every one of them I am the Lord thy God and upon this Rock I will build my whole Law and therefore thou shalt have no other God or make to thy self any Images c. For I am a jealous God which yet I could not be if I did not Love thee dearly as a spouse Or else I should not much care whither thou goest or what thou doest But for my great and spouse-like Love which maketh me so jealouse over thee But this very jealousy causeth such visiting as is most like to recover us again from all our wâ—oorish wanderings from the God of Love and the Guide of our youth And so intended by God to recover them so visited as we may clearly see by Elihues discourse unto Job and the Psalmist in the 107 th and many other Psalms to be compared with the 3 d. of Jeremy and the 2 d. of Hoseah with the first and second of Zechariah with divers other Scriptures And our great comfort is that all the Law also lay on Christ as much or more than any of us or all of us And besides his love to his own flesh and nature or to himself or his Father His very Duty to Him by this Law requires him so to love his God with all his Might also as to propagate his love to all he may and to manifest his Name and Worship with the true way and means thereof That is as the 72 d. Psalm expresseth to redeem our souls from all deceipt and violence or as Ezekiel hath it in the Laws of the New Temple to order a sacrifice for every one that erreth or is simple And the Psalmist saith He hath received gifts for Rebels also that the Lord may dwell among them Yea and to cast down all our vain Imaginations as Saint Paul expresseth it And though we strangely degenerate into very Beasts or to the worst of Beasts or worse than Beasts Yet the very same Law which biddeth us and Christ also to Love a Neighbour biddeth also to love a Stranger and an Enemie Yea and the very Oxe and Asse of an Enemie so as to help it under a Burthen or straying out of the way And is not our heart as Ishmael was foretold to be the wilde Asses Colt on which no man can sit till Christ send his Apostles as in the Gospel who finde it bound and tyed in a broad place where two waies met and They loose our Asses Colte and bring it to Christ who then rideth on it O daughter of Zion Meek and Lowly on an Asse the foal of an Asse And may we not find All this in the very fourth Commandement where every Man and so Jesus Christ also is bid to remember to keep the sabboth so that not only his Children but his servants and his Cattle and the Stranger in his Gate may Rest and keep that Rest of God That they may Rest as well as Thou as it is repeated in Deuteronomy And in the 23. of Exodus it is that thine Oxe and thy Ass may Rest and the Son of thy Handmaid to which the Psalmist may allude several times calling himself the Son of thy Handmaid And that the stranger also may be Refreshed The very same Phrase and word that is used by God of himself and his own Kest and Refreshing on That Sabbath day in the 31. of Exodus And our Saviour maketh the helping of an Oxe or Ass and their Loosing and leading to the Water to be a special work or duty of the Sabbath daies Rest. Which we may compare with that of the Prophet Esay He led them gently as an Horse in the Wilderness or as a Beast is led down a Valley or to a Brook So his spirit caused them to Rest. And in the Proverbs Agur saith I am more bruitish than any Man and the Psalmist so Bruitish was I yea Behemoth with thee as alluding to Behemoth in Job and That some render Congregation of thy People in several Psalms is Beasts or Thy Beasts As under Those Banners of four Beasts or Animals of which we read in Ezekiel and the Revelation Yea Solomon saith the great design of God that is Christ who as Man also is the great Searcher of hearts is to Try us and to make us know we are but Beasts She hem Behema Hemma lahem And that the Stranger also may be Refreshed Which is but a piece of that great Law in the very same chapter of Loving our Neighbor Thou shalt also love a Stranger as thou lovest thy self And in several places it is added For thou wast a stranger and thou knowest the heart of a stranger in Aegypt And the word for stranger in the Heb. is so neer to Hagar as if God would put them in mind of that Bond-woman who was an Aegyptian also and as Paul saith Gendered unto Bondage with a spirit of Fear which is another signification of its Root also And Gods Love to Hagar and to her son Ishmael that is God will Hear as he will appear also in the Mount may shew the Heart of God and his Goodness more than all his Kindness to Abraham who was Kind and Thankful unto God also And among other reasons for our Loving strangers it is added that God loveth Strangers and in a special manner provideth for them And it hath been an especial argument used by good men in all ages of the Bible For we are strangers and Pilgrims And when we consider that the Sabboth day did Typifie some greater Rest may it not be hoped that at length we may hear the Lord of that Day also saying to his children and his servants and the Sons of his handmaids also and his Cattel and the stranger also within his gates Come enter into your Masters Rest seeing it is greater than can enter into you For this Commandement I have received of my good Father Do we not also read that the Owles and the Dragons and the Beasts of the field and every thing that hath breath yea and All his Works shall praise the Lord but his Saints shall Bless him Do we not find Sabbatical Years â—nd Jubilees provided for the Poor and Strangers that had no Harvest and for the Beasts of the field and for the Earth also that it might Rest the Rest of God and that every one might return to his own Inheritance and the possession of his Fathers and why not also of our Father Adam in Innocence and that All Debts and Debtors might be remitted which it may be is minded us dayly in the Lords Prayer not only in That Clause of Forgiving our Debtors which yet He doth also for it is He that speaketh in us who else dirst not say Forgive us as we forgive but also in That Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on Earth as in the highest Heaven And He that set us All on Praying so knew very well that it should be so He hath willed it and his people will it also Let it be
Prophets and our Saviour also that God would never deal worse with any then with that Nation And the Prophet Ieremiah saith he that believeth shall never cease from giving fruit and the Psalmist that his leaves shall never quite fall off and Christ saith that he which beareth any fruit in him shall be purged that he may bear more In him is all our fruit found and in him we go in and out and still find fresh pasture and he that once drinketh of His living waters never thirsteth more or is quite dry but still findeth a fountain in him flowing up to Eternal Life And St. Paul saith If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved For which also he citeth two great Prophets Isaiah and Joel which is cited also by St. Peter in his first publique Sermon For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For this Jesus is Lord of All even Davids Lord also and Rich unto All that call upon him And Paul also saith that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Which was oft no little stay to one I sometime knew in great anguish fearing the good Spirit had forsaken him And to all that so acknowledge Christ for their Lord and as their Lord worship him as the Psalms bid us and call upon him the same Apostle saith that no temptation comes but common unto man And that God is faithful and will not suffer them to be Templed above their strength but with the Temptation will provide an Issue that they may be able to bear it Which is also the last Petition in Our Lords Prayer and so sure to be granted And to All so acknowledging Christ St. John saith If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse And to All such he saith If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sin and not for ours onely but for the sins of the whole World which are some of the sweetest places in the Bible and belonging to All that call on Jesus of Nazareth which I see you do And to All such and therefore to you also St. Paul the great Teacher of the Gentiles writeth as from God in Heaven and his Son Jesus the Judge of all men and Angels also that if we judge our selves as I see you do we shall not be judged by him which is one of the greatest and highest Prerogatives or Royalties a mortal man can be capable of The Jews speak of it as one of the first things delivered by God to Moses and by him to Joshua and so down through all their Elders and Wise men in all ages to be Slow to judge or very slow in judging and it is one of the greatest and most difficult things in the world to be a righteous Judge in any matters of concernment more of our selves and yet more in matters of another world and yet most of all for all eternity so far above our sence and reason also that we know not how to guess about it but by Revelation The great thing foretold of Christ in the Psalms and Prophets is That he was to be the great and most supream Judge of all Persons in all Causes Which we might track through all the Bible up as high as Enoch Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all c and for this he received a most solemn Commission and was fitted and filled also with the spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Understanding Councell Power and Fear of-the Lord yea to make him very quick or tender in the Fear of God that he might judge righteous judgement And this was one great reason of his being made Man that he might be our Peer and an equal daies-man between God and us that should not make us afraid with his Terror when he judged us it being so consonant to Reason and to Scripture also that the Power Legislative Judiciall and Executive should be in distinct persons and run in distinct Channels God would have it so in himself also and came out in the person of the Father giving the Law though indeed the Free persons that receive and submit even the Law-takers are the great Law-makers But the Sonne is the Judge and the Spirit executes his judgements For the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and the Son quickneth whom he will and hath given him authority to execute judgement also because he is the Son of man Jesus Christ therefore being the great and only Judge having all judgement committed to him no man may pre sume to make himself a Judge or take it on him but when Christ committeth it and then onely As he commandeth and directeth Let me therefore first desire you to consider that you run not on a Premunire or be Anti-christian or a Traitor against the main office of Christ while you judge your self or any other for who hath made you a Judge or a divider If you say Christ hath bid you judge your self you must be sure of your Commission that you have it and can read and understand it also For his own general rule out of his own mouth was Judge not that ye be not judged And he that taketh upon him to judge and condemn another or so much as to think evil of his neighbour and t' is worse of a stranger whom he knoweth not speaketh evill of the Law and judgeth or condemneth the Law yea and it may be the Law-maker also And though Christ did promise first to his twelve Apostles Judas also it seems being among them that they having followed him in the Regeneration should sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And afterwards even after his last supper before his death he said to them Yee are they which have continued with me in my Temptations and I appoint you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel there being then also it seems twelve with him and so Judas also though Saint John saith he went out immedately after the sop Yet this was not to be till he himself was to receive his Kingdom and As he did receive it at his Fathers hand and appointment which was not till after Death and Resurrection and Ascention to his glory Then he received gifts for men and for the Rebel also Then and not till then he gave out the Spirit which was not to be
Jesus Christ be with you all Which he wrote with his own hand it seems in all his true epistles From Antioch Paul and Barnabas came to Iconium and there spake boldly in the Lord which gave Testimony to the Word of his Grace granting signes and wonders to be done by their hands And returning again to Antioch and other places confirming the souls of the Disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God which St. Matthew onely calleth the Kingdom of Heaven and ordaining them Elders in every Church praying with fasting they commended them to the Lord Iesus in whom they believed Thence coming up to the Counsel at Ierusalem they there declared the Miracles and Wonders God had wrought by them among the Gentiles where Iames whom Paul calls an Apostle and so Peter also owned him as chief among the Brethren in the twelfth of the Acts which tells us before of Herods killing the Apostle Iames discourseth of Gods promise to raise up the Tabernacle of David that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom My Name is called saith the Lord even Jesus who doth all these things For we may generally observe that by Lord especially where distinct from God they mean the Lord Jesus who is Lord of All as St. Paul to the Romanes and rich unto All that call upon him and we have but one God the Father and One Lord Christ Jesus And to Him the Apostles and whole Church prayed at the Election of Matthias calling him the Lord Jesus and then set two saying Thou Lord that knowest or searchest the Hearts of All men the proper character of Christ as he writes to Thiatyra all the Churches shall know that I search the reins and hearts and that also as God Man for as God only he need not search our Hearts From that great Counsel It seemed good to the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church to send chosen men with their beloved who had hazzarded their lives for the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Barnabas and Paul For the Holy Ghost setteth Barnabas generally before Saul and often also before Paul which name is not given him till he taught Sergius Paulus that prudent Roman Governour Assaying to go into Bithynia the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them for so it is read in some of the best copies At Philippi called by a man of Macedonia in a vision Paul meets a Damsel possessed with a spirit of Divination tho she cried These men are the servants of the most High God which shew unto us the way of salvation For an evil spirit may preach true Doctrine but Paul being grieved turned and said to the spirit I command thee in the Name of Iesus Christ to come out of her and he came out the same hour And on this being beaten and cast in prison and there loosed at midnight to the Trembling Jayler they say Believe on the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house Thine House also Even as salvation came to Zacheus House also when to him and to Lydias Houshold also when to her At Ephesus finding certain Disciples they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus Which seems equal therefore to the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost for the Apostles were commanded to baptize in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost and yet they did it in the Name of Christ onely and no wonder For the full latitude or fulnesse of the god-head dwelt in Him and there is no other God but in him and one with him and therefore he that sees him sees the Father also and he that worships him worships the Father also and him that serves him will his Father honour as himself saith and by consequence him that prayes to him which a great piece of worship and service He is thy Lord Worship him as the Psalmist to the Spouse or whole Church which therefore prayeth unto him all along the Canticles and Revelation also where the Bride or whole Church and Spouse of Christ and the Spirit also prayeth to Him saying Come Lord Iesus When Paul had laid his hands on the Twelve Disciples also of the Gentiles at Ephesus which then might be the head of the Gentiles and the first that received an Epistle from Christ in the Revelation the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with Tongues and Prophesied as the Twelve Apostles at Pentecost To which also Saint Paul seems plainly to allude in the first Chapter of his Epistle to that Church at Ephesus or to the Saints there and faithfull in Christ Jesus as he styleth them and not a Church as at Corinth and other places Some Vagabond Jews adjure evil spirits there in the Name of Jesus whom Paul preacheth and the evil spirit answering Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you and leaping beat them through the man possessed Whence fear fell on them all and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified As we read at the close of that History Acts 19. At Miletus calling the Elders from Ephesus also most pathetically he discourseth how for divers years he had served the Lord Jesus among them with all humility of minde and with many tears and temptations testifying both to Jewes and Greeks Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. But none of these troubles move me nor count I my life dear to me so I may finish my course with joy and the Ministry which I have received of the Lord Iesus to testifie the gospel of the grace of God even of the grace of God And now I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more And yet that he came after this also again to that very place is probable or certain from his leaving Trophimus at Miletus sick in the 2. to Tim. who now went with him to Jerusalem Acts 21. 29. Or shall we say he was deceived when from Rome also he wrote to so many neer those countreys that he trusted to be given to their prayers and to come to them again O how watchful must a good man be least his own spirit rise too much with the true Spirit of God or least the Envio us one sow Tares with the good mans Wheat And when Agabus had bound his hands and feet with Pauls girdle he saith What mean you to weep and to break my heart For I am ready not only to be bound but to die also for the Name of the Lord Iesus Then they ceased saying The will of the Lord that Lord be done From Jerusalem where he spake often of that Name and in it and of praying to it as I observed before he is brought by a dangerous Voyage and shipwrack to Rome It is no sign that a man is out of the way or not sent by God or called
fulness of Christ. And concludes that Epistle Peace be to the Brethren and Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Grace be with All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen So to the Philippians every where Especially in that famous place of Bowing in the Name of Jesus paralel to that of the Psalm Early will I seek thee and ever will I bless thee and lift up my hands as here bow the knee in thy Name when I pray I will pray in thy Name and confesse to the glory of God which Christ challengeth to himself in the Prophet Isaiah and at conclusion The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And in the Epistle to the Colossions For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and having made Peace by the blood of his cross by him to reconcile All things unto Himself by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Which to the Ephesians is according to the good pleasure of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather All into One in Christ All things in Heaven or Earth even in him And to the Thessalonians Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in Love to One another and to all men even as we to you that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God And again That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Iesus Christ. And again Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us for the Father is Love and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and patience of Christ. Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother walking disorderly yet count him not an enemy but admonish him as a brother Now the God of Peace himself give you Peace alwayes by all means The Lord be with you All. The salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen And it may also be observed that what we read be with you might be read is with you and so it is not onely a prayer but a promise and assurance that the grace of Christ is with All calling on Christ and so believing on him for how can they call on him on whom they believe not And Timothy This is a faithful saying and worthy of All Acceâ—ation as much or more then all the Mazoreth or Kabâ— that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Now unto the King Immortal Eternal Invisible the onely wise God which Jude also calleth Our Saviour speaking in the language of this very Text be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Which he subjoyns on this Great Cause I obtained Mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a patern to them even to all them that should hereafter believe on him to Eternal life So that Christ did not mainly mind Paul in shewing him that patience and kindnesse but did it to Him that he might be a patern unto others even unto all others that should ever after believe even to all Eternity And to the same Timothy he writeth Flee also fleshly lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart And concludes the Lord Iesus Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you Amen The great businesse of St. Peters Epistle is to presse forward in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so he concludes Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Which also runs very much through the whole Epistle The Revelation of Jesus Christ wch God gave to him to shew to his servants is ful of prayers praises blessings of and from and to the same Jesus Who so plainly calling himself the first and the last which is and was and is to come the great Iehovah Lord God Almighty leads us plainly to the paralel places in the Prophet Isaiah where he saith the same of himself adding also that there is no other God or indeed no other True Being besides himself Representing himself in several species or Idea's For Plato was not the first that taught there was but One which yet was All. And yet again in the same chapter of that Prophet he saith Lo here I am and His spirit hath sent me even the Lord God and His Spirit though I am God and there is none besides me or none else but I and in me and One with me as the Root and every Branch is One with the Vine And in the same Prophet It is this One True God the First and the last and so All True Being which yet is sent by God and anointed by his Spirit and so the Messias or-Jesus Christ which plainly sweareth by Himself and therefore hath no greater that every knee shall bow or pray to Him and every tongue shall confess to Him which the Apostle citeth in that noted place of praying in the Name of Jesus and confessing to the glory of God even the Father also And may we add or may we not add what Christ of himself said If God be glorified in Him or in Them will not God also glorifie Him or Them with Himself Yea he will shortly do it nay he hath already done it before any other can glorifie Him for who can give him first or lend to him that it may be paid again To this also we might refer those passages of holding fast his Name and not denying his Name and confessing his Name as he will also confesse their names before his Father and the holy Angels both in the Gospels and Revelation and the call and Counsel of Christ as also the Fathers Drawing being that we come to Christ and learn of Him and buy of Him and open to Him that is still knocking to come in till his locks be wet with dew and his spirit be not onely abused but dispised and blasphemed argue much our speaking praying to him as well as hearing him who indeed is the end of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings so that he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh wil come to Jesus Christ and converseth with him as a man with his friend whom he most loveth and honoureth also And the Angels of Heaven for they are all bid to worship him as we
solitary a while as if she had left her Husband and her heart also behind her when she came down from Heaven and her cry all along even to the very end of all the Revelation is Come Lord Iesus Come quickly As if Christ were not with her on earth But the greatest stresse of the Argument may seem to be in this thaâ— God speaks nothing to us now but in and through his Son Our Prayers Praises sighs and groans if right are but reflections back of somewhat spoken to us spoken in us Which must therefore be through Christ and to Christ Immediately by His Spirit in us Which or who for that is the Scripture Language as he knows the mind of Christ and so of God in him and brings it into us So he toucheth our heart and makes it warble as the Heart of Christ did when God spake to Him and in Him to us And he whose Spirit it is that helps us by sighs and groans unutterable knows the meaning of his own Spirit For it is he that maketh intercession for us Yea and in us also so that all our breathings out to God are but his breathings by his Spirit in us And in this sence we may and do pray to the Father as Christ in us the hope of Glory prayeth to the Father of Glory so he is called and the Father of mercies as he is the Father of Christ who therefore is both Grace and Glory as the Psalmist expresseth him and yet still the onely begotten of the Father Let me add also that the Spirit in us crying Abba Father is the Spirit of God made Flesh or in actual Union with Humanity For else it calls not God its Father and in us it speaks its own Natural Language for it speaketh in us Praying Crying Abba Father Our Father For Christs Spirit speaketh boweth prayeth in us Hollowed be Thy Name let Thy Kingdom come for it is ours also And if God be glorified in us He will also glorifie Us with himself Yea he will straight way gloryfie us Let thy will be done in our Earth as in thy Heaven Even in thy Highest Heaven For in this Petition it is in The Heaven but in the preface it is in the Heavens even all the Heavens For Thy will is ours also and not only wiser but better for us also then our own will is till fully moulded into thy Will And then a poor Soul dare say forgive us even as we forgive We and not I but we as all the members together with the Spirit of the Head also and in his Person too which hath often made me hope he meant and had promised also for our Prayers or His in us are good Promises also to forgive more of his Enemies then it may be I ever thought or believed Which I cannot much wonder at when All his enemies must come to be at peace with him as his wayes please the Lord. And when the spirit also shall come to Act His Kingdom which it shall do in the Heart of His Spouse for the spirit the Bride shal abide and Act and shal stil Live together as they cryed together here I hope it will also forgive more then it may be all men now believe or hope Yet as the Soul should generally say and pray to Christ as the Apostles did Lord shew us the Father which is also his great promise to us and his Father also in his solemn prayer John 17. I have declared Thy Name and I will declare it that the Love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Yet there may be some seasons also in which a poor soul may think it self so great a stranger unto Christ or at such a distance from him that it may and doth cry to the Father Draw me to the Son shew me thy Son and acquaint me with thy Son for I am a stranger to him or at a losse in seeking Him And yet sure this is not very usual in a Woman or it may be handsom or civil for her to come to a strange man and say Pray Sir acquaint me with your Son that I may woe him But when the Good man hath first broken the matter in discourse to the Virgin soul and hath Invited and woed for the Son Then doth the Son come and is sent of the Father and woes the soul for himself and yet perhaps till the marriage be or at least the contract or betrothing It may sometimes not onely be fit but requisit to Treat with the Father also for settlement of state or other things But Then she goes and speaks and converseth with the Son when she is Married or at least betrothed which indeed is Most if not All that is yet done between Christ and our souls it may be the whole Church yet is no more but betrothed onely till the New Jerusalem Which yet in some measure doth come down and appear unto and in every poor soul betrothed unto Christ. For Jerusalem which is above is Mother to us all The good Sarah spouse to Abram The High Father as the name signifies before it was Abraham a Father of many rather then to Isack the Son who was not married till his Mother Sara was dead Though perhaps That was onely to the Gentile Church brought out of Syria a Gentile Land after Sara the Jewish Church was dead or gone But she must appear again and that out of Heaven also where the Woman first appeared as a great wonder in the person of the Wife of Jaacob as some think or Mother to the twelve Patriarchs presented there as in Josephs Dream also by twelve stars round about her But there is more in it seeing she was also in the Sun or clothed with His Light and Glory Having also the Moon at her Feet and a crown of twelve stars about her head of which we may speak more hereafter And when the Virgin is espoused then she begins to speak freely to Her spouse And I know not any more sure character of being so betrothed unto Christ then such a free converse with him as our friend our Brother Yea our neerer Relation And yet truly we do not receive His spirit but some glances onely through his eyes or mouth at a distance if we may so expresse it till we be actually married which is scarcely consummate in this Life though it may be also at the coming of the new Jerusalem So that all we speak or do of Praying or such manner of converse as is yet usual with Christ is in our way only Yet as betroathed rather than in our end or spiritual enjoyments of him in the marriage bed where only we shall fully receive his Spirit And those whom he sent as his Father sent him received it but as in his breath for he breathed on them saying Receive the Holy Ghost And afterwards also they received but the first fruits of the Spirit as themselves expressed it saying also it belonged
Love And so before the fall he loved man And being fallen with a Sweeter better Greater Kinder kinde of Love of Pitty Mercy and most tender Bowels of Compassion Which was ever in that Infinite Fountain of All being But it appeared not abroad till the Wisdom of God contrived how to shut up some in fear and guilt that so he might at once shew Justice Truth and Mercy also which then Met and Kist Embracing one another And the Lord foreseeing and Resolving all this that so it should and so it must be while his Heart was such and such it must be while he was and is himself which was and will be ever and beyond all words that expresse Eternity He still spake so wisely that when he threatned most yet he lefr an Issue for goodnesse to come forth and shew it self with Truth and Justice too And therefore at the very first Command and Threatning to our Father Dying thou shalt Dye or thou shalt surely Die he did not tye his hands or bind himself without such Reservations as might still afford room large enough for Truth and Mercy both I shall not enquire at present upon what account it pleased the Lord to abridge Adam in Paradise of That which he granted before when he gave him for meat e-Every hearb bearing Seed and every Tree in which is the Fruit of a Tree yielding Seed which is not Usual with God To give and then to take away without demerit Nor do I say Adam obliged himself to that which he needed not if he had considered his former Pattent or his Deed of Gift But this I say in general there is not a Word Command or Threatning spoken to man that is not spoken by Christ And first therefore spoken by God in and to Christ who then speaketh nothing but what God said to him in him and As the Father spake it unto him so he speaketh unto man But certainly there was not any one word ever spoken by God to Christ either Precept or Threatning with any purpose to make him Despair But to Do believe and live And by consequence never any one Word or Threatning of the whole Law spoken by Christ to any man but As the Father spake it unto him not to make him Despare but believe and live For which also see Deut. 5. 29. 29. 29. Psalm 78. 5 6 7 8. 81. 13. Prov. 22. 19 20. Isa. 48. 17 18. Rom. 15. 4. John 3. 17. 17. 5. 34. 12. 47 48 49 50. 20. 31. Again I do not see plainly what God meant by Dying when he said thou shalt surely dye or dying dye Or that if he meant the worst of deaths for kinde he meant it so also for Duration Seeing Christ when he bore the Curse and its heavy weight did not dye such a kinde of death or at least for such duration as it is supposed to be here threatned And the very phrase here used to Adam is threatned to Davids Child by Bathsheba and to many others in the Scripture And to Hezechiah it is added Thou shalt not live And yet he did not die but live And David hoped that his Child might live notwithstanding that threatning dying it shall die or it shall surely die And sure when it did die he did not believe it dyed Etetnally or that this was threatned by that phrase so frequent also in Scripture And if God had meant any such Eternal death to Adam by that threatning it is somewhat strange that after the fall he removed them out of Paradise and guarded it so least they should yet eat of the Tree of Life and Live for Ever though he had said Thou shalt surely dye But to put the matter out of doubt We may see Gods Meaning of this Threatning in the 24. cha of Ezek. where he saith the people should so certainly die in their sins and pine away in their Iniquities with the most terrible expressions and most vehement assertions that can well be imagined as Because I would have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not goe back neither will I repent But you shall pine away for your iniquity c. which is the terrible Threatning reserved for the last place in that famous and gradual Judgement so solemnly denounced in the twenty sixth of Leviticsn And As a Seal of this most heavy doom Ezekiel is strucken dumb and can no more admonish or comfort them so finally devoted to destruction so that he never speaks a word more to them from that 24. chap. to the thirty third And there God lets and bids him speak again unto the Children of his people By which very phrase we are led back to that sweet place we cited so lately out of the 19. of Leviticus of bearing no grudge against the Children of his people but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart but shalt certainly rebuke him and not suffer sin to lye upon him Which is the Text on which the Lord so comments to the Son of man whom God there setteth up as a mighty Type of Christ to be the great Watchman and warner to his brethren and his neighbours Or to be a light to lighten the Gentiles also each man and every Man that cometh into the World Adding also on that occasion that if a Nation or a people of a place do of themselves in a time of darknesse and danger choose a man and set him up for a Watchman or a Teacher or a Ruler among them there being alike reason God will own it as His Ordinance though but of Humane Choyce and Institution Which may be compared with That of the Apostle of submitting to Mans Institutions in Government even for the Lord or as an Ordinance of God To be much considered by those that reject Rulers or Teachers if they cannot shew a special Call or Mission by God Upon That occasion the Son of Man which also reacheth to Christ whose work is much described in Ezekiel hath his strict yet general Rules also when ever God threatneth Man And Then remembring the last solemn Threatning but now cited from the 24. chapter which was the last spoken to them He commandeth Thus O thou Son of Man speak unto the House of Israel Thus you speak saying If our sins be so upon us that we must Pine away in them which was the last great Threatning How then shall we or can we possibly Live Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the Death of the wicked even of the wicked but that the wicked Turn from his Way and live Turn you Turn you from your evil waies for why will you die O ye House of Israel And then giveth that sweet and yet general Rule for interpreting All the
Palm tree which it also signifies as That which Riseth by Pressing down and was used at the Feast of Tabernacles and yet also by the Jews shaking their Palms Thrice every way crying Hosanna Hosanna As their Fathers did to Christ spreading Palm branches as we read in the Gospel But how Hated and Cursed Things and Persons may be Loved and Blessed as changed by Him that is not changed as we read in the same Prophet to which also St. James alludeth who also telleth us We are All begotten by One Father and that He hateth putting away in himself also I hope more than any person We must speak anon When I consider the solemn engagement of God to his Son Ask of me and I will give thee all Nations and the utmost ends of the Earth or in the Gospel-words Ask and thou shalt receive seek and thou shalt finde knock and it shall be opened which was first said to Christ before he said it unto us and he saith it to every one and with that also Because it is so to every one therefore so to you or them that then heard him I have often thought it such a ground of Faith and Hope that instead of doubting whether I was given to him or not I have often pressed it on him Ask me that thou mayst receive me seek me and thou shalt finde me and by vertue of the Covenant my hard heart also shall be opened to thee if thou wilt knock heartily Now thou saist thou standest at the door and knockest O but do it heartily which is the great Law of All Servants and thou art the Lords Servant and so called through the Prophets Gospel all the Bible And the Lords servant must be gentle towards all even to them which oppose themselves c. I have also judged it an unworthy thought of God to think he would so solemnly bid him ask what he would and whom he would and then to tye his tongue or narrow his heart so as he durst not or he would not ask as many as he could dispose or manage And to put it out of doubt I see him very solicitous to perswade and assure us that the Father hath so far prevented all his asking or our fears doubts that he hath given him all Things all Persons all Power in Heaven and Earth And on this Rock he grounds his Calls and all our Faith and Hope and coming to him For we must needs have staggered at all his words and promises till with Abraham we were fully perswaded that he was able to perform what ever he promised and this was imputed to him for Righteousness and not unto him only but unto us also it shall be imputed a strange expression to the Gentile Romans If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our Justification We erre greatly not knowing the Scriptures and the mighty Power of Christ which if we knew we should not dispute his will but rowle our selves upon it as we daily pray and say Lord if thou wilt thou canst make us whole and cleane The God whom we worship is able to deliver us out of this Pit and fiery Furnace was it not a great mystery But however we will not worship the Golden Image of the Beast or him that was or is to be a Beast and to eate grass as an Oxe nor will we receive his character or name or number of it though set up in the plain of Dura every Generation of this World made up of 6. in bredth and 60. in height 666 was also the number of Talents of Gold brought yearly unto Solomon But of this again in our discourse of times and numbers weights and measures And when our Saviour himself came to dye and all the Scripture was against him that he could not live yet he was not afraid to put himself upon the infinite Power of God with Father if it be be possible and all things are possible The Angel to the Virgin said all things shall be possible with God and Christ several times with God all things are possible and at his coming down from the Mount an embleme of his second coming he addeth all things are possible to him also even to a poor weeping man that believeth All things are possible to thee O Father and to mealso they shall be possible But not my will but thine be done on Earth and my Earth also as in thy highest Heavenly Throne which shall also be my Throne And Father I will that those which thou hast given me to whom thou hast given all things may be with me and see my Glory and sit on my throne also And his Throne is established with Mercy as we read in the Prophet Isa. Yea rather with Mercy than Truth or any other thing for so the Proverbs say Mercy and Truth preserve the King but his Throne is established with Mercy So that if he cannot hold both he must let go Truth and all Justice rather than Mercy For Mercy shall triumph over all Judgement and in Judgement he still will still doth remember Mercy And he that sheweth not mercy in all things and all times shall have no mercy shewed him and himself bid them go learn what that meant I will have mercy and not sacrifice or mercy rather than any sacrifice He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what the Lord delighteth in to do Justice but especially to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Ride on prosperously because of Truth and Meekness of Righteousness and seeing God accepteth mercy rather than any other sacrifice let him guide thee also in the way he shall chose and best accept as the Psalmist speaketh I will therefore sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever for I have said mercy shall be built up for ever Mercy and Truth shall go before thy face O blessed are the people that know that joyfull sound and understand it They shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance in thy name they shall rejoyce all the day for they that know thy name will trust in it and in thy very Justice they shall be exalted Mercy and Truth are met together Righteousness and Peace do kiss each other Melchizedek the King of Righteousness is also King of Salem that is Peace and his Throne of Judgement in the Revelation is a white Throne and is established with mercy For his mercy endureth for ever for his mercy endureth for ever Even that Mercy which is Over all his works and his compassions never fall And Solomon saith he that honoureth his Maker hath Mercy on the Poor He shall hear the Poor when he cryeth and him that hath no Helper no Helper He shall save their souls and shall redeem them from deceipt and violence or as this Psalm is expressed in Ezechiel He shall offer sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple
are by Thee Thou shalt not press him with Usury or be as an Userer to him nor any way Hard for if he Cry unto me I will Hear for I am Gratious and will God Hear when we cry of a man oppressing or pressing us and will he not hear us against the Devil also and our spiritual pressors or Oppressors seeing he Fxecutes Judgement for All that are Oppressed And His Word is as pure silver seven times refined from Earth sweetly applyed to this very thing If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray and in another place This Enemy is called a Brother which may shew us how far that Phrase of Brother or Neighbour reacheth even to an Enemy and One that Hateth us As also Christ sheweth us in his Parable of the good Samaritan and divers other places Where he tells us 't is â—a little Love to love a Friend or one that is like us or friendly to us Thankful and Kinde which even sinners and Hypocrites use to do in Their Love But his Children and Servants and himself also must love Enemies and such as hate backbite blasphem and offer all despite unkind and unthankful and all this that they may be like their Heavenly Father Who with love of delight and complacence loveth only himself and his own Image but with pitty and compassion which may be a better or a kinder kind of love he loveth and is kind and Merciful to his very enemies and those that are unlike him froward and unthankful Yea to their very Ox and Asses also even as the Law here bids in Exodus If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Asse going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If the see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen Thou shalt surely leave thy businesse or lay aside thy Garments to help him up or help with him Which may be improved much in our addresses to Christ. For we may justly tell him Our poor souls are as the very Asses of his Enemies and those that hate him nay yet worse as the wild Asses Colt as the Scripture expresseth it and that is more unserviceable then the Ox or Asse or other beast of burthen is I am Behemoth with thee as the psalmist expresseth it But though I stray yet Thou hast put thy self under That Law which bids us help a straying Beast and much more when he lies under an heavy Burthen under which he cannot stir much lesse come to Thee as thou callest All that are heavy laden Now sherefore shew thy pitty and compassion to the poor Asse or the poor soul the bruitish Heart of him that is thy Enemy and Hateth Thee And I know one that said He never received a more sweet and kind return from our Saviour then when in great anguish of spirit he bowed unto him crying onely This Now shew thy kindness to thy Poor Enemy the Kindnesse thou hast spoken of to a Poor Enemy which is now at thy foot and mercy whom thou hast taken captive with thy Sword and thy Bow and while I am speaking Thus I think also of That spoken by the Prophet to the King of Israel when he had so many of his Enemies at his Mercy in the midst of his great City Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them and the Prophet answered No by no means wilt thou smite them thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow give them to eat and drink and let them go and he prepared great provision for them and sent them away so overcome with this Kindnesse that they could hardly be drawn to come any more as Enemies against the King of Israel who was so Merciful a Prince And Mercy doth preserve and establish a Kings Throne more then any thing in the World as Solomon shews and David also in divers places and so it doth and still shall establish Christs Throne also Which is a white Throne even when he cometh to Judgement and Mercy shall still go before him and be the stability of his Throne and Kingdom and blessed be they that hear and know and believe that joyful sound which is sweeter then all the Trumpets or the Bells about the fringe of Aarons Garment Which yet had a better Ornament even that sweet perfume of the Good Oyntment a meek and quiet spirit as Saint Peter expresseth it and the Psalmist compareth it to Love which with God is of great value and it drencht his beard throughout even Aarons Beard which was yet but an Excrement and often to be cut away and ran down through all his Garments even to the seams and fringes also round about And as if God had not yet enough provided for the Poor through all the Laws in Exodus and Leviticus He repeateth and addeth in Deuteronomy Thou shalt not harden thy Heart or shut thy hand from thy Poor brother As if all shutting of hands came from Hardnesse of Heart and that This also was mainly or onely against a poor man But thou shalt open thy hand wide and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in That which he wanteth Beware there be not a word or thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of Release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him Nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be Sin unto Thee Thou shalt surely give him which before was lend him but at or near the year of Release it was a gift because to be forgiven then and Thy Heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him a most sweet Command and Promise because that for This thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in All thy Works and in All that thou puttest thy hand unto VVhich is the great promise to the Reading and Observing of the whole Law so that love and pitty to our poor Neighbour is rewarded as keeping of the whole Law As Daniel also to Nebuchadnezar even when the decree was made against him I councel thee to break off thy sins by justice and by shewing Pity to the poor And when the people asked John the Baptist What shall we do He said nothing but Pity the poor And so our Savior also to the wicked Pharisees Give Alms of all you have and All things shall be clean to you And lest All This might yet be too little or too narrow because it begun with a Poor Brother It concludes as general as well can be expressed Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy Brother to thy Poor and thy Needy in the Land Which Phrase is remembred to Christ several times in the Psalms crying Thy Poor and Thy Needy and forget not the Congregation of Thy Poor c. Where it is also Kite as the English sound the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Kite or Knite the Beast or Beasts of thy Poor As alluding to the Oxe or Ass or wild Asses Colt
include Seven or Ten or some of their Powers expressing Fulness or Riches It would be almost endlesse to shew how many Things and Motions in our Bodies do consist or depend on some of these numbers of Seven or Ten which is visible in our very Fingers and Toes with their Nails or Horns to be compared with the Ten Horns in Daniel or the Revelation That I say nothing of the Ten Horns of the Law or the Ten Sephiroth of which the Jews speak so much in allusion to That of Horns or Rayes comming round about the Lawgiver As the Antients formed Moses also like the Sun in his Rayes of Glory I must not speak of the Seven Hours Dayes Weeks Months and Years the Antients observed in Conception and forming the Embryons Features and its several Ages and Changes with ebbing and flowing coming and going of Hair and Nails and Teeth and many other things by Seven Which is also the number of the True Ribs on each side as they distinguish them and of the Vertebres or Rackets of our Necks as also they parted or paired out our Nerves by Sevens As if in our Brain also or the spinal marrow were the Beast out of the Sea or the Old Serpent or Hydra with Seven Heads also And as the Chymists find seven Metals in the bowels of the Earth below answering to the seven Planets above the seal being stamped quite through the Wax or Wafer as the Jews observe so that all the signatures are also seen below which were made above so also we have our spleen and Liver and Gall and Reins and Bladder and other Members as Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus and other Planets with their Armor-bearers also round the Sun as in our bowels about the stomack or great Centre of Sun-like heat and fire in That Lowest Region As the very utmost Court of the Temple had its Molten Sea like the Ocean or Waters under the Earth with its ebbings and flowings like the rowlings and yearnings of our Bowels and the Altar of burnt offerings burning and devouring all And the middle Court or Temple had the Altar of Incence and the seven Lamps and the twelve Cakes As our middle Region or Breast hath its Heart or Altar of Incence also compassed with its pericardium or purss of Water and the Air of the Lungs with the twelve Ribs or sphers or signs of Heaven Seperate with a Veil or Firmament also from our Head or Heavens above or Waters above the Firmament where are the first Ideahs or Originals of All below that I say nothing of the Mercy Seat of our Eye and its Rainbow representing the Throne of God in the Holy of Holies as we find it described in divers places of Scripture Is there not also some resemblance between the Northern parts of the Earth and the Brain or Head As if the North were made to Rule as may be hinted in divers Scriptures for Preferment cometh not from the East or West or South And from North the man comes that Headeth Kingdoms in the Prophets and their likenesse to our Lungs also may be considered with their Winds and Colds Other parts are as Neck Shoulders Breast and Arms. The Midland Sea as the Midriff or it may be part of the Pericardium about the Heart or Africa and Libiah signifies the Lords Heart As the form is And America the back-parts or the People a far off The Great Sea below the continent as the Waters under the Earth or our Bowels and their Rowlings and yearnings the Chambers of the South and as Waters returning in the South Terra del fuogo the Hips and Nova Guinea Loins Mael strom the Nose or Mouth How by Eating all things we turn them into our own Natures and spirits as a shadow how all things return To God as they come From him we touched before and may I add that Christ gave his own flesh and blood to be eaten by us and to be ours and us and the twelve Tribes were presented in the twelve Cakes of shewbread changed every Sabboth day as to be eaten by God or the Priest and so to be turned into His Nature as the Scripture also may intimate in other places besides our Saviours discourse with Laodicea in the Revelation And some make Shaddai to be All devouring and our God is a consuming fire We might happily measure times and seasons in the great World and changes there of much better then we now do If we knew the exact Times of Circulation of our blood and other humors of our bodies and how long the Chylus stayeth in the stomack or any other Receptacle before it be separate and circuled for assimilation What time in the Duodenum there is somewhat in the very name Jejunum Colon or Ilia Which we should consider often as the shadow that I say not measure of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea That I say nothing of the Infinite Bowels of God which are hinted out in Scripture by the many folds of our Ilia six or seven times longer then Man Nothing also of the Caecum which may speak somewhat Hidden as the Hebrew word for the World or Age or Ay and Ever Nor do I say the very Excrements return again in Grass and Hearbs which feed us with the Beasts we eat Shall we come to the measures of Time which is also the measure of Motion in the Heavens The two faithful Witnesses as the Scriptures intimate like our Eyes in our Heads or Heaven above and some other things below which so many Nations call by the name of Witnesses to be compared with Scripture also making such solemn Oaths by putting the Hand under the Thigh the Sun and Moon were set in the Heavens not onely for Dayes and Years but for Times and seasons Which are all made by Their motions through an Oblique Zodiack That crooked or that crossing serpent which in Hebrew hath almost the very same Letters and Numbers with the word for Year For Shanah is a Metathesis of Nahash the Serpent and the Ammonite which may be compared with Sampson the little Sun and Hercules And as Time began with Night before Day so it may be Winter was before Summer as Seed time before Harvest as the Scripture may intimate in divers places Evening and Morning are for sowing Seed and so the former and the latter Rains and the Harvest and Vintage have their seasons The Latter Works of God are ever the Better and his last Wine is best and he will ever shew himself better and better till all Time be perfected into Eternity and God be all in All. How the Antients might part their Day and Night into twelve hours a piece we shew before It may be compared with That of Moses When the most high separated the Sons of Adam and as St Paul expresseth it determined their Times appointed and bounds of their Habitation He did it according to the Number of the Sons of Israel And Thus the first twelve hours of Time
given while he was not glorified Or till he was exalted and set on the right hand of God and made a Prince and a Saviour for to Cive repentance and remission of sins Nay he never speaks of himself as a King or Judge till his second coming Being as himself said to go a great journey to receive a Kingdom and after a long time to come again and call his servants to account And if the wicked servant shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his comming and shall begin so much as once begin to beat or strike his fellow-servants for the Lords servant must be gentle towards all and be no striker when he shall but begin to strike his Master will come when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder and give him his portion with Hypocrites the Doom of Antichrist who thus took on him so before his time to sit and rule and judge before his master gave him power or leave or indeed was come to sit and reign and judge in his own Person Which was not till other Thrones be cast down or set as we read in Daniel and the Revelation For he must sit at his Fathers Right hand till all his enemies be put under him and then his Throne and Judgement shall sit and judgement shall be given to them also that shall sit with him who still called himself the Son of man and never a King or Prince or Judge till That Comming and That judgement And then he saith They shall see the Son of man come in the Clouds with great power and glory and when you see those things and that sign of the Son of Man comming in the Clouds Then know the kingdom of God is come even at the very doors Then and not till then it is come actually come and till that time but comming and he bids us pray and say Thy Kingdom come And then shal the Son of man send forth his Angels which before he called his Fathers Angels and the holy Angels now His Angels the Son of Man shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom which is Then his Kingdom all things which offend and them which do iniquity And then and not till then the Son of Man shall sit upon the Throne of glory and then the King shall say to them at his Right hand and again the King shall answer them But to the goats at his left hand He shal say he saith not the King shall say as if he were only a King to the sheep or they only were members of his Kingdom but to the goats he saith Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For as the Son of Man hath his Angels so the Devil hath his Angels also of which we read again in the Revelation Where as also in Pauls great charge to Timothy several other Texts of Scripture we read of his Kingdom joyned or annexed to his second comming or appearing again after his Ascention at which time he was asked If he then would restore the Kingdom unto Israel which he doth not deny but waveth only forbidding their curious prying into times and seasons which the Father yet had kept so secret that the Son then knew them not but had them afterwards it seems by Revelation Which God gave him also to shew unto his servants unto whom he saith it was given to know the secrets or the mysteries of that Kingdom and to search them out also by that Spirit which was given to make known the things which were freely given them of God yea and to search the hidden Depths or Baths of God as that Apostle saith who also tells us The natural man believeth not the things of God or of the Spirit of God nor can he know them being only discerned spiritually And no man can so much as see the Kingdom of God till horn again of that Spirit which the World as such neither knoweth nor receiveth but it is promised to the World also and to convince the world also and when a worldly carnal man is born again of the Spirit and so made Spiritual then he also judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man Nor may any man judge another man or any person whatsoever or can judge himself rightly till he be made spiritual and so fitted by Christ the great and only Judge of all Causes and of all Persons And to whom and in what cases Christ committeth this Prerogative of judging either themselves or others I know not any hath declared better then Saint Paul in divers places of the same Epistle But as Christ gave that general rule Judge not according to appearance and then surely we may not judge things that appear not or things of another world and for all Eternity Whereas the Wise man saith A man cannot know Love or Hatred and much less Eternal Love or Hatred by all before him or appertaining to him So Saint Paul giveth us that generall Rule Judge nothing even nothing at all before the time That is as himself addeth Till the Lord come For his comming is the time of judging and his Kingdom as we have seen from that Apostle and from many other scriptures And I would to God your time were come that you might judge and reign that we might reign also But the Kingdom of God and this judging also is not in word but in Power As our Lord taught us Thine is the Kingdom the Power and Glory And in the Revelation Now is salvation and strength the Kingdom of God and Power of his Christ for the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down For Christ also maketh the kingdom of God to be a Power to cast out Satan by the spirit or finger of God and when Judas was gone out as a Type of Satan or Antichrist he saith Now is the Son of man glorified and God glorified in him And so Christ said Some standing there should not taste of death till they saw the Kingdom of God come with Power Which another Evangelist expresseth by the Son of man comming in his Kingdom And S. Pet. One of the Eye-witnesses of that glorious Transfiguration which was an Emblem or preludium to his Kingdom calleth it The Power and coming of our Lord Jesus And himself being asked if he would restore the Kingdom bad them stay till they received Power from on High or the Power of the Holy Ghost coming on them which he also calleth the Promise of the Father For the Spirit of Promise which is to be given to all the Lord shall call yea to be poured out on all flesh is called by Esay the Spirit of Power and it is so observed of them that received it in the Acts that they were full of the Holy Ghost and Power And Saint Paul also calleth it a spirit of Power and Love and of a sound mind and saith he came with demonstration of the Spirit and of
Power And again when you meet with my spirit and the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this was a Judging Power is plain by all that Chap. speaking of casting out and judging them which are within while God only judgeth them that be without And in the next Chapter Do you not know The Saints shall judge the world Are you not worthy then to judge the smallest matters Know ye not that we shall judge Angels how much more things that pertain to this life Set ye them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church Is there not a wise man among you not onethat is able to judge between his Brethren And in that very Chapter you presse so much against your self he saith Judge in your selves Is it comly that a woman pray to God uncovered And of their Church-meetings he saith If ye speak with Tongues speak by two or three at most but if ye Prophesie do it by two or three at the least for so seems the opposition and let the others judge For you may all Prophecy and you should all desire earnestly and pray that you may Prophecy even above all other spiritual Gifts but it must be in order and not confusion while some Iudge and still the spirit of all Prophets are subject to the Prophets both old and now also while you be in Churches you must keep Church Order and your spirits must be subject to the Prophets before you and among you also But of the Sacrament he saith You must here Iudge your selves and be not concluded by others Judgement But let a man examine himself and so let him eat and drink For He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation or at least Judgement to himself and for this cause are many weak and sick and many sleep For If wee would judge our selves we should not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World Which is one of the most sweet and comfortable places in the whole Bible as before we observed in this Epistle also about Temptation Which also may and should comfort you So far are you from being condemned as you think by God who will never confirm or execute any wrong judgement though you give it against your self And yet you should be tender how you judge your self unworthy of Eternal Life which is the free gift of God least the spirit say as Paul and Barnabas to the Iews Seeing you put the Gospel from you and judge your selves unworthy of Eternal Life Lo we turn to the Gentiles But if you judge a wrong judgement God is so merciful and just also as not to confirm it And if you judge Rightly you are so far from being so wretched and miserable as you think your self that you are one of the happiest men in the World and not onely still under the gracious Spirit of Promise convincing you ofsin and also of righteousnesse setting up Christ in you and making you bow and long for him but also receiving from him one of the greatest and highest gifts possible which is a right Judgement and a power and priviledge to judge your self the hardest and highest work in the world so that you never shal be judged by the Lord. A Royalty not given unto any but the Kings and Princes or first-born of Jesus Christ his Churches as at Corinth or the members of them or such as are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints and to such as in any place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord both theirs and ours as I hear and see and know you do And therefore I pronounce it written to you also as a letter from Heaven or the Throne and Heart of God in Jesus Christ our Lord and yours whom you so call upon and trust in For how could you call upon Him if you had not believed on him As you may read in the Tenth of the Epistle to the Romans compared with the beginning of the first Epistle to the Corinthians which we now speak of Nor do I wonder Paul should put such a stresse upon calling on Christ when by his own experience and observation of all Christians he had found it the great Badge of a Christian and the greatest Character he could well expresse of one taught and drawn by God to come to Jesus Christ who though the Mediator to God yet indeed is the end also of all the Teaching and Drawing of the Father which I will therefore on this occasion more largely insist upon as one of the greatest and sweetest things I can declare to you especially in this great hour of darknesse and temptation When Paul saw Stephen the first Martyr stoned consenting to his death and standing by keeping the clothes of them which stoned him he might easily observe and remember that he died calling on Jesus Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit And again kneeling down he cryed Lord lay not this sin to their charge and saying this he fell asleep He might very well wonder that in the very Infancy of Christian Religion any could so quickly speak and pray to Christ and that also with such courage and boldnesse as daring to die in it and to desire no other rest or happinesse then that Jesus only should receive his spirit and forgive his stoners Doubtlesse it could not but take deep impression in so wise a man as Paul or Saul was And so it seems it did for presently he went and got a Commission from the Rulers to bring bound to Jerusalem all that he should find calling on Jesus Which he could not but see a most distinguishing Character between Jews and Christians for the Jews also called on God but the Christians only called on Jesus Christ and by that character he might easily discern who were only Jews and who were also Christians and so binde All he found calling on Christ. And when Christ appeared to Ananias in a vision he bad him Enquire in the house of Iudas Which we may consider again when we see Paul rising up in the room of Iudas and of Saul also being of the same Tribe much about a Thousand years after David that is Love had cast him out and bound him up as Satan must be bound for a Thousand years and then perhaps struck down as Saul here was by fire from heaven Saul also signifying Hell or the Grave and so might well be an Emblem of Satan which is the very Phrase used by David of Abishai to which Christ also might allude when he called Peter Satan And when Ananias or the Lords grace was sent by Christ to look out Saul he said Lord I hear he hath authority to bind all that call on thy Name To which Christ replyed Go for he is a chosen Vessel to bear my Name to the Gentiles and to Kings and the children of Israel though the Jews shall reject and persecute him yet he shall bear
my Name even to the Ten Tribes of Israel and I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my Name even for my Name which now he fights against And when Ananias came he laid his hands upon him saying Brother Saul the Lord even Jesus who appeared to thee in the way hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost Adding also as Saint Paul observeth to the chief Captain and people of Ierusalem The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his Will and see that just One and hear the voice of his mouth for thou shalt be his witnesse unto all men And now why tarriest thou Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins for even those that were baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire like the Apostles at Pentecost yet were to be baptized with water also as we see in the History of Cornelius calling on the Name of the Lord. And that it was the Lord Jesus on whose Name he bad Paul pray and that he prayed to him is very plain by that which Paul himself addeth to those words Arise and call upon the Name of the Lord And while I prayed in the Temple I fell in a Trance and saw him saying to me Hast and get thee out of Ierusalem for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me And I said Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every Synagogue those that believed on thee And when the blood of thy Martyr Stephen was shed I also was standing by and consenting to his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him And he said unto me Depart for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles As before Unto my people Israel Which may be one among other divers other Reasons why I may think the Ten Tribes scattered among them were then also called Gentiles yea and that they might be even some of those Gentiles while they were to be called Loammi and Loruhama though afterwards the very same people were to be called Ammi and the people of God as an Emblem also that the world should come to be the Lords Ammi and Ruhama from Loammi Loruhama Israel being but the first fruits of the world as we may clear anon And there are many things which makes me a little suspect that some Gentile Nations as they seem may be some of the Ten Tribes or at least the posterity of Abraham by Keturah or by Ishmael if not by Isaak also through Esau especially the old Saxons and those Northern people whose very Lawes Customs and Language savour so much of the Hebrew in very many things and words besides their common use of A and The for Articles with very many Monosillables and words written with ch gh gn cn or kn th dh wh wr. fr. And many others plainly Hebrew sounds In another place also Paul giving an account of this matter to Agrippa the King saith I verily thought I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth which I did also having received authority from the chief Priests and I punished them in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme styling himself also a Blasphemer And being exceeding mad against them c. But being strucken down and hearing a voice speaking I said Who are thou Lord And he said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest But arise and stand upon thy feet for I have appeared to thee for this purpose to make thee a Minister and a Martyr both of these things which thou hast seen and those in which I wil appear unto thee Delivering thee from the people of the Jews and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgivenesse of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in me Which I cite so largely because I take it for the best compendium of the Gospel and a true Ministers Commission that I remember And that phrase of Faith in me not only on me but in me seemeth not by chance but so considerable that Saint Paul often useth it in divers places especially to the Galatians where he calleth it Faith of Christ or Christs faith as if he would say He lived and was saved by faith indeed but that which was in Christ rather then in himself or Christs faith rather then His as if Christ by believing for he was justified by faith also in a true sense did not only carry out himself but all his Members also from the Grave and Death and Hell to life and glory And to summe up all I have or should deliver of Pauls observing prayers unto Jesus Christ 't is said in the Ninth of the Acts That when he Preached Christ in the Synagogues that he is the Son of God all that heard him were amazed and said Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this Name and came hither that he might bring them bound to the chief Priests So that it is clear it was in Pauls account the great Badge of a Christian and the distinguishing Character of Christian profession And it is worth observing How he useth that Name and what a stresse he put upon it all along his life and writings Having obtained help of God saith he I continue witnessing to small and great saying no other things then what Moses and the Prophets said that Christ should suffer and should be the first the very first that should rise from the Dead though others might be raised before him and should shew light unto the People and to the Gentiles Which also he cites to the Jews in that most remarkable Sermon at Anioch Acts the Thirteenth of the sure mercies or holy things of David promised to every one that thirsteth and cometh to the waters and many other particulars concluding with their turning to the Gentiles as the Lord commanded saying I have set thee to be a Light to the Gentiles and for salvation to the utmost ends of the earth And the Psalm addeth To them also that are afar off in the seas and America in the Hebrew may signifie a People afar off though I believe that Phrase in the Psalms may mean some farther or mere lost or miserable then the poor Americans So old Simeon said Christ was to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles first to lighten the Gentiles and then to be the glory also to Israel his people Israel Whence People often opposed to the Gentiles And another Simeon at the great Council Acts 15. saith God put no difference between them and us purifying their hearts by faith But we believe saith he that through the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they Here Paul learned or might learn his Character or proper mark he giveth them of his genuine Epistles The Grace of our Lord
by him to a journey when he meets with great storms and danger of death by shipwrack or otherwise For the Lord met Moses in the Inn and sought to slay him in his way to Aegypt though he sent him thither on so great an errand Noah brought rest to the World through the Floud and many tossings in great Waters And we might have lost some of the sweetest portions of the Gospel but for such storms by Sea In one of them Christ is in the Ship but asleep and they wake him crying Carest thou not that we perish And he soon took care and rebuked the winds though blaming their unbelief and fear with amazement which is Peters phrase to the Daughters of our good Mother Sara and he might learn it from our Saviour in their storms and fears with such amazement which is a phrase used several times in the Gospel But doth God take care of bodies Will he not be more careful of our souls and pity them more If we would cry and wake him also when he seems asleep about or in us and among us and say to him Master carest thou not that our souls perish Even those precious and Immortal souls which thou seemest to value above the whole World saying What shall a man give in exchange for his soul It is said Our blood shall be precious in thy eyes and shall not our Souls be more precious O we of little faith At another time Our Saviour did not onely send away his Disciples but constrained them to go in a ship when they might have gone another way But they would have sent away the poor people supperlesse from him and when he had supped them He sends away his Hard Disciples to be tossed in the Sea while he blessed the poor people In the fourth watch of the night he shews himself God is nearer us in a storm then we believe or Expect and he saw them tossed some pretty while it seems but would not help them or appear till the last watch and then they are more afraid and cryed out supposing it to be an evil spirit So easily may we mistake the kindnesse of God and think him to be the Devil to devour us even then when he comes in goodnesse to save us But he first rebuketh their fears and saith It is I be not afraid And when Peter would venture out beyond his strength and ready to sink cryed Save me I perish He is moved with compassion and immediately stretcheth out his hand and catcheth him the very phrase used to the Hebrews He caught not the nature of Angels but he caught the seed of Abraham He suddenly reached out his hand and caught as we snatch a thing perishing in fire or water So he caught Peter As he would do us also if in our fears and sinking we would so cry out to Him Help Lord I perish How quickly did he bring him into the Ship and it with them all safe in a calme to their wished Haven O that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse to the sons of men as the Psalmist repeats it several times in the 107. Psalm Such goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse did the Lord shew to Paul also in that stormy voyage to Rome wherein yet he did not onely preserve Him safe but all his fellow passengers also as he told him in a night vision saying Fear not Paul thou must be brought to Cesar and lo God hath given thee all them which sail with thee And when he came to Rome he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them of Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets And for two years dwelt in an hired house receiving All that came to him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence As we read in the Acts. That he also taught them to pray to Jesus Christ is plain enough from the stresse he putteth on it in his Epistle to those very Romanes in the tenth chapter Where to believing with the heart he joyns also confession with the mouth and explaineth it by praying to him For it is written Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For the same Lord over All is Rich unto All that call upon him But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed And the first Epistle to the Corinthians is directed to the Church of God at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with All that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours And concludes thus The Salutation of me Paul with my own hand If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you my love be with you all in Christ Jesus Amen Which belongeth to every one that in any place calleth on Jesus Christ. And to All us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are All things and we by him as he speaketh in the same Epistle And the second Epistle concludeth with the Grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you All. As that Epistle so all his Epistles generally begin with Grace and Peace and some add Mercy also from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who as the Epistle to the Galathians addeth gave Himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil World according to the will of God and our Father and I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the Grace of Christ. And concludes that Epistle From henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Brethren the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit Amen And to the Ephesians among many other remarkable passages of Jesus Christ he prayes that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnesse of God Namely by him in whom All fulnesse dwelleth Yea all the fulness of the Godhead And therefore He that desireth Him and prayeth to Him prayeth to the whole fulnesse of the Godhead and desireth it And in the same Epistle He that descended is now ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill All things and gave gifts c. for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the
read in the Psalmes and Epistle to the Hebrews with the four Watches or Watchers and the four and twenty Elders of which again when we shew all measures borrowed from the twelve hours of darknesse or the twelve sons of Ishmael and the twelve sons of Light or of Israel they all fall down and Worship Praying and singing Praises to the Lamb also even as cloathed with flesh as well as to him that sat on the Throne which yet was Christ also as is clear from many passages but Christ in more Majesty and Glory of the Deity then onely as a Lamb slain For it was the Lamb exalted and set down in Glory even in his Fathers Throne As of old the 24. courses of Priests and of Levites and of Porters or Watchers or Singers and other Officers so ordered by David who was also the 24th from Noah as the number of his Name in Hebrew and the 14th from Abraham as also his Name when written without a jod as frequently it is and signifieth love and a Fathers Brother or a very neer kindsman so in the Revelation those 24. Elders did fall down in Adoration to the Lamb even to the Lamb that was slain they had Harps it s said and golden Vials full of Odours which are the praiers of Saints Which may intimate that as our great High Priest over all the Houshold in Heaven and Earth The great Angel of the Covenant offers up his own Incence with the Prayers of all Saints to his Father So these Intercessors also to the Lamb even the Elders of Churches offer up their Churches yea and other Saints Prayers to the Lamb. For the whole Bride and the Spirit acting the Bride also do not onely converse with Christ as her Husband but Worship him also as Her Lord as Sarah called Abraham and she is so commanded in the Psalmes both to Kisse him and to Worship him And she so practiseth in the Canticles and the Revelation also crying to the last come even come and so come Even come Lord Iesus come quickly It may also be easie to shew very many if not most or all of the Prayers and praises in the Psalmes are plainly directed to Christ and many commands and encouragements to call upon him there also As He arken unto my cry my King and my God for unto Thee will I Pray my voice shall thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayers to Thee and will look up And again they that know Thy Name will trust in Thee for Thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek Thee And again Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Thou wilt prepare their heart and thou wilt cause their ear to hear And again Blessed be my Rock and blessed be the God of my Rock and my Saviour clense me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me and let the words of my Mouth and the Meditations of my Heart be acceptable in Thy sight O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer And again Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever and ride on prosperously because of Truth and Meeknesse of Righteousnesse And to the Spouse of Christ He is thy Lord Worship thou him And again Be still and know that I am God Clap hands all People sing unto God with Triumph He shall speak the people under us He shall chuse our Inheritance for us even the Excellency of Jacob whom he loved and his blessing prevailed over all the blessings of his Ancestors And again gather my Saints together and I will speak and then declares the forme of the great Judgement both to the good and evil And concludes call upon me in the day of thy trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me plainly spoken by Christ and repeated by the Psalmist afterwards Saying In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me And in an other Psalm Thou calledst in trouble and I did deliver thee and answered thee in the secret place of Thunder And what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee And again Trust in him at all times ye People and power out your Souls before him And again Praise waiteth in silence for thee And to thee shall the Vow be performed O thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come Iniquity prevaileth over me but thou hast made Atonement for our transgressions O our Jesus or our Salvation The hope of the ends of the Earth and them that are a far off in the Seas And again my lips shall ever praise Thee and and in thy Name will I lift up my hands when I pray And again Thou hast ascended up on High Thou hast led Captivity Captive Thou hast received gifts for men even for the Rebbels also that God may dwell among them And thy God hath commanded thy strength Strengthen O God that thou hast wrought c. And again In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me and Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in Mercy to all that call upon Thee Or as St. Paul to the Romans Lord of All and Rich unto all that call upon him plainly spoken of Christ. As that also of the Lord speaking unto my Lord Sit at my right hand c. And then the Psalmist speaketh to him the Lord at Thy hand shall smite through Thy enemies and Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power and the Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever cited so remarkably in the New Testament by the Apostles and by Christ also asking the Jews who it was there or how David called him Lord. And the 102. Psalm being entituled a prayer of one afflicted when his soul is overwhelmed in him and poureth out his sighing before the Lord is plainly spoken to Christ as we see by divers verses cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews as spoken to Him and proving Him to be the Son of God and so are many other like passages cited in the New Testament and applyed to Christ. As also the context will shew speaking somewhat that belongeth properly to Christ and not to God but as he is in Christ and the Humane Nature and so he hath eyes ears heart and hands and passions also and affections which are else improperly given to God or supposed to be in him and so he descends to earth ascends on high Returning also to judge the World Which is oft spoken by David to Him he calleth Lord and King and Judge of All. But the Father judgeth no man but hath committed alâ— judgement to the Son and authority also to execute judgement because he is the son of man And often doth the Psalmist speak to a Lord or King or Judge as Job also saying I will make supplication to my Judge and my Redeemer liveth a phrase also frequently
unto all the Lord should call For it was then but the Feast of Pentecost or fiftieth Day of first Fruits and that but of Barley O but now we wait and hope and expect the Feast of Tabernacles also and the latter Rain as the former little drops even the greatest Feast of Tabernacles which all Nations also must keep with Israel when they shall joy as at Harvest even at the end of full Harvest when all the fruits of the Earth shall be gathered in and all Nations also shall come flowing in as the fruits of all the Earth in that solemn Feast Which was acted also in a Type as we may say of somwhat to come when in the last and great day of the many Feasts of that great Feast of all the Feast of Tabernacles Christ stood out and cryed as the Gospel saith O every one that thirsteth come unto the Waters and he that believeth on me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water as alluding both to their custom of drawing and powring out Waters from Siloam with joy from the wells of Salvation and also to the most remarkable place in Zech where all Nations are invited to that Feast that they might have Water and the Rain of Heaven And it may be he that can rightly count the time between the Feast of Pentecost and Tabernacles may guess also when that latter Rain or fuller powring out of the Spirit shall be Which in general was in the seventh Month yet by another reckoning at the end of the yeer as the seventh Day was the end of the week Even as Gods appearings and Angels also were generally towards the end of the day or about the evening Sacrifice which is one of many Reasons why I think the Lords Supper was and now should also be at Supper or at Evening rather then Morning And to all yet said to perswade us in our prayers to direct our hearts and words to Christ and to God only as he is in Christ as of old in the Tabernacle between the Cherubims of Glory over-shadowing the Mercy Seat covering the Ark I may add That Prayer is a Dialogue between our Soul and God indited by the Spirit of Christ which differeth from the Spirit of God as being That cloathed with flesh and actually united to a Humane Spirit which the Spirit of God as God or of the Father as such is not Which distinction it may be St. John observeth by the Holy Ghost in Heaven One with the Word and Father and by the Spirit on Earth or in the fleshly Members of Christ. Now as Christ in the daies of his flesh did offer up strong sighs and groans and tears and prayers yea and himself also by his eternal Spirit unto him that was able to save him and was heard in all he feared or prayed So doth he now by the same Spirit in the hearts or flesh of his Members which are here on Earth Yet so as all those Members give up their Spirit to their Head As the Elders also in the Revelation present their Vials full of Prayers of Saints to the Lamb and he as the great Angel of the Covenant mingles them with his dayly Incense in his Temple and presents them all even all the Prayers of all Saints to his God and his Father and their Father in and through him They all being indeed but his own sighs and groans or motions of his own Spirit in his Members That we may yet more cleerly understand this let us first consider how Christ prayed to his Father and then how the Christian prayeth unto Christ or to his Father through Christ. As the Apostle saith God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself so in a right sence I may say God was in Christ Praying or speaking to himself even as our Soul communes with it self or as a man communes with his own Heart a Phrase we find in the Psalms or other places of Scripture and we may use it to illustrate This. For which also I may cite that notable passage of our Saviour which I somtime look upon as one of the Keys to open and discover the rich but hidden Cabinet of the Mysterious Scripture where he doth so plainly tell us that he never said one word of himself and yet he said all that was ever said by God for he is the only Word and Mouth of God and in the Prophet Esay he tells us plainly that he said all that was ever spoken and yet now he tells us that he never spake one word of that is From Himself or of his own but of and from his Father and what He said yea and As He spake it unto Him so he repeated it Being as it seems but Gods Holy Echo to repeat those Words and only Those his Father speaketh of himself and in himself and to himself As if Christ also compared with God were such an Infant that he could not speak one sentence word sillable or letter but as God sounded it before him and In him and To him and so He only Ecchoed back some little part it may be as the latter end or loudest part of that Infinite Discourse the Father had and hath to Him from all Eternity to al Eternity Thus when God saith in and to Christ My Son Give me thy Heart Christ then as it were ruminating or repeating in himself what the Father saith He Ecchoes back Give me Thy Heart And so it sounds as a Prayer To Bow down He cries Bow down To Seek my Face Seek my Face And at length his Spirit cries in his Members also Thy Face I will seek Lord Hide not thy Face from me So that the Head only properly speaketh in Prayer but His Members draw also by the spirit of the Head resting and sighing In Them Thus we have seen a tender Mother or a Father Teaching their children to speak and do and go by speaking To them in them as it were and going bowing kissing their hand and Doing All before them and as much as they can in them That they would have them to Do and say Bow down They say and kiss your Hand and say I am your servant or the like by doing and by saying what they mean their child should do or say And then he stammers after them and after many Essaies comes at length to stumble on that gesture posture carriage word or work the Parents have been often Teaching Him or speaking In him For one may speak his heart out to a child or other person who will never learn and Do till he have the Fathers or the Teachers spirit or his meaning and his Meen by accent gesture or some other way rather than by word only impressed on him So that we see our children and such as are acquainted with our spirit can discern and understand our minde by becks or nods or looks or otherwise somtimes without words and somtimes directly against our words and quite
here in dust or thick clay And yet his Wisdom and the Best in him being now united to Flesh will not must not say to the Foot I have no need of Thee yea must not disdain to say to this Worm Thou art my Brother or my Sister and Corruption is my Mother or my neer kindred And while others talk of Doing the Law and performing it to others I am mainly bent to see and hope believe and pray that Christ will Do it and perform it unto me and so by working in me teach me and help me also so to Act to others in some measure As he doth to me What is the Law which hath so long kept us in awe As if it had or could disanul the free Grace of God and Covenant thereof which was made with our Fathers and with us in them also so many hundred years before the Law rose up As also the Goodness and Pities of God were from everlasting to everlasting and so much longer and stronger than his wrath which we use to call his Justice which is not in him but as a stranger coming cross his way or calling on him and at most was but of yester day when some poor creature had sinned Is not the Law the very mind and Heart of God even That God which is Light and Love and perfect goodness Is it not summed up by Christ himself into Love All the Law nothing but Love Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and heart and might and the other is like unto this Like unto This For Man also is like unto God and thou must Love yea and honor Man too But Like as thou dost God Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self But how can I possibly Love God or my Neighbor before God Love me yea and some way manifest his Love to me Can I first give unto God or lend him that it may be paid again Is it Probable or Possible that I say not noble generous or Ingenuous for my God to ask and expect my Heart and Hearts Love to him before he had given his Heart and Hearts Love to me What shall we say then Having loved Man once he loved him still being his own in his own Image which he yet owns still in him after the Fast and after the Flood too Thou shalt not shed Mans blood for in the Image of God He is created Nay St. Paul is so bold as to call man not only the Image of God but also his Glory the Image and Glory of God And yet he speaks of Man as Man and of every man saying also that Christ is the Head of every man and that Man is the Image and Glory of God And Wisdom which is Christ plainly saith His delights were not only with Man but with the Sons of men or Man-kind And there were no Sons of men till after the Fall and when man had sinned And Gods Philanthropy or Love to Man-kind so much spoken of by St. Paul and others in the New Testament is also observed by Moses himself who beginning to bless the twelve Tribes of Israel plainly saith God loveth the Peoples also for the word is Plural and may take in all the Gentile Nations also in the Earth yea he carries them all in his bosom as the word he there useth may import Though he have also some especial to them that sit at his Feet and receive the Law at his Mouth which he there giveth for a sure Character of Gods especial Love even his Giving and their Receiving of his Law the Good and Royal Law of Love And God so loved the World even the World that he gave his Son for the world not to condemn the World but to save it for God even the Father himself is Love and hath sent forth his Son in Love and hath also promised his Spirit to convince the world even the World of Sin and to powr it out on all flesh that All may see the Glory of God Yea every eye may see his Salvation And hath therefore given his Law to the World even to the worst of men as St. Paul argues to Timothy that by it he may convince them and draw them to Christ. Having so shut them all up in unbelief and conclude them All under sin and breach of the Law that he might have Mercy on them Which indeed and properly speaking could not be shewed till there was an Object for it and there was no Misery which is the Object of Mercy till Sin was in the world And doth not This very Law this Holy perfect Royal Law of Love express and speak this Heart and Love of God to every man that it speaketh to and that is the worst of men living Doth it not say Thou shalt love me because I love thee Doth it not begin to every Man to whom it speaks and say I am the Lord thy God even Thy Lord and Thy God! and Therefore Thou shalt have No other God because I am Thy God And therefore thou shalt not bow to Images but Worship me only because I only am the Lord Thy God And therefore thou shalt honor my Name and not abuse my Love or take my Name or Goodness in vain or turn it into Wantonness because I am the Lord thy God And wilt thou not both love and honor That is Reverence that great and Reverend Name The Lordthy God Not a Terrible Name but a Reverend Name and therefore to be loved and greatly honored or Reverenced as God bids us Reverence his Sanctuary and a Woman must Reverence her Husband and the time is coming that we shall not call our God Baali that is My Lord or hard Master But Ishi my Husband And yet we shall then most Love and Reverence him with Godly Sonly Fear and Reverence And because this Name of the Lord my God is so great and holy and reverend Therefore I am bid to reverence it and hallow it even as the first Petition of our Lords Prayer teacheth us to pray and by no means to take it in vain For they that name it must depart from Iniquity And although the words added of not holding him guiltlesse that takes his Holy Name in vain ought still to keep me in great aufull Reverence yet they ought not to make me have any hard thoughts of God as if he were an Hard Master which our Saviour shewed as the Root of all miscarriage And those words may seem to speak a selfish person and so hard to please and so unexorable when displeased that do little suit the sweet and Gracious Heart of God which is Pure and Peaceful hardly provoked and Gentle easie to be entreated Slow to anger and without fury which rest onely in the bosome of Fools Delighting in Mercy and abounding in Goodnesse The Father of Mercies pardoning Iniquity Transgression and Sin And when he is provoked to visit and chasten yet he doth it Gently and Slowly and by degrees not at once
but in three or four Generations as it may be born least the spirit that he hath made should fail before him And when he afflicteth He will not do it for ever For he doth it not willingly or from his Heart but he will Turn again and shew compassion because he delighteth in Goodnesse and his pitties and compassions never fail and his tender Mercies are over all his works yea all his works shall praise him the earth and all that is in it and the Sea also is full of his Goodnesse He openeth his Handwide and filleth all things with Good and giveth the desire of every living thing Every Tree in the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce the very Dragons shall praise him the Owls shall answer one another in his Praises Every thing that hath breath shall praise him All flesh shall see his glory and every eye shall see his Salvation For what is Glory in some places speaking thus is Salvation in others and so in the Gospel also Citing it out of the Prophets In a word there is nothing in that Threatning or in any other in this Law and why then should we fear the Gospel but what speaks Gods tender Love and Gratious Pities and Compassions Even his very Jealousie which yet is made the Foundation of all his visitting springeth from Love It is so in man much more in God who is love its self and when he means to shew his greatest Love to his poor people in recovering them from all captivity and sorrow he expresseth it by being Jealous over them and for them with a great Jealousie And St. Paul calleth his tender bowels to the poor Saints a Godly Jealousie or a Godlike Jealousie Lest a stranger should attempt to get away their heart which he had like God the Father Espoused to his dear Son Jesus And when the Lord resolves both effectually and speedily to recover his back-sliding people he promiseth to move them to Jealousie also as himself is moved with Jealousie for them lest another get their heart from him which would never trouble him if he did not very much love them and very tenderly And although Jealousie in Christ for it is proper to an Husband may seem as the Wrath of a man that will not spare or pardon in his day of visitation as the wise man expresseth it Yet even That very phrase of Not sparing or Not pardoning which yet is one of the hardest or harshest expressions in the whole Scriptures is no other than the very same Solomon doth not only observe and commend but require and commanâ—â—so in a tender hearted Father to the Son of his own bowels whom yet he must Chasten and not spare or pardon 't is that very phrase Which yet sure cannot mean that he shall be alwaies angry and never reconciled but that he sorely chasten and correct in earnest and as an Ordinance of God and not for lust or dalliance or so as may occasion sin or harden in the sin so visited May it not be possible also that the dearest children of God even Moses may commit such a Failor in his Generation work as may in such a sense be never forgiven that is Sorely chastened as David was and be still remaining as a Spot for that Generation work though they may and shall be saved May They also or only commit such Unpardonable sins And such a visitation may be threatned in the second Command as was promised rather than threatned to Davids children Who yet had the everlasting Covenant and the sure Mercies or as the Acts expresseth it the sure Holy things of David which are also promised to every Believer or every one that Thirsteth and thirsting cometh to the Waters even to them and their seed for ever So that if his children break the Law and shal despise his Statutes Then will I visit their Transgression with the Rod and their Iniquity with stripes He will chasten them with Rods and as Ezekiel expresseth it cause them to pass under the Rod and Bond of the Covenant So that Rods are a part of the Cevenant and its Bond. But he will not take away his Everlasting Kindness Yet as he speaketh of Solomon perhaps one of the greatest sinners ever living for this I will afflict or chasten the House of David but not for Ever Not for ever I will not retain my Anger for Ever which is expressly forbidden Man in general And so Christ also in the very Law that saith Thou shalt not avenge thy self or reserve thine Anger No not till the Sun go down For so this Law is pressed upon us and why not so upon every one made under that Law also and by consequence on Christ himself Nor shalt thou bear any grudg or thought in thy heart against the Children of thy People for my Covenant is with them and their childrens children also for evermore Therefore thou shalt bear no grudg against them or any of their Children But thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thy self Which our Savior and the Apostles so much the sum of the whole Law And to this very place and the phrase here used of not reserving Anger or not retaining ought in heart he very many times alludeth when he saith of himself I will not retain for ever or I will not reserve my Anger or I will not be alwaies Wroth or I will not contend for ever and the like expressions which himself and all the Scripture affirms of him divers times as one of the first and chiefest things we ought to believe os him Which is also a most comfortable acknowledgment that He also takes himself to be obliged with the following words of the same verse which he citeth also several times Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thou lovest thy self Very sweet as Lying on Man to Man but yet much sweeter as it lieth on Christ the Son of Man to Man Man-kind every Man As I hope will be fully cleered anon Nor do I find any thing in any of the Commandements contrary to this No not That of Gods Jealousie which we touched before and his visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers on their children Even when he seeth so much Iniquity in the Father that by his general Laws of Justice Truth Equity and Mercy too for they go all together he must visit yet he is so slow to anger and so loth to afflict that he will do it by degrees and by steps and not so that may make the Father so miserable as he deserves and might very justly be But so that he may have some part of the rod as David had and his children also some other part of it so as may bring them to see and know and acknowledg the Iniquities of their Fathers also Which God promised rather than threatned to Moses on Mount Sinai also as we read in the 26. of Leviticus so much cited and confessed sor their Fathers also in the ninth chapters of Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah
Lords Threatnings and This in particular used to Adam Dying thou shalt die or Thou shalt surely die The very Words spoken to Adam and the worst of All that was Threatned to Him When I say to the Wicked as I did once to my dearly beloved Adam in Innocence Thou shalt surely die Yet if he Turn and Thou must warn him of those very words that he may Turn and Repent and Then he shall surely live he shall not die Which is several times repeated notwithstanding that Doom Thou shalt surely Die. Which in general God hath here interpreted when ever he so speaketh or shall so speak for it is the Infinite Mood or Manner of speaking In my saying or when ever I do say or shall say Dying thou shalt Dië or Thou shalt surely Die Yet it is not nor may be taken as any Absolute Doom but a conditional Threatning Which in case of Repentance shall never come to Sentence and much less to Execution And yet it was to a Wicked Man as Wicked O Thou wicked Man and so to one in a much worse condition and more desperate than Adam was when it was so pronounced to him in Paradice And upon This Occasion also God Comments on that Clause in the second Command of visiting the Fathers sins upon the Children which the Jews judged not Equal and expressed by their usual Proverb The Fathers have Eaten the sowr Grapes and the Childrens Teeth are set on Edge Which he confutes at large in the 18 of Ezekiel and sweareth it shall not be used any more Which is to be compared with That most sweet Chapter the 31. of Jerem. Where also That Evil Proverb is commanded and promised Down with such a sweet and gracious Context both before and after it as can never be too much considered And the Lords Discourse against That Proverb may be a good Comment on that passage in the second Command of visiting Iniquities of the Fathers on the Children But on Those that go on in their Fathers Iniquities And Then also the Children never Die for the Fathers sin They may be visited or chastened But They shall not Die for their Fathers sin No not for their Great Father Adams Which is a very comfortable thing and much to be considered by All and in special with relation to Infants that die without Actual sin having not sinned after the similitude of Adams Transgression But the Lord hath here promised the Children shall not die for or Bear the Fathers sin Nor indeed was That Expressed to Adam or for ought appeareth was intended that His Children should Die for His sin Nay rather God hath expressly declared the contrary that They shall not And yet Death came in by sin and passed over All seeing All have sinned and came short of the Glory of God And yet They do not Die and sure Then not Eternally for their Fathers sin Which may be compared with That of our Savior touching the man born blind and yet neither for His Own sin or his Fathers but that the Glory of God might be seen in his blindness And yet the Fathers Iniquity for That is the Phrase May be visited upon the Children and are the Visitations of God Smal things But yet why should we despair of the Goodness of God even in his visitation seeing Himself also hath chosen such a Phrase that with God and man speaketh kindness And a Love visit rather than any Hatred And if we rightly understand Gods heart in All we would long for his visits though he should come but to chide or to chasten us and we should value the very lowest and the meanest of his visits at a very great rate Sure it is not a little thing to be visited by a great Man How much more by a good Man which if we understood and saw the person they represent to us and the Embassage they still come about we should cry as Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary How is it that the Mother Brother Sister of my Lord vouchsafeth thus to visit me for every one that is His and doth His Fathers will is his Mother Brother Sister as himself speaketh And have not many Thus entertained Angels How much more is it then for God and Jesus Christ to come and visit such poor Worms as we are For What is Man that thou shouldest so magnifie him even so magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him and That Thou shouldest Visit him every morning and Try him every moment Yea as if David would lead us up to the very Visits made by God to Adams Children after the Fall he expresseth it Thus Lord what is Enos that thou shouldest remember him and the Son of Adam that thou shouldest visit him For he very well knew it a great condescention in God and happiness to Man that God should come to visit him For his Visitations sustain our spirits and preserve us alive I need not tel you what the Jews say of Sampsons visiting his Wife with a Kid or Abrahams visiting of Hagar in the Wilderness a Type of what is on her and her Children to this day as St. Paul speaketh Or what is promised to all the Kings and great men in the Terrible Pit that after many daies they should be visited as we read in Esay to be compared also with Zech. 9. 11 12. Yea even when his Visit is to chasten us it is an Honor and an Happiness My Son despise not thou the Chastening of the Lord neither be thou weary of His Correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father doth a Son of his delight Behold Happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth Therefore despise not thou the chastising of the Almighty For be maketh sore and bindeth up He woundeth and his hands make whole Which in That very Book also is more largely repeated by Elihu in the person of Christ as his Name imports He is my God who sheweth Gods designs in afflicting of Man yea and Then when he visiteth in Anger though he know it not in great Extremity a very considerable Expression whether we take it of God or of Job who was taught that all Gods Angry visits were for Good of man to shew him his Way and to hide Pride from him and to recover him from his sins and sorrows also Which is confirmed also by the Psalmist in divers places Especially after he hath so solemnly called Invited and Wooed all Nations and People of the Earth to come in and bow to God because of his Goodness and marvelous Kindness to the children of men from the 95. onward Shewing also that Afflictions and the Lords visits even unto Fools the worst of men is to make them cry to God and stir up his Pities and Compassions that never fail and to make his tender bowels yearn over them so that he will hear them in their trouble and will save them out of their distress He will send his Word and heal them and
deliver them from their destructions They even They also shall praise the Lord for his Goodness and for his wonderful Works to the Children of men Which is divers times repeated in one Psalm and that also by way of Prophesie or Promise and not only by Wishing as some now translate it Though the very Wishes of the Spirit of God writing the Scripture and it 's O that all the Lords People were Prophets and O that they would hearken and had Ears to hear or hearts to do as they say And O that they would consider and Turn and O that they would confess to God or acknowledg God or praise and bless God And Let All flesh praise him and every thing that hath breath praise the Lord and the like Sighs and Groans Wishes and Prayers of the good Spirit of God in the hearts of his People especially those that wrot the Scriptures are indeed both Prophesies and Promises or very strong convincing Arguments that such things so wished prayed and desired shall be granted to men and performed in them and in all the Earth also Even as Christs setting all his People to pray that our Fathers Kingdom might come and his Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Even in The Heaven or Heaven of Heavens is a very strong argument and great assurance with Evidence that It shall be so Even in Earth as it is in Heaven Yea and it is very usual in Scripture first for the Spirit to express its sighs and groans and ardent desires and longings for a thing and afterwards we read it prophesied and promised It shall be so First it cries Let All the Earth be full of thy Glory and then afterwards It shal be All full of my Glory First Let all thy Works praise thee and Then They shall All praise thee Let All Nations see thy Glory and Then All Nations and Every Eye shall see the Glory yea and the Salvation of God The Skies shall powr down Righteousness and the Earth shall open and they shall bring forth Salvation for the Lord hath created and commanded it He hath willed it and his people will it also For Concerning his Sons and his Daughters They will Ask him but concerning the Works of his Hands even All the works of his Hands They may and will and shall as they are bid command him And shall do the same works yea and Greater also than ever Christ did Then on Earth For he did but begin but Begin to do and Teach as we read in the beginning of the Acts and hath left All to be finished by his Servants after him who for This is gone to the Father and set down at his Right Hand and so hath Power or must and shall have Power over All the Works of his Hands And hath he received All that Power in Heaven Earth for Destruction or for Edification I trust verily for Edification and not for Destruction As S. Paul spake of His. So it is and much more and better much I hope in JesusChrist seeing that he can heal us if he will as the poor Lepar said and can quicken whom he will as himself saith why should we doubt his Will seeing with us it is one of the lowest steps of Grace and Goodnesse to be Willing to be Good and Graceful Yea and as Good and full of Grace as we can be and have any Power to be Why may we not hope it so in Christs Will also Is it Lesse and Narrower or Worse and Weaker then his Power Is his Heart Narrow as Mine is And his Bowels straitned also Or his Eye Evil and his Heart Envious also That he will not give or do or cannot abide to see the Good he might both See and Do and Give and Work very easily in us by that Power he hath received and the Gifts he had for Rebels also I have sometimes thought it might be better much and more Ingenuous farr to think our Saviour Weak or quite unable to do what he would then wilful or unwilling to do what he can for Good The one doth but make him Weak as a man the other Evil Envious or Malicious as a Wicked Man or Devil Or an Hypocrite that makes a great shew of Grace and good in his Face as the Heb Canaph or Knave is one that hath Grace which in Heb is Can ap-pearing But not in his Heart Or one that can but will not be Gracious Or makes a shew of Good without an Heart to it or a will to be so Good as easily he might if he would Especially when I plainly see Christ founding his Calls and Invitations of the Gospel on this very Botom and Foundation That he hath All Power given him by his Father and All things So in Saint Matthew All things are delivered to me of my Father Come unto me All ye that Labour and are heavy Laden I will givey ou Rest. Come Learn of me for I am Meek and Lowly even as Good in Heart as in Head or Arm or any Power whatever And you shall find Rest to your Souls And again at his Resurrection and before his Ascention All Power is Given me both in Heaven and Earth Therefore go Preach Do not fight or force though I have All Power and you shall have it also for I will be with you to the end of the World And therefore Preach And so also before he Cured a Poor Man that was borne by others and had no Tongue or Heart that we read to speak for himself Or it may be Faith to believe or expect it for it is said Christ seeing Their Faith not His but Theirs he said Son be of Good Chear Thy sins be forgiven thee and moved with Compassion also Healed him as divers also that were onely in his Sight though they said nothing for themselves and he never denyed any for themselves or others and This was That he might shew the Son of man had Power even power on Earth also to forgive sins And hath he lesse Power in Heaven Or lesse Heart to use it Seeing he is Exalted and set at the Right Hand of God and so hath Power over all his handy Works and made a Prince and Saviour for this very end and purpose that he may Give Repentance and Remission of sins to All that Ask and Wrestle for it as the Seed of true Seekers and that Brood of Travelers as Jacob who by seeking so and wrestling did become a Prince with God and Thence was called Israel And the Lord delighteth to call himself The God of Israel Though it might make him blush more then any Name or all the Names in all the Bible were not his Heart rather better then his Strength and Power was For every time he calls himself the God of Israel he remembers How a Poor Weak Frail Halting Man Overcame him at his own Weapons For he set upon him and was overcome and could not go he would not let him go till
draw All men to him and to make All things new being as the Psalms expresse not only to satisfie the desire of every living thing which is no great matter except also they have great and good desires for else I know not ought I feare or more oppose or pray against then his giving me the desire of my own foolish narrow heart but also that he shall give forth Good and goodnesse so that all things shall be filled with it As we may find by comparing the 85. Psalm concluding thus Yea the Lord shall give forth Good or goodnesse and Righteousnesse shall go before him and direct or set us in the way of his steps with the 104. and 145. Psal. which of all is to be marked most as that which giveth name to all the Book of Psalms as the Jews tell us being thence All called Praises or Songs of blessing The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to All and his tender mercies are over All his works All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Sainis shall bless thee The Lord upholdeth All that fall and raiseth up all that are bowed down which is again so repeated and enlarged in the next Psalm also that it may teach us how Christ put himself under that Law also to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth yea and to make us sensible of our own wants and emptinesse that so he may fill us being sent to comfort every one that mourneth and to replenish every empty soul. At this I awaked and my sleep was sweet to me as the Prophet expresseth it Yea and Christ is such an Head to every man as Paul expresseth and such a Root to all our soules and Spirits that our mourning and our sufferings reach and pierce his soul also And in all our afflictions he is afflicted For if any one member suffers all suffer but especially the head and heart and if one be honoured all rejoyce with it The strength of a King is in his Subjects and his glory in their multitude and greatnesse Riches Honour Happinesse and Freedome it being more honour also to govern one freeman then many slaves And it is a union with free Subjects that maketh a King so strong that as Solomoâ— saith There is no rising against him Where the Arabick also may help us to a better sence and notion of Alkum then is yet common May we not all say to our Saviour as Abigail did to David When my Lord shall sit on the throne of his Rest and when the Lord hath done to my Lord according to all he promised shall it indeed be any offence or grief of heart to my Lord that he spared us and did not shed our blood or avenge himself which is so much forbidden or reserve a grudge in his heart against the Children of his people When he shall see us all come bowing to him to his glory and his Fathers glory also who is glorified he saith when we bear much fruit And is not he so also When He beareth much And as much as he can If he could have been contented to be happy glorious all alone he never needed any world of men or Angels But O! how was he straitned in himself till he had found a means to multiply himself his Image Happinesse and Glory by Creation How much more than by Redemption while we live we shall praise him and shall ever bless him if he save us But the grave cannot praise him death cannot celebrate him the living the living shall praise thee as Hezekiah said And what profit is there in our bloud He did not care to drink the bloud of beasts doth he now delight in eating mans flesh and drinking mans bloud Or what doth he gain by losing us Can the enemie give a recompense for us As Esther spake of Haman And if he cut us off will he not look in the morning and when he sees our places empty will he not have desire to the work of his own hands as Job and the Psalmist to that needle work he curiously wrought in his closet When he hath ground us to powder will he not say return again againe yee sons of men O that God would perswade us even in suffering according to his will to commit our souls to his keeping as to a Faithfull Creator Can he be angry more in time then from eternity before he made the World or ought that could provoke him Or if he can may little children so provoke him with their raising dust or dirty pies against him that he must also turn and curse them in the name of God and give them up to Bears to teare them will he offer children also and his own to Moloch Or with musick drown their yellings in Gehinnon or in Tophet which he so much hates and threatens and his soul abhors so much in others Or if fury can be in him which yet himself denyeth in the Prophet Isa. can it rest in such a bosome When as Solomon saith it resteth in the bosome of fools Can it remain in such a soul which hath so often spoken it self well pleased satisfied and infinitely delighted in himself and his Image his Son and his own most glorious and most gracious Righteousness Can the Sun go down upon his wrath Or if he must for some great reason act a part awhile and wear a mask or frown and cast abroad his Thunderbolts and shew the fierceness of his sore displeasure or the Power of his anger or wrath can it be shown upon a moath a bubble nothing weaker than nothing will he also set his eyes or heart or heavy hand on that which is not What Glory Honour Profit Pleasure can the Power and Wisdom that we lay aside awhile the Goodness of an Infinite God beget it self in crushing us Will the King of Israel hunt a Partridge in the Mountains or pursuite a fly will he prosecute dry stubble or the little moats of dust in the balance can his Almighty Arm delight to strangle little worms or wrestle with a shadow will he create a mighty whirlwind to contend with nothing less than nothing and lighter than vanity when his very thoughts may easily create the Angels and his Word this glorious World and think it down again at pleasure Drawing in his breath or spirit and they perish and then giving it out again and they are created as the Psalmist shadoweth out his Respiration or his hearts Diastole Syslole VVill his sore and great and strong sword contend with feathers or lead captive atomes will it boast it self in cutting little straws or glory in a Triumph over that which is more feeble than the tender grass when yet it might awake against a man that is his Fellow and his equal match Mighty to bear his weight and power and wrath and strongest blowes when we are all to him as
Naball or a natural fool before the wisest man or Angel of the Lord and like a little childe and lesse and weaker much before the strongest and most mighty Giant clothed with double armour Will he contend for ever when our spirit that is His in us must fail and if it should not yet by conquest he can get no glory from us but a blush to think he should be grieved or provoked to contest with that which is so far below hâ— and so much unworthy of his wrath and so uncapable oâ— bearing the power of it If he would or could express it abroad out of himself He hath already learned much of God that knoweth how that great and infinite Being is one pure simple Act without all shadow of change as he is in himself and yet in Christ is all doth all beareth all suffereth all for he is Love and can ungod himself for ought I yet see as soon as do or speak or think a thought or any thing or act without Love Though he may hide his love which yet must hide and cover all transgressions if the Proverbs do not deceive us So that in a veile or mask it may appear as frowning or an angry face when yet Love is at the heart and the Lamentations say he doth not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men and I never read any Scripture praying that God would alter his heart towards any but very many that he would alter his face and turn again and shine upon them or lift up the light of his countenance that so they might be saved He that seeth how that which is Infinite mâ—st be principle and end subject and object to it self and all it 's own actings yea and Passions or Sufferings also to eternity wil not wonder to hear that God never spake a word or did an act or struck a stroke but on or in and through his own Bowels Jesus Christ. As a tender man How much more a tender God never striketh any but it even pierceth his own soul or Bowels and the harder the object is the more it makes our hand also to ake in striking it but it is because our hand is hard also How easie is it to darken Counsell by words without knowledge But how soon also would True Wisdome come and teach and lead us if we would cry after her and call her Sister and wait early at her gates in a silent freedome from the noise and crowd and dust of this world and vain thoughts or forms of words darkning Counsel without knowledge I have yet said nothing or at least very little of the great sufferings of God in Jesus Christ And indeed what can any man or Angel say of his Sufferings when as all the Gospel is but a little short discourse of some few things which he began and but began to say and do Nor is it much wonder that we should hear or know no more of that of which he spake so Little For he did not cry or cause his voyce to be heard in the streets when hungry thirfty harborless not knowing where to rest his head slâ—ghted Contradicted by Sinners betrayed by his own Disciple accused by a multitude scorned spit upon reviled buffe ed and bound scourged by Pilat Crowned with Thornes wearied with the Crosse and broken on it and so cruelly pierced that the hardest heart shall see relent and mourn over him and yet as a sheep is dumb before the shearer so he opened not his mouth Nor did Living Man complain but Dying God cried to his Father My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Thou art holy still and inhabiâ—st the Praises of Israell Our Fathers trusted in thee they trusted and then cried and still trusted Faith begot Prayer and that increased Faith and they were delivered many times at all times never confounded or ashamed But I am a Worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of all people But thou art Holy still We are yet but in the Porch and have scarce touched the threshold of his Sufferings which the old Greek Liturgy so rightly tearmed as well unknowable as unutterable O how he loved us How great is his goodnesse How great is his Beauty which was yet deformed more then any man or any Creature Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows He was wounded for our transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was on him and by his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all I might add also that sufferings are of such account with God that though he never promise ought but sutable to all our doings Yet our light afflictions or sufferings which are but for a moment work unto us also but his shadows a far more exceeding and eternall weight of glory with so great Hyperbole as cannot be expressed And because he made his soul an offering for sinne he did prolong his daies raised from the dead and shall see his seed and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand And therefore he shall divide the spoile with the strong and have a portion with the mighty And for suffering of Death he was Crowned with Honour and Glory that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sonnes unto glory to make the Captain of their Salvation Perfect through Sufferings and though he were a Sonne yet he learned Obedience by the things he suffered For as it pleased the Lord that All fulnesse should dwel in him so it pleased him also in bringing in that fulness into his narrowness as a man to put him to sore pain and thus to make and keep him still quick or of tender sence in the Fear of the Lord which of all he needed most because he knew and saw and felt most Love Which was therefore poyzed with most Holy fear which kept him still in aw and made him most tender also unto others as we see discoursed in the Epist to the Hebrews God would not trust him or us in his hands while he was only taughr his fear or his love by precept till he had it also by the deepest experience And when he put him under the Law â—or us he did not only tell him what measure thou meetest shall be meet again pressed down and running over And he that killeth with the sword shall be killed with the Sword and he that leadeth Captive shall be led Captive And he that diggeth a Pit shall fall into it which are often repeated in the Scripture and spoken to Christ also as well as to us But he also shewed him the horrible Pit and shut him up in it that he might still remember it and by his own experience knowing the
terrour of the Lord might perswade men yea and save them by fear and with much compassion catch them as brands out of that horrible pit of which we read so much in Job and the Psalmes and our Saviours own words also besides other Scriptures And dyed this Abner Father of light or Fathers light as Naball or a Fool dyeth Was he drunken also as Naball Or did his heart dye in him or becmoe as a stone before he died Will he not improve his death and all his sufferings all he may Is his heart narrow or his eye evill to himself also Doth he envy us shall I say or himself his full recompence of Reward for which he despised the Crosse and endured the shame and pain being promised that he should see the travell of his soul and be satisfied not only contented but fully Satisfied for all the travel of his soul which should have a full recompence yea a Reward also Will he then lose the things that he hath wrought and Suffered also Which hath oft sounded in my eare or heart from his beloved Disciple to the elect Lady which might represent the whole Elect and Church and Spouse of Christ who cryeth to us all in the words of that Disciple Look to your selves and I am taught to say Lord Look thou to it also that we lose not the things we have wrought or born but that we may receive a full a very full Reward also I should tire you much to observe one quarter of that St. Paul speaketh of the Sufferings of Christ and the mighty weight and stresse he layeth on them yea and upon the very little drops of them he felt or bore in his own person which yet he calleth the sufferings of Christ and to fill up the sufferings of Christ. Which in himself also he is bold to say were for the Consolation and Salvation also of others yea of many others as he writeth to the Corinthians and with them also he joyned all that in all places called on Jesus Christ as we noted before And to the Colossions having said of Christ that it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell and having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself which afterwards in that very Chapter and to the Ephesians also he calleth the Mistery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself to be compared with the 5. to the Romans many other Scriptures He addeth also that this Gospell was preached to every Creature under heaven as our Lords commission was Whereof I Paul am made a Minister who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions or sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his Bodies sake which is the Church And to Timothy he writes For the which cause I also suffer these things Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake for the Elects sake that they may also obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory And to the Philippians In my Bonds you All are partakers of my grace Yea and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith I joy and rejoyce with you all But if Christ neither loved us nor himself or valued his own Glory or his own Sufferings yet his love to his Father or his very duty to him though he did not love him may be found a great foundation of our Faith and Hope in him and in God through him And for this I may not only cite the Scriptures that speak of Gods loving Christ because he loved us and laid down his life for us One of the sweetest and the strangest sayings in the Bâ—ble But also as Paul said A necessity is laid upon me and wo to me if I do not preach the Gospell Even so our Saviour also This Commandement I have received of my Father And had he not received it he neither would nor could have given that Commandement to others which he so often presseth and repeateth as his own his new Commandement to all his Children Friends or servants that they love one another as even as he loved them which was to lay down his life for them and this Commandement he received of his Father and solemny professeth he never said a word but what and how and as the Father spake it to him nor did ever do a work but what he saw the Father do and what he did as if the Father also Suffered in him Nor shall we go far to search for this Commandement of God to him either in that of Ezekiel the son of man the great Watch man and the great Warner at whose hand God would require the soules of all that were under him who are all men yea and at the price and weight of his own blood with which he must therefore prepare a sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple as we touched before to be compared with the 53 of Esay and divers other Scriptures And the 58 of the same Prophet sheweth how it delighteth the soul of God that Christ should break every yoak and deal his bread to the hungry and bring the poore and them that are cast out or banished into his own House when he doth but see a man naked though he weep not beg not yet to cover him and not to hide himself from his own flesh If then thou draw out thy soul thy very soul to the hungry and satisfie the affâ—icted soul the Lord shall guide thee continually c. One of the sweetest promises in all the Bible and yet sweeter if we consider it spoken to Christ before it was to us and then follow the gracious promises upon the keeping of the Sabboth in which also we shall find our Saviour very much concerned But the very ten Commandements and all the Law of God through all the Bible which he took upon him and was made under it was written in his heart and so rivetted in that he can unmake himself again as soon as leave or lose one tittle of that Wise and Just and Holy Law of God which is all yet one Royall Law of Love Did not himself summe it all up into Love Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and might and there is another word of Love yet like to this a strange expression like to this or as good as this or as much required and accepted as this and of as much stresse and strength or force as this which is Thou must love thy Neighbour also as thou lovest thy self Yea and this is not only as the former of loving God but rather before iâ— in Gods account as we may find in his beloved Disciple and divers others So that God will much sooner dispence with his own love and hâ—s worship even of the Sabboth day as we find in our Saviours own words
It shall be so Amen For the whol Earth also must Rest and keep its Sabboth And not only the Land of Israel which was but as the First Fruits of the Earth and That had such a strict Command of observing Sabbatical Years that they must stay so many yeers in Babylon as the Land should have kept Sabboths by the Law while They were in it As we may find in that remarkable Discourse of God on Mount Sinai in the 25 26. of Leviticus which I have somtimes thought not only the Epitome of the whole Law but the Foundation of the Gospel also to be very often considered Yea and the Wilderness shall be as Lebanon and Carmel Yea Every Tree of the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce in praising God As we read in many places of the Psalms and Prophets Yea and the Gospel must be preached to every Creature under Heaven and the whole Creation longeth and travelleth for it is now made subject to Bondage but in Hope for it shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God For God is able even of stones to raise up sons to Abraham Whose seed must be as the Dust and more than all the stones of the Earth And we also can dayly Turn Plants and Beasts yea and Pearls and other stones also into our own selves and our spirits so as that they give us also a New spirit and refresh and joy our souls yea and the Heart of God also as Jotham saith in That remarkable Parable of the Trees choosing them a King How much easier is it for an Infinite God to Turn All these into himself and his own Image by his Spirit making All things New as they All came out first from him and must All return to him For of him and from him and To him are All things From the Throne of God and his Lamb when His Kingdom comes shall issue out Waters of Life Yea to the Sea also even the Dead Sea and they shall bring Healing with them And where ever the Waters come there shall be Life and Healing For the very Leaves of the Trees on the Banks of those Waters shall serve for Healing os the Nations even of the Gentile Nations And the VVilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the Desert shall rejoyce and blossom as the Rose It shall rejoyce abundantly with joy and singing The Glory of Lebanon shall be given to it The Excellency of Carmell and Sharon They shall see the glory of the Lord and the Excellency of our God Yea All the Earth shall Rest and Rejoyce and be full of the Glory of God as Waters fill up the Sea And Then the Lord shall be called the God of All the Earth and the Possessor of Earth as well as Heaven Which was the phrase used by Melchizedeck in blessing Abraham when he had pursued the four Monarchs or four Monarchies to Dan even to Judgment and brought back the Captivity of Sodom also of which we read in several places Although Sodom was so accursed and made a Perpetual Desolation that it is a Type of Hell or of the worst Judgments in all the Bible Yet even Sodom must return again and her Daughters And when our Lord Jesus Exulted in spirit as he saith Abraham did to see his Day he said I bless thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth even of the Earth also as of Heaven as alluding to that Blessing of Melchizedecks at the return of Sodoms Captivity And the Revelation tells us that when the seventh Angel sounded there was great Voyces or Joy in Heaven saying The Kingdoms of this world are become the Lords and His Christs and he shall reign for ever and ever And the twenty four Elders blessed God that yet at length he had taken to him his great Power and reigned and the Nations were Angry and thy Wrath is come and the time of the Dead that they should be Judged and that thou shouldest Reward Thy Saints c. and shouldest destroy them which destroy the Earth And Then the Temple of God was opened in Heaven c. Where before the twenty four Elders and the four Watchers also had blessed the Lamb that They should come even out of Heaven to Reign upon the Earth even upon the Earth As if the Earth should be the Centre also to All the Glory of God and that it should be more and greater on the Earth than it is in Heaven And yet it may be remembred that from the very first sin of Adam in Paradice the Earth was the Great that I say not the Only Object of the Curse of God The Serpent it self was not Absolutely Cursed but above all Cattel and above every Beast of the field And when the Earth shall be New moulded yet Dust shall be the Serpents meat as we read Esay 65. Adam must labor and sweat the Woman must be in subjection and bring forth in pain but not a word of Cursing them For God had loved them and Blessed them Yea and they shall be Blessed But the Ground is Cursed for Mans sake and in sorrow must he eat thereof All the daies of his life Yea it shall bring forth thorns and thistles and when Nothing else comes after Dews and Rain of Heaven It is nigh unto Cursing as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews And when the Cursed Earth had also drunk up the blood of Righteous Abel every word of our Savior is Remarkable Then Cain the Murderer as every One is that Hateth his brother was also Cursed from the Earth but not from Heaven that we read and yet a Sacrifice was provided and laid at his door for sin that he may have Dominion over it Though I shall not here dispute the Jews Tradition that Cain also was saved Or that the Earth it self was cursed as a Type of our Heart or somwhat in us more spiritual than our fleshly Heart which is a Metathesis of Earth as in Hebrew of Babel which is Lebab the Heart turned backward And an Heart turned back from God is but Babel Confusion As the Earth which the Lord cursed Bringing forth nothing but Thorns and Thistles yet its Conception is greatly multiplied and its sorrow But I must not here shew How our Body represents the whole World with its three Regions of Heaven above in our Head and the Earth below in our Heart with its Pericardium of Waters compassed with the Lungs as the Air separate by the Firmament of the Midriff from the Heaven above in the Head and the Waters under the Earth in the Bowels which in Heb are expressed by the same word with the Waves of the Sea whose Rowlings and Ebbings and flowings are much akin to the motion and yearnings of our Bowels And in Scripture the off-spring of our Bowels is compared to the Sand of the Sea and the gravel thereof As the Hebrew words for the Thoughts of
our Hearts do also signifie the sprouts of the Earth That Earth which the Lord Cursed But Noah found grace with God which may allude to his Name being the very same Letters which in Heb signify Grace He is called the eighth Preacher of Righteousnesse being the eighth from Enos When it is said Men began to Preach or Proclaim the Name of the Lord. The same phrase with Gods Proclaiming his own Name to Moses Though it be often used also for Calling on his Name As in the 80. and 79. Psalm Pour out thy Wrath upon the Kingdoms or Families that call not on Thy Name Till they seek Thy Name O Lord as we read in the 83d which may be added for calling on Christ and Praying to Him For among other Arguments There why he should not be Angry for ever or remember their Ancestors sins He cryeth Help us O God Our Saviour or our Jesus for the glory of Thy Name and Deliver us and Purge away or atone and expiate our sins for Thy Names sake VVhich as in the 65 Psalm and many other places is a sure Character of Christ in his Priestly Office being a Phrase so proper to the Priest in making Expiation for sin and the Mercy Seat and great Day of Atonement is from that VVord through all the Law of Moses And if I should so paraphrase the Words that Noah was the eighth from Enos who began to Preach Jesus Or to own him so as to call upon his Name I might not onely shew many Scriptures alluding though we now render them by Man and the Son of Man Where in Heb it is Enos or the Son of Adam But I might also bring great Arguments to prove Jehovah there used to be most proper to Christ Or the great Angel Jehovah as he is called in Zech. as alluding to the Angel so often speaking to Moses and giving the Law at Sinai out of the Burning Bush and Sinai is my Bush or my Thorns or my Sin or my Hatred as it is written or at least sounded in the Heb. And That Angel speaking to Moses when he was first made to turn aside and say he would consider that great thing a Bush Burning and yet not consuming as Christ also was plainly telleth him He was the God of his Fathers and appeared to them as t is said the Word of the Lord appeared to Abraham and the old Chaldee Paraphrase useth it very often where we read the Lord Though it was onely by his Name of Elshadday or God Almighty which we found the Object of Abrahams Faith but not yet as Jehovah speaking his Will also with his Power Ehje asher Ehje I will be what I will or can be Which now God would be in Christ delivering them out of Aegypt which in Heb is Misery as he speaks in the Law calling himself Jehovah the Lord thy God And This Name also may seem to be foretold to our Grand-mother Eve and that He should come from Her and she could not hold it in her Name being Chave which may also signifie a Tatler and as soon as Kain was born she cries I have kuned or kinned the Man Jehovah See the same Idiome particles and accents in Ezech. 4. 1. But as Seth was Set the Saxon English is very much Hebrew and a kin to Abraham in the room of Righteous Abel whom Kain slew So there was a Righteous Man also to rise up and be set in the room of Kain the Murderer and Brother Hater Which might be hinted perhaps when Kain named his Son Enoch sounding alike to Enos the very same name with the Blessed Patriarch Enoch That is the Chatechist or Catechumenus As is touched also in Abrahams taking out his Enochs or his Catechised servants against the four great Monarchies And Enoch was a great Type of Christ Walking with God and was not because God took him but before his Translation he had this Testimony that he Pleased God Living also 365. years as there be Dayes in a year And so long also did Christ remain in the Purity of the Primitive Church as the Oracle answered That Christian Religion should remain but One Great or Prophetick year and then came up That Grand Apostacy so much spoken of and ushered in by Him that through all ages since is Called The Apostate For Julian was about 365 years after Christ of which we may discourse again in an other Season When Enoch was Taken away and Seth Dead Noah is Born So Gracious is God in raising up other Comforters as our Saviour speaketh when it is expedient that some be taken from us Who is to be set in the room of Kain and his issue called the Children of Men in opposition to the Sons of Enos Named the Sons of God as some will have it Then began Men to be called by the Name of God All Kains Issue was washed off by the Floud so that all men now are the Children of Seth as we read in Scripture as well as Children of Noah And as we see the Justice of God in washing away the Sons of Cursed Kain so we may see the goodnesse of God in bringing us all since from Blessed Noah while also our sins as the Sons of Kain are washed off by the Blessed Flood of Baptism by Water and the Spirit Which must move on those Waters also as at first on the great Waters till it bring forth a New Heaven and a New Earth in which Righteousness shall dwell I do not Here stay to compare Noahs Ark with Peters Sheet having all kind of beasts Unclean and Clean which He must slay and eat and Turn into himself and his own spirit And from This he is Taught at length to call No Man Common or Unclean Seeing All are together and may be alike as they were in the sheet and in the Ark Resembling Christ with Rest also as the Name of Noah signifies Which was therefore given him because He shall give us Rest or Comfort in our Toyl because of the Earth which the Lord hath Cursed To which also the Prophet Micah may allude This Man shall be Our Peace whon the Assyrian Overflows our Land For so also Esay Prophesied that Assyria should rise up as a Flood and overflow the breadth of the Land of Emanuel as Antichrist the Church of Christ. see also Jer. 47. 2. But Christ shall give us Rest as himself also promiseth when he calleth all that are laden and that Labour as alluding to That of Noah I will give you Rest and again you shall find Rest to your Souls And the flood so Baptised Noah that God blessed Him and his Sons also which was more then we read done to Adams Children Yea Noah had a greater blessing then Adam had as may be shewed in divers Particulars and an Everlasting Covenant so established with Him and his Seed also that it is made the Pattern of all Covenants with Israel or any other as we may find in divers places And the
may be from News brought by Pigeons As in Those Countries To This day And Jonah signifies a Dove sent to Nineveh as Israel to Assyria and Babylon When All or any of These were Burnt Offerings or Sin Offerings for the whole Church or Priest They were All the Lords consumed by Fire as pledges that the persons offending were guilty of cutting off or perishing for their sins But in particular Sin Offerings or Trespass which were greater guilt and Shame as the Heb sounds the Priest had His and in Peace-Offerings the Offerer had also His part to eat besides the Blood poured out and the Fat and Inwards consumed by Fire to the Lord. Which might not only be a Token of Their Peace with God as the Apostle speaks but also that God accepted and pardoned Those who were represented by such Offerings Gods receiving or eating them as himself expresseth it seemed an Emblem of his Turning them and their natures into His As we dayly do to all we eat and wel digest Or that Christ who was Typed out in All of them was made All to All or for All. As Not only a Lamb for the Lambs in the dayly Sacrifice in which God had his Bread and flesh at morning and Bread and flesh at Evening as he allowed to Elijah and other persons But a Goat also for the Goats At the change of the Moon and the solemn Feasts especially the Feast of Atonement About the end of the Year or Fulness of Times as the Apostle speaketh which we shall consider a little more distinctly As there is a measure of Syncerity which the Scripture calls Integrity Perfection or Fulness of Heart as Calebs Heart filled after God and Sardis Works were not filled up before God And the Lord answered Abimelech Thou didst it in the Perfection of thy Heart which yet is not Absolute Perfection So there are such or such periods of Time which the Scripture reckons Perfect and calleth Fulness of Time or some kind of Eternity which yet are not such Absolutely but to man So Long or so uncertain or Hidden as the word intimates which is used for Ever or Eternity Seeing God hath so Hidden some Times and Seasons in his own Breast that the Son himself saith He knew them not Which yet some interpret as That saying I pray not for the World as if he said I do not now speak or manifest My knowing owning or praying for them till its proper season And there were such seasons also or Revelation of Times and Seasons as appeareth in the Revelation And Blessed is He that Readeth That Book Which is cleerer perhaps for the great things of Doctrine Worship and Discipline also than every eye seeth at one or two readings And may we not say with Job Seeing Times are not Hidden from the Almighty why do They that know Him not see his Daies or Times also For That is the sence in the Original rather than as some read or comma the words Thus VVhy do they that know him not see his daies As the Schools make Motion to begin from Rest as in Heb Resit or Rest is the Beginning of Creation and all Motion So the Jews and other old Nations did begin to reckon Time which is the Measure of Motion from Night in Heb Nihat Rest which is as proper to Night as Motion is to Day As our Saviour also speaketh I must work O happy necessity while it is Day for the Night cometh when No man can work And again Walk in the Light and are there not Twelve hours in the Day And so many also they made in the Night Observing perhaps that the Moons mean Motion was her own Diameter Twelve times to the Suns moving One of His and so twenty four for his two breadths of Day and Nights Motion round the Heavens which is also the proportion which the Ancients made and kept between their Sun and Moon in Metals Gold and Silver But on the Twelve sons of Darkness as of Ishmael or Esau and the Twelve sons of Israel which are called Children of Light We glaunced before in the twenty four Elders and the Watches or Watchers also As in our Bodies are twelve Ribs on the one side and twelve on the other with such and such distinctions and Vertebres And in either Jaw or Pallat like the two Hemispheres of Day and Night There are twelve Teeth with their Watchers also which some call Dogs And the common meetings of our Jaws and signal Pulses are in many Languages called Times or Tempora the Temples As the Jews also called Teeth by a word next akin to Years and our Ears are neer our Temples growing up as Time and Years did after the Creation Changing All things by chewing and devouring them as Time and Saturn did with the Poets and so Turning them into our own Natures And the very Name of Year as of Teeth also in Heb intimates Changing and its Numeral Letters make up Three hundred fifty five As there were Daies in their Lunar Year and Three hundred sixty in the Plural Regimen as in their Solar Years as we touched before at the great Change of Time in the last Battel between David and the House of Saul And Their word for Year hath a double Plural both Feminine and Masculine as their Years were Lunar and Solar And such periods of Exact meeting of Sun and Moon after such Courses and Motions make up such or such a Fulness of Time or Perfection which in Scripture Language may be called an Age or Ay or Ever or the like Phrase by which they express the World also which is usual in many languages As where some read He hath set the World in our Heart it is Eternity or the same VVord which is so Rendred in very many places And though it may be hard to determine what the Scripture meaneth by Fulnesse of Time or Times which is so spoken about our Saviour Time especially as if it were the end of one World and beginning of another Or the end of that which was to answer to the first Night of Creation or the Time before the Sun appeared in the World and the beginning of Light or Day as we may often read in the new Testament yet for some little Essay towards it we may remember that the Hebrew word for Seven or Sevang as some sound it the English Saxon being much Hebrew is very neer a kin to That which signifieth Fulnes and their word for Ten is also Riches which turned backwards maketh their Rash or wrech or Rich or Rushing wicked and unquiet man and by a little changing of places the same letters make a Goat and a Devil also to which there may be frequent allusions in Scripture which we may touch again Shall I add that All the Words I now remember in all the Bible to expresse such a Fulnesse or perfection of Time as is stiled Age or Ay or Ever or Eternity in their very numeral Letters if no more
End of Jehojachim or in Jehojachin but 3 Months after was Ezekiels and That he so often calleth Our Captivity And after 70 years God promised to visit Them with Jechoniah in the 29th As in the 24th of Jeremy they are called the Good Figs in comparison of Zedekiahs Captives Eleven years After And as Assyria was brought on Israel and Babylon on Judah like the Waters of the Great Flood So they must be Dryed up I will Dry up her Sea and make her Springs Dry Which was to the very Letter fulfilled by Cyrus Turning away their great River and cutting it out into as many Streams as Dayes in the year and so he brought in his Army when and where they little expected it in a time of great Feasting and jollity as we read in Heathen Authors And so also the same 51 Chapter of Jeremy by that meek and quiet Prince we saw before sent this Heavy Doom to Babylon In their Heat or Humming jollity I will set ashite in Hebrew on their Feastings I will make them Drunk So it is first said Pharaoh Hardned his own heart and then that God hardned it and so here God will make them Drunk that They may Dance and sleep a perpetual sleep and not Wake saith the Lord. So in the 39th Verse and so again in the 57. I will make her Princes Drunken and her wise men her wise men her Captains and her Rulers and her Mighty men and They shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not Wake saith the King whose Name is the Lord of Hosts Which we see fulfilled sadly in the 5th of Daniel When the Mans Fingers writing on the Wall made their King all those Drunken Feasters quake and tremble so that the Kings Countenance or Brightness was changed and his Thoughts pierced him so that the joynts of his Loyns were loosed and his Knees smote him and themselves also that should have been otherwise imployed than in drinking Healths or Carousing Prayses to the gods of Gold and Silver as the words may intimate But how sudden or in English Hebrew Phrase How soon That Evening came with it s most sad Catastrophe Thou Fool This night They shall take away thy Glory and thy soul also Thy precious and Immortal soul And then whose will All these things be As our blessed Saviour speaketh as alluding not only to the History of Nabal that is a Fool when his Heart dyed in him and became like a stone in his Drunkenness But also to This in Daniel and That also of Nebuchadnezar an Empty Pitcher sealed or His Prophecy as of a Treasure They shall take away thy soul and They shall Drive thee out from men and They shall make thee eat grass as an Ox alluding to the Psalmists Image of a Beast eating grass as an Ox. Adam lost the Image of God and became as a Beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or with his wife hearkning to her after the Serpent who was Head of all the Beasts had possessed her or as it were filled her with His Spawn which she got by Hearing and Believing That Beast whence from Isha she becometh Chavah the Beast yea the Mother to All Animals and Beasts This was at Eden both Pleasure and Time in Shinaar the Teeth and Years of the Watch of Time in Babylon Thence it came with Abraham also through Haran that is Wrath to Canaan and Aegypt and Back again to the Wilderness and There it came out in the Image of a Beast eating grass as an Ox as the Psalmist saith And then it was set up in Dan that is judgement as Dinah before and Bethel also the House of God And He that built Jericho came out of Bethel the House of God For Antichrist must sit As God in the Temple of God At length It goes to Babylon whence it first came and So the Prophet Zechary seeth First Isha So the Woman was before she fell and then Eve or Lilith as before or a woman in an Epha or Eva with an heavy Risk of wickedness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carryed by two women also with the wings of a Stork Piety and seeming Holiness Alluding plainly to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Stork and Holiness also yet such as may be the greatest Wickedness or as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also the very Root of All Uncleanness or Fornication And those two Women with the Storks wings carry it between Earth which Here is set Before Heaven into the Land of Shinaar whence it first came And there it becometh Mother of All Fornication as Revelation 17 5. And there it was settled on her Base Vehunnicha shame al Mekunnatha And the Angel added This is their Ein or likeness or Image or Type of that Image of the Woman Beast which must be in all the Earth also For All the world Worship the Beast which was First and Last at Babylon Being come to Babylon It is again as before in the Wilderness turned into the Image of a Beast eating Grass as an Ox. First the King of Babylon maketh an Image of 60 High and 6 in Breadth 360 as Dayes in their Year till at length it comes to be 666 and sets it up in the Plain of Dura That Age or Generation As it will be in every Dor or During of every Generation Till Babylon it self perish like this Talent of Lead Kiccar is both a Plain and a Talent or as a Milstone in the great Deep And so did the Prophet Jeremy bid that Meek and Quiet Prince Seraiah to say O Lord thou hast spoken against this Place This Babylon to cut it off that none remain either Man or Beast but that it shall be desolate for ever as in Esay 13 also So that now we onely say it was near That City they now call Bagdad but cannot tell where but in old Rubbish and ruines found at many Miles distance And when thou hast made an end of Reading this Book Thou shalt binde a stone about it and cast it into the midst of Euphrates and thou shalt say Thus shall Babylon sinck and shall not Rise c. The Text to very much in the Revelation But when the King of Babylon had made an Image and set it up to be Worshipped De Te narratur fabula Then Himself is turned into the Image of a Beast Eating Grass as an Ox. And they shall Drive thee out from among men and they shall make thee eat Grass as an Ox They Even the Watchers as Himself said he heard the voice of the Watchers and the Holy Ones saying Let his Heart be changed from a Mans and let a Beasts Heart be given him and 7 Times pass over him till he know the Most High called afterwards the Heavens as the Jewes speak at This Day Ruleth in the Kingdoms of Men and giveth it to whom he will and setteth up over it the Basest even the Basest of men As a Vile Person reigned in the same Daniel and a Base Kingdom in Ezekiel Yea