the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind in the eternal Spirit then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth now we drink in the Light as warm Milk most sweet and lively from the warm and living Breasts of Truth now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome as it drops and distills upon our Lips from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature 2. God is the Pleasantest the only pleasure of all Objects He alone is the proper Object the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties of the Understanding and of the Will the only sweet Rest the only and full Feast of them both God as He is the Light which hath no Darkness in it so is He Love without any allay He is that Love which is Goodness it self Beauty it self Sweetness it self all alone unmixt at the utmost heighth of purity sweetness and simplicity all in all of Him and all one in Him This is that Trinity which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence out of which all the Attributes Properties and Perfections arise to our Understanding and into which in the clearest Light they most clearly resolve themselves Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion or goodness as it springs up into beauty and in the delicious bosome of that beauty multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms Goodness is the ever flourishing ever youthful Father and Bridegroom Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride Sweetness the Marriage of these two Goodness as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness is power in the abstract in as much as Evil the only opposite to Goodness is the weakest of all things weakness it self Beauty being the essential and full form of Goodness being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony is Wisdome it self the only Intellectual Beauty of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion is upon this account the first and highest Activity The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net by the reflection of Heavens Light from a piece of glass upon the Earth Thus the best Spirits whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest no force of Flesh mount upward to Heaven and eternity are most properly most powerfully drawn to any Opinion when it appears as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region The first Beauty and the first Truth are one Being both the first Form or Image in which the Godhead represents it self to it self in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections at their utmost heights as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring and of it self with it self as the first Image with the first Original Thus every Truth in all its descents springing from the first Truth is also a Divine Beauty in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth smileth and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces We easily believe that which we desire Reader Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God whose Essence is Love Represent to thy self a Love which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty Goodness and Sweetness all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness that being altogether without any mixture or allay they are also without any bounds all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection that they mutually unfold one another most compleatly and most clearly all three so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual or rather Superintellectual Life that as they are Love the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity they are also in like manner compleat living and immortal Persons When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace in every posture in every glance dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all to be all in all in this work The work of some excellent Painter is known by this that it is a finisht piece Every part every point hath its just and full proportions as from a spring of life opening it self there as if Nature her self were a vital sense This gives the life the beauty the sweetning to the whole piece a living form to the Workman Can we then think that God who is beauty and sweetness it self who works immediately and alone by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence which is one and the same with its Operations will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand Can we think that God whose Beauty is his Wisdome whose Goodness is his Power whose Sweetness is his Life his Joy his Glory will leave this piece his Creation which he hath drawn from Himself to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself unfinish'd Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts upon which the life the beauty the sweetness of the whole depends We read in the Canticles That the heavenly Image of God that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels the work of the hands of a cunning workman Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word trusty and faithful It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work the trust in him the dependance upon him and expectation from him Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life and the spring of Variety This first Creation the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts from its beginning to its end is a living Image of God his Daughter and Bride although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image or the heavenly Image in a shadow Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here the joynts of the Thigh of this Image the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion by which it ascends or descends it turns it self about and moves every way Shall not then the faithful Creator whose Truth whose Goodness whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself infinitely transcends all trust all expectation make these Joynts Jewels Shall he not here express the
Lamb that was slain where his wounds appear in his glorified Person not as Wounds but as Beauties not as Fractures or Stains but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners and of Sufferings to the Saints There it seeth the end of all There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight Psal. 73. If I be not deceived Jesus risen from the dead in this order and manner is this Sanctuary this Temple of Grace and Truth He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory into an universal eternal Light In this Spirit which is this Light of Life the whole course of his Work in the Creation and in Providence his Incarnation Sufferings and Death present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them as one Diâ—…ine piece as full of Divinity every where Here all in the whole and in the parts present themselves to the spiritual Eye as beautiful and blessed Spirits in numberless troops by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades hiding their Glories beneath these figures breaking with their Glories out of these figures as so many Suns out of their Clouds shewing their figures themselves as Glories Like the Palms and Lilies and Cherubims of the Temple carved first in Cedar and then covered with massy Gold In the mean time all these numberless Spirits in their whole play from the beginning to the end are comprehended in this one Spirit the universal Spirit of Harmony Order Beauty and pleasantness in all Jesus risen from the dead the first and the last the same yesterday to day and for ever O the Wisdom the Power the Grace the Glory the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ What a depth is this without any bottom What an heighth without any bound What a breadth what a length without any measure How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all above all through all beyond all things or thoughts Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest the fullest forms of words or conceptions in conceiving or expressing this Mystery this Jesus But I have now brought to an end according to my weak manner the reducing the disorder it self into order in the Person of Christ by these three sacred steps of Expiation Compensation Abolition of the Disorder in the Order or which is the same the Renovation of the Order in all I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of partâ—…cular order and disorder hath been made beautiful in its season keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb in the Musick of the eternal Word I have also attempted to open that mystery how this Work of God in every part of it with its Beauty is for eternity the light of eternity being the only light of Truth with a golden Calm an unstained Sun-shine of purest perpetual Peace Pleasantness and Glory In this light of eternity alone is the Work of God seen aright in the entire piece in the whole design from the beginning to the end As all times appear in this Light less than a moment a point nothing being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity so are all the disorders of time no more not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony All this is true in the Person of Christ to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony All things are gathered together in one in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him whether they be things on Earth or in Heaven Col. 1. 20. These are true in us as Christ springs up in us Then only are we our selves baptized Then only do we see all things unto us together with us baptized into the sweet shining boundless bottomless Sea of this universal aâ—…d eternal Harmony when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death and into â—…is Resurrection from the dead How then can we live any longer in sin being now dead to it How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh for a licentiousness in sin from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ Rom. 6. 1 2 3 4. I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty Wisdom and Power through this whole Work with the Divine Justice Goodness and Glory in the determination of the Will by its essential Principles by the uninterrupted order and connexion of causes by the first and universal Cause which is most intimate to every effect and worketh most of all Secundum modum naturae in a natural way as being the nâ—…tura naturans I promised two other Scriptures for the making good of this design I will lightly touch them and so hasten to an end of my Discourse The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture 1. An efficient cause or beginning The Lord Jehovah 2. The final cause or end For himself 3. The universality of the effect and influence of these Causes The Lord hath made all things for himself 4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect by a particular and most eminent instance Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Three things are remarkable in this particular instance 1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection and with a two-fold Asseveration Yea even Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence What say they hath God made all things for himself What the evils of Sin and of Suffering Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain in the Work of God one within another Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links and maketh the Chain entire that he may enclose
Spirit and Person in heavenly unexpressible sweetnesses This is my first Request to you 2. Study and practise that great Command of Love as the Lesson of thy whole Life with which alone thou art to entertain thy self and all the heavenly Company both here and in eternity This is the first and great Command That thou love God with thy whole self and then That thou love thy Neighbour as thy self which is a second Law a second Love like unto the first Indeed it is so like that it is one with it Be thou thy self in thy whole Person the Sacrifice of a whole Burnt-Offering ascending in a Sacred flame of heavenly love to God the only and eternal Beauty As the zeal of the House of God which is Love flaming did eat up David and Christ so let this heavenly Love of the Divine Beauty which is the Beauty it self descending in a pure and sweet flame upon thee by consuming thee convert thee into one spiritual flame with it self Now live thou no where but where thou lovest in thy Beloved Let thy Beloved alone now live in thee when thou hast thus lost thy self by an heavenly Love in thy Beloved in thy God when thou hast thus by the Sacred and sweet mystery of this Love found thy Beloved thy God in the place of thy self Then love thy Neighbour as thy self Love thy Neighbour in thy Jesus thy God Love thy Jesus thy God in thy Neighbour Let this Neighbourhood of Divine Love be as large as the God of Love himself is Let every other Person and Spirit which lives and moves and hath its being in God within the encompassing upon the Ground and Root of the Divine Being be thy Neighbour thy Brother another self as thy self to thy self the Object to thee of an heavenly and incorruptible Love Upon this Commandment saith Jesus Christ hang all the Law and the Prophets This Love is the Centre and the Circle of all the Works of God of all Motions and Rests of all mysteries in Nature and Grace in Time and Eternity Plato saith That three sorts of Persons are led to God The Musician by Harmony the Philosopher by the beam of Truth the Lover by the light of Beauty All these Conductors to the supream Being meet in this Love of which we speak the first and only true Beauty being the first Birth the first Effulgency the essential Image of the supream Goodness is also the first the supream the only Truth the Original the measure the end of all Truth which by its amiable attractive Light conducteth all Understandings in the search of Truth and giveth them rest only in its transparent and blissful Bosom This also is the first the only the universal Harmony the Mufick of all things in Heaven and on Earth the Musick in which all things of Earth and of Heaven meet to make one melodious Consort While the holy Lover then pursues the tracts of this Beauty through all the works and ways of God he is encompassed with the Light of Divine Truth shining through him and round about him He is carried on in the Spirit by the force of the Divine Harmony He carrieth along this Harmony of things charming all things round about him as he passeth on So he seeth the God of Gods at last on Mount Sion the perfection of Beauty Harmony Truth and Goodness which all Center in the Divine Love the Divine Unity the band of perfection 3. Let no differences of Principles or Practices divide thee in thine affections from any person He who seems to me as a Samaritan to a Jew most worthy of contempt and hatred most apt to wound or kill me may hide under the shape of a Samaritan a generous affectionate Neighbour Brother and Friend When I lie wounded and dying neglected by those who are nearest to me most esteemed by me This person may pour Wine and Oyl into my Wounds with tender and constant care at his own expence bring me back to life and joy How evident hath it been in the History of all times that in Parties most remote one from the other most opposed one to the other Persons have been found of equal excellencies in all kinds of equal integrity to Truth and Goodness Our most Orthodox Divines who have been heated and heightned with the greatest zeal of Opposition to the Pope as the Antichrist yet have believed a Pope to have ascended from the Papal Chair to a Throne in Heaven Had my Education my Acquaintance the several Circumstances and Concurrances been the same to me as to this person from whom I now most of all dissent that which is now his sense and state might have been mine Have the same just equal tender respects and thoughts with the same allowances of another which thou requirest from him to thy self It is a Rule in Philosophy That there is the same reason of Contrarieties Two opposed Parties or Persons by reason of the opposition for the most part looking through the same disturbed and coloured Medium behold one another under the same uncomely form in the same displeasing Colours Hath there not been frequent experience of those who by being of differing Parties alienated exasperated having their fansies filled with strange Images of each other when they have been brought together by some intervening Providence have discovered such agreeable Beauties of Morality and Humanity such an harmonious agreement in essential in radical Principles of Divine Truth of the true and ever lasting good that they have conversed with highest delight they have departed with an higher esteem of each other their Souls have been inseparably united with Angelical kisses and embraces Some entertaining Strangers have entertained Angels Do thou so believe that in every encounter thou mayest meet under the disguise of an Enemy a Friend a Brother who when his Helmet shall be taken off may disclose a beautiful and a well known face which shall charm all thy Opposition into love and delight at the sight of it But now Reader I fall at thy feet I take hold of thy knees by all things moving and obliging I beseech thee If there be any Bowels or comforts of Love any Peace Pleasantness Strength Prosperity in Union any good in Unity that thou wouldst take deeply into thine Heart and treasure up safely there and frequently with fixed studious eyes contemplate this as I humbly conceive it most sure and reconciling Truth which I shall now as I am able represent to thee Often yea for the most part two opposed Parties have something on each side excellently good something exorbitantly evil although perhaps in unequal degrees Both mutually set after an unmoveable manner before their eyes their own good the evil on the other part Thus they blind their minds to all sense or belief of any good there Thus they lift up themselves above all sense of their own evil So they heighten themselves by self-justifications by mutual Condemnations unto an extinguishing of every beam
quà ens est objectum intellectus Being it self in all its fulnesses and forms under the formality of truth that is in its own most proper formal and essential Image which is beauty it self the beauty of truth the truth of beauty in all its riches and varieties is the proper object of the understanding adaequately suited to it its entertainment its food and feast its light and life which actuates it its perfection which determines it and compleats it in its proper form and essence It is an acknowledged Maxim That good is the object of the will All things desire good Good is the object of every appetite natural and sensitive also But these are particular goods proper to those particular Orders of Being the mark to which the rational appetite directs it self the Firmament in the face of which this Dove with its wide-spread-wings flyes is the Heaven of the first and universal Good as it comprehends within its embraces all inferiour goods Thus the Will hath the freedome of all good before it a freedome for all good in its self an essential suitableness inclination and capacity to good absolutely as good The soul of man hath a three-fold liberty the liberty of its Essence Understanding and Will 1. The liberty of its Essence is the fulness of Being All Being in the highest amplest and most substantial Image next to the Original it self the Divine Essence For it is the immediate birth of the Supream Original its darling and best beloved Child although it be the younger Brother to those Sons of God the Angels yet is it as Isaac to Ismael and Jacob to Esau their Lord the Heir of all the Nursling of the Angels while it is in its minority for whom they are made to be ministring Spirits to it So hath the soul of man as an intellectual Spirit all things in its own essence within it self the supream and eternal Being in its fairest and fullest Image beneath it self all inferior Beings fairer and fuller then they are in themselves as the Face in the Glasse excels a Picture or as a Statue exactly framed in Gold or Marble excels the shadow cast from that Statue 2. The Soul or intellectual Spirit hath a liberty of understanding Here it is a clear and spacious light the immediate lustre and out-shining of the Supream Light unconfined like to that as the clearest and compleatest Copy of it next to it self In this Light it freely contemplateth all forms of things above it beneath it of the same order with it all are present before it it comprehends them all within its own circle In the same Image of it self in which it contemplateth it self it freely and unconfinedly rangeth in the midst of them taking in their various beauties distinctly and all their beauties with their most delightful proportions and harmonies united in one at its pleasure freely doth it put on all these beautiful forms the truths and essences of all things being made all things in their truest and conpleatest beauties both distinctly and unitedly So it appears to it self in the sweetness beauty reality truth of each form each figure of the Divine truth and beauty apart So it appears to it self in the unconfined sweetness beauty majesty of the forms the truths of all things united in one This with unexpressible delights it looketh upon as its own proper and compleat Image 5 in this it beholdeth all scenes of things at once within it self it seeth it self in all persons and shapes with the beautiful dresses of Divine truths acting all parts in the most beautiful harmony with the Divine truth it self in its eternal Original In all it enjoyeth within it self the truth of reality of distinction of unity as in the highest Copy and the life-picture of the supream life it self far above all other Copies This Aristotle expresseth to us when he teacheth us this Lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The understanding is made all things This also we learn from him and his Followers That the understanding alone doth touch take in embrace the essences of things while all that presents it self below the understanding to the senses is only a various combination of accidents and shadows So also we learn from Plato's School That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Understanding is the Son of God the Word of God the first and most substantial expression of the Divine Unity with all its incomprehensible fulness next to the Divine Unity it self This is in that School the only Seat of the Essences and the essential truths of all things Beneath it in the discourses of reason are the forms of these Essences as lively Pictures without in the senses the shadows only Agreeable to this also doth the sense of the sacred Scriptures seem to be which maketh man that similitude and Image in which God with all his holy Angels in all created forms of things unite center and terminate as the end and perfection of all Upon this ground is the second Person of the Trinity the Godhead in its essential Image as the most adaequate Image of it self most answering and most suited to it self and so fittest for the most perfect Union with it self as of the proper and most immediate Image with its own proper Idea 3. The liberty of the Will is equal to and ariseth from this liberty of the Understanding The Understanding as the eye of the Soul first feasteth upon the beauties presented to it in the truths of things and so inviteth the will as the mouth of the Spirit to tast the sweetness and goodness of them The good of all these forms and essential truths is that which St. Peter calls the sincere milk of the living Word It is peculiarly the Divinity that of the Original and Supream Unity which is in them The nature of good is defined by a sutableness or agreeableness This hath its root in an unity All things that agree agree in aliquo tertio The agreement of things is their meeting in an unity The Soul in its essence is the most complete and immediate Image of the Divine Unity in which all varieties of things lie virtually and eminently as in their first spring The understanding and all forms or truths of things in the understanding are the effulgency of this Divine Unity with all its varieties contained in it as they shine forth in the essence of the Soul and so become the reflexions of it self upon it self and as the highest figure of the eternal Son of God the brightness of its own glory to it self Thus the essence of the Soul and the essential Images of all truths of things according to their Divine beauties in the Soul have an essential sutableness and agreeableness to each other from that two-fold unity their unity in their Original their unity in their own proper form as it is the Image of that Original The essential inclination of the Soul to these forms of Being and Images of the Divinity and to the Divinity
principal parts of the Divine Work to which all the other parts serve The great and Ultimate ends of these intellectual Spirits unexpressible eternal joys or miseries hang all upon a meer contingency upon the motion of the Will which hath no place no part in the Divine Design which receives no form no measure from any model in the Workman or any part of the work Thus are the great consequences the great ends of the work in the great the principal parts and passages of it altogether undetermined and uncertain in the nature of the work and in the continuance of the Worker 2. Answ. Doth not this seem much rather a reflection upon than an exaltation of the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that the righteousness and wickedness of intellâ—…ctual Creatures the highest good and evil in the whole work the eternal blessedness and misery of its own so great so glorious Births and Images should be of so little moment to the Divine Nature to the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that they should be left entirely out of the Divine contrivance and conduct without the compass of all reason and proportion to an uncertainty an indeterminateness of which no account can be given as effects of the blindest chance which was ever entertained into the most blind and confused imagination of the most vulgar Spirits But this subject of the Divine Goodness and Justice and the Argument taken from them to justifie this freedom of the Will belongs properly to the second Book where the Reader may meet with a large discourse upon it I shall therefore thus lightly pass over it here 3. Answ. The inconsistency of the setting up intellectual Spirits in this freedome by the Divine Power and Wisdom with the very essences of all Power and wisdom with the whole nature of things created or uncreated will also find its proper place in other following Arguments which is therefore only toucht here 4. Argument Next to the Wisdom of God the Power of God seemeth to furnish a fourth Argument against this Liberty of the Will We have it proclaim'd from Heaven by the mouth of God Himself That Power belongeth to God God hath spoken once twice have I heard this That Power belongeth unto God Psal. 62. 11. Joseph saith to Pharaoh That his dream was repeated to declare the certainty of it A Repetition also is design'd to express the weight and consequence of that Truth which is twice over affirmed No Truth hath a clearer certainty or beareth a greater weight upon it in the whole nature of things than this That Power belongeth to God Jesus Christ who is the only true God is said by the word of his Power to uphold all things to bring forth and to bear up all things as the Greek word manifestly and commonly signifies This alone bringeth forth all things all spirits This alone beareth upon its bosome all its own Births as a root the plant with all its fruit Here only in the sense of this truth with an immediate repose upon it do all things all hearts find rest Power is here by the Psalmist expressed absolutely unlimited in the abstract all Power is Gods and of Him So the Hebrew phrase imports God is the first Seat and Spring of all Power in every kind All Power supernatural natural civil moral All Power in every State undetermined determined All Power in every degree the Power of acting the Power in act hath its first seat in God and cometh down from Him There is a three-fold Power 1. An Active Power 2. A Passive Power 3. A Power in Act. 1. The Power of Acting which as it belongeth to the forms of things which are either Spirits or spiritual so it self is a Spirit or a spiritual form This is defin'd to be a principle of Acting This is it self an eminent and universal Act or active form like a Spring containing and sending forth from it self variety of Acts or forms as a Spring doth streams This Power is more excellent than the Act which is produced by it 2. The Passive Power is that of matter which as an obscute shade comprehending or hiding variety of Acts or forms in it like Plants obscured and contracted there like Plants in their seeds in the Earth or the Intellectual and sensitive Soul with all its treasure of Intellectual of sensitive forms in a sleeping Body This Power is inferior to the Act which when it is brought forth is the exaltation of this Passive Power to an higher degree of Being it is indeed as a spiritual Act or form encompast with obscured within its own shade As the Sun calleth up the Plants out of their seeds and beds in the dust so the Spirit it self the Spiritual Act or form shining forth from the Active Power upon this shade of matter and of the Passive Power awakeneth it into a beautiful form 3. Power in Act. All Power purely Active is ever in Act. Such Power is alwayes abstracted from matter and a spiritual essence or form eminent above all things in matter an universal comprehending variety of Acts or spiritual forms in it self Every Active Power in matter is compounded being partly Active and partly Passive This Power is never brought into Act but as it is excited and awakened from without by its Object from above by power abstractive and purely active shedding its beams upon it Thus in the Schools they distinguish between the Active Understanding in man separated from matter in its operations and the Passive which ever worketh in Conjunction with the material and imaginative faculty like the Moon having some obscure light in it self but depending upon the illuminations of the Active Understanding as its Sun Power and Act are distinguished not as two several Beings but as the same Being in several states modifications or degrees of Being When Power as it is a spiritual and universal Act comprehending all its own Acts formally and eminently in it self being all at once in Act within it self brings forth it self into any particular or single Act in matter This is the same Power contracted and so in a less degree of perfection When a Passive Power in matter springs up into Act This Act is the perfection of the Power The Power and the Act here are the same form sleeping and awakened in the seed and in the flower All Power is Gods As he is the most pure perfect and universal Spirit so is Power in Him the most pure perfect and most universal Act. God gives this Testimony of Himself I am Alpha and Omega The beginning and the ending saith the Lord Which is and which was and which is to come The Almighty Rev. 1. 8. As the Power of God comprehendeth all Powers most eminently and most actually in â—…imself so all Powers in Him are ever most perfectly in Act being themselves pure Acts God is said to work all things after the counsel of his own will Eph. 1. 11. Power is the principle of Activity The Will is
and Divine Harmony through the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But we will leave these things to their proper places In the mean time this Truth seemeth tâ—… be firmly established upon unmoveable grounds that nothing as it lies in the whole in all its causes concurrences relations and circumstances is mean vile or little unworthy of the Divine Mind which if it were a stranger to any the least circumstance of things even the first most unperceptible motions of the Will were uncapable of judging of the Harmony of the whole of Good and Evil which consist in order and disorder especially of moral Good and Evil the chief Good and Evil of the chief pieces of the whole Work Intellectual Spirits whose Good and Evil in order to an eternity of Happiness or Misery are defined and determined by every motion of the Will If I have been at the expence of much time and pains upon this Subject the Omniscience of God or the universality of his Knowledge and the exactness of it in this Universality I humbly conceive that I have not done it impertinently being moved to it by these two Reasons 1. Learned men know that this Flower in the Crown of the Great King this Attribute of God hath been denied to him in the face of the whole World with great confidence with bold pretences of Reason and Learning opposed to it I have heard this perfection of the Divine Nature in the Process of a Discourse upon this freedome of the Will questioned Whether it were proper to God or a Perfection and this Question made soberly there where modesty goodness and learning have met together 2. This Argument of the Divine Omniscience appeareth to mewith so great weight in this cause that if this be freely granted and clearly understood I cannot at all comprehend by what way or means the liberty of the Will now examined can suppart it self without the overturning the whole fabrick of our Philosophy and Divinity with the absolute ruines of all their beauties and strengths I hope in a few words to manifest this in the Second Part of this Argument which now follows 2. Part. The Second Part is the Original of the Divine Knowledge This knowledge of God ariseth not from without but from within himself This Truth seemeth to carry the full and sweet light of its own evidence brightly shining in the face of it If God receive any thing from without he is no more immutable impassible independent a pure Act a perfect eternal Act a simple Unity but a composition of divers and different ingredients If any Species or Image if any Knowledge flow in upon the Divine Understanding from any external Object not only all the Properties Perfections and Attributes ascribed to God but his Godhead it self with all its most essential Glories are shaken overthrown and utterly demolished If God be receptive of any thing from any other he is no more the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being and so no more God It is generally and rightly affirmed That the Essence of God and the Operations are the same that his Knowledge is Himself If then He receive the knowledge of any thing He receiveth also Himself and his Godhead from a Forreign Spring Wâ—…o saith St. Paul hath been his Counsellor or who hath given to Him first that He should repay Object Some eminent Divines seeming to understand the force of the Reason in this Point to lie in the fore-knowledge of God have believed themselves to have gained a full Victory over it by an imagined co-existence of God with the Creature For say they God is infinite as in his Essence so in his duration By virtue of this infiniteness he after an immutable manner co-exists with the Creature in all its changes Eternity which is the duration of the Divine Essence in its undivided and unchangeable but unconfined Unity co-exists with time the duration of the Creature in all its numerous and successive motions in all its undivided moments Thus say they God properly foreknows nothing but knoweth every Creature as it is present with Him in its own proper existence and time Answ. If all this in the full Latitude be freely granted I humbly conceive that the present Argument remains still in its full force unshaken untoucht But first I shall crave leave to offer some incongruities and mistakes which make me uncapable of satisfying my self with this co-existence thus formed and founded 1. This seems to take away out of the mouth of God Himself speaking by the Prophet Isaiah one Principal proof of his Godhead which he pleaseth to make use of several times over and in which he glories challenging all the gods of the Heathen to come and try their Divinities by this Test This is the Power of Prophecying the declaring of things to come 2. Doth not the Co-existence mentioned commensurate God with the Creature make God the Subject of a Relation to the Creature establish a proportion between Him and the Creature which are all contrary to the infiniteness of God as to the most uncontroverted Principle of Divinity shining in upon us by the light of Nature or of Revelation 3. If God by Co-existing with the Creature in the moment of the Fall at the beginning of time declares that full Victory of Christ over the Serpent at the end of time which he knows only by coexisting with that action in its proper scene and duration at the winding up of all Ages Doth it not follow that the beginning and the end of time in their proper seasons and durations co-exist and fall in with each other For this is a Maxim of universal force That those two things which meet in a third meet in themselves 4. The best Understandings pure and clear as the Sun it self clouded with flesh while they see through so thick a medium are capable of various and disproportionate views of their Object A weaker sight fixed on and confined to some narrower and more particular Image may in that sometimes discover to better eyes which extend themselves to a more spacious Object an error in that smaller Point Accordingly those great Spirits with whom I now treat perhaps may find themselves mistaken in their sense of the Divine Co-existence with the Creature if they please to consider this which I shall now propound God indeed is infinite By this infiniteness he is above all proportion to all commerce with every thing that is finite By this infiniteness he comprehends in himself all Creatures with all theirExistencies Formalities and Modifications after an infinite manner eminently and with the highest transcendency Thus he beholdeth thus he converseth with all things within Himself Divines generally place the Joys of glorified Spirits in that Beatifical Vision which is the sight of all things in the most amiable face of the most highly adored Trinity as in the only clear Glass of all Images of things in their eternal Truths Is not God Himself blessed in the
first place with this Beatifical Vision Doth not He much more certainly with a delight proportioned to a God behold all things in this Glass of the Trinity in the supreamly beautiful face of our Jesus his own eternal Birth his own essential Image the full reflection of himself upon himself Is not this first and full birth of the Godhead its most universal Birth where by bringing forth him he brings sorth all things at once in him according to their first and fairest Births as beautiful lineaments composed of Divine Lights and Shades in this face and Divine Form where all pleasantnesses dwell Thus of a truth God co-exists with all Creatures hath in Himself in his Essence Existence and Duration the exact measure of all Essences Existencies and Durations but this is according to the manner of the Divine and Uncreated not of the created nature as he comprehends all in himself 5. I come to that now which I promised as my chief and concluding Answer Here I shall endeavour to make it appear that all this established in the most desired sense falls short or flies wide off our present Argument leaving it altogether untoucht For let it be that God doth exist together with the Creature in the proper and formal existence of each Creature yet still we fall upon this Dilemma The knowledge of each Creature in the Divine Understanding arriveth from without or ariseth from within The first of these hath following it an horrid train of direful inconveniencies represented above such as I may well tremble to mention and the holy Angels stand amazed to hear the passibility mutability dependency imperfection of the Divine Essence in it self compositions divisions in the Divine Nature in a word the desposing of God from being God The Devil indeed in all forms practiseth this as his chiefest Artifice the establishing of such imaginations and opinions in our Spirits as by the dividing of the Godhead in it self may divide God from Himself in our sense of Him and so in truth separate us from the supream Unity the only Crown of all Righteousness Rest and Joy that by dividing he may Reign If I deceive not my self thus this imagination of Gods receiving his Knowledge of created things from the objects themselves existing in their own proper forms out of their causes and present before him is thus attended with such a troop of infernal Monsters as cannot but affrighten us from entertaining any such conception The first part of the Dilemma being then removed the second is established namely that the knowledge of all things in the mind of God hath no spring from which it streameth besides God Himself All the Attributes of God all the sense which all Nations all Spirits have of God from the light of Nature or of Revelation his All-sufficiency his Being the beginning the end of all things testifie with great concurrence to this Truth It seemeth to me indeed Impertinent to use many words to clear or confirm it If then God have his Knowledge of every Creature from within he comprehendeth all the Creatures in his own Divine Essence either formally in their own proper Natures and Existencies or virtually and eminently as in their first cause No other way seemeth to me imaginable by which the Divine Mind should be at once both the Eye and the Glasse to behold all things in it self If we place any Creature according to its proper form in the Divine Essence we place it upon the Throne of the Godhead and cloath it with the form of God It remaineth then that the Divine Knowledge is the intuition or view of things in their first and eternal Original Moreover Knowledge is the Imâ—…ge of the thing known in the understanding of him who knoweth it There are only three sorts of Images 1. The Original Image the exemplar cause and pâ—…ttern 2 The essential form which is the thing it self 3. A Copy or Figure of this as the Picture taken from the life and the shadow cast from the substance Thus the Lord Jesus in his spiritual Glories as He is the Divine Understanding is the Original form of the Sun the Suns Sun To him agrees that which Plutarch delivereth to us from the ancient Philosophers that the God of the Sun which inhabits the Sun excels the Sun in the sweetness beauty and glory of his Light ten thousand times more than the Sun doth this Earth or the darkest Cloud The Sun it self shining in these visible Heavens is the essence or essential form framed by this pattern sprung forth from it The Light the Sun-shines and Suns which we severally take in with our eyes are so many figures and pictures or shadows rather of this Sun flowing from him If we believe the Creatures in their essential forms or in their shadowy figures to inhabit the Divine Understanding we either exalt them to an heighth too far above them by bringing them into the Divine Unity and so making them one God with God or we debase the Divine Nature by bringing it down to a composition with things forreign and inferior to it The Philosopher teaches us that Science or clear and certain Knowledge is only the knowledge of things in their causes The first and most perfect Spirit is only capable of this knowledge which alone is most perfectly clear and immutable the knowledge of things in their first and universal cause Thus the Divine Essence in the Person of our Jesus the Divine Wisdome and Understanding the brightness of the Divine Glory the Image of the Godhead pure naked full substantial eternal is both the only Object of the Divine Eye worthy of it and compleatly suited to it and also the Species or Image in which and by which alone all Creatures all forms of things in Heaven Earth and Hell are presented to it This is that Unity which in its pure simplicity being free from all division of parts or diversities of forms is absolutely unbounded and so diffuseth it self into the most perfect and unconfined Variety comprehending it entirely altogether undivided within it self as in a spiritual most spacious Palace of Light and Paradise of the Divine Life upon the high and flourishing Mount of Eternity This is that Unity in its first distinction and so in the most full Variety our Jesus in whom all fulness of Nature Grace and Glory dwelleth in its sweetest repose in the most perfect Harmony of all the most heightning Beauties and Delights This is the Beatisical Vision in which God clearly contemplates compleatly enjoys Himself and all things in Himself as in the Christalline Fountain of the Godhead Let me now bring home to my present mark this present Argument by drawing up my whole Discourse upon it into three short Propositions 1. God who knoweth all things distinctly and exactly knoweth every Act of the Will every actual determination of it in each Act. 2. God who only knoweth all things by beholding them in the Glasse of his own Essence in the
universal Beauty one sparkling Image of the supream universal Good in the whole face of things This is a Musick sounding through all where each various form the obscurest the most minute is a string upon the golden Lute of the whole Image of things Each motion a touch of the chief the invisible Musitian The Spirit of the whole the Spirit of Unity and Harmony each touch a part of the Musick exactly answering in all Musical proportions to every other part and to the whole making perfect the Divine Consort in which all the Angels all the Ideal the first Glories in the Divine Mind bear a part with every Worm and Dust on the Earth every Wave and Drop in the Sea every Dragon and Owl in the Desert every flake of Snow in the Air. How beautiful now is the Work of God in all how worthy of a God! As his Glory is above all Heavens the highest and purest forms of Light so is his Name which is that Glory in the full expression and fair Images of it excellent through all the Earth to the lowest shades Plato saith That there is that which is the least of all things which cometh between the lowest Divisions the least parts of things which uniteth all one to another Ficinus in his Comment teacheth us That this in the sense of Plato is God who by the absoluteness and simplicity of his Unity is at once the Greatest and the Least the Highest and the Lowest the Outmost and the Inmost of all things the Band of all that can no where be excluded If this be true where now through the whole Universe of things is there found a place for that Liberty which breaketh the Band of the Divine Unity and Harmony which discontinueth the Links in this Golden Chain by uncertain arbitrary independant motions and forms arising from those motions What jarring Motion or Division springeth up without its Divine Ground without its orderly Connexion without its Patterns and Spring above to which it answers without its fellow Notes round about it to which it is tuned Where is this motion which thus jarreth with disturbeth and spoileth the universal Musick Certainly it lies without the supream the all-comprehending Unity It excludes from it self that Divine Unity which filleth all which bindeth all up into one Aristotle expresseth the Soul by a word which seems to have a full and deep sense to this present purpose Those that followed him have with great labour and pains digged in it with their sharpest wits as in a Mine from which they expected much fine Gold of Divine Wisdome and Truth It is reported of one That he raised a Spirit to intepret this word to him It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seemeth most properly and clearly to express that Divine Unity of the Soul replenished with all Variety Forms in the most beautiful Order as we have described the nature of it It is that which hath its perfection its end and so its beginning and so its whole way in it self This Perfection of the Intellectual Soul is the comprehension of all Truth in its Understanding the fruition of all good in the Will The universal Truth and Good are then the beginning of the Soul its Original all forms of things in the Beauties of their clearest and fullest Truth which is the eternal Light of their Ideal Glories smiling in the face of them all forms of things in the sweetness delightfulness joy in the unexpressibleness of Good the true Good all Good which is the eternal Life The eternal Love of those Original Beauties in their sacred Spring rising up fresh in the bosome of each Form this is the end this is the perfection of the Soul Thus all things were made for Christ in him by him who is the universal Truth and Good How St. Paul explains it All things are yours and you are Christs All forms of things meet and unite in the Humane Soul as their Perfection their Beginning their End Jesus Christ as he is the first the fairest the fullest Image of all Forms in one in their most exact Order and Harmony is the Father the Brother the Bridegroom of the Soul her beginning her exemplar Form or Perfection her End That Definition of the Soul the Act of an Organical Body contains the same Doctrine of the Soul in it An Organical Body is a Corporeal or visible Image composed of various members various parts and forms to be instruments and expressions of the various Beauties Powers and Virtues of the Soul by which they propagate themselves in an inferior Birth and figure themselves in a new but narrower Orb in a new but obscurer light of sense Thus the whole visible World is one Organical Body of which all particular Bodies are so many Organical parts Beauty is described to be the predominancy of the form over the matter A substantial or essential Act is all form a pure form separated from every thing of Corporeal matter The Soul then as it is an Act is all Beauty Beauty abstracted from matter a pure Light of Beauty the Essence the substance of Beauty and so of Harmony of Order It is a Maxim in Nature That the last the lowest the least in a superior Order or rank of things every way excels the first the highest the greatest in a lower rank and order According to this Rule every Soul in the excellency beauty virtue compass of its Being transcends this whole Corporeal World in the widest Circuit of its Form and largest extent of its Duration Thus the Intellectual Soul is the Act of this Universe of Sense the whole Corporeal World The Intellectual Soul is all this World with all Forms of things contained in it with all their courses and changes according to their Connexion and Order from the beginning to the end in one essential substantial undivided Act One pure Act of transparent Beauty and Order which is the Souls Unity and Essence By this the whole Coelestial and Elementary World in the emanation and springing up of all forms of things in all their motions and orders are uncessantly acted In this they subsist as shadows which have no ground of substance in themselves In this they actually are that which they are As Mathematical figures in the mind the Soul it self alone filling those figures being all the Essence Substance Power Virtue and Form in them Like shadows they vanish as they go forth from this Bosome where alone their Essences which are so many distinct substantial Acts and Unities shine and move together in a most beautiful Harmony as fixed incorporeal Stars in their proper Heaven Thus is each man a compleat world in himself Thus doth each Soul cloath it self with an Aethereal Aerial Robe on which it puts on this earthy Garment Like the Tabernacle of white Linnen wrought with all fine and rich Colours with the figures of Cherubims which had three Coverings one over another upon it of Goats-hair of Ram-skins died red of Badgers-skins
As Nature is distinguished in Natura Naturans and Naturata that is Nature in the Fountain God the Divine Nature Nature in the stream the Copy to that Original So the Scripture attributeth that to God which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked as in a Chain for its proper cause Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will for the darkness in their Minds The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it That God as the first cause is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present and immediately operative in every effect He is the Spirit the Beauty of the Order in the whole He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order tying each Link to the other each Effect to its Cause each Cause to its effect He is the sole force in every Cause the sole Cause of every Effect in particular Thus God gave them up to vile affections who had changed the truth unto a lye All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind All Images are formed there The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding as their formal Cause from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause to which they tend in which they end The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self which Images are the only Truth the only Beauty of it The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion which the Soul hath with it self in these Images infusing and taking in a mutual Sweetness Complacency and Joy They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will raising and laying them as the Winds do the Waters So God gave them over to vile Affections This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity so sweet so sure so deep All good is from the presence of God the shine the smiles of his unvailed Face the Reflections of him as he appears in his own Likeness in his proper Form This makes all Light Beauty Joy All Evil is from the absence of God from his Back-parts from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person without the Vail I cannot well proceed any further until I have cleared my way by removing an Objection or two which may be made against the Interpretations which I have made of these Scriptures and the Propositions drawn from them Object 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins that they knew God yet sinned in the Face of that Light Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will rather then in the Understanding This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate To the Heathen as he seemeth clearly to do Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state yet was that Perfection in which we have described it only in Paradise Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin the not glorifying him as God for this was either the same or Concomitant with or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man the want of Understanding the darkning of his Heart Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states A Light which can never be extinguished by any storms But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness which arose upon it within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall and hath ever since dwelt This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light receiveth it not rejecteth it as a Reprobate a false Light so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul and reigneth it self in the place of it This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated in those words As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture 1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind 2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge 3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind in the Rejection of this Light of Glory 4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness in the end of this verse particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind But we shall more evidently more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall this Mixture this War of Darkness with the Divine Light its triumph over it the presence of the Divine Light in the midst of this Darkness maintaining its Glory unshaken unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words Those words They liked not to retain A Reprobate Mind are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence They manifestly allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone or by the Fire God in the presence of his Glory resides in every Creature beneath the form of that Creature as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself Thus he constantly resides in each Creature as the Root and Being of its Being In the pure nature of man he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn or sweetest Light sprung from his own Face In the Fall God drawing in the Beams of his Glory by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome in the place of this pure and pleasant Light thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul in the midst of this darkness The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium through the darkness takes in a dark and falfe Image of it It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self now darkned and depraved It receives the Image as a true Image but rejects the Glory rejects God as reprobate Gold as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory God in like manner by the presence of his Glory toucheth and tryeth the Understanding rejecteth that as a Reprobate Mind This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self and man to this Reprobate Mind from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings Object 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture Answ. An excuse is
most perfectly distinguished Here they are all most perfectly One in the most entire Unity of the Godhead in the Father and together with the Father in the Son Here they are in this entire most absolute and undivided Unity as entirely as highly various and distinct as they are One. Here by the transcendency and simplicity of the Unity which is entire thorow all and every where undivided each Distinction each Variety is an absolute unconsined Unity comprehending most perfectly the whole fulness of the Godhead with all its endlesly new and various Varieties in its own proper Variety and distinct Form This is the the amplitude of the Godhead its Majesty and Glory in its own essential Image within it self Aristotle as I remember in his Ethicks defines Glory or Majesty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beauty with a greatness or amplitude What is the Glory of our Jesus what is the Majesty of our God when he appears in his own Image casting off every Vail and discovering his open Face in our Jesus How doth he with every glimpse of himself fill all the senses all the understandings all the capacities of Men and Angels with the overflowing Pleasures of his Beauty in the heighth and amplitude of it transcending all Glory all Majesty in their most exalted heights in their most extended amplitudes The supream and most entire Unity the first the fullest the most ample and unconfined Variety meet here both in One. Here they make a Beauty infinitely high infinitely ample in the Face and Bosom of which all Beauties endlesly new endlesly various spring up and shine and smile together while each distinct Beauty presents the entire Form of the Universal Beauty with all its distinct Beauties entirely infinitely new and distinct Our Jesus in this Divine Image is the Divine Understanding the internal eternal Word in the Divine Mind In this Image then stand together in One all forms of things according to their most exact natures and distinctions as they are ever known to God as they ever appear before him whose Knowledge is the only measure and ground of all Truth both in Being and Knowing To what tends this Discourse To this Our Lord Jesus in this eternal Image is the Universal the entire Idea of the Godhead the Treasury of all Ideas He is all Ideas in general each distinct Idea in its proper Unity and Distinction He is all those unlimited Glories in their most exact Ideas or Images in which the infiniteness of the Divine Nature is uncapable of being any way figured or shadowed in the finiteness of the Creature He is all those Glories in their proper Ideas yet still with an infiniteness of Glory which cast forth their beams and their shadows which compose the whole Creation and constitute every particular Creature Now you see our Lord Jesus the Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature As he is the Godhead in its full Idea or essential Form and Image so is he the whole Creation every distinct Creature every distinct Form Circumstance Motion Variety of each Creature in its eternal Idea or Pattern in its first and most exact Truth as it is known of God as it is seen and contemplated by him in that beatifical Glass where all things appear at once in their most exact Truth and most exalted Beauty This Glass is the Idea or the essential Image of the Godhead within it self This is our Jesus our God in the highest and fullest Glories of his Divine Essence I have now finished my first task in the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ his Godhead in its simplicity and absoluteness the most pleasant and rich ground the most beautiful and blessed Crown of his Mediatorship I am sensible how large I am upon this Subject into how vast a Sea I have cast my self But I hope my Reader thou findest it a Sea of Divine Beauties and Pleasures where both our Spirits together swim dive and bathe themselves with a sense of unexplicable sweetnesses and satisfactions from the Floods of Light and of Love at once refreshing and swallowing up into themselves our whole Spirits our Understanding and Will I hope also if I deceive not my self as how apt and likely I am to deceive my self in all things I desire at all times to be sensible But if I do not now deceive my self I hope thou seest how pertinent this part of my Discourse is to my principal Theme for the illustrating and confirming it How beautifully how delightfully do we see in this glorious Image within the Vail now unvailed by its own Beams as the rosie Fingers of the Morning of Eternity dawning in the Gospel drawing aside the Vail the highest Necessity and the greatest Liberty matched and united What Liberty is equal to this where a full and pregnant Unity from its own spring within it self diffuseth it self unto an endless boundless Variety triumphing every where thorow all in each imaginable point with the undivided unconfined fulness and freedom of all its Glories What necessity so great as this where this Unity by the eternally unalterable Law of its own nature brings forth it self unvaried into all this Variety where this Unity as Links of a golden Chain joyns all these Varieties by an immediate immutable order and connexion to each other where this binds up all this unbounded Variety in its own streight and sweet imbraces What Beauty so beautiful what Delight so pleasant what Harmony so agreeable as this Divine Marriage between the most absolute Unity and the most ample Variety in the Palace of Eternity between the most unalterable necessity and the most unconfined freedom in the Divine Nature The Schools say That God alone is Ens necessarium A necessary Being the highest Necessity and that other Beings compared with him are contingent in respect to themselves They also teach us That all this which this supream adorable Being is in the infiniteness of his Divine Powers and Virtues in the infiniteness of his Divine Essence all this he is in a pure immutable Act. Yet is he in this highest necessity and most immutable Act the freest Being the freest Agent Do we not in like manner by contemplating this all-charming Person of our Jesus this supream Image in the Godhead the Seat of all Beauties and Truths Do we not see the Liberty of all things in their most proper most glorious Heads and Springs in their eternal Originals their Ideas the first-born Images of themselves How do they here each of them reign and spread themselves through the amplitude and infiniteness of the Divine Variety seated upon the Throne of the Divine Unity in the Palace of this Universal Image or Idea of the Divine Nature every one in its own distinct Form Is not this the ground of all Liberty this the truth of all Liberty in the inferior Forms and orders of things not a freedom from the force or conduct of their Ideas their Divine Heads and Springs in the
that Tabernacle and particularly often Heb. 9. Jesus Christ saith to the Jews Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up The Spirit addeth there expresly That he spake of his Body in St. John The Humane Nature of Christ in the Flesh was a moveable Tabernacle to be taken down and so figured by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness The Humanity of Christ in the Resurrection in the Spirit was the true Temple immoveable immutable eternal in the Heavens answering to Solomon's Temple on Mount Sion or Mount Moriah In the Tabernacle under the Law there was a three-fold Perfection 1. All things there were exact Figures of the Pattern upon the Mount 2. These Figures were taken immediately from the Pattern it self formed wrought and ordered by the same Spirit in Bezaleel Aholiab Moses Aron the Priests and the Levites 3. The Pattern it self in its Glory dwelt in the Tabernacle The Scriptures laid together seem to demonstrate Jesus Christ to be this Pattern upon the Mount The Law is said to have the shadow of good things to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the very Image of the thing Heb. 1. 1. This very Image can be no other than the first the principal the substantial Image the Pattern it self upon the Mount This word is applied to Jesus Christ Col. 1. 15. He is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of the invisible God And that the very Image the Original Image is understood appears by that which is added The first-born of every Creature The Jewish Rabbins teach us That the Tabernacle was a model of the whole Creation of the Divine World as it is the Head of the Creation and at the Head of the Creation appears in a created Figure of the Angelical and of the visible World These were represented by the Holy of Holies the holy place and the outward Court Thus far they were right but in this they fell short that they looked not to the beginning and end of these The Messias in in his own Mediatory Glory and in his Fathers Glory as he was the Pattern of these upon the Mount and as these stood originally in him But according to this Type in the Tabernacle in his Flesh and in his Life on Earth he fulfilled all Righteousness the Righteousness of the Creature the Law and the Letter the Righteousness of God and of the Gospel Jesus Christ saith of himself What I see my Father do that do I The words that I speak are not mine but my Fathers he doth the Works The Humane Nature of Christ in Flesh his Motions his Rest all his Words and his Works answered to the Pattern upon the Mount his own heavenly Image in the Glory of God and were formed from that Pattern by the same Spirit forming his Humane Nature subsisting in it and acting it The Father saith he hath sent me and I live by the Father The mission of the Father and his living by the Father were his springing forth from the Father according to the eternal Image of things in the Father by the Spirit of the Father in his Birth Life and Death Thus he fulfilleth all Righteousness according to the Law as it was at first engraven on the heart of man as it was afterwards renewed on Tables of Stone in the Moral Ceremonial and Judiciary parts of it The Pattern it self also the heavenly and Divine Image with the Original Righteousness and Glory dwelt in this Flesh of Christ in all his Motions and Rests filling the figures with the substance Thus it is said of him The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. It is said again vers 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace is eternal Love the naked Face of God as it shines and smiles with all pleasantness in it opposed to the Law as it is a Ministry of Wrath and a Vail upon the Divine Nature Truth is the very Image the Pattern the everlasting Righteousness the Original and eternal Glory of God opposed to the shadows the fading Righteousness the vanishing Glory of the Law Thus this Tabernacle of Flesh in the Unity of Christ's Person was full of Grace and Truth The everlasting Love and everlasting Righteousness with their Sweetnesses Strengths and Glories which never fade nor pass away at once formed filled and rested upon their own perfect and spotless figures in the flesh of Christ. So he fulfilled the first part of his Mediation and our Redemption while as an universal Person comprehending all Mankind and the whole Creation in himself He presents himself in his Birth in his Life unto God in the place of all and all in himself as a perfect Figure of the Divine Righteousness and Glory as in an exact Harmony so in an inseparable immediate Union with its Pattern 2. The second Part of Christ's Mediatory Work in our Redemption comprehendeth the Sufferings and Death of the Lord Jesus The Sufferings of Christ are to be considered in the manner and the merit of them The manner of the Sufferings of Christs are set forth in diverse Scriptures Isa. 53. 6. God laid the Iniquity of us all upon him And vers 10. He made his Soul an offering for Sin St. Paul seems to relate to these Prophesies when he saith 2 Cor. 5. ult Him who knew no sin hath God made sin for us It is frequent in the Hebrew Language and Idiom to express Sin and metanomically the Sacrifice for sin the panishment of sin by the same word Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath purchased us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us A cursed Person is a Person charged with all guilt and filth and universal abomination and detestation to God to Angels and Men. A Person devoted to Divine Vengeance and Wrath excluded from all things holy and good exposed to the opposition and enmity of all things holy and good set apart to be cut off and quite taken away in the shamefulest dreadfulest and direfulest manner Thus God personally in our flesh suffered Our Jesus takes away our Sins the Sins of the whole World Joh. 1. by taking them upon himself He stands in the place and person of all Sinners He beareth the Sins of the whole World upon himself Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the World Joh. 1. The Greek word comprehendeth both senses to take up and to take away He is set as the abominable execrable detestable thing in the Eyes of God and of all the Creatures He is devoted by the most solemn most sacred Curses to bear the weight of all Guilt to satisfie the Divine Justice to sustain the Divine Wrath to the utmost As the Sin-Offering was all consumed by fire and was burnt without the Camp so went Jesus out of the City separated from the Society of all in Heaven and on Earth bearing his shame and to endure the pain The
and appears as Lord of all the Heaven of the Fathers Bosom the Heaven of the eternal Spirit and of the Godhead where it hath the Root of its Personality and its Life hidden with God from the natural eye of every Creature 3. The whole Manhood of Christ is cloathed with an heavenly or super-coelestial Image an Image suitable and proper to that Heaven out which he springs 4. The Manhood of Christ is so immediately entirely mutually united to the eternal Spirit the Godhead it self that Christ as he is man is said to be a quickning spirit The Humane Nature and the Divine in the Lord Jesus are so far now become one Spirit as in a mystical Marriage where at the height of their Unity they keep the distinction as high and clear 5. â—…us Christ in his Humane Nature in his Body as well as his Soul is thus become a Spirit in opposition to the earthly and fleshly substance of the natural Body of the first man which is declared incapable of entring into the Kingdom of God 6. This spiritual and super-coelestial state above the natural Body and above the natural Soul of the first man in his primitive state and so above the Creation in its visible or invisible part when it was most pure is properly the Kingdom of God to which that of St. Paul agreeth when he placeth the Kingdom of God in the eternal Spirit Thus the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is his Return with his Humane Nature with his shadowy Image with the whole Creation in himself into the Immortality and Glory of his Mediatory Form to be there as he was at first This is the Object of his Hope the subject of his Prayer Now O Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was Joh. 17. 5. What time that now relates unto you may understand by the fore-going verse I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work which thou gavest me to do Jesus Christ speaketh this by a Prolepsis or Anticipation having his Eye upon the finishing his Work upon the Face of the Earth by dying and finishing his Work in the Heart or nethermost parts of the Earth by lying the appointed time in the Grave Jesus Christ points out to us three eminent Circumstances in his Resurrection 1. The first is a Glory with his Father an Union and Fellowship with the Godhead and with the Person of the Father in his own proper and Divine personal Glory He expresseth this twice over as the chiefest sweetness of his Hopes and the principal Glory in the Glory Glorifie me with thy self with the Glory which I had with thee 2. This Glory transcends that of the whole Creation in its greatest Perfection as it also antecedes it as it also is a Glory which was before the World was 3. Here are three states distinctly represented to us 1. Jesus Christ in Glory before he came into this World before this World was 2. Jesus Christ coming forth from that Glory into this World and being without that Glory all that interval of his Life here 3. The return of Christ at his Death and Resurrection into the same Glory These three states must necessarily respect Jesus Christ in the same form under the same relation to accommodate this sense and make that proper The Person of Christ in his shadowy Image in which he was the Head of the whole Creation and comprehended this all in himself as he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and set himself in the place of all in their fallen estate So He was without the Glory Before all this in his Mediatory Form he stood together with God and his Father in his shadowy Image in Flesh and Blood with all the changes accompanying him after a spiritual manner filled and cloathed with a super-coelestial and eternal Glory Two Scriptures laid together give more light and strength to this place and this sense Jesus Christ having spoken to the Jews of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood Joh. 6. 56. Of his being the Bread coming down out of Heaven vers 58. Understanding the Jews to murmur and be offended at the hardness of this saying vers 60 61. makes this Reply to their murmurs What if ye shall see the Son of man ascending thither where he was at first or before It is the Spirit quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The words which I speak they are Spirit and Life The other Scripture is that Rom. 1. 4. Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of God From these two Scriptures compared the Truth of this mystery shines forth in these parts 1. The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ in the proper sense of Christ's words are Spirit and Life 2. They were Spirit and Life in the Glory of God before the coming down of Christ upon the Earth 3. From that state they came forth into their shadowy appearance here in this shadowy Image 4. They returned again together with this shadowy Image into that first state where casting off the Vail or rather converting the Vail into the same Nature and Form they were again all Spirit and Life by the Glory of God in the Resurrection springing up in them coming down upon them and taking them into it self Lastly The flesh and blood of Christ even when they are come forth from this spiritual and immortal Glory while they are in this shadowy state upon the Earth abide unchangeably in this Glory and are there still all Spirit all Life without any Vail or Cloud Thus are they the food of a Saint The Lord Jesus expresseth this sense No one hath ascended into Heaven but he who comes down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Two things are remarkable here 1. The being in Heaven is expressed by the Participle of the present Tense a present and constant Act. 2. The Title of the Son of Man is particulary added to that clause of the being in Heaven constantly without interruption while he comes down out of Heaven while he ascends into Heaven in the interval or space of his being on Earth between both these Jesus Christ as he is the Son of Man comes down at first out of that Heaven into which at last he returns and re-ascends In the same Heaven also hath he his present and constant abode while he is on Earth As the Heaven of Christ's Mediatory Glory and of the Fathers Glory which are far above all created Heavens the Heavens of this Creation come down together with him upon the Earth obscured beneath the Vail of Flesh and in this Flesh act all the parts of his living and dying here So do these Heavens also at once comprehend this Earth in the Person of Christ his flesh their obscurity before it All the parts of his Life and Death in the flesh as parts of Glory in these Heavens As Spirit and Life as spiritual and immortal Glories in the Fountain of Life and