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

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Abraham largely experienced by your Father and by him now recommended unto you Keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgement that he may fulfil unto you all the rich and precious promises of the Gospel belonging to Abraham and his believing seed the seed of Promise that are found walking in his wayes Observ. 4. Fourthly and lastly observe That it is a duty incumbent on believing parents to mind their children and houshold of walking in the faith and keeping in the way of the Lord doing that which is just and right So also is it the duty of children to obey such charge and be found so living and walking in the spirit and way of the Lord as they expect the blessings of Gods Covenant with Abraham to be made good unto them But here this Query may be offered How did Abraham walk and 〈◊〉 The answer is In a Family-way 't was Family-worship There were in his time no formed Churches or Societies of a larger kind made up of divers families embodying themselves and walking in communion together That which he was capable to do he did He catechized and instructed his Relations spreading abroad amongst them the savour of the tithes of that Grace which through mercy he was partaker of This was the state of the true Church then as to its outward form If larger visible Societies and collective Bodies or Churches of Saints be now interrupted this Family-way of Religion and Worship may be kept up and so things return to their primitive way again as in the dayes of Abraham To this Ioshua professes he will have recourse when the purity of publick Worship fails Iosh. 24. 15. If saith he it seem evil to you to serve the Lord if you be for other go●● or other wayes of worship than God requires I will quit your publick societies as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Use 1. My word of exhortation then to you is When publick worship is to be had in purity without defiling of your Consciences use and frequent that But if that bedenied or is not to be found frequent private and family worship yea however it be as to the publick let these be kept on foot with all diligence Be found still in the way of the Lord own that where ere you see it and joyn in it as the Lord shall please to open the way for you and give opportunity Whatever you do be not conformed to this world in the spirit way principles affections no nor religion thereof Quit those worshippers that are confident in a spirit and way that is liable to apostacy calling that heresie which is the only true way of worshipping the God of our Fathers Amidst the great variety of Churches and ways of Worship that this world abounds with be not by any means induced or forced to observe and become subject to the ordinances of man in things pertaining unto God Give unto God the things that are Gods Give also unto Caesar the things that are his If he unlawfully require more you may lawfully refuse to obey him let him take his course wherein any 〈◊〉 proudly God will be above them If one Church say Christ● another Lo there and the trumpet that 's blown in both give but an uncertain sound look up to Christ himself with the Spouse in the Canticles and say O thou whom our souls do love tell us where thou feedest and makest thy flock to rest at noon under the scorching heat of mans persecuting wrath He will discover to you the false Babylonish spirit that lurks in such Churches and Teachers as to the deceiving of themselves and others are but transformed into the likeness of the Apostles and Churches of Christ 2 Cor. 11. And he will by his Spirit if rightly sought to and waited on infallibly direct you to the true shepherds tents those spiritual pastors and assemblies that walk in the footsteps of his ancient flock even in the faith spirit and way of Abraham Isaac Iacob and their families who are now in the kingdom of God and in the way doctrine and spirit of the Evangelists and Apostlcs And as I would have you to quit all false Churches and reject the Babylonish spirit whatever curious dress insinuating appearance or refined form she shines forth in so much more yet would I have you to loath and depart from all manner of prophaness and common debauchery whatever countenance or encouragement it may have round about you in the Land of your nativity Do but keep in the Way live and walk in the Faith and Spirit of Abraham and all is done This your Father hath found joy and comfort in upon very large and plentiful experiences but most remarkably in his Prison-state As troubles and straits from without have encreased upon me I have been more enlarged within The more I have been shut up on earth and from earthly Relations and enjoyments the more have the Heavens opened upon me and let down to me the larger sights and tasts of the glory and enjoyments of the world to come Vse 2. Lastly I charge you as the utmost desire of my soul to God on your behalf be obedient to the Lord walk humbly with him and keep close to him Let your heart be right with him Be stedfast in his Covenant not turning aside like a deceitful Bo● Be not off and on with him yea and nay but in Christ yea only and then all the Promises of God in Christ to you will be Yea and Amen to the glory of God the Father Then if any of you lack Wisdom or particular direction in any difficult circumstances ask it of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given you But then ask in Faith the stedfast Faith of Abraham nothing wavering for he that wavereth must not think or expect to receive any thing of the Lord Iames 1. 5. 7. Christ hath assured you that whatsoever you shall ask in his Name he will do it and the Father will do it Ioh. 14. 13 14. and chap. 15. 16. that is whatsoever ye shall ask in the power and exercise of a living saving Faith or of the heavenly Anointing and new Name of Christ in and upon you it shall be done unto you For whatsoever ye thus ask will be asked by you in the will of God that ye are begotten of Jam. 1. 18. or according to the will of your heavenly Father And this we know that whatsoever we ask according to his will he heareth us 1 John 5. 14 15. Yea though ye be but young and weak in this Faith and in the expression of it if as new-born babes ye do but truly desire the sincere milk of the Word and brokenly stammer and lisp forth such desires to God ye will find acceptance with and answer from him not only according to but abundantly above all that you are able to ask or think No Mother can have so tender a regard to the cry of
spouse of Christ the right new-spirited Saint is despised and slighted as a weak foolish contemptible thing no body at Ordinances and righteousness in her way which she experiences to be the way of Christ finding the fruits of his presence in it Thus was it between Paul with others and some of the Corinthian Church Both were married to and interested in Christ but by different Covenants We are fooles saies he for Christ's sake ye are wise in Christ. We are weak ye strong Ye honourable we despised 1 Cor. 4. 10. and 2 Cor. 10. 12. We dare not make our selves of the number or compare our selves with such as commend and compare themselves with one another of the same principles and perswasions and so applaud themselves in one another by their mutual self-deceivings The true spiritual Elder Paul the aged he is in body with this flourishing youthful warm legal-spirited generation The main business he has to say for himself is a Life hid with Christ in God and worshipping God in spirit and truth This they reckon as nothing but discourse fiction foolishness But be it known those that with Paul are weak foolish and despised for Christ are better than such as he there implicitly reproves and taxes with folly that yet he acknowledges were wise strong and honourable in Christ. Such foolish weak despised ones of Christ as Paul was are they that will quite confound the wise the mighty the honourable The things that are not shall bring to nought the things that are and no flesh with all its ornament righteousness and wisdom shall enter into Christ's kingdom or glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1. 27 29. And as the spiritual saint is thus handled by the fleshly so is the spirit or spiritual part in the same saint dealt with by the fleshly Holy flesh the renewed natural mind will be despising the feeblness of the spiritual while weak and low and jusling it out of the Throne as to its interesting it self as the ruling Principle at working righteousness and worshiping God Having thus in Hagar taken notice of the malapert proud insulting carriage of the first-covenant Wife or Spirit in different saints or in the same against the right spirit of the second through confidence in the works of the Law or works performed in the ruling activity of their own renewed mind let us proceed to other branches and observables in the said Allegory before us Abram as a type of Christ delivers up Hagar into Sarai's hand Sarai dealt hardly with her so she should Hagar fled 't was her sin What signified Sarai's hard dealing with her Persecution No the Spirit of Christ the fire-baptism the strait gate that will not suffer flesh and blood to enter into the kingdom of God this it signified Hagar's flight then imports the declining and refusal of all these The legal spirited professor confident in the works of the Law will endure none of these things They are all a sad story a hard saying to him His usual way of waving them if urged and hard put to 't is to call them Blasphemy and the Witnesses thereof Blasphemers and on he goes very secure in his doatage But say or think man what he will this is Christ's way he gives up the fleshly worshipper and the fleshly part in the true spiritual worshipper to the spiritual to be humbled and abased broken and subdued hardly dealt with crucified slain and offered up in sacrifice under the power of the Cross of Christ or fire-baptism of his spirit typified by Sarai There 's no entring into the kingdom but we must pass thorow this fire this tribulation this bruising of the inmost part of the natural man his very spirit and rational powers whatever ever becomes of his outward as to persecution from the world Hagar despised Sarai Ishmael mocked Isaac Gen. 21. 9. this was persecution Usually those that are taken out of the world or worldly first-creation constitution and frame of spirit within them by the fire-baptism do so differ even from the professing part of the world in their very religion or union with God by another Covenant and in their more excellent way of worshipping God in spirit and truth not letter and form that they seldom or never scape the external branch of the cross and baptism of blood through the rage enmity of man against this new-creature marvellous light and life that is springing up in those whom God is transforming into another nature But let men take it how they will the cross the fire-baptism we must come to within us first or last or we cannot be saved The fleshly worshipper either yields to this fiery doctrine ministry and way or resists or flies If He get the magistrates sword on his side as if Hagar could have got Abram to side with her against Sarai then he 'l make the messenger of such tydings fly Sarai must fly or suffer under Hagar Men decry it for heresie blasphemy and persecute him that talkes at such a rate Thus Christ himself was served by the zealous legally religious Iew. 'T was the religious professing party of the Iewes that crucified Christ and would take no answer hear no reason or argument from Pilate the Heathen Magistrate to the contrary But if the sowre Legalist neither will yeild nor can brui●ishsly resist this hard doctrine by outward force or persecution then he takes Hagars course flies it And what then He every where decries this spiritual doctrine of the cross and fire-baptism for heretical dangerous and seductive wishing all to beware how they meddle with such books converse with such persons or listen to such dangerous suggestions While toleration lasted I have experimented this to be the too general frame of spirit amongst professors in this nation who have evidently chosen rather to venture a persecution of their own doctrine and persons than endure this and the assertors thereof Here 's the mystery of Hagars flight The Angel of the Lord advises her to return and submit her self to her Mistris In her all these timerous fugitive envious legal-spirited Christians that are leavened with the leaven of the Pharisees are admonished to entertain better thoughts of the New-Ierusalem Spouse resembled by Sarai and submit themselves to her doctrine and more excellent way to the cross the fire-baptism the spirit of Christ the covenant of grace Sarai This is the doctrine the reproof the correction the instruction on in everlasting righteousness which that History that Allegory is pregnant with Christ with both his Covenant Spouses and Children are allegorically expressed by Husband and Wife Father and Children Head and Members with the like Such expressions are interpretable into mystery by a due considering the duties and offices of such Relations in the letter And as Christ himself so Paul and others are in way of Allegory called Fathers of such as by them are begotten to Christ through the Gospel 1 Cor. 4. 15. and vers 17. he calls Timothy his
beloved Son so 1 Tim. 1. 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2. and 2. 1. They are also called Pastors Mothers and Nurses to both the Seeds or Children of Christ in their kind 1 Thes. 2. 7 and 11. Gal. 4. 19. In another respect every true believer as he becomes the Child so is the Mother of Christ as with pangs and throw's towards the new birth to the loss and at last death of the single activity of his fleshly mind and heart Christ in spirit be formed and brought forth in him by him Then comes the Life of Faith the true reigning New-Ierusalem Principle in which reason has its resurrection the kingdom of heaven within him He ownes Christ in his heavenly headship as his Lord and King expressed Cant. 3. 11. by setting the Crown upon his head owning a willing subjection to the Law of the Spirit of Life in this day of espousal to him which is a day of gladness to Christ good men and angels Luk. 15. 10. The believer is the wise Virgin who becomes at same time the Mother and Spouse of Christ brings forth her own Lord and King in Spirit as the Virgin Mary brought him forth in Flesh. In the very day that Christ is thus brought forth in and by the believer they are espoused together by the new and everlasting Covenant The believer owns Christ as Head Husband and King Upon this Christ rejoyces Angels rejoyce the Believe● himself rejoyces with joy unspeakable and full of glory 'T is a solemn thanksgiving day a day of gladness of the heart unto them all Thus in a various sence is Christ Father and Son of the Spiritual believer and the believer the Mother and Child of Christ. Christ is Head Lord King Husband Brother Son Fellow-heir to believers They are Body Subjects Wife Children Members Fellow-heirs to him All these expressions are Allegorical borrowed from natural Relations to signify spiritual Mysteries of love union and converse between Christ and his Church One thing is said and a farther more excellent thing meant The Apostle having spoken of the duties of Husbands and Wives towards one another winds up all into this as his main intendment the spiritual marriage-union between Christ and his Church This saies he is a great mystery or mystically signifies a far greater thing concerning Christ and his Church Ephes. ● 22 23. The Revelation in a manner all along is a description of heavenly things by such earthly Mediums such Allegorical types and expressions as are borrowed out of Moses Pentateuch in the Tabernacle and Temple-worship And of Christ himself t is said that without a parable a similitude an allegory he spake not unto the people Mat. 13. 34. Mark 4. 34. Must not he then that truly expounds those parables allegorize them But how must he do it Parable in the Hebrew is a word that signifies sharpness as proceeding from a sharp wit and needing the like to interpret it That sharp wit must be no less than spiritual discerning and that strong and well exercised too or Scripture Riddles will be too hard for it One or two more of these let us take notice of Sampsons typical Riddle together with the Philistines exposition does yet want an exposition Out of Christ the strong Lion of the tribe of Iudah as the eater or sacrificer of the natural man in himself and us by the fire-baptism comes the choicest meat the sweetest hony-comb of all that that feeds and brings us into a conformity with him in his death and resurrection Christ ha's left his own interpretation of the parable of the Sower and Seed of the Tares and the like upon record in Scripture and yet who understands them how much do men yet need an exposition of those very expositions Paul tells us Hagar and Sarai are an Allegory two Covenants Gal. 4. 24. Then he mystically expounds Ishmael and Isaac into two 〈◊〉 of Christ the true antitypical Father of the faithful in both Covenants He declares moreover that he that 's born of this Father but after the flesh will persecute him that 's born of the same Father after the spirit Even so it is now vers 29. Notwithstanding this Allegorizing exposition given by Paul how little does the self-confident legal Christian hold himself concerned in the character of him that is born after the flesh How verily does he conceit himself to be the other that 's born after the Spirit Hereupon he just●es out the spiritual man indeed for a Fanatick wrangler a fool a mad man a blasphemer any thing that he lists to call him Hos. 9. 7. At last he comes to this downright willful resolution as Esau against Iacob and as the professing religious Iewes against Christ in the very same case Come this is the heir let 's kill him and the inheritance shall be ours They imagine this vain thing even to take the kingdom of Heaven by force from the right owner But if this eager-spirited generation would but give themselves leisure to consider this● the like Scriptures they might see that they that are charactered here by him that 's born after the flesh are a holy seed of Christ that have Covenant interest in him and actual communion with him They are Children of Hagar or the first Covenant One would wonder how they should miss this But they shuffle it oft upon the Iews that were under the ceremonious dispensation of the Law and so rid their hands of it Is there no legal Christian then is there no danger of the leaven of the Pharisees under the outward dispensasation of the Gospel Yes say they but that lies onely at their door who depend upon their own personal operations for their acceptance and communion with God not on the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer I interrogate When Paul describes his Pharisaical state he tells us he was touching that righteousness which is in the Law blameless Could this be unless by the comeliness of God put upon him or perfect righteousness of that kind from Christ imputed to him Ezek. 16. 14. Was he a legal Iew was he any more than a moral Heathen else But if what is above said will not help to rectify this mistake I shall be somewhat hopeless of being instrumental to your relief in this point 'T is sad to see the self-pleasing interpretations of this and the like Scriptures all along the Bible so universal and unscrupled amongst all sorts of Professors an epidemical mistake How to lift them out of the mire of these their own self-bewildring imaginations who knowes but Christ Flesh and the carnal mind that 's enmity to God Rom. 8. 7. must never be of any larger compass or farther significancy with them than corrupt polluted debauched degenerate nature dead in trespasses and sins or at best but the moral heathen with some glimmering revivals and sparklings of rational Light and Life But as for their part they are in Christ they experience actual communion with God and once in Christ for ever
course of well-doing without any amazement Sufferings for well-doing patiently born are acceptable with God A quiet rejoycing deportment in sufferings will be to your adversaries an evident token of their Perdition but to you of Salvation and that of God To him that thus overcometh in the Faith and Spirit of Christ the true Abraham he will give to sit with him on his Throne and to inherit all things Let the like Spirit of Faith be in you that was in Abraham and you will never rest till you come into his bosom You will be but pilgrims and strangers here Your eye your heart and expectations will be upon that better Country Such a frame of mind and heart God is so well pleased with that he will not fail to make more rich and full discoveries of himself to you daily for the building and gathering of you up nearer and closer unto himself till he be the whole desire of your soul the only desirable who is altogether lovely Text. I know Abraham sayes God that he will command his Children and houshold c. Obs. 3. Observe hence That it is the duty of every believing Father not only to teach his Children and Family for the keeping them in a good conversation while he is present with them but to leave instructions with them and charge them after him that they may know how to deport themselves both in their inward and outward man when he is gone Thus it was with Abraham He instructed or catechized them as the Original imports laid the foundation for a future growth and progress in the same Faith with him whereby they also might be enabled to communicate it and so lay the like foundation in others and build up one another in the same most holy Faith which charge is also implyed and supposed to have been insisted on and with all earnestness pressed upon them as being unspeakably most carefull and concerned in the prop●gating of his believing Seed to the worlds end Thus Abraham also as others in like case will have his great personal advantage by the bountiful communicating and instilling the spiritual and heavenly Doctrine of the Gospel into the hearts of as many as he can spreading abroad amongst others the precious savour of that grace of God that he had so plentifully been enriched with and tasted of in his own experiences all-along This heavenly Life and marvellous Light of the Faith of the Son of God is of that nature that the more it is diffused by way of communication unto others the more it encreases in the Dispenser thereof redounding to his advantage as well as theirs that receive it The fruit of his doings Ier. 17. 10. spring up from such foundations of Holiness as by his instruction were ministerially laid The works that naturally flow from that Doctrine follow them after they are gone hence Rev. 14.13 The Church in the Canticles chap. 7. 1. is described by him that best knew her temper to be of this noble princely communicative disposition Freely ye have received freely give sayes Christ and by giving they receive more abundance The fruit of such labours will be reckoned on their account This is a great encouragement for men to abound in the work of the Lord forasmuch as they know that their labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. Let it be your constant care then to multiply such fruits as may abound to both our accounts in pursuance and imitation of that Faith which by word and deed ye have heard and seen in me all the time that God hath pleased to continue me with you It will be both yours and my great gain if you be careful to glorifie your heavenly Father answerably to the many seasonable instructions directed to you in the Word of the Lord by my Ministry This was Abraham's faith way life and practice who being dead yet speaketh to the whole Family of Faith throughout the whole world unto this day While he was present with his Family he taught them in word and deed by what he said in his Ministry and by what he did in all other holy coversation and godliness First by the things he did as a pattern of Faith Holiness and Sobriety in his conversation and then by what he said in giving daily instructions to them to follow his steps walk honestly as in the day in the Spirit worthy of God by the same Rule they observed him to walk For they ought so to walk even as he walked abiding in his words 1 Joh. 2.6 Thus Abraham's Family had his pattern and instruction in the Faith of God's Elect for their direction while he was conversant amongst them Secondly He gave forth command and instructed them in the Name of the Lord that when he their believing Father should be gone from them into a more exalted state of life to them invisible and undiscernable ●● to any further personal converse with him in his former way they should be as carefull still as ever to walk in the steps of his Faith bringing forth the fruits thereof unto holiness if not more than ever before while he was with them Christ himself the most true and absolute Father of the Faithful took this course a little before his death gave that large and most admirably significant Instruction to his Disciples recorded in the 13 15 16 and 17. Chapters of Iohn to strengthen and establish their hearts in the present Truth they had been taught and were possessed of whatever hatred persecution or cross blows they should meet with from the world as also to beget in them an● assured expectation of his Return to them in a more excellent way of converse than ever they yet experienced On this account he told them that how sad and troubled soever they may be through mistake of his departure and of the sharp and bitter way of it it was expedient even for them as well as for himself that he should go away forasmuch as he would then return to them in a more excellent estate a better Comforter a better Counsellor that would tell them more excellent things things they could not yet bear to the fulfilling of their joy Use. Let me then direct unto you a word of Exhortation by the example of Abraham and Christ himself in my present circumstances in the near approach of my dissolution and parting with you Be not disheartned in the way of the Lord be not discouraged in the way I have gone before you in and am yet going drawing near now to the finishing of my course with joy The God of Heaven hath set his seal to it in my heart that it is the very way of Truth the choicest and best way you can go the way that not only will have the most comfortable close by ending in everlasting joy but that hath also the most solid foundation of inward rej●ycing all-along attending it even in this world Though there be sorrow and death to the flesh