and State corruptions in Courts of Judicature Popish and Superstitious formes in Religion and wayes of Worship for what he found more refined and tollerable But he ever refused to fix his soot or take up his rest in any Form Company or Way where he found the main bulke of Professors avowedly owning but such inward Principles of Life and Holiness as to him evidently lay short of the glory righteousness and life hid with Christ in God He was still for pressing towards the mark Phil. 3. 14. He was more for Things than Persons Spirit than Forms This car●iage of his all along in New-England and in Old exposed him as a mark for the arrow from almost all sorts of People rendring him a man of contention with the whole earth Yet was he all along a true Son of Peace a most industrious and blessed Peace-maker to the utmost of his power for the reconciling all sorts of Conscientious men whatever variety of Perswasion or Form he found them in● to one another and to Christ. He never affected any military employment He was in a litteral sense free from the blood of all men as well as in a spiritual by his faithful performance of the duty of a Watchman not shunning to declare unto all men the whole counsel of God Ezek. 18. and 33. and Acts 20. 27. They that call him a man of contention what would they have said of David He though a man after God's own heart had so abundantly shed blood in his great warrs that it was objected as a reason against him why he should not have the honour of building a house unto the Name of the Lord his God 1 Chron. 22. 7 c. Yea he left order with his son Solomon on his death-bed to take such course with Ioab and Shimei that their hoary heads might be brought down to the grave with blood 1 Kings 2. He was no humoursom conceited maintainer of any perverse or irrational opinions but a most quiet calme composed speaker forth of the words of Truth and soberness at all seasons upon all occasions and in all companies He was full of condescention and forbearance hating nothing more in his very natural temper than brangling and contention He would keep silence even from good though his sorrow was stirred by it and the fire-burned within while he was musing Psal. 39. 1 3. in case that either wicked or but short-sighted good men were before him that he perceived could not bear more spiritual and sublimated Truths Iohn 16. 12. He became all things to all men that he might by all meanes save some 1 Cor. 9. 22. His heart was of a right Scripture latitude stood fair and open for any good but no evil All sorts of conscientious inquirers after Truth found a friendly reception with him yea he was in a constant readiness to perform any warrantable civilities to all men Any thing that was good he owned and cherished in the honest moral Heathen legal Christian or spiritual Believer and so sought opportunity by honest insinuations to catch them with guile and lead them forward into more excellent Truths 2 Cor. 12. 16. But more particularly yet to undertake that general Reproach that was cast upon him to wit That he was a man of Contention from his Youth up where ever he came or had to do in New-England or in Old He was a true Believer that 's enough if ye knew all to set all the World against him He was not of the world and therefore hated by it Iohn 15. 18 19. He was partaker of God's holiness Heb. 12. 10. had eternal Life abiding in him stood possessed of the Wisdom and Words of that Life which the holy Ghost teacheth 1 Cor. 2. 13. and he could not but speak forth the things he had heard and seen Then there 's no dealing for him Rev. 13. 17. Divine Truth seems most frightful and contrary of all other to men puts all men to a gaze renders the witness-bearer thereof like Ieremiah a man of contention with the whole earth He needs no other occasion of controversie the meer and single declaration of this truth will do it Here 's the ground of the quarrel with him for this every one will curse him Ier. 15. 10. This was Paul's case even amongst the professing Churches of Christ converted by his Ministry that were yet but in their own Legal short-sighted-spirit they were ready to have pluck'd out their eyes and have given them to him while gratified by him in the first branch of his Ministry for renewal of

or heaven that may be shaken Heb. 12. 26. Yea though they receive withall the baptism of gifts from this spirit of Christ and in that sence be made partakers of the holy Ghost yet they may prove at length to be but briars and thorns to this very spirit of Christ from whom they receive all and to those true believers in whom the very seed of this spirit is springing up as a well of living waters into everlasting life Ioh. 4. 14. The single Baptism of Gifts supernatural Ornaments and the tongue of Men and Angels all this amounts not to the Baptism with the holy Ghost and with fire Mat. 3. 11. The partaking of the holy Ghost in the single baptism of gifts without the very seed of spiritual eternal Life sown in the heart does not ●ar the visage of the natural man does not sacrifice and offer him up but more abundantly adorn beautifie and set him off Those that have the glory of their earthly man but thus higher advanced by supernatural gifts and accomplishments are liable to play the Idolaters against the glory that excels the Life hid with Christ in God and finally refusing the superior dispensation and those that own it return with the dog to the vomit upon the loss of what they have already received Ezek. 16. 1 15. 2 Pet. 2. 20 22. MORE in his MYSTERY holds that the Fall of the Angels came by their refusal of the divine Life and giving themselves wholly up to the animal and that satans kingdom of darkness extends to and comprehends all the in●●rests and advantages of whatever Life excluding onely the Divine The same Author exhibits a new and unanswerable charge against Paganism that by whatever flights of wit the best of them all may seem to wipe off the imputations of Polytheism or Idolatry asserting themselves to be the adorers of one eternal Deity in his various manifestations yet they worshipped God in such appearances onely as related to and concerned but the animal Life 'T is to be feared this charge will reach a great way into Christianity abundance of the professors whereof are followers of Christ onely for loaves such cleansing gifts and ornaments as do but gratifie and advance their earthly first creation state Speak but a word of the cross and fire-baptism of the spirit that 's to come upon all this glory and goodliness of flesh in order to a more excellent birth and knowledge of Christ after the spirit in them you become an enemy presently if you tell them this truth Gal. 4. 16. If matters be well scann'd and weighed in the ballance of the sanctuary abundance of Religion and Professors will be found no currant and well tried Gold Rev. 3. 18. that will pass for the Kingdom of Heaven The Scripture latitude of the animal or natural man is comprehensive of all that is to be found in mans first-creation state and life in distinction from the spiritual new creation man The natural body or animal man is interpreted by the apostle to be of the same reach and significancy as the living soul of the first Adam at best as the spiritual body or man is comprehensive of that new-creature Life and perfection that 's recieved from the indwelling presence of the quickning spirit of the second Adam 1 Cor. 15. 44 46. Those Christians that are brought into communion with God but in the renewed activity of the natural body o● living soul of the first Adam taking the renewed old man for the new Restauration for Regeneration are apt to grow so conceited confident therein that they wil not lend an ear to the tydings of any superior dispensation and more excellent way Man in whatever possible refinement and glory of his first-creation state is yet but that natural man in whose mind there is so vast an asymmetry and incongruity to spiritual divine things the New Name the Life hid with Christ in God the Wisdom and Righteousness of God that shines forth in the New Creature that he knows not what to make of them 〈◊〉 are foolishness to him 1 Cor. 2. 14. Nothing less than the very seed of spiritual new-creature Life from Christ will find or make its way through all possible obstructions from within man or from without and prosper into that kingdome of grace and glory that cannot be shaken This will spring up in the soul and declare it self King take the Scepter and ruling power out of the hands of our first-creation spirit and principles and will safely steer our course direct our steps and enable us to work righteousness in the way everlasting Psal. 139. 24. Sensual Life generally rules at first in children When Reason springs up and begins to shew it self that takes or should take the Scepter curbes the insolencies and exorbitancies of the Sensual powers and governs the whole person If there be a seed of grace or spiritual Life sown in him when that springs up into exercise it will take the Scepter out of the hands of humane Reason and Wisdom and govern the whole person in the Divine Spiritual Reason and Wisdom of God The receivers of the spirit of Christ the seed of spiritual wisdom and divine Life are of two sorts either such as receive the single or such as receive the double portion thereof They that receive but the single will thereby be brought into the incorruptible form of the natural man which renders them fit associates for the elect angels to stand about the Throne as friends of the Bridegroom and the Bride They that receive the double portion of the spirit in the sense above expressed are the very Bride her self the Lambs wife that sits down upon the Throne with him in a more exalted state of Glory for ever The Mother of Zebedee's Children desired of Christ That her two sons might sit the one on his right hand and the other on his left in his Kingdom Mat. 20.21 There may seem to be a right and left hand scituation or state of glory for ever in the kingdom of Heaven The double portioned Saints are they that sit on the right hand the single on the left Christ tells her and her sons they know not what they ask if they would have either of these advancements on this side the Cross the grave the fire-baptism the strait gate that excludes flesh and blood all that is corruptible from the Kingdom of God Can ye saies he drink of the Cup I shall drink of and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with They answer We are able The single portion of the Spirit where it is received as a seed of new Life will not fail to perform that transforming fire-baptism in and upon the souls of men that will purifie them not onely from corruption the utmost extent of the inward water-baptisme and circumcision of the heart in the Letter but from corruptibility gradually fetching them up into the glory of the resurrection till their mortality be quite swallowed

Sem here were the type as many Iewish Rabbins affirm those expressions without Father Mother Descent or beginning of dayes are not at all applicable to him but singly to Christ himself Sem was the most righteous Son of Noah a Teacher of righteousness as Noah was called therefore properly Melchizedeck that is King of righteousness and King of Salem that is Peace from the place he was chief Governour of afterwards called Ierusalem from Iireh and Salem the place where Peace shall be seen as type of the heavenly Ierusalem occasioned by Abraham's offering Isaac there on Mount Moriah where David saw the Angel by Araunah's threshing-floor and Solomon built the Temple Gen. 22. 14. 2 Sam. 24. 16 17. 2 Chron. 3. 1. Sem on the accounts mentioned might fitly be called King of righteousness and King of peace Heb. 7. 2. but much more fitly yet may Christ be so called in whom all the righteousness of the first Covenant and all the peace that 's to be found in the second kissed each other in the second and were the summe of his Ministery Psal. 85. 10. But to proceed shall I ask a bold question What else can the whole Scripture be as to the saving truths and doctrine thereof but an Allegory in case it be presumed to speak intelligibly to humane understanding The main things signified in Scripture are things spiritual and eternal things not seen 2 Cor. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 1. not at all immediately and in themselves discernable to meer humane understanding The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. What then is to be done Either Christ in his own personal discourses as also by his Prophets Apostles and Evangelists must condescend to gratifie the capacities and understandings of men by representing spiritual and heavenly things to them through such natural earthly Mediums as are suitable and adaequate objects to humane understanding or else 't is as if nothing were said What is no wayes intelligibly spoken is as not spoken Spiritual things in their own naked essence and properties are uncapable of expression by a sound of words Words that are the meanes of humane converse even at their best and in the original language are but the proper signifiers of natural things Adam by giving Names to the Creatures Gen. 2. 19 20. discovered his compleat Philosophical prospect into and knowledge of them in their hidden qualities essences and properties which the dim fighted reason of fallen man hath since been a pittiful bungler at Solomon's Physicks and his book of Plants and the three sorts of Animals in air earth and water Birds Beasts and Fishes 1 King 4. 33. were it yet extant as some think it is in Presbyter Iohn's Library at Amyra would doub●less appear a great masterpiece in that kind transcending all the Wisdom and disquisitions of the learned Greeks Hebrew words were fitted to the things they signified There was a certain connexion between things and words All other words as they come less or more near to the Hebrew do more or less significantly represent the things meant by them The more any Language recedes from the Hebrew the more it is confounded by humane changes and additions the more obscure and difficult means are the words thereof for conveying the knowledge of things to us Homer and other Greek Poets and Philosophers set themselves therefore to Etymological learning by reducing the primitive words in other languages to their Hebrew roots and then the Derivatives to those Primitives This they laboured in as the most notable means conducible to the knowledge of things Then Chrysippus Demetrius and abundance of others writ Books of Etymologie Then the Latins receiving Learning as well as the Empire from the Greeks steer the same course in order to Etymological discipline as the choicest means to lead men into the knowledge of things Cato Varro and other antient and famous Latines writ many Volumns to this purpose Of later times on the same account did Iulius Caesar Scaliger compose a hundred and ten Books de Originibus Then Ioseph Scaliger Son of Iulius Lipsius Casaubon and many others steered the same course But when all comes to all were we reduced and advanced into the perfect knowledge and exercise of the Original Tongue what then All the words thereof at best are but the adaequate signifiers of natural first-creation things All these things and words too are but the types letters shadows resemblances rhetorical figures and significant expressions of spiritual heavenly new-creation things If this be true what can the main bulk of Scripture be but an Allegory Spiritual things expressed and signified by Natural and the words thereof from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation and that in the typical histories persons as well as in the sacrifices ceremonies and parables thereof What jejune and feeble Interpreters of Scripture then must they needs be that cannot Allegorize it nor therefore endure that others should The whole first Creation without humane words is a piece of dumbe but significant Rhetorick to express the second and things thereof The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work Psal. 19. The invisible things of God from the creation of the World are so intelligibly represented and expressed to humane understanding by the things that are made as to leave men without excuse for neglect of their duty towards God Rom. 1.20 Raymund de sabunde seems to have spoken notably towards the exposition of this creature Book As the first whole creation in general is letter shadow and expression of the second so more particularly is the first Adam in his primitive natural perfection type letter or figure of the second and of what he himself was capable to be made and in all probability was made by a new creation in the second Paradise Canaan the earthly Ierusalem Mount Sion c. all are Types Letters and significant Figures of the heavenly The three stories in Noah's Ark Gen. 6. 16. as also the three distinct places in Moses his Tabernacle and Solomons Temple the outward Court the Holy and then the most Holy Place or Holy of Holies as they are Types of Christ so of his followers too as to the three parts of their composition Body Soul and Spirit 1 Thes. 5. 23. Man is the Tabernacle of God the Temple of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. His Body is the outward Court what 's done in that is exposed to the common view of all His Soul is the holy place furnished with the lamps of the spirit excellent spiritual gifts for the raising and enlightening of humane understanding resembled by the seven lamps that stood over against the twelve shew-bread Cakes Exod. 25. which signified the light of the Law or ruling power of enlightened humane Understanding in which the twelve Tribes of Israel were to

attainments their renewed flesh they are of the Laodicean temper neither hot nor cold Rev. 3. 16. They are not hot enough for the spiritual believers company under the fire-baptism nor cold enough for the dissolute rabble of mankind that are wholly given up to vile affections and sensuallity They think they have need of nothing Because they see the bestial multitude under their feet to whom they say stand by we are holier than you Yet are they as to eternal Life wretched miserable poor blind and naked Rev. 3. 17. They have no exercise of true spiritual discerning or Life in them When this sort of professors are hard beset with the spiritual believers testimony rather than endure that they will venture if there be no other remedy to piece up with any prophane Interest as Act. 17. 5. The issue oft is they are ●uined for their paines by those they call in to their assistance Rich they are wise strong and honorable in Christ by a knowledge of him after the flesh while David Paul and others of their spiritual constitution are poor needy weak and despicable as to that selfish Life wisdom and righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. 10. Psal. 109. 22. Will any here Object That the same Scriptures are oft quoted the same expressions oft used and the selfe-same things unnecessarily repeated The Answer is To me this course of writing the same things in only not grievous but to the observant Reader it may prove safe Phil. 3. 1. As for others that Diotrephes like love to have the preheminence amongst men and gratifie their own ambitious humour by preferring their preconceived notions at all adventures hereunto without any regard had to the beguiling projects of the devil upon them and their hearers all along to me 't is a very small thing to be censured by such men 1 Cor. 4. 3. Is not their censure and reproach in this case rather to be interpreted a ratification of the things here said than any wayes an invalidating thereof Will they prate against these things with malitious words not receiving them themselves and forbidding those that would as he in the 3 Epistle of Iohn v. 9. 10 Let them Will any that pretend to be onely teachers of the Law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm 1 Tim. 1. 7. out of hatred to the main things here treated of bark at some circumstantial infirmities in the delivery thereof contracted from the earthliness of the vessel through which they are handed to publick view Let these take their course also I shall hold my self little concerned to heed what they say Christ pronounces wo to those that all men speak well of for so says he did their Fathers to the false Prophets Luk. 6. 26. That spirit in man that seeks or regards the praise and commendation of men is never right never has the praise of God Rom. 2. 29. 2 Cor. 10. 12. 18. What is more familiar to observation in teachers amongst us than that spirit of the Scribes and Pharisees that would be shutting up the kingdom of Heaven against men neither going in themselves nor suffering others to go in Mat. 23. 13. 26. God in the first creation gives us our selves In the second himself All the righteousness wisdom and works as well as the very being of man is from God as made by him but are called the righteousness wisdom and works of man or self-wisdom self-righteousness which he that so worketh is under the Law or Covenant of works If man himself may be called self such works at best are but self-righteousness Men grosly deceive themselves in limiting self to the corrupt nature onely The ridding us of that is onely the casting out of the devil or of that which the old serpent by his first suggestion to Eve brought into our nature Those Ministers and Pastors of Churches that are really serviceable to their hearers in this work will find cold entertainment from Christ if they proceed not with Paul to a second and more excellent birth of Life in them Mat. 7. 22 23. The fruit of their Ministry amounts but to the constituting of the house upon the sand renewed nature the House empty swept and garnished that Satan can re-enter not the House upon the rock that spiritual house 1 Pet. 2. 5. that is partaker of the divine nature against which the gates of hell shall not prevail All th●● man is has or does within the compass of his first-creation frame of mind and heart at best hath SELF stamped upon it so indelebly and by such undeniable evidence from the scriptures of truth that all the shifts and wit of man will never be able to wipe it out That that is made or renewed by God in the first creation is of the earth earthy That that is born of God in the second is from heaven and the righteousnes wisdom and glory thereof is called the righteousness wisdom and glory of God which they fall short of that stay in the first There is no eternal Life to be had but in the glory that excels 2 Cor. 3. 10. There is a glory and a glory a lesser glory that is to be done away because comparatively 't is no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth and is to remain Reformation brings the lesser glory the glory of man a fresh upon him But it must be Transformation by which we are changed into and brought forth in the glory of God vers 18. t is not a gradual progress and proficiency in the same life glory and righteousness that is here meant but a total change out of one kind of glory into another a passing out of the glory of the first-creation into that of the second from the changeable Life glory and righteousnesse of man into the unchangeable Life glory and everlasting righteousnesse of God The Apostle uses the same word to expresse this great change or metamorphosis of souls that is absolutely necessary to salvation which the Poet prefixes to his fabulous transformation of the bodies of men into the shapes of other kinds of creatures We are metamorphosed changed or transformed from glory to glory Spiritual new-creature Life only is unchangable and therefore eternal 27. This then is the sum of man's duty Offer the sacrifices of righteousnes and put your trust in the Lord Psal. 4. 5. The Chaldee renders it Subdue your lusts and it shall be accounted a sacrifice of righteousness Be content to quit and offer up the first-creation state at best in sacrifice to God and put your trust in the Lord who by his spirit given forth to you in the new-creation will work all your works in you and for you after a more excellent way In the priestly office and power of your faith present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service or is that sacrifice of your reasonable powers your rational principles at best that God will accept and thereupon transform