me My Sheep hear my voice and I give unto them Eternal Life To these let us for further testimony add the expressions of the Apostle Paul The life which I now live in the Flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Our life is hid with Christ in God When Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we appear with him in Glory The first Man was made a living Soul the last Adam was made a quickning Spirit That was not first which is spirituall but that which is natural and afterward that which is spiritual By one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body whether we be Jew or Gentile whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit By these bright Scripture-lights is evidently discovered and manifested to us that as the head in the natural body contains the animal spirit and conveyeth and gives animation to all the Members of the Body so the Lord Christ God-Man in one Person is the head of his Spiritual and mystical Body the Universal Church and that from him alone not only that spiritual life consisting in holiness and righteousness but also that eternal and immortal life in which both in Soul and Body we shall live in him and with him at the Resurrection for ever and for ever is given and communicated into every Member of his body the Church united to him in this life by a true faith and by the animation and in-dwelling of the Holy Ghost who is the life and spirit of God the Father and of God the Son Therefore in these and other Scriptures God the Father is sometimes called our life other-times Christ and the Holy Ghost is said to be our life thereby evidencing that this eternal life of the Saints hath its immediate rise and Original from the Trinity in Unity God blessed for ever Not by participation of the Essence of the God-head but by the real and spiritual union of their Persons as Members of Christs mystical Body unto the Person of Christ through faith and the inhabitation and vivification of the Holy Ghost The first of which viz. Faith shall cease and be swallowed up after death in fruition But the other shall continue to Eternity From what I have here offered although in great weakness for who is sufficient for these things I hope it is abundantly cleared that the eternal life of the Saints and the glorious incorruptability and immortality of their Bodies flowes from a far higher Principle or cause than from only meer nature made new refined and incorruptable And that though the Elements through their incorruptability are become Eviternal like the Superior Orbes and are in a natural possibility if God please so to continue without change or alteration Everlastingly yet in all this they fall far short of the Eternal duration of the glorified Souls and bodies of the Saints which have not only a perpetuity arising from the refined and incorruptible nature but an Eternity flowing from the spiritual real and inseparable union of their Persons through faith and the Holy Ghost to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ God-man as Members united to their Head In which respect besides the declared positive and unchangeable decree and promises of God who cannot lye as these Scriptures witness amongst many others formerly mentioned viz. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Who so eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last Day The Saints I say are placed and fixed in such a blessed and certain state and condition as living spiritually in God and God in them as hath been proved that it is as possible for God who is Eternal Life to perish and dye as for any of his Saints to dye or perish that live by and in his life according to that unanswerable Argument of our Lord and Saviour As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me Because I live yee shall live also To conclude I humbly conceive that this Eternal Life of the Saints as to the reason and nature thereof far transcends the Eternal Life of the glorious Angels in that as far as is revealed in Scripture their life was given them by an act of Gods goodness will and power in their first Creation and is preserved continued and confirmed to the Elect Angels by an act of his grace And therefore those of them that kept not their first state are forever separated from God who is life and swallowed up into Eternal Death whereas the life even to the Saints proceeding from Gods spiritual inhabitation and communion with them is undeterminable unchangeable inseparable and is therefore Eternal O my Soul shall this thy impure mortal body immediately after the making of a new Heaven and a new Earth the refining of the four Elements of which it was formed and out of which it shall again be raised and reassumed appear at the Resurrection of the just as having its substance purified and made incorruptible Therefore according to the Scripture-phrase immortal and everlasting like as are the bright and superior Orbs Yea which is much more wonderfull shall this incorruptability everlastingness and immortality of thy soul and body be unchangeable and eternal because thy Person is spiritually and really united by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost unto the Person of Christ thy Head and unto God in Christ who is Eternal Life yea lastly doth this life excell and transcend as in respect of the cause and nature of it the life and being of all other Creatures even of the ever blessed Angels as being built not only as theirs is upon the Basis of Gods creating power and goodness which gives a beeing to all things but is establisht upon his declared promise and eternal truth and hath its unalterable duration from our dwelling and living in God and he in us and from that inseparable fellowship we have with the Father and the Son in the communion of the Holy Ghost O my Soul are these things true Have they been evidenst to thee out of the Scripture of truth O how oughtest thou in all humility and enlarged thankfulness to prostrate thy self at the foot-stool of thy infinite good gracious and mercifull God and Father in the Lord Jesus Christ admiring and adoring him First for the Revelation and manifestation by his Word and holy Spirit of so high ravishing and stupendious a mystery the wonder and praise of glorified Saints and Angels and the miracle of divine love Next let as the Prophet speaks one deep call unto another and from the sight of the
eating and drinking of the glorified Saints which was not at all in the question For if so it may be brought as well to prove that they shall in all things else be like the Angels which I humbly conceive no Man will or hath asserted since in many things were it proper to be treated of upon this subject I could shew a manifold difference betwixt the Angels and the glorified Saints This being sufficient and a clear and full answer to that objection I shall now proceed to speak more particularly although very succinctly as having in the six foregoing reasons or preliminaries spoken more than I intended and given sufficient satisfaction to my self and I hope to others both from Scripture and reason as to this Subject First as to the sight or sense of Seeing the Eye although by Oculists Naturalists and Anatomists it is now placed in the first rank of the bodies parts or members as a subject wherein the most excellent and wonderfull wisdome of God is greatly manifested and that not only as in respect of its curious fabrick but admirable way and manner of conveighing and representing objects to the Soul whether Extra or intra mittendo or by both is not my work now to dispute or determine yet then it shall as to its optick use and faculty be much more wonderfully bettered heighthned and enlarged and that first as to its objects Now the best Eye cannot immediately behold the Sun shining in its brightness any time with fixedness without twinckling trouble and danger of blindness and as though it was asham'd of its weakness is presently vailed with a tear Now a Daniel an Ezekiel cannot look upon or behold an Angel without astonishment and falling to the ground upon their faces as being not able to behold their created glory But after the Resurrection we shall with these Eyes as Job speaks not only behold the glorified Saints that shine as the Sun and are as so many millions of Suns but the glorious Angels and our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ the brightest Sun of righteousness and shall see God as he is yea we shall see him face to face and live This is that everlasting and glorious beatifical Vision of Father Son and Holy Ghost the for ever blessed Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity so much spoken of by the ancient Fathers in which as in a most bright cleer mirror the Saints shall behold their Eyes being herein assistants to their Souls all things God is pleased to reveal and so far as a created nature is capable of past and present and to come As also the natures virtues and qualities of all the Creatures not as now by their effects but in their cause Idea and truth yea the high and deep things of God The second excellency of this glorified sense of sight as to its strength in respect of objects that are far distant is That whereas now our Eyes without the help of Perspective-Glasses cannot discern or clearly distinguish and inform us of the things upon Earth some few miles off and are much inferiour to Eagles and Vultures of whom Naturalists report That when by high flying they are so lessened as not to be discerned by our Eyes yet they can behold a little quarry upon the ground and their prey although many miles distant from them and that now through the imbecility and weakness of our sight in a clear day we judge the skie to be of an azure colour whereas truly it hath no colour but is only so represented being only by a vaster distance and the intermediate Aire enlightened by the Sun and that distance beyond the extent of our weak Eyes upon the level of the Earth seems to be dark or black But hereafter at the Resurrection the Eye being the Instrument and Organ through and by which the Soul beholds all things shall be so strengthened that it shall thereby behold things very far distant Else it should lose by union with the body that excellency of sight it had as a Spirit before it re-entred into the Body It being clear and evident that the Angels and Spirits excell all other living Creatures as to the activity and extent of seeing That evil spirit the Devil being able to behold and represent to our blessed Saviour from the top of a high Mountain all the Kingdomes of the World that is of that Hemisphere and semi-circle of the Earth and the glory of them a most vast view and prospect so also the Angel of God called unto Hagar and afterwards to Abraham out of Heaven A third admirable excellency of the Eye glorified is the wonderfull life and beauty of it Now it is the chief Ornament and grace of the Face in Men or Women but then it shall super-excell what it is now as much as the Eye of a living Man transcends the Eye of one that is dead Which life splendor and beauty doth not only proceed from the glorification of the Eye as apart and member of the glorified body but from those spirit-full and sparkling rayes sent forth from the within glorious Souls which like the Sun-beams shining through and upon the purest Chrystal shall cause the Eye to shine with a most delightfull and unexpressible radiancy and splendor much like to that wonderfull and visional appearance of our Head and sample the Lord Jesus to Saint John of whom it is written That his Eyes were as a Flame of Fire O my Soul shall thy sence of seeing attain to such a height of perfection as to be able not only to behold glorified Saints and Angels but the much more resplendent face of thy glorious Saviour yea of God himself shall it be so greatly fortified as to surveigh like the Angels things remotely distant shall thy eyes be so beautifull and radiant as to shine and sparkle like the Stars of the first magnitude O resolve and endeavour by the assistance of Gods free grace not to vassalage and debase them by beholding Earthly vanities much less to make use and imploy them as the Pandors of Sathan and the Dung-ports of sinfull lusts and lasciviousness like the Men of this World Whose Eyes are full of Adultery and uncleanness But let them according to the end for which they were created be wholly employed in beholding and admiring the glory of God in his wonderfull works held forth in the bright-shining Stars and Planets and in the splendor of the Moon and Sun Let them be also helpfull Instruments to conveigh unto thee continual matter of praise and admiration as to the wisdome of thy Creator in the consideration and meditation not only as to the excellent and universal frame of Heaven and Earth but as to the great variety and beauty of each particular Creature so shall this their Heavenly and holy exercise prepare thee and them for a greater measure of perfect Glory O blessed Spouse and dear Saviour who hast said to thy Church
and found wisdome I am understanding I have strength I love them that love me and those that seek me early shall finde me A SCRIPTVRE-CATECHISME I am the only begotten Son of the Father the brightness of his glory the express Image of his Person upholding all things by the Word of my Power I was by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him rejoycing in the habitable parts of his Earth and my delights were with the Sons of Men. Blessed is the Man that heareth me waiting daily at my Gates waiting at the Posts of my Doors For who so findeth me findeth life and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me sinneth against his own Soul all that hate me love death But if ye set at naught my counsel I also will laugh at your Calamity I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear comes as Desolations and your destruction comes as a whirl-wind Then shall ye call upon me but I will not answer for that you hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices But who so hearkneth to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil Believe in God believe also in me I and the Father am one There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one For though there be many that are called Gods whether in Heaven or in Earth The Lord your God is one Lord and to you there is but one God the Father of whom are all things who Created the Heaven and the Earth And one Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World by whom are all things and you by him And one Spirit the Holy Ghost by whom you are sanctified I am the Way the Truth and the Life the Word of God that in the beginning was with God and was God the life and light of Men while ye have light believe in the light in me the Eternal Word that was made flesh and dwelt amongst you was conceived by the Holy Ghost and made of a Woman born of the Virgin Mary of the Seed of Abraham and of the Seed of David The beloved and only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth This is the work of God that ye believe on me whom he hath sent that was delivered to Pontius Pilate the Governor of Judea who gave Sentence scourged me and delivered me to be Crucified who that I might sanctifie you with my own Blood Suffered without the Gate being obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross dyed for your sins was buried and rose again the third Day according to the Scriptures for your Justification O look upon me whom you have pierced and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the Day of his fierce anger whose Soul being in an Agony in the Garden was exceeding sorrowful even unto death so that my sweat was as it were great drops of blood And I cryed out upon the Cross my God my God why hast thou forsaken me my Soul being then made an offering for sin yea sin for you and upon me the Lord laid the iniquities of you all Yet did he not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption To as many of you as receive me and believe on my name I will give power to become the Sons of God For I the Lord am risen indeed And am ascended unto my Father and to your Father and to my God and your God and have led Captivity Captive spoyled Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly tryumphing over them am received into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God having all power given me in Heaven and in Earth where I ever live to make intercession for you until I come in the Clouds in the same manner as I was taken up from you into Heaven the second time without sin unto salvation as being ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and dead For my Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son I am the head over all things to the Church which is my Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all The House and Church of the living God The Pillar and ground of the truth As your Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ. Therefore by one spirit be ye baptized into one body and be made to drink into one spirit the Cup of blessing which you bless is it not the Communion of my blood And the Bread which you break is it not the Communion of my Body For you being many are one Bread and one Body Wherefore let there be no schisme in the Body but let each of you as Members have the same care one for another to the increase of the body unto the edifying it self in love Be it known unto you that through me is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by me you that believe and are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses For God hath exalted me with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins and redemption through my blood according to the riches of his grace I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live And who so ever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye For the hour cometh in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear my voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation If you then will be my Sheep hear my voice and I will know you and you shall follow me and I will give unto you eternal life and you shall never perish neither shall any Man pluck you out of my hand My Father which gave you unto me is greater than all and no Man is able to pluck you out of my Fathers hand For God so loved the World that he gave me his only begotten Son that who so ever of you believes in me should not perish but have everlasting life If ye love me ye will keep
unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traytors heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God having a forme of Godliness but denying the Power thereof from such turn away For of this sort are they which creep into Houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with sins led away with divers lusts ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Now as Jannes and Jambres with-stood Moses so do these also resist the truth Men of corrupt mindes reprobate as concerning the faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all Men as theirs was The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good Therefore the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them For God hath shewed it unto them For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are cleerly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and God-head so that they are without excuse O righteous Father the World hath not known Thee but I have known Thee No Man cometh to the Father but by Me. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For I and the Father am one Believe also my works that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in him For in the beginning was I the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by Me and without Me was not any thing made that was made In me was life and the life was the light of Men. I the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst you and ye beheld my glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth I am the image of the invisible God By me were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers All things were created by Me and for Me I am before all things and by me all things consist There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one I spake unto my Apostles and true Ministers saying Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost What high blasphemers then are they that deny the Holy Ghost to be God The Spirit of God moved upon the Waters And by the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the Spirit of his Mouth The Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testifie of Me. For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak He shall glorifie Me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Peter said unto Ananias In that thou hast lied to the Holy Ghost thou hast not lied unto Men but unto God Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men. The Grace of me the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost the Comforter Preserver and Sanctifier be with you all This is the will of God even your Sanctification that you should abstain from Fornication and that every one of you should know how to possess his Vessel in Sanctification and Honour Not in the lust of Concupiscence as the Gentiles that know not God Wherefore to avoid Fornication let every Man have his own Wife and every Woman her own Husband Have you not read that he that made Man in the beginning made them Male and Female I the Lord will bear witness against them that deal treacherously with the Wife of their Youth Is she not thy Companion and the Wife of thy Covenant And did not I make one yet had I the residue of the Spirit And wherefore one that I might seek a godly Seed Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the Wife of his Youth For I the Lord God of Israel hate putting away Therefore I say unto you whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery and whosoever marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The Husband is the Head of the Wife not of Wives as I am the Head of the Church Let every one therefore in particular so love his Wife even as himself And the Wife not the Wives see that she reverence her Husband Despise not Prophesyings quench not the Spirit He that heareth you that are my true Ministers heareth Me and he that despiseth you despiseth Me and he that despiseth Me despiseth him that sent Me. He that is of God heareth God's words My Sheep hear my voice He that knoweth God heareth my Ministers but he that is not of God heareth them not And as oft as you eat the Bread and Drink of the Cup in my Sacraments ye do it in remembrance of Me and shew my Death until I come Pray without ceasing The workers of iniquity call not upon the Lord. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill For verily I say unto you till Heaven and Earth pass one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandements and shall teach Men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the Kingdome of Heaven Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are Gods Let every Soul be subject unto the higher Powers For there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation For Rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and
continue you in the things that ye have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom ye have learned them For evil Men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived Consider one another to provoke to love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is But exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the Day approaching Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace For there is one Body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your Calling One Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Since then you are the Body of Christ and Members in particular let there be no Schisme in the Body Now I hear that there be divisions amongst those that call themselves Christians For there must be Heresies also among you that those that are approved may be manifest among you which were spoken before of my Apostles that there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the spirit Now by my Name I desire you that you all speak the same thing and that there be no Divisions amongst you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment If you say then I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Are ye not carnal Is Christ divided Who then is Paul And who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed Even as the Lord gave to every Man If then such an one as was Paul plants or as Apollo was watereth It is God that giveth the increase Therefore let no Man glory in Men But do you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not Me but their own Belly and by good words and fair Speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Finally whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any Virtue and if there be any praise think on these things And those things which ye have both known and received and heard and seen in me do And the Father himself that loveth you the God of Peace shall be with you Holy Father who hearest me always This is Life Eternal to know Thee the only true God and Me whom thou hast sent Keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given Me that they may be one as we are one That they all may be one as thou Father art in Me and I in Thee that they also may be one in us And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And that the World may know that thou hast sent Me and hast loved them as thou hast loved Me. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which Thou hast given me I have given to them the words which Thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from Thee and they have believed that Thou didst send me I pray for them I pray not for the World but for those that thou hast given me For they are Thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them I pray that thou wouldest keep them from the evil of the World and that my joy may be fulfilled in them Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Finally Beloved Wife of my Youth and dear Children Farewel be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of peace and love shall be with you For this cause I bow my Knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named That he would give you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man That Christ may live in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with the fulness of God The God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepheard of the Sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is most pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us to him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ throughout all Ages World without end The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen A Post-script of the Father to his Wife and Children concerning the foregoing Epistle with some further Exhortations to the practice thereof MY dearest heart and intirely affected Children the good and salvation of whose Souls I pray for and labour for as for my own I have I trust by the direction of the holy Spirit chosen in this manner to write unto you as hoping that what is delivered to you in the Person and words of our Lord and beloved Saviour For such is every word in the Epistle except some words not substantial necessary for connexion explanation and application requisit in a subject of such various matter You will with the more reverence and affection delight and obedience attend to and receive For although all the words therein were not uttered by his own mouth upon Earth yet were they all indited by his holy Spirit who spake by the Prophets and Apostles and is the Lord God of the holy Prophets So that if ye will not hear and obey him herein speaking to you by himself and by them Neither will you be perswaded though one arose and spake to you from Hell and from the dead Ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons And how I have kept nothing back that was profitable unto you but have shewed you and have taught you both in private and more publiquely Testifying unto you and
Eternal God the Holy Ghost lest you should think it too high presumption to write after so rare a Copy Let me remember you of and set before you also â—s so many laudable and excellent Patterns a few of the many famous Works of our own Country-men such as the divine and eloquent Contemplations and occasional Meditations of Doctor Hall Spencer's Fairy Queen Deveout Hâ—rberts sweet guards and honest Wither's Poems which are as so many eminent Piramides of white and black Marble whose tops point towards Heaven as glorifying God as their chief aime and end and whose substance and Basis shall as their living Monuments stand fixt and undemolish upon Earth to their perpetual honour and as â—eaching Pillars to Posterity for ever Here possibly some of you may object that you are to seek of subjects to imploy our parts and giftâ— upon to the glory of God and the good and Instruction of your Brethren To whom I answer View and contemplate the wonderful Works of our Almighty and most wise Creator in the vast Canony of the Heavens and the large Globe of the Earth and Seas and you shall finde matter enough for all the Tongues Pens and gifts of Men and Angels Be not like the bruit Beasts that remain sensual and dumb in the midst of wonders Are you professedly Christians and shall that great and glorious subject the admirable and stupendious work of your Redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man the Saviour anointed the Mysterious work of the Incomprehensible Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost the Eternal God blessed for ever a work above all expressions and conceptions yea above the praises of holy Saints made perfect and glorious Angels wherein is held forth if ever you hope to be saved from Hell and endless torments your free and eternal Election by God the Father to everlasting Life and Glory your effectual calling and sanctification by the holy Spirit your free Justification by the alone righteousness of Christ and ravishing lively hope of a never ending happy and blessed state in the highest Heavens The blessed fruit and effect of the infinite and free love of God of the unvaluable Righteousness Merit Death Passion Satisfaction and continued Mediation of Christ our Lord that Person who is God in our Nature the eternal begotten and beloved Son of the Father the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person I say shall this Miracle of divine love this wonder of wonders these your chief and greatest concerns together with its most beautiful attendants Faith Hope Love and the rest of the holy Image of God in you be slighted forgotten and not thought worthy to be the subject of your choicest Oratory and Poetry and of the best of your gifts wit and parts O Jewish Ingratitude shall a Heavenly Host of Angels much less concern'd than you begin give and leave you a pattern in that short but full Anthem at our Saviour's Birth Glory be to God on High on Earth peace good will towards Men And will you be still wickedly yea brutishly unthankful and not follow their holy example shall not the French Druids and our own British Bards stand up in Judgment against you at the last Day But possible some of you will say you are as yet but Babes in Christ and your Muse cannot as yet mount so high as these sublime Misteries to whom I answer Is not the large Mapp of God's great constant and marvellous providences actings and deliverances towards his Church in all Ages even from the beginning of the World until this Day spread before your Eyes in the sacred Scriptures of truth and in Ecclesiastical and other Histories Yea in your own Nation in this our Age of wonders All which in honour and gratitude to God and the edification and encouragement of his Church calls for from you in Imitation of God's Saints in former times as hath been afore declared many Triumphant Arches Pillars and Monuments of praise both in Prose and Verse never to be worn out by time or thrown down by the Malice and slanders of traducing Persons But probably some of you may be Politicians and time-servers and therefore although convins't of your duty think it neither prudent nor safe to discover either your Religion Judgment or affection To such that like Naman to the Prophet Elisha say God be merciful to me in this I cannot say go in peace but this I will say that Ingratitude includes all other sins against God and Man Si ingratum dixeris Omnia dixeris Wherefore that all such may convince and Judge themselves notwithstanding all these Excuses and subter fuges Let me ask them this question Have you from your birth until now received no mercies nor blessings from God to your Souls to your Bodies or to your Relations No recovery from spiritual or bodily Diseases nor deliverances from spiritual and corporal enemies and dangers no blessings temporal spiritual and eternal no gracious and extraordinary providences to you or yours If then you cannot deny but must acknowledge to have received from the Lord many favours of this Nature O may I not say of the most of the English Nobility and Gentry as once our Saviour of the Ten Leapers Were there not Ten cleansed where are the Nine Only One returning to give thanks Wherefore lest your unthankfulness mud and stop up the stream of God's mercy to you and the Nation for the future and since it is God's commands the practise of God's Saints and your duty as Creatures and Christians to be Praisefull Yea lest your Talents be taken from you and given to others and you receive that most terrible Sentence declared by our Lord at his return to the unprofitable Servant that hid his Talent in a Napkin Bind him Hand and Foot and cast him into everlasting Fire O let that fearful Declaration like a Thunder-clap rouse and awaken you out of your sleepy sloathfulness the Night is far spent the Day is at hand even of your Judgment and mine Wherefore walk as Children of the Light and Husband that Inch of your Life which is behind redeeming the time because the Days you live in are evil Stir up the Grace that is in you meditate of and contemplate the ineffable excellencies and attributes of our Incomprehensible God as they are manifested in his glorious actings and the fore-mentioned particulars Pen Publish Print to this and future Generations his wonderful works and praises So shall you be Angelical Heralds of his Glory Grandize and Ennobilize your Nobility dignifie and hononourably perpetuate your Gentility And not like most of the preceding Peers and Gentry of this Nation which is worth your observation have like them your Names written in the Dust and buried in oblivion O joyn then with Angels and Ark-Angels and all the Triumphant and glorified Saints in Heaven in spiritual and divine Hallelujahs here and you shall certainly sing your part with them in the blessed
Baptisme and in thy faithful promise made to me as well as to Abraham since thou hast given me to believe and to plead it here before thee I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed What shall I render unto thee O Lord for all these thy benefits Since I and my Children are but like seventeen Cyphers which signify nothing unless thou place with and before us that only blest Unite thy Holy One the Lord Jesus in and by whom we shall be accounted of a great value with thee and be numbred amongst thy Saints O let me and my Childrens Children obey and glorifie thee until time be swallowed up in Eternity that what is wanting now as to our thankfulness may be in some measure although never enough for thy mercies are unmeasurable be supplyed in the length of years and by so many and in and by their multiplyed Generations for whose sakes as well as for this present Age I humbly Register here both thy blessings and my perpetual praises Amen The BEE-HIVE A thankfull Poem on the same Subject HAst thou O gracious God so highly honor'd me As to co-work and be thy humble Instrument To bring forth Souls array'd with Immortality 〈◊〉 worth than this whole world with its rich ornaments 〈◊〉 being living Images of Thee by right Of Christ in posse to be glorious Saints in Light Hast thou by me O Lord as thy blest second cause 〈…〉 that for their rare excelling frame Are 〈◊〉 worlds and through obedience to thy Lawes And Faith shall be like thee and truly fear thy Name Hast thou me given sixteen Tongues and sixteen pair Of Hands and Feet to praise serve thee for thine they are And shall my Muse be silent All these Tongues be dâ—mb As to thy praise No Lord through thy assisting grace I and my swarm of Children shall become A holy Quire a little Church thy dwelling Place The Trumpets of that Goodness which gives me to see Sixteen fair Branches from one blessed Tree Lord did thy Abraham esteem one Isaac more Than all his Earthly wealth Are a Posterity The living Monuments of Parents a rich Ore Our lively Pourtraictures in whom we never die Pillars of Families and the Foundations And Builders up of Churches Cities Nations The strength of Kingdomes Riches of a State The honour and defence of their weak aged Sires As ready for to meet the Enemies in the Gate A gift only from thee the fruit of chast desires Natures prime Flowers for beauty and which long endure Our choicest Houshold-stuff and richest Furniture O let me as my prop'â—est act of Gratitude As living Sacrifices offer them to thee And to thy Service since such servitude Their freedome is as once I did in Baptisme Lord hear my fervent Prayer and answer give Granting them all in thee a renew'd life to live Amen ARGUMENT Vpon the Lord's most bountiful goodness in giving me an Estate of Inheritance of about Three Thousand Three Hundred Pounds a Year and upon his wise and righteous Providence since in his Re-assumption and taking it from me Naked come I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thither The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. Soliloquium or Discourse HOw wonderful various and mysterious are the actings of God in this World so that no Man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Let no Man therefore rashly Judge himself or his Brother as to these mundain and subsolary Dispensations lest he be judged of the Lord and possibly before he dies in another give Judgment upon himself This was the great sin of Job's Religious Friends and David's wicked Enemies in their change and low condition who censured the one for his hypocrisie and the other as a Rebel and a Traytor Wherefore as private persons Judge not before the time when the Lord hath promised that the righteousness of all his people shall shine forth as the light and their Judgment as the Noon-day Man's state in this World is much like the Moon to Day in the full glorious and lightsome to Morrow in the Wane dark and scarcely visible The Holy Spirit styling all our good things here uncertain Riches and compares them to an Eagle that hath Wings and suddainly flies away Of this truth the Lord to his praise be it spoken for shall I receive good and not evil from the Lord hath made me an eminent Example when he ordered my light to be blown out by one breath And I and my numerous Family to be lest to starving and darkness And all this not in hatred but in his wonderful love which I shall here declare to all the people of God from experience which is the truest demonstration and to the carnal World to whom this is a great mystery My gracious God since this my suffering condition having instead of my Earthly possessions given me himself the everlasting fulness of all things to be my unvaluable Inheritance The knowledge and assurance of which inestimable gift of being his and he mine And of the Concomitants and fruits thereof Eternal Life and Glory notwithstanding my early Convertion I would had it been purchaseable have given a World for in my prosperity For what shall a Man gain though he possess the whole World if he lose his Soul yea what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul And as to the present Cloud over me the World beholds only the dark not the light-side thereof Viz. The wonderful providences and preservations confer'd and accumilated both upon me and mine during my above Eight Years restraint and separation which is the Lord give me leave and life I shall in all humble thankfulness to God's glory and his Churches good more at large declare He having preserved me often as he did David Daniel and the Three Children in the Cave Lyons Den and Fiery Furnace and provided for me and mine as strangely as he did for Eliath when fed with Flesh by the Beaks of wilde and Flesh-devouring Ravens Eternal Father Son and Holy Ghost Three glorious Persons One Omnipotent and Incomprehensible God and Beeing my God in Covenant my gracious Father in thy only begotten and beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ my alone Redeemer The only Fountain of love and goodness for thou art love and a God of tender mercies Who didst not only give me a large paternal Estate but when that was all taken from me for five Years in the late Wars didst in that time of my want and necessity relieve me and my numerous Family by the gift of a good Revenue the Legacy of my Wiâ—es Father who did not only after the end of the late troubles in the Year 1646. Restore
toward Zoar that Type of Heaven But no sooner did the Angel leave her but her eyes reversion discover her minds aversion Which her self would have seconded had not the Almighty in Favour to her Husband and in Mercy to Us made her an examplary Monument in a Pillar of Salt Next under the Law behold Saul not only a Member but chosen of God to be the Captain over his Church A man every way well qualified first for his Body his Proportion was so excellent that there was none like him amongst all the people And for his Mind it was endowed it seem'd both with Divine and Moral Vertues witness his joyning in Prophesie his performance of many Pious Duties as his Sacrifices at his Coronation his asking Counsel of God and inquiry after Sin confession and humiliation after Samuels Reproof his humility at his Election his patience and mercy at his Rejection and Defamation his Fortitude against the general and open Enemies of the Church the Ammonite his Zeal against the private and secret Enemies of Religion viz. all Witches and Wizzards Here then is a spring of Piety a profession and expression of Religion a Gourd whose glory may not only serve as a Canopy of state to Saul but as a shade to one of the Prophets A gourd indeed and so it faded For the eave of his last day ruined that frontispiece of Vertue which his whole lifes best Actions had raised towards Heaven For had he been with the Prophets and joyn'd with them in Prophesie His ignorance and wants now send him to enquire of the Devil Did he Sacrifice before to God Now behold the reward of Divination and Witchcraft are in his hand He whose custom was to ask counsel of God now seeks after a Witch and he whose seeming Zeal condemns his Righteous Son for tasting of an Honey-comb although ignorant of any restraint now contrary to his Oath and Covenant made with God without humiliation and judging of himself or confession of his fault willingly and wilfully swallows down the very gall of Sin His Humility did not more grace him when he lay buried in the peoples Stuff than his Pride did debase him when he presumed to be one of Gods Council That patience fortitude and mercy which abounded yea was extended towards others is now deficient to himself For he falls all along upon the Earth becomes sore afraid no strength is left in him and yet he refuses to Eat For having no conscience towards God no wonder if his Body wants the charity of Nature When the Creature abuses the Mercy of the Creator he must expect to taste of his Justice And when he ceases to know Himself he shall be made to know his Punishment Saul hath forgotten both his God and himself and therefore justly is he now forgotten and hears his Funeral censure pronunced by him who never spoke nor wished better to man To morrow shalt thou be with me Forewarning fore-armes not Sinners he that doubted of his Choise though from the mouth of Gods Prophet credits his refusal and death from the Devils Oracle Extraordinary Blessings are the free and voluntary gift of God and not believed of Sinners before enjoyed But his punishments are the due Burden of sins desert and therefore are expected before divulged The Soul being often-times aforehand sensible of that which the Body afterwards endures None but a false or temporary Faith hath a final cessation but such is this of Saul he now beleeves onely that he might dispair The first degree of a true Faith being usually the false ones last step God lifting up the one from the sense of judgement to the faith and sight of Mercy Sin dragging the other from the belief of punishment into the gulf of Despairation Though Saul hath his last day marked out even the morrow yet neither the love towards his Sons whose Lives bore the same date with his nor care for himself begets the least endeavour by delay or otherwise to out-live the fore-going Prophesie inevitable are the Judgements of God nay rather he hastens it shortning his flight that he might shorten his life And that sin according to its nature might have a companion he moves his Armour-bearer to be a traitour to his own Soul by example whom his precept could not force to be a traitour to his Prince For he falls upon his Sword which instead of Defence becomes a weapon of Offence So often-times God deals with the Wicked who as in life themselves are their worst Enemies so in death they prove their own Executioners Thus the Sacred Annals before and since Moses hath by the Deads example given most lively arguments to prove this falshood of the deadness of this seeming life of faith O admire here the infinite extent of the Mercy of God! who out of the carcase of this Lyon Sin this Eater Death brings forth both meat and sweetness for his Sampsons his Nazarites making the Downfal of the Fathers the Rises of the Children their Ignorance our Knowledge their faults and blindness apt spectacles to help the weakness of our sight It now remains that the holy Records of the faithful and powerful Gospel as the Eccho of the Old Testament consort in the like precedents that by so consonant an Harmony the dissonant and ungrounded judgement of the most hypocritical and temporary Believer may be convinced if not converted The purest Gold hath its Dross the best Wheat its Tares Yea the Moon is then most full of Spots when least empty of Light The Church of God in the Primitive times in its Infant Age had many who although they were deemed Members of Christ had not yet put off the Old man The Old Adam Many whose Image and outward Superscription seemed to be our Cesars yet proved to be false and unvaluable Coyn when they came to their test or exchange Witness Ananias and Sapphira a pair doubly united by Sin and Wedlock who before their trial were esteemed as Members of the True Church as Beleevers of the Apostles Doctrine and no doubt baptised in that Faith the effects of which seemed to lead them on to forsake the world for they sold their possessions to works of Charity and Piety And laid it at the Apostles feet Who would not here have parallel'd these with sincere Joses since both parties did the same duty though not with the same heart the one acting truly that Christians part which the other only play'd Mans natural light is comparatively darkness and the height of his Knowledge advantageth him only with a larger prospect of his ignorance he knowing most that confesses to know nothing The conscience of our want being the perfection of our science Only thou O Lord art the Fountain of Knowledge and Wisdom thou triest the Heart and the Reins and seest not as man seeth Shalt not thou who planted the Ear hear Thou that formed the Eye see Thou that teachest man Knowledge know Thou O
being no Man that sinneth not whose best self-righteousnesses are not as filthy rags Would we therefore as our due presume to sit down with thee in thy Kingdome Lord let such pride be far from us and do thou cause us in an humble acknowledgment of our wants and merit readily to confess that we are unprofitable Servants having done that which was our duty to do Now if of Servants we are made Friends of Bastards we are Adopted Sons of Bond-slaves we are appointed Heirs shall we not cry out that our merit is thy grace and that thou O Jesus Christ art the Lord our righteousness Art made unto us righteousness And art the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth Question not here my Soul why God doth not by his omnipotent and supreme Power in one and the same instant Call justifie sanctifie and glorifie his Elect since as he did not condemn us so he will not save us without our selves Saves us without our merits indeed not without our work He hath therefore in his infinite wisdome annexed conditions to his Covenant and ordained faith repentance and all other good works to be as so many degrees in our ascent to happiness That so Earth might be our School to fit us for Heaven and the life of grace which is imperfect glory might prepare us for the life of glory which is grace in perfection Neither be thou too curiously inquisitive to ask the reason why the Lord God in this his gracious looking back upon us doth not again build up that wide breach which Sin hath made in Mans nature That so according to our first beginnings in Adam we might have continued that course enjoying happiness here and attaining after translation glory hereafter Since that the Lord the great Architector suffered this specious yet brittle building of unstable Man to fall down flat that upon its foundation he might raise up to the glory of his grace a more beautifull edifice in which admirable structure he uses the same matter and that it might be stable for ever he Himself becomes the Head of the Corner Further the Builders of this spiritual Temple are Gods Spirit and Ministers the cement faith and all other graces the Buttresses or Pillars his Election and the tegment or covering his Providence In all this Man as of himself hath no work other ways grace would be no grace The perfect work of Redemption like that of the Creation being as above the resistance so without the assistance of the Creature Again had Man been only placed in a renued estate there would have been a possibility of falling and of plunging Himself into a double curse whereupon Sathan and evil Men would have taken an occasion to derogate both from the mercy and power of God according to those Objections of the Heathen rehearsed by Moses That because the Lord would not or could not save them he suffered them to be destroyed But some will say he might have confirmed them as he did the Elect Angels I answer that if it should have pleased God thus to have bestowed his mercy towards us his Children yet the Devil and wicked Men if in these days of our weakness much more in those of our perfection would have derogated from Gods grace that they might have attributed all or the best part to Mans merit Lastly in this our Justification by Christ mercy counterpoises justice yea in these there are to the eternal praise of our all wise God an admirable and due proportion The spirit of God observes it and shall not we in whom it is wrought with unspeakable joy and thankfulness remember That as by the offence of one judgment came upon all Men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all Men unto justification of life O the miserable necessity of our nature the boundless compassion of God's Doth Man want holiness merit and obedience and will his Lord confer purity and offer up his own Life for him will no other security but himself be accepted for the payment of sin Surely this will serve not only to express his love but to informe our judgments how impossible it was considering Gods holiness the Laws rigour and the least imperfection for Man to be justified before God This work belongs to the Creator not to the Creature If in our first beeing the glorious Trinity were in an especial manner sole Agents much more in this our Eternal well-Beeing Wherein God the Father imputes and accepts God the Son becomes Man obeys and fulfills and God the Holy Ghost calls and sanctifies That Man in the last place may apply and put on by faith this spotless Robe and Imperial Crown of Righteousness To whom it may be said as of Mordecay Thus shall it be done to him whom the King of Kings delights to honour I should now proceed to observe what streams and blessed effects flow from this Priestly Fountain did not the neer and inseparable relation of the Prophetical Office unto it sweetly invite me to unite them also in my Meditations I am assured that every true Christian Soul that hath followed me hitherto in my weak yet sincere Meditations is here together with me ravisht in the apprehension of these infinite Priviledges and in tasting of these Waters of Life which flow from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. Is any so welcome to the poor indebted Widdow as mercifull Elisha Is any so to be esteemed of rebellious Israel as interceding Moses Was there any Speech so pleasing to the Paralitique as Man thy Sins are forgiven thee Or any vesture so needfull and acceptable to those naked Beggars in the Gospel as the Wedding Garment And is not Christ who unto us is all these even the welcome Man the only Intercessor the Word remitting Sins the Royal Cloâ—thing our Wish our Aim our Crown our Glory No doubt but he is Why go we not then on to possess him O Lord we are all like unto those unbelieving Israelites that are over joyed with the good report of the Land of Canaan and delighted with the taste of the pleasant Fruit thereof and yet stand still even at the border discouraged As they cryed out because of the Sons of 〈◊〉 so we of our Gyant-like corruptions those opposed them theâ—e us Thou hast shewed us and we have read this thy gracious Covenant and we know thee both willing and able to perform thy part thereof But alass when we descend to the conditions on our part what have we or what can we do Thou requirest faith in us but behold doubting Repentance and behold hardness of heart O wretched Men that we are who shall deliver us from this Body of Death O let all that have such hungry Souls thank God for our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is a Joshua to overcome all these our mighty
place a Memento in the midst and as it were in the front thereof Further thy holy Spirit in the Prophet doth brand and note this privation as the root and cause of all Rebellions Because saith he my People have forgotten me they have burnt Incense unto vanity Lastly which adds to and most aggravates this my languor wicked Men are in thy Word thus described and painted out To be without God in the World and not to have thee in all their ways to cast thy Laws behind them and to forget thee as I have done O Lord since I have lost this precious gift in the first Adam let me receive it again in thee the second that my Soul being adorned with holy impressions may become the Temple of thee my Saviour Strengthen thy self in Me O dejected Soul and in these thy wants Look unto me who works in thee both the will and the deed of my good pleasure and will my self also freely give thee all things As I am not ignorant of thy defects so I am not to seek of thy cure I know there is a double forgetfulness in corrupted nature the one of thy sins to repent the other of my Word and Laws to practice But know thou this also that although for a time my Elect may forget me yet they shall never be forgotten of me Can a Woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her Wombe yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee for I will remember my Covenant with thee and will establish unto thee an everlasting Covenant And because I will do thus thou shalt also remember thy ways and be ashamed and thou shalt loath thy self in thy own sight for all the evil which thou hast committed And as for the other defect be assured that the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom my Father will send in my name he shall teach thee all things and bring all things into thy remembrance whatsoever I have said unto thee For This is the Covenant that I will make with thee I will put my Law into thy inward parts and write it in thy Heart and will be thy God and thou shalt be my Servant O my Lord I can never sufficiently admire thy power thy free Love and the healing vertue of thy sacred and refreshing word But what sweetness or relief what hope of remedy and recovery can my diseased Soul receive from it that wants a will to receive or apply thy comfortable Plaisters unto my festred sores Can the knowledge and sight of Meat feed the hungry Can the beholding of riches satisfie the needy or the Physicians Medicament cure without application No Lord they cannot How then can thy Holy Word work upon me any gracious effects that have a wretched will refractory to hearing reading meditation or any good use thereof If the mind and understanding be evil the will which is their servant and agent must needs be so also And if it hath its work in all evil actions it must not be left out nay cannot be idle or wanting in those that are good But my will is continually opposite to thine which is the rule of equity and justice and therefore cannot work the works of God It is true thou canst not For as I said before I work in thee both to will and to do But because thou canst not wilt thou limit my power also Cannot I that at first gave thee a will now at the last give thee a good will Is it not as easie for me to bend move and change thy nilling will into a willing one as to enlighten and quicken the other dead faculties of thy Soul Or is my free grace and love less benevolent unto it than unto the rest No surely It is not for my honour nor is it in thy power to be primarily and voluntarily assistant in this work For of my own will I beget my Children that those that glory may glory in the Lord humbly confessing that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Mercifull Saviour I know thou canst cure dangerous yea desperate diseases But Lord I fear that I am too far gone that I have lost and let slip my opportunity and time of grace even that Day wherein thou wilt speak and be spoken to So that now I may justly expect that thou wilt swear in thy wrath that I shall not enter into thy rest And that this my fear may not seem groundless be thou pleased to feel the Pulses of my corrupted Soul and thou shalt finde that they beat not at all or if they do their motion is either exorbitant or full of intermissions Is it not thy command that I should love thee love my God with all my heart with all my soul with all my minde For thou wilt love them that love thee Is it not negative also thus Love not the World neither the things that are in the World For if thou lovest the World the love of the Father is not in thee What then Lord will become of me who have loved darkness rather than light and have been a lover of pleasures more than a lover of thee my God Further if at any time I be in love or ravisht with thee as beholding that excellent beauty which streams forth from all thy glorious attributes especially thy mercy how weak and of what short continuance are these flashes being like lightning which gone make but the night the darker So that in their so long absence I have just cause to fear their return doubting lest thou wilt say of me as once of the Laodiceans that because I am neither hot nor cold but luke-warm thou wilt therefore spite me out of thy mouth Again doth not thy Kingdome within us consist in righteousness in peace and in joy of the Holy Ghost which kinde of joy for the excellency thereof thou callest thine as also because of its procession from thee and from thy spirit it being that unparallel'd and unconceivable mirth which admits no mixture of sorrow no higher pitch of solace This this was it which so ravisht thy holy ones making them breath forth seraphically with Habakkuk I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation with the Spouse we will be glad and rejoyce in thee with David in thy presence is fulness of joy and with Peter we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious Now O Lord in what ranck shall I place my self who being carnal and sold under sin savours not the things that be of God but those that be of Men not rejoycing in thee but in my own vain and sinfull imaginations proudly boasting and rejoyceing with those reprehended by the Apostle in those few gifts thou hast indued me with as
Israel Who saith that to Him the Porter openeth and the Sheep hear his voice that he calleth his own Sheep by name and leadeth them out Is it the duty of a King to protect his subjects to reward them as well as to restrain and overcome their Enemies And is not this true of our good Shepward Who giveth his life for his Sheep being not like the hireling who seeing the Wolf coming flieth and leaveth the Sheep Yea all blessings temporal and spiritual abound to them that are admitted into his Fold For he promises that if any enter therein he shall be saved and shall go in and out and finde pasture Lastly is it the office of a King to see and judge of the actions of inferiours to give dignity and honour to the well-meriting and obedient and to inflict punishment and death upon rebellious offenders See this also made good by Gods promise unto us under the rule of our only Shepward Christ Jesus Saying Behold even I will judge betwixt the fat Cattle and the lean and I will cause the evil Beasts to cease out of the Land And I will make with them a Covenant of Peace And I will make them and the places round about them a blessing And I will cause the showers to come down in his season there shall be showers of blessings And as concerning the last and General Judgment our Saviour speaking of the ordering of Persons before his Trybunal and the parting of his true Subjects from Rebels the good from the bad still alludes to the office of a Shepward and saith that he will separate them one from another as the Shepward divideth the Sheep from the Goats Having for the better and more comfortable illustration of our Saviours Kingly Office thus far traced this similitude let us now O my Soul by faith take a nearer and more serious view of this his glorious function as it manifests it self in the excellency of his Person and in the uprightness and perfection of his Laws as also in all those gratious effects which flow from so divine a dispensation That from them God assisting in the application thou maist reap that saving fruit which grace offers and thou expectest As the Basis and Pillar of Peace and tranquility in a Common-wealth is good Government consisting of upright Magistrates and just Laws So the defect of either ushers-in present ruine and destruction This position is not only verified in civil estates but in the spiritual Regiment of the visible Church Which whilst it was governed by the Spirit of Christ and was obedient to his injunctions attained to a Meridional height of quiet and glory witness the times of Solomon Hezechiah and Josiah But on the other side when that there was no King in Israel and every Man did what was right in his own Eyes how was their Land and Church filled with blood-shed Idolatry and vanity witness the Book of the Judges O let their miseries make us beware and let us learn wisdome from their destruction â—et their ill-succeeding rebellions incite and hasten us to do Homage at his Foot-stool whom the Lord hath set King upon his holy Hill of Sion And to kiss him with the kiss of reverence obedience and worship Let us meditate of him all the day long and let our Mouths be filled with his praises O how truly are we happy in thee O Lord Jesus according to that of the wise Man blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles Is there any Nobility like unto thine will any boast of or derive his Pedigree with thee who art the ancient of days the dew of the Morning the Morning-star and in a word â—he Fountain of honour what are the greatest of earthly Princes but thy Vice-roys Conduit-Pipes to convey â—ny favours unto the Children of Men For By thee Kings Reign and Princes Decree justice And from thee proâ—â—eds the sentence which makes poor and makes rich â—rings lowe and lifteth up For thou art that only begotten Son of the Father before all beginnings who then can declare thy generation for thy Birth is hid in Eternity Nor art thou not only glorious in thy Father but in thy self also for thou art God of God equal with God and therefore art not only a wise mercifull just and holy King over us But wisdome mercy justice and holiness it self unto us Witness this in that thy gratious invitation to thy spiritual Feast where wisdome hath builded her an House As also in the former Chapter I am understanding I am strength Further thy Spirit in the Mouth of thy beloved Apostle testifies that thou our God art love And thy Prophet Jeremy foretold to us that the Name whereby thou shouldst be called is the Lord our righteousness As for the last the Prophet David stiles thee so in many of his Psalmes singing thus O yee Saints of his give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness To whom the Saints in the Revelation answer and second with this triple acclamation Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath O my Saviour my King my beloved let me feed a while here amongst these Lillies Let me sit down under this thy shadow and let thy fruit be sweet unto my taste O stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples for I am sick of love Who is like the Lord our King on all the Earth Is there any People or Nation alike happy with us Christians whose God and King is the Lord I should now proceed to view and admire that golden Scepter those his righteous Statutes by which he governs and directs us his People But that my Soul possest with a holy fear lest any thing should nullifie my right unto my Soveraigns protection stops me with these objections As that I am not only the Son of rebellious Adam but also an Alien to the Common-wealth of Israel as being not sprung from the loynes of Abraham nor from any of the Sons of Jacob but from the unbelieving Gentiles Lastly that I am out-lawed by my own actual transgressions and therefore may rather expect punishment than any favour happiness or priviledge by his Government As to these I answer with the Apostle The Jews because the Seed of Abraham are not all Children But the Children of the promise are counted for the Seed Wherefore Abraham is called the Father of the faithfull Neither is he a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh But he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit not in the letter Also he is a light to enlighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of the People Israel Again my being a sinner is so far from disabling my right to the Lord Jesus that by the hearty and penitent confession thereof I am intitled unto his pardon and mercy witness his
and shall be ever with the Lord. But this glorified fear is the most bright reflection in and from us of Gods glorious Soveraignty according to that of the Prophet If I be a Master where is my fear a fruit and an effect of Gods ravishing and transporting excellency and therefore this heavenly affection being so necessary a requisite in our heavenly condition is so far from lessening our perfection in glory as that without it it cannot be perfectly glorious O my Soul shall thy affections of love and fear be thus glorious in thy Heavenly state Let them not have a lesser or lower object than the most high let not such High-Born Princesses be enamoured with their Slaves Vse the World as not abusing it and as though thou used it not Neither fear any but him that only can cast both Soul and Body into Hell-fire Let these two graces be as Jethro to Moses eye in the Wilderness of this World to admonish and to keep thee from losing thy way when thou art turning to the right or to the left And like the Lords Pillar of a Cloud by Day and of Fire by Night to direct thee according to his holy will in thy Journey towards thy Heavenly Canaan Converse with these two Royal Virgins continually So shalt thou have Communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son in the Spirit be partaker of the Divine nature and begin to enjoy Heaven here upon Earth Prepare and so enlarge these Divine Vessels by a pious use and continued Exercise that they may be the more capacious of Glory For according to the measures and proportions of graces in this life shall be their repletion in the life to come where of Apprehensors the Saints shall be made Comprehensors according to their several enlargements For as one Star differs from another in glory so shall it be at the Resurrection of the Just when we shall see God face to face and know him as we are known and be made like him in Glory O my God my Father are these two sanctified affections of love and fear the two Eyes the two Armes of the Soul with which the Saints behold imbrace and enjoy thee in all thy glorious excellencies Are they the two Centinels and Guards by which every true Christian discovers and repells all sinfull thoughts looks words and actions Doth that root of all saving Graces Faith work by love in the application of what the Father Son and Holy Ghost hath done for us Turning our Hearts of Stone into Hearts of Flesh and melting them into teares of Gospel-Repentance Doth love oile the wheeles of our universal obedience so that they run swiftly in the pathes of thy Commandements when thou thus enlargest the heart And is fillial fear the whip in the hand of zeal the holy Chariteer to drive and carry us manger all stops of Sin Sathan and the World to the end of our race Is this divine love to thee and thy Saints the summe and the fulfilling of thy Law The more excellent way The compleating continuing and the greatest grace as most like unto thee For God is love and who so dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him Shall these twin-like graces of love and fear not leave the Soul when it leaves the Body and accompany both Soul and Body at the Resurrection to the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb and to the Marriage-Bed of Glory yea shall they be the measures and compleating of our Glory O holy Father who art the essential love my fear and my dread be thou pleased to sanctify inlarge and inflame these my affections that of sinfull passions in the old Adam they may be changed and Heavenized into active and holy graces in me thy new Creature Let them I beseech thee be effectual and usefull to all the aforementioned ends And since it is no sin but a duty to be ambitious of and to covet spiritual things let them be enlarged and heightned like Heaven even to the utmost of a created capacity that I may be as thou hast promised thy dwelling place upon Earth and thou mayest be my inheritance and my Heaven in Heaven Even so Amen Lord Jesus come quickly The sanctified affection of holy zeal in the glorified Saints deserves our next Meditation This to speak properly is not a simple grace but the highest and intense degree of every grace and holy action which if so famous and resplendent in the Saints upon Earth as in Moses in his exemplary Justice upon the false worshippers of the Golden Calf In Phineas his executing judgment upon that Idolatrous and adulterous payre Zimry and Cosby in David who declares that the zeal of Gods House had eaten him up In Elijah when he put to death four hundred of Baals Prophets in one Evening In Paul who preserved the glory of God in the Redemption of his Country-men the Jews before his own salvation and in that highest example of our dear Lord and Saviour in his purging of his Temple Then this Heavenly grace shall undoubtedly not only continue and have then a Beeing in each glorified Saint but shine forth and act in them much more gloriously Is that only infinite and pure Essence our Omnipotent God who is happiness blessedness and life it self so often declared in the Scripture to be zealous for his name and glory And shall not his Saints his Image be like him Is this grace exercised by glorious Angels as when one Angel destroyed all the first-born of Egypt in one Night Another destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians at the command and in zeal for the glory of God Yea did an whole Host of Angels descend from Heaven and with a holy zeal Celebrate our Lords Nativity and Man-kindes Redemption in an holy Hymne And shall not the glorified Saints overflow and express upon all occasions to Gods glory the like zealous and inflam'd affections assuredly they shall For though Sin Sathan and the wicked World which by a kinde of spiritual Antiperistasis made their zeal here burn the hotter shall be cast out and banisht thence Yet the glorified Saints shall not want nor be without constant objects and continual occasions according to every ones measure to exercise this grace To instance only some successive ones Gods unparallel'd flaming Justice upon Gog and Magog and all wicked Men at our Saviours second coming with ten thousand of his Saints Christs Crowning and rewarding every Elect Member in righteousness according to their works together with all his glorious Administrations in that his holy righteous and personal Reign in the new Heaven and new Earth for a thousand years His powerfull raising of the wicked after the thousand years and curious Inquisition into and perfect discovery and bringing to Judgment of all their evil thoughts words and actions and his
righteous sentence pronounced upon them and the Apostate Angels and his translating his Saints from this Paradise of Earth to the Heaven of Heavens These objects and occasions of holy hatred anger and indignation against Sathan and Gods Enemies the wicked of unexpressable love joy delight praise and glorious tryumphing the holy Scriptures holds forth shall be in the state of glory And can we conceive holy zeal which is the height and crown of all these graces can be absent or unnecessary I shall further add that after our Lords yielding up his Mediatory Kingdome to the Father all the service and everlasting praises of the Saints in the remembrance of all Gods wonderfull works from the beginning unto Eternity in the Heavens Earth and Hell shall be heightned and winged with this holy zeal I shall assert this truth and conclude this ravishing Meditation with pointing at and refering the Reader to the frequent and zealous hallelujahs of the crowned Elders and glorified Saints in the Visions of Saint John set forth to us as the types and lively figures of our Heavenly and glorified condition Revelations Chapter the 4 th Verse the 8 th And the four Beasts rest not Day and Night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And the four and twenty Elders fell down before Him that sate on the Throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their Crowns before the Throne saying Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Like to this are their zealous Songs and Thanksgivings upon divers occasions Chapter 5. Verse 8. untill the end of that Chapter and Chapter 7. Verse 9. unto the end thereof and Chapter 11. Verse 15. unto the end of that Chapter and Chapter the 14. Verse the 1. unto the end of the 5. Verse and Chapter the 15. Verse the third and the fourth besides many more to the end of that blessed Book which for brevity sake I omit These being sufficient to prove the use and exercise of this Seraphical grace of holy zeal by the Saints in their state of Glory O my Soul Is this most Heavenly grace of zeal so illustrious and exemplary in the Saints that have lived upon Earth Doth it shine forth with a Heavenly light here in the actings of holy Angels of our for ever blessed Saviour and of our Almighty Father and Creator Yea shall this grace out-live thy hope and thy faith be the Crown and compleatment of thy divine love and the height and perfection of all other thy graces in glory Endeavour then to follow their famous examples Rest not in the cold and middle Region of bare profession with the careless Gallioes of the World and frozen Church-professors The Demasses of this last and worst age but let thy holy zeal upon all occasions for the glory of thy God and purity of his Worship and Doctrine mount up even to the Firie Region and In his cause be Boanerges and like Gods Angels and Seraphins a Cole a flame of Fire So shalt thou excell and exceed others in this grace in thy glorified state as far as thou hast gone before them in this life And as thou hast been more gracious here so thou shalt be more glorious hereafter The larger thy Vessel the larger thy Receipt Every Vessel shall be full and overflow although much different in their measure All shall be Stars although not of the like Magnitude The Saints at the first Resurrection being rewarded according to their works although not for their works O Lord my God is divine zeal a holy flame a Pyramid-like Fire a Spring towards Heaven as to its own place Is my heart my Souls shop where it forges affections and this middle Region of my Body like the middle Region of the Aire cold and naturally void of this thy heavenly Fire Be pleased I humbly beseech thee to cause the same holy Spirit that once sate in the likeness of Fiery Tongues upon the heads of thy Apostles to rest upon unthaw and inflame my frozen heart and affections Then shall not its earthly and sinfull qualities of coldness hardness and ponderousness chill resist or smother the fervency and intensness of any of thy graces in me since thy Almighty Power that produces lightning in the cold middle Region of the Aire that melts the Rock and causes the Mountains Aetna Vesuvius and Hecla to breath forth flames of Fire can yea will because thou hast promised it bring forth and create in me a greater wonder even a new heart and a new spirit a heart of Flesh instead of a heart of Stone Then shall I be not only zealous in all my actings for thee but frequent and zealous in my praises to thee in this life of Grace and that of Glory to Eternity Amen All affections in this life as love fear zeal and the rest although sanctified in their heighths and intensiveness by reason of the weakness of the Organ and our decayed nature may put the whole Man to pain and in that respect are called Passions yet it shall cease to be so with us in our glorified condition Where whatsoever that flowes from Infirmity or Imperfection shall be done away In the new Jerusalem there shall be neither sorrow nor pain We shall then be as the Apostle exhorts not only when occasions shall be offered not to be angry without sin but without passion or disturbance Being herein like to God and the holy Angels whose Image shall then be perfectly renewed in us and who in the Scripture although I grant it to be meant not properly but Anthropopathos is often declared to be angry But as to the Elect Angels I conceive they may as truly be said to be angry witness that famous opposition of Balaam and that action of the Angel that with his drawn Sword was ready to destroy Jerusalem for David's Sin as to rejoyce greatly for the conversion of a sinner If then such accidental affections are testified to be in glorious Angels why not much rather in glorified Saints unless by cessation of so eminent a grace as holy anger we should irrationally conceive the Saints less perfect in this new life than in the other Especially since the sole object of this holy affection the Sin Blasphemy and Rebellion of wicked Souls and Devils to the dishonour of God shall continue and in that great and long day or time of their Judgment be more universally manifested to their view than ever as also afterward in Hell to Eternity Anger here though for Gods cause may possibly inflame the Eyes distort the Visage of a Saint but its lipe as the modest blush of a Virgin doth add beauty to her Face so shall this
zealous flaming Grace of holy anger add light to light and glory to the glory of a Saint O my Soul is holy anger a saving and gracious affection a part of the glorious Image of God in a Saint Do the holy and blessed Angels as the Scriptures witness in their zeal to Gods glory and hatred of Sin express it in their constant oppositions and inflictions of Gods Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils Yea is it an Apostolical Precept and Duty to be angry and sin not Shall this grace have even in Heaven continual objects and occasions to exercise it self to Gods glory and thy own O write after this Copy and endeavour that this grace may not be seldome and casually but habitually in thee here upon Earth Let it be one of the Mortifiers and Crucifiers of thy lusts as they were the Murderers of thy Saviour Let it dash out the brains of all these Babell Beasts against the Stones of holy reproofs even the accursed issue of thy sinfull thought words and actions Let this God-like passion resist the Devil in all his subtle and powerfull temptations and he shall undoubtedly flye from thee Yea let this grace imitate and second the holy Spirit in reproving and convincing the ungodly World of Sin So shalt thou be preserved from the Commission of all evil triumph over all thy worldly and spiritual Enemies and be prepared by thy more full extent and acting of this grace here to be of an higher form in the blessed exercise thereof in Glory O All-mighty Creator who hast made my heart the seat of my affections and plac'd it in the Centre of my Body that it might affect and influence every part alike Let it not I humbly beseech thee be any longer like the middle Region of the Aire the coldest part of this Micro-cosme and void of this Heavenly heat of holy anger But let this sanctified affection flash forth like thunder and lightning and burn up and destroy every crude and evil thought word and action as soon as they appear and purge this Element of my Heart and Soul from all the infectious noxious and sinfull vapours of vain and sinfull thoughts that arise from this Earth this Body of Death and Sin that incompasses me about that they may never come to the maturity of wicked actions or if they do they may be as it were Thunder strucken and torne up by the Roots and not able to stand before this flaming grace so shall I be like thee who art as a flaming Fire consuming all Iniquity That so being renewed and fashioned according to thy Image in this World by such holy affections I may be assured of theirs and my greater perfection in the World to come when I shall be made like thee iâ— thy Image of Glory Amen As the light of the Sun to the World so is the affection of joy to the Soul when it arises there is day when it sets an uncomfortable night Man in his innocency enjoyed a polar day a continued presence thereof but having lost God its cause and object the effect ceased not that the Soul is disrob'd of the affection but of the true use of it hence the distinction of a spiritual and carnal joy The first is the true only found and beginning afresh to bud in the renewed Saints and favourites of God for a stranger shall not intermeddle with their joy but the other is momentary and illegitimate as being begotten in the Soul by false objects and is as it were the Moon-light of the wicked The object then of true joy is God and that in this consideration as he is inclusively and exclusively the compleat happiness of the Creature Whereby it comes to pass that the godly and reprobate may both rejoyce in the same things as Wifes Children Honours Estates c. And yet the joy of the one be holy and spiritual of the other carnal and wicked Leaving then the sensual mirth which is deceivable sinfull and temporary my thoughts pitch upon the Solace of the Elect which the Scripture stiles the joy of the Holy Ghost unspeakable and glorious the first-fruits and earnest of their future happiness By these glimpse O ye Saints of God's may yee judge of that full light you shall there enjoy Which if unspeakable here shall surely be there unconceivable Alas what can I then think and meditate of it chiefly negatively thus that there shall be no cloudings nor intermissions there no measure of our joy for we shall continually behold God and in him see all the grounds of rejoycing If here excesses have proved mortal their exceedings shall make us more immortal this being an increasing and reviving not a surfeiting fulness The capacity of the affection being gradually and continually augmented according to the plentifull infusion our joyes multiplying there even to Eternity The growth of our graces here although God be seen of us through the cleft of the Rock as to Moses teaching discovering and evincing a continued and far greater augmentation in glory hereafter O blessed and happy estate which is not diminished by Eternity but is as unlimitable as lasting O happy place wherein all joyes meet their objects in one Centre There shall we possess and enjoy not guttatim but according to the fulness of each Vessel God our gracious Father Christ our mercifull Saviour the Holy Spirit our everlasting Comforter the glorious Angels and Arch-Angels our fellow-Servants the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets our Tryumphant Leaders the pious Apostles and valiant Martyrs our victorious Champions together with the many millions successively of religious Professors There shall we meet and rejoyce in the like felicity of all our vertuous Parents Brothers Sisters Wifes Children Kindred and Friends There shall we inherit unvaluable and incorruptible riches Be install'd in Thrones of unchangeable and incorruptible honours and be filled with all unspeakable and Soul-ravishing delights To conclude whatsoever things either in conception or possibility can affect or rejoice the glorified Soul are there not interchangeably but contemporarily and continuedly obvious and present And on the contrary all things whatsoever that may lessen or offend in the least degree this divine extasie have an impossibility of subsistence in this Eternal Paradise And that not only in regard of the presence but of the decree of God himself Therefore needs must this joy be ineffably compleat to which all things concur for its perfection O Divine condition which shall thus sweetly impe and restore these mouldring and broken Wings of my Soul O blissfull Paradise and Chrystaline Sea upon which these now maimed Feet of my affections shall walk or rather evenly slide free from all rubs thorns and sinfull interruptions O how melodious will the harmony of these Strings be when mounted to the highest Key not to Ela but to Eli Methinks the very Contemplation of this life should so ravish my Soul and actuate these Wings these Feet that
Lord makes a new Heaven and a new Earth according to his promise which I humbly conceive only extends to this Orbe of Earth and Water and to the Regions and Elements of the Aire and Fire these two last are most frequently in Scripture called Heaven That flaming and Aetherial Fire not Elementary in which the Lord Jesus shall descend and appear with the ten thousands of glorified Souls and Angels and which shall consume all the wicked that are then in the World and burn up their works shall accordingly as it is the nature and true effect and property of Fire to purge and purify each of the four Elements from all that dross and corruptible quality that hath intermixt and cleaved unto them by the righteous Judgment and curse of God for Mans sin Whence shall proceed that admirable change as to their qualities although not of their substance deserving the name in the Scripture promise of a new Heaven and of a new Earth As it is most excellently set forth by Saint Paul in these words For the earnest expectation of the Creature wait for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain together untill now The Elements then are made like unto the Heavenly supream Orbes pure lucid and incorruptible Hence I infer that these four Elements being thus wonderfully changed in their qualities and made incorruptible in which respectively the several parts and ingredients of our Bodies are laid up and reserved as being naturally a part of them There must necessarily follow the same and the like change and alteration in the matter and substance of our Bodies also Whence it will follow that although the first change in the Elements is supernatural and wonderfull that in our Bodies will naturally follow as an effect from that cause Our great God as in the first Creation caused the production of all things out of their first matter as so many streams from that Fountain so in this new and second birth of things he as a rational and natural Agent produceth this excellent change in the fore-mentioned qualities of our new-raised Bodies to be a necessary and certain effect flowing from the change of the principles out of which they are compounded It being more than probable that the Resurrection of our Bodies shall immediatly succeed the making of the new Heaven and the new Earth the Saints habitation as it was in the first Creation when the Lord made the Earth and all the Creatures first before he made Man the Lord and Possessor of it and them The premisses being granted I thence conclude that as Mortality is a necessary effect and consequent of corruption so the immortality of the Body to use the Apostles phrase is as necessary an effect and consequent of incorruption For that substance that can never more be corrupted may truly be said to be everlasting and according to the Apostles expression immortal Death signifying either in sensible or vegitable Creatures a putred and evil change or alteration as also a debasing diminishing and deforming separation as being the curse and fruit of Sin and abhorrent to nature Having hitherto discoursed of this marvellous change of our Bodies at the Resurrection and given some natural reasons thereof as a Philosopher I must now as a Christian ascend higher and prove this eminent change to proceed also from a far higher and nobler cause than meer nature even from the spiritual real and mystical union of our Persons through faith and the Eternal Spirit as Members to our Head the Lord Jesus who is God-Man blessed for ever As since sin God hath enacted this to be one of the Statutes of Nature It is appointed to Men once to dye And by another Law of Nature after Death hath dissolved this Microcosme of Soul from Body Every part of the body as hath been shewed returns to its proper Element so by the Law of Christ God-Man the Eternal Word that was made Flesh it is decreed and affirmed as an indubitable truth That he that believeth in him hath everlasting life And though he were dead yet shall he live Whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never dye From hence it is most cleer that in a spiritual sence the death of the Saints is no death they being so united by faith that although the Soul be divided from the Body and each Elementary part of the body be divided from the other yet neither Soul nor Body or any grain or part thereof can be separated from our head the Lord Jesus in whom who is eternal life is our life Though we are dead in a natural sence yet we live spiritually in and by his Spirit In which sence also the whole mystical body of Christ the universal Church and every Member thereof is said to be joyned to the Lord and is one Spirit as being by the Holy Ghost the ever-living God that fills all things the Spirit of the Father and the Son as by an unmeasurable and everlasting Ligament tyed and united to the Lord Jesus our head So that like as it is said of the Soul That it is tota in toto tota in qualibet parte So it may be said that the for ever blessed Spirit of God the Father and the Son in and by this ineffable union and in dwelling is wholly and spiritually both before and after death in our Souls and in our Bodies and in every part of them although never so far by reason of a natural death separated one from another Here note that although the Scripture declares that in God all things live move and have their being as he is their Creator and Preserver and in whom and by whom they act and have their subsistance yet the difference is very great betwixt that life of the Creatures on Earth and this life of the Saints both as to the nature and duration of it That flowing from his Almighty power and goodness as a Creator this from his Eternal love as our Father in Christ that life being temporary this life Eternal as flowing from the highest Principle our spiritual and real union unto God in Christ. For the further clearing and proof of which immortality as well of our Bodies as of our Souls consider the words of our blessed Saviour As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself I am the way the truth and the life because I live yee shall live also Thou hast given me power over all flesh that I should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given
and drink as our Saviour did thrice after his Resurrection probably to shew not only that his Body was truly raised and that his stay upon Earth was a figure and pattern of his Saints first degree of Glory here after their Resurrection as his was his first degree of glory and exaltation after his but also that they should accidentally and at pleasure as he did although not out of a positive and natural necessity eat drink and make use of the Creatures Shall thy body not only have a kinde of secondary nourishment as our first Parents had in Paradise conveighed unto it with a far more exceeding and extraordinary delight that they had because of the excelling transcendency of the subjects and their much more sanctified and spiritualiz'd condition But shall the Taste also administer to thee continually much delight and knowledge from the unexpressible sweetness and wonderfull variety of innumerable Vegitives as to their admirable natures and qualities to thy great content and ravishment and thy Creators glory O do not therefore now vitiate and pollute it with gluttony or drunkenness nor make it a slavish Handmaid to any fleshly and inordinate appetite Be wise and guide thy heart in the way be not amongst Wine-bibers amongst riotous eaters of flesh for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath contentions who hath babling who hath wounds without cause who hath redness of the Eyes They that tarry long at the Wine they that go to seek mixt Wine Look not thou upon the Wine when it is red when it giveth its colour in the Cup when it moveth it self aright at the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder Thine Eyes shall behold strange Women and thy Heart shall utter perverse things yea thou shalt be as he that lyeth down in the midst of the Sea or as he that lyeth upon the top of a Mast They have striken me shalt thou say and I was not sick they have beaten me and I felt it not when I shall awake I will seek it yet again O my Soul in that new life thou shalt only eat and drink as the Apostle exhorts to the glory of God and more for pleasure and delight and that as to spiritual ends than for necessity but in this sinfull life if thou be given to appetite put a Knife to thy throat and watch over thy gust eating and drinking more for necessity than for pleasure as one that eats to live not lives to eat not making like those wicked ones reproved by the Apostle Paul thy Belly thy God But like thy for ever glorious and blessed Saviour at all seasonable Feastings do thou turn Water into Wine that is be a holy and Christian Phylosopher or Chymist extracting Life and Spirits out of every thing thou eatest or drinkest as tasting in the various gusts sweetness and vertues of the Creature the super-excelling sweetness wisdome and goodness of thy God the bountifull giver and the wonderfull Creator Do not with the Swinish and dropsical Drunkard turn Wine into Water but in thy Non-age so train up this Childish sense in all holy temperance and sobriety that it may be prepared and fitted for its sublimer exercise in thy Man-hood of Glory O my Lord and Saviour who art both our example and our Law-giver and therefore hast commanded us not to labour for the Meat that perisheth but for that Meat which endureth unto everlasting life and doth exhort and precaution us to take heed to our selves that our hearts be not over-charged with surfeiting and drunkenness lest that Day either of Death or Judgment come upon us unawares and hast also declared by thy Apostle that Meats are for the Belly and the Belly is for Meats but God shall destroy them both and therefore didst exhort and teach us how to purify and spiritualize our fleshly gust and appetite by faith offering thy self to be drunk and eaten by us when thou saidest My Blood is Drink indeed my Flesh is Meat indeed affording to us such an excellent nourishment that who so by faith spiritually eateth thy Flesh and drinketh thy Blood shall not dye but live to Eternity Yea further thou holdest forth to us that thou art that Bread that camest down from Heaven of which the Manna in the Wilderness was but a Type which whosoever eateth by faith that is by believing in thee shall not dye but live for ever as also that thou art that Water of Life of which whosoever drinketh shall thirst no more O Lord I cry unto thee with the Emauites Lord ever give unto me to eat of this Bread and to drink of this living Spring then shall I be so fully satisfied that I shall never hunger or thirst more after any of the things of this World The lusts of the Flesh the lusts of the Eyes or the pride of life yea Lord I shall not only have enough for my self but such plenty as there-with to feast others also as being enabled to say with thy beloved Apostle That which was from the beginning which we have heaâ—d which we have seen with our Eyes which we have looked upon yea that which we have tasted and our hands have handled of the Word of Life declare we unto you that yee may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Son even with thee O Lord Jesus Christ Lord give unto thy Servant an internal taste as well as thou hast given me an external sense that I may with holy David both taste and see how good the Lord is and binde the one Apprentice to the other making it serviceable to my Soul and unto thee Then shall I enjoy a double relish and sweetness in every drop of drink and bit of meat as being a love-token from thee and an earnest of Eternal Life and nourishment in thee so shall my Earthly Pallate at no time injure deceive or pollute my spiritual sense as Noah's and Lot's did by ignorance surprise and the sweetness of the Grape but be kept in order and in obedience sharpning not blunting the edge of my Meditation and Charity as the full Meats of Nabal and Dives did watering and enlivening not drowning my piety and obedience as it is probable Wine and strong Drink did Nabal and Abihu O Lord it is true that the Beasts of the Field partake and have the use of this sense as well as Man O that they might not one Day shame and rise up in Judgment against the Epâ—curisme of many Men Doth nature moderate the Horse and the Oxen as to their eating and drinking O let the addition of thy grace so order and sanctify my taste and appetite that in their sweetness I may admire thy delectableness mercy wisdome and goodness so shall this sense begin my glory
ravishing contemplation of the infinite Power and Wisdome of thy Creator manifested in the multiplicity variety and unexpressible excellencies of smells and odours as also of his wonderfull mercy love and goodness in making them and communicating them to thee for thy use and benefit that as in a clear mirrour and by this blessed medium thou mayest behold and enjoy him who is essentially sweetness and by whom through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which grace as a spiritual internal and common sense and Architype of all thy Bodily senses beholds hears tasts smells imbraces and possesses him thou mayest I say in God alone be delighted refresht and nourisht unto Life Eternal O infinite holy ever glorious and Eternal Spirit who art the power and love the goodness holiness and sweetness of the Eternal Father and the Son as proceeding from all Eternity from them and who art co-equal co-eternal and co-essential with them in the unity of one Divine Essence and God-head who art the Comforter Counseller Preserver and Sanctifier of all the Elect and Children of God give me a new heart and a new spirit and make me a new Creature according as the Father hath promised in the new Covenant of grace so shall not only my Soul with all the faculties and affections thereof but my Body also with all its Members and Senses be meliorated renewed and sanctified and this rare wonderfull and curious sense of Smelling with the sinfulness of pride voluptuousness excess curiosity and vanity hath made not only unprofitable and destructive to me but of ill savour offensive and dishonorable to thee become like the laborious Bee a gatherer of sweetness out of every object thereof Of which various mixtures my Soul shall compound and make up an holy Incense in resemblance of that under the Law prefiguring this of love as in return for thy goodness of admiration in the acknowledgment of thy wisdome of adoration as declaring thy Omnipotency of praise and thanksgiving as glorifying thee for these thy manifold gifts and blessings and be not only Adamiz'd and like him as in Paradise before the Fall but Angeliz'd yea like my Lord and Saviour who from every object Creature and occasion observed and raised matter of honour and glory to God his Father and mine yea by such an holy exercise of this Sense my Soul as well as my Body shall be refresht delighted and nourisht in its Eternity of Life begun here and to be made perfect together with this sense at the first Resurrection of the Just in Glory I need not prove that the Sense of Feeling shall continue and have existence in the Saints glorified state since to deny it is tanto-mount as to affirm that their Bodies shall not have a beeing or which is equally absurd that they shall in this new life be sick of a dead Palsie This Sense being now and so without doubt shall be then one of the clearest signes and demonstrations of the life of the Body and hath in one respect a singular preheminency and difference above the rest of the Senses For whereas every other Sense hath its proper Seat and Organ This may be truly said to be like the Soul and to Organize and reside in every part and member of a living and perfect Body Neither is this Sense less necessary to motion than to life insomuch as that when a Body is totally deprived thereof it is insensible and moves not and is accompted no better than a dead Trunk and inanimate Corps I shall add further that this Sense as it is now so certainly it shall be then the Souls chief Instrument and Inquisitor to discern by and give Judgment with much pleasure and delight of those four principal Elementary qualities that are respectively inherent to and in all created things and bodies that consist of matter and are made up and compounded of the four Elements as to heat or coldness driness or moisture or of those remoter qualities and adjuncts soft or hard smooth or rough arising from them So that as the Soul united to the new-raised Body without Eyes and the Sense of Sighâ— may truly be said to be imperfect and blind as to all visible objects so should the Body want this Sense of Feeling the Soul may as truly be said to be incompleat and ignorantly dark as to its knowledge and understanding as to all Tangible subjects From what hath been said I assert that the Saints at the Resurrection shall in their glorified Bodies have both the continuance and exercise of this Sense of Feeling and that in an incomparable perfection as to what it is now I will not positively affirm that spiritual substances as Angels may be subjects of this glorified Sense that shall be spiritualiz'd with our Bodies which though now a Natural Body shall then according to the Word of Truth be raised a spiritual Body If so is it not probable that as now to our natural Bodies natural things are touchable so to our spiritual bodies spiritual substances as Angels may be Tangible Our Saviours expression to his Apostles not at all contraducing or excluding this inquiry or inference he affirming only that a spirit hath not flesh and bones as he had not denying that a spiritual glorified body may touch and feel a spiritual Beeing and Essence But should this not be I am assured we shall both touch and imbrace him and be imbrac'd by him I speak this according to the Scripture-phrase with all due and humble reverence who is far above all Creatures and Angels our Head our Spouse our Saviour the most glorious Lord Jesus Christ God-man in one Person as also Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Holy Patriarchs Kings Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and glorified Saints as also our formerly neer and dear Relations which then shall be known of us in that perfection of knowledge and in this our exaltation that so their salvation may add such an accidental joy to the augmentation of our blessedness as the Holy Angels are said by our Saviour to have now super-added to their happiness at the conversion of a sinner To these I shall annex and subjoyn other more inferiour subjects of this glorified Sense the then refined and well-tempered Aire and Elements the delightfull contact of Fowles Birds and Beasts now willingly subject and obedient to Man the super-excelling and numerous Trees Fruits and Plants the Arbors of soft and sweet-smelling Roses the banks of Lillies the beds of Violets the Carpets of all manner of rarest Herbs and Flowers with which this new Heaven and new Earth this renewed Paradise shall be even to perpetuity plentifully garnisht and adorned with to the great glory of God the Creator of Christ the Restorer and of the Holy Ghost the Efficient and to the unexpressible pleasure and delightfull use and benefit of the Elect and glorified Saints As the blessed Canticles that Song of Songs hath been and is reproacht and abused by wanton Amorists
in the Eastern Countreys to the Merchants How do Parrots and other Birds speak and sing as they are taught and when they are commanded so to do by their Teachers Next how are all sorts of wild and devouring Beasts made Tame and obedient to their Keepers as the Lyon Bear Tyger Wolf especially the Elephants and Rhinoceroses so much used and imployed in Warres and for service by the Eastern Nations As also those less wild the Horse Mule Ass the Camels Dromedary and Dogs of all sorts Baboons Apes Monkies of which last a credible Writer reports that he knew a Monky to have so well learnt and obeyed the rules of his Tutor that he would not only play a Game at Chess but often give a Check-Mate to a good Gamester As to creeping things although Naturalists report many strange things concerning their love and subjection to Man and dayly experience shews us with what awe and fear they are possest when they but hear a humane voice yet for brevity sake I will only observe what is written concerning the Adder that it hath such a dreadfull apprehension of the force and power of Incantation that to avoid the Inchanters voice she will stop one of her Eares with the end of her Taile and the other by laying it close to the Earth which as to the actions although not to the precise manner of doing the Holy Scriptures witness That the Adder stoppeth her Ear from hearing the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely If then there remains and appears such manifest signs and testimonies of Mans dominion and of the inferiour Creatures obedience and subjection to him even after the Fall Gods curse the Creatures rebellion and the vacating of Mans commission How perfectly intire and absolute shall this Dominion be and the Creatures subjection and obedience when the glorified Saints in the right of Christ the Lord and Heir of all things their Head shall be as co-heirs with him restored to this their Primitive right and prerogative which promise and act of Christ could not be fulfilled or performed to us in this particular although no small privilege of the Saints unless before their second and last degree of Glory They raign with him upon the renewed Earth a thousand years according to the Scripture which Earth it is more than probable shall be furnished as before with several kinds of Creatures to the end that they may be in subjection to and under the dominion of the Saints who shall be all Kings now a King and subjects are relatives so that no subjects no King If it be a truth that they shall not raign over one another it is as clear a truth they shall raign over all terrene animals and inferiour Creatures But it may be objected how shall the Creature according to that assertion of the Apostle Be delivered from Bondage they now are under and enjoy the liberty of the Sons of God if they be under this subjection I answer as it is no diminution of our liberty that we shall then be in subjection to God in Christ because his Service is our perfect freedome so it shall be no impeachment or contradiction to the liberty in that Scripture intended to be restored to the Creatures For no other liberty it is clear is there meant to be given then but what they had before their unwilling subjection to bondage by reason of Gods curse for Mans sin and it being one of the principal ends of their Creation to delight serve and obey Man Gods Vice-gerent upon Earth their service therein according to the Primitive Ordinance of God as may be observed also in the unwearied motions of the Sun and Planets shall be their joy honour and freedome not their bondage This government having no need or occasion to make any such harsh laborious oppressive or slautering use of any Creature as now all the Saints vocal commands being then by the wonderfull wisdome and providence of God so ordered and made agreeable to the nature and will of the Creatures and that by a certain kinde of instinct as that their subjection and obedience shall be as natural pleasing and acceptable to them as it is to the Fire and Air to ascend they being as ambitious and ready to obey as the Saints to rule govern and command them since all their Orders and verbal Injunctions shall tend to the great glory of God ours and their Creator and of Christ our Redeemer As to the particular actings and subject matter of the Saints verbal Statutes and Injunctions in this their Dominion and Government of the Creatures I shall not further inlarge as conducing nothing to the subject I am now upon although the Holy Prophets in mysterious Figures and expressions hold forth some light and discovery thereof Only I desire it may be observed That before Mans Fall the several genusses or kindes of all terrene Creatures were in possession of and enjoyed Paradise with Adam else how could they be brought by the Lord to Adam to see what he would call them And whatsoever Adam called every living Creature that was the name thereof From which I note the great use of the Tongue and speech of Man in that blessed Garden the certain and cleer Figure of our restored and Paradisical Earth as also that the Creatures were not brought by God to Adam only and barely to receive their Names but that Adam should particularly and understandingly view them that so he might take seriously notice of the variety of their kindes the wonderfulness of their formes and shapes and Phylosophically inspect as being the wisest of all Earthly Beeings their respective qualities and natures that so he might not only give them significant and proper names a Prerogative and Character declaring him Lord and King over them but as a Priest unto God to both which Offices the Saints are to be restored he might from the dayly contemplation of them praise admire and adore as the Saints also shall do the great and only most high God who hath made them and us and all things for his own Glory From this my weak and short inquiry and induction of a few particulars it is made clear and evident how excellent a Member the Tongue is and also how great and manifold the use and exercise thereof will be in this our glorified condition I shall now therefore according to my former Method conclude this subject and this Treatise with a few Meditations O my Soul shall thy Tongue voice and speech have such an excellent and glorious employment in the state of glory as to be thy Representee Embassadour and Prolucutor to God Saints Angels and Creatures shall it be the most loud sweet and full-sounding Organ and Instrument of the worship and high praises of the Trinity in Unity Father Son and Holy Ghost God blessed for ever shall it be a vocal Trumpet in the ravishing and most melodious Chore of Millions of
comfort declaring to them to the praise and glory of God thy experiences thy consolations and Divine manifestations And for as much as thou art zealous of spiritual gifts seek that thou maist excell to the edifying of the Church that spiritual Body of Christ whereof thou art a living Member And since God as the Apostle excellently observes hath set some in the Church First Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers after that Miracles then gifts of healing helps Governments diversities of Tongues Covet thou earnestly the best gifts For there are diversity of gifts but the same spirit But the manifestation of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 to every Man to profit withall To one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by 〈◊〉 same Spirit to another the gift of Healing by the same Spirit to another working of Miracles to another Prophesie to another discerning of Spirits to another diâ—vers kinds of Tongues to another the interpretation of Tongues but all worketh that one and the self same Spiâ—rit dividing to every Man severally as he will For 〈◊〉 the Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body 〈◊〉 also is Christ. If they were all one Member where weâ—â— the Body The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have 〈◊〉 need of thee again the Head unto the Feet I have 〈◊〉 need of you Now we are the Body of Christ and Memâ—bers in particular Therefore O my Soul since 〈◊〉 Tongue as to all divine and spiritual gifts is now thâ— principal Agent and Expressor And shall be then 〈◊〉 as a Member of Christ mystical Body in this his glorious Kingdome thou shalt be plac'd in thy Function and respective administration be not spiritually idle but â—it and exercise thy Tongue continually in declaring to others according as it shall be revealed to thee by the Holy Spirit the Magnalia Dei the wonderfull ways and works of God Freely thou hast received freely give O my Soul shalt thou then be as one of Christs Viceroyes over all inferiour Creatures shall thy Dictates Orders and Commands be received and obeyed by them as the voice of God O let not then thy speech now to them be mixt with oaths and cursings according to the woâ—t and fashion of the wicked of the Earth whose behaviours towards the poor Brutes are more like to Devils than Men or Christians Yea let thy employment of them and rule over them be gentle milde and moderate not cruel or oppressive since the good Man with the Scripture is mercifull towards his Beast And 〈◊〉 tenderness of thy God towards them exprest as 〈◊〉 of the reasons of his commanding a seventh Days 〈◊〉 That thy Beast may rest as well as thee teaches what respect and considerate pitty and compassion he expects from thee towards them as being fellowâ—Creatures suffering what servitude they undergo for thy sin and from which they shall be freed and delivered in thy glorious liberty But instead of speaking evil of or to the inferiour Creatures do thou now as thou shalt do in the World to come with thy Heart and Tongue praise and glorifie thy God after the Example of holy David Psal. 148. throughout in and for them admiring his love and goodness to thee to them as also 〈◊〉 unexpressible yea unconceivable power and wisdome declared in their various formes wonderfull strength 〈◊〉 qualities excellent virtues and uses as being 〈◊〉 great end of theirs and thy Creation as the Lord â—â—clares to Job when he bids him behold Behemoth and â—â—â—iathan and leaves upon Record for our Instruction and Imitation so large a description of them and of others of his Creatures This holy exercise both of mind and voice in the contemplation of the Creatures was without doubt a chief employment of Adam in his innocency Let it be thine then in thy return and travailing to this second Paradise that what is begun by thee here in grace may be perfected there in Glory O glorious God and mercifull Father O infinite loâ—ing and gracious Saviour and Redeemer O holy and Eternal Spirit my Sanctifier three infinitely glorious Persons One Omnipotent onely wise and Eternal God Blessed blessed blessed from everlasting to everlasting who hath so highly honoured and dignified me a 〈◊〉 Worm and no Man As to love me freely in thy Eterâ—nally begotten and only beloved Son the Lord Jesus God-Man and in him from before all beginnings to elect me unto Eternal Life and Salvation Creating 〈◊〉 unto immortality and glory by giving me an immortaâ— Soul and a Body that shall assuredly be raised to life and glory by thy Almighty Power and by the virtue of the Resurrection of my Head and Saviour who hast miraculously raised me from a sinfull death unto a spiritual life in my effectual Calling through Adoption the Sanctification and Inhabitation of thy holy Spirit as 〈◊〉 freely justified me in thy Son the Lord my righteousâ—ness and by this blessed and inseparable union to 〈◊〉 in thy Son by the Holy Ghost given me assurance 〈…〉 Life and Glory which shall indubitably begâ—◠〈◊〉 my Soul at my dissolution and be compleat at the â—â—â—union of Soul and Body aâ— the Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise 〈◊〉 with my glory Awake my Heart awake my Tongue 〈◊〉 self will awake early and joyn with the Arch-Angels and Angels and the Church Tryumphant in Heaven and with the Holy Catholick Church upon Earth in 〈◊〉 Heavenly exercise of praise and thanksgiving O Lord whose only prerogative it is to search the heart knowest that these are the desires and petitions of 〈◊〉 Soul yet with holy Paul I cry out that to will is present with me through thy grace but how to perform know not Blessed Saviour give me of thy fulness so soâ—â— to receive grace for grace Yea be pleased to add 〈◊〉 to grace since thou alone workest in us both the will and the deed and the Heaven aspiring piercing 〈◊〉 of praise ariseth only from thy Divine Fire of Knowledge and holy affections Eternal Father let not this noble Instrument of thy Glory my Tongue be tuned to the vain and wanton Layes of the World and Sin lest thereby being crackt unstrung and made untunable for thy service here it and my whole Body with voluptuous Diveâ— be cast 〈◊〉 useless into the Fire of Hell where a drop of cold Water will not be 〈◊〉 to cool a flaming lascivious Tongue But let me O Lord be continually chaâ—â—ing the Magnâ—lia Dei and be singing those Evangelicalâ— and prophetical Songs of the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders the figure and representative of thy holy Church saying and singing
the World After which act of thy remunerative Justice and thy Raign upon the renewed Earth with thy Saints a thousand years thou wilt I believe raise and Judge all the wicked called the Goats at thy left hand and the Apostate Angels according as thou hast declared in thy Word of Truth when every ungodly one shall be sentenced and punished proportionable and according to the evil of their thoughts words and actions then being all made manifest who with the Devils their Tempters and Tormenters shall by thy mighty Angels be cast into the Lake of Fire the Locall Hell unto Eternity This is the second Death O my King my Judge my Spouse shall this dreadfull time of Judgment fearfull indeed to the wicked but a most joyfull Day to the Godly certainly come upon the World according to thy Word Shall there be a long tract of time measured out in the acting and manifesting thy Judgments and magnifying the glory of thy remunerative and vindicative Justice to the World as well as there hath been a long space of proclaiming and holding forth the Golden Scepter of thy free Grace and incomprehensible love and mercy to the Sons of Men Is this truth one of the Articles of the Christian Faith and as certain to us as the Day of our death according to that unrepealable Statute It is appointed to Men once to dye and afterwards comes the Judgment Shall the Crowns dignities and rewards conferred upon thy Saints be one chief subject of praise and fill the Mouths of Men and Angels with continual Hallelujahs unto God not only whilst they rest upon the renewed Earth but also in the highest Heavens after the end of this long Day and the pouring out of thy wrath and execution of thy righteous Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils when thy glorious justice in both the parts thereof shall be finished and compleated according to that Prophesie of the Psalmist then perfectly fulfilled Verily there is a reward for the righteous Verily he is a God that judgeth in the Earth O let both my Heart and Tongue now inure themselves to this Subject since I live by faith and not by sense and sing with the Elect ones in the Revelations that prophetical Song calculated for this time saying Hallelujah Salvation and Glory and Honour and Power unto the Lord our God for true and righteous are his Judgments Praise our God all yee his Servants and yee that fear him both small and great Hallelujah for the Lord reigneth Let us be glad and rejoyce and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come and hiâ— Wife hath made her self ready And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine Linnen clean and white for the fine Linnen is the righteousness of Saints Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. O King of Saints and King of Nations our Almighty Saviour and Conquerer who hast fulfilled the Law satisfied Divine Justice overcome the World Crucified Sin spoiled Principalities and Powers and wilt at the Resurrection of the Just and the Redemption of our Bodies destroy our last Enemy Death and after the Judging and Hellifying of wicked Men and Devils wilt in Tryumph ascend on high with thy Elect and lead Captivity Captive that the Glory which thy Father gave thee may be given them that they may be with thee where thou art and may behold the Glory which he hath given thee and possess an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us where we shall be ever with thee our Lord and see God face to face and in thee the perfections of all Creatures as in their first cause And know thee according to our measure as we are known by thee Blessed Mediator this is that time when all rule all authority and power being put down and under thee in the Kingdome of thy Saints and under thee in thy personal and glorious raign upon Earth All Enemies even Death it self being destroyed and put under thy Feet thou shalt deliver up the Kingdome so far as it is Mediatory personal and singly acted and managed by thee in thy humane appearance and Man-hood to God even the Father That so thou the Son as being also as Man the Son of God might be subject as to thy present kinde of administration unto him that put all things under thee that God may be all in all And the whole Universe and Creation both in Heaven and Earth especially thy spiritual Body thy Church may be immediately governed and influenced by him who is three in one God-blessed for ever To which mystical Body thy Spouse and Church as also to Angels thou still remainest Head and Lord for ever which being now perfectly and inherently sanctified and graciously admitted through the glorious inhabitation and communion of thy most holy and eternal Spirit to an immediate fellowship real and spiritual union although not essential with the Father Son and holy Ghost one God blessed for ever shall live eternally in the life of God and in whole and in part as respecting every individual Member and Vessel be always full yet always increasing in knowledge grace and glory as Eying and enjoying continually the Divine Nature and cast into an Ocean of infiniteness unto Eternity This is the Generation of them that seek thee that seek thy face O God of Jacob. Therefore let both my Heart and Tongue even now O Lord prepare and begin to praise thee as from Pisgath with beholding Canaan and by faith the eye of my Soul from the raised hill of holy Contemplation viewing this Saint Paul's third Heaven the Throne of God and of his glory and the many yea innumerable shining and starrified Mansions in thy Fathers house the places prepared by thee for thy Saints as also their Kingdome and State of endless glory happiness and blessedness In the ravishing Meditation of these things their translation and thy second most glorious and tryumphant Assention O let me sing and rejoyce in the words of thy Prophet David foretelling both thy Ascentions God is gone up with a shout the Lord with a sound of a Trumpet sing praises to God sing praises sing praises to our King sing praises Lift up your Heads O yee Gates and be yee lift up yee everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in Battel Lift up your Heads O ye Gates even lift them up ye everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord of Hosts He is the King of Glory Selah I have now by Divine assistance according to my weak-sightedness for all Men here know but in part and as in
a Glass darkly and imperfectly taken a view of the Land of Promise the Inheritance of the Saints in light and presented to the Lord and to his Spouse the Church what discoveries he hath in great mercy given me as concerning Eternal Life that last and great Article of the Christian faith begun visibly in the Saints glorified condition in the new Heaven and new Earth and continued unto Eternity in the Heaven of Heavens Wherein concluding with the glorification and blessed use and exercise of our Tongues in that happy state I thought it proper both as to the general subject I have been upon as being the Vision exercise and Tryumph of Faith and as to the subject matter both lauditory to God and declarative to one another about which our Tongues shall in our renewed life be imployed to declare in this life with all humility and thankfulness of Heart and Tongue to both which my Pen is but the Secretary in the Ejaculatory part of that Meditation what by faith I behold and am assured from the Word of Truth shall come to pass here and be injoyed by me and all Gods Elect in the life to come and shall be there a blessed Subject of our praises to all Eternity In which Song of 12. parts or Jacobs Laddar of 12. Staves whose foot stands upon Earth and top reaches to Heaven we may by faith ascend beginning here upon Earth in this present Year of our Lord 1666. by twelve successive Steps wonderfull and most signal periods noted afore in the Margint to the last and highest ascent the Glorification of the Saints in the Heavens Being now come to Hercules Pillars the Ne-plus ultra of Faith beyond which all sacred Scripture the light of Faith is silent I can proceed nor walk any further in these Contemplations lest walking without a Light I fall into the Darkness of Error It being alike sinfull curiosity and presumption to inquire what God will do after this silence When time shall be no longer as to ask what he did before time was and before this World was Created Wherefore I shall here conclude these my imperfect Meditations and with all humility and reverence return all Honour Glory and Praise to thee O glorious Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost one God blessed for ever for thy most gracious assistance by the light of thy Word and Spirit in this great Work a subject too weighty for Angels how much more for me a simple sinfull and weak Worm Lord I acknowledge that whatsoever is good right and true in this Treatise is of and from thee who art Goodness Light and Truth and to thee alone belongs the praise and that whatsoever therein is Hay or Stuble is mine who humbly takes shame therefore and Petitions for thy free pardon in my Lord Christ Jesus beseeching thee that in the assurance of thy love and mercy in him and in the faith light and assurance of thy glorious Truths herein declared out of thy Word I may with Holy Job all the Days of my appointed time wait until my Change come And with zealous Paul desire to depart and to be with Christ that so my faith and hope may be swallowed up in the possession of thee and Vision may be changed into fruition Thy Spirit and thy Bride say come And let him that heareth say come Thou O Lord that testifieth these things sayest Surely I come quickly Amen Even so come Lord Jesus The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all Amen Soli Deo Gloria An Advertisement by the Author to the Reader FOr the more cleer and fuller proof of the Twelve great things mentioned in the Conclusion of this Work I refer the Reader to my Treatise almost ready to be published Entitled An humble Exposition of most of the Scripture-Prophesies concerning Twelve great Periods to be fulfilled to the Church beginning to be manifested in the Year 1666. and concluding with the end of our Lords Mediatory Kingdome and the Translation of the Saints to the highest Heavens FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Of the Things contained in the TREATISE Intitulated MEDITATIONS ON FAITH A. THe Affections lose their appetite if ye do but change the object viz. Spiritual for Temporal Page 4 Christs Agony as described should much act upon our spirits Page 27 The use and abuse of the Affections Page 45 46 All Arts and Sciences are in the Scripture as Metaphysick Phylosophie Astronomy Chronologie Rhetorick c. Page 71 Christs answer to the soul complaining of her Affections Page 81 The Antiquity of the Scriptures Page 102 Of the Affections glorified Page 151 Of holy Anger glorified Page 160 A Soliloquium upon it Page 161 An Ejaculation upon it Page 161 A caution against blotting Assurance Page 185 B. The Body of man like the pool of Bethesda with its five Porches Page 22 The curse and judgement of the Body Page 52 The Souls complaint against the Body with Christs answer Page 88 89. c. Of the Body glorified Page 164 Of the spirituality and swiftness of our Bodies at the Resurrection Page 169 A soliloquium and ejaculation on those two qualities of the Body Page 170 The glorious shining of the Body at the Resurrection Page 171 A soliloquium on that shining of the Body Page 173 Item an ejaculation upon it Page 174 Of the Immortality of the Body glorified Page 175 C. The Certain condition of man is to be uncertain Page 8 A man may be a Conduit-pipe to others and be a Vessel of dishonour himself Page 15 17 Of Christs Death and Burial Page 33 34 His victory over Hell Page 35 His Resurrection Page 36 His Ascension Page 38 Man in respect of Conscience is as one possessed Page 42 A Contemplation on love Page 47 A Contemplation on the insatisfaction in Riches Honours Pleasures Wisdom Page 49 A Contemplation on fear Page 51 A Contemplation on the sinfulness of the Eyes Ears Nostrils Taste and Touch Page 56 Of Christs Priestly Office Page 57 The occasion of Christs Priest-hood Page 58 A Contemplation upon Christs Priest-hood Page 60 Of Christs satisfaction Page 61 Christs answer to the poor soul complaining of his Conscience Page 75 The souls general Complaint answered by Christ Page 85 86 The souls Complaint against her Senses Tongue and Members of her body and Christs answer to it Page 88 89 A meditation on the excellency of Christs person Page 99 Against Coveteousness Page 123 An Ejaculation upon the glorious Change of the body at the Resurrection Page 185 D. Demas described Page 14 A Dialogue between Christ and the poor complaining soul in many particulars which Christ answers and satisfies Page 74 Our victory by Christ over Death Page 130 Our victory over the fear of Death Page 132 Our victory over the pain and separation by Death Page 133 All things fall short of the Duration of glorified Bodies and Souls and the high
with thy Neighbours Wife to defile thy self with her The Adulterer and Adulteress shall surely be put to death Be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor abusers of themselves with Man-kind shall inherit the Kingdome of God Mortifie your Members which are upon the Earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience And commit not Fornication as some of the Israelites committed and fell in one Day three and twenty thousand Without the new Jerusalem are Whoremongers who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with Fire which is the second Death Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts which are an abomination to the Lord. Wherefore hate all vain thoughts Let them not lodg within you for the thought of foolishness is sin I understand your thoughts afar off and am a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your hearts Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouths but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers But fornication and all uncleanness let it not be once named amongst you as becometh Saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of disobedience Be not therefore partakers with them I say unto you every idle word that Men shall speak they shall give account thereof at the Day of Judgment For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Whosoever looketh upon a Woman to lust after her hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart Wherefore with holy Job make a Covenant with thine Eyes that thou think not upon a Maid to lust after her For when thy Eye is evil thy Body also is full of darkness The Eyes of the wicked shall faile But chiefly them that walk after the Flesh in the lust of uncleanness Having Eyes full of Adultery and that cannot cease from sin and are reserved to the Day of Judgment to be punished and to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever The Night is far spent the Day is at hand therefore cast ye off the works of Darkness and put on the Armour of Light walking honestly as in the Day not in rioting and drunkenness not in Chambering and wantonness But put ye on me the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Let not Sathan who is a lyar from the beginning and the Father of lyes fill your hearts to sin against the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of truth that ye be not strucken with sudden Death as was Ananias and Saphira Ye shall not lye one unto another but every one speak the truth with his Neighbour For ye are Members one of another For I will destroy them that speak leasing and the mouth that speaketh lies shall be stopped The Earth mourneth and fadeth away the World languisheth and fadeth away the haughty People of the Earth do languish the Earth also is defiled under the Inhabitants thereof because they have transgressed the Laws changed the Ordinance broken the everlasting Covenant I am the Mediator of the new Covenant sealed unto you in my Sacraments of Baptisme and my Supper Tread not then under foot the Son of God nor count the blood of my Covenant wherewith ye are sanctified an unholy thing nor do despight unto my Spirit of grace For vengeance is mine I will recompence yea I will judge my people It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God When thou vowest a vow unto God defer not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fools Pay that which thou hast vowed The Lord thy God will surely require it of thee and it would be sin in thee That which is gone out of thy Lips thou shalt keep and perform to God and to Men lest thou be excluded my holy Hill and suffer alike Judgement with King Zedekiah for shall he escape that doth such things Or shalâ— he break the Covenant and be delivered Surely where the King dwelleth that made him King whose Oath he despised and whosâ— Covenant he break even with him in the midest of Babilon shall he die Thou shalt not desire thy Neighbours Wife neither shalt thou covet thy Neighbours House his Field or his Man servant or his Maid-servant his Oxe or his Ass or any thing that iâ— thy Neighbours Woe unto him that covered an evil covetousness to his House that he maâ— set his Nest on high that he may be delivereâ— from the power of evil He that maketh haâ— to be rich shall not be innocent No covetouâ— Man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Take heed and beware of Covetousness For woe unto him that buildeth his House by unrighteousness and his Chambers by wrong Beware of Ahab's sin and his punishment No Man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Therefore I say unto you take no thought for your Life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what ye shall put on Is not the life more than meat and the body than rayment For after all these things the Gentiles seek for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things Wherefore having food and rayment be therewith content for I have said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown Men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows Wherefore love not the World nor the things that are in the World if any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him There is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that with-holdeth more than is meet and yet tendeth to poverty The liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himself There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun and
take away his part out of the Book of Life In Vain therefore do they worship Me who teach for Doctrines the Commandments of men drawing neer unto Me with their mouths and Honouring Me with their Lips but their Hearts is Farr from Me Ful-well they reject the Commandments of God that they may keep their own Traditions Let no man therefore Judge you in meat or drink or in respect of an Holy-day for you are dead with Me from the Rudiments of the World Neither be you subject to Ordinances such as these Touch not Taste not Handle not which things indeed have a shew of Wisdome in Will-worship and Humility and neglecting of the body not in any Honour to the satisfying of the Flesh For the Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And ye are built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles I my self being the Cheif corner Stone No man can come unto Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day All that the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out My Father which gave them Me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand VVoe then to the Idol Shepheards that leaveth the Flock and hath the Instruments of a Foolish Shepheard in whom now is fulfilled what I foretold by my Prophet For I will raise up a Shepheard in the Land which shall not visit those that be cut off neither shall seek the young One nor heal that which is broken nor Feed that that standeth still but he shall eat the flesh of the Fat and tear their Claws in pieces The Sword shall be upon his Arme and upon his right Eye his Arme shall be dried up and his right Eye shall be utterly darkened VVherefore rejoyce because your Names are written in Heaven And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the Soul But rather fear Mee who am able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell The Foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal the Lord knoweth who are his It is I only that giveth to him that overcometh to eate of the hidden Manna and a white Stone and in the Stone a new Name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it But this Diotrepsiâ— who loveth to have the Preheminence amongst them receiveth Me not neither doeth he receive the Brethren and forbideth them that would and casteth them by his own power out of the Church But he shall proceed no further for his folly shall be manifest to all Men. A Bishop then must be blameless not given to Wine no striker not greedy of filthy lucre but patient not a Brawler not covetous Even when Peter drew his Sword in a far better quarrel then his pretended Successor fights for I said unto him put up again thy Sword into his place for all they that thus without Commission from Me take the Sword shall perish with the Sword He that leadeth into Captivity must go into Captivity and he that thus killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword For I am righteous who have judged thus That they that have shed the blood of the Saints and Prophets shall have given them blood to drink for they are worthy This is that evil Servant which hath said in his heart my Lord delayeth his coming and doth begin to smite his fellow-servants and to eat and drink with the drunken I the Lord of this Servant will come in a Day when he looketh not for me and in an Hour that he is not aware of and will cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with Hypocrites there shall be wailing and gnashing of Teeth I am he that died unto sin once And by my own blood entred in once into the holy place having obtained Eternal Redemption for you who need not Daily as those High Priests to offer up Sacrifice for my own sins and then for the Peoples For this I did once when I offered up my self Woe to the bloody City that is filthy and polluted Mistery Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth That saith to the wood of my Cross awake to the dumb Stone and wafer Cake it shall teach Behold it is laid over with Gold and Silver and there is no breath at all in the midst of it For although I took Bread saying This is my Body and the Cup and said This is my Blood Do this in remembrance of me And my Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed I explained my self and added Doth this offend you What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascended up where he was before It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you are spirit and they are life Every Priest therefore of that Apostate Church which daily minister and offer up often-times the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But after I had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever I sat down at the right hand of God I am the Propitiation for your sins I by my self have purged your sins and by one Offering have perfected for ever those that are sanctified Yea this is the Covenant that I have made with you your sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin Much-less is there need of a Purgatory-Fire to purge the Souls of any redeemed ones Enoch was translated that he should not see Death Elijah went up by a Whirl-wind into Heaven Lazarus the Beggar died and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosome The Thief dying was that Day with Me in Paradice And blessed are they that dye in the Lord that they may rest from their Labours and their works follow them But the wicked shall be turned into Hell Where is then to be found in God's Word this third place for the tormenting and purifying of the Saints I am he that heareth Prayer unto me shall all flesh come unto me shall the Vow be performed Wait you therefore only upon God for your Expectation is from him You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve Then not Saints and Angels as doth the Romane Whore The Woman arrayed in Purple and Scarlet colour and decked with Gold and precious Stones and Pearl having a Golden Cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her Fornication Further consider
thou shalt have praise of the same For he is the Minister of God to thee for good but if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he beareth not the Sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but for Conscience sake For this cause pay you Tribute also for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing Render therefore to all their dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custome to whom Custome Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour The whole World lies in wickedness And this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the World and that Men love darkness rather than Light because their deeds are evil Jewes and Gentiles are all under sin as it is written There is none righteous no not one There is none that understandeth There is none that seeketh after God Take heed therefore that the Light which is in you be not darkness If the Light that is in you be darkness how great is that darkness Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God Because many false Prophets are gone out into the World If any Man shall say unto you Loe here is Christ or there believe it not For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect Behold I have told you before such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ And no marvel for Sathan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light Therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of Righteousness whose end shall be according to their works To the Law and to the Testimony If they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no light in them This is that sure Word of Prophesie whereunto you do well that ye take heed as unto a Light that shineth in a dark place until the Day dawn and the Day-Star arise in your Hearts Knowing this first that all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God And that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of any private interpretation For the Prophesies came not in old time by the will of Man But holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost When I was upon Earth they brought young Children unto Me that I should touch them and my Disciples like some in these last days rebuked those that brought them But when I saw it I was much displeased and said unto them suffer little Children to come unto Me and forbid them not For of such is the Kingdome of God Verily I say unto you whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child he shall not enter therein And I took them up in my Armes and put my Hands upon them and blessed them Baptism is now the only way for little Children to come to the Lord Christ. The Promise is made to you and to your Children and to all that are afar of even as many as the Lord your God shall call The unbelieving Husband is Sanctified by the believing Wife and the unbelieving Wife is Sanctified by the believing Husband or else were your Children unclean but now they are holy The Examples of the Apostles Baptizing whole Families are of great force And the History of their practice and of the first Churches planted by them is to be believed with an Historical faith and looked upon with much reverence by all true Christians both in this point and in the change of the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day As holding forth without doubt an Apostolical Institution The Lord spake to Moses saying The Land shall be divided for an Inheritance according to the number of Names to many thou shalt give more Inheritance and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours Give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away For the poor you have always with you I charge you that are Rich in this World that you trust not in uncertain Riches but in the living God who gives you all things richly to enjoy that you do good that you be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate When as many as were possessed of Lands or Houses sold them and brought the price of the things which were sold and laid them down at the Apostles Feet in that most sad time of Persecution and distribution was made unto every Man according as he had need Even then Peter said unto Ananias why hath Sathan filled thy heart to lye to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the Land Whilst it remained Was it not thy own And after it was sold Was it not in thine own Power Let no Man therefore seek his own but every one anothers wealth For there are some that walk disorderly working not at all but are busie-bodies Now them that are such I command that with quietness they work and eat their own Bread that they may have to give to him that needeth Come out of Babylon my People but count not the blood of the Covenant by which ye were sanctified an unholy thing If ye have been once born again of Water and the Spirit Can a Man be so again born the second time The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God as being not Baptized of John against themselves Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the holy Ordinance of God Seeing you have been Baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This only would I know of such Received you the spirit and your Convertion by and under the first Baptisme or your second Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh Now the works of the Flesh are hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions envyings but the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace If ye bite and devour one another take heed that you be not consumed one of another And that it be not truly said of you by my Saints They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us But
exhorting you to repentance towards God and faith to our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold I am as one bound a Prisoner and a banished man separated from you not knowing what things shall further befall me But none of these things move or grieve me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with joy For I am perswaded and assured that neither Tribulation or Distress Persecution or Famine nakedness or peril or Sword Death or Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord or cause to cease my love to him As therefore loving him because he hath loved me first Yea I am further assured that when I have finished my course a Crown of righteousness is laid up for me which my Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto all those that love his appearing And now my dearly beloved ones I know not God he only knows whether we shall see the Face of one another any more Wherefore that living or dead I may discharge my duty as a Husband and as a Father I take you to record this Day that I am pure from the blood of you all For I have not shunned to declare unto you the counsel of God Take heed therefore to your Souls which God hath purchased with his own blood for I know that after my departure grievous Wolves and Enemies such as the mighty Powers of Darkness the numerous tempting and malicious men of the World and that out of your own selves which therefore are the most dangerous of adversaries will arise strong innumerable and impetuous Lusts all endeavouring to draw you from the Faith and to destroy your most precious Souls Therefore watch and remember that by the space of these many years I have not ceased to warn every one of you Night and Day with tears Therefore my dearly beloved and longed for my Joy and Crown stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved And I intreat thee also true Yoke-fellow help counsel and encourage our Children in the way of godliness and righteousness which is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Hide not thy talent nor neglect the gifts that are in thee until I come again unto you Give attendance to reading to exhortation meditate upon these things that I have written and give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all Be an example to our Children in Word in Conversation in Chastity in Spirit in Faith in Purity For in doing this thou shalt both save thy Self and Family now solely under thy charge and as to the care of whose Soulâ— thou must shortly be accountable at God's Tribunal O ye that are my precious Jewels my chief and only riches upon Earth my mouth is open to you my heart is enlarged ye are not straitned in me be ye not therefore straitned in your own bowels Now for a recompence in the same I speak unto you as unto my Children be ye also enlarged And now dear and beloved Christians for this is the highest and shall be my concluding Title and sweetest compellation as therein not knowing you after the Flesh I commend you unto God and to the Word of his Grace which is able to build up and to give you an Inheritance among all them that are sanctified Ceasing not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my Prayers That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ The Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdome and revelation in the knowledge of him The Eyes of your understanding being enlightned that ye may know what is the hope of his calling And what the riches of the glory of his Inheritance in the Saints And what is the exceeding greatness of his Power to us-ward that believe Your most affectionate Husband and Father J. H. From Antwerpe the First of January 1665. A Directory Letter Mutatis Mutandis sent by the Author to every one of his Twelve Children prefixt to the Manuscript of the following Epistle now Printed for the use and benefit of other Christian Families Dear Daughter Mary I Commend unto your serious and often Reading and Meditation this following Epistle a Work which cost me much labour study and time in the Collection yet performed with much delight and chearfulness as moved to write it to all my Relations by the good Spirit of the Lord as the best means I could use to counsel stir up and advise them with Mary to choose the better part which shall never be taken from them Wherefore loving Daughter let me lay this Paternal Charge upon you as I shall do upon the rest of your Brothers and Sisters for whom I am preparing Transcripts out of the Original written by my own hand That you read it over at least once a Quarter as long as you live as being not mine but the Epistle of our most dear Lord and Saviour presented to you only by my hands his most unworthy Instrument The subject matter thereof being his most sacred Word who is the Lord God of all the holy Prophets the Pen-men hereof And the great Prophet of his Church whose Word whosoever will not hear and obey are threatned to be destroyed My design herein I hope through the grace and mighty power of the most holy Spirit of Christ will be prosperous and effectual as being not only a Letter of advice and counsel from an earthly Father whom I am confident you love and will obey in the Lord But the Epistle and most powerful Exhortations of your heavenly Father yea the love-letter of your Head and Spouse the Lord Jesus Christ who hath married you unto himself in holiness and everlasting righteousness Dear Daughter the holy Scriptures being the Foundation of all saving knowledge and true Religion I have by the direction and assistance of the Lord skim'd off for you the Cream thereof and given you a few proofs of many holding forth as from his own mouth First The excellency of his Person Secondly The Fundamental Articles of the Christian faith and belief in the words of the holy Scripture only Thirdly what things are to be practised by you held forth in God's holy Law Fourthly what evil things are to be eschewed either respecting Doctrine or manners wherein you have the Lord Jesus Christ's encouragement and exhortation to the attaining of all saving graces and virtues and his Dehortation from all errors in Doctrine especially those that are sowen and profest in these worst of times and from all sins and vices in practice Fifthly You have herein many of his Holy Counsels directing
Order of Melchizedeck I say dost thou now being on Earth neerer to their reproaches and yet not further off from thy power pass over their iniquities suffering thy self to be crucified by them whom thy Justice should have crucified to be sacrificed by the wrath of them whom thy anger hadst thou come to destroy not to save should have sacrificed Was Noah Lot Moses Elisha all Prophets all Types of Thee by thee aided and made victorious over their unbelieving and insulting adversaries and why dost not thou O Lord of all Prophets being now thine own Orator and yet despised demolish Corazin or Bethsaida with other Cities of Judea either by Water or Fire O Lord thou art still the same God then thy Justice was manifested but now thy mercy is magnified as appears by that Deploration over Jerusalem where the Floods of Waters are now converted to an Inundation of Teares the Fire and Brimstone to love-burning and pittying sighes though some murmuring ask From whence hast thou this Authority others blaspheming make thee a Sabbath-breaker and esteem thee as a Conjurer a Glutton a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners yet hast thou not now a devouring Gulf for such Repiners Teeth of wilde Beasts for such calumniating Blasphemers unless we behold that one alone bottomless Gulf of thy mercy most extended and most deep even to Man in the depth of his misery Father forgive them for they know not what they do O Christ Did fear dead thy revenge due to those Sinners against their own Souls No fear is a duty of the Creature ruled by thee not over-ruling thee Passion is incident to inferiours and therefore below thee which hast no Superior Did want of ability smother thy anger No thy Power is not extinguished no less than â—nfinite although in thy humiliation clouded during thy pleasure Lord why did those many Legions of Heavenly Souldiers suffer thy Enemies to carry thee their General away Captive those Bonds which could not resist Sampson's force fetter the Armes of thee the Almighty who gave him strength those Nailes fasten thee to the Cross who wert as able to deliver thy self as thou wert willing to suffer O Saviour my thankful Soul by way of confession replies thus The unmeasurableness of thy love patiently swallowed up all these contumelies and reproaches for love instead of revenge thou forgavest thine Enemies instead of calling for power to destroy Man thou proclamedst his Salvation crying out It is finished the Angels when thou wert attached by Judas although within thy Call must only be admiring Witnesses of thy Patience not Executors of those Traytors Lastly thy Mercy only manacled thy hands and nailed thee to thy Cross making Thee a Transgressor by the bearing of our Sins that we might become righteous through the Imputation of thy Merits according to that of Peter Who his own Self bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree that we being dead to Sin should live in Righteousness by whose Stripes we are healed These things gracious Saviour yea infinitely more hast thou done for us which since we cannot apprehend let us with reverence admire rejoycing that we have view'd thee in thy Birth to be our Kinsman in thy Life our Example in thy Death our Saviour after Death our Resurrection and Glory Lord what art thou not unto us a Balme for our Wounds a Laver for our Souls a Sacrifice for our Sins and the Life of our Death What hast thou not suffered for us Wert thou not humbled in thy Birth persecuted all thy Life and though innocent adjudged to Death that our Nature might be exalted our Life enlarged our Guilt acquitted Wert thou not scourged disrobed Crowned with Thorns lifted upon the Cross derided athirst forsaken and slain that we might be delivered from the Judgments of thy Father clothed with thy Righteousness Crowned with thy Glory lifted up into Heaven freed from the mocks of Sathan satisfied with the sweet draughts of thy Love received of thee for ever to Live Eternally What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon his Name saying Glory be to God in the Highest Peace on Earth good Will towards Men Praise and Honour and Glory and Power be unto Him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for evermore Soli Deo Gloria A Concluding Prayer O Eternal Infinite and Everlasting God by whom all things were Created that are made and in whom we Live Move and have our Beeing I thy poor Creature humbly beseech Thee to deal graciously with me thy Servant pardoning all my Offences and passing by all the errors wants and imperfections committed in these my feeble Meditations O Lord I praise Thee for thy favourable assistance of my weakness ever confessing thy gâ—eat Goodness in my Creation the Pride Incredulity and Weakness of my Nature in Man's Fall and thy Infinite Mercy in my Redemption O let the one rejoyce me the other humble me and the last make me obediently thankful in the observant performance of all thy Commands that so I may glorifie Thee which is the end of my Beeing repent and believe in Thee who art the Resurrection of my Fall and live with Thee Eternally which is the Compleatment of my Salvation and fulfilling of my Hope which is fixt in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all possible Praise Obedience and Thanksgiving now and for ever Amen Vpon several temporal Mercies Providences and Deliverances Graciously Vouchsafed By the Lord Infinite in Goodness To the most unworthy Author And to many also of his neer Relations EBENEZER HETHERTO hath GOD helped me 1 Sa. 7.12 Bethel the House of God Gen. 28.19 A Pillar of PRAISE Erected by An English JACOB unto the onely Infinite Eternal and Almighty JEHOVAH in all Sincerity Humility Reverence and filial fear Hallelujah Eternal FATHER Glorious SON and Holy GHOST Three Persons but One GOD in Essence who the HOST Of Heaven and Earth did'st make and art Goodness Power Justice Truth Love Wisdome Holiness To Thee with JACOB SAMUEL A PILLAR I ERECT to tell All Future AGES to thy PRAISE Thy MERCIES to Me all my DAYES Their 's like their Faith was of firm Stone Mine weak like Me a PAPER One O let thy Strength made Perfect be In my Great IMBECILITY Two Mites Goats Hair from Hearts most free Are JEWELS in Thy TREASURY LORD had I Men and Angels Tongues That KEY would be below the SONGS Of THANKS-GIVING I owe to THEE For what in CHRIST thou did'st for MEE From which Eternal Love forth Springs The Temporal Mercies which these Hymns Commemorate O let Free GRACE Be Adamantine and my BASE And IRON-HEART to THEE attract Seal'd by Thy SACRAMENTAL Act So shall my Person and these Sheets Which I prostrate at THY blest FEET Received be as being PERFVM'D By thy sweet SPIRIT and only