Selected quad for the lemma: world_n
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A76129
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The light and dark sides of God or A plain and brief discourse of the light side (God, Heaven and angels.) The dark side (Devill, sin, and Hell.) As also of the Resurrection and Scripture. : All which are set forth in their severall natures and beings, according to the spirituality of the Scripture. / Written by Jacob Bauthumley.
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Bauthumley, Jacob.
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1650
(1650)
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Wing B1165B; ESTC R16169
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44,323
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100
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kind of power to restraine a man from evill and so men confound the power and will of God when as indeed they are not distinct in God for Gods power and will are all one his will is his power and his power is his will and by the self same act that he wills things by the selfe same act he doth things and it is our weakenesse otherwise to apprehend for God being one and intire admitting of no distinction or division in himself he admits of no variations but all things are as that supreme will acts and brings them forth And I see according to the Councell of his will they did no more that crucified Christ then they that did imbrace him These things I write not to countenance any unseemly act or evill in any man And I know God being purity it self cannot behold uncleannesse and his Spirit in me doth condemn it wherever I see it and I cannot but reprove it where ever it is found Neither can I so close in society or fellowship with those that are in darkness or walk unbeseemingly not becoming the Gospel and yet I know that if the grace of God appeared in them it would as well teach them to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts as to live righteously and soberly in the World Onely I desire to open the nature of that which we call sin and to make it as spiritually vile as I can For I see my self to have been mistaken and I see others are in sin as well as in that we call grace goodnes For as I have made the formall and outward performance of a Duty the onely thing wherein grace and godliness did consist so have I made the outward doing or not doing of an act to be the sin But I really see that neither the one or the other as an act is either good or evill But as godliness is a mystery and inward and is within us so is sin likewise a mystery and also within us and therefore it is called a mystery of iniquity from whence proceeds murders adulteries and are they not from the lust within The inward lust and acting is the sin which is contrary or below God the outward acting or putting forth of that inward lust is the sin against man and is below a man and whether the thing or sinne be acted outwardly or no there is sin And therefore the spirituality of the Gospel is above the Letter the Letter onely forbiding the outward act of adultery but the spirituality forbids the very lust within and therefore he that looks on a woman with a secret and inward lust hath committed the sin in the Spirit and heart as if he had done the outward act and is in Gods account an adulterer And all the use I can make of the premisses duely considered it rather aggravates the nature of sin then extinuates or lessens it for I can seriously reflect upon my own spirit and see more sin within then all the world can do without I see that I have framed and fancied a God without me and have given him an outward Worship while I have seem'd to be very spirituall and so have been very far from that spirituall worship of him which is like himself and consists onely in Spirit and Truth for what a vaine thing is it to me for a man to put off his Hat or kneele and show an outward reverence to an invisible God and how carnall have I been and men are in setting dayes and times a part to expresse an outward humiliation for an inward and spirituall sacrifice whereas there is no humility but in the Spirit and there is no spirituall exaltation of God but when the Creature ceases from being or doing any thing and makes God All whereas men think to get pardon and peace from God by a self-humiliation prayers and duties and I know not what and so give that to a duty and a prayer which is the onely proper worke of God who subdues our sinnes and pardons them for his own Names sake And so I have done with that which we call sinne which we call a privation of God or the living below God you see we have made it something and nothing in respect of God it is nothing for he knowes no defect neither is he in darknesse but is all glory and light Again it is something in respect of the creature because it is in darknesse and lives not in the light and glory of that God and there is that in the Creature which as a vaile covers and hides the glory of God and so it is sinfull and yet here is God in all this for should the Creature share in the Deity God would not be so glorious and should the Deity partake of the Humanity and be one with it there would be no sin and therefore is God manifest in flesh but not to flesh and therefore doth the Divine Nature and Being live in the Humane but is not the Humane nor is the Humane capable of any conjunction or union with the Divine and therefore the Divine lives in it self and the Humane or fleshly Being lives in it self and as the fleshly Being is below the Divine so men living in it are sinfull and as that acts so they act sin which is all at present I see of that we call Sinne. Concerning Hell HAving spoken of the Devill and Sin Hell must needes follow for no sooner did Man leave to live in the Divine Being and so lived in himself but he was turned out of Paradise to digg for his living and to worke labour and toyle to maintaine a self-Being and to procure a self-happinesse and so presently he came to shame and misery he eating of the forbidden fruite which was his own holinesse righteousnesse all is cursed to him and so the man is in Hell so that our ceasing to live in God and living in the self-Being is the Hell For that Angelicall life in us being vailed and covered we live in the Diabolicall whence it is we are in Hell As soone as man ceast to live in the light but he would be knowing something and doing something so soone did he fall into a Chaos and all was darknesse and so that develish and self nature is in man and he is reserved in chaines of darknesse till the judgement of the great day of Gods appearing in his Spirit and till then he is in Hell untill God Judge and burne up that flesh and carnall knowing of him and reduce him to his first Being to live in God till then he suffers the fire of Hel in himself so that the Hell in a mans selfe and the condemnation is that a man is condemned of himself What adoe there is in the world to find Hell where it is how many have puzled and beat their braines to find it out as if it were a locall place and therefore some because they would make it contrary to Heaven and as they fancie that the highest
The Light and Dark sides of GOD Or a plain and brief DISCOURSE OF The light side God Heaven and Angels The dark side Devill Sin and Hell As also of the Resurrection and Scripture All which are set forth in their Severall Natures and Beings according to the spirituality of the Scripture Written by Jacob Bauthumley I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes even so it is thy pleasure The spirituall man judgeth all things and he himself is judged of none LONDON Printed for William Learner at the Black-more in Bishopsgate-streete 1650. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Have onely directed my discourse to thee though I know the most unto whose hand it may come cannot read it But that it will be a Barbarian to them and they to It. However if I be beside them yet I am not beside my selfe If I be it is to God The reason why I have not directed it to any particular man or sort of men what ever as is usuall in things of this nature is because I desire not any mans approbation of it as knowing I am not subject to mans judgement neither would I have any man to subject himself to mine neither shall I be ashamed to own what I have writ for the present or to cast it away for the future if God shall lead me thereunto I have cast up my accounts what all will amount unto upon either of the former considerations and so have sweet peace in my spirit in my present thoughts and apprehensions leaving the issue of all to the wise disposing providence All I desire is that those to whom these few lines may come would if they can be so charitable of me as to conceive and judge that I have not writ any thing with any spirit of opposition to any sort of men under what forme of godlinesse soever as knowing that there is a sweet appearance of God in them All. And however my person and parts be meane in the Worlds Eye and so may cast an odium upon the things that I hold forth yet I shall runne the hazard in that kinde and leave the Lord to gaine his own Honour and Glory in it as seeing by sweet experience it is one of his greatest designes in the World to confound the high and mighty things thereof by the most meanâ— and contemptible And so though men be not satisfied yet herein I shall receive sweet content in my own spirit that my worke shall either burne and consume or else abide the fiery tryall of mens indignation And as I shall wish no man to embrace it or condemne me So I shall neither thank them that do the one or condemne them that do the other For the subject matter of the Discourse I must confesse they are things of that nature that are not obvious to every capacity and so lye obnoxious unto their censure and when time was I should have been as ready to have sat in Judgement against the Maintainer of such Principles yet to me they are such as wherein the Mystery of godlynesse mainly consists and so are not to be slighted And however I do not looke that I or any man else shall receive much by this or any other Booke which had almost perswaded me to have been silent in this kind yet was I inwardly enforced thereunto to ease the burden that lay upon my spirit which was one great motive to me to act my part so publickly Besides having converst with men under severall formes and administrations not to speake of those of the inferiour sort as Papists Episcoparians and Presbyterians But those that are got to the highest as Independents an a Anabaptists commonly so called and seriously viewing the carnall apprehention of things in themselves and there mis-apprehenâ—ion of the minde of God held forth by others condemning them as Heriticall and Blasphemous in whom the Mysteryes of the Kingdome are most clearly revealed and they themselves placeing Religion and the Mystery of godlinesse in outward Ordinances and administrations of which they are all but Shaddowes Having a strong conceite of a Creature happynesse and selfe injoyment and so are acted to attaine to the End In all these respects I could not but gratifie them so farre as to set forth what is held out by a certaine Generation of Men and Woemen in the World That if it may be there may be such a favourable opinion of us from them that we neither deny there is a GOD Heaven or Hell Resurrection or Scripture as the World is made to believe we do And I thinke they are all as plainly and briefly made out as they themselves could desire And further I know by experience that there are some with whom my spirit sweetly closed in the Vnity thereof and that travell with me in the same birth yet are not able to bring forth their conceptions for so much as many times the Truth suffers by a weake delivery and for their sakes have I held this Glasse before them that so they may be the better able to describe themselves to others and to help them to bring forth that out of their mouths which perhaps may lye in the bottome of their hearts For these Reasons have I taken the boldnesse to set pen to Paper though otherwise I was unwilling desiring that and no more of others then what I would do to them which is to let every man stand and fall to his own Master One thing I thought fit to premise onely to satisfie any that shall be so weake as to make it a matter of offence to them In that I have not set downe the chapter and verse of many places of Scripture which I do hint upon all along the Discourse To answer them and so to salve up that pretended soare I found things of such a Mysterious nature as they are that while I was looking for them in the Letter of the Scripture I was at a great losse in the present delivery of my selfe of those things which I found spiritually and secretly conveyed to me in the Spirit and so rather then I would loose or let passe what was spiritually discovered in me I was willing to omit the outward viewing of them in a chapter or verse Besides there is nothing laide downe by me by way of Argument or formall dispute which might ingage me to an outward proofe of things as men usually do in matters of controversie and what is positively affirmed there is punctually Scripture for But my designe was mainly to deliver my private Meditations and apprehension of such things which are most carnally conceived of I thought it not therefore necessary to trouble my self or the Reader wiâ—h multiplicity of places of Scripture to prove those things of which I hed so reall and spirituall a Testimony of in my own spirit and which I am confident that the most spirituall man can set