duality unfoldeth it self into the Ternary number As in the blessed Trinity the Father shines forth in the Person of the Son his Beauty and beautiful Object Both these breathe forth themselves into the Spirit the mutual Love the Marriage-Bed of these two When thus the Varieties and Distinctions of things proceed by even and just degrees springing up naturally and immediately out of the bosom of each other as they lie naturally and nakedly in the bosom of each other according to their Divine Love-sport and play in the Palace of their Father the supream Unity now the Unity shines and triumphs with a full Joy and Glory in the Face of the whole and of each part Now it flies singing and sporting it self upon the golden wings of a most ravishing Harmony over all According to these two Rules I shall proceed in my Answer upon which it rests as upon its two Pillars Jakin and Boaz Establishment and Strength God is the God of Order saith St. Paul Order is the sacred Harmony of the Divine Nature the Divine Nature the Divine Beauty the Divine Musick all in one first in their Architype then figuring themselves upon the whole Work of God sweetly flowing through it all shining smiling and playing every where upon the face of it This Order with a Divine skill by just degrees and harmonious proportions slides into its contrary which is disorder by which it sets off and heightens it self making the Variety more full The first the highest disorder the fountain of all disorder is Sin This is the disorder of Intellectual Spirits the chief of all the Works of God the Head the Guide the measure of all the rest All the other Creatures are to these as light cast forth from the body of the Sun which is the Sun's shadow or as shadows in this life the shadows of this shadow St. Jude expresseth the Sin of Angels by their disorder The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own Habitation State is in Greek Principle they kept not their first Principle the supream Unity They held not the Head as St. Paul expresseth it They left their proper Habitation the Divine Image the Divine Order and Harmony their proper place in that Harmony where they were divinely-beautiful and made an heavenly melody in the heavenly Consort and Quire The Psalmist saith of man and his sin Man being in honour continued not but became like the Beast that perisheth Honour is the delicate gloss or sparkling lustre of a true Beauty especially the beauty of Spirits delightfully shining forth and reflecting it self upon all Spirits round about it The Divine Order and Harmony alone is the true beauty every where This is immortal Thus man by sin breaks himself off from and so becomes like the Beast without any sense of or sensible subordination to the Order and Harmony of the whole While he cuts himself off from this he dies his disorder is his death the true life of man vanishing together with the Universal and Divine Harmony Every contrary supposeth or constituteth its Correlate contrary the contrary to disorder is order That then which the Scripture speaking with the tongue of a man gives the name of Displeasure Anger Wrath in God is no other than love it self in its naked and golden smiles the Divine Beauty in the purity and simplicity of its most native and unchangeable sweetness the Harmony of the Divine Nature as a Glory eternal calm and Sun-shine opposing themselves to the discord deformity enmity of Sin As they say ill natures are tormented by Musick as the evil Spirit in Saul was cast out by David's Harp So is anger in God the most delicious the most transporting melody sounding through the whole nature of things from Jesus Christ the Universal Image of the Divine Nature and the golden Harp of God which either charms the Spirit of disorder or torments it Contrariorum remedium est contrarium One contrariety is the cure and remedy of another Disorder is reduced into order by the Divine Harmony setting it self in an opposition and contrariety to it While the opposition between these contraries remains they heighten one another This state of opposition is in the Divine Poem or Work as the scene of storms and tempests of Blood Confusion of the blackness of Darkness of Death and Hell This scene coming in as a part of the Variety sets off with a greater heightning even to an extasy of wonder and delight the Sweetnesses the Beauties the Glories of the Divine Harmony surrounding it springing up shining forth with a golden calm and lustre in the midst of it St. Paul divinely represents this to us Rom. 5. ult The Law came in that Sin might abound that where Sin abounded Grace did superabound That as Sin had reigned unto Death so Grace might reign through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law which is the contrariety or opposition between the Harmony of Divine Love and the disorder the confusion of Lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came in by the by or by the way in the course or stream of the heavenly Harmony of the general and grand contrivance of Divine Love to set it off and heighten it to raise and transcend all expectations to extend and surprise all Understandings to make the melody of the whole more full by the Variety and more gloriously triumphant by the Discords The evils of Sufferings according to the Law of the Divine Harmony which is the Image of the Divine Wisdom the first Beauty of Truth the Image of the Divine Will the first love and goodness in the Creature have their entrance three ways 1. Every Principle unfolds it self into all the powers and forms contained in it so the evil of Sin which is the root of Disorder springeth up into all manner of disorders through Spirit Soul and Body into all manner of evils of blame shame pain sorrow torment Lust when it conceiveth bringeth forth Sin Sin when it is perfect bringeth forth death All Disorders all Evils all Sufferings are steps and forms of death 2. The disorder of Sin as it is the contrariety in the Harmony is reduced into order and made harmonious in the whole by the opposition and contrariety of the Harmony as in Musick the setting the Concord by the Discord makes the Melody Now as the Harmony is all good of Grace Joy and Glory every good in every kind being a particular Harmony in the universal Harmony so where the Universal Order the Spirit of Order which is the Spirit of Christ and God setteth it self in a Contrariety to any disorderly Spirit there all good of every kind is withdrawn all evil as of loss so of pain ariseth God saith in Deuteronomy If you walk contrary unto me I also will walk contrary unto you Then all Plagues are reckoned up the natural consequencies of this Contrariety Then saith he several times over If you go on to walk contrary to me
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of
eternal life sown in it 4. The Law is an heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ. The Law came in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded Grace might super abound The Law is a three-fold heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ in the Gospel 1. The Law heightens the Glory of Christ by an Antiperistasis As in hard Frosts the Lights of Heaven shine brightest and look with sweetest Glories upon us As in the coldest season the Fire burns brightest and refeshes our Spirits with the liveliest warmth and heat So Darkness Death and Wrath in the Ministry of the Law by their opposition being carried to the greatest extremity excite and stir up the Godhead to pour forth it self from all its richest and unconfined Depths in the most full the overflowing Seas of all his sweetest richest most exalted Loves and Glories 2. The Law heightens the sweetness and beauty of Christ by being a soil to it There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth than over ten righteous persons continuing in their Righteousness The Father of the Prodigal in the Parable giveth this reason for the excess of Joy the unwonted Triumphs with all the heightnings of Feasts and of Musick This our Son which was lost is found which was dead is alive The Violets and Roses of the Spring are the sweeter and more beautiful for the Winter going before them How sweet and amiable is the light of life arising upon those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death As a foil beneath a Diamond so do the darknesses and deformities of Sin the hateful stains and insupportable guilt of Sin the terrors the horrors the torments of Death and the Divine Wrath under the Law make the freedom and fulness of the Divine Grace the Righteousness the Life and Glory of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus appearing to a lost forelorn Soul in the midst of these black shades unvaluably precious infinitely amiable pleasant far surpassing all the sweetness and beauties of the loveliest Morning all the Lights and Glories of the purest Sun arising out of the darknesses of the most melancholy and tempestuous night 3. The Law heightens the brightness and delightfulness of Christ in the Day of the Gospel as fewel to that heavenly and blessed flame of Divine Love As Sin hath reigned unto Death saith St. Paul so Grace reigns through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin exalted its black and fiery Throne by subduing to it self the first man in all his Primitive powers and purities The first Paradise with its sweet peace and pleasantness the first Creation in the whole Compass of its Divine Glories sprung forth from and resembling the Divine World in eternity How great and deep is that darkness bottomless as Hell it self How bitter is that death as the poyson of Asps as the poyson of the old Serpent the Dragon himself which hath extinguished the light of so much Beauty which hath corrupted so much Sweetness which hath devoured and swallowed up into the black and bottomless Abyss of a first and second death an unsearchable depth of confusion and woe such a world of so Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties with all their amiable light and life But now what Tongue can express what Heart can conceive the unmeasurable heightnings of that Divine Grace and Love the unparalleled unbounded Beauties and Glories of that Righteousness the infinite purities pleasures powers perpetuities of that life the inestimable incomprehensible Sweetnesses Beauties Virtues and force of that Person our Jesus in whom all these united who by all these uniteth in his own Person reigneth over these devouring Powers of darkness and death subduing them all unto himself and carrying this whole captivity captive into the Kingdom of Light and Love unto which he himself returneth as he ascends The fire at once encreaseth its own force and flame by the great quantity of fewel on which it feeds and converts the dead fewel into one glorious spreading ascending flame with it self Shadows seen alone have little grace in them but skilfully mixt with the bright colours in a Picture and presenting themselves to the eye in one view together with them encrease the beauty of the Picture are themselves a sweet part of the Beauty and a rich Variety in it Discordant touches upon a Lute offend the Ear but in a Lesson of Musick they are themselves harmonious and enrich the Harmony of the whole Lesson Thus the first Adam who was only an earthly Image a shadowy similitude of the Divinity and made under the Law the Fall the whole reign of sin unto death by the Ministry of the Law with all its Clouds and Storms of shame terror and torment are in themselves a melancholy Image filling us with the afflicting Forms of deformity confusion desolation and woe But when these in the Gospel become fewel to that pure potent and pleasant fire of the Divine Love the eternal Spirit the Spirit of Grace and Glory now they enlarge and heighten this beautiful and blessed flame now themselves are become spiritual immortal flames of highest sweetness and beauty in this Divine flame Now these discordant notes these dark lines and stroaks in the Evangelical melody of the eternal Word in the unvailed Face of the heavenly Bridegroom the Lord Jesus in the Musick of the eternal Love in the beauty of the Righteousness the unvailed Glory of the Godhead in the Person of Christ become themselves most rich heightnings most pleasant and beautiful parts most dear and delightful Varieties in the eternal Melody and unfading Beauty of the Divine Loveliness and Love I have now finished my Reply to this Reason for Free-will in man taken from the Language of the Scripture In which Reply I have endeavoured to set before you in their clear distinctions the difference between the vail of the Letter and the mystery of the Spirit hid beneath this Vail I shall now conclude this Discourse by offering humbly to you three Rules for the right understanding of those expressions in the Scripture which are most of all pressed and pressing in this Point 1. God planteth and establisheth man upon natural Principles of rectitude in the Divine Image he leaveth him to the force and to the trial of these Principles he ministreth to him outwardly inwardly all moral assistances for the strengthning actuating and heightning of these Principles to their utmost perfections Thus God who properly hath no Will nor any thing common to the Creature or proportionable to the Creature But as a Will with other faculties and forms proper to the Creature are given to him by a fit figure and according to the manner of the Creature saith of himself I will not the death of a Sinner but rather that he return and live 2. When God appeareth unvailed in the Face of Christ who is the brightness of his Glory Righteousness Love Life Immortality Joy and Glory attend upon and
Beauties as a new ground and root beneath all This is the form of the wrathful state The ends of eternal Love as it acts this part under a disguise next to the Ultimate end the eternal Glory in the Divine Idea are these The shadowy Image beneath which the true and eternal Glories lie as in a sleep is discovered to be a shadow and then dissolved The darkness of its ground arising to swallow up the Light of the Divine Figure in this Image when it hath so manifested it self vanisheth away in a moment being swallowed up into the eternal Light of the Divine Love Eternal Love in the Person of Christ now sings that Song O Death I will be thy death The Ideal the eternal the truly Divine Lives and Beauties from the Mediatory Person of Christ which lay hid beneath the Foundations of this World and shadowy Image now spring up in the shadowy Image by its dissolution Now the shadowy Image riseth again into its Ideal Divine Life and Form Now is it with a solemn and universal Joy married to its eternal Idea its Original Pattern and Archetype in the Bosom of the heavenly Image the Mediatory Person of our Lord Jesus Now is that shadowy state of the Creature and the scene of wrath in that shadowy state like a Masque at Midnight when Princes are married a triumphant enlargement of the Varieties a Divine heightning of the Beauties and Sweetnesses in the Joys of this Bridegroom and Bride the Creature and it s Ideal Glory its Original Form eternally united in Jesus Christ. Thus I have endeavoured to represent the proportion and harmonious Order of the parts in this heavenly Person of our great and glorious Mediator The supream Unity is the supream Love and Light This descendeth by just degrees through all steps of the Variety unto the lowest figure and obscurest shadow of it self Through the darkness of this shadow it brings forth it self into the remotest distance of Contrariety Through this Contrariety dissolving the shadow and breaking up the darkness it returns by even degrees to its own first heights Now gentle Reader stay a while contemplate with me the divinely admirable Order Harmony Beauty of this part the Contrariety which is the proper Seat of all Disâ—…der Discord and Deformity 1. This is the Wrath of the Lamb the eternal Love and Meekness which maketh it self a Sacrifice to its own Wrath. This is eternal Love in a disguise All pleasantnesses in the Face of the supream Love and Beauty our Jesus our God lie hid beneath this Vail 2. It is in the deepest shade and darkness of the most shadowy Figure of it self that Love springs up into this strange Form In the holy Gospel we read of the Kingdom of Heaven That while the men of the Kingdom slept the Enemy came and sowed tares In the 73. Psalm It is said of this state of wrath at the 20. verse As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest shalt thou despise their Image or shadow Eternal Love seems sweetly to sleep in the earthly Paradise by its descent with all its true and substantial Glories into a shadowy Image In the depth of this sleep this state of wrath springs up as a troublesome dream By the trouble of the dream is Love it self awakned by which awakning the trouble and the dream both vanish and as empty unsubstantial things lose themselves in the sweetness of eternal Light Ficinus esteems him a great Person who saith to himself of all things here It may be that all this is a dream 3. This is a new scene of Variety which the Divine Unity openeth in it self by which it declareth its amplitude and greatness Here are all forms of things again entirely new at the greatest height of Variety in their Contrariety Here also are all Forms of things anew in a new and Divine Figure inasmuch as the Contrariety also beareth the Divine Impression of its own proper Idea in the Divine Mind As the fulness of the Divine Mind with all its Ideas and glorious Forms meet in that Idea above So doth the Divine Image with all its Glories form it self into a new Figure with a Divine Variety in this state of Wrath. 4. See how the Goodness the Justice the Power the Wisdom the Holiness of God are here illustrated and glorified The Divine Goodness and Love by descending through a shadowy darkness into the Contrariety of Divine Wrath gives occasion to the Creature to rise up into its Contrariety of Sin that this may be the mark of the Divine Displeasure This is the Glory of the Divine Goodness and Holiness that sin can take no birth and have no place but in its Wrath when it is vailed beneath this strange Form of Contrariety and Enmity As this Enmity hath no Object but the evil of Sin So sin hath its birth and place to this alone as its proper end that it may be the mark of the Divine Wrath that the Goodness Purity Love of the Divine Nature may be manifested in its high and irreconcilable opposition to the Evil the Filth the enmity of Sin Now these two Contrarieties heighten themselves one by the other till they come to their utmost point Then the Contrariety of the Divine Wrath as an unquenchable flame swalloweth up in it self the enmity of Sin Then doth this Wrath also having lost the force of its opposition by losing its Object lose it self also in the Beauties of the Divine Goodness and in the sweetness of the Divine Love Yea the fire of this Contrariety not only consumeth it self but the darkness also and the shadowy Image where it hath its seat and root By this dissolution the eternal Love re-ascends to its Throne where all this scene of wrath and shadows rise again into a Life of Glory and remain as eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses in the unsearchable rich Variety of the Divine Beauty and Love Here they remain as eternal heightnings of all their Sweetnesses and Glories How unexpressible is the Wisdom and the Love in the contrivance of this Scene by which all these things are brought to pass in it Eternal Love it self our Jesus in its own Divine Person and Form comes forth into the midst of this Contrariety He heightens both to the utmost extremity by making himself the Object of both He comes full of Grace and Truth So he raiseth the evil of Sin which hath its Kingdom in shadows lyes and enmity to the highest rage of opposition against himself Then he takes the guilt of all Sin thus heightned upon himself exposeth himself as a Sacrifice for it to the fiercest flames of the Divine Fury While these flames seed upon his Sacred Person they at once consume all the evil of Sin by consuming the whole shadowy Image in its Divine Root In this blessed Person the fire of Wrath meets with all the Beauties all the Sweetnesses of the Divine Holiness the Divine Love and Goodness In these it meets with
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
Creature as its proper Seed He is the seminal Virtue which puts forth it self through the whole Creation from the beginning to the end in every Essence of each Creature in all the powers of every Essence in all the operations of each Power He is the seminal Reason the seminal Form and Proportion which springs up equally in like degrees in each Creature together with it in all the states and modifications of it forming it and figuring it in all Thus saith St. John when he treats of him under this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ratio the Reason of all things and that in order to the Creation that without him or apart from him nothing was made or came to pass that was made or came to pass He lives he dies he flourisheth he falls he triumphs he suffers in all with all In him was Light saith St. John and that light was the life of man The Life of Christ as it was in Christ the Seed of every Creature was the Life of the Humane Form the Light of all Forms as they meet together harmoniously in the Humane Form or as they appear distinctly in their proper places to man to serve and entertain him This was the Light of every Form as it sparkleth forth in all its Qualities and Acts as it appeareth in all states and changes This Light of Life in Christ was the Life and the Light of every Beauty every Sweetness every Form of things in every Creature Together they did spring together they did fade being ever inseparable So was the Creature continually figured and framed in all states by the immediate inseparable presence of the Lord Jesus with it When the Creature falls and dies by sin then also is Jesus Christ slain in it and by it If the Life in Christ be the light of man and so of all things then is the retiring of this Life like the setting of the Sun the darkning of all the over-casting of all with the shadow of Death But then this eternal Love the Lamb our Jesus dies by our death together with us that he may become in death a Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of his blood lying upon us So he becomes also the Seed of immortality and the Resurrection from the Dead that as he riseth we also may rise in him together with him Yet is the difference great between his manner of dying and ours He knows what he doth in both these Deaths We know not at present what he doth nor what we our selves do in either of them He sins not falling short in nothing of the Glory of God which ever fills his Heart his Eye and his Hand through all darknesses and deaths he carries on the Ideal Glories of both the Archetypes his two superior Images and so the universal Design and Beauty of the whole Work in the Creation which is to be a compleat figure of these having its beginning and ending in them By virtue of the Personal Union he at once carrieth down with him the Light of all the Glories the Musick of the universal Harmony in both these superior Images into these Deaths and also comprehendeth these Deaths in the Light of these Glories in the Musick of this Harmony as part of the Glory and the Harmony This he doth as the Head the Seed the First-fruits of the whole Creation Thus he lives and dies in every Creature Thus they that are new born into him most beautifully most blessedly live and die together with him 2. I pass now from the first part of the Mediation of Christ that in the first Creation the descent of things the coming forth of the Creatures from God I come to the second Part the Mediation of Christ in the new Creation the Redemption the return of the Creature to God I shall endeavour to set before you this Mediatory Work of our Jesus of our God and Saviour First In the parts of it as they lie in the Person of the Lord Jesus the Head and Pattern of the new Creature Secondly In the progress and propagation of it through the whole Body belonging to this Head 1. The parts of it most commodiously for my purpose are contained in this three-fold Division 1. The Incarnation of Christ and his Life in the Flesh. 2. The Sufferings and Death 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus 1. The first part of the Mediation of Christ in the Redemption is his Incarnation and Life in the Flesh. We have seen the eternal Light and Love our Jesus our God gradually descending in a three-fold form 1. We have seen him in his essential Form and Godhead comprehending all Varieties of things in their Original and eternal Glories 2. We have seen him in his Mediatory and spiritual Form the Marriage of God with the Creature in one Spirit and Glory where all the Uncreated Glories and all the Creatures according to their distinct Essences in spiritual and incorruptible forms as two are one 3. We have had a delightful view of the same Jesus in both these Divine Forms set with innumerable and distinct Glories descending into a shadowy Image of himself where he becomes the proper and immediate Head of the first Creation in whom all the Creatures consist and flourish together according to their shadowy Originals in the first-born strength and beauty of this created state 4. Our Lord Jesus with these universal Beauties subsisting together and mutually enfolding each other in the Unity of the same Divine Person goeth down one step lower from the beautiful face of the Earth into the dark places and nethermost parts of it This last step of his descent is at once also the first step of his Ascent and Return Together with man and the whole Creation falling by sin he also falls but altogether without sin He subsists in the whole Creation and in each particular Creature beneath the universal Ruine being the weight of all Here he is the Seed maintaining the Remainders of the Divine Image in nature obscured deformed wounded broken and slain Obscured deformed wounded broken and slain in it together with it He maintaineth the Relicks of the Life of this natural Image in the midst of death This he doth by a new spring of Grace opening it self in fallen Nature by the virtue of his Mediatory and essential form now putting forth themselves through his shadowy form in the Creature thus lapsed Thus is he both in one the old Seed of the first Creation and the new Seed of the new Creature which thus in the heavenly Image of the Mediatory Form of Christ makes its way and breaks forth through the ruines of the earthly Image This is the promised Seed the Seed of the Woman the Seed of the Divine Image both in Nature and in Grace which gives a new Birth to Nature This Seed propagating it self through all Generations in the fulness of time when the season is now for Eternity to shine out through the extended shadow of Time and to
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
is linkt by heavenly embraces to Jesus Christ Jesus Christ to God the Father of Lights and the spring of Loves Homer tells us of a Chain fastned to the Throne of Jupiter which reacheth down to the Earth He speaketh to Neptune Minerva and the rest of the Powers about him which reign in the Skies in the Seas in the Earth in Hell below If ye should all hang with your whole weight upon the end of this Chain I would at my pleasure draw you all up to my self The Throne of the most High God is a Throne of Grace of Love Like a Chain doth the whole Nature of things descend from this Throne having its top fastned to it What-ever the weights may be of the lowermost links of this Chain yet that Love which sits upon the Throne with a Divine delight as it lets down the Chain from it self so draws it up again by the Order of the successive Links unto a Divine Ornament an eternal Joy and Glory to it self All things of Nature in its Beauties all things of Nature in its Ruine Life and Death in all forms are a Saints a Saint is Christs Christ is Gods But gentle Reader this is enough to set forth the suitableness between the two Subjects of my Epistle and my Book the Divine Love and the VVill of Man the Daughter and the Bride of this Love by its immortal Birth and Espousals essentially inevitably determined to its heavenly Father and Bridegroom To this Love the only Good in all appearances of it the Will turns it self as the Needle toucht with the Loadstone to the North-pole Beautiful and blessed is this Will when it s own Bridegroom shines upon it and attracts it by beams by sweet glimpses of it self spread through all things more clear or more obscure but true Then do her beauty and blessedness both change into deformity and misery when by hellish enchantments she is deluded and drawn into the embraces of a wrinkled VVitch or a Spirit from the darkness below transformed into the likeness of her heavenly Love There are now a few things only remaining of which I would briefly give thee some accompt 1. Persons engaged on both sides in this question which is the ground of my Treatise are highly honoured by me and truly dear to me in an high degree A natural Understanding Ingenuity Integrity Learning VVisdom Knowledge an heavenly mind set a great price and lustre upon them The ends at which these persons on both parts profess to aim are truly Spiritual and Divine It is the design of one part to beighten the Grace of God by its freedom and peculiarity Of the other to enlarge the Glory of this Grace by its extent and amplitude One admires and adores the absoluteness the soveraignty of God the other his goodness On one side is an holy jealously for the Unity and the Beauty of the Divine Nature lest God should be imagined like the natural day in the Creation made up of two Contraries co-ordinate and equally predominate as Day and Night Love and VVrath a ground of Holiness and a ground of Sin The others are equally jealous of the same Unity and Beauty of the Divine Nature lest the eternal Power and so the Godhead should be divided between the Creator and the Creature least in effect two Gods should be set up like those of the Manichees a Fountain of Good and a Fountain of Evil lest the Divine Glory should be darkned in its work and the Harmony broken in which the Divine Unity and Beauty most sweetly shine by taking away in any part of the work the fix'd subordination of Causes and Effects O what Joy and Glory would crown the Earth and the Church of God on Earth if those Divine Persons who have fix'd to themselves ends so Divine instead of opposing each other in their way perhaps sometimes mistaken to those ends would unite their Divine Will and Forces mutually to advance the ends each of other St. Paul saith If the falling away of the Jews be the bringing in of the Gentiles what shall the return be but life from the dead If the dividings the disputes of these Parties have brought much light to the Church what will the reconciling and uniting of their glorious ends and their Spirits in the glory of those ends be but as a Marriage-day shining from on high which shall fill the Angels themselves with a new joy The day will come when men shall say Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord Who reconciletâ—… the freedom and peculiarity of the Grace of God unto a full amplitude and extent so raising its sweetness to a perfect heighth who shall bring into mutual embraces the soveraignty or absoluteness of God and his goodness that the soveraignty the absoluteness may be soveraignly and absolutely good that the goodness alone may be absolute and soveraign who through the whole compass of the Divine Nature and the works of God shall discover to the eyes of men in the evidence of a Divine Light the Unity the Beauty of the Godhead in their clearest Purity their highest Perfection springing and shining through all making all in the whole one entire piece pure and pleasant perfect in the Beauties of Holiness The Rules which I have desired to govern my self by in this Discourse are these Right Reason the universally acknowledged Principles of all sober Philosophy and sound Divinity the Analogy of Faith the Letter of the Scriptures the Spirit of Christ in the Head of the Church Christ himself in the Scriptures in the Church in the Spirits and experiences of each Saint As all these answer each other in a mutual Harmony like the several strings upon a well-tuned Lute So shall I ever as I humbly believe take it for granted That what-ever jars upon any of these strings is also out of tune to all the rest That what-ever is not conformable to any one of these Rules crosseth them all If any thing of this kind shall have faln from me I do here humbly repent of it and recant it I humbly desire all those who shall stoop to read what I have written to believe that no Gift can be so acceptable to me as the displacing of any Errour or Falshood in my Mind with the gentle hand of Love by bringing in the Truth which it hath counterfeited and vailed If any Errour have seemed sweet beautiful or desirable to me in any kind I humbly undertake to have a confident assurance of this That the Truth it self shining forth will bring along with it far more transcendent Sweetnesses Beauties Agreeablenesses and Satisfactions to all my Desires excelling it in all the impressions of a Divine Pleasantness Power and Profit as the true Sun doth a Parelius or a counterfeit Image of the Sun in a Cloud If any shall undertake to answer this Discourse with reviling and reproachful Language I shall endeavour to imitate the example of the Marquess de Rente fixed with
Love in the shadowy Image having lost it self in the enmity at the Fall The Divine Love it self in its eternal Image disguiseth it self in a form of wrath flaming forth with unquenchable burnings until it have devoured the Enmity and the shadowy Image it self in the Enmity unto the discovery of the eternal Love vailed beneath its shadow and buried in the Enmity All thus consumed meet again in the triumphant and pure flame in which the Divine Love meets with and embraceth it self But thus much of the second Revolution 3. Now the Soul with the whole nature of things in the shadowy Image the shadowy Harmony the shadowy Righteousness of its first Creation is lost by the dissolution of the Unity in discord and Deformity Sin Death and the Divine Wrath. Now Gâ—… in the essential Image the essential Harmony the essential Rightâ—…usness which is Love it self loveliness it self Power Wisdome the Essence of God declares himself our Jesus our Saviour He declares himself without the Law or the Prophets not from any Merit or Power in the Creature but of meer Grace from the sweet innate force of the Divine Harmony in himself by the beauties of which he is powerfully attracted and acted to the Musick of which he moves in all his actings with highest pleasure This essential Image and Harmony from the beginning lies hid beneath the shadowy Image at the bottom of it as the substance to the shadow which hath no possibility of subsisting in any point or degree of Being without it St. Paul calls this The mystery hid in God from the foundation of the World that is hid beneath the foundation of the World which was a Vail cast over the eternal Glories while they figured themselves in Divine shadows upon this Vail But now our Jesus the second Person in the Trinity the essential Image the essential Harmony the Righteousness of God becomes a Creature springs up from beneath the foundations of the Creation into an Humane Soul and Body in the midst of it ruines This Jesus is the Original Image of the Creation of Man of every Creature the Root the Rule the Actor of all who virtually eminently comprehends all in their distinct Ideal Forms within himself as so many eternal Beauties in his own eternal Beauty who bringeth them forth from himself beareth them in himself as Flowers in their Garden-beds who figureth himself in the riches of his glorious Varieties upon them to make of the whole one beautiful Figure of his own Beauties a Daughter Sister and Bride to himself He therefore now the Seed of Hope of Promise sown in the Soul dying together with the Soul in the Fall now comes up through this death in the form of a man faln man the Image of the whole which contains the whole in it self Thus he reduceth the Contrariety to the Unity He restores the Harmony he atones and reconciles all all manner of wayes 1. He bringeth all the Contrariety into the Harmony by bearing the Fall Guilt Shame all Deformities all Deaths the Divine Wrath the ruines of the Fall in himself who is the eternal universal Harmony and Righteousness Thus eternal Life dies without Death giving an eternal Life and Glory to Death in his Person Thus the Righteousness of God is made Sin for us without Sin He is altogether lovely every thing of him is not only lovely but loveliness it self Yea more loveliness a knot a spring of loveliness So sings the spiritual Bride of her Beloved in that Song of Loves The bushes of his Hair black as a Raven the Bird of Death in their order and place springing forth from his head of finest Gold the purest light of Glory encompassing it with their deep shade and setting it off are Divine Beauties 2. This Person the eternal the universal Image and Harmony of the Godhead of all Glories of all things gives himsâ—… in the extremities of all Sufferings unto Death to be a Sacrifice to the Holiness Justice Wrath and Glory of God He is a Sacrifice of infinite value and force a Sin-Offering expiating all Sin with a transcendency of Merit A Peace-Offering which charms the most offended spirits which changeth into a Golden Calm of Divine Love and Joy the most raging tempests of wrath raised through the whole nature of things from the breast of the eternal Spirit 3. He bears in his own Person the whole Contrariety the Contrariety of evil in the enmity of Sin to the Divine Good in its Love and Glory The Contrariety of the Divine Good in its Love and Glory to the evil in the deformity and enmity of Sin All the fiery darts of both these Contrarieties in their utmost force and fury meet in his Bosome the Bosome of Divâ—…e Beauty and Love exposed nakedly to them both Thus he fills up the design of his Father to make known the power of his Wrath. Thus he draws forth to its largest compass and heightens to its utmost point this Scene of wrath to make the Variety full and the Harmony absolute 4. Jesus the supream Harmony the everlasting Righteousness by dying carries the descent of things to the lowest point He makes an end of Sin Sufferings Death and Wrath for ever by the dissolution and end of the seat the subject of all these the shadowy Image the Creation of Nature in his own person The death of Jesus Christ is as the midnight of things The Sun of the eternal Image and Glory having by its course in the shadowy Image touched the utmost bound of distance from it self now begins its return to it self again 5. This Jesus by his Resurrection carries up with him in his own Person all things the whole Creation the shadowy Image with its Primitive Purity and Paradise the shadowy Image with its fall ruines and deaths into the Glory of the eternal Image unto an Union with it immediate naked entire eternal in one Light in one Spirit Where there is now no more any vail or shadow Now all appear Beauties and Glories divinely-harmonious being seen in their proper place and order in the Divine the Eternal the Universal Harmony 6. Lastly The Lord Jesus now in an humane Soul and Body being risen from the Dead and ascended up on high comprehends reconciles fills all things shining through all assimilating all to himself in the spiritual Glory of his own essential eternal Image in his own Person the most glorious unbounded Head of all Now according to the fulness the fruitfulness the Divine Order of the Ideas the Original Images of all things in the most ample and blissful Harmony in his Person He comes up he springs forth in his Spirit in the Spirit of this Divine Image this Harmony and Glory with the fulness of his Person of this Divine Image Harmony and Glory in the Soul of Man As he springs up he rends the Vail behind which he ever resided he reveals himself to the Soul in the Universal Harmony of his Person and his whole work
Head its inward Principle 3. The Soul of man in its Restitution by Christ hath Jesus Christ as a quickning Spirit in him as the principle of its Life as its life it self I saith Christ am the Resurrection and the Life I saith St. Paul by the Law am dead to the Law I am crucified with Christ and now I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me He saith St. Paul that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Man is now become the heavenly Image of God and one Spirit with Jesus Christ in Glory As he hath now the Understanding of Christ according to St. Paul so hath he also the Will of Christ. This heavenly Bridegroom and heavenly Bride are one Divine Spirit bear one Divine Image have one Life one Righteousness one Glory one Understanding one Will and dwell together in one Light as God is Light in one Love as God is Love in one immortal Joy unspeakable and glorious The Soul now is a chast and spotless Bride which bringeth forth all the rich and heavenly fruits of her Spirit her Understanding her Will her whole Life inward and outward by her own heavenly Husband alone by the sweet force of her Union with him and the Divine Virtue of his embraces that they may be fruits to God that is Divine Fruits having the life virtue and sweetness of the Divine Nature in them the form and beauty of the Divine Nature upon them for a feast of Joys and Glory to God himself to feast both his Eyes and his Heart If then the Soul restored be one Spirit with Christ as in the Spirit of Christ so in the Spirit of a Saint the most pleasant liberty and most potent necessity meet in one The Divine Harmony of the supream and universal good is at once the spacious and blissful Field of this Paradisical freedom and the golden Chain of this most grateful and most glorious necessity The Spirit of Christ is eternity it self which as it spreads it self beyond and above all consinements to a Variety endlesly fresh and flourishing is the sweetest Liberty As it comprehends all things in a most entire undivided Unity the supream Crown and Circle of all true Life and Glory is the highest necessity Eternity hath nothing past or to come in respect to it self being far above all Changes all Beginnings and Ends of things It is the supream Power which rules them all and the supream Wisdom which measures them The Soul then now become one Spirit with Christ is in that Spirit together with Christ seated upon the Throne of Eternity by its Union with this Spirit it reigns upon this Throne over all things by having this Spirit in it self by being one Spirit with this Spirit it hath in it self that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom it is one with that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom which rules and measures all things Thus the glorious Bride of Eternity having her heavenly Bridegroom in her embraces cloathed and crowned with the same heavenly Image being now in the true state of her own proper person in her sirst and last state in her own proper unvailed Substance and Original here with her Bridegroom is her own rule and measure in this heavenly Image which is her true substantial self her Eternity She is also a rule and measure to her self in the earthly and shadowy Image and in all her Pilgrimage through the Regions of time below whether they be the sweeter shadows of the Light above or the melancholy shades of a deeper Darkness This is the true Liberty of Man and the freedom of his Will which is as the liberty and freedom of the true eternal good diffusing it self into all the unsearchable riches of its manifoldly various Varieties varying setting off sweetning and heightning it self by all the ravishing excesses of Harmony of Light of Love by all the extreams of Darkness Discord Contrariety and hate reducing and binding up these also into a most ravishing Harmony by the excesses by the victories and triumphs of the Divine Light and Love So keeping together with this sportful Liberty the golden the firm Adamantine necessity of being it self still through all that is good the true and eternal good This Divine Liberty of the spiritual Bride which is her Kingdom in her self over all is divinely expressed by the blessed Bridegroom himself in that most mysterious Song of himself and his Love composed by himself in the Person of Solomon He there in one place chargeth the Daughters of Jerusalem that is all the holy Angels and spotless Spirits by which the affairs of the whole Creation are administred By the Roes and Hindes of the field that is by all those Pleasures Loves and Lovelinesses with which he sports himself in the midst of them in the Paradise above who alone is the lovely Roe and the lovely Hind That they awake not nor stir up his Love until he please Cant. 2. 7. Thus it is manifestly in the Hebrew although our Translators have changed the Feminine into the Masculine and set the Bridegroom in the place of the Bride But the sense which the words grammatically import is this That as the heavenly Bride is one Spirit with her Bridegroom she sits above together with him upon his Throne in eternity from thence together w th him gives to all the heavenly Ministers their Commissions that nothing moves in her own person or round about her here below as she is in her shadowy disguise and pilgrimage but as it is ordered by her self above in the bosome of her Bridegroom And according to that order executed by the heavenly attendance which wait continually round about the Throne of her Bridegroom 2. Reason If the Will of Man be not free and do not freely determine it self in all moral Actions being undetermined in its own Principles or by any superior Causes what entrance doth sin find How doth any thing of a stain or guilt lie upon the Soul How is God just in the effects of his Wrath upon those that sin if they sin by an inevitable necessity of Nature and a predetermination by the connexion of Causes or by the immediate and intimate operation of the first and universal Cause I shall give my Answer by several steps 1. Sin hath no positive being if it hath God who is the first and universal Being the Fountain of Being is directly by himself and not by accident only the Author of Sin in its formality as Sin Otherwise we must with Manes set two Gods upon two distinct Thrones one of Light or Good the other of Darkness or Evil. Or we shall be forced with some Heathen Philosophers to establish two first Beings equally Uncreated and eternal One God the Agent The other Matter the Patient So where the Agent subdues the matter to it self all Forms of Goodness Beauty Life and Joy spring forth where the matter invincibly resisteth the power of the Agent there are the Regions of all Evil Darkness Death
embraces the fountain of Life the center and circle of all Delights O bitter Peace disordering Melody broken and unpleasant Harmony where Love suffers all evil and is slain on both sides to make perfect the Harmony But oh full Compensation O full and sweet Harmony arising out of the Discords swallowing up the Discords themselves into the most pure the most perfect most pleasant melody whereas Love first suffered and was slain by the disorder and enmity of Sin so now Love again suffereth and is slain for the enmity for sin by the wrath of God against sin that is by the Love in its contrary to the enmity Thus Love it self in the place of us all most lovingly and beauty it self most beautifully is become a Sacrifice for it self to it self 3. Abolition The last step in the way of reducing disorder into order is the Abolition or Renovation this is the finishing of all in the Person of the Lord Jesus The Lord Jesus is the compleat Image of the invisible God Thus he comprehendeth the whole Creation in himself for all the Creatures are so many expressive or manifestative figures of the Divine Glory We read in Scripture That the things which are seen that is all the created Objects of Sense or Reason Humane or Angelical stand up out of the things which are not seen Jesus Christ then being the first highest Image of the invisible God as he is in his own unaccessible Light is the Root out of which and in which the Creation stands the Lord Jesus as this universal Person goes down into the Grave and carries thither into those lowest shades at once with himself all Images of things the Original and the Copy the Substance and the Shadow the Uncreated Glory and the created Figure So Christ dies and the whole Creation dieth with him so he makes an end of Sin and Transgression Here he sings that triumphant Song O Death I am thy death Here all the evil of Sin and Suffering of Disorder and Contrariety which as a grave had swallowed up the whole Creation is swallowed up into Victory in the grave of Christ. In this Divine Death the whole Creation is dissolved and comes to its last end in its last end it meets with its beginning falling quite out of it self falling down out of its own empty obscure shade and nothingness it falls into the bosom of its heavenly and eternal Mother the Original Glory The Original Glory in the Person of Christ hath descended thus low together with its Birth and shadow Here it finisheth its descent in its shadow here diffusing it self and its eternal Light through these shades of death and through the whole Creation in these shades it maketh it self perfectly one by an entire and mutual communion in death with all the Creatures whose life was a continual War with it The Light of the heavenly Image poured forth in these shades of death flowing through the created Image overflowing and taking it into it self is that precious and Divine Blood which by its mysterious washings maketh the crimson and scarlet sins or stains upon this Image whiter than the whitest wooll or snow In this Divine Death the shadowy Image with all its evils of disorder and enmity are now past away for ever in respect to any reality substantiality or subsistence in themselves they remain only as figures in the Divine shade of this death in which shade the heavenly Image bears all in its pure although obscured bosom It is now the Root of eternal Love and eternal Life in Death receiving into it self all the Creatures with all their disorders and enmities They all now do here put off their Realities and become only mysterious shadows through which the supream Beauty and Sweetness springeth and sporteth it self But the Original Glory in the Person of Christ having now finished the mystery of its descent in the Creature and in this final dissolution taken the Creature again into it self as its first and proper Root beginneth now its return and ascent As the Lord Jesus died so he riseth again an universal Person with both Images created and uncreated united in himself The eternal Glory once in the first Creation vailed it self beneath a shadowy Image to die in that Image accordingly he died with it and for it But now he riseth again in the brightness of his heavenly Image he raiseth the whole Creation together with himself as his proper and immediate Birth as its purest and loveliest Bride in the most intimate entire and mutual Union with it self in all its glories thus to live for ever in the richest and closest embraces of each other Here now ye have a three-fold Resurrection in one 1. The Divine Image which is eternal Love and life it self as it had been vailed as it had suffered and died in the Creature riseth sweetly and gloriously from beneath all those shades into its own freshest and fullest Beauties Thus it riseth in the midst of the created Image 2. The created Image was once a fair entire Picture of the eternal Beauty living a Divine Life breathing a Divine Sweetness being a Divine Paradise in it self to it self while it stood as a pure resemblance of its Divine Original But by its fall into the infâ—…rnal Deep of Sin it stained it self it broke it self all to pieces it buried its Life Beauty and Sweetness in a dreadful and hateful death Now having put off that death in the death of Christ it riseth again in the bosom of the Original Glory not only in its fullest Beauty and Sweetness but a Beauty and Sweetness far more excelling It was before its fall a sweet shade an earthly Paradise The shade vanished into darkness the Paradise faded and disappeared But now it riseth as the â—…un-shine of the Godhead as the sweetest Light at once lying in the Bosom of the highest Glory embraced by it and surrounding that Glory with its embraces by a mutual immediate and eternal Union 3. The fall the disorders the wounds and death of this shadowy Image so dreadful and hateful as they stood in time now also have their Resurrection and put on a new appearance in eternity Having now passed through the Death and Sufferings of Christ where they put off all their evil by putting off all their own proper reality they stand in his Resurrection as figures of eternal Glories which are themselves also Glories in the Bosom of their Glorious Original They are seen now as they eternally spring up and flourish in the Garden of the Divine Mind as they bear their part and shine in the universal Beauty of the Divine Image and Work As the eternal Original with its Paradisical shadow lay hid in them like a Flower in its Seed in the Earth as both these Glories now are sprung forth through them and bring forth them again as eternal Lights in the light and circle of their own Beauties So is Christ in the circle of the Throne of God as 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
flow from his unvailed Person his naked presence and appearance As the Sun carrieth along with him in his Circuit a sweet flourishing Spring and Summer When God withdraws himself behind clouds of darkness and of night when he withholds the sweet beams and pleasant influences of his own face and person behind thick coverings strange forms and disguises Now man withers and dyes away in all the beauties and sweetnesses of the Divine Image in the place of these Deformity and Death spring up from that deficiency which is inseparable to the natural principles of the Creature which then discovers it self and overspreads the whole man with the shadow of Death and Hell when those principles are no more fed and supplyed from their eternal springs in the bosom of Christ. In this sense these words are most properly true Thy destruction is of thy self but thy Salvation is of me O Israel saith the Lord. 3. God in himself and in the person of the Lord Jesus as he is the essential Image of God is a most simple Unity comprehending all Varieties within himself In this Unity he is Love it self the first the supream the most pure the most potent unconfined love All pleasantnesses are in his Face and Presence he is the Bridegroom entirely fair and pleasant altogether delightful the Object of all Loves Desires the Seat of all Delights and Glories the Spring of Immortality and Eternity As himself is such in the highest affinity and resemblance is his work as it springs immediately from him his principal design and contrivance with which he begins in which he ends and rests eternally which he carrieth along as his first and Ultimate design throughout all things This then is one entire universal piece comprehending all Variety in it self this is one entire piece of sweetest Loves of riches Lights of purest Glories All scenes all forms of darkness and death are subordinate and subservient to this are parts of this are comprehended in this drawn forth from it terminated in it by a Divine and delightful skill set with a shining amiableness in their proper places overspread with a sweetness and lustre in the Unity of the grand design and finally in a manner most pure most harmonious most ravishing swallowed up into the eternal Lights in which the whole piece terminateth Of him and through him and to him are all things who is blessed for ever How true is it how exceeding large now is this truth in all senses in all languages Humane or Divine That God willeth not the death of a Sinner That Destruction is not of him As the Understanding of God is Truth it self the highest and most universal Truth the measure of all Truth so is the Will of God which is himself the first the highest the most comprehensive the unconsined Good the only reason and measure of all good We have passed through those Reasons which seem of greatest moment and to have greatest difficulty in them We hope that we draw near to our Haven and that with easie and gentle stroaks we shall now soon arrive at it The Reasons on this part which now remain seem to be rather mistakes arising from vulgar or general conceptions unexamined undistinguished than from the exercised judgments of wise and learned Spirits They are derived from the nature of things Moral Physical or Metaphysical I shall continue them in the same order with the precedent Reasons 4. Reason If the Will of Man be not free all Laws seem useless Answ. The force of this Reason seemeth to be entire and powerful on the contrary part If the Will of Man be free undeterminated by the dictates of the Understanding Laws have no more any signification or efficacy For the intent of these is clearly to work upon the Understanding Precepts and Prohibitions are Rules propounded Lights set up to the Understanding to inform what road or course is to be followed what to be carefully avoided in our Navigation through the Sea of this World that we may pass safely free from the danger of Rocks and Shelves to our desired Port. Rewards and Penalties are to be weighed and judged by the Understanding according to whose standard and estimate they have all their value Vexatio dat intellectum The proper end of Punishments and Rewards is to excite the Understanding The proper end of Precepts and Prohibitions is to enlighten the Understanding The excellency and efficacy of every Law is to impress upon us the sense of Good and Evil. So Moses the Law-Giver among the Jews saith to them I have set before you this day Good and Evil Life and Death What effect hath the sense of Good and Evil seated in the Understanding if the Will be guided by an absolute ungoverned arbitrariness within it self without Order without Harmony without Connexion without respect to the dictates of the Understanding How useless how fruitless are all impressions of Good or Evil if the Will be not by the Law of its own Essence by its own essential Principles determined to good sub ratione boni under the formal appearance of good 5. Reason Who meeteth not with this frequent experiment in himself which the Poet expresseth in the person of Medea as I remember Video meliora proboque deterior a sequor Better things I see approve The evil yet I choose and love Answ. This thin mist is easily scattered and cleared into a pure Air by the beam of one distinction between good propounded in the Thesis in its abstracted and general nature or in the Hypothesis cloathed with all its practical and individuating circumstances In the first it is the subject of the Dictamen practicum intellectus of the Understanding in its proposal of general Rules of practice to the Will In the other the good is the subject of the Dictamen practice practicum of the Understanding in its dictates and directions to the Will in arenâ upon the place in the singular and individual action now this moment lying before it with all its circumstances The Schools well distinguish between Act us signatus and Act us exercitus An Act marked out and described by the Understanding or an Act now immediately presenting it self unto a real existency out of all its Causes Whoever vieweth and distinguisheth exactly the sentiments of his Understanding the commerce between those and the motions of his Will maketh this clear discovery if I be not very much deceived That in the general conception and rule in the practical dictate and direction in the exactest contemplation and description of a moral Act one thing seemeth good to us when after this when we come upon the place to exercise the Act it self our sense is altogether changed The practically practical dictate of the Understanding its sentiments now in the moment of action in the presence and immediate impressions of all Circumstances differeth from the precedent Rules and passeth quite to a contrary Point to present that as the present good the good of the
Godhead it self with open Face with all its unclouded Sweetnesses all its unvailed Glories fills all springs shines forth with golden smiles in every part cloaths the whole Image is the Unity of all the Person in all This is the first Unity the Unity of the whole 2. The second is the Divine the Personal Unity in each part Such is the Virtue such is the undivided simplicity of the Spiritual the Divine Unity in this Person that the Unity the Person the Variety of the whole is equally perfectly entire and distinct in each part in every point of the whole Thus as there is one Body and many members so is Christ in this his spiritual and heavenly Body But such is the spirituality the heavenliness of this Divine Body this Divine Person that in every distinct Member the Unity of the Person and of the heavenly Body the Person in its full Amplitude in the greatness of its Majesty the whole Body in all its glorious Variety is most compleatly the same and distinct in every member Thus we read that in the Throne of God and the Vision of his Glory represented by Ezckiel and St. John The Lamb was in the midst of the Throne as the Center dissusing it self through the whole Circle There appeared also in the midst of the Throne four living Creatures which are interpreted by learned Divines to be four principal Ideas the four-fold Spring and Head of all Ideal Lives and Glories into which the supream and universal Idea the Lamb immediately distinguisheth it self like the Fountain of Eden in its four great streams These four living Creatures are so described that every one hath its own distinct Form that yet all are said to have one and the same Form Every one is said to have the form of a man which is the entire and universal Harmony of all forms the form of that man which rides in the Firmament above the heads of them all the Lamb himself This is the second Unity 3. The third is the Unity of all parts with each other and with the whole Every part equally subsisteth and shineth in all the other parts and in the entire Face of the whole as in it self being every where most perfectly distinct and the same So we read concerning those four living Creatures Whithersoever the Spirit of the living Creatures was to go they still went forward and never turned This is the force of the Unity of each part and with the whole Without change at once every part stands distimctly in every form of Beauty Pleasantness Glory In all the richness of their Divine Motions and Activities ever full ever new The beautiful and Divine Face of each part of the whole in each part standeth and looketh at once every way in every part of the whole and in the whole Now have I finished the three-fold Excellency of our Jesus in this Divine Image and Mediatory Glory Before I pass from it let me entreat you to cast your eye for a little space upon two Divine and delightful sights here 1. There is no particular Form so little or so low there is no privation so empty or so dark which hath not its two-fold Idea or Archetype here We read That Death and Hell are open and manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Where are the Forms of things so divided and broken as in the dust of Death What privations so shady and black so empty and desolate so deformed horrid and dreadful as those of Death and Hell Yet are Death and Hell manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Is not this Jesus the Divine Glass and Light in which alone all things appear to himself and to his Father Are not these Archetypes or Ideal Patterns in Christ both the Divine Eyes with which the eternal Spirit looketh upon all things and the Divine Objects which alone he beholdeth with these Eyes the Divine Images in these Eyes Then Death and Hell all particulars all privations are evidently and eminently here in the beautiful Form and Person of our blessed Mediator Here they are in their proper Ideas in their distinct and heavenly Patterns their eternal Truths But here they are no more particulars or privations inasmuch as every part every point of this Divine Image where these Ideas are seated is both the Center diffusing it self through the whole Image and a Circle comprehending the whole with its full Majesty and Glory in its own distinct propriety and form Thus the Psalmist sings divinely of this heavenly Mystery to Jesus Christ. The Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and the Light both alike This is the first of those heavenly sights to which I invited thee 2. See if our Jesus in this Mediatory Image be not the Jerusalem above ever new altogether heavenly our Mother which bringeth us forth under the Apple-Tree the Tree of Love in the heavenly Paradise which beareth us upon her sides and dandles us upon her knees through our whole course in all our motions and changes of our Birth Life and Death which milketh forth from her Breasts abundance of Glory upon us See if this be not that City of the living God having the Godhead it self for a Foundation where all things dwell together in their heavenly Patterns and eternal Spirits See if this be not Jerusalaiim two Cities in one compacted together by one eternal Love into one eternal Spirit and Person the created and the Uncreated Image where the First-bron the whole Creation in general all Creatures in particular in their first-born Original Images and Truths dwell together See if this be not that Kingdom of God universal over all the last of all without end eternal which is Righteousness Peace and Joy The Righteousness of all Divine incorruptible Harmony and Beauty the Beauties of Holiness the Beauties of the Divine Nature in its most unstained unmixt highest Purity that Peace and Joy which is the most ravishing Harmony of all things as they spring shine and sing together in the Unity of the Divine Light Life and Love in the ever dear and delightful Person of our blessed Mediator I have proceeded thus far in our Discourse of the Lord Jesus as he is the Mediator of the Creation the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God To this end he necessarily toucheth both the extremes is immediately united to both and unites both in himself in a middle state between both I have spoken of the Lord Jesus as he toucheth the extreme above and is God with God the essential Image of God the Original Seat and Image of all Forms of things in their first state We have treated of him in his middle state where he is the Union of God and the Creature of all Forms of things uncreated created joyned together in one Light and Spirit of Glory I now pass to the third Consideration of our Mediator as he toucheth the lower extream of the
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
most beautiful Ideas of his Skill and Wisdome Shall he not here lay on the greatest Riches of his Divine Goodness Shall he not stamp on these the most glorious Seal of his Truth his Faithfulness to the work of his hands Shall he not give the most heightned life and sweetning to this Seal of his Goodness Truth and Skill Doth not he understand that the perfection of the whole work lies that the praise and glory of the Workman depends principally if not entirely upon these Joynts on which the motion of the whole in so high a degree depends I will briefly conclude this part of my Discourse Reader think of God as Sweetness it self all pure unmixt unconfined Think of God as the Spirit of Love Beauty Joy all in one in their most abstracted Essences in their highest Exaltation in their greatest amplitude in their most potent vigour incorruptible eternal Think of God as the purest and richest Spring without beginning or end as the clearest Sea without bottom or bounds of all Perfections in the highest degree of Pleasantness of all Pleasantness in the highest Perfection Think of all things together with thy self in this God the Unchangeable Original of all according to their first and truest forms according to their eternal Truths one Goodness and Sweetness together with this goodness and sweetness it self one Spirit with this Spirit of all Loves Beauties and Joys in Divine figures divinely distinct as the first and fullest Variety in the first and entirest Unity When thou hast thought thus of God now think whether all things within thee do not with the fullest concurrence meet in this one only most passionate desire that this God may alone conduct his whole Work the whole course of all things that he may be present may act may appear alone in every part in every motion of it as filling so many figures and shadows of Himself After all consider whether that ground in which is founded the desire of this as the most perfect good the Object of all desires be not as firm a foundation for the belief of this no less agreeable Truth to the Understanding than it is of good to the Will Can Goodness and Truth be separated when Truth is Goodness in its essential Image in its fullest fairest reflection Shall not the most perfect Workman bring forth the most perfect Work the best from the best Shall not the highest God the most true of Himself thus do who is the supream Good whose Will is Goodness it self where as Ficinus upon Plato speaks the highest Voluntariness and the highest Necessity most beautifully and most pleasantly meet in the most inviolable band of the most true the most perfect Good 2. Head of Arguments I pass now to the second Head of Arguments taken from the Mediation of Christ and opposed to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in a freedome from the predetermination of its Acts in its essential Principles and superior Causes My method of treating of the Mediation of Christ and directing my Discourse upon it to the service of my present design shall be this I will endeavour with all humility and holy reverence by the conduct of that sweet Light which falls from the Face of Christ by the guidance of his Eyes the only Fountain of Grace and Truth to set before us the Lord Jesus in those three principal Parts of his Mediation as he is 1. The ground 2. The way 3. The end of the whole Work of God 1. Jesus Christ is the ground of the whole Work of God This is the first and principal part of Christ's Mediation in which he is the Golden Head of the whole Image of things in Grace and Nature This well understood according to the weak capacity of our Understanding here below seemeth to make all the other parts of the Mediatorship with the whole tract of things plain and pleasant That which in Divinity and Philosophy is understood by the name of a Person is an Intellectual Being compleatly existing Therefore God Angels which are called Gods and Men made in the Image of God which are also dignified with the Name of God in the holy Scripture are only stiled and esteemed Persons The reason of the Name I humbly conceive to be this Every Intellectual Spirit according to the propriety of its Nature and Essence comprehendeth entirely within it self the principle of its own Essence its essential form and operation by comprehending in it self the whole nature of things The Understanding in its perfect Act and Being in its largest compass are said by Philosophers to meet in a mutual proportion and union the one being the proper and adequate Object of the other Therefore the Greeks call every Intellectual Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole The prime operation of every Intellectual Spirit is contemplation The first and immediate Object of its contemplation is its own Essence In this Glass of living and immortal Light all other things according to their proper essences in their several and essential forms appear to it most clearly and delightfully as its own Births and Beauties God the first and most perfect the Father and King of all Intellectual Spirits is the truest Person He alone in truth subsisteth in himself existeth without and above all things He truly containeth the whole compass of things in their unchangeable Truths and Substances within himself although he Himself be the most absolute and most abstracted Unity Angels and Men in the perfection of their Natures are no more than shadowy persons They have only shadowy Essences a shadowy comprehension of shadows God then alone most perfectly and substantially enjoyeth Himself in the contemplation of Himself which is the Beatifical Vision of the most beautiful the most blessed Essence of Essences This Act of Contemplation is an Intellectual and Divine Generation in which the Divine Essence with an eternity of most heightned Pleasures eternally bringeth forth it self within it self into an Image of it self According to the Perfection in which God knoweth Himself and enjoyeth Himself so is the Perfection of this Image As those are so is this clear distinct and full The more distinct the beam is from the first Light in its emanation the more strong and full is the reflectiou This Divine Image then is at once most perfectly distinct from its Divine Original most exactly equal to it and most perfectly one with it As then God is so is this essential eternal Image of God a compleat and distinct Person in it self in every point with the highest and most ravishing agreeableness answering the Divine Esseunce in its spring out of which it ariseth If this Image were not a compleat Person Gods knowledge and fruition of Himself would be incompleat without the pleasing and proportionate returns of an equal Loveliness Life and Love If this Image were not most perfectly distinct from the bosome out of which it flourisheth the knowledge and enjoyment of God would be confused more
like to the blindness the barrenness the cold of darkness and death than the life and fruitfulness the warmth of beauty life and love which all have their Perfection and their Joys in the propagation of themselves into most distinct forms and the reflection upon themselves from these forms This is the first and so the most universal Image the first seat of all Images of things In this all the fulness the unchangeable riches of the Godhead display themselves in their first their fairest their fullest glories All forms of things are here most proper most perfect most distinct substantial and true Philosophers and Divines call the first Images of things as they rise up from the Fountain of eternity in the bosome of this universal and eternal Image Ideas The Idea in this sense is the first and distinct Image of each form of things in the Divine Mind The universal Image of which we speak is that Divine Mind or Understanding This is the proper Idea of the Godhead the universal Idea the Idea of Ideas and so that Mother of us all which is above Every Idea of each Creature is this Idea bringing forth it self according to the inestimable Treasures of the Godhead in it into innumerable distinct figures of it self in the unconfined Varieties of its own Excellencies and Beauties that so it may enjoy it self sport with it self in these with endless and ever new Pleasures of all Divine Loves Thus in every Idea of each Creature doth this universal Idea dwell at large and freely shine forth with all its fulnesses and sweetnesses in a distinct form as it self in another form The Ideas or Images being the only and eternal Truths of all things do from themselves as the true Heavens in eternity send forth as shadowy figures the Heaven of Angels these visible Heavens the Earth all the Elements with their Inhabitants and Furniture Each Idea containeth its own created figure as the proper place of it giveth it its essence and existence in it self sustaineth it and supporteth it in its own bosome by new Births or emanations from it self every moment it filleth it throughout as the Light doth the Air or rather the beams in the Air. This alone is the unchangeable Truth the true substance of each thing the golden Head above the inward spring below the Christal Vessel which holdeth and encloseth every created Being the living water of all Truth and true Being which filleth every created Vessel Place is affirmed by the Jews to be one of the Names of God Christ saith in the Gospel In my Fathers house are many Mansions This universal and eternal Image of which we speak is a Divine Person This is our Jesus the God of all Glory in the clearest the fullest effulgency or brightness of all his Glories in his own most proper and most glorious form This is the House or Palace of the Father upon the Mount of Eternity the House of Ideas or the first and eternal Images of things which are at once as so many Children of this Great King the Father of all and as so many Mansions in this House Here in this House of God as David speaketh each Bird hath its Nest hath its place to sit and sing near his holy Altar Thus God in each of these distinct and eternal Images is the distinct and eternal Place of each thing As the golden Seals were the only place of the Impression if there were nothing besides the golden Substance and the Impression so is the Idea or the Divine Image in our Lord Jesus the only place of each thing How sweet a Contemplation is this Every created Being as a Figure or an Impression which hath no ground no foundation to sustain it besides the Seal which makes it riseth flourisheth fadeth and falleth hath the whole compass of its beginning way and end in the soft and beautiful bosome of its own Divine Image or Idea in the Person of our Lord Jesus Thus all things live move and have their being in Him It is the Rule of the Philosopher That all motion is made upon something unmoveable We read in the first of the Hebrews a place cited out of the Psalms where it is thus said to Jesus Christ The Heavens and the Earth are the work of thine hands they perish but thou remainest They all wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same thy years fail not Behold Jesus Christ as he is the eternal Image of the Godhead containing the first Images of all things eternally in Himself is the Divine and unmoveable ground upon which the Heaven the Earth with all things in them whose whole being is a perpetual motion and change perpetually move Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God as he is the first and most perfect Image of the Divine Essence within it self and in this Image contains those Images which are the first Patterns the eternal Grounds Truths Measures of all things The same Jesus is the Power of God in respect to that seminal or propagative Power in those first Patterns by which as sacred Springs they multiply themselves by various streams receiving all along from them the continuation of their Beings in continual motions till by circling about they return to and rest in the bosome of their Fountain This is that pure and clear Sea of Ideal Lights and Lives from which all their Rivers of Being go forth and into which they return again while that still is equally full and capable of no diminution or increase This ground of the Work of God in Christ and of the Mediation of Christ seemeth to be the fundamental sense though perhaps not the only one nor that principally intended by the Apostle in those words where he saith That our Lord Jesus is the Image of the invisible God and the First-born of every Creature This last expression is divinely contrived to be both in one a collective and a distributive with equal propriety of sense you may read of all Creation of every Creature The holy Scripture in the Epistle to the Hebrews distinguisheth between the shadow and the Image the very Image the self Image of good things to come The whole Creation with the Law in its Angelical Glories as it is the Crown and Ground of this Creation according to the Doctrine of the Jewish Masters and of all the Scripture is a shadow of good things and no more Jesus Christ alone is the Image of God and so of all good things the very Image the self Image that Image which by its exactness is one self with its Original God in all those Glories in which by reason of their excess of Light He is in this Image equally glorious and perfectly visible to Himself Jacob stileth his first-born the Excellency of Dignity and the Excellency of Strength Jesus Christ being the first Image of God is also in that the first Image of the Creation in the
proper shadow Some think this following sense to be intended by St. Paul in these words Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation or of every Creature Col. 1. God in that same second Person which is the Godhead in its essential Image which in the fulness of time took flesh of the Virgin Mary in the beginning of Time came forth from the secret and unaccessible Light of Eternity in a shadowy Image This Image was the full figure of his Person with all its Divine Glories according to the capacity of a shadow This was the whole Creation compleat in its first Draught All the Glories of the Divine Nature which are imitable were here first distinctly figured in the primitive and pure forms of all the Creatures Thus was he the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation in general and of each Creature in particular Thus was He in the Language of the Jews the great Adam who brought forth the little Adam in his own likeness Thus was Jesus Christ in Adam at once the life of all in his essential Glories the Original Copy or first Draught of the Creature in the whole compass of it of each Creature in particular All this in the Humane Soul in Adam as the only perfect and proper Figure of this Original I understand nothing in this interpretation of St. Pauls words contrary to the Analogy of Faith or the Scriptures There seemeth to be in it a compleat Harmony and order in the nature of things according to this sense 1. All things stand first in an Uncreated Subsistence and Essence Then in an Uncreated Subsistence or Person they come forth into Created Essences or Natures Lastly By this medium uniting all they pass in Created Subsistencies and Essences into created Persons and Natures 2. Jesus Christ gradually descends from his essential Glories into an Universal Original Figure of himself of the whole Creation of each Creature Through this He passeth into the particular form of faln man in the Womb of the Virgin So he descends to the nethermost parts of the Earth ascends again through all forms of things with all united in his own Person above all Heavens and fills All. After this manner the Lord Jesus is the Mediatour of the Creation as well as of the Reconciliation and Regeneration All things are made by him and nothing that is made or brought forth from the beginning of things to the end comes forth without him As according to his appearances in Grace or Glory the Saints appear together with him so according to his Appearances in Nature all things appear together with him He lives and subsists in the form of every Creature Every Creature subsists by its transcendental Union with him in Nature Thus it is most true That we are in this World as he is in this World We are Sojourners together with him in his Land He suffers in all our Sufferings is straitned in all our straitnings He is in all things made like unto us Sin only excepted He carries along in every particular form the Universal Harmony the Divine Glory even in all the sufferings and straitnings of every Creature The Universal Harmony and Divine Glory is to him the liberty the joy of Paradise Heaven Eternity in each straitning and suffering Sin only is the breach of this Harmony the violation of this Glory not by a privation only but a Contradiction and Enmity founded in the privation This can bear no part in the Divine Harmony save as it is reduced into Order and the Harmony carried on through the Wrath and Righteousness of God in the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But I desire to leave my self and my Reader free in this Point I have now finished in four Distinctions my Answer to the first part of the Objection made against the Variety of forms in the Unity of the Soul In this part of my Answer I have endeavoured to state the presence of God with and in the Soul of man as perspicuously as my dark and narrow mind is capable of taking in and expressing a Divine Mystery of so great an amplitude and such an heigth of Glory I pass now to the second part of my Answer which concerns the Angels 2. Answer Angels with the whole Company of invisible substances or separated Forms and immortal Spirits are contained in the Unity of the Soul these two wayes 1. They are Superior and Universal Causes subordinate to the first Cause Thus they are most intimately and inseparably present in the Constitution of the Soul As Entity or Being and substantiality in their Superiour and Universal Nature descend into incorporeal Spirits and through these into Corporeal Shapes and Bodies so do all the Angels greater in Might and Glory cloath themselves with the Incorporeal Form of the immortal Soul communicating all their divers Virtues Powers and Glories to this Form in which themselves subsist and live together with it being an head of Glory to it 2. All Angelical Immortal Spirits are another way in the Soul as making up the full diversity of all Forms in it and so composing its Essence Thus all Angels all Essences all Forms of things in their immortal Substances as Intellectual Spirits meet in the proper Unity under the peculiar Character and Diversity of each Intellectual Soul as in some obscure resemblance Variety of colours in a particular colour or as all the Elements in each Element in each mixt Form under the proper Character of the predominant Element or Form 3. Answer The Intellectual Soul containeth all Corporeal Forms or Bodies in it self two wayes 1. Virtually 2. Formally 1. The Soul hath in it self all Bodies virtually from the Angels above it as the shining Bosome where the eternal Spring through Jesus Christ powres forth its living streams Here the Soul drinketh in the Essences and essential forms of things in their Angelick Truth and Goodness These feast and fill the Understanding and the Will In the Understanding or Angelick Light of the Soul they shine as the Exemplars or Patterns of all below in the visible World In the Will as in the Angelick Love of the Soul they lie as in the Womb or in the seminal Virtue or executive Power which brings them forth 2. This Soul comprehends the Corporeal World in it self formally The Essences of all Bodies as they are Objects only of the Understanding and not of Sense so are they according to the Nature and Law of all Essences Intellectual Unities and Forms in the Unity or essential Form of this Intellectual Spirit The Soul in these distinct Essences floweth forth into these shadowy forms with which our Senses the shadows of the Intellectual Light are entertained The Intellectual Unity diffuseth it self into the continued parts of these divisible Forms This Unity formeth the Proportions of the parts in their mutual Correspondencies knitteth them together unto a mutual sympathy in each natural Body For as I have
our Hope our End comprehending all the Objects of our Hope all our blessedness in himself This Christ thus coming to us forming a Divine Nature a Divine Light a Divine Eye a Divine Understanding in us shining forth in the midst of us setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory in their heavenly truth and substance before us open and manifest in the midst of us with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed to be enjoyed by us to become one Spirit with us to form themselves upon us to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves in the fore-tasts and first-fruits as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition This is our most holy and most precious Faith the Faith of the Gospel opposed to the Works of the Law This coming of the Faith in this verse is expressed before verse 9. by the coming of the seed why then was the Law It was added because of Transgressions until the Seed came The Law then is a Prison In this Pâ—…ison all men are kept bound in Chains shut up with Locks and Bolts and Bars which no force can break until the Seed which is Christ come This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature a new Creature a new Person into an heavenly Image and a Son of God in him alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Now before this Jesus thus springing up and shining forth in him the Prison of the Law is dissolved and vanisheth like an enchantment The place in which it stood is known no more for all is covered and filled with the Light Liberty and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death and bringeth life and immortality to light 2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come not the very Image Chap. 10. vers 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit and in eternity The Law had a shadow of this Jesus with these good things contained in him The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law as beneath a Vail You may see this 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews While Moses is read the Vail lieth upon their hearts But when there is a turning to the Lord the Vail is taken away He goeth on But the Lord is that Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is freedom from the Vail There is a beholding with open face the Glory of the Lord Jesus a transforming of the Soul into the same Image with an encreasing Glory by the Lord this Spirit Thus Jesus with all his Glories was vailed in the Law By the removal of the Vail the Law becometh Gospel The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us and form us into one Glory with themselves St. Paul teacheth us 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud and in the same Sea eat of the same spiritual Bread drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account that Bread that Sea that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these and vailed beneath all these The Clouds Thunders Fires Tremblings and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person suffering and dying The top of Mount Sinai where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another being mutual Feasts one to another was a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension Divines teach us That the Law is the Gospel vailed and the Gospel the Law unvailed The Jews say That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God The Name is the Image of the thing Christ who is the very Image is the true Name of God and of all true things comprehended in God The Moral Law with all the Precepts and Duties of it is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us but vailed with the Letter with the darkness of the Letter yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory How rich and how sweet is our Jesus and the mystery of God in him through all his works The Law it self hath no Darkness no Death no Fire so full of Dread Horror and Destruction which looked upon with a right eye is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this that Jesus Christ with all the treasures of eternal Love Beauty and Joy is shadowed upon it and vailed beneath it The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery conversed with Christ saw his day grew up into him through this shadow beneath this Vail seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins in their Flesh and Spirit 3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity in the Ministry of the Law is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord to prepare his way The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ. 1. By Conviction Condemnation and Death which all discover a necessity of Christ make him precious make him the desire of all Nations make all wait for him as the only blessed One and their only Blessedness Crying Blessed is he blessed is the Messias the Christ blessed is Jesus who alone comes in the Name of the Lord in the Form Power and Glory of the Godhead 2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality and of the Letter 3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow and under a Vail So the Law fills up the Vallies and makes the Mountains plain It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength in our own Reason or Will into shame It takes away our distrust and despair turning that into hope and a joyous expectation It first burieth all the beauty strength excellency and life of the Creature in a grave of Sin Death and Wrath as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth as the nethermost Hell Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave and sheweth him hidden beneath it as under a Vail and as a Seed of
all Spirits all Forms in their separated state Here are the Essences of all things in their abstracted Beauties Jesus Christ in his Mediatory Kingdom and World is the Head of the Angelical Image The Head of this is the Divine World the Divine Essence Plato saith All the Members were made for the Head The Head in that spiritual sense in which we have spoken of it is the inmost Center the utmost Circle diffusing it self thorow all incompassing infolding and comprehending all It is the beginning the end the strength the truth the glory of all with a transcendency of excellency in every kind surmounting all Thus is God thus is Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image of God the Divine World in eternity the glorious Head of his Mediatory Kingdom shining with infinitely rich and delightful splendors above all over all in all Thus is God the Person the Unity which brings forth this Divine Image which spreads himself thorow it lives and subsists in it gives it its life and subsistency in himself joyns it altogether in one Divine piece by the Unity of one Life one Spirit one Person 2. God is here in a Created Form appearing with a middle-glory between the shade of the Creature and the unapproachable shinings of the Godhead uniting both by a Marriage which all things in Heaven in Earth in the Seas beneath both celebrate with Divine Feasts and Triumphs God in the Creature is seen by a shadowy Image alone which lie as a Vail upon the pure Glories of his Divine Face and Person He now shines forth like the Sun in a cloudy day by that obscure Image of his Coelestial Form a reflected refracted Light God in the Kingdom of the Father the Father of Lights in the simplicity of the Divine Nature is the eternal Sun at its heighth at its Noon-sted in its Meridional Glories God in the Mediatory Kingdom which is properly the Kingdom of Christ in his personal Reign resembles the lovely Morning the golden Hour of the Day when there is no more shades or pure Light but both are mixt and sweetly married into the pleasant Flowers of Saffron or Roses breathing their sweetnesses thorow the whole Air and Universe God in Jesus Christ is now the Sun ascending shining forth in its strength but not at its full heighth God and the Creature are like two Lillies or Roses joyned upon one stalk in a fair Morning or a bright Forenoon or like two Friends in this sweet season in a Garden of Roses embracing These mutually possess enjoy the full Beauties the full sweetness each of other but not fully clearly but not compleatly until the Sun come to its full heighth In the Schools the knowledge of things is divided into three kinds 1. Meridianam the Meridional or Moon-Light of Knowledge 2. Matutinam The Morning-Light 3. Vespertinam The Evening-shade 1. The Noon-Light of Knowledge is the sight of things in their eternal Ideas in the eternal essential Idea or Image of the Godhead which is the eternal Word our Jesus 2. The evening shade is the Creature appearing in its self by its own obscure and fading Light 3. The Morning-Light of Knowledge is applied by some to the second quire in the first Order of Angels the Cherubims These are the Lights flowing from the Second Person in the Trinity the Light of eternity and of the Divine Essence as the Seraphims the first quire are Love the Love-Unity the Angelical Figure of the Father the Unity in the Trinity the Fountain of all Divine Births of all Divine Loves and Lights the Love-Spring and so the Life-Spring in the Godhead In these Angelical Loves the Seraphims are all forms of things as in their first their sweetest created Love-Springs and Love-Unions In these Angelical Lights the Cherubims are all forms of things as in their first their richest created Beauties and Ideas But these Cherubimical Beauties these Angelical Ideas are too faint and fading to be the Morning-Light All created Glories the most heavenly are no more than Evening-Glories which the setting Sun hath left behind him They all by degrees sink into the darkness of the night and disappear for ever Our Jesus alone is the Day-spring from on high the Rosie Morning and the rising Sun In him alone all created Loves and Beauties Cherubim and Seraphim rising again from the depths of night unto a new Sweetness and Glory have their eternal day Thus the Spirit speaketh to the Lord Jesus in the Psalmist and the first of the Hebrews The Heavens wax old as a Garment thou changest them and they are changed But thy throne O Lord endureth for ever and ever See in the Heavens in the powers sweetnesses and beauties of Heaven a night of old Age and of Death See in this Death a Day-Spring of new and immortal Glories in the rising of the Lord Jesus upon them and their rising in the Circuit of his Throne He alone sits upon that Throne of ever-new ever-springing eternal Light But thus much of this second Character of Jesus Christ in his Mediatorship or Middle-state 3. God in his essential Image replenished with the eternal Ideas and Patterns the Original Forms of things is in this second Image thorow the whole universal Form in all the particular and distinct Forms the Root and Seed of all This is the Vis plastica the Ratio seminalis the formative Power by which the formal reason or proportion according to which all things in their created Image spring up are framed are acted in their essential accidental Forms Powers Operations and Motions The Father hath sent me forth and I live by the Father All mine are thine and all thine are mine Thine they were and thou gavest them me This is the Language of Christ concerning his Father and to his Father The eternal Idea of the Godhead which is our Jesus in the heighths of his Divinity the distinct Ideas in the Bosom of this Idea of the Divine Essence are respectively the proper Places the Parents the Patterns the Husbands of Jesus Christ in this Middle-Image and in all the particular Images which shine here as Stars in their native Heaven as Flowers in their Garden-beds to which in the Song of holy Loves the Cheeks of this Jesus are compared Thus is our Jesus in the Gospel divinely drawn in an admirable Picture representing him after his descent out of this state rising again in it He is presented to us in his transfiguration on the Mount with his Face shining like the Sun in its strength and his Garment as the Light O most admirable and Divine Figure of our Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory The Face the Person of our Jesus is the Sun it self the eternal Sun the Divine Nature shining forth in the strength of its light and heat its Beauties and Loves The created Image is as the Raiment upon this Person but a Raiment of Light of the Flower of Light Sun-shine of the Godhead a Garment made of a
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
break it up into its own clear Light springs forth from the Womb of the Virgin Mary into Flesh and Blood in the dejected form of fallen man Made in all things like unto us sin only excepted The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us or tabernacled in the midst of us John 1. The Word was made flesh See there the Incarnation of the Son of God He tabernacled in the midst of us behold his Life in the Flesh. Two Natures meet in one the Word and Flesh God and Man The manner is exprest the Word is made or become Flesh not by transmutation The Word ceaseth not to be the Word The Godhead in its essential Image retaineth all its Glories its immutability and eternity in Flesh neither is the Word made Flesh by any kind of composition The Divine Nature in flesh retaineth its simplicity its purity its absolute all-comprehending incomprehensible Unity The Word is made flesh by assumption taking the Humane Nature into the Unity of the same Divine Person with it self God in his essential Image in the entireness absoluteness and Unity of his own undivided unconfined Person with the fulness of his eternal Glory descendeth into Flesh. The eternal Spirit which is Jesus himself in his Divine Form and Power comes down upon over-spreads the Virgin Mary with his Ideal force He also becomes the seminal Virtue in her So he springs up out of her Womb into a distinct individual man a frail fallen man though without spot in the Person of God Thus is he Father and Son to himself Father and Husband and Son to his Mother Yea he is also his own Mother in his Mother of his own flesh taking flesh from her inasmuch as he alone fills all in all and is the Truth of all The Word was made Flesh. God in his essential Image and Glory is the entire and compleat Person in the Humane Nature This is the Unity in it this subsists in it this appears in every part and state of it this acts and suffers all in it this is named by every name of it these are all proper to the Person Thus all the Glories of the essential of the Mediatory of the shadowy Image of Christ in their most universal Latitude as according to their several Orders they comprehend all Forms of things in themselves being united in the simplicity of this Divine Person do all meet in this Flesh fill it shine through it become one with it pass through all states and changes live and die with it and in it In like manner this Flesh subsists in the Unity of this Divine Person in the midst of all its Divine Forms and Glories In the fellowship of these surrounded with these it acts and suffers all things it appears in every part and state under every name it bears the name of these passing through all the changes of Mortality in their Divine and immortal unchangeableness We saw his Glory saith St. John speaking of Christ in the Flesh the Glory as of the only begotten Son of God Joh. 1. Thus is Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever amidst all the changes of Flesh and Time unchangeable in the Unity of this Divine Person The Word made Flesh is the whole Tree of Being Uncreated and Created the Root the Body with all the branches putting forth themselves into one little top-branch now withering that through its death they may renew all unto a fresh and flourishing spring The Lord Jesus now being an universal Person as the essential Image of God as the spiritual and Mediatory Image as the shadowy Image the Head the Original frame of the whole Creation in its utmost Latitude as the Seed of the whole Creation spread through all the parts of it running along through all Generations bringing it forth and sustaining it in it self by taking Flesh and the Nature of fallen man upon himself sets himself in the place of us all in our lowest estate He takes our Sins and Sorrows all the Diseases of our Bodies and Minds upon himself that he may take them away from us Taking together with our Flesh our Guilt Shame Weaknesses Demerits Enemies and Enmities Death the Divine Wrath into the Unity of the Divine Person He makes an end of the Transgression with its trains of evils consuming all swallowing up all in the most beautiful and blissful flame of those Divine Purities Powers Righteousness Rest Glories Pleasantnesses Immortality which receive them into themselves in the Unity of this blessed and eternal Person The holy Ghost clearly and fully expresseth this Mediatory Work of our Redemption by Christ in this ground and superstructure Heb. 1. 3. Who being the brightness or effulgency out-shining of the Glory of God the express Image of his Person or Substance bearing up all things by the word of his Power having purged away our Sins by himself Jesus in his essential Image is the Glory of God as the Woman is said to be the glory of the Man In his Mediatory Form he is the Brightness Effulgency or out-shining of this Glory The shadowy Image in which Christ is the immediate Head of the first Creation is properly according to the Greek word the Character of his Divine Nature and Person For a Character is properly the engraving or impression of a Figure upon some forreign matter as a Figure cut upon a Seal or from a Seal imprinted upon Wax or Letters stampt in Ink upon Paper Such a Character is the Image of God in the Creature The word in this Text bearing signifieth properly a twofold sense bringing forth and bearing up as 〈◊〉 Seed its Plant So Jesus Christ is in the whole Creation and in every Creature all along bearing all things by the Word or flux of his Power that is by his seminal Virtue flowing forth and springing up in all Upon this ground in this universal Person Jesus Christ taking our flesh upon him in our lost estate into the Unity of his Person doth by himself that is by the Divinity of his Person purge away all our Sins and in them all our Evils Thus in the Incarnation in the Word made Flesh the Sun of Righteousness begins to turn towards us The Day-spring from on high visiteth us in the midst of the shades of Night and Death Righteousness begins to look down from Heaven and to spring up out of the Earth as this blessed Person in his Divine Union at once shineth forth from above and springeth up in our flesh here below He dwelt among us The words in Greek are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tabernacled in the midst of us See here the Life of Christ in Flesh. His Flesh was the Tabernacle in which he journeyed through the Wilderness of this World the Antetype to the Tabernacle in which God sojourned with the Children of Israel resting in the midst of them marching before them through the Desart into the Land of Promise This word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is constantly used for