It were well therefore if all Controversies in Religion were reduced to this main Querie What is that Divine Nature Man is capable to partake of in the prevailing activity whereof he may be enabled to follow God fully resist the devil stedfastly and live in the certain assurance and clear evidence of eternal Life By the divine Nature which a chosen generation are made partakers of 2 Pet. 1.4 we are to understand the humane or creature-nature in Christ's person called divine by a communication of properties In this blessed Mediator between God and man it pleased the Father all fulness or perfection should dwell creaturely and divine Col. 1. 19. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2. 9. In him also dwels all the fulness of the creature spiritually or in its most heavenly spiritual sublimated capacity and incorruptible form Christ that is perfect man is also perfect God very God of very God the very form or invisible image of God so some render Col. 1. 15. which seperately considered in distinction from all creature-nature in him is meerly and singly the object of God's own uncreated understanding absolutely uncommunicable invisible or undiscernable to any meer creature capacity natural or spiritual for ever The highest Nature or Principle of life in any person does by way of prerogative give the denomination and derive its title to the whole person and all that is in him when compleatly subjected to â—â—s ruling influence Thus all that is in Christ who is a person undisputably Divine is also called divine So where the Principle of new-creature Life or Life of Faith is sown by Christ in any man though it be but as a grain of mustard-seed Luk. 13. 18 19. it will spring up into such a prevailing exercise of its spiritual senses over all fleshly first-creation Life and principles in him that his whole person may thence be called a spiritual man David on this account was called a man after God's owne heart 1 Sam. 13. 14. though he had such a remainder of his fleshly nature yet about him as did lust and strive against the Life and operation of his spiritual form so as that after this choice Character of his person from God's own mouth it carried him by a kind of violence into some particular enormities more gross than many heathens were ever guilty of from their Cradles to their Graves in a longer life upon earth than Davidâ—ived â—ived But the solution to the above mentioned Querie requires at least a glance farther upwards into some brief contemplation of the Trinity from such proper language and expression as they are exhibited to us in by the holy Ghost 1 Iohn 5. 7. and Col. 1. 15. 19. In the former of these Scriptures it is written There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one In the latter we find these three expressions concerning Christ Image of the invisible God First-born of every Creature and First-born from the dead From these two Scriptures duly compared and explicated we might doubtless receive very considerable information touching the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ Col. 2. 2. In the former we find the three that bear Record In the latter the Record that is born by all the three the Witness or Testimony Image Name Glory manifestation or threefold personal appearance they give of themselves in Christ. In the former is exhibited to us God as the head of Christ in his threefold essential property or spring of operation In the latter is represented Christ as the express Character threefold glory or personal appearance of the three that are one brought forth by the operation of the said three essential properties in the Godhead And as the three in the first consideration are one God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ so are the three in the second consideration one Christ Image or personal appearance of God Father Word and Spirit that manifest themselves in Christ are one Christ that is the Father Son and holy Ghost in personal appearance Name or manifestation is also one God in Christ and Christ in God are all one pure uncompounded infinite eternal God blessed for ever God in Christ is not three persons as three distinct individual men are for so there would be three Gods but may more fitly be resembled to our capacity by a threefold personal appearance of one and the same man his personal appearance in the body to his fellow mortals his personal appearance in the spirit to angels when his body is laid down and his personal apperance in both together in the rarefied and incorruptible state of both meeting together in the Resurrection God then as head of Christ is three and yet one in an absolute impersonallity or invisibility God as giving forth a threefold personal appearance of himself in Christ is three persons yet so as that he may also be said to be one person Christ and the Father are one Iohn 17. 22. To say God the Father and Christ is in summe to say all that is to be said of God if the apostolical form of sound words may find place with us 1 Tim. 1. 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2. Tit. 1. 4. 2 Thes. 1. 1 2. and Chap. 2. 16. In the second Epistle of Iohn vers 3 and 9. It is said He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son And he that hath them hath all even Father Word and holy Ghost revealed in and by the Son No man hath seen God the Father at any time not ever can any otherwise than as declared by the onely begotten son which is in the bosom of the Father Joh. 1. 14. and 18. So Mat. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him God and the Mediator are so one that there 's no right receiving or owning them apart He that denieth the Son hath not the Father and he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also 1 Iohn 2. 22 23. Antichrist is a liar he denies the Father and the Son The true believing Christian receives and ownes both and both are one God ha's abundantly warn'd and prohibited all men in the Scriptures that they neither make nor take to themselves any single creature-formes as Images of him by or through which to worship him but onely such as he ha's given of himself in Christ before whom was no God formed or nothing formed of God neither shall there be after him Esay 43. 10. The Scriptures are plentiful in this testimony concerning God under these expressions God and Christ Father and Son God considered absolutely as in himself and God considered as the Mediator God our Saviour 1 Tim. 2. 3. The Head of Christ God the Father is three and one and in God the Son he appeares or shewes himself to be so I am in the Father and the
Father in me sayes Christ Iohn 14. 11. and Iohn 17. 21 22. He prayes for the like indissoluble union of his Saints with him as he ha's with the Father That they may be one as he and the Father are one by his being in them as the Father is in him that they may be made perfect in the one Mediator vers 2â— These things premised concerning the Trinity in their impersonality and the same Trinity as in their threefold personal appearance God and the Mediator Father and Son which are one we may I hope with better success descend into and re-assume the consideration of the various creature-capacity in the same person of Christ who is also God and of the derivation and communication thereof to the particular persons of men and angels who in Scripture phrase are thereby asserted to be partakers of the divine Nature Christ as he is the living WORD express Character or Image of the invisible God Col. 1. 15. brought forth from Eternity by the peculiar operation of the Father yet not without the joint concurrence of the otheâ— two is the personal manifestation of the Trinity in a form purelâ—â—â—vine very God and singly as so is discernable to God alone not at all to angels or men in any capacity that ever they are to be brought forth in natural or spiritual The same blessed Mediator as brought forth in his twofold creature capacity by the peculiar operations of the second and third in the Trinity not without the joynt concurrence of all the three in each is the immediate representer of God the root and parent to both worlds and the immediate satisfying object of enjoyment to the natural and spiritual capacities of angels or men In a shadowy resemblance of Christ in this twofold creature-capacity and right stated subordination of the natural to the spiritual was man at first created male and female in the same person Gen. 1. 27. before we hear of Eve unless by anticipation Gen. 2. 22. Rational and sensual nature the Angel and the beast were married together in Adam on these tearms and with this Law that the rational was to keep its ground and rule as Lord and Husband till a higher Lord came to which that also was to become subject and the sensual to obey and continue subject in his individual person So ought matters to go in every one of his posterity and then their house or first-creation-building would be in order but this still at best is not the new creature The new creation by way of fire-baptism purifies and strips this natural first-creation form of man of its mortality changeableness corruptibility and brings it into an incorruptible form an unchangable life of righteousness true holiness and glory everlasting This is the least fruit of the new-creation Over and above all this it brings upon a more peculiar sort of everlastingly saved men a distinct superiour forme of manhood and more excellent glory in association with the spiritual and most exalted capacity in Christ taking in and comprehending also the inferior in the same persons But by what in Christ is this transforming new-creation work performed upon the first-created formes and persons of angels and men By the highest most excellent and spiritual-creature power in the person of this Mediator As the natural root and head of the first-creation was Christ himself willing to become a Lamb slain under the fire-Baptisme-activity of his spiritual and more excellent creature-form brought forth-in him as a peculiar emanation from the third in the Trinity which was originally unchangable and in an indissoluble union with the living WORD or Image of the invisible God The duty and great concern of angels and men is to follow this Lamb whithersoever he go in that transition which he was coâ—â—â—â—t to make under the fire-baptisme once in the beginning of the world and again in the fulnes of time when made of woman Rev. 13. 8. Heb. 9.26 'T was the sin and fall of angels men at first that they refused to follow this head of the first creation in that transition he was willing to make by way of death resurrection into the unchangable state life thereof On the contrary t is said of the good angels that were content to have this fire baptism pass upon their first-creation state and glory that whithersoever this spirit or head of the first creation looked they looked and whither he went they went they turned not as they went This we find in that commonly reputed uninterpretable vision of the Wheels Ezek. 1. 20. and Ch. 10 11. By the way give me leave to ask what can the four living creatures be Chap. 1. 5. that are called also one living creature vers 20 21 22. and Chap. 10. 15 and 20. What but Christ as the Spirit and Creator Head and Ruler of the first Creation And what signifies the letting down of the wings of this living creature Chap. 1. 24. but the cessation from the voice of speech from the noise of his first ministry the dispensation of the Law given forth by the disposition of Angels Acts 7. 53. for the government of this first world This letting down the Wings was his becoming the Lamb slain in order to come forth a better comforter in the more excellent way and dispensation upon the Throne and that as a man Ezek. 1. 26. and Iohn 16. 7. And what are or can be the Wheels called also one Wheel Ezek. 1. 15. and 10. 13. moving up and down with the living creature Spirit and Head of the first creation but the angelical attendance and retinue of Christ in his first-creation Government and Ministry Some of these pass along with him under the fire-baptism into the more excellent glory while others with Lucifer their head apostarize into a fixed and everlasting enmity against him How familiarly are angels in their Ministry and Magistratical government of this World represented by Charets and Wheels It is written Psal. 68. 17. The Charets of God are twenty thousand thousands of angels the Lord is amongst them as in Sinai Thousand thousands of them also continue to minister before him when upon the Throne Dan. 7. 9. 10. Some of these good angels were the Charet and Horses of fire that translated Eliah from the Earth and delivered Elisha in Dotham from the Syrian army 2 King 2. 11. 12. and Chap. 6. 17. What all humane forces charets and horses have amounted to when they have come to grâ—pple with the angelical host hath sufficiently appeared To this effect above seven years ago have I heard this vision of the Wheels expounded by this blessed Martyr with abundance of satisfactory evidence and spiritual demonstration together with many rich fruitful and comfortable observations thereupon for relief of God's people when all visible means fail by the angelical host the next dispensation But to recover our selves out of this digression The devil and his angels as we find in this vision turned away from
so also the Baptism of the holy Ghost There is a figurative outward Water Baptism and a real or inward In the first sense it is an Institution which doth appoint the outward man to be washed in Water thereby to signifie the proper effect and operation of that washing with Water by the Word which causes a renovation or restauration of man by his repentance from dead workes and return to the service of the living God in amendment of Life By this inward Baptism and real work of the Spirit on the hearts of men they are but cleansed from the filthiness and pollution of their corrupted Nature not regenerated and altered from their first make and constitution that is attended with instability and liableness to apostacy ` There is also a twofold outward Water Baptism mentioned 1. Iohn's Water Baptism which was the onely outward sign that accompanied his Ministry the Ordinance of that time and season to prepare the way for Christ's coming in the flesh and to signify the proper effect which his first appearance as God manifested in flesh was to have upon the hearts and natures of men consisting chiefly in these two particulars Repentance from dead Works and Amendment of Life 2. The second outward Water Baptism was that which Christ himself instituted and committed to his disciples in his Life time as the outward sign that was to accompany their first ministry when he employed them much in the same nature as Iohn was sending them before his face as labourers into the harvest to all places whither he himself afterwards intended to come Both these Administrations had their Known Administrators and were dispensations proper to that season they were ordained in to prepare the minds of People to receive Christ in his first appearance or coming in the flesh and the fruits flowing there-from in amendment of Life The inward or real Water Baptism consisting in the washing of man's nature by the Word unto Repentance and Amendment of Life is capable of being administred three wayes or by a threefold hand 1. By the Ministry Hand or Tongue of Men as by Iohn Baptist through the preaching of the written Word 2. By the Word as spoken by Angels whereby inward abilities and dispositions are wrought in the minds of men in some sort answerable to what is required by the Law of the first Covenant Thus the Law is given by the disposition of Angels 3. By the Word as spoken by the Son himself in his first appearance Heb. 1. 2. which is yet but the preparatory work to the Baptism of the holy Ghost and of Fire The Baptism of the holy Ghost is either a Baptism of Gifts onely or also of Fire 1. The first is that wherewith the earthly man is capable to be Baptized through the pouring out of the Gifts of the holy Ghost 2 The second is that whereby the natural or earthly man is Baptized into conformity with Christ in his death and is made to grow up into the incorruptible form of heavenly manhood Of these four Baptisms The two Water Baptisms have served their season and are gone off the Stage The single Baptism of Gifts or first Baptism of the holy Ghost hath been of late somewhat remarkable amongst us and the Baptism of the holy Ghost and of Fire is hastening upon us as a general dispensation wherein the Vision of God will be so plain that he that runs may read it The declining of the two Water Baptisms deprives not the Saints of these times of the true use of that Ordinance which is kept up in the third and comprehends all that is now useful in the other two in a more heavenly and Spiritual way leading us yet forward to the end they all aim at which is the very thing it self contained in the fourth and last Baptism that of Fire So much in brief of his Judgement as to Baptisms He was for Breaking of Bread in a way of Christian communion and any other useful Observations could he have found them practicable in the Primitive Apostolical purity spirit and way which what hopes he had of in any visible Form allowed by man while the true Church is in the Wilderness cannot be difficult to conjecture Such Meetings as he found to approach nearest to the Apostolical Order as to liberty of Prophesying one by one c. 1 Cor. 14. 31. he most approved and frequented Concerning the SABBATH HE accounted the Iewish Sabbath Ceremonious and Temporary ending upon the coming of the Son of man who was Lord of the Sabbath day Mat. 12. 8. And if he had thought that which is commonly observed in the room thereof to be rather a Magistratical Institution among Christians in imitation of the Iewish then that which hath any clear appointment in the Gospel the Apostle would not have him judged for it One man saies he esteems one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind He that regardeth a day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it Rom. 14. 5 6. This I can say he usually took the opportunity of spending more time in exercise and prayer in his family or other Christian Meetings on that day than on any other And will any yet say he was a Sabbath breaker If they do see what company we may find for him under that imputation Iohn 9. 16. The Pharisees said this man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day So Ioh. 5. 16. The Iewes did peâ—secute Iesus and sought to slay him for curing the impotent man at the Poole of Beâ—hesdaâ— and bidding him take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath day Yea with this they joyn another sad charge as they reckon that he had not onely broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father therefore they sought the more to kill him vers 18. And John 19. 7. They answer Pilate we have a Law and by our Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God What strange work do the Sons of Men make with the Sons of God with the spirit wisdom righteousness glory and kingdom of God It was the religious professing Iew that Crucified Christ and persecuted Paul where ever he came Pilate the Roman Magistrate would have acquitted Christ and Paul rather appeals to Caesar's Judgement seat than appear before the Iewish Consistory Act. 25. The true spiritual Sabbath is to be continually kept as it is charactered by Esay Chap. 58. 13. consisting in aâ—câ—ssation from the single activity thoughts words and ways of our spirit which is but letter and in the performance of all duty by power of the communicated spirit of the new creation springing up in us which alone is worshipping God in spirit and in truth after his own heart He was for taking all opportunities of assembling our selves together to instruct and exhort one another and so much
Christ their natural head refusing to adventure the exchange of their first-creation glory and Life through unbelief of the gain and usury thereby attainable even the fixedness and unchangableness of what they already had in the greater and more excellent glory of the resurrection By this not yeilding to the conditions of passing along with their head into the more excellent state and unchangable form of their very natural Beings they lost even that they had their first creation glory righteousness and the Life of communion with God in Christ manageable therein Iude tells us vers 6. what befel them hereupon The angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation or head Christ choosing their distinct opposite Luciferian head the devil and satan are with this their chieftaine reserved in everlasting chaines under darkness unto the judgement of the great day When Lucifer had drawn to himself and engaged a numerous party of angels with him in his apostacy by attempting to assert maintain and exalt the lesser natural glory of the first creation into a competition with yea a preference and opposition to the new-creature state of Life and glory in the second which excels his next business was to seduce our first Parents and in them all their posterity into the same opposition to new-creature Life and Glory the true mystical Sabbath state THE SAINTS EVERLASTING REST. This most desireable Rest is attainable only by our being made willing to enter into a conformity with Christ in his death through a surrender of the single and ruling activity of our first-creation principles at their best and giving up our selves wholly into a pure subjection to what we meet with that 's more excellent in the second Angels fell more knowingly than man who was lower than they in understanding and strength and therefore irrecoverably Man fell somewhat ignorantly as over-reached through the woman his weaker part by the beguiling insinuations of the Serpent so he and his are again set upon their feet in some degree or other by the mighty Redeemer to try them over again in their own persons how they will â—eâ—ean themselves in this great fundamental point about yeilding to the tearms of a transition out of the corruptible state of the life glory and righteousness of their first-creation the house upon the sand into the incorruptible and unchangable life glory and righteousness of the second the house founded upon the rock Christ in spirit So The soul that sinneth again after the similitude of Adams first transgression after all fair warning it shall die for its own personal transgression and not for the fathers having eaten sower grapes Ezek. 18. 1 4. In order to this new creation Christ in the single or double portion of his spirit is given forth received and owned by the sons of men either in the unchangable spiritualized state of his natural manhood or also in the more exalted capacity of his spiritual each of which gifts do baptize and transform the corruptible state of their natural man into an incorruptible life and unchangable union with the natural or spiritual man in Christ's person by the new and everlasting Covenant established in all thinâ—â— and sure The twofold creature-nature in Christ's person as the former and inferiour is transformed and brought forth by the latter and more excellent into an unchangable state of Life and union therewith is called the WORD of God that abides for ever in them that receive it the spirit of God Christ in spirit the Son of man in heaven Joh. 3. 13. that overshadowed the Virgin and formed for himself a fleshly tabernacle in her womb The clothing of himself herewith for the Redemption of man was a greater condescention than his actual coming forth in the Life and capacity of the first-born of every creature for the Creation of the World Redemption is a greater work than Creation and requires greater condescention in the undertaker As first-born of every creature he was in a superiority of headship to all the angels as the works of his hands therein the highest ranck of meer created Beings in the first world But when this WORD which was God and the twofold original spring of all creaturely life and perfection also was made flesh took on him the particular nature of man not angels he became little lower than the angels for a season Heb. 2. 7. and 16. and not onely so but was content also to suffer the visage of this flesh to be marred more than any man and to be humbled and abased therein even to the death upon the Cross Esay 52. 13 14. and Chap. 53. The creature-nature in Christ is so enfolded together and hypostatically united with his purely divine form that it receives the denomination from that supream form of all He is therefore called Michael Gods equal and the man his fellow Zech. 13. 7. The whole person of Christ as comprehending all fulness of perfection creaturely or divine is very God But the persons of men and angels that are brought into an everlasting union and association with Christ in one or both of his creature forms are not God nor Christ. For the highest denominating form in their personal constitution is but creaturely yet spiritual and divine in distinction from the natural corruptible form of men or angels received at their first creation The everlasting security of elect angels and men lies in their inseparable union with their head the Mediator in whom alone both creature capacities are in personal union with God The exalted creature nature in Christ is divine altogether lovely Cant. 5. 16. the true Vine Iohn 15. 1. that cheareth the heart of God and man as in Iotham's parable Iudg. 9. 13. It is the Spirit of God the immediate womb parent fountain-head of all new-creation life and principles in men or angels by the fire-baptisme An inferior work to this is also thereby performed upon and in the sons of men to wit all that gradual revival of rational light life in the moral heathen or legal Christian that is very obvious and familiar to observation all the world over The legal Christian experiences such an operative actuating influence from this spirit as revives enlightens cleanses renews restores him to some good measure of first-creation Life righteousness As for the flawes deficiencies yet incident to his personal operations God imputes to him or puts upon him that perfect righteousness of the Law called Gods comeliness Ezek. 16. 14. which Christ himself performed and had in his fleshly manhood rendring it applicable to men through the merit of his death therein This whole work of Christ in men inwardly washing sanctifying them by his blood as also justifying them by the imputation of the perfect righteousness of the law to them from his own person amounts but to their practical and experimental knowledge of him after the flesh 2 Cor. 5. 16. and a prospering onely into that Kingdom
by the variety of figurative light in the outward visible creation Christ is called The Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. Angels Stars Job 38. 7. And the Spirit of Man The candle of the Lord Prov. 20. 27. To wind up all then and secure our selves from the mistake of the German Divinity The servants that stand about the Throne are not the Bride that sits upon it The Bride is not the Bridegroom The Bridegrom himself in whatever creature-state he is married to men or angels by the new and everlasting Covenant is yet but as the Bride to himself in his purely divine form and as so yet he is not the Father but as the Bride of the God-head the express character or personallity of all the three as Image of the invisible God The Bride the Lambs Wife Angels or Men are all gathered up into one common Interest all do live in the beatifical Vision and enjoyment of God in Christ in their several intellectual distances ranks and capacities and may all be said to partake of the divine nature But more peculiarly next to the living creature that is under the God of Israel in personal union with God Ezek. 10. 20. the â—uperiour and more excellent sort of Saints are partakers thereof being actually brought forth in the highest kind of creature capacity that is next to the purely divine form See all summ'd up together Heb. 12. 22 24. Ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just Men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Here we have a distinct expression of the heavenly Orders 1. An innumerable company of Angels and spirits of just Men made perfect 2. The general Assembly and Church of the first-born that have the double portâ—on of the Spirit 3. Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant 4. God 〈◊〉 Iudge of all Will any now say What signifies this prolixe Discourse of Principles to the present undertake 'T is answered Much every way in case what hath been said be true and intelligibly expressed For it most exactly suits with what is engaged for in the Title Page He lived in the Spirit and walked in the Spirit Gal. 5. 25. 'T is this Life hid with Christ in God I principally intend the character of the Life of Faith which now with him is turn'd to sight being absent from the Body and at home with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 6 7. This Life is no way explicable but by considering his Gospel Principles Doctrine and Way of Worshipping God in spirit and truth And what signifie all his publick and outward actings in Church or state but as issuing from and reducible to this his new-creature Life and the Principles thereof This discourse therefore is principally directed to Christian Readers who are furnished with the spiritual discerning of Faith which can take in the evidence and demonstration of things not seen to any other eye in man things eternal Heb. 11. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 18. This Pilgrim quitted the broad way that leads to destruction and took the narrow path that leadeth unto Life which few there be that find Mat. 7. 14. His lot was to be upon the earth while the Church was in her Wilderness condition in her sackcloth Briars and Thornes were with him all along he dwelt among Scorpions Ezek. 2. 6. Many archers shot at him they did shoot forth their arrows even bitter words they smote him with the tongue and at length with the hand but his Bow abode in strength his Armes were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Iacob Gen. 49. 23 24. His enemies encouraged themselves in an evil matter they communed of laying snares privily that they might shoot at him in secret their teeth were spears and arrows they did whet their tongue like a sword to wound him But God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded Psal. 64. and 57. 4. He will whet his sword and ordain his arrows against the Persecutors Psal. 7. 12 13. But where may it appear that this sufferer was of the opinion that there are two distinct sorts of everlastingly saved men In his general Epistle to the Church of Christ upon earth which is like to be exposed to publick view before this Not long before his death I received express notice in a Letter concerning these two Witnesses of Christ both of them coming forth in the self-evidencing power and demonstration of the single or donble portion of his spirit He took rise for his conceptions herein from such irradiations of divine glory as he received in the contemplation of these following Scriptures with many others First Revel 11. 18. The Nations were angry thy wrath is come and â—he time wherein thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the Prophets and to the Saints and to them that fear thy Name small and great There is said he intended here by the holy Ghost a considerable difference between those called Christs servants the prophets and the rest that are named saints all being such as are said to fear God's Name great or small and are declared to be objects of Christs reward who hath one kind of reward for the prophet and another for righteous men saints just men made perfect These as faithful servants are to abide in the house for ever friends to the Bridegroom that rejoyce at hearing of his second voice which they have but at second hand through the Bride But those more excellent sort of servants the prophets that are the very Bride they have their peculiar priviledge above the other personally to possesse the Bridegroom as his Name is the WORD of God a Name Rev. 19. 12 13. which no man knows nor angel but he himself and they to whom the Son will reveal it In this sence is that to be understood which is testified by Christ himself Luk. 10 22. No man knowes who the Son is but the Father and who the Father is but the Son and he or they to whom the Son will reveal him This is the Name that Christ â—y inheritance hath obtained more excellent than the Angels the Name above every Name that at the manifestation thereof every knee should bow and tongue confess to the glory of God the Father After this Name it was Iacob was so inquisitive Gen. 32. 29. saying tell me I pray thee thy Name And he came afterwards to understand it was the face of God or sight of God face to face in his very similitude which it is not permitted in so ful and intimate a manner for every saint to have Upon this Iacob's name was changed to Israel and he became a Prince or chief prevailer with God and with Man Agreeable to this distinction does the Prophet Esay describe
the more as we see the day approaching Heb. 10. 25. Looking for and hasting unto the comming of that day of God wherein the Heavens will be dissolved and the Elements will melt with fervent heat 2 Pet. 3. 12. He was such a right spirited Latitudinarian as Paul was 1 Cor. 9. 20. became all things to all men that by all means he might save some He was against the exercise of a coercive Magistratical power in Religion and Worship and for the single Rule Power and Authority that Christ himself claimes as his peculiar prerogative in and over the hearts and consciences of all men How grosly inconcinnous must it needs appear even to the common reason of all mankind that such as take upon them to be Magistrates and Rulers whether the People will or no as it often falls out yea or though freely chosen should give the Rule to all others Consciences in point of Religion when they many times have no Religion at all in themselves nor any other Conscience but a dead or feared one hardened in the most brutish vilenesses that the basest of men can be guilty of But if the Magistrate do plausibly pretend to something of Religion what a changâ—ble thing will Religion be at this rate as â—ickle as the Magistrates Judgement at least as his person for the next Ruler may be of another perswasion as this Nation hath experienced off and on between Popery and the Protestant profession in Hen. 8. Ed. 6. and the two Queens Mary and Elizabeth Concerning PREACHING and PRAYER FIrst I ask are all Preaching and Praying amongst those that call themselves Christians Ordinances and Institutions of Christ Then the Popist Mass and Jesuites and Friers Sermons are his Ordinances The Ordinances of Christ are to be distinguished from all counterfeit imitations of them by the spirit and way of performance and by the matter that 's delivered as carrying its own evidence in the Consciences of the hearers to be the very truth of God 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 4. 2. and 5. 11. Satan will be found at last to have had the greatest hand in all such Ordinances Praying Preaching and what ever else that for spirit manner and matter are performed in a way of enmity and contradiction to the true spiritual believer and his more excellent way The usual practise of this Sufferer was to spend an hour or two every evening with his Family or any other that were Providentially there and as much both morning and evening on the first day He was of that truly bounteous princely communicative spirit noted in the Spouse Cant. 7. 1. Rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate 1 Tim. 6. 18. â—to make manifest the savour of the knowledge of Christ that himself had deep and large experience of in every place 2 Cor. 2. 14. His gravity purity and chastness of spirit was very exemplary He held out in the midest of all the late Apostacies and Changes He was stedfast and unmovable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord and his labour was not in vainâ— as he well knew 1 Cor. â—5 51. So assiduous was he in continual searching of the Scriptures waiting upon the Lord in Faith and Prayer for more full discoveries of his mind therein that it was faid of him Put him where you will if he may have but a Bible he is well enough as Iansen of whom the Iansenists in France reckoned himself with Austin But what can be said for his Allegorizing the Scriptures Here 's another Branch of this Sufferers Charge from men wherein he shares with the learned Origen The Charge against Allegorists usually runs at this rate That by Allegorizing the Scriptures they carry them quite out of their native significancy and intendment wresting and forcing all to their own purpose and conceit and so frame Divinity Romances what Conclusions and Bodies of discourse they please To this miscarriage men of the most â—oaring curious and searching capacities are reputed most liable Jesuite masked Papist no title is thought bad enough for such men by their ignorant adversaries in their blind zeal We have but fragments of Origen that famous Allegorizer and diligent Searcher of the Scriptures and those translated out of Greek into Latin and handed to us by his enemies so that it may seem dubious when we read the small remains of his thousands of Books whether we read the genuine Issues of his Contemplation or the spurious Interpolations of some other man 'T is agreed on all hands by friends and foes that he was a person of more than ordinary tallness in Understanding and that he did fairly offer at a more pertinent disquisition into the whole bulk of intelligibles Divine or Philosophical than was usual And how was he handled what said they of him That he was a temeratious daring Fanatick quitting the plain truths of Scripture and bewildring himself and followers in diabolical Phantasms being perverted through his great learning on which account he was oft persecuted and dragg'd along the streets Concerning Allegories and Allegorizing the Scriptures VVHen one thing is said as Type Letter or significant Figure through which another farther and more excellent thing is meant and to be understood that is an Allegory which he that expounds must Allegorize Whether then there be not as much need of Allegorizing the Scriptures as of understanding them or whether there be any other possible way of interpreting them so as to discover the whole counsel of God therein detect Satans whole mystery of iniquity and render men wise unto Salvation shall appear by and by There are two sorts of Allegories in Scripture perfect and mixt Perfect are purely allusory when all the expressions are naturally suited to the person or thing first spoken of but much more accurately to some more excellent person or thing that is to be understood thereby An Allegory mixt or but partly allusory is when some one of the expressions onely are applicable to the type some inferiour person or thing and some onely to the antitype quite over-reaching and leaving behinde them the natural of historical shadow and pitching singly and expresly on the spiritual and mystical substance the more excellent person or thing that is to be understood Of this sort we find many Allegories in Scripture where Christ is typified and represented by other persons who when they are spoken of in that capacity and intendment some of the expressions outpace the shadow and are not at all applicable save meerly and singly to the very person of the Messiah Thus amongst others Melchizedeck who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings Chederlaomer and the rest is said to be without Father Mother or descent having neither beginning of dayes nor end of Life but made like unto the Son of God a Priest for ever or of the everlasting Order Heb. 7. 1 3. This points us back to Psal. 110. 4. and that yet more backward to Gen. 14. 17. If
Sem here were the type as many Iewish Rabbins affirm those expressions without Father Mother Descent or beginning of dayes are not at all applicable to him but singly to Christ himself Sem was the most righteous Son of Noah a Teacher of righteousness as Noah was called therefore properly Melchizedeck that is King of righteousness and King of Salem that is Peace from the place he was chief Governour of afterwards called Ierusalem from Iireh and Salem the place where Peace shall be seen as type of the heavenly Ierusalem occasioned by Abraham's offering Isaac there on Mount Moriah where David saw the Angel by Araunah's threshing-floor and Solomon built the Temple Gen. 22. 14. 2 Sam. 24. 16 17. 2 Chron. 3. 1. Sem on the accounts mentioned might fitly be called King of righteousness and King of peace Heb. 7. 2. but much more fitly yet may Christ be so called in whom all the righteousness of the first Covenant and all the peace that 's to be found in the second kissed each other in the second and were the summe of his Ministery Psal. 85. 10. But to proceed shall I ask a bold question What else can the whole Scripture be as to the saving truths and doctrine thereof but an Allegory in case it be presumed to speak intelligibly to humane understanding The main things signified in Scripture are things spiritual and eternal things not seen 2 Cor. 4. 18. Heb. 11. 1. not at all immediately and in themselves discernable to meer humane understanding The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. What then is to be done Either Christ in his own personal discourses as also by his Prophets Apostles and Evangelists must condescend to gratifie the capacities and understandings of men by representing spiritual and heavenly things to them through such natural earthly Mediums as are suitable and adaequate objects to humane understanding or else 't is as if nothing were said What is no wayes intelligibly spoken is as not spoken Spiritual things in their own naked essence and properties are uncapable of expression by a sound of words Words that are the meanes of humane converse even at their best and in the original language are but the proper signifiers of natural things Adam by giving Names to the Creatures Gen. 2. 19 20. discovered his compleat Philosophical prospect into and knowledge of them in their hidden qualities essences and properties which the dim fighted reason of fallen man hath since been a pittiful bungler at Solomon's Physicks and his book of Plants and the three sorts of Animals in air earth and water Birds Beasts and Fishes 1 King 4. 33. were it yet extant as some think it is in Presbyter Iohn's Library at Amyra would doubâ—less appear a great masterpiece in that kind transcending all the Wisdom and disquisitions of the learned Greeks Hebrew words were fitted to the things they signified There was a certain connexion between things and words All other words as they come less or more near to the Hebrew do more or less significantly represent the things meant by them The more any Language recedes from the Hebrew the more it is confounded by humane changes and additions the more obscure and difficult means are the words thereof for conveying the knowledge of things to us Homer and other Greek Poets and Philosophers set themselves therefore to Etymological learning by reducing the primitive words in other languages to their Hebrew roots and then the Derivatives to those Primitives This they laboured in as the most notable means conducible to the knowledge of things Then Chrysippus Demetrius and abundance of others writ Books of Etymologie Then the Latins receiving Learning as well as the Empire from the Greeks steer the same course in order to Etymological discipline as the choicest means to lead men into the knowledge of things Cato Varro and other antient and famous Latines writ many Volumns to this purpose Of later times on the same account did Iulius Caesar Scaliger compose a hundred and ten Books de Originibus Then Ioseph Scaliger Son of Iulius Lipsius Casaubon and many others steered the same course But when all comes to all were we reduced and advanced into the perfect knowledge and exercise of the Original Tongue what then All the words thereof at best are but the adaequate signifiers of natural first-creation things All these things and words too are but the types letters shadows resemblances rhetorical figures and significant expressions of spiritual heavenly new-creation things If this be true what can the main bulk of Scripture be but an Allegory Spiritual things expressed and signified by Natural and the words thereof from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelation and that in the typical histories persons as well as in the sacrifices ceremonies and parables thereof What jejune and feeble Interpreters of Scripture then must they needs be that cannot Allegorize it nor therefore endure that others should The whole first Creation without humane words is a piece of dumbe but significant Rhetorick to express the second and things thereof The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work Psal. 19. The invisible things of God from the creation of the World are so intelligibly represented and expressed to humane understanding by the things that are made as to leave men without excuse for neglect of their duty towards God Rom. 1.20 Raymund de sabunde seems to have spoken notably towards the exposition of this creature Book As the first whole creation in general is letter shadow and expression of the second so more particularly is the first Adam in his primitive natural perfection type letter or figure of the second and of what he himself was capable to be made and in all probability was made by a new creation in the second Paradise Canaan the earthly Ierusalem Mount Sion c. all are Types Letters and significant Figures of the heavenly The three stories in Noah's Ark Gen. 6. 16. as also the three distinct places in Moses his Tabernacle and Solomons Temple the outward Court the Holy and then the most Holy Place or Holy of Holies as they are Types of Christ so of his followers too as to the three parts of their composition Body Soul and Spirit 1 Thes. 5. 23. Man is the Tabernacle of God the Temple of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. His Body is the outward Court what 's done in that is exposed to the common view of all His Soul is the holy place furnished with the lamps of the spirit excellent spiritual gifts for the raising and enlightening of humane understanding resembled by the seven lamps that stood over against the twelve shew-bread Cakes Exod. 25. which signified the light of the Law or ruling power of enlightened humane Understanding in which the twelve Tribes of Israel were to
beloved Son so 1 Tim. 1. 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2. and 2. 1. They are also called Pastors Mothers and Nurses to both the Seeds or Children of Christ in their kind 1 Thes. 2. 7 and 11. Gal. 4. 19. In another respect every true believer as he becomes the Child so is the Mother of Christ as with pangs and throw's towards the new birth to the loss and at last death of the single activity of his fleshly mind and heart Christ in spirit be formed and brought forth in him by him Then comes the Life of Faith the true reigning New-Ierusalem Principle in which reason has its resurrection the kingdom of heaven within him He ownes Christ in his heavenly headship as his Lord and King expressed Cant. 3. 11. by setting the Crown upon his head owning a willing subjection to the Law of the Spirit of Life in this day of espousal to him which is a day of gladness to Christ good men and angels Luk. 15. 10. The believer is the wise Virgin who becomes at same time the Mother and Spouse of Christ brings forth her own Lord and King in Spirit as the Virgin Mary brought him forth in Flesh. In the very day that Christ is thus brought forth in and by the believer they are espoused together by the new and everlasting Covenant The believer owns Christ as Head Husband and King Upon this Christ rejoyces Angels rejoyce the Believeâ— himself rejoyces with joy unspeakable and full of glory 'T is a solemn thanksgiving day a day of gladness of the heart unto them all Thus in a various sence is Christ Father and Son of the Spiritual believer and the believer the Mother and Child of Christ. Christ is Head Lord King Husband Brother Son Fellow-heir to believers They are Body Subjects Wife Children Members Fellow-heirs to him All these expressions are Allegorical borrowed from natural Relations to signify spiritual Mysteries of love union and converse between Christ and his Church One thing is said and a farther more excellent thing meant The Apostle having spoken of the duties of Husbands and Wives towards one another winds up all into this as his main intendment the spiritual marriage-union between Christ and his Church This saies he is a great mystery or mystically signifies a far greater thing concerning Christ and his Church Ephes. â— 22 23. The Revelation in a manner all along is a description of heavenly things by such earthly Mediums such Allegorical types and expressions as are borrowed out of Moses Pentateuch in the Tabernacle and Temple-worship And of Christ himself t is said that without a parable a similitude an allegory he spake not unto the people Mat. 13. 34. Mark 4. 34. Must not he then that truly expounds those parables allegorize them But how must he do it Parable in the Hebrew is a word that signifies sharpness as proceeding from a sharp wit and needing the like to interpret it That sharp wit must be no less than spiritual discerning and that strong and well exercised too or Scripture Riddles will be too hard for it One or two more of these let us take notice of Sampsons typical Riddle together with the Philistines exposition does yet want an exposition Out of Christ the strong Lion of the tribe of Iudah as the eater or sacrificer of the natural man in himself and us by the fire-baptism comes the choicest meat the sweetest hony-comb of all that that feeds and brings us into a conformity with him in his death and resurrection Christ ha's left his own interpretation of the parable of the Sower and Seed of the Tares and the like upon record in Scripture and yet who understands them how much do men yet need an exposition of those very expositions Paul tells us Hagar and Sarai are an Allegory two Covenants Gal. 4. 24. Then he mystically expounds Ishmael and Isaac into two 〈◊〉 of Christ the true antitypical Father of the faithful in both Covenants He declares moreover that he that 's born of this Father but after the flesh will persecute him that 's born of the same Father after the spirit Even so it is now vers 29. Notwithstanding this Allegorizing exposition given by Paul how little does the self-confident legal Christian hold himself concerned in the character of him that is born after the flesh How verily does he conceit himself to be the other that 's born after the Spirit Hereupon he justâ—es out the spiritual man indeed for a Fanatick wrangler a fool a mad man a blasphemer any thing that he lists to call him Hos. 9. 7. At last he comes to this downright willful resolution as Esau against Iacob and as the professing religious Iewes against Christ in the very same case Come this is the heir let 's kill him and the inheritance shall be ours They imagine this vain thing even to take the kingdom of Heaven by force from the right owner But if this eager-spirited generation would but give themselves leisure to consider thisâ— the like Scriptures they might see that they that are charactered here by him that 's born after the flesh are a holy seed of Christ that have Covenant interest in him and actual communion with him They are Children of Hagar or the first Covenant One would wonder how they should miss this But they shuffle it oft upon the Iews that were under the ceremonious dispensation of the Law and so rid their hands of it Is there no legal Christian then is there no danger of the leaven of the Pharisees under the outward dispensasation of the Gospel Yes say they but that lies onely at their door who depend upon their own personal operations for their acceptance and communion with God not on the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer I interrogate When Paul describes his Pharisaical state he tells us he was touching that righteousness which is in the Law blameless Could this be unless by the comeliness of God put upon him or perfect righteousness of that kind from Christ imputed to him Ezek. 16. 14. Was he a legal Iew was he any more than a moral Heathen else But if what is above said will not help to rectify this mistake I shall be somewhat hopeless of being instrumental to your relief in this point 'T is sad to see the self-pleasing interpretations of this and the like Scriptures all along the Bible so universal and unscrupled amongst all sorts of Professors an epidemical mistake How to lift them out of the mire of these their own self-bewildring imaginations who knowes but Christ Flesh and the carnal mind that 's enmity to God Rom. 8. 7. must never be of any larger compass or farther significancy with them than corrupt polluted debauched degenerate nature dead in trespasses and sins or at best but the moral heathen with some glimmering revivals and sparklings of rational Light and Life But as for their part they are in Christ they experience actual communion with God and once in Christ for ever
Gentiles all the world over Rom. 9. 19 24. God that is infinitely â—ust and can be no otherwise is not bound to give an account of any of his matters Job 33. 13. Why therefore do ye strive against God while ye put forth this querulous demand Who hath resisted his will Will you cast all your sins and destruction too upon God's final rejection of you as reprobate silver Ier. 6. 30. God strives by his Spirit with men to bring them to himself Gen. 6. 3. to which Peter refers 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. Men strive and fight against God are disobedient and rebellious If God suffer men to prevail in a final resisting of his spirit that strives with them they are undone for ever If they be conquered they are saved If they lose their mutable Life they find it again in that which is unchangable If they keep it a while in opposition to the more excellent Life they lose it at last in eternal death These are the Gospel riddles which the very disciples scarcely understood while Christ was with them in the flesh nor we while we have but the like knowledge of Christ after the flesh as they then had Knowingly to resist and hate the new-creature Life and words thereof is to do despite to the spirit of grace to sin against the Holy Ghost He that hath an ear to hear let him bear 'T is in vain for man to quarrel God will be justified when he judges Ps. 51.4 He will at last bring forth the grounds of all his dispensations towardâ— man and proceedings with him in such a demonstrative and undeniable consonancy to the very reason of man that every mouth shall be stopped Yea there is enough said already in his written Oracles to stop every mouth 24. We may take notice from what hath been said who those poor mourning meek-spirited men those merciful pure peace-making yet persecuted Children of God are that Christ pronounces blessed Mat. 5. 3 11. We may also come thereby to know on the other hand what Christ meanes by that rich full laughing sort of people to whom he cries wo wo wo Luke 6. 24 25. The poor in spirit are they that are willing to be broken emptied of the activity life righteousness glory wisdom reasonings desires thoughts and wayes of their own mutable first-creation spirit in order to be filled with the spirit of Christ the wisdom and righteousness of God in the new creation Thus with Steven they come to be ful of faith and of the Holy Ghost Act. 6. 5. rich in God or rich towards God Luk. 12. 21. That righteousness that is imputed to or inherent and operative in the new creature is called the righteousness of God All the fruits of saving faith all the works that are performed in the operative principle of new-creature Life are the righteous works of God who by his indwelling spirit worketh all such works in us Esay 26. 12. On the other hand all the righteousness imputed to or inherent and operative in the first Covenant Saint is called the righteousness of man such righteousness as Christ had and wrought in his changeable fleshly manhood which he imputes to them that are sanctified through his blood into an experimental knowledge of him and conformity with him in the flesh This imputed comeliness or righteousness is called both God's and Man's in a breath Ezek. 16. 14 15. Men dome too often to trample the blood of this Covenant under their feet after they have been so sanctified Heb. 10.29 and to play the harlot with that sort of righteousness imputed to them after they have been so justified The first creation state of Life in man by being broken and crucified under the second comes into a peaceable everlasting harmony with God This makes a true son of peace as well as of righteousness answering his father Melchizedeck's constitution who is both king of righteousness and king of peace Such sons of peace are commonly reckoned men of contention though the only true peace-makers the world has in it that desire and labour to bring others also into the same state of peace harmony and everlasting union with God as one spirit with him the state of love charactered 1 Cor. 13. Is not God himself reckoned a God of contention for striving with men by his spirit in order to conquer them into a state of salvation deliver them out of their own hands take them out of their own dispose by bereaving them of their own liberty and power of sinning against him and wronging their own soules And is not Satan the God of this world reckoned the God of peace that speaks smooth and pleasing things to flesh and blood by all his various instruments from amongst men even by those whom he transformes into the very likeness of the Apostles of Christ 2 Cor. 11. Do not men generally approve of and like the doctrine of him and his ministers best as orthodox and sound that advises men not to gaze after or listen to those spiritual wanderers â—hat speak of an attainment beyond the righteousness and glory of our first-creation This doctrine of his runs through all forms of proâ—essing Christians at this day and the spiritual man is reckoned mad for contradicting it Is not Satan reckoned the God of order that is for one man's continued speaking onely in a Pulpit accounting it a breach of the peace punishable by the Magistrates sword for any other to speak there though all that his pulpit man does is but to shut up the kingdom of heaven and in effect to charge men that they look not after it that is not listen to those who after the way which they call Heresy are worshipping God in the spirit Is it not the business of those authorized deceivers to open their mouthes in blasphemy against God to 〈◊〉 his Name his tabeâ—nacle and them that dwell or have their conversation in heaven Rev. 13. 6. Phil. 3. 20. And is not God himself reckoned the author of disorder and confusion for saying If any thing be revealed to another that 〈◊〉 by â—â—t the first hold his peace for ye may prophesy all one by one that all may learn and be comforted 1 Cor. 14. 30 33. Thus Satan and men neâ—tâ—e warm together in the first creation and no right tidings or character of the second will be listened to That crafty Serpent has blinded their mindes and stop'd their ears least this light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them or find any entertainment amongst them The Things the Persons the Churches that this strong man thus fraudulently possesses are in peace till Christ the stronger than he cometh to force him out He is coming 25. Those rich full old foolish kings as to the righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. That will no more be admonished or warned by the wise child in the true regeneration Eccles. 4. 13. those flourishing legal-spirited Christians that laugh are warm and confident in their present
into an absolute compliance and unchangable harmony with his will Rom. 12.1,2 Crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts Put off the old man These and many other Scriptures of like import do all together and each of them apart compendiously imply the whole duty of man even all that God requires of him which is to humble himself under the cross of Christ and walk for ever with the Lord. So Psal. 50. 23. whoso offereth praise glorifieth me So the Septuagint render it in Greek In the Hebrew 'tis whoso sacrificeth confession which the Caldee renders whoso slayeth his evil or fleshly concupiscence that is the fleshly or natural mind The renewed mind of man is out a labile wavering corruptible thing This is not onely to be confessed but the confession or thing it self that is confessed thus to be is to be sacrificed and offered up to God by a living active faith If not it will resist the spirit of God refuse his new-creation work seek to save its own life keep it self whole and unbroken and fo will evidence it self in conclusion to be that carnal mind that 's enmity to God and works eternal death to man Rom. 8. 6. To come roundly and freely off with the sacrifice of self in the full Scripture latitude thereof by a thorow self-resignation is the great duty of man and the onely true and acceptable offering of praise to God Truly and substantially to praise God amounts to no less than this offering Le ts not please and delude our selves with a noise a found of words shadowes for things substance truth 28. Know then O vain man that without works thy faith is dead Jam. 2. 20. What works the works of an active saving faith the fruits that flow from the proper spring and principle of new-creature Life in man One great work of this faith is to lay hold on the unchangeable and everlasting righteousness of God in Christ's person Another great work of it is to crucify the fleshly mind or principles of humane nature however renewed so as for ever to disable them either for working sin or righteousnesse in the single first-creation activity or Life thereof A third work of it is to enable man to worship God in spirit and truth and to perform all righteous works towards God and men in a more excellent and acceptable way and with more steadiness and certainty than ever the renewed natural mind with all its ornament and furniture could perform such things Without such a faith and the workings of it it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Thus by being disabled to perform one tittle of the Law in the single activity of our corruptible though renewed mind we come so to fulfil the whole Law in the continuing and incorruptible principle of new-creature life that against us there is no Law that has any thing to say Gal. 5. 23. Do we then make void the Law through faith God forbid yea we come by this means onely to establish and fullfil the Law Rom. 3. 31. Mat. 5. 17. They that believe in God must be careful to maintain such good works to wit the works of faith Tit. 3. 8. This is the letting our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our father which is in heaven Mat. 5. 16. We shew hereby that God's spirit which is set up in man by the new creation is better at working righteousnesse than mans spirit that was set up in him by the first-creation Any works we do as born of God in the new-creation are better on all accounts than what we can do as made of God in the first whatever work is good in the honest Heathen or legal Christian shall be owned and out-done by the spiritual believer in his more excellent principles and way The highest Principles of Life in man include ratifie and out-do all that righteousness that is performable in the lower In such Principles was this Sufferer a worker of righteousness such a worshipper of God as the Father seeks and approves of such a true Son of peace such a peacemaker as hath bin described but reckoned a man of contention for that very reason He was content with Paul to be a fool for Christ despised for Christ the poor and needy man with David As a true Embassador of Christ and minister of the everlasting Gospel he warned and besought the sons of men to consider their own true interest in becoming not onely almost but altogether such as he was except his bonds His Life was not like other mens nor his Ministry His wayes were of another fashion as they reason Wisd. 2. 15. therefore have I writ his Life after another fashion that mens Lives use to be written treating mostly of the principles and course of his hidden Life amongst the sons of God that the sons of men may the better know and consider what manner of man it was they have betrayed persecuted and slain For this read on from vers 15 to 23 of Wisd. 2. which I quote not as Scripture but as a notable character of mens rational conviction and acknowledgements together with their false reasonings and most perverse deductions therefrom in the present case We are esteemed of him as counterfeits or hypocrites he absteineth from our wayes as filthyness He maketh his bâ—ast that God is his Father Let us see if his words be true If he be the Son of God he will help him and deliver him from his enemies Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture that we may know his weekness and prove his patience Let us condemn him with a shameful death for by his own saying he shall be respected Such things they did imagine and were deceived for their own wickedness hath blinded them As for the mysteries of God they knew them not nor discerned the reward of blameless soules Thus not owning any need of an Apology for having been so large in the exposition of his divine Life Principles and Doctrine save onely this that I have spoken these things rather as an instruction to the living than an Apology for the dead I return to the more publick and overt acts of his humane pilgrimage and conversation amongst men having mentioned the private passages thereof in the beginning Would you know his Title in reference to his countrey He was A Common-Wealths-Man That 's a dangerous Name to the Peace and Interest of Tyranny I have lately met with two new State Paradoxes in Print which speak ruine to all that own that Title 1. That the Common-Wealth is not safe while Common-Wealths-Men are alive 2. That the Lawes are not safe while they are alive that every day call for the aid of the Law These Assertions carry with them such an appearance of contradiction to say no more that I am not so much an OEdipus as to unriddle them The Character of this deceased Statesman with whose Principles those two sayings carry little
crime He was stedfast in the Covenant they turned aside like a deceitful Bow The criminous party had the Sword and innocency suffered Even so it is now To omit his rejection and confinement by the Long Parliament after their return to take their Seats afresh in the HOUSE 1659. his last Scene of Sufferings was under the present Powers Under this variety of Persecutors and Persecution he notably experienced the truth of that Apostolical Argument for the Resurrection If in this Life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 He took that course in the face of all affronts and contradictions of sinners of one kind or other from first to last which shewed the invincible steaddinesse and chastity of his spirit What he vigorously prosecuted when he was active he ratified and sealed with his blood and all the tendencies thereunto by witnessing a good Confession since he was passive He stood up for the defence of the Lives and Liberties of his Country-men and lost his own Liberty 〈◊〉 Life for his paines As a true lover of his Nation he boldly asserted the Rights thereof at the last push to the faces of those that have sufficiently declared themselves enemies thereunto in condemning him What he could do or suffer more for his Countrey than he did is somewhat difficult to say His two years imprisonment under this power was by meer will and pleasure no particular crime being laid to his charge in direct contradiction to the fundamental Laws and Liberties of Englishmen stated in MAGNA CHARTA Chap. 29. Festus a heathen Judge deemed this unreasonable in Paul's case Act. 25.27 It seemeth to me unreasonable saies he to send one as a Prisoner and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him 'T is against the Law of nature the conscience and common light of Reason in all mankind that any man should be so dealt with For their most injurious underhand-dealing in picking up a charge while he was kept two years close-prisoner and procuring Witnesses against him by threats or promises together with their proceedings about him at the Grand Jury and Kings Bench I do once for all refer you to the Narrative of his Tryal I reserve onely a liberty of speaking something in general as to the difficulty of his circumstances in the tryal and for particulars to lay before you the main passages of the Iews proceedings with Christ trusting them and you together to make the application I take hint for this latter branch of my liberty from one of his occasional speeches recorded in his Tyral Mention being made by a Friend of the cruel proceedings against him Alas said he what a-do they keep to make a poor creature like his Saviour He was an able Common-Wealths-Man and a true Believer two dangerous qualifications to Church and State as this world goes He had remarkable insight in the Politie of the true Common-wealth of Israel the Holy Ierusalem that will shortly come down from God out of Heaven Rev. 21. This gave him no small aime at what he ought to be doing in the Common-wealth of England as preparatory thereunto What was done in the day of small things when the Nation was delivered from its taskmasters was not despicable in its season though a cloud be now drawn over it 'T was a usual saying with himâ— Come what would every thing was upon the right Wheel in the wise contrivement of God for the accomplishing of his righteous designs in the world But considering matters betwixt man and man that expostulation Eccles. 2. 15. Why was Libeâ—â—â—re wiâ—eâ— may seem to be fairly inâ—erpretable into this senceâ— That true wisdom is a great disadvantage to a man in this disordered world where 't is the fashion for lust will and pleasure to bear sway against Scripture Law and Reason Persons of the best rational abilities and most conscience have usually been destroyed in Courts of Judicature so called throughout the world in all times A man of Reason and Conscience called forth to declare his mind cannot afford to gratifie the corrupt humors lusts of men that put good for evil and evil for good light for darkness and darkness for light Esay 5.20 much less become one in spirit and principle with those that so do and then he must die When truth failes and every thing is called by a wrong name good evil and evil good men abhor him that speaketh uprightly they hate him that reproveth in the gate Amos 5. 10. If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do Psas. 11. 3. Yea or what can he say when the Soveraignty and infinitely most Supream Legislative power of God and Christ himself is set at naught there 's the mâ—in Foundation gone as to the righteous man's defence amongst his fellow mortals If Judges that have no fear of God before their eyes be on the Bench then long schrowls of I know not what must be formed up and read against the most faithful Patriots and choicest Christians as not having the fear of God before their eyes and sentence accordingly must be pronounced against them by one râ—ful wight or other that 's an enemy to all true Law and right Reason This sort of Cattel have not been wanting in any place or time Queen Iezebel could find them in Iezreel Judges and witnesses of Beliat against Naboth and away goes his Life and she not long after to the Dogs 1 King 21. and 2 King 9. Such Judges as have no fear of God before their eyes what will they stick at All inferiour and subordinate Foundations of the righteous mans safety all the Laws Rights and Liberties of any Nation will signify little with Judges so qualified and fitted to abuse and murder any righteous men that are brought before them See the boldness of the Kings Rulers and People of the earth not onely in slighting but down-right bidding defiance to the Soveraignty of God and Christ Father and Son with the Laws of both Psal. 2. 2 3. The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ there 's their Soveraignty affronted Then they say vers 3. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us there are their Lawes rejected Then if the antient fundamental Lawes or Liberties of any Nation be slighted laid aside or pulled up by the roots and mischief established by some new one with this advantage the basest of men may gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous and condemn innocent bloâ—â— Psal. 94. 20 21. If over and beyond all this there be such wicked Judges to be found that neither fear God nor regard that which is the man in man Reason but onely that corrupt State Reason that lies in point blank contradiction thereunto if such be to be found who will venture by their superadditional glosses to stretch a mischievous new Law beyond the proper
lick'd Nabâ—ths blood they lick'd his 1 King 21. 19. and Chap. 22. 38. If any Magistrates yet stout it out in their cruel and oppressive courses whereinsoever they deal proudly God will be above them Exod. 18. 11. They are nothing in his hands They are but little in an Angels hands And not much in man's You were but little you know in the hands of men Those whom you have valiantly executed after they had layne a good while in their graves together with those whom you have killed and cut in pieces single were two hard for you when they were alive and together There is a generation amongst us oh how lofty are their eyes Prov. 30. 13. but what have they done The honest party of England are as 't was once said of Germany triumphed over but not conquered Well you have been but little in the hands of men that 's undeniable You are as nothing in the hands of an angel You are accounted as less than nothing to God Esay 40. 17. What may be performed upon you by the invisible strokes of angels you may learn from what is recorded for your instruction 1 Kings 19. One hundred eighty five thousand were slain by an angel in one night in the camp of the Assyrians Some prodigious alarms of their approach to undertake you on the behalf of betrayed abused Saints have of late been given What ever you have heard of in former times as to the exploits of Angels in this kind you will find to have been but type to what God will perform by those angelical hosts in the last dayes when all visible reliefs fail his praying People See O King the honest and justifiable boldness plainness and freedom of speech that Daniel and other Prophets have used to greater Monarch's O thou King saies Daniel to Belshazzar the most high God gave thy Father a Kingdom and glory and honour But when his heart was lifted up and his mind hardned in pride he was deposed from his kingly Throne and they took his glory from him And thou his Son O Belshazzar hast not humbled thine heart though thou knewest all this but hast lifted up thy self against the Lord of heaven and abused his Saints the Vessels of his house and the God in whose hard thy breath is and all thy waves hast thou not glorified Then he interprets MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN God has numbred thy kingdom and finished it c. Dan. 5. 18 28. Daniel was highly honoured by the King for thus dealing with him vers 29. See the commendable stoutness as well as honest boldness of Saints in their conferences and parting-blows with Kings Pharaoh in a fume bid Moses get him gone and take heed to himself for in the day he saw his face again he should die Well saies Moses I le see thy face again no more Who had the worst on 't The King would need Moses help before he the King 's He had sent for him with all speed before time and time in several distresses under the plagues that were upon him and his People Moses needed nothing that he could do but that that would be done whether he would or no Israels deliverance from bondage All these thy servants saies Moses shall come and bow themselves to me saying Get thee out and all the people that follow thee and I will go out And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger Pharaoh was wrckedly and proudly angry and stout in ridding his hands of Moses and Moses was meekly and justly angry and stout in a resolved quitting of Pharaohs company for ever Exod. 10. 28 29. and Chap. 11. 8. The Oracles of God delivered by Moses though accompanied and ratified with miracles were called by that vain King vain or lying words Exod. 5. 9. Those Kings that will do as Pharaoh did refuse all Messages from the Lord delivered to them scoffe at and persecute the messengers must look for Pharaoh's wages and that dispensed to them from such a hand as can tear them in pieces so as none can deliver Kings have usually had a great antipathy to true Prophets and their messages but bin very kind and friendly to false flattering Prophets who speak smooth pleasing things About four hundred false Prophets with one mouth encourage Ahab to go to Ramoth-Gilead a City of Israel and recover it from the Syrian They saw he had a mind to it and they all prophesied success and Victory At Iehoshaphat the king of Iudah's motion Michaiah a true Prophet is called in Ahab had no mind to him I hate him saies he for he does not use to prophesie good concerning me but evil that is did not use to gratify his present humour and lust as the others did He deals truly with Ahab warnes him that if he go he dies for 't and so it fell out The false Prophets no doubt had incouraging rewards Michaiah's recompense is a Prison and the bread and water of affliction But the Kings following the pleasing counsel of the false Prophets was his ruine and the listening to Michaiah had been his safety Who were the Traitors the four hundred false Prophets or the one true The true Prophet and Subject is handled as the Traitor and the false Traitors go currant away with gratuities and favours Why do not Kings consider such instructing paterns It highly concerns them both in point of honour and safety 1 King 22. Nebuchadnezzar sets up a stately piece of Popery an Image of gold thirty yards high The Princes Governours Captaines Judges Treasurers Counsellours Sheriffs all the Rulers of Provinces c. come to the dedication of it A Herald solemnly proclaims That when they hear the sound of the Cornet Flute Organ Harp Sackbut Psaltery Dâ—lcimer and all kinds of Mâ—sick they must all fall down and worship the Image and that those who refuse are to be cast into he midst of a burning fiery furnace The generallity of the Governours and People obey the Decree Shadrach Meshach and Abednego are traduced before the King as Rebels and Hereticks for slighting his Commands not serving his God's nor worshiping the golden Image which he had set up The King in a fury sends for them tells them he will try them once more and if they refuse the second time to the fiery Furnace they go They tell him he need trouble himself no further about trying them they are resolved what to do We are not careful O King say they to answer thee in this matter God will deliver us out of thy hand O King Or if he will not yet be it known to thee O King we will not serve thy Gods nor worship thy golden Image Then his fury is exercised upon them for a while till he sees their executioners fall down dead upon the place while they scape This quite turns his mind and he makes a Decree That if any speak against the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego they shall be out in pieces and their houses made a
dunghil because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort Dan. 3. Yet it appears not that Nebuchadnezzar himself worshipped this true God or forsook his false A while after we find him boasting and vaunting as if there were no other God but he Dan. 4.30 What a fickle thing is that Religion that depends upon the Magistrates Decree Darius the Mede when he comes upon the Stage at Babylon he is flattered by his corrupt Courners to turn Pope take upon him to be the holy Father all must pray to him for thirty dayes and not ask a petition of any other God If they did they must to the Lions den Daniel is charged with slighting the King and his Decree The King set himself to deliver him but could not An Angel did by stopping the Lyons mouths Then his accusers with their wives and children were cast to the Lyons and were torn in pieces immediately before they came to the bottom of the Den Dan. 6. What looking-glasses are here for Kings to give them aim what persons to put most value on Idolatrous flattering Courtiers that counsel them to their dammage and disherison or true Prophets and faithful Subjects that advise them for the safety of their Crown and Dignity True they know not to give flattering titles to men for in so doing their maker would soon take them away Job 32. 22. They fear him more than men 'T is the true advantage of Kings to be plainly dealt with by them Flatterers ruine them They are the Traitors as has appeared in all ages Believe it O ye Rulers and Judges if you go on at the rate you have begun should all the Angels in heaven and Men on earth lay their understandings together to demonstrate the requisiteness yea absolute necessity of having made a Parliamentary and popular defence against such corrupt sticklers for prerogative and arbitrary domination when got into armes 1641. 'T is hard to imagine how they should mend that which your selves have given by your most injurious and oppressive practices since your return What should we mince the matter for The world is almost at an end The Devils rage is great because he knows he has but a short time It highly concerns us to deal plainly with one another lest that great deceiver of the Nations cozen us all If men do as wickedly as they can and make a law that no body must tell them of it must every body therefore hold their peace and let them go on What can the Devil desire more Must God and his Messengers have no hearing with you What do you imagine will become of you then Will ye change Religion and the Laws and must no body dare to say so But they will you see Will you put out the eyes of all the good People of England They have eyes and will use them too do what you can as long as their heads are on With these eyes they see clearer what you are about then it may be you are aware The Lord in the late War was a Rebuker of you all in many pitch'd Fields and a continued series of disappointments for many years together If you would but mend the matter as to what this Nation felt when it groaned under the Tyranny of your apostate Conqueror this yet were something Many of the same persons that he abused and oppressed you have slain and so finished his work upon them You should let the oppressed go free ease those heavy burdens that he put upon the People and you encrease them so that the Nation languishes under a general discouragement as to Trade and almost every thing else What work God will suffer to be made by any instruments of cruelty amongst us that are profound to make slaughter though unfit to fight he himself best knows But that God will send deliverance in the close and preserve a remnant in the scramble I am as confident as that there is a God that judgeth in the Earth who will make himself known by the Judgements which he will execute upon all wicked Opposers of him and his People Freely I have received and I freely give you such portion as the Scripture allots you Yet say not O Rulers there is no hope we will therefore fill up the measure of our wickedness and then let God strike Say not thus There is yet hope You may repent of the evil of your doings and quite lay aside all your mischievous and destructive intendments towards this peeled People and you and we together may be a flourishing Nation If the King say as the King of Nineveh Let every man cry mightily unto God let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands who can tell but God may turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not Jonah 3. 8 9. FINIS Some Notes of Sir Henry Vane's Exhortation to his Children and Family brokenly and imperfectly taken Iune 13. 1662. being the day before his Execution Genesis 18. 17 18 19. And the Lord said Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty Nation and all the Nations of the Earth shall be blessed in him For I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do Iustice and Iudgement that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him VVE have here a description of God's reasoning within his own mind concerning the open-heartedness he would use towards Abraham who is called his Friend Isa. 41. 8. for the eminency of his Faith by which he was made one spirit and of one mind with the Lord so as he could instantly surrender and perform whatever God called for from him or required of him however hard or contrary to the desire eye and reasonings of flesh and blood The greatest tryal of his Faith and the most signal manifestation of it was the offering up his only begotten son the son of promise of whom it was said In Isaac shall thy seed be called This Typical Father of the Faithful behaved himself but as a pilgrim and stranger even in the earthly Land of Promise seeking yet a better Country a heavenly Heb. 11. 12. He came off readily with this greatest offering of flesh at its best in his Isaac the figure of Christs offering so as by the transforming Baptism of the Spirit to grow up into a perfect harmony with the will of God Rom. 12. 1 2. Hereupon he is termed the Father of the Faithful and hereby Isaac also became a Son of the Resurrection as he was also before in a figure Heb. 11. 12 19. as springing up from Abraham's body and Sarah's womb when both of them were as good as dead The present occasion admits â—o long insisting on this being together with the care he had of his Family but the introductory consideration with God
spouse of Christ the right new-spirited Saint is despised and slighted as a weak foolish contemptible thing no body at Ordinances and righteousness in her way which she experiences to be the way of Christ finding the fruits of his presence in it Thus was it between Paul with others and some of the Corinthian Church Both were married to and interested in Christ but by different Covenants We are fooles saies he for Christ's sake ye are wise in Christ. We are weak ye strong Ye honourable we despised 1 Cor. 4. 10. and 2 Cor. 10. 12. We dare not make our selves of the number or compare our selves with such as commend and compare themselves with one another of the same principles and perswasions and so applaud themselves in one another by their mutual self-deceivings The true spiritual Elder Paul the aged he is in body with this flourishing youthful warm legal-spirited generation The main business he has to say for himself is a Life hid with Christ in God and worshipping God in spirit and truth This they reckon as nothing but discourse fiction foolishness But be it known those that with Paul are weak foolish and despised for Christ are better than such as he there implicitly reproves and taxes with folly that yet he acknowledges were wise strong and honourable in Christ. Such foolish weak despised ones of Christ as Paul was are they that will quite confound the wise the mighty the honourable The things that are not shall bring to nought the things that are and no flesh with all its ornament righteousness and wisdom shall enter into Christ's kingdom or glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1. 27 29. And as the spiritual saint is thus handled by the fleshly so is the spirit or spiritual part in the same saint dealt with by the fleshly Holy flesh the renewed natural mind will be despising the feeblness of the spiritual while weak and low and jusling it out of the Throne as to its interesting it self as the ruling Principle at working righteousness and worshiping God Having thus in Hagar taken notice of the malapert proud insulting carriage of the first-covenant Wife or Spirit in different saints or in the same against the right spirit of the second through confidence in the works of the Law or works performed in the ruling activity of their own renewed mind let us proceed to other branches and observables in the said Allegory before us Abram as a type of Christ delivers up Hagar into Sarai's hand Sarai dealt hardly with her so she should Hagar fled 't was her sin What signified Sarai's hard dealing with her Persecution No the Spirit of Christ the fire-baptism the strait gate that will not suffer flesh and blood to enter into the kingdom of God this it signified Hagar's flight then imports the declining and refusal of all these The legal spirited professor confident in the works of the Law will endure none of these things They are all a sad story a hard saying to him His usual way of waving them if urged and hard put to 't is to call them Blasphemy and the Witnesses thereof Blasphemers and on he goes very secure in his doatage But say or think man what he will this is Christ's way he gives up the fleshly worshipper and the fleshly part in the true spiritual worshipper to the spiritual to be humbled and abased broken and subdued hardly dealt with crucified slain and offered up in sacrifice under the power of the Cross of Christ or fire-baptism of his spirit typified by Sarai There 's no entring into the kingdom but we must pass thorow this fire this tribulation this bruising of the inmost part of the natural man his very spirit and rational powers whatever ever becomes of his outward as to persecution from the world Hagar despised Sarai Ishmael mocked Isaac Gen. 21. 9. this was persecution Usually those that are taken out of the world or worldly first-creation constitution and frame of spirit within them by the fire-baptism do so differ even from the professing part of the world in their very religion or union with God by another Covenant and in their more excellent way of worshipping God in spirit and truth not letter and form that they seldom or never scape the external branch of the cross and baptism of blood through the rage enmity of man against this new-creature marvellous light and life that is springing up in those whom God is transforming into another nature But let men take it how they will the cross the fire-baptism we must come to within us first or last or we cannot be saved The fleshly worshipper either yields to this fiery doctrine ministry and way or resists or flies If He get the magistrates sword on his side as if Hagar could have got Abram to side with her against Sarai then he 'l make the messenger of such tydings fly Sarai must fly or suffer under Hagar Men decry it for heresie blasphemy and persecute him that talkes at such a rate Thus Christ himself was served by the zealous legally religious Iew. 'T was the religious professing party of the Iewes that crucified Christ and would take no answer hear no reason or argument from Pilate the Heathen Magistrate to the contrary But if the sowre Legalist neither will yeild nor can bruiâ—ishsly resist this hard doctrine by outward force or persecution then he takes Hagars course flies it And what then He every where decries this spiritual doctrine of the cross and fire-baptism for heretical dangerous and seductive wishing all to beware how they meddle with such books converse with such persons or listen to such dangerous suggestions While toleration lasted I have experimented this to be the too general frame of spirit amongst professors in this nation who have evidently chosen rather to venture a persecution of their own doctrine and persons than endure this and the assertors thereof Here 's the mystery of Hagars flight The Angel of the Lord advises her to return and submit her self to her Mistris In her all these timerous fugitive envious legal-spirited Christians that are leavened with the leaven of the Pharisees are admonished to entertain better thoughts of the New-Ierusalem Spouse resembled by Sarai and submit themselves to her doctrine and more excellent way to the cross the fire-baptism the spirit of Christ the covenant of grace Sarai This is the doctrine the reproof the correction the instruction on in everlasting righteousness which that History that Allegory is pregnant with Christ with both his Covenant Spouses and Children are allegorically expressed by Husband and Wife Father and Children Head and Members with the like Such expressions are interpretable into mystery by a due considering the duties and offices of such Relations in the letter And as Christ himself so Paul and others are in way of Allegory called Fathers of such as by them are begotten to Christ through the Gospel 1 Cor. 4. 15. and vers 17. he calls Timothy his