he may be delivered from death and wrath Ezek. 20.43 1 Cor. 5.5 and that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord and that he may bring him to rest peace wisdom righteousness and glory in that alone and Aâ—sufficient Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in whom alone are all these but in the creature nothing but trouble confusion death sinne hell and condemnation in which All the sonnes of men are concluded and all their best workes and Christ alone is ordained of the Father to be our strength wisdom righteousness redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 and salvation Him alone hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgivenesse of sins Him alone I say being made unto us wisedome righteousness sanctification and redemption 1 Cor. 1.29 That so no flesh should glory in his presence but according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord and in the Lord alone THE Power of Divine Attraction or the Fathers great Love in drawing poor sinners unto his Sonne Delivered at Whitehall on the Sixth of John verse 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day BEloved when the power of God from Eternity which was himself was made out in the appearance of flesh at Jerusalem when this eternal word I say was in that Vaile which was the making out of the true body of Christ when the Saviour of the world appeared in the flesh to make out himselfe to the Sonnes of men in all his actings and speakings we finde nothing else sought acted or spoken by him but the fulfilling and accomplishing of the work and will of the Father about which he was sent Joh. 6.38 and therefore whatsoever he did or said was onely that he might finish and accomplish that great work about which the Father had sent him therefore in that regard he said he had meat to eat that man knew not of John 4.32 understood not did not see And as he came to fulfil the work of the Father not onely in the flesh in those manifold and unparalleled sufferings he underwent but also in the power of that spirit that he might convey life and salvation to the soules of men this was his meat and drink so that this is it that in all his speakings he chiefly holds out so here he having declared that he was that bread that came down from Heaven that only true and spiâ—itual Manna which cometh down from Heaven Joh. 6 33. that nourisheth the soules of men and besides which there is none other Hereupon he holding forth this so boldly and so clearly the Jewes the scribes and Pharisees those Religious and learned men of the times not knowing the mystery of this bread became extreamly offended and despised and derided him saying Vers 41 Hew can this man give us his flesh to eat Truly Beloved that which is held out to us by this is That the Jew is in every man by nature and is discontented at the speaking out of the spiritual things of Jesus Christ When it is holden out that there is no other Wisdome Strength Righteousness and Holiness but that which is onely in and from the Son of God and that this is the only meat and drink of the soule And that there is not any one of the sonnes of men that hath either wisdom or holinesse or power or any good thing of his owne this is a hard saying to flesh and blood 1 Cor. 2.14 for the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God neither indeed can he for they are spiritually discerned The Words now read are the answer of our Saviour to the murmuring objection of the carnall minded man or Jew saying how can this man be bread unto us or Manna or meat and drink Joh. 6.42 Is not this the Son of Joseph and the reason is because they saw onely the Vail but not the Godhead the eternity or everliving WORD that was under that Vail viz. his flesh or his external appearance Now he therefore gives an answer to this their murmuring and shews the reason and ground why it could not be otherwise with them that their carnal minds could do no other but murmur at these spiritual makings out of the minde of God Because no man could know him love him and believe in him but those that were given him of the Father those that were drawn by the spirit and love of the Father onely would understand love and beleeve and know him but otherwise all others they would nor could do no other but murmur and repine for all others in seeing they did see and not understand for their foolish heart was blinded and darkened with impenitency of heart therefore saith he no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him First here is discovered by way of Negation and Exclusion the impossibility of man as man to come to Christ no man c. Secondly here is laid down the power way and means by which man comes on to Christ and that is in and by the drawing of the Father when the FATHER draws man cannot but come and when the Father draws not man cannot come unto Christ No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day as if he should say if he be not drawn and raised up by me he can never come and I never raise nor draw till the last day till mans day mans power wisdom strength holiness all that is in or of man is at an end and that he is lost distressed and undone Then at that last day I will raise him up I will come in and stay no longer for while mans day that is mans life wisdom and strength lasts there is nothing but resistance blindnesse fightings and oppositions First no man can come that is In his natural blind dead and lost condition wherein he is as a dead bone Ezek. 37. there is no life at all in him wherein he is stark blinde and sees not the things that concern his peace therefore he hath no will nor power nor mind to come unto me UNTO ME Luk. 19.42 who am the Saviour of the world the truth righteousnesse and Sactification it selfe to come unto me that is to ME indeed for men had power enough to come to Christs bodily appearance while he was on the earth but this is not the comming to him to come in conceit notion opinion or in a verbal or litteral way according to the History and relation of him But to come to Christ is to come in the life of Christ in the power of God to come unto him in the eternall power that HE may onely teach them lead them and guide them and be their onely Master that they may
know no Master no Father no Teacher no Leader nor no strength besides him Oh Beloved this is not to be done without the drawing of the Father or not but in a Fatherly way since he is the fountain of eternal love the Father or Fountain of love that hath made out his eternal Love himself in the similitude of flesh 2 Cor. 5.19 for God was in Christ saith the Text reconciling the world unto himself not imputing to them their trespasses It must be the love and good will of the Father made out to the soule that must call it and will draw it and cause it to come in to be at peace with him and be reconciled onely by his owne making out his love in Christ So I say this Eternal love that sent out Christ and that gives with Christ all good things it is the same eternal love and power Rom. 8.32 and everlasting goodness and good will of the Father that draws and brings the spirits of men unto Christ else they come not Draw them how is that with such a drawing as must be effectual As the Rain falleth not in vain but the earth bringeth forth fruit meet for them for whom it is appointed Heb. 6.7 So the eternal word and power of the Father made out through the flesh of Christ to the soul calls invites draws and works effectually and brings home the soul and this drawing of the Father is the eternal and everliving power of the Godhead or spirit that wonderfully draws the soules of men and when they are thus drawn they cannot but follow and being thus drawn by him this is the joy life wisdom and righteousness of the soule here it dwels rests recreates it selfe having lost its own life it lives and receives full satisfaction in the life and power and wisdom of Christ Then it is the office of the Son whom the Father hath sent to quicken it and raise it up at the last day and make it like himself even to sit together with him in heavenly places Eph. 2.6 The point I shall offer to your Considerations is this That the drawing of the Father only leads the souls of men unto Christ Doct. otherwise none can come unto him Before this truth can be beleived in us or be of benefit unto us it must become a truth of evidence and manifestation and experience in our hearts yet to witnesse this from the litteral word that this is truth you may be pleased to look upon a place or two yet they can make out nothing to us except the sam be made out by the eternal spirit in uâ— â—lse the word is but a dry tree a dead letter Cant. 1.4 The experience of the Spouse in Cant. 1.4 witnesseth the same draw me and we will run after thee her experience had known that the drawings and leadings of those cords and bands of love that are never to be broken in Jesus Christ the drawings of these bands of love only made her willing to go after that Husband Father and God of Loving-kindness and mercy otherwise man never comes nor is ever drawn but onely by these cords of his love Again the same is witnessed in Jer. 31 3. there he tells you because he had loved them Jer. 31.3 therefore with loving-kindness had he drawn them And in Hosea 11.4 he declares he had drawn them with the Cords of a man with the bands of love Hos 11.4 the soule finds it is onely the power of the Father the love of the Father that hath drawn him out of many waters as the Psalmist witnesses for David had found it so Psal 69. Ibid. 40.2 that he had delivered his soul out of the mire and horrible pit There is nothing but the eternal power of God that is able to draw a soul out of the deep and mierry pit in which it lies the drawing of the Father the power of the Father only draws men unto Christ otherwise they will not nor cannot come That this is so Divine truth witnesses and the experience of all Saints that men will not cannot do act or work nor come in unto Christ without this drawing First because Jesus Christ is not known and understood in the pretiousness excellency and value of him to the lost blind Reas 1 and carnal heart of man for man in this condition knows not the worth sweetness and excellency of him therefore man comes not unto Christ as David witnesses He looked down to see if any of the sons of men would seek after God Psal 14.2 but they are all gone out of the way there is none thath doth good no not one so I say man comes not to Jesus Christ because he is ignorant of that life glory righteousness and immortality that is laid up in him therefore the Apostle renders it as the reason why the Princes of the world Princes of learning and Princes in zeal and religion kild him why because saith he none of the Princes of this world knew him for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of life So I say the ground why our spirit comes not to Jesus Christ is that blindness and ignorance that is in the heart of man because he knows not the excellency and pretiousness of Christ As our Saviour said to the woman of Samaria John 4.10 Joh. 4.10 If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee Give me to drink thou wouldest have asked of him and be would have given thee living water and so it was with Jerusalem Luk. 19.42 Reas 2. shee did not know the things belonging to her peace because they were bid from her eyes Again men cannot come to Jesus Christ because as he is the power of God and appears in the wisdom of God so he appears as folishness unto them and they disdaine him as a weak and mean thing as Isaiah faith in ch 53. v. 2. there is no form nor beauty in him why he should be desired Esa 53.2 as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form no comliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him he is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs and we hid our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not therefore the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 2.14 the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishness unto him and are spiritually discerned and saith he in 1 Cor. 1 23. we preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.23 to the Jewes a stumbling block to the Greeks foolishnesse so that man doth not will not nor cannot come to Jesus Christ because the spirit of Christ appears a poore despicable thing 1 Cor. 3.10 Psal 118.22.23 1 Pet. 2.7 and the heart of man is set against him and even that stone that is to be the head stone of
that is in thee be darkness how great is that Darkness Are they repentings beleevings actings and workings if these be as thou thinkest the means to remove the Cloud off the Tabernacle is not this to trust in man Jer. 2.13 Ch. 17.5 in the power of man and to distrust the living God But is not this rather to repent and believe and trust in God to say Lord I am really blind open thou my eyes thou Son of David have mercy upon me why Luk. 18 39. now this soule seeing this it cryes to and waites upon none but God and then indeed is the heart fixed upon him where it should be from whom comes salvation and deliverance Psal 57.7 And whoever waited upon him that is faithful and strong and only can deliver and was not in due time delivered And from hence it appears when the soul walks in the light he knows full well it will be in vain for him to think to remove the cloud till the Lord remove it It may be the time hath been when thou hast felt the heat of the Divine displeasure and thy ear was then boared and thy uncircumcised heart circumcised and then light appeared and thou blessedest the Lord in that day But now there begins to come darknesse over thy eyes again and thou beginnest to see thy selfe lost again and the Cloud is upon the Tabernacle and thou art gotten into the pathless way Jer. 2.6 and alas thou sayst to thy self and concludest though I am out of my way I will up and be doing I will come to it again and I will recover it and so the poor man begins to wrestle and struggle it out now at this thing and then at that thing so that the poor Saint having lost the light he once had he runs through mire and dirt thinking to come to the light by his prayers and holinesse and so recover himself Then the poor soul thinks he is running to Canaan when indeed he is going back to Egypt And therefore it is clear to me both by the Scriptures and by the experience of the preciousest Saints I ever met with that in this condition its best to sit still For he that believeth maketh not haste Esa 28.16 but waits till the Lord will remove the cloud but if thou wilt turn from the Lord and go by another guide and captain and not by that Moses God hath sent and art going to make a Golden Calfe and and Idol to go before thee if so thou mayest expect that thy carkass shall fall in the Wilderness for thy unbelief Num. 14.29 and not waiting the good pleasure of the Lord for not one entred the promised Land but Caleb and Joshuah know this is the condition and disposition of a Saint that he only rejoyceth in the Lord all his expectations are from him who hath made light and darknesse I have learned saith the Apostle Phil. 4.11 in whatever state I am therewith to be content So that the happiness of a Saint is when he can glory in infirmities as Paul saith and rejoyce in darkness and misery 2 Cor. 12.9 10. for he sees this is his portion and he cannot remove the cloud and he is willing to sit still there till the day dawn and the Day-star arise in him 2 Pet. 1.19 Esa 50.10 Happy is the soule that can sit in darkness and when he hath no light can stay himselfe upon the Lord his God Happy I say is that soul though there be a cloud on the Tabernacle that can sit still and wait the Lords good pleasure and cry unto the Lord till he please to lead him onward towards Canaan And there was a cloud on it by day and a pillar of fire appeared on it by night Know this further from hence That in the time of a Saints greatest light there is stil a cloud upon the Lords Tabernacle at the greatest height of light liberty and enjoyments to his own feeling and apprehension even then there is some darknesse upon the Tabernacle especially immediately after such great light and glory When Paul was wrapt up into the third heaven 2 Cor. 12.7 there was a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him least he should be exalted above measure there was again a cloud let fall over the Tabernacle when he was in the height of his joys a prick was sent him in the flesh a Messenger of Satan to buffet him and therefore he concludes in another place we walk by faith and not by sight T is so with every Christian in the day of his light 2 Cor. 5.7 and the time of his greatest shinings usually and then especially there is a cloud upon the Tabernacle why to let man know thus much that he must not live upon the GIFT but on the GIVER that man must not gather to day for ever but he is to gather to morrow and every day as the children of Israel in gathering Manna for if thou layest up store it will be dead the next time thou commest to feed on it it will all stinke and it will not nourish thee but wait still on the giver and then his mercy will be sweet fresh flourishing and green Lastly from this that the fire shined on the Tabernacle by night we shall onely note that when the Light of the Tabernacle shines upon the soules of men all things else become dark t is night in that soule to all things but the light of the Tabernacle in the night there was a fire and in the day a cloud now I say when the fire shined all things were dark round about it And herein observe these two things first when mans spirit is shut up and sees he no light then is the time for the appearing of this light And secondly this light never appears but when all things are dark in man for light discovers darknesse if any thing else be light to thee and all things else be not darknesse thou never yet discoveredst this light To this soule there is nothing in the whole creation that seems to be glorious and excellent but when the Sun of righteousnesse in him hath shined upon it then it appears to be all darkness when the light of the Tabernacle shines in the soule of man then riches honour pleasure preferments all things below God are darknesse Then the light of his reason wit moralitie and holy qualities that seemed to be a great light and shined before gloriously being compared one with another or with things inferiour Now when the light of the Tabernacle appeares then all these things appeare to be nothing but darknesse emptiness and blindness and are all as meer vapours before the Sun of righteousnesse as the Prophet saith Therefore thy goodnesse is as the morning dew and as the cloud that wears away so that I say Hos 6.4 whensoever the fire in the Tabernacle shines on man then this will be the sure effect in that soule
thy goings forth to this thing or tother thing been any other then Jonahs Gourd Jonah 4 7. to sit under the shadow thereof to shelter thee from the burning sun and heat of Divine wrath examine thy heart Didst ever take up any dutie any form any way of worship purely for love to God because thou sawest him the fairest of ten thousand Cant. 5.10 because that he was the joy of thy soul thy portion thy inheritance thy All in All For till then God is not thy God if any other thing be thought good or excellent but he thou hast not chosen him for thy God doe but examine thy thoughts and thy ends in all those things and thou shalt find satisfaction to thy selfe securing thy self getting happiness and rest for thy selfe was the chiefest moving cause And being so as I am sure it is till man see himself empty naked and a miserable Prodigal what 's all thy acting doing sacrificing washing breaking bread Forms Modes what 's all thy highest rules and strictnesse and walking up to the rule as thou callest it but working for thy selfe Mat. 20.13 2 Cor. 5.14 and working for a penny and meer mercinary working by force thou doest nothing by the constraint of love t is not for the excellencie of holinesse and love to the Lord himself but so thy own head may be covered and thou mayest be cloathed and that thou mayest have Cities to dwell in and live happily Saith Satan Job 1.9 doth Job serve God for naught thou hast peace and riches and satisfaction to thy selfe and therefore thou servest him if thou hast not thy pennie thou wilt rather stand idle in the market Mat. 20.6 thy working is to be freed from miserie and to get that which thou callest HEAVEN These are thy Horses to carry thee from wrath and to the place of rest where thou mayest with the Prodigal live upon thy own and spend lavishly and indeed it tends to no other but to run thy selfe out of all and to bring thee to misery Beloved from hence let everie one every particular form every several division and distinction of Worshippers examin themselves from what principle they act and work if it be not to carry them into a far countrie Luk. 15.13 that they may not see their miserie nor remember Hell nor the wrath of God and their forms have been their Horses and Chariots which have saved and delivered them quieted their consciences shut the mouth of Hell kept off the gnawing worm And when they have got into this Chariot of Religion and these Forms of Worship then they think themselves safe and well horst How many thousands of people are now got into these ways and joyned themselves to these rich Cttizens and never yet were emptied made miserable and nothing never lost their own lives never took up the Cross of Christ nor forsook themselves but having taken up a Form suitable to their liking say they now I am safe now I am well what ever others doe I am in a good condition I have secured One I am wiser then others I am holier then they stand farther off Esay 65.5 I am now somebody and every particular Form think themselves in the best way and censure all others and applaud and deifie themselves But in the day of the Lord all thy helps hopes Idols witchcrafts shall be cut off nothing of thy planting shall stand but thou shalt be left empty naked helpless hopelesse so that thou shalt be utterly stript of thy whole selfe and no way left to escape by all thy forms wisdom inventions and thou shalt be so distressed that there is nothing left to help thee but a naked Christ onely meer mercy and the good hand of the Lord. So that except thou canst stand in this light and bear this discovery there is no help for thee And when man is brought to this condition he wil look every way for help Gen. 4.16 any man to direct and offer him any likely way any Chariot to carry him from the presence of the Lord that Hell may not pursue him and that he may out-run his own guilt with Caine he will goe dwell in the Land of Nod thinking to get from the presence of the Lord he hath now with the Prodigal loft his fathers house that is he hath put himselfe out of his fathers love care and protection and he will mannage his own portion and provide for and direct himselfe but all this is to cover with a covering but not with the Lords Spirit Esay 30.1 To the Land of NOD what 's that that is to the land of Forgetfulnesse or to the Land of Dizzinesse And there he hath a portion and patrimony upon which he spends and there he happens among Harlots and lives by his own wisdome and inventions and he gets to himselfe any thing that will but uphold his spirit though he be come almost to Beggery yet he will shift still before he will discover and acknowledge his folly and beggery he will live upon Husks upon his own duties Luk. 12 19 and his own forms shall be his life though there is no nourishment no life in them And yet he sayes to his soule Soule take thine ease thou hast goods laid up for many years and there he feasts himselfe lives Deliciously every day he eats and drinks and is merry and will not think of returning to his father nor acknowledge his rebellions And this is the far Countrey that he is departed into that so he may not see his own misery his own lost condition But in this day of the Lord all these things shall be discovered and he shall see that he is deluded and hath fed himselfe with dreams and that there was nothing reall in all he enjoyed but all even the best of his dainties was but Husks a lye and a deceit Then shall even the very sinews of all his strength be cut asunder all his foundations removed and himselfe utterly beggered and undone the very earth and the works thereof and all things therein 2 Pet. 3.10 shall be burnt up and the elements shall melt with fervent heat and he shall be at his wits end And this day of the Lord shall be like the Refiners fire and Fullers Sope Then he shall discover the Magicians and Inchanters of Egypt Mal. 3.2 to be all lyers and deceivers when they told thee Loe here and loe there In this mountain and on that hill in this way and that form thou shalt finde peace and rest Then He whom thou hast crucified and murthered by thy sinnes shall appeare in the clouds to judge thee and will set all thy sinnes in order before thee Psal 50.21 Then thou shalt see that thou hast crucified and put to death thy innocent Saviour That meek one of the earth who is all mercy pitty loving kindnesse him who came to save thee and ransome thee from thy cruell bondage and
Exod. 28.30 where thou oughtest to enquire but thou hast still enquired of BAAL and ASHTEROTH and of Wizzards and familiar Spirits and the Counsels of thine own heart otherwise all thy high conceits had been laid low but thou goest out to Sorcerers and Southsayers to ASHDOD or any thing and consultest with them and they tell thee of a thousand Devils but themselves and they will tell thee thou art a wise a godly a holy man who more holy nay that thou art a Saint and all others especially such and such are Devils to thee this man sees every thing naught and evil and out of order but in his own heart And what deep and desperate Witchcraft and Lyes are these when all these are in himself But when Christ comes then the mind is quite turnd altered and changed then he sees that HIS heart is deceitfull above all things then he is amazed to see those unspeakable deceits that are there how loathsome and vile he is then he wonders that Christ should descend so low as Hell to bring his soule out thence then he sees how all those things which before he would never beleeve to be in him they are now laid open and now he sees that Christ is Hee alone that hath led Captivity Captive Secondly this Doctrine notes out unto us the vanity of the minds of all men while they are anywhere exercised but within themselves in their own hearts for all good and evil comes out of the heart and 't is that which cometh out thence which defileth the man And again a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth good things Mat. 12.35 but an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things Therefore the maine of all is to know a mans selfe for a man to have high and great thoughts of himself and in the mean time to be no other but a Devil a Wizzard a Sorcerer to be an enemy and a deluder to himself to think himself to be in light when he is in thick darknesse to call in himself evil good and good evil darkness light and light darkness This is one of the Devils great Delusions Exo. 10.21 Esa 5.20 and Witchcrafts in man to carry him still out of himselfe even in point of Religion to look abroad and meddle with this man and the other man and neglect himselfe other mens faults are heynous but he neither sees nor once finds fault with his own Some men also are much carried out in company and are full of talk and high discourses and curious notions and these they trade withall and think to be Somebody and get themselves a name and all these things tend to this main end to make man seem to be what he is not something when he is nothing as the Apostle speaks Gal. 6.3 and to cover and hide these Devils these Witchcrafts these Sorceries these Inchantments from his own and others beholding If the Devil can but hide himselfe that he be not known to be as he is he knows he shall rest secure enough then the soul is quiet enough and thinks all is well and so the man sleeps in the Devils arms and knows nothing of his own misery until he lie down in sorrow and condemnation with the Devil for ever and this is that which the Divel labours to do in man with all his might This hiding and eovering and deluding is meerly the work of the Devil Now the work of Christ is to undermine and to Counter-work all this viz. by discovering and laying open all these mischiefs and deceits and by letting man see his own folly delusion and misery for the Devil would by no means be discovered least he should be cast out Therefore he cannot abide that man should dwell at home and be over busie with his own heart to see the Inchantments and cheatings that are there For there it is the Prince of Darknesse rules and fits as King of the Bottomlesse pit and he knows he can delude and deceive and be too hard for all the men in the world except Jesus Christ undertake to uncover and unmask his delusions But when Christ will discover him in thee then thou shalt see thy selfe to be all these things that we have spoken and that all those lying Divinations are in thee then all thy deceits and lyes shall lie under the sentence of condemnation then and never before canst thou discover or bear witnesse against Antichrist and the Prince of Darknesse then thou shalt come to know whether thou art indeed a member of Jesus Christ viz. by finding these discoveries to be made in thee Mat. 16.17 for then thou canst witnesse that flesh and blood never revealed these things to thee Then thou shalt see experimentally what it is to be in captivity what it is to be in Egypt in Babylon and that thou wast in such cruel bondage once and bound with such strong fetters as no hand could deliver thee but onely the hand of the meer mercy of God and that it is that onely which maketh thee to differ and not any power wisdom or watchfulnesse of thine own nothing but that Almighty hand hath delivered thee from the Witch and the Deluder and the Sorcerer and destroyed the Destroyer and all this out of meer mercy and good will to thee And then also this will follow if thou hast found these things done and acted in thy self thou canst not chuse but pitty and pray for all those who are yet under the same Inchantments When thou beholdest them thou canst not chuse but say alas poor-soules I know full well that there is none but only the hand of Jesus Christ that can help and deliver them I was in the same condition what was I more then they that so much mercy hath been shewed to me and in seeing their misery thou canst not but remember thine own and so thou seest thy self in seeing them This the Apostles did when they beheld others they confessed that they were by nature Children of wrath as well as others 'T is onely the mercy of God that pulls thee as a brand out of the fire Eph. 2.3 Zach. 3.7 Jude 23. while others are burning there still And t is onely his infinite and undeserved goodnesse that hath delivered thee from all those great Deluders and Inchanters from the Devil and from Antichrist for thou hast truly seen and found that the same principle of Hell and Darknesse is in thee that is in any other and that there be none that do good Psal 14.2 none that seek after God though they pretend never so much to him All this considered and seeing it true in thy own heart who art now set at liberty Mark 5.9 and knowing all these LEGIONS of Devils cast out of thee thou wilt be so far from insulting and upbraiding any in this condition that thou wilt pitty them in thy very soul from a fellow-feeling
they are running and acting and working before it be given them to work or act For they will not believe but they can do something without Christ although he hath said expresly to the contrary But know let men say what they will there are but two Roots in the whole Earth either God or Belial Christ or Antichrist Mat. 12.33 and therefore ye must either make the Tree good and his fruit good or else the Tree evil and his fruit evil Now is man nothing but death sin darknesse and misery want emptinesse and yet will ye have him to live and arise and walk and do the works of God what a most senslesse ignorant thing is this doth not the blind in this lead the blind do not these men declare that they are utterly blind in experience as to the things of God I tell you and know it for an undeniable truth that when a Christian is spoken so to do or act ☞ it is not to him as being in the old man but as in the new And when any thing is required of any other it is only to shew him his weaknesse and inability and how infinitely short he comes of that he should do But therefore know if any one shall call upon a dead man to live and a blind man to see Psal 114.1 or expresse any thing to this purpose this language is no other but a strange language which the house of Jacob must be brought out from Psalm 114.1 and this is the Language of the Beast and the false Prophet and to speak in the work and root of darknesse Revel 19.20 and in which these men are who would make more roots of good then one and make man to be somethings and to have a power and a wisdome to himself apart from Christ yet this is frequent Doctrin even of those you cal your Orthodox men nothing more common with them And forsooth many of these men would not be thought to side with or own Arminius or Socinus by no means but the truth is though in word they may renounce them yet in their practice they receive and embrace them and they run hand in hand together and Iustifie that in all their practices which themselves deny in words But if these men had any true or real experience of themselves or of the wayes of GOd as they pretend they would never speak and teach as they do In not holding the head to the dishonour of Christ who is the head of all things As the Apostle speaks in that 2 Col. 19. c. Not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands Col. 2.19 c. having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to Ordinances as touch not taste not handle not and such like which are all to perish with the using after the Commandements and doctrines of men which things have a shew of holinesse in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh Beloved know if we be in him then we see we are but sprigs and branches in that Tree of life Jesus Christ Rev. 27. if we look on our selves any otherwise we are deluded nor it will never be well nor otherwise with us till we see and know experimentally That we bear not the root but the root us And therefore men should be very tender and cautious how they speak in the dishonor of Christ THE HEAD doe the branches bear the root or the root the branches hast thou any flower any blossome any fruit any grace in thy account which is not from this Tree it must all be cut off and wither and be burnt up And if they all grow out of him and from him why dost thou not ascribe all the power and glory to him alone why dost thou look upon thy selfe as any thing or as better then another if thou hast received it 1 Cor. 4.7 why boastest thou as if thou hadst not received it and so takest away the glory from him and givest it unto man Oh let men be ashamed thus to professe Christ in words and dishonour him in practice to let him wear a Crown of Thorns and they wear a Crown of Gold for them to be seen to be Somebody and Christ as good as nothing and therefore all their sayings and exhortations and counsels and pressing of natural men to grow and bear fruit and walk holily and the like they all proceed from ignorance of themselves and of the work of Christ and indeed t is no lesse then Blasphemy against the power wisdome honour Omnipotency and Allsufficiency of Jesus Christ T is no other but denying the Tree of Life and living on the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Gen. 3. All the Saints of God they have but one root one life one light one language as growing up and out of that one root they have no light no life no power no wisdome no growing no watering but in this One root In thy Temple every one speaks of thy glory Ps 29.9 they have nothing to say in praise of any other When men cry out Thou must do and thou must be holy and thou must be watchful and thou must grow and thou must walk exactly and thou must keep close to God Oh Beloved this sounds not like the Language of Saints this sounds harsh in their eares for they cannot endure to have their HEAD dishonoured But when they hear that Jesus Christ is all light all life all power all glory and man is nothing but sin emptinesse death darkness misery these are the songs and these are the voices and the melody in the Temple This they know is the voice of Christ and of their Beloved Cant. 2.14 1 Cor. 15.22 Phil. 4.13 and to these songs their Hearts can ECCHO and answer Oh how pleasant is the voice of my Beloved they know that in Adam they all dye but in Christ they are all made alive and in him they can do all things They see Christ to be the Master the Teacher the Fahter the DOCTOR and that he is such a Teacher as not onely teaches the ear but the heart That He not onely cammands but he gives Wisedom and Understanding and * Acts 5.31 Phil. 3.3 Repentance and Love and Hope and Joy c. he sees he hath no sap no nourishment but as he abides in the root the truth is they have no confidence at all in the flesh because it is weak and crooked and dark and nothing at all of good in it But he sees Christ alone is his root Jer. 2.13 his life his sap his bread his fountain of living waters and if men knew Christ aright there would be no mention of any good in man they would have none to praise
eat or receive me but he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed and no man can give or take of this bread but my Heavenly Father only giveth you of that Heavenly Bread Ioh. 6. Ibid. 6. T is not the outward flesh of Christ or his external body was the life of the world But that same spirit and nature that was in Christ is to be in as many as do receive him this and no other is the life of the World viz. Christ his comming into the souls of men discovering them to be of the seed of that evil one and to be deceived to be lost to be in darkness and discovering the works of Darkness making manifest the works of the Devil and that he dwels in the soul under a disguise pretending himself to Christ when he is a Devil and Antichrist and is no other but the father of lyes Now Christ without us never does this but when he does it in us then is fulfilled that of the Apostle to the Galathians Before whose eyes Iesus Christ hath been evidently set forth Crucified among you or in you Gal. 3.1 The seeing of him then or now crucified outwardly was nothing that was but the shadow of the life and substance but really to see themselves to be the crucifiers of Christ this was the lively crucifying set out before them Then Beloved from hence t is clear against all gainsayers that it is the incomming of the Power of God in our spirits by which alone our Freedom Deliverance and Salvation is wrought T is not all the bolding forth of a Christ crucified the Letter can do it though all those things done in the Letter were true yet they are nothing to us if we be not saved delivered redeemed from our bondage and captivity therfore t is that we see many thousands in the world that can professe Christ and tell large stories of his external life and sufferings and yet never felt the power of his death or life in themselves for they can follow their own wills and they can love the world and extol and magnifie themselves and are as great in their own eyes as any other who professe him not Therefore Christ is not Salvation nor Deliverance to them Master we have eaten and drank in thy presence we have preacht and cast out Devils in thy Name Luk. 13.26 we have cast away Swearing and Lying and Whoring and Drunkenness and we have taken up this duty and the other and we have held forth thy Name to the World and we have been Sober Grave and Austere in our conversation but for all this Christ will profess I never knew you for ye are workers of iniquity For Satan had his full possession still and ye are no other but painted Sepulchres fair and glorious without but full of all rottennesse stench lothsomnesse and dead mens bones Then which nothing can stink more Therefore t is not holding forth the highest profession or Christ in the Letter or externally that sets us free except Christ come into the heart and makes us free indeed else t is not freedom indeed t is but the profession and the shew but it must be even the same Almighty power that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead we having the same spirit of faith as the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.13 14. knowing that he that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up 2 Cor. 4.13 14. Rom. 8.11 by Iesus And again in Rom. 8.11 But if the spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit which dwelleth in you And therfore how wofully hath the professing World been mistaken still in all ages about Christ without them and of Christ according to the Letter For if they do but assent to that and say Christ suffered for them and they must apply him by an external beleeving and so he is made their Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption and though they sin and fall if they can but cast their eyes upon Christ suffering upon the Cross Joh. 3.14 as the Israelites by looking up upon the brazen Serpent they shall be healed and pardoned and saved and yet we know withall that all those things were done and were necessary for the accomplishing of the Fathers purpose and the mind of God but in all those things it was not FINISHED and yet here the world sticks and builds their Religion and this they think is as much as is required and he that shall speak against it and say they fall short of Jesus Christ they cry out upon him for a Seducer and an Heretick and they are as mad against him as they were against Paul when he preacht that they were no gods which were made by men And are ready to burst out upon them as full of wrath and madnesse as the Jewes upon Steven when he ript them up and spoke home to them Acts. 7.54 Acts 7.54 c. And when they heard these things they were cut to the heart and gnashed upon him with their teeth Yet for all that know that all this believing wil not serve thy turn but it must be Christ manifested in thee seeing him crucified and rising again and sitting in Heavenly places in thy heart else whatever thou talkest of Christ and of his miracles if thou hast no witness no evidence of the truth of them in thy own heart what is all that ever He did and what 's all that ever He suffered to thee It may be thou mayest have a notion and an opinion of the things of God and thou hast them by History and by Relation or Education or Example or Custom or by Tradition or because generally all or most men have received them for truths but if thou hast no evidence of his mighty miracles and God-like power in thine own soul how or which way canst thou be a witness that they are the things thou hast heard and seen for all those outward things are but Representations Figures and Patterns of the Heavenly things themselves Thou mayest have a strong opinion but yet no experience of them that Jesus Christ hath freed and delivered thy soul Again take notice hence That as Christ delivers not but as he comes Himselfe into the soules of men and is born in them so it is not opinions nor notions nor forms nor washings nor disciplines nor any external rules or conformities that can work deliverance for the soule but it must be God in us operating by his own Almighty power every man is spiritually in Sodom and in Egypt Rev. 11.8 where our Lord is Spiritually and most truly crucified And as the world is deceived in their Forms and their Notions thinking they shall help and save them So likewise they take a great deal of satisfaction to themselves in making of Books and
to all these devilish deceits that your soules might come to live in him who is Truth it selfe And then you would not onely be professors but possessors of that Eternal love which would lead you into the truth and goodnesse in sincerity But because this friend of truth will not nor cannot own your outside worship he having by Gods power found the deceit thereof he is therefore by you cast out as a Heretick and so are all those that in truth and uprightnesse of heart are led and acted forth by God to work his own works for Wisdom is justified of her Children The second thing that is breathed forth in this book is this that as Christ is the Foundation so he alone it is that doth build upon this Foundation that building that will stand when all other shall and must fall and not only so but he likewise begins the work of his own power in every particular soule and carries on the same with his own hand in despight of all opposition causing flesh and all the power thereof to fall down before his face into death misery judgment and condemnation where all the glory of the first creation is seald down under the covenant of death never to rise again in its own strength power wisdom nor righteousnesse but if ever it rise again it may rise in the power wisdom and righteousnesse of Jesus the Eternal Son of the living God And thus God exercises his people under the administration of his power by bringing life out of death mercy out of misery fulnesse out of emptinesse strength out of weaknesse sufficiency out of insufficiency joy out of sorrow peace out of war and doth not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax until he hath brought forth judgment into victory and as he begineth and carrieth on his own work so also he it is and none but he that perfects it as saith the Apostle he that hath begun a good work will perfect it For it was the Eternal love of the Lord which by his Son planted the righteous seed in every soule of his and it is the same power and love that causeth it to grow in the spirit of man above all carnal power strength or policy for the pure seed shal reign till all its enemies be subdued and the spirits of those in whom it is perfectly redeemed from the Shrines and Vizzards of mortality Oh how it doth chear my heart to see our near and dear IMMANVEL springing forth unto the blind world in and through earthen vessels to the praise of the glory of Gods great grace who hath made us accepted in his beloved Therefore Reader if thou findest any of these workings in thy own soul then mayst thou know that they are no fictions but the real operations of Gods great power but if thou look not on them in the light of truth there will be no unity between thee and the party through whom they were uttered for he lives in the life of that which here is declared by words and if thou live in the same life and look upon them in the same light then will they be matter of rejoycing to thy soul but if thou look upon them any other way they will be nothing to thee but Parables and Riddles Thus hoping and knowing that God will make this work and every other work together for good to them that love him I commend thee to God and to the work of his grace Resting thy Brother and Companion in tribulation in the Kingdom and Patience of Jesus Christ THO. SOMERTON THE TITLES CONTENTS And TEXTS contained in this Book 1. THe Vail of the Covering spred over All Nations What it is and How removed with a Discovery of that Mountain of Fat things full of Marrow and Wine on the Lees well refined Delivered on a Publick Day of Thanksgiving the 23. of June 1653. at Alhallowes Lumbard street Upon ESA. 25.6 7. In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto All people a Feast of Fat things A Feast of Wines on the Lees c. In one Sermon 2. THe Builders of Babel confounded in their Language Being an Exposition by Mr. Webster at the end of a Disputation at Alhallows Lumbard street He being requested to dismisse the multitude with some profitable exhortation which was from Gen. 11. the nine first verses And the whole Earth was of one Language and of one Speech and it came to pass as they journyed from the East they found a Plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there and they said one to another Go too let us make brick and burn them throughly c. 3. THe Power of Divine Attraction or The Fathers great love in drawing poor Sinners unto his Son Delivered at White-hall On JOH 6.44 No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day In one Sermon 4. THe Cloud taken off the Tabernacle that the Israel of God may journey At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons EXOD. 40.36 37 38. And when the Cloud was taken up from over the Tabernacle then the Children of Israel went onward in all their journeys But if the Cloud were not taken up they journyed not until the day it was taken up c. 5. THe secret Southsayer or Hidden Sorcerer discovered At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons MICAH 5.10 11 12 13. And I will cut off the Cities of thy land and throw down all thy strong holds I will out off Witchcrafts out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more Southsayers Thy graven Images also will I cut of and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee c. 6. THe rooting up of every plant not planted by the Heavenly Father Delivered at Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons MATTH 15.13 14. Jesus answered and said Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone they bee blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 7. THe Saints perfect freedom or Liberty in Christ asserted in opposition to all yoaks of bondage At Alhallows Lumbard street In two Sermons GALA 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us Free and be not entangled again with the yoak of bondage 8. IN the second of these last Sermons Mr. Webster was freely drawn forth to give that Testimony to Dr. Everards Sermons lately printed which is placed at the end of the Book and are all the Sermons can be expected of his there being not any more preserved Which are sould by R. Harford at the Bible and States-Arms in Little Brittain 9. LAstly hereunto is added A Responsion by Mr. Jo. Webster to certain pretended Arguments against his Book call'd The Saints Guide Reader THere are some few faults escaped at the Press some litteral others in some owrds mistaken but being only such as an
his own heart But when once Jesus Christ hath thus declared his power in this soul and brought forth his eternal counsels in it then he comes to see that all this is done in faithfulness and loving kindness and in tender compassion then he comes to see that he was deluded Hos 12.1 and fed himself with lies with wind and vanity and that the way to safety was not to build up this Babel Esay 25.4 but to bring it into confusion for saith he in the fourth verse Thou hast been a strength to the poor and needy in their distresse a refuge from the storm a shadow from the heat So that you see the matter of Saints praises is only to magnifie and set up and exalt and make Christ great and wonderful They cannot say any thing of themselves or of men for they see them to be nothing but sin and the fountain of misery desolation and destruction even the very best the highest the holiest in their own esteem And so he goes on Thou shalt bring down the noise of the strangers c. the branch and the Terrible ones shall be brought low V. 5. And all this is but to shew forth what further work Christ makes how he goes on making more Havock in Satans building Mans work or the work of Satan in him is to set up and exalt the wisdom of man and power and holiness of man and to sleight and debase the wisdom holiness and power of God all this is foolishness but his own is wisdom indeed and holiness indeed Now the work of Christ is to pull down these strong holds and high imaginations 2 Cor. 10.4 Babel must be confounded and Bethel must be erected Christ wil himself set up his own Temple his own house his own Kingdom and wil bring man to see that he is nothing but want and misery Note emptiness and confusion sin and death Hell and condemnation And that Jesus Christ alone is fulness riches life light glory and all that can be named or esteemed good and man s nothing but what may be named and esteemed evil And this is certainly the work that Christ makes in every soul wherever He enters And Christ brings the soul really to see All this true in it self all done and acted in man that this Babel and this Antichrist is set up in him and also that the power and wisdom of Jesus Christ hath ruined and destroyed them in him and that this can be no other but the work of Christ conquering and bringing all things even every thought into subjection in him Jude v. 5. and he gives him the sole praise and glory of these mighty works in him why for he knows he had no hand in it himself he could not believe of himself repent of himself never would the strong man bind himself ruin himself Luke 11.22 but when a stronger then he comes then he is disarm'd and never before and thus he sees himself delivered from bondage set free from the divels chains brought out of Babylon and that Christ alone is all in all he is all fulness and no emptinesse all riches and no want all wisdom and no folly all righteousness and no impurity at all But contrary himself to be nothing but emptiness and nothingness darkness misery folly madness folly and madness is in his heart while he lives Eccl. 9.3 and afterward goes down into the pit while men thus build up themselves and have these high opinions of themselves they are in the pit in darkness in misery in bondage but they see it not till at length they fall down and sink into it for ever But where Christ appears in mercy there he brings down the noise of strangers all this in man and of man is but the noyse of strangers though man have a high opinion of himself and glories in these conceits and thinks himself in the Kings favour and if any shal be saved he shal and so blesseth himself and all is wel and no wrath nor no divel nor no hell shall come neer him yet alass this is but the noise and the voice of strangers which must be brought down Christ cannot own this voyce for 't is the voyce of strangers but will bring it down to hell and to the sides of the pit for Esa 14.15 all this language is nothing else but the language of death and the language of Babel the language of the divel and the language of confusion all this is but the branches of the Terrible ones Esay 25.5 the branch which hath enlarged and spread it self over the whole earth Psal 14.3 Every one is gone astray and there is none that doth good no not one And all the imagination of mans bea rt is evil Gen. 6.5 and only evil continually not a man upon the face of the whol earth but this branch hath spread it self over him Esay 30.3 and he sits under the shadow of it he hath something of man to shroud and cover himself withall This is the branch of the terrible one that Jesus Christ wil cut down Mans holines bears great sway and who dare speak against it It s high and lifted up and reacheth to heaven yet the power and faithfulnesse of Christ shal bring it low it shall fall and never rise again Ibid. 24.20 and the transgression therof shall be heavy upon it And cursed be he that buildeth again the walls of Jerico And then he comes to the verses read what shall come to passe after the accomplishment of all these things In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a Feast of fat things c. He spake not of any mountain before but of a branch and he presently changeth the metaphor and speaks of a mountain It shews us thus much by the way that there is not any one thing in the World but it holds forth Jesus Christ Note all the whol creation is a representation of Jesus Christ all tipes all metaphors are resemblances of him In this Mountain Mountains are things of the greatest strength most stable most immovable most durable and he is in Scripture often call'd The mountain of strength The mountain of holiness Jer. 31.23 Esay 33.6 The strength of Salvation and the Mountain of his Glory No man ever comes into the mountain of strength nor into the mountain of Glory nor of Holiness nor of Salvation till they come to Jesus Christ strength and glory and riches and power and righteousness peace is only to be had in him and no where else only In this Mountain will the Lord of Hosts make a feast of fat things full of Marrow Esay 12.3 Rev. 2 17. wine on the Lees well refined in him only can we drink out of the wells of Salvation and eat of the hidden Manna So that these words contain a further making out of the excellency and glory of Jesus Christ unto
miserable and undone man If once man come to be thus lost undone and brought down in himself then will Jesus Christ make him a Feast of fat things if once his peace be lost his righteousnes lost his joy lost his help lost his strength lost then will Jesus Christ be all these unto him he will make out a peace for him a righteousnesse for him a glory for him he will be to him a feast of fat things full of marrow and wine on the lees well refined And so as he saith in the next verse I will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the vail that is spread over all Nations That is mans opinion of his own goodnes his seeming righteousnes which was as a covering as a vail that man could not see himself miserable and under wrath and hell and darknesse This is the covering every man naturally hath an opinion of his own goodness he hath something or other to cover himself withall but some have finer and as they conceive richer coverings then others they think they have more holines and more repentance and more love and more good works these are by so much the worse these are at a farther distance from the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 21.31 And Publicans and Harlots and the vilest sinners shall goe into the Kingdom of heaven and they themselves that have so much holiness shall be shut out Luk. 23.45 Here now The vail of the Temple must be rent from the top to the bottom The rock of their righteousness must be rent their shame must be laid open Ibid. 12.3 what they have done in the secret chambers of their own hearts must now be proclaimed upon the house top they cannot conceal it the covering is removed Now they come to see that Jesus Christ is only the rock of their righteousness and that they have none at all all other rocks all other righteousnesses must be rent that so their want their misery their condemnation their hell their horrour their darkness and delusion may be discovered and if men be once brought to this to be content to be miserable as indeed all mankind is by reason of the fall to be content to see themselves undone to be shut up under the wrath of God condemnation sealed upon them and the pit to have shut her mouth upon them having once thus lost all their power wisdom righteousnes then all death hell and darknes shal be swallowed up in the death of Christ Then he wil as it is in the eighth verse Esay 25.8 Swallow up death in victory and the Lord God shall wipe away all tears from all faces In this mountain he will take away all sorrow and the rebuke of their sins all guilt all condemnation all bonds all captivity all strong holds all chains all death all fears griefs terrors and all things of that nature This rock this mountain will swallow up all and so take away the rebuke of his people When a man is brought into this mountain he shal be thus fed with fat things and wine on the lees and all tears washed away nothing left of that nature and this is that day of the Lord this is the Lords resting day and this is the souls Sabbath and resting day when all rebukes all frowns all griefes are removed All other Sabbaths and rests externall are but figures and representations of this true rest And then it follows in the ninth verse And it shall be said in that day Loe Esay 25.9 this is our God we have waited for him this is the Lord we have waited for him he will save us and we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation for in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest c. when Christ hath thus appeared to the destruction of all things in man and hath brought him out of himselfe and hath ruined all his strength righteousnes wisdom c. then Christ wil be all in all to him then will he feast him in this mountain and the soul seeing all these things accomplished in it self then it cannot chuse but rejoyce triumph and sing Even the Song of Moses and the Lamb This is our God that we have waited for This is the Lord in him alone is power and wisdom and righteousnes loving kindnesses and tender merecies Thou O Lord only art worthy to receive honour Rev. 4.11 and glory and power thou alone art our strength and Our salvation all their happines is concentred in this One God and they have no God but him no Saviour but him they have but One God and one faith and one baptisme Eph. 4.4 5 6. One body one spirit one hope One Lord one God and father of all who is above all and through all and in all They rejoyce in this that they see themselves made nothing that they are emptied of themselves of their power wisdom righteousnes they now rejoyce triumph and sing because the vail of covering of the all Nations is removed in their hearts that their high thoughts are brought down that their wisdom is made folly that their opinion of their own glory of their own somethingness of their own holiness is removed and Christ alone is He in whom they enjoy all things From hence ye may conclude upon this point That Christ alone is the Saints strong mountain Doct. and their feast of all good things He is only their mountain of strength he is their joy and their song he hath rent and destroyed the face of the Covering which is upon all people they see that none can remove this Covering but Christ alone and therfore he having done this in them and for them Psal 4.7 this rejoyceth their hearts far more then if he had increased their Corn or their Wine or their Oyle here is their feast here is their day of Thanksgiving here is their Sabbath which shall never end here is their marrow and fatness here their wine and their fat things full of marrow He is their mountain their glory their rock and all this they see is wrought in them by the power only of Jesus Christ And this adds to their rejoycing that they see they had no hand in it they see that they did not chuse him but he chose them that they instead of chusing him ran away from him opposed him fought against him and yet he followed them and never left them till he had conquered them and this now is their joy and their praise and their song and nothing in heaven or earth shall be exalted or magnified by them but only Jesus Christ their strong mountain their feast of all good things These Souls only come to see that there is a vail and that this is the vail of Covering spread over all Nations all those upon whom the vail is see not the vail but he only in whom 't is rent from whom it s removed And all their desire
is that it may be removed from all people that others may see that which he sees and enjoy that which he enjoyes that Christ may be a mountain to them as he is to him a rock to them as he is to him a feast to them as he is to him And they can say truely and name this mountaine Jehovah-jireh onely in the mount of the Lord can this be seen Abraham could not sacrifice his Son till he came up into this mount once come in to this mountain then the soule can part with all things for the love of Christ nothing is so dear as Christ And this is the conclusion wrought by the Spirit in Abraham Jehovah-jireh saith he in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen there is no seeing any of these things nor there is no true feasting till we come into this mount of the Lord. What was that going up of Abraham to the mount Moriah think you In the truth of it it was no other thing but this his going up from himself and out of himself forsaking all things for this one thing and comming up to this mountain of the Lod where the Lord alone was all in all Beloved know this for truth there is no wisdome no rightousnesse no strength c. nowhere else but here In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen and nowhere else There is no self-denial no true repentance no conquering of the least sin no true peace no joy no love no wisdom but onely in this mount whatever men pretend that they are wise or holy and the like 't is all but deceit and a delusion till we come up to the Mount till this Vaile be removed we can never bind the strong man we can never cut off our right hands or pul out our right eye til then Matth. 29 30. we can never forsake our selvs we can never deny our own power wisdome and holinesse Here now is this mountain of strength here it was that Abraham staggered not through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God Rom. 4.17.20 Here he 〈◊〉 and was fully perswaded that he that had promised was able to performe that though Isaac were sacrificed yet God was he who could quicken the dead and calleth things which are not as though they were Herein was Abraham the father of the faithful and Isaac the seed of many Nations and all the faithful are his seed in this And his going up to the Mountain is no other but what is done by all the faithful that litteral mountain was not the truth but onely the figure of this strong mountain Jesus Christ he is that mountain spoken of Esai 2.2 called there the mountain of the Lords house Esa 2.2 which shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it Jesus Christ is that mountain who is unalterable unmovable unchangable never to be shaken nor never to be removed and to be established on the top of all mountaines above all the mountaines of man the mountaines of mans wisdome of mans righteousnesse which were esteemed by men never so high never so strong yet this mountain shall overtop them all and be established above all Beloved none come to know these things but those in whom they are wrought in whom the Vaile of the covering is removed men may pretend to these things and be very confident they enjoy them when indeed they are under the Covering to this very day This is that stone also that Daniel speaks of Dan. 2. which was cut out of the mountain without hands which smote the Image which was so terrible in the form thereof Dan. 2. he head being of fine Gold his brest and armes of Silver his belly and thighs of Brass his legs of Iron and his feet part Iron and part clay Now the stone cut out without hands smote this terrible Image and it self became a great mountain V. 25. and filled the whole earth However this may be applicable as by some it is to the outward Monarchyes in the world one succeeding and overcomming another yet all those things are but figures of the truth for those things are not done without hands but the truth is done in spirit whatever it is that men set up to shelter themselves under any form any religion to defend themselves from the wrath of God from the guilt of sin from seeing themselves odious with all their righteousnes and rags All things of that nature are Images and are such Images and so Terrible that no man is able to break them to peices 't is only The Stone cut out of the Mountain without hands can bring them down or break them to peices These Images are diverse and of several tempers and conditions some are of Clay that is some are of low rudiments poor and mean things that Men set up and rely upon and shelter themselves with all their good meanings and good hopes and the like and these may be esteemed but as the feet of this Image others goe higher and they depend up on things of more worth and strength that seem to be made of Iron they cloath themselves with moral vertues and put confidence in them and these they thinke will defend and save them But there are some that goe higher then all these and they pretend to cloath themselves with the garments of Jesus Christ himselfe and the graces of the Spirit and in these they glory and this glisters like Gold but it is not Gold and they seem to have faith but have not faith and love but 't is not love and patience but t is not patience c. And they are no other but Images and Idols upon which many men professing Religion and under the strictest formes and fellowships rely and shelter themselves under and think these will defend and protect them from hell and destruction and Gods wrath these things cover them and cover the wickednesse of their hearts that they cannot see themselves how vile they are how infinitly wicked in the sight of God Esay 30.1 these cover themselves with a covering but not with the Lords spirit Wo be to all such for these poor souls do most pitifully and miserably delude themselves these instead of putting on the rich and glorious robe of Christs righteousnesse doe cloath themselves with the stinking loathsome abominable and divelish righteousnesse of man I and they preferre it before the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ and of these Christ himselfe saith verily such can never enter into the Kingdome of Heaven but Publicans and Harlots and the vilest of sinners shall enter into the Kingdome Matth. 21.31 when they shall be shut out For these are those that have put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face as the Lord saith by Ezekiel and have set up their Idols in their heart Ezek. 7.19 14.4 c. and yet
Christ no hand can help him but only the infinit bottomlesse mercy of the Son of God He sees now nothing in Heaven or earth no righteousnesse of men or Angels could suffice for his ransom but Jesus Christ alone the Son of God himself must lay down his life to redeem him out of the nethermost hell Now Christ revealing this to him he hereby ascends up into this mountain and there he feasts and there he hath all his wisdom all his power all his life all his meat Jer. 17.13 all his living waters here he now hath all his teachings he now sees Christs mountain exalted upon the top of all mountains above the top of all mans mountains of wisdom power holinesse c. though they have been raised in mans esteem never so high and esteemed as the mountains of the Lord he sees his knowledge now meer folly his wisdom darkness his righteousness sin his power weaknes his glory shame his Heaven Hell this he sees in himself and he can see nothing else but this misery and this blindness upon the face of the whole earth every man is under this darknes is under this Covering the face of the Covering of all Nations Christ went up to the mountain and taught the people Mal. 2.2 The truth is this is that mountain where Christ alone teacheth all other teachings are folly and ignorance till we hear the word at his mouth Here in this mountain the soule beholds visions and receives the manifestations of Christ and the mysteries of the kingdome hereit sees from the bottom to the top of Jacob Ladder Mat. 24.15 here he sees the Abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet that had it not been for the love of Christ the meer power and hand of Christ he had been gon for ever lost for ever swallowed up in a mystery of iniquity but when Christ brings him into this mount then he sees himselfe escaped then he sees Sodom and Gomorah all on a flame all self flesh and al mans wisdom and righteousnes burnt up and the smoak thereof ascend as the smoak of a furnace and then he can say experimentally Jehovah-jireh Gen. 22.14 In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen Saints can testifie of these things because they have seen and felt them done in themselves and t is that which their hands have handled of the word of life 1 Joh. 1.1 they can give testimony to the wisedome of Christ to the power of Christ to the righteousnesse of Christ to the evrlasting and unexpressible goodnesse of Christ as it is expressed and put forth in their hearts they can give no testimony of man of any goodness wisdome power c. in themselves but they know Christ to be all in all he see man and himselfe and all things of man to be nothing but a pit of darknesse a lump of sin a gulf of misery without the least wisdome goodnesse or power but whatever is good or strong or holy in him t is not himself t is not of man but of an from Christ alone he sees experimentally that he hath as of himselfe no power no strength to resist sin no repentance no minde to hate or resist the least sin but the contrary He findes a cursed hellish demned unbeleeving heart full of evil and that continually Gen. 6.5 a heart instead of loving God it fights against God in stead of doing good to his Neighbour really he seeks not his good but his own ends in all he doth that he doth nothing at all for God but himselfe is his supreame and ultimate end so that his highest and best actions are loathsome defiled abominable Now the soule seeing these things to be really thus Then all his strong high towering conceits fall down before the light wisedome power and excellency of Christ and he sees that there is none of all these through all the whol earth but in Christ alone no wisdom at all but his no power at all but his no righteousnes at al but his and no creature to receive any glory but hm alone then he falls down and cryes out O'wretched man that I'am who shal deliver me from that body of death Rom. 7.24 who shal deliver me from this bottomless gulf who shal deliver me from this monsterous fiend my own self Rom. 9.3 he now sees the Locusts of the bottomles pit covering the face of the whole earth every one running after his own ways and following his own laws every man setting up new Gods every man setting up the Image of his Imagery and the abomination of desolation in himself every man making himself his own god and seeking to be somthing and making the eternal glorious God to be an Idol and nothing He sees himself with the whole earth besides saying with the builders of Babel Gen. 11.4 go to let us build us a Tower and a City whose top may reach up to Heaven that we may not be seattered and destroyed they will save and deliver themselves from hell wrath and destruction by their own power by their own wisedome by their own inventions by the brick slime and morter that they have made Now the Lord looking down from Heaven to see what the Children of men are doing and he in himselfe sees how God hath said Let us go down and confound their language God in them hath discovered the evilnesse of their wayes the evil of self-seeking self-glory of their selfe-wisdome selfe-power self-righteousnesse and they in whom or to whom the Lord discovers these things all this contrivance and all this work n them is made BABEL Confusion a heap of Lyes t is all deceit destruction and misery but in Jesus Christ he hath righteousnesse indeed life indeed power indeed heaven indeed And then he can adde and say with the Apostle Thanks be unto God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ O death where is thy sting 1 Cor. 15 54.55 Oh grave where is thy victory then hath this corruptible in him put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality and then is brought to passe in him the saying as it is written death is swallowed up in victory Herein the Saints finde Jesus Christ to be their joy to be their feast to be their mountain to be their glory to be their All. In this mountain they finde and receive all these good things and are fully satisfied and that they are to be had nowhere else If they look anywhere else they know there is nothing but sin corruption death hell mortality and the grave And they having found this mountain they finde themselves escaped delivered from all those things And now they sit down with Abraham Isaac Mat. 8.11 and Jacob in the kingdome of Heaven They have found Abrahams bosome they have found the tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God they have found the Hidden Manna Rev. 3. they have received the
White Stone with a New Name which none can know but such as receive it They see themselves delivered I and are at rest from themselves They see their owne wisdome their owne power their owne holinesse to be as it is nothing but sin and hell and misery and a delusion And this they rejoyce in to see this Pharaoh overwhelmed in the sea this makes themselves sing the song of Moses and the Lamb and to see all this to be done not by their power nor by their wisdom nor by their watchfulnesse nor by any endeavours of theirs but that the whole work in every part of it was Christ alone that t is he alone that is mighty to save he that is also glorious in apparel Esa 63.1.2 and travelling in the greatnesse of his strength none assisted him no man stood by him but he alone made bare his own arme that so he might have all the glory These things seen and accomblished in themselves is their feast of Fat things their Wine on the Lees their keeping the Sabbath their day of praise and Thanksgiving They have none to praise nor to speak well of but of him alone They find that he alone was their deliverer and he was their Captain and their Conquerer that he alone was their leader their guide their teacher And that all teachers were but Deluders Southsayers Lyars and Deceivers but onely Him they can call no man Master and Father upon earth Mat 23.9 for one is their Master and Father which is Christ alone As Paul saith he received not his Gospel of man or by man Gal. 1.12 but by the revelation of Jesus Christ so they receive not their power not their wisedome nor their teaching of or from man but onely by and from Jesus Christ alone Then also Vse 2 in the next place let us farther make this Use of this point to take notice of the misery and desperate condition of all men by nature what a deluge of destruction is upon them because of the face of the Covering of all people because they seek help and strength and riches and glory and wisdome in other mountains besides this Mountain because they find strength and wisdom and rest and rejoycing and feasting in their own mountains And the more comfort and delight men take in their own wisedome or holinesse or the like so much the more miserable so much the farther from the Kingdom of Heaven when men look upon themselves as being strict or holy more then others because they are under such and such forms such rules and are so comformable to the word and mind of Christ and here solace and feast themselves Luk. 17.21 and cry Loe here is Christ and there is Christ in this form or that fellowship and think therefore they are in a safe condition but it will go ill with all others Esa 65.5 stand farther off I am holier then thou The dangerousnesse of these mens condition I say you may discover from the present point when they make any other thing their rock or their mountain but Christ alone when they think they can guide themselves provide for themselves teach themselves these are in a very miserable condition these are those of which Christ saith go not after them for they are deceivers and deluders Luk. 17.20 for the Kingdome of God cometh not with observation as they say by observing this rule and this form or that fellowship or any way that man hath found out to cover himselfe withall All these are but fig-leaves which will not bear out the wrath of God these are but mens Coverings which cover themselves with a covering as they think from all evil and wrath Esa 28 20 but 't is not the Lords Spirit The Bed is too broad and the Covering is narrow it will not defend them from the Lords fierce wrath These are they that have kindled a fire to warm themselves at Ibid. 50.11 but they shall lie down saith the Lord in the fire that they have kindled and in the sparks that they have gathered together And for all their forms and prayers and duties and ordinances and holinesses and washings and baptizings and receiving the Sacraments and the like yet this is that they shall receive at my hand They shall lie down in sorrow for when you did all these things did you them at all unto me and not unto your selves did you at all fast unto me though ye pretended to seek me early and to seek me daily and did delight to know my wayes as a Nation that did righteousnesse and as if they forsook not in the least the ordinances of their God and take delight in approaching to God yet for all this saith the Lord to the Prophets Cry aloud Esa 58.1 lift up your voices like a Trumpet and shew my people their Transgression and the House of Israel their sins All these things will not deliver thee from wrath but thou rather then any other shalt lie down in sorrow and Publicans and Harlots for all your holinesse and strictnesse shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven before you Mat. 21.31 11.22 And it shall be easier with Tyre and Sydon in the day of judgement then for these that have done these and these things in his name yet for all this will Christ say depart from me I know you not ye workers of iniquity there was nothing but iniquity in your righteousnesse in all your duties in all your forms and professions you of all other I will not know you of all others depart from me you of all others are workers of iniquity you above all shall lie down in sorrow and in the sparks that you have kindled you thought your selves better then others holier then others when you are indeed and in truth the vilest and worst of all others Therefore most desperate and most miserable are these above all in as much as they thought themselves before all when they think because of their holiness because of their conformity because of their moderation because of their abstinence because of their meeknesse because of their gravity therefore they are better then others here is the great and unspeakable delusion of their own hearts For grace and true religion never teacheth any man to think highly of himself but to think highly of Jesus Christ grace debaseth man more and more and brings him to see the Bottomlesse deceit and delusion of his own heart It teacheth men not to think better and better of themselves but worse and worse and makes men not to desire praise or high esteem from others but it would have Christ have all the glory and praise and it selfe to be less and less and worse and worse it its own esteem for the more grace the more light which discovers more and more the infinite and bottomlesse vilenesse and delusion of their own natures Beloved this is the true teaching which comes only and alone from Jesus
Christ mans teaching can never bring this about but this teaching and learning is from the Father from Heaven men learn this lesson onely in the Schoole of Christ Joh. 6.45 there God is made something and indeed all in all and man is nothing but an infinitnesse of sin and misery Let every one therefore examine himselfe by this rule and lay it close to his own heart if he feeds himself or glories or feasts himself with any other thing then this that he is brought to nothing that God alone may in him and in the whol earth be all in all let him be sure he hath not his teaching from this one Father Esa 29.13 and this own Master but his teaching is onely by the precepts of men And till a man be come to know this in experience whatever he thinks of himself and whatever acquired parts or holinesse he hath and though he be never so much admired by others he feeds but on the wisdome of the flesh and lives and depends on that the World adores for their gods either on the external lusts and pleasures of the world or else on Silver and God riches and honour Lands or preferments c. which cannot profit a man in the day of wrath Prov. 11.4 or else they feed upon their own righteousnesse their own duties on their leaving this sin Prov. 11.4 or that sin or as they suppose all sin all grosse sin and it may be conceive that their obedience is according to the rule and mind of Christ conforming strictly to the highest and perfectest formes and fellowships and resting in this they feed but upon husks and vanity and delude their poor souls as the Prodigall he would fain have filled his belly with the husks but no man gave unto him Luk. 15.16 none of all these things can satisfie they will not deliver nor keep off the wrath of God they will prove no covering no shelter at all but the wrath of God will break in upon them and make them appear wretched and miserable vile naked and abominable And that soule that is brought to this to be stript of all its garments and made naked and lost and undone as to it selfe and all things of man this is the happy Soul the blessed Soul The other all others put their trust in the arm of flesh and are departed from the fountain of life Jer. 2.13 from the living God and therefore are not nor cannot be blessed but are those that are cursed Therefore we would that ye should take special notice of these two things First Note these two things Jam. 3.15 1. What the Vail is Gen. 3.6 what this Cursed disposition in man is what the Vail is wherewith he so deludes deceives himself and Secondly how this Vail is removed First what it is It is that earthly sensual and devilish wisdome in the hearts of the Sons of men perswading them to be that which they are not that they are holy and just and good that they have goodness and holinesse and wisdom and power c. and if they improve these say they as they may they may bring themselves into a happy and a safe condition and conclude that they can forsake sin and they can be righteous and holy this is that devilish wisdome that the Devil infused into Adam in his fall this was and is his eating the forbidden fruit When God had created him dependant upon himselfe for all his power wisdome goodness holiness he fell from this condition to have a dependance upon himself and on the creaturely being on his own wisdome and holinesse c. to have a power in himselfe and thus he departed from the fountain of all good to seek a happiness in himselfe in his own nothingness and thus he became lost cursed and miserable This is THE VAILE The Covering the deceit that is upon all flesh the Vaile of the Covering of all Nations And it is called a Covering because it hides and keeps away the light that so man cannot see himselfe as he is cursed and hellish and infinitly miserable Now this Vail wil not suffer the light to come upon him to see himself as he is because man by all means and wayes labours to maintain a good opinion of himself and for others to have the same and would by no means see himself lost and undone this Vail hides that darkness and gulf of sin that is in him and tels him that it is not so nor so with him but he is holy and righteous and hath wisdome and power and the like This is the Vaile that is upon the heart which must be rent if ever man come to be happy if ever he hopes to feast in this mountain of fat things You know we use Vailes that the defects and deformity of things may not appear and so man doth by his own heart he would by no means see the ugliness the monsterous deformity thereof he would by no means once think that hell and the bottomless pit is in him he would by no meanes see the smoak of that bottomless pit arise out of his own heart but t is certain though men hide this from their sight and Beholding yet all men have covered themselves with this Vail and 't is the covering of all Nations In Adam all die 1 Cor. 15.22 not a man upon the face of the earth but all have eaten of this forbidden tree and because we have eaten all the endeavour of man now is to keep away the sight of guilt he would not see his deformity his lost condition but with Adam he runs among the bushes and hides himself among the trees from the presence of the Lord Gen. 3.8 he labours to keep away the light that he may not see his own blackness and deformity What sayes he Have I no wisdome no power no holiness no love no faith no power to repent no ability to any good thing this he cannot endure to hear of this he runs away from as from death and the devil this cuts him to the very heart Therefore all his endeavour is to keep this Vail whole that is may stil phiremain thus he remains under the Old Testament 1 Cor. 3.14 and the Vail is unrent and is still upon the heart But in the day that the soule turns to the Lord it is content to see and acknowledge its own misery it s own darkness then is the Caul of his heart rent Hos 13.8 then is hell laid open in him and the bottomless gulfe seen in himselfe And that Hell men so much talk of he sees to be really in himself and that himself is the very Image of the Devil Secondly take notice how this Vaile comes to be removed and taken away Now this Vail is only rent and done away by Jesus Christ Secondly How the Vail is rent Rev. 5.5 9.1 not all the power nor all the art of all the Sons of men is ever
able to remove this Covering there is none to be found in Heaven or Earth to open the seaven seales but onely he Jesus Christ alone hath the key of this bottomless pit None can unlock this hellish heart of man but himselfe his heart is the bottomless pit and the Devil is the keeper And till Christ himselfe come and unlock and open this gulfe Mat. 12.29 and remove the Devil t is not all the endeavours of the Sons of men can bind this strong man nor open the foule and dark heart of man but all their study and all their endeavours are to strengthen this Vaile to make it thicker that they may not see the horrible pit man runs to this thing and tother thing and all is to keep from his sight the knowledge of himselfe either I say to the Cares of the world or the pleasures or the riches and contents thereof that if it once begin to be opened and he sees the smoak thereof begin to ascend he strives by all means to cover it close again he choaks these thoughts Mark 9.44 and to quench the fire which can never be quenched but onely by the blood of the Son of God or else I say when men are still dogd with the thoughts of hell and these things will not be a sufficient covering they seek out farther and get a covering of their own devising they get to this duty and to that form and change from better to better as they think and from one degree of holinesse as they conceive to another and therby get an opinion that they are children of God and Heirs of Heaven and therefore they are safe and all is well with them and they think they do all this in conformity to the mind and will of God when it is meerly to hide and cover themselves from their own beholding and that they may behold themselves holy and wise and gracious and happy Now I say the work of Christ is to discover all this to be a delusion and a lye and to let him see that he is a cursed hellish damned undone miserable creature and no good in him at all And to let him see that Christ Jesus alone is the only Ordinance appointed of the Father to bring many sons unto glory Heb. 2.10 and that there is nothing an Ordinance but Christ alone and in vain do men talk and keep such a stir about Ordinances except Christ be the power of every Ordinance Acts 10.42 5.31 He is ordained of the Father to be Judge of quick and dead he is also ordained to give repentance and forgiveness of sins what can an Ordinance doe if he be not the Ordinance if he be not the power and vertue of all Ordinances t is he alone is ordained to be the only Teacher and Master and Father and therefore call no man Father nor Master nor no external Ordinance a guide but only as he is in it and therefore that is in it self empty and dead and whatever acts not in this one Ordinance Jesus Christ the son of the Father without whom ye can do nothing at all Joh. 15.5 whatever it be it is no other but a deceit a Covering and a Lye THE Builders of BABEL confounded in their Language BEING An Exposition by Mr. Webster At the End of a Disputation at Alhallows Lumbard street He being then requested to dismisse the multitude with some profitable Exhortation Which was from Gen. 11. the nine first verses And the whole Earth was of one Language and of one speech And it came to passe as they journyed from the East they found a plain in the Land of Shinar and they dwelt there and they said to one another Go to let us make Brick and burn them throughly c. THis is a portion of Scripture which in the Letter History is apparent to all that hear or read it and every one knowes the meaning thereof But what is the mind the mystery and meaning of the Holy Ghost is only made known to them that are taught of God and making no question Joh. 6.45 that those who have the spirit of God will own the mystery and divine sense we will through his assistance proceed to open them to you Mark 4.11 for to them it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom but to all others they are parables and paradoxes which they neither will nor can understand The whole earth was of one Language The whole earth that is that natural lost condition in which all the Sons of men are all being gone down into the earth to seek a Happinesse there Jer. 2.13 Having forsaken their life and happinesse in God they have all digged unto themselves broken Cisterns hoping to find a life and a happinesse below among the creatures And this is the condition of all the Sons of men this is the condition and this is the Language of the whole earth And in this all the sons of men are equal darknesse is come upon all the Image of God is defaced in all All the whole nature of man hath but one Tongue but one Language they are ALL gone on t of the way there is none that good Psal 14.3 no not one there is not one better then another among all the sons of men but all are equally lost All equally departed from God All are under the same condemnation they all speak one Language and with one mouth they all Blaspheme and what one doth all doe there is no difference And in this condition men proceed and go on they are journying from the East What way soever any of the Sons of men go they are still journying on in and under this misery The nature of man is labouring and travelling further from God from the East from the light of God from the life of God which they have lost and are now walking on in darkness misery and blasphemy and all saying and concluding in their practice that there is no life to be had in God no comfort in him he is a helpless dead Image a meer Name there is nothing at all in him to relieve and help them he hath neither power nor mercy nor goodness nor wisdom nor Alsufficiency he is a dry tree And therefore they have turned their backs upon him and will seek out a rest and a god and a help of themselves And they are journying whither To the Land of SHINAR what 's that to the City of drowsiness or the Land of sleepiness when men think that by their own industry and endeavors and by their acquired parts or by their rules and forms or by their religion which they have taken up to secure themselves and to find rest Here now they begin to erect a BABEL a Tower that may reach to Heaven which may secure them from all danger and that they may ascend and dwell there where no destruction may reach them thereby to prevent the overflowong deluge that
the corner it is rejected and laid by even by those that account themselves Master builders and this is the Lords doing and it s marvailous in our eyes Again another ground why the souls of men come not to Christ Reas 3 is because the appearing of Christ in the spirit makes all the hidden things of mans heart lie open even that which man himselfe never saw nor never thought was in him and this man hates and will not abide to see nor behold that depth of pride that selfe-glorying hypocrisie c. and taht bottomlesse pit of misery mans eye never looked into himself into his own heart but in the day of the appearance of Jesus Christ all this is discovered and laid open therefore man would by no means come to Christ because the appearing of Christ discovers his sin and condemnation man loves his own life skin for skin and all that a man hath will be give for his life but he that loseth his life shall find it Job 2.4 Mat. 10.39 John 3.19 therefore our Saviour tells us plainly that this is the câ—ndemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil for he that doth evil hateth the light neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be made manifest that they are evil So here the ground is rendred why the Gospel is Condemnation to the sons of men the Gospel brings light but men resist it hate it Certain it is that the light of Christ is in every creature for he is the true light that enlightens every one that come into the world Joh. 1.9 Mat. 6.23 And if this light that is in us be darkness how great is that darkness Here is the condemnation of all the sons of men that they dare not stand in the light of Christ not being able to behold hell in their own hearts but labour by all means to cover it for the light of Christ would shew them that there is no thought action or duty or performance that ever they did that had any thing of purity in it but it was all sin Now man not daring to see his own misery therefore he runs from this light and gets himselfe behinde any tree He runs from the appearance of him that sits upon the Throne and so resolves he will not see his own misery death and condemnation Rev. 6.16 neither will he believe it though he be told it by an Angel from Heaven he will not come to the light lest thereby he may know or be convinced that his deeds are onely evil Againe this is the work of the Father to draw men unto Christ because no lesse then infinitness and Eternity is able to bring God and man together the separation between God and man is so vast and they are at such an infinite distance since his fall that nothing but Infinitness can bring these two infinite ends together for the soul of man in one sin sins against an infinite God in any one sin it goes out and turns away from the infinitnesse of all blessednesse good joy glory and peace and so goes down into the infinitness of nothing for nothing is a kinde of infinitness and he is indeed gone into a far Country Luk. 15. 13. as the Prodigal was now therefore nothing but the infinite powers and infinite wisedome and strength that is in the Lord is able to bring life out of death something out of nothing therefore there is nothing to bring the heart of man out of that far country wherein to it is gone and out of that bottomless pit into which is is fallen nothing can do it but infinitness and eternity 2 Cor. 4.14 nothing but the same spirit that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead can quicken our mortal bodies there is nothing I say able to do it but the same spirit to bring a poor soul from hell and condemnation and make it one in unity with the spirit And therefore the Apostle witnesses Eph. 2.13 you that were aliens hath he made nigh by the blood of Christ Eph. 2.13 and you that were sometimes afar off hath he made near by the blood of Christ So now I hope this appears a truth to you and I hope the Lord will make it so in you by experience till then it is not a savour of life unto life for except you have the Scriptures made good in the power thereof in your own hearts what are the Scriptures to you And I have alledged them for that very end that you may finde and say These things are all fulfilled not only among the Jewes and at Jerusalem but really and truely in my selfe So then I hope some of you see it is the alone power of the Father that draws the soules of men unto Christ otherwise no man can come unto him But give me leave yet a little farther for the clearing it and explaining it by the way What this power of the Father is or how the Father doth draw or bring the soules of men unto Christ God is said to be a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Joh. 4.23 God is nothing but life glory and power spirit and immortality and whatsoever thing we could have a notion or similitude of that is able to set out strength and life and glory and wisdom yet all these come infinitly short of setting out the strength and power of the Lord of Hosts the great Jehovah who is Psal 121.5 he that keeps Israel Psal 121.5 he that keepes Israel neither slumbreth nor sleepeth so that is is to be cleared what power it is that brings the spirits of men unto Jesus Christ Certainly there is nothing but the same eternal spirit that was in Jesus Christ it is the same immortal and immediate hand and power of God that doth ever raise up the soule of man and bring it unto Christ and nothing but that spirit only and therefore from hence is that of the Apostle that no man can so much as say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 Joh. 3.5 and except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God for t is all one and t is wrought by one and the same Almighty Spirit to say that Jesus is the Lord by the spirit and to be born of the spirit for man to say confess so ten thousand times if he do not feel him to be the Lord and the Almighty in him all his confessions in words are nothing And by one spirit saith the Text ye are all baptized into one body even the whole body and they all testifie one and the same thing that there is but one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 Eph. 4.4 one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all Eph. 4.4 and they have all been made to drink into
one spirit which is that One Boundless Infinite and Eternal Spirit of the Father that like the wind bloweth where it lifteth and we may hear the sound and tasste the operation of it in us Joh 3.8 but know not whence it cometh nor when it will work but cometh and goeth when it pleaseth and not in the least when men will they have no command of that free and good spirit It is onely this one spirit that makes the soul one with Jesus Christ therefore the Apostle witnesses if Christ be in you Rom. 8 11 he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by that spirit that dwelleth in you this is that spirit that searches all things and tries all things even the hidden things of God 1 Cor 2.10 this is that living spirit that blows upon the dry bones the spirit of the four winds that blows upon the dead and rotten bones Ezek. 37.4 and the blowing of this spirit brings sinew to sinew bone to bone and this makes them live and stand up before him and there is nothing else but this spirit that doth it there is nothing can be conjoined with it However men may say and keep a great deal of busling about the power of man that so it may not be said there was any to help him yet I say it is the spirit of God alone that draws man to Jesus Christ that it may not be said that his Idol hath done it for otherwise the mouths of all would not be stopped Ibid. 48.5 Rom. 3.19 Zach. 2.13 and all flesh would not become silent before him Neither would it be said that the Saints rejoyce in nothing else but in the Lord Jesus alone Obj. But I know it will be objected Oâ—bj though God doth thus and he onely draws the soule to Jesus Christ yet this is not done without means and instruments Answ First Answ truly I grant it is so but the wayes of God are like himself infinite and he is infinitly wise and his wayes are past all the thoughts and imaginations of the hearts of men for eye hath not seen Rom. 11.33 1 Cor. 2.9 nor ear heard nor is the heart of man ever able to finde out the secret wayes of the Lord. Secondly God hath not onely determined a thing but determined also by what power and instruments and means he will bring it to passe but in this it is otherwise with God then with man Man may propose a means to an end that is weak and may faile but God never intends and purposes an end but the means is as infinite as himselfe and as eternal and omnipotent as himselfe so that his meanes cannot faile he speaks and it shall and must come to pass 'T is true God hath ordained the means by which he brings men to Jesus Christ Psal 33.9 but this means is hiw own power and spirit and strength Obj. But thou wilt say Obi. Is it solely by himself alone without an Organ and Instrument is there not something subordinate Answ Truly the workings of God have alwayes a subject wherein to be manifested Answ as in man there is the soule which is the Recipient and subject in which the things of life and death are acted there is usually an Organ And how should they hear without a Preacher Rom. 10.14 yet both the Organ and the Preacher are empty dead things And if I or any man in being exercised about the things of God should look upon our selves otherwise quite laying by all thoughts of power wisdom ability to do any thing but to be only as a Pipe or Cistern through which those divine things passe and no more we take that praise to our selves which is alone due to God Now though it be so I say that this Organ is but a dead thing through which the life of God passeth if we be any thing else in our message and speaking to you but as men that have denied our selves laid aside our own wisedome strength conceits and abilities and all the workings of our own heads if we be not dead to all things that so the Lord may speak through us then I may boldly say we are not those Instruments and Embassadours by which he entreats his people to be reconciled unto him 1 Cor. 3.6 Therefore be pleased to consider that place of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 3.6 I have planted and Apollo hath watered So then Paul may be called a Planter and Apollo a Waterer but doth he goe no farther nay saith he Neither is he that planteth any thing nor he that watereth any thing Vers 7 but God that gives the encrease thoug they may improperly be called PLANTERS and WATERERS yet neither is the Planter any thing nor the Waterer any thing So that it is clear it is no otherwise but thus It pleased God out of his own love and goodnesse to condescend so low as to speak the Words of Eternal Life mercy by us and to one another that men of the same Blood and Frailtie should become Instruments and no other in the hand of the Lord taking no glory to themselves in any thing onely to be as weak and fraile and dead Instruments whereby the Lord will speak out the Words of Eternal Life But this creature is to be considered as nothing at all neither is he that planteth any thing nor he that watereth but God is all therefore I say 1 Cor. 3.7 till it be so with us that we are dead to all our own wit and reason and all our understanding till these are killed and dead and we stand onely waiting upon the Lord as Habakkuk saith Hab. 2.1 Hab. 2.1 I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the Tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer I say when the soule is thus dead and silent to his own wit to his own selfeseeking to all his own opinions of wisdom or strength or parts I say there is no man which is a true Prophet or a Messenger from God till then For all the Prophets and Embassadours from God come thus qualified and they are not ashamed thus to shame themselves and to be as nothing in the eyes of themselves and others that so the Lord alone may be lifted up and exalted in them And when God appears thus in the poor dead Organ then usually God works in them and by them For saith the Apostle We have this treasure in earthen vessels 2 Cor. 4.7 God useth Organs and Instruments but there is no Efficiency in the Instruments for notwithstanding all that I can say and speak if the eternal sense and mind of the spirit be not at the back of it and goe home with it it will be but a Parable a History and a Paradox to you Mat. 13.11 Saith Christ to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom So then
it is onely the immortal Word of the Lord that draws the soul and it is the power of eternity which works all and it is from mercy and great condiscension on his part to speak out these things by such fraile Instruments but it is so 1 Cor. 1.29 That no flesh may glory in his presence And that the praise may be of God and not of the Vessel or of man And know farther It is the Spirit of the Father the same Eternal power of the Father even the same that is God for it is the same God though the manifestations be diverse and though there be the manifestations of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost yet they are One for they are not Three but One. The next thing I shall explain is what is meant by Christ no man come UNTO MEE By Mee here is not meant the coming to the fleshly presence and body of Christ then must we with Mary seek him among the dead no he is risen he is not here it is not meant of the coming to Christ in the History and Notion and in the Letter so all men making profession are come to Christ 2 Cor. 5.19 Joh. 1.14 the Text saith God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and the Text saith again The word became flesh and dwelt in us what is it to come unto him Certainly then it is to come to the EMANUEL he that is God with us or rather God in us but saith the Apostle to those that are called we preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ the power of God and wisdom of God So that to come unto Christ is to come to the power of Christ in us to have him abiding and dwelling in us carrying us and leading us into all truth and therefore he tells you againe Joh. 16.13 Col. 1.27 Christ in you the hope of Glory and therefore saith the Apostle try your selves know you not that Christ is in you except you be reprobates So that to come to Christ is to come unto the power of Jesus Christ and Christ is the power of God 2 Cor. 13 5. and the wisdome of God Nay it is God in us teaching us and guiding us and directing us he being the sole Master Ruler power and strength in us this is to come to Jesus Christ From whence it being thus explained there is a deduction or two we would draw from what hath beene said First if the immortal Spirit onely draw the soules of men unto Christ that is unto himself Vse 1 for he is the love of the Father made out unto us for Christ was God dwelling in flesh Then if it be so then Man considered as Man cannot be any wayes drawn or driven or can come unto Christ Not any power of man as man or the power of the whole Creation is able to draw man unto Christ but onely the power of the Father Let men say what they will there is no power of man or any actions or disciplines of man are able to bring man unto Christ for he is weak and cannot wilfull and will not guilty and dare not come to Christ he dare not appear before him But this is a drawing whether the carnal mind will or will not though it murmur and repine yet it draws him out of this spiritual Egypt and bondage Then this shews how false all their pretences are which the world so much admires and cries up Every man thinks he can goe to Christ and he can bring others to Christ by arguments and perswasions and the like and for this purpose are all the forms of Religion set up under pretence of comming and bringing and going to Christ and going on to the Heavenly Canaan and to the New Jerusalem But did they but look into their own hearts they would see this was but going from the Lord instead of going or comming to him all these devices are but to cover over the iniquity of their own hearts For every several way and form will say they are journying to Christ and to find him when alas where is the man that minds him but onely seeks himselfe his own rest and to quiet his own heart and to cover the smoak and the cry and the guilt that lies upon him and to get comfort to himself and then he is safe and he thinks he is gotten neer to Jesus Christ And when he wants peace then he bethinks himself of walking more close and stricter to those forms and rules that quieted his conscience before and thus he runs in a round and makes himself his works and duties his Saviour For if thou askest thy own heart seriously what is the reason of thy praying and going into this form or the other form is it not because thou thinkest God therefore accepts thee and loves thee And is not this to deny this truth that there is nothing but the power of the Father can draw thee that there is nothing able to draw thee but the immortal seed and Almighty hand of God and to say that something else is sufficient to draw thee unto Christ But here now lies the depth of this deceit thou drawest in a Religious way and hast gotten a covering and a profession and such and such actions into thy hands and here thou restest and what follows thou gatherest together and heapest up all Nations to make thy self strong and secure Hab. 2.5 but thou coverest not with the covering of the Lord and so thereby layest sin upon sin thou coverest indeed with a covering that thereby the Condemnation Esa 30.1 Hell and Guilt in thy own heart may not be made manifest in thee Now consider whether ever thou canst come at Jesus Christ who is the Rock of Ages that goest not in the leadings of the Father But if thy heart did apprehend that thou wert that child which Ezekiel speaks of cast out into the open field Ezek. 16. and hadst no hand to help thee nor no eye to pitty thee if it were so with thee then he would appear in thee and lead thee if thou thoughtst thou wast the ignorantest creature in the world if thou wast but blind enough and bad enough in thy own sight but the misery of the world lies herein Joh. 9.41 because they think they see therefore their sin remains for there is no difference among all the sons of men for All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God Thou mayest Rom. 3.21 and I know doest think so that there is a difference in some but truth hath witnessed it that every man hath sinned and is at an infinite distance from the Lord God of mercy and there is no salvation nor no power but in the hand of the Allmighty and that he alone is able to make peace and bring together those two Infinite distances and to make them One. Now judge whether this or the way of the world brings the greatest inconveniency and
and say we are the Substitutes of Christ That which we deny him we take to our selves certainly all this is nothing else but hellish arrogancy and the pride of the man of sin and ANTICHRIST within us that exalts himself in us above all that is called God 2 Thes 2.4 that puts us into these wayes and to think that we can draw or we can drive to Jesus Christ when there is none can do this but meerly and solely that only and eternal power and spirit of the Father Thirdly if it be so as we have clearly proved and none dare deny it Use 3 neither can then the wisdome nor power nor strength nor any rules of Fellowships or Church-gatherings or any discipline of man draw nor drive others in but 't is onely the drawing and driving of the eternal power of the Fathers spirit It is true the Sons of Men may do and have done and do compass Sea and Land and what is it to doe to make a Proselyte and what then he is but twofold more the child of perdition then before Mat. 23.15 They may indeed gather men into Fellowships and Churches as they call them But to gather men into the spirit of the Lord Jesus this was never the work of man no strength nor power nor wisedome of man could ever doe it and without question every plant that the Heavenly father hath not planted Ibid. 15.13 shall be rooted up It is true and I grant there was some mention made of the Church and Churches in the times of the Apostles but what Churches were they They were no other but what were called by God himselfe in the power of his spirit and not of or by man Where do we read of this mans Church or the other mans Members but they were called the Church of God and not divided by those distinctions of vain-glorious self-seeking ambitious covetous men as they are in these dayes Nor did they Owne one another or had any relation one unto another in their love or esteem upon that account Note But they looked upon one another in what place soever as but one body and having all but one spirit meerly because thty were all baptized into One body by that One Spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 They did not know one another as they were of Paul and of Apollo of Cephas and this mans Church as they now call it But as they were all baptized by one Spirit and into one Body and as they were of one mind and of one spirit and so of one heart Heb. 12.13 and so brought to the general assembly of the Church of the first born And therefore we must conclude there is nothing that gathers or draws in the soul of man unto Jesus Christ but the everlasting power of God We know also men may worship at Jerusalem this way and that way and pretend to honour that Christ who died there and yet they doe but draw nigh to him with their lips Esa 29.13 but not with the spirit in truth but no man can do these things in the power of God nor so much as SAY that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost and by the power of Jesus Christ And be sure that every plant that my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up From whence also lastly Vse 4 If the power of the Father only draws the spirit of man unto the Son and unto Jesus Christ then let every man look in and unto his own heart and see whether he doe not resist the drawing of the spirit Behold saith he I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him Rev 3.20 and he with me enter but into thy own Chamber and be still and look into thy own brest and see whether thou be not daily and hourly resisting the Spirit of God that would draw man unto Christ didst thou but look into thy own heart thou shouldst find there was never any thought that did ever arise in thee to check or controle thee in thy evil wayes but that very thought was a light in thee if thou wouldst have heeded or regarded it And that light also did tell thee that all thy best actions were but sin and that all the wayes thou walkest in there is nothing but fear in them and death in them and misery in them And thy best and holiest services are an abomination There is a spirit within thee that is still troubling and checking thee for every proud and for every evil thought and what is this for 2 Cor. 8.2 onely to let thee see that thou art dead and reprobate to every good work and all thy deeds are evil and all that thou knowest thou knowest not as thou oughtest to know It is to let thee know that thou art naked and poor and blind and miserable It is to take away thy false strength and thy false wisedome and riches and to let thee see thy weaknesse and folly and poverty but this is thy onely misery and the general universal misery of all the sons of men that they dare not stand in the light and abide in it To abide in such a light which shewes that man hath not one good thought Psal 73.22 but is as a beast before God That he hath no holinesse nor no righteousnesse at all Now for thee so farre to presume and to think so highly of thy selfe that thou art of such abilities and wisdome and parts as to sit down at the head-end of the Table or because that thou hast gotten in thy own conceit into the best way of Religion for knowledge and practice and performances and therefore thou art Some-body and thou must be magnified and reverenced and for these men now to be brought back to look into their own hearts and see themselves as bad as the rest of the world and to see themselves the worst of men Oh Beloved what a mighty fall must these men have before ever God brings them into this condition which must be if ever they be brought or drawn home to Jesus Christ by the power of the Father And yet to adde to this besides all this thou hast gotten a covering for thy sins and hast wipt thy mouth and said thou hast done nothing when all thy wayes are nothing but resistings fightings and emnity against God Do not men resist him when they seek esteem to themselves and they must be great and respected and honoured what is all this but to rob Jesus Christ of his honour and steal it away to put upon themselves Oh that the power of God would but make men abide in the Center of their own hearts to see that there is nothing there but darkness nothing but folly in regard of God and Christ if man would but dwell and abide here to see himselfe lost and wretched miserable and undone then God would
lead him and bring him unto salvation but this is the condemnation Joh. 3.19 that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil I make no question but are all here pretend at least to be seekers of God Now enter into thy owne heart and tell me what is the end of all thy Religious actions are they not done for this purpose that thereby thou mayest gain and get a good opinion to and of thy self that thou hast served God in a way he commands and when thou hast done thinkest thou now art accepted is this thinkest thou the free-will offering that is in Jesus Christ wherein we serve him not as Slaves or as Servants but as Sons Sons that are begotten out of love and out of love serve him without fear all the dayes of our life Now I say Luk. 1.74 when thy Religious actions are onely made use of to hide over thy sin and to get a good opinion of thy selfe this is not the work of the spirit of God this is not a drawing to God but from God this is a drawing into thy selfe to depend on flesh and to feed on the dead ashes of thy own heart Esa 44.20 and not to know that there is a lye in thy right hand But now if thou didst but see thy owne sinne and thy owne evil heart thou wouldest not dare to speak of God but with much trembling but know if thou speak of him or of Divine things thou speakest as vainely and as dissemblingly as wickedly and hast nothing of Divine nature more then another then the world of men for all thy many words and large professions thou wilt not say We see for then thy sin remaineth But if thou goest out mourning and weeping over thine owne misery and over thy cursed heart to thee I say the Lord will draw thee and lead thee in the everlasting power so that thy own carnal heart and all the power of hell shall not be able to keep thee from Christ but thou shalt understand and find that it is the power of the Father onely that draws every man unto Christ And he will cause thy captivity to return as the streams in the South Psal 126.4.6 and thou shalt find that he that goeth forth weeping shall doubtlesse come againe with rejoycing bringing his sheaves with him that so thou mayest rejoyce and magnifie him alone utterly renouncing thy selfe and all the power of man as having no hand in His Almighty work THE CLOUD taken off the TABERNACLE that the ISRAEL of God might journey Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street EXOD. 40.36 37 38. And when the Cloud was taken up from over the Tabernacle then the Children of Israel went onward in all their journeys But if the Cloud were not taken up then they journeyed not until the day it was taken up For the Cloud of the Lord was upon the Tabernacle by day and the fire was on it by night in the sight of all the House of Israel throughout all their journeyes THis Book out of which we have taken these words is called EXODUS that is the Book of the goâ—ng out or the Book of the goings forth for it shews the manner of the going forth of the children of Israel out of Egypt being brought out thence by a strong and mighty hand But Beloved if we look on the things contained in this Book of the goings forth or going out onely as an History of the Jewes going out of that Land of Egypt wherein they were inslaved in their cruel bondage we fall farre short of what the Holy Ghost intends For their going out is the type and representation of all the people of God in all generations and of their going forth from under the bondage of spiritual Pharach and out of the Kingdome of Darknesse When Moses as you may see had obeyed the command of God he shewing him the form of the Tabernacle and Moses setting up all things therein according to the pattern then 't is said Heb. 8.5 Ver. 34.35 in the preceding verses when Moses had finished the work then a cloud covered the Tent of the Congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle so that Moses was not able to enter in for the glory thereof Which Tabernacle was alwayes to be carried before the children of Israel and if the cloud was not taken up from off the Tabernacle then they journeyed not but sate still but if it was taken up then they were to arise and goe on upon their journey this rule they must observe and this was to be their Leader and their Guide in all their journyings Thus it is in the History and this is the Letter now if there were no more in it then so what advantage is it to us but onely to deduct and raise some moral observations and directions which every carnal man may do and be never the nearer the meaning of the Scriptures or to eat of the tree of life and of the Hidden Manna or knowing the mind of God and having no more we have but the Letter that kills Gen. 3.3 and is no other but the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil whereof God hath commanded ADAM that is whole ADAM all Mankind not to eat thereof For to think that that eternal infinite and most spiritual and divine wisdom should have no greater depth nor no farther wisdom to imploy it self in then in relating Histories of an outward Tabernacle and of silken blew and purple curtains and of the Pot of Manna and of outward sacrifices and washings what depth of wisdom answerable to that infinite wisdom in the Almighty Jehovah were this in him To tell of Solomons State 2 Chro. 9. and his Throne and his Majesty of his Gold and Silver and of the magnificent stately Temple that he builded of the workmanship and great cost and the like what were all this if there were not more in it then the Letter and what every man by his study and reason and learning can finde out but without all question there is that Mystery and depth of wisdom and knowledge hid and covered in all these things which none can find or know with all their utmost endeavours unlesse we be anoynted with that holy anoynting which teacheth all things 1 Joh. 2.27 Mat. 19.11 neither can we ever know them except they be given us from above that so these things may be spoken out onely by that divine teaching in us And for that History for which this Book is called Exodus that we are now upon the Book of the goings forth without all question and to be briefe Satan in us is that true Pharaoh which keeps the true Israel in bondage which is here held forth by that external Pharaoh for what is that Pharaoh to us except we find in our selves all those things acted and done And Egypt there to us is no other thing
but mans bondage and miserable slavery under the Prince of darkness and sheweth what cruelty is exercised upon the true children of Israel and what mighty signes and wonders the Lord is faine to work before the soul can be brought from under this bondage and without question he that hath not found it so in himself was never yet brought out of Egypt he never yet found the true MOSES which is Jesus Christ pleading with spiritual Pharaoh that the soul may depart out thence to serve the Lord for till then man serves but himselfe even in his highest forms and duties And likewise the children of Israels passage through the red Sea and Pharaohs pursuing and their journyings and fightings and meeting with so many enemies in their passage to Canaan what are all these things but the oppositions and dangerous passages of the soul to the heavenly Canaan the pursuing thereof by the Prince of darkness and the god of this world what is this but the violence used by the Prince of the power of the air which continually works in the children of disobedience 2 Cor. 4.4 Eph. 2.2 that is in all the sons of men till they are by a mighty and strong hand brought out of this their Egypt and bondage All this trouble and shaking is that which the Lord promiseth in Heb. 12.26 I will once more shake the Heavens and the earth Heb 12.26 what he did then externally he will once more do that is after the same manner but now spiritually And this is that work and that birth of Christ at which Herod and all Israel is troubled The spiritual Birth of Christ causeth the whole power of the natural man to shake and tremble even those under the purest external forms And when the people of Israel were led a long and tedious passage to Canaan being carried up and down backward and forward what is all this to us and them in the substance and mystery but holding forth mans lost and miserable condition in the way of his own heart in the way of sin shewing the desolations the darkness the forlorn and lost condition of all men by nature that even when the heart of man thinks he is upon the borders of Canaan and he is now in the right way and shal surely by his travel and industry possess that good Land he is for all this deceived and brought back again to the very borders of Egypt Esa 14.15 and is brought down to the very sides of the pit And t is revealed and made known to him for all his fair progress in his religion and for all his forms and inventions that he is still under misery and darkness and sinne and condemnation and that all those things were but things taken up of himself and were no other but shewes and pretences and coverings to delude himselfe and the world because he could not abide to see the internal misery and that bottomlesse gulfe in himself he could not endure to see the smoak of the bottomless pit arise out of his own heart Rev. 9.2 and those innumerable Locusts crawling and covering the whole earth that there are in his heart pride and Lust and Malice and Murder and Covetuosnesse and Idolatry and Witchcrafts and Sorceries and Lyes and every thing that worketh abomination which cannot enter into the new Jerusalem Rev. 21.26 Therefore I say because man cannot abide to see himselfe thus nor that any other should see him thus vile and abominable as indeed he is therefore he gets himselfe a covering for all these things he makes himself Aprons because he knowes he is naked and he would cover himselfe as to himself so to others Gen. 3.17 and from the face and sight of God himself and having done this with all the Art and Cunning he can invent then he thinks he hath covered the gulf he labours having thus seen himself in this gulf to forget what manner of man he is Jam. 1.23 24. he stops the guilt and cry of his own conscience by these aprons coverings and forms and be begins to be secure and he is holy both in his own sight and in the sight of others and he thinks he shall enter and possesse the good Land flewing with Milk and Honey Now for this man to be uncovered and laid open Exod. 3.8 to be emptied of all this goodness and stript of all his forms and holiness and to be brought back to the borders of Egypt and to let him see he is as far from the promised Land as the worst of men nay Publicans and Harlots are nearer then himself this cuts the very caule of his heart this undoes him Mat. 21.31 and he is no more able to abide these words then the Pharisees could the preaching of Jesus Christ who sought in all his Teachings to pull off their coverings and to make them appear as they were and not to be such as they would have the world believe them to be with their holy shewes and pretences Now every man the best of men being in this condition if they could but be content to see themselves so that they are filthy and abominable in all their works and that they were utterly lost and destroyed and confounded in themselves and knew not what to do nor which way to turn themselves then indeed would the Lord come in and shine upon them with light and life and the Tabernacle of the Lord should guide them and it would shew them the way the truth and life and the holy spirit would guide them into all truth Joh. 16.13 Rev. 21.23 The cloud and the darknesse should be taken up and the Lord himselfe would be their Sun their Light and their Guide then they should see experimentally by the teachings of the Father in them Esa 60.19 Heb. 8.2 and not by the outward teachings of men that Jesus Christ is the True Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man as the Apostle applyes all to Jesus Christ in the ninth of the Hebrews at the beginning Ibid. 9.1 c. As the Sanctuary and all things therein contained viz. The Candlestick and the Shewbread and the Golden Censor and the Ark of the Covenant and the Golden pot of Manna and Aarons rod that was alwayes green flowrishing and budding c. The Holy Ghost signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest which were onely figures for that time and could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience which stood in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal Ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation But Christ being become an high Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle and not made with hands that is to say not of this building and so he goes on Of which tings I must say as the Apostle doth that of them we cannot now speak particularly Jesus Christ
Mat. 5.15 He is the light set upon the Candlestick giving light to all that are in the House and Hee is the Hidden Manna to nourish us to eternal life Col. 1.19 2.9 and it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell even the fulness of the Godhead bodily Oh Beloved He is that true Tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched and not man From this Tabernacle must the soul expect all its leadings all its teachings and not from the wisdom of man or the ordinances of man for here they are all taught of God and they shall no more teach every one his Brother Heb. 8.10 11. saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest And whosoever is not led by this light and by this Star onely to behold the Lord Jesus Christ as his only and true Guide if he look any other way he does the same thing that the Prophet said of old to them that followed the Tabernacle of Moloch and the Star of their god Remphan and followeth after lyes and the inventions of their own evil Adulterous hearts Acts 7 42 Amos. 5.25.26 figures which they have made to worship saith the Holy Ghost in the fifth Chapter of Amos and the twenty fifth and twenty sixth verses Now then you may hence see and take notice that until the cloud be removed by the Lord himself there must be no journying no going forward by any of the sons of men and t is the Lord and not man can remove it the children of Israel must wait the Lords time when he pleaseth man he is alwayes furnished and ready your time is alwayes ready saith our Saviour Joh. 7.6 but my time is not yet There are certain days and times while the Cloud is upon the glory of this Tabernacle and till the Lord remove it man can do nothing but wait he must sit still in his Tent And that is when all things are in darknesse in man both within him and without him and he sees himself lost as to all his own wisdom power endeavours in this case t is in vain for man to arise and think to create a light and a wisdome and a power to himselfe for then he goes on in his own power and light and not in the light and power of God Ye know the fire in the Tabernacle never went out there was alwayes light there Lev. 6.13 but if there be a Cloud upon it and thou canst not see it and yet wilt be journying and doing and acting this will be thy fall and stumbling and a curse will be upon thee and not a blessing and thou shalt not prosper When that fire kindled the word in the mouth of Jeremiah the Prophet then that word was a light to them a command to depart out of their Captivity and to return to their own land till then the cloud was upon their way and they were as in a waylesse wilderness where no man passed a land of desarts and of pits a land of drought and shadows of death where no man dwelt Jer. 2.6 as in that second chapter of Jeremiah While man is in this condition and in this night of blindnesse and darknesse and land of death and drought he knowes not his way until the Lord shew him a light till He remove the cloud there is no finding the place of rest nor any feeding on the Hidden Manna nor drinking at the Wells of Salvation Esa 12.3 When man is in this dark night how can he arise but if he sit still as to all his own powers really seeing his own weaknesse and utter inability then this light in due time will shine forth and if he ever stir before this day he arises and works and walks unto his own ruin and destruction It may be this Doctrin may seem harsh and very unwelcome to most men That they shall not be doing and going on and journying Phil. 2.12 and working out their own Salvation many are hereat much offended at which I do not wonder for they not being able to see the Mystery of the Scripture onely rest in the Letter and know not the teachings of the spirit and think they must do something by way of condition or else all is nothing And herein is the great mistake of most men who though never so highly esteemed by themselves and others Luk. 6.39 yet herein are no other but blind leaders of the blind and both fall into the ditch But those who are acquainted with these things in their own experience know and feel this mysticall interpretation to be the truth and all other in the Letter to be but resemblances and shadows under which the truth is hid and covered from all save onely such to whom it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdome Mat. 13.11 but to others in parables that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may bear and not understand As in that seventh and eighth Chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle speaking of the Law and of many particulars appertaining to that Priesthood he shews that the Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did by which we draw nigh unto God and so there by several arguments he proves that Jesus Christ alone was the true Priest and the true ORDINANCE Now in the first verse of the eighth chapter Heb. ch 7. 8. he applyes all that he had before spoken to Jesus Christ alone that perfect high Priest Ch. 7.19 Now of the things which we have spoken this is the summe And so he goes on and applyes it to Jesus Christ that true high Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high a Minister of the Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man which things serve but unto the example and shadow of Heavenly things Ch. 8.1 c. he having obtained a far more excellent ministry by how much he is made the mediatour of a better covenant and established upon better promises he is not a high Priest of a Temple or contained in any Temple made with hands 2 Chron 6.18 but he is such a one whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain And he offers not sacrifices but himself his own body And He and all his members are the true Tabernacle wherein the Lord is served and well pleased for the Law made High Priests which have infirmitie Heb. 7.28 saith the Apostle but the word of the Oath which was since the Law maketh the Son who only is consecrated for evermore But what shall we say then of all those things wherein Moses was commanded to be so exact and to make all things according to the pattern and here he calls Christ the true Tabernacle what was theirs a false one I Ibid. 8.2 it was in regard of Christ who is the
be nothing but A sink of sin A body of death A bottomlesse pit of abominations Mark 4.21 Rom. 7.24 Rev. 9 2. that I was a fool and madness was in my heart in all I did And that he alone was goodness mercy power wisdom eternity salvation and Alsufficiency this he freely and with all readinesse acknowledgeth and this he is not ashamed to declare as those are that would be esteemed holy Ones but to tell it to all the world though all the wise and holy men of the world esteem him a foole and a madman yet this is his glory to take shame to himselfe But all your wise and righteous men all their contriving is to hide all their shame and they would be thought to be holy men and strict men and that they walk exactly and according to the rule of the word and this is their glory that others have this esteem of them they would not for a world be thought as vile and finful as others they hate that Jesus Christ should so far lay them open to the world and themselves Psal 56.8 Ezek. 8.11 What are they to come before the Lord and have no Goodnesse no Endeavours no Watchfulnesse no Bottles of Prayers to offer no sweet incense to offer no Duties thereby to think well of themselves this would be Death and Destruction and Desolation to them When God knows when once he will arise in them Psal 50 21. and set their sins in order then all their delusions and coverings will be removed and they made naked Then all their fine and neat contrivances to disguise themselves before God and men shall be rent and destroyed Joh. 9.39 when the Lord will arise and come to Judgment in their hearts then all their inward parts shall be laid open and what they have dâ—ne in secret shall be proclaimed upon the house top Mat. 24.15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet stand in the holy place whoso readeth let him understand then shall there be in those dayes great tribulation in them Luk. 8.17 Mat. 24.21 Mark 13.14 Luk. 21.25 and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars shall fall from Heaven and the powers of the Heavens shall be shaken Then he that is on the house top shall not come down to take any ting out of his house he shall not go down to fetch any of his Riches or Gold or Silver none of his fine utensils for worship none of his fine and workmanlike duties none of his strictnesses none of his holy walkings he is stript of all left naked and how are their houses left unto them desolate in one moment Babylon in them is fallen is fallen and shee that said in her heart I shall sit a Queen and am no Widow and shall see no sorrow therefore shall her plagues come upon her in one day Rev. 18.2 c. death and mourning and famine and she shall be utterly burnt with fire for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her Then is the houre of Judgment come and the Lord will arise and nothing can hinder or stand before him This will be a miserable day to these men a day of blackness and gloominess and thick Clouds the Sun turned into darkness and the moon into blood A deluge of wrath is now irresistibly comming upon them and then the Heavens shall be rolled together as a scrole and the earth shall melt with fervent heat and all their works burnt up 2 Pet. 3.10 Then from hence we may conclude that at that day all men even the wisest men of the world will be at their wits end to cover and hide themselves from the wrath of the Lamb and from him that sits on the Throne Rev. 6.16 Then all those Merchants of Babylon shall lament for her That their Whore their Strumpet with whom they have all their dayes committed fornication is made desolate c. their trade of Religion is quite overturned Mich. 3.11 those that made Merchandise of the Word and Preacht for money and for hire and to get bread or to make themselves great and to that end got into forms and duties and fellowships that men might have high thoughts of them and made long prayers under pretence and to grow rich by devouring widows houses Mat. 23.14 and yet these things these pretences these prayers and duties they heap to themselves thinking they may please God with them and these things as foule and abominable as they be they think to be a goodly sacrifice But when this day comes that the Lord will arise and plead his own cause all these things will stand in no stead all their works must be burnt up then he will remember how these foolish men blasphème his name Psal 74.22 23. Psal 74.22 23. And if they should bethink themselve wherewithal to come before the Lord and to offer thousands of Rams and ten thousand Rivers of Oyle nay if they give the fruit of the Body for the sin of their Soul Micah 6.7 all were to to no purpose For the Father the Eternal Majesty of Heaven can be pleased with nothing but that One Eternal and Alsufficient sacrifice the blood of his own dear Son For men to call themselves Christians and Saints and for others to esteem them so is a poor covering now in this day it will not cover their nakednesse The bed is too short to stretch themselves on it and the covering is too narrow they cannot cover nor wrap themselves in it Esa 28.20 T is not all their fellowships and Congregatings nor washings nor External eatings and sitting down with Christ at his Table nor their Perswasions that they do the mind of God and conform exactly to the rule and letter of the word All things of this nature is but of man Phil. 3.19 and they glory in their own shame Thou dishonourest thy head Christ to pray or prophesie and thy head not BARE if thy self be not stript naked t is a dishonour to Christ who is the head of the Church for all honor all praise all wisdom all goodness all righteousnesse is Christ's crown and no creature is to wear that Crown but himself alone If thou takest these or any part of these which are due alone to him thou makest Christ ashamed he is dishonoured for there is no Goodnesse no Love no Beauty no Life but onely in the Son of God and whatever is in him is his for the Church not that they enjoy it in themselves but in him all glory be to him and all shame and confusion upon themselves and hereby is their head magnified Christ alone is their Covering their Righteousnesse their Wisedome their Redemption their Saviour their Beauty they have no shelter no hiding place but in him Those that are ashamed thus to acknowledge and confess him before men Mat. 10.32 he will be ashamed to confess them
or owne them before his Father Those that are ashamed to bear this testimony of him and to be Witnesses and Martyrs for him he will be ashamed of them He is not ashamed to own thee in thy blood and filthiness and shall we be ashamed to owne him and to ascribe that to him which is his due But in stead of giving testimony to the glory of HIS name thou studiest and contrivest which way thou mayest be something that thou mayest be esteemed and that Christ may be nothing that he may be debased but be assured In that day all these things shall be laid open And God is a jealous God and will not suffer his honour to be polluted Esa 42.8 nor will give his glory to any other Further from all this which hath been said it appears that t is in vain to seek for or expect any light to guide any of the sons of men any where else but from the Tabernacle T is in vain to follow any other Star but that which led the Wise men to Jesus Christ he that sets up any other Sun of righteousness to guide him Mal. 4.2 any other light any other rule to walk by that thinks he can teach himself or offer any sacrifices or prayers to be accepted with the Father but his alone or assumes any power to command himself in any thing this man is no other but a lyar a thief and a robber a blasphemer and a traitor for he robs God of his honour and denyes Jesus Christ to be King Priest and Prophet which is alone his right Beloved happy is that soule who hath forsaken himselfe and all other lights and minds onely this light from the Tabernacle that cannot follow any other counsel that knows the voyce of Christ and the light and life of Christ from all other Lights or Lives Joh. 10.5 and that will not follow the voyce of any stranger They know the Light and shinings forth of God from all other shinings These are the true Wise men the spiritual and true Magicians if they see any other Star any other false Meteor they can distinguish it and follow his Star alone they have found in experience where they have followed any other light or guide they stumbled and fell He knowes if he do he shall be led into the Land of darkness into a Wildernesse of sorrows and miseries where are Tygers Leopards and the Owles and the scrith Owles the Jims and Ziims of the desart or Night-Monsters as the Prophet esaiah excellenly and elegantly speaks And again saith he Ye shall kindle a fire and walk in the sparks thereof Esa 34.11.14 13.20 Ibid. 50 11. but this ye shall receive at my Hand ye shall lie down in sorrow Man naturally follows that light that he hath found out not regarding the fire of the Sanctuary and as with a Stone and a Steel he strikes fire for himselfe and gathers up some combustible matter Wood Hay 1 Cor. 3.12 and Stubble of his owne finding some things of his own getting together and here he makes himself a light and a fire and he thinks by his Wisdom and by his Learning to hammer beat and finde out the truth of the Scriptures Rom. 2.19 Esa 55.4 and he thinks that he can teach and he can counsel and he is a leader of the blind which is only Christs work and office and he can define out errours and restrain them by his rules and directions when alas poor blind man he never yet found the darknesse of his own heart he never yet saw the errours of his own heart are not these then blind leaders of the blind as our Saviour saith and both must needs fall into the ditch Mat. 15.14 This is the very same thing which Nadab and Abihu did to offer strange fire of their own before the Lord when thou bringest all thy duties Levit. 10.1 all thy parts all thy endeavours and though thou offerest them as pretended on the true Altar Jesus Christ yet if offered by thy self thou art that Nadab and Abihu there described And the fine of the Lord will break forth to thy utter ruin and destruction for never any thing ever pleased the Father but that one alone and Eternal sacrifice which is continually offered onely by himselfe he abhors that any of thy duties any of thy menstruous rags should be joyned in with his most perfect Esa 64.6 Deut. 22.11 yea onely righteousnesse This Garment of linsey-woolsey his people may not wear All things that are done in the world proceed but from two principles there is not one action of any of the sons of men but proceeds either from the power or wisdom of man or from Jesus Christ if from man as man its loathsome stinking abominable though never so refined though they bestow never so much labour industry learning all their Wits and Parts To put upon it the neatest cut and the finest dresse Jam. 3.15 Nah. 1.5 2 Pet. 3 20 they are all but earthly sensual and devilish which must to Hell and the earth with all the works thereof shall be burnt up for ever Every sacrifice that is offered in the world must be kindled with fire from Heaven by the fire of the Sanctuary offered on this Altar which alone is Jesus Christ and that alone perfect High Priest else t is kindled by this strange fire which is no other but devouring fire either t is of the earth earthly or else t is of the Lord from Heaven 1 Cor. 15.47 if it be from Heaven it shall be raised up to heaven It is sown in weakness but t is raised up in power if it be from man t is from the bottomless pit it is from fin and weaknesse and thither it must return and in this state and condition are all the actions of the world even all the actions inventions forms in dustrys of men and they all tend to crucifie the Lord of life and power that so man and his doings Joh. 18.40 his contrivances his Idols may stand and be adored All the sons of men cry out for a Barrabas that so the wisdom of the flesh and the power of man may be established and that that everlasting righteous Son of God which would be working living raigning in man may be crucified and utterly destroyed This they may do and doe do and yet may talk much of an outward and external Christ which once dyed at Jerusalem and pretend much love to him Never any of the sons of men ever received that true Christ we speak of though much cryed up in the world for never any received him but to them he gave power to become the sons of God Never any received him nor followed him but he denyed himself Joh. 1.12 and took up his Cross which never any man did that is not emptied of himselfe made nothing in his own sight Luk. 14.7 that is not stript of
all his power wisdom parts righteousnesse and whatever man as man adores All true Saints are brought to see this in experience they see all the world seeking themselves following after the gods that they have made and crying up their Diana they see all the whole earth alwaies and continually crying out Not this man but Barabbas Mat. 27.21 And they know them to be all Theeves and Robbers But these onely come to the light and walk in the light Joh. 10.8 And the light of Christ in them hath discovered that in man is nothing but sin and darkness and misery and condemnation This they really see both within themselves and without themselves that he that would be exalted is in them brought low and he that humbleth himself is exalted Luk. 14.11 Christ in them and to them is all in all and this is their Glory this is their Kingdome this their Pearl for which they have sold all this is their Heaven Then they come to see Mat. 13.46 as the truth is that they have no power wisdom excellency nothing at all but what is to be condemned and that all their works which are accepted are wrought in God Joh. 3.21 1 Cor. 1.30 That Jesus is their Wisdom Rgihteousness Justification Sanctification and Redemption they come to this light and they walk in this light they continually see that Jesus Christ hath all power and wisdom in himself he hath not given any part of his excellencies out of himselfe but whatever is wrought in them is wrought by Him they dare not say I must doe and I must act and I must pray that I may be accepted nor think as others do I must perform the conditions on my part to do Heb. 6.6 and then I shall be accepted All Doctrine of this nature is no other but crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame and walking in darknesse Those that preach this Acts 20.29 John 3.31 are those grievous wolves which Paul speaks of Acts 20.29 30. I know that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them Of your own selvs that is men that hold forth the same doctrine and preach Jesus Christ too and hold him forth for a Saviour yet under that pretence crucifie him and make him as no Christ and his Crosse of no effect But those that are in the light they come to the light and follow this light live in this light that their deeds may be made manifest whether wrought in God or no Then he sees this is the true wisdom from above Jam. 3.17 which is pure peaceable easie to be entreated full of good works 't is not high and stern and subtile and rigid to keep at distance from all but whom they like but they are easie to be entreated meek ready to doe good to all they see no such excellency in houses inheritances money honour praise but for the love of Christ they are not deare to them they know if they have these they are not given to make them great or high or praised among the sonnes of men but that by them Christ in them may make himselfe great That they may be of another spirit then any other naturall man in the world Acts 26.18 shewing forth the vertues of him that hath called them from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God Then is their Tongue Touched with a coal from the Altar Esay 6.6 and they must declare Jesus Christ to make him alone glorious powerfull wise mighty eternal c. And then it is no longer they that speake Mark 13.11 but the spirit of their Father that is within them My beloved breathren if men were but come to the sight of this light and were able to stand in it and walk in it They would not goe forth as they doe in their own name and in their own wisdom and power having furnished themselves by their study and by their Books and by their borrowed matter but all this is because they have no light in them How many Speakers be there now in the world and with what confidence doe they come unto you when this spirit from on high never came upon them Pro. 8.34 Luke 24.49 they never yet waited at Wisdoms gates never yet stayed at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father but runne before they are sent and they of themselves have found a way to be furnished they can goe to the Vniversity and there lay the foundation and they can have the laying on of the hands of the Presbyterie and then they can study Authors and they have wisdom and parts and eloquence of their own and thus they come furnished and are as they think able Ministers of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.6 John 10.1 Alas poore soules Christ cals these no other but thieves and Robbers which come not in at the doore they come not in by him but climb up some other way These have not made Christ the doore and the way for did They but live in the true light they durst not doe thus they durst not speak till he had opened the dore they durst not walk till the fire of the Sanctuary guided them till this cloud of ignorance not knowing themselves nor the work of Christ were taken up else they sit still And I say there would not be so many speakers as there be they would not covet so much to be some body that they may be taken notice of to be wise to be learned to be holy to be sober to be endowed with the gifts of Christ as they would be thought to be All this is but putting new wine into old bottles Luk. 5.37 and both are lost but if this light of God this spirit from on high this fire of the Sanctuary were upon them then this new wine would be put into new bottles and both preserved Oh my brethren it woes my very heart to see how confident and bold men are in their own light and he that will say to the contrary but that 't is the light of God he must be a deceiver and he must be a Schismatick a Familist any thing yea the most odious of all men Oh that these men did but know from whence they speak Oh that they did but know whether they were Moseses or Magicians whether sent from God or the Divel whether from Christ or Antichrist who indeed sit in the Temple of Christ as if sent from Christ Nay let me tell you they come with such deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse with such signes and lying wonders 2 Thes 2.9.10 that they are able to deceive the very Elect of God if it were possible but the truth is t is onely they can discover them t is only the spirit of Christ that can lay them open onely He that hath the true
light can discover these hidden deeds of darkness He that hath this true light and this true spirit he sees he is nothing nor cannot step one step in this work except the Lord goe with him not onely in words to say this that 's nothing but really from the light of God to know this Then hee durst not goe forth to speak of the things of God but in trembling and fear Nature it thinks it selfe alwaies ready its never unfurnished call him when ye wil he can preach he can pray he can fit you for mourning for rejoycing he is furnished for all occasions he can manage and order all his affairs and govern the very Church of Christ by his wisdome and learning John 7.6 and he is never to seeke but is alwaies ready as Christ saith These men are become Masters of their Religion I t is true for Religion was never yet Master over them But beloved t is not thus with the Saints of God nor with the Ministers of Christ but they see Christ the sole Master and the sole Orderer of the Church Cant. 2.7 and they dare not awake their beloved untill he please they know none other can furnish them nor Commission nor command them to goe forth but onely Him Mat. 23.9 10. they know there is no other Master no other Father no other Teacher but Christ alone They cannot think it enough that they have Vniversity learning that they have the most ORTHODOX Authors as they call them and sometimes Most excellent DIVINES but most blasphemously to rob Christ of his Honour For there can be no Divine but Christ Vers 7 8. no Teacher but Christ no Doctor but Christ They know they must have the inward teaching before they can open their mouthes the Coale from the Altar to touch their lips Isa 6.6 or else they dare not speak They know the spirit of their Father is an Almighty Eternall Free spirit like the wind which bloweth whether it listeth Man neither knows whence it commeth John 3.8 nor when Sometime the Cloud is removed when He pleaseth and then they may yea must goe forth then they may journey but when the day is cloudy and darke and the spirit of the Lord doth not speake in them then they must be content to sit still till the day that the Lord himself takes up the Cloud Man can never remove it no not one hour nor minute sooner but when the spirit listeth But in the day of light then they may goe forward nay then they shall go forth with power then they shall not speak as the Scribes and Pharisees but with Authority Then Mat. 7.29 they shall not regard the honour of men nor glory in those things that the foolish and vain heart of man doth As because they are sent forth by the Presbytery and they have gifts c. and they can speak and declare themselves and that they stand up in a Pulpit or high place above all their Brethren and they are in high esteem and the like All these things are banished in that soul when the Lord sends forth a messenger Far be it from me to think that I have Wisdome or Learning or Knowledge more then the meanest Saint among you what am I what is Paul what is Apollo but Ministers and your Servants and the Servants of Christ by whom ye believed for me to think because I stand in this High place therefore I am ever the better or have the more honour or more esteemed God for bid For I am nothing if Christ speak not out by me any yea every experience of the truth Therefore look onely at him Mat. 11.7 for what come ye out into the Wildernesse to see a reed shaken with the wind Oh look look not at the weak instrument but behold the Wisdom the Power the Majesty the Authority of the Almighty Rather then I should hide him let me be as I am nothing a vain and light shaken reed and I confesse a Hill or a Mountain in a Wilderness or a Stool were more fit for me or for any man Oh let no woman be heard in the Church but only the voice of Christ there every one speaks of and seeks his glory even the glory of him that sent him and that same is true Psal 26.9 Joh. 7.18 Psal 69.15 and there is no unrighteousness in him Let him encrease but let man and all the womanly weaknesse in man decrease and whatever is of man when ever he would have glory or be any thing let him be confounded and the pit shut her mouth upon him For t is not onely unseemly but a shame for The Woman to speak in the Church THE CLOUD taken off the TABERNACLE that the ISRAEL of God might journey SERMON II. Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street EXOD. 40.36 And when the Cloud was taken up from over the Tabernacle the Children of Israel went onwards in all their journies But if the Cloud was not taken up then they journied not till the day that it was taken up WE have beloved according as God was pleased in mercy to be present with us spoken concerning the meaning of these words wherein we have manifested that the Holy Ghost holds out higher and deeper and more mysterious things then is conceived of by the meer History and Letter we have shewed and held forth the same exposition that the Author to the Hebrews hath given of them That these things were but the patterns of Heavenly things Heb. 9.23 and this Tabernacle built by Moses was but a shadow similitude and type of the true Tabernacle which God did piteh and not Man and from thence we have shewed that the Tabernacle in the mystery is the Riches of that glory life mercy and immortality which God makes out to the sonnes of men And that Jesus Christ is that spiritual Moses that spiritual high Priest who hath once entred into this holy place even once for all And that the light in this Tabernacle which is as a fire by Night is that light and fire only that guildes and directs the souls of Saints in all their journeying through the desolate Wildernesse of their own dark and blind hearts and that this Tabernacle is covered with a cloud that the eyes of men nay nor of Saints cannot see or behold it till God himselfe withdraws and removes it And the souls of Saints are not to goe on but to abide in their Tents till the Lord remove this cloud as we may see expresly and fully commanded in Deu. 9. from vers 16 Deut. 9.16 c. to the end And we have shewed that in the day when he doth not remove it they are to sit still till the day and time he pleaseth to remove it and even then in the night in the darke when all other things are become darknesse then this fire this light is a lanthorn to them in all their journeys or waies wherein they shall goe
that horrible Pride Robbery Blasphemy Arrogancy and Infidelity that is in the heart of man to think he will do that which none can do but the hand of God And 't is Infidelity to think God will not do that he hath promised to do to the ends of the earth and robbery in that it takes away Gods honour and wisdom and power and this mans Arrogancy in assuming them to himself One while the Magistrate he will take upon him to remove the Cloud and he saith he is the great man to propagate the Gospel which is onely and properly the propagation of the Son of God and he must plant the Ministers of the Gospel And it may be perhaps there are some would have them go with the sword and blood to plant this in other Nations surely the fruit must needs be good that springs from such a root The Gospel you see is a Tabernacle that God plants and pitches and not man but ever and anon they will be taking upon them to do this and then it must be their care to know and distinguish of blasphemies and errours and heresies and this they do meerly out of that principle of errour and blasphemy that is in their own hearts for this shewes their Infidelity that God is not able to carry on his own work And do we say we are Christians and believe in him and when we have so done tell him a lye to his face Esa 9.6 for he saith Esa 9.6 that the government shall be upon Christs shoulders And Saith the Magistrate He hath the government upon his shoulders and yet when we have made great profession in words we trample him under the feet of men Mat 5.13 for if he cannot do his own work without the power of man then he stands in need of man and then must be weaker then man Then comes another and saith The Churches they must do this they must send out and they must remove the Cloud from off the Tabernacle and that darknesse that is in several corners of the Land the Harvest is great but the Labourers are few And our Saviours counsel is when he tells us Mat. 9.37 38. Joh. 4.35 that the Harvest was white even to reaping saith hee pray to the Father that he would send faithful Labourers He doth not bid you go to the men of Power or Patrons or Magistrates And truly then it were needlesse to pray to the Lord of the Harvest when men can send them forth now is not this pride infidelity and arrogancy for any of the sons of men to think to do it Obj. But you will say if that men should not do it men would become Heathens and Mahumetans or Atheists and of no Religion Answ Thinkest thou so is Religion Planted by men I thought it had been such a thing as the Text saith every plant that the Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Mat. 15.13 May man then root up and plant at his pleasure For the truth is mans Ministry and Ministers may send out men and plant Churches that is they may make PROSELYTES and they may make them worse but can never make them better as the Pharisees taking great pains that way to furnish men as to imitations notions actions and external performances Rom. 2.28 29. but to bring the heart to be a Jew inwardly whose Circumcision is of the Heart and not of the Letter this is that plant that is alone of the Heavenly Fathers planting and shall abide but what plant either the Magistrate or Churches either by exclusion or inclusion have planted shall be rooted up But what the Lord plants what Tabernacle he pitches among poor creatures the sons of men that are neither cal'd by the Magistrate or Churches that is the Church that shall abide being founded on the Rock of Ages and shall stand for ever Nay further they will themselves remove the Cloud of the Tabernacle which God must do and not man and to do this they will lay heavy burthens upon other mens shoulders Mat. 23.4 c. and to this end they will bring forth a Doctrine to put men upon it teaching that men have Free will and may believe if they will and repent unto life that so man may be perswaded he is not fallen so low as some say that he need but wipe or throw off a little the dust off his own eyes which he got by his Fall and then he may see presently and using but his utmost industry he may work out his own salvation Alas this is but a delusion of Satan to make a poor blind man rub his own eyes and be afterward a great deal worse No this is not the way 't is the Lord removes the Cloud and not Man therefore till the Lord cause the soul simply to go out by beleeving there is still a cloud upon the Tabernacle and upon all those Mysteries that concern Jesus Christ Eph. 4.21 and they cannot see the truth as it is in Jesus Alas these soules look not at God but man the truth is all men in their Religion talk of God but their hearts are far from him Esa 29.13 This people saith God draw too neer me with their lips but their hearts are removed far from me Yet more though all mens Religion talk of God yet you that have eyes to see may see plainly their Hearts are on man and the creature they talk of God of Christ of grace of gaining knowledge of acting by grace and yet do but follow the point home in practice and application and ye shall find these are all laid upon man and in effect they say man must remove the Covering off the Tabernacle and he must by his study and pains bring down light and life and the like So I say though they say it with their mouths their hears are far from God So that when once man really sees there is a Cloud upon the Tabernacle then he looks not to the right hand nor to the left Psa 121.1 thinking that man should remove it but alone to the hills from whence his help and salvation comes for when a man thinks his own zeal performances duties belief repentance and the like be the way to remove the Cloud thinking surely I shall remove it presently I will goe pray and hear and watch over my selfe and keep close to those rules I have chosen and then I shall have light and peace and joy and so remove the Cloud presently and so he is bragging and boasting thereof in himselfe and throwing dirt and mire upon all others that are short of him as he conceives and so poor man is feeding upon the dead ashes of his own heart Esa 44.20 and knows not that there is a lye in his RIGHT HAND his very light is darknesse and his goodnesse sin and his riches beggery and his life death and that he holds in his right hand is a lye And if the light
is that true Crucifying that every beleever experienceth in himself for else how suffered he in Sodom and Egypt When Christ appeareth thus in man then he appeareth as the great and true MESSIAH then he comes into his own Temple and takes his own Throne then he casts out the Prince of darkness who hath all this while usurped his Throne in man who is his Temple here he makes a whip of many cords and whips out the buyers and sellers and the money-mongers Mark 11.17 who trade for themselves and aime at their private ends seek their own glory and not his glory who is Lord of the Temple and when he does this in man then and never before can it be call'd the House of Prayer then is Jesus Christ Mediatour and Intercessour then hath the Father made him King Priest and Prophet over his Church then all that he did in the flesh is made good acted and fulfilled in thee then thou hast experience that Jesus Christ is he who was dead Rev. 2.8 and is alive then hast thou experience of those two Eternal and Immutable Witnesses then hast thou those two Olive trees in thee and the two Candlesticks which continually run one into another and continually feed one the other and this light is the light of God which cannot be put out but stands for ever before God here are the true discoveries of life and death these are the great changes and mutations of which all the changes and mutations all the lives and deaths in the world are but Types Shadows and Symboles Here now is Jesus Christ indeed whom the Father sends Mark 24.23 Mark 13.21 Luke 17.23 But if man say Loe here is Christ or loe there or he is in the wilderness or he is in the secret chambers beleeve them not go not after them If they say Loe he is in this form or that mode in this rule or that discipline and this mans Church is modelled after the purest form and the neatest cut here thou shalt find rest and satisfaction here is He whom thou seekest here is thy Beloved Know all things of this nature are but lyes and delusions except thou finde Jesus Christ comming thus in thee and seest that thy heart is become an habitation of Devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hatefull Bird. Christ manifests in thee where death and life is really and he discovereth Death and Hell and Darkness and Sin and the Bottomlesse pit and Sathan and Antichrist and the Dragon and the like mentioned througout all the Scriptures to be all in the soules of men and that these are the things that are to be destroyed and consumed and that here Babylon is fallen within man and is that great WHORE whom the Lord will Judge Rev. 18.2 Vers 11. Ibid. Ch. 19.6 Then shall the Merchants of the earth weep and mourn because they can Merchandise no more and stand afar off and bewail her downfall and here it is that the Saints sing Allelujahs to him that sitteth upon the Throne because he hath taken unto him his great power and will raigne for ever and ever If Jesus be not thus manifesting himself in thee doing over again all those things spoken of in Scripture under several and divers Allegories and Metaphors then is the Prince of Darknesse still raigning and sitting in full power upon his Throne in thy soule and there he sits and there he raignes Luk. 11.21 22. Ch. 10.18 the strong man yet keeps possession Lucifer is not yet thrown down nor Satan fallen from Heaven like Lightning Rev. 17.1 Antichrist and the great WHORE are still sitting upon the seven Hills and many Waters arrayed in Purple and Scarlet and decked with Gold and precious Stones yet full of filthiness and fornications and thou art not yet come out of her That great Word COME OVT OF HER MY PEOPLE Ch. 18.4 is not yet spoken by Jesus Christ in thy heart though thou hast been many years a Worshipper of Christ and pretended to him yet if these things be not effected in thee whatever duties forms or fellowships thou hast taken up or any exact observances Jesus Christ is not in thee since he is not in this mans way nor in that mans Church as men blaspemously speak for hath any one a Church but only Jesus Christ will any man dare to assume to himself any part of the Immaculate Church or of any one member of Jesus Christ and say this or these are my Churches and my people and my Congregation Oh Blaspemy in the highest degree And though these talk of Heresies and Schismes and charge them upon others yet judge ye who are those that make rents and utter blasphemies against the honour and glory of Jesus Christ Heb. 13.20 that one eternal Saviour and that great Shepherd of the Sheep And who is Paul and Apollo and others but Ministers and Servants by whom ye beleeved are they any thing or is there any glory due to them But if Jesus Christ come into thy soul discovering himself by casting out the strong man and Antichrist and letting thee see death and hell and all evil to be in thee and hath quite slain man in all his excellencies and glory then he will arise in thee and appear to be life alone glory alone power alone and till then men meerly delude themselves under all forms pretending strictness conformity and obedience to Christ when indeed though they have preacht and prophesied Mat. 7.22.23 and in his name done so many great works which shall amaze the people of the world and the general sort of professours yet Christ who searches the heart shall professe unto them I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquity though men may admire them and esteem them the highest the wisest the holiest the meekest the gravest the strictest of all the sons of men yet he sees them to be the worst the wickedest the profanest the greatest workers of iniquity the purest Hypocrits for that which is highly esteemed among men Luk. 16.15 is in the sight of the Lord abominable For man hath nothing of good in him but all his imaginations are evil and onely evil and continually evil and Jesus Christ is good all good and continually good and nothing else but good and he that gives other testimony either in word or deed is a lyar and the truth is not in him Rev. 11.8 And those two Eternall Witnesses are in him slain and lie dead in the streets of the great City that is in the whole nature of Mankind which two Witnesses can never be raised and stand up upon their feet till Jesus Chirst himselfe come and revive them and cause them to live HERE IS WISDOME Ibid. 13.8 and let him that readeth understand and he that hath read these things in himself he alone can understand these things And when the Lord is thus
had or John or any of the Apostles if thou experiment not the same things without question this is the truth and the life whatever the men or the Masters of the Letter or of the City of the Letter say unto you The words that I speak unto you saith our Saviour they are spirit and they are life Joh. 6.63 they are not onely a dead Letter to the ear and to the understanding but they are quickning spirit declaring true death and true life in us The Scripture in every part there of holds forth either evil or good death or life light or darknesse heaven or hell the Temple of God or the Temple of Idols Christ or Belial that is either man in his lost miserable blind dark undone and helish condition or else Christ the Saviour the life the light the glory the happiness the Redeemer of man Now if we have not experience of either of these two in our selves all reading hearing preaching praying sacrificing is in vain 2 Cor. 3.6 and the Scriptures are no other to us but the killing and deadly letter Lastly we will name one more of their Sorceries and Inchantments and so conclude and t is a very great one In that they take upon them the very Office and place of Christ they think themselves and call themselves Teachers and Divines and men must come to them as to the Oracles of God and they are the Priests lips which shall preserve knowledge come to us and hearken to us and we will direct you and teach you what means and what rules and ordinances ye shall use and which is the way to Heaven when as Christ saith plainly call no man Father nor no man Master upon earth for one is your Master and one is your Father Luke 14.11 c. Joh. 6.44 which is in Heaven but he that is greatest among you let him be your servant And whosoever shall exalt himselfe shall be abased and he that shall humble himselfe shall be exalted And saith again No man can come to me but by the Father and except the Father draw him And again I am the way the truth and the life And yet they say come to us joyn your selves in fellowship with us and conform to us and walk with us for we have the best means we will shew you the best way we have overlookt and examined all other Church-fellowships and none like ours we are squared according to the primitive pattern and to the mind of Christ 1 Cor. 2.16 and the word it self justifies all our rules and our way of worship And they say moreover we have the word of the Lord with us and for us and we have the mind of Christ with us we have a dream and we have a revelation and we have seen a vision when indeed they have seen nothing but have stole the word of the Lord from others and borrowed of their neighbour of this and that Authour and have searched what this man saies or that man writes of such and such points and then come and cry the word of the Lord when the Lord hath not spoken in them nor to them but boast of things without their measure 2 Cor. 10 14 c. 1 Joh. 1.1 speak not the things that they have seen and heard and that their hands have handled of the word of life but as the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 10. Who seek to commend themselves boasting of other mens labours and experiences and not of their own boasting beyond their line of things not distributed to them 2 Cor. 10. Vers 15. Ezek. 13.6 7. and yet will say The Lord hath spoken and this is the Word of the Lord and yet never found it The Word of the Lord in them or to them neither have they seen any thing nor the Lord hath not spoken unto them And therefore what ever they may say they cannot make it out to the hearts of others but they talk of it at random and by guesse and they say t is so and it must not be questioned for all other received Orthodox men forsooth have said it Are these Prophets think you of the Lords sending have these received the Word at his mouth Ibid. 3.17 No no but they are furnished by their learning and parts and acquirements and so of and from Man And so likewise not onely is the Prophet deluded but the people also for they have joyned themselves with these Prophets and there they will stick and their faith is pind upon their sleeves Oh such a man he is a sound man and he cannot erre and they will heare no where else And so this Prophet as thou takest him to be becomes Thy Pope and thy Holy Father for to him thou givest heed and him thou followest and obeyest And this is the great inchantment in our times when men forsake Jesus Christ the true and only Teacher and depend upon men This is a great mischiefe and a grievious plague but the world is not sensible thereof but blesse themselves in this great evil What say they shall we forsake our Ministers shall we let the Gospell and the preaching of the Word fall to the ground God forbid As though men upheld the Gospel and men could teach the Gospel It is then Gospel to thee when Jesus Christ makes it glad tidings in thy heart and when there is nothing in Heaven and Earth more wellcome to thee and when thou hast forsaken and laid down thy selfe to receive it But till we come to see that there is no other father no other Master but Jesus Christ in all the world in heaven or earth we are certainly inchanted and deluded and are under a spirituall CHARM But be it so Object then what reason is there that we should heare you or receive what you say T is true if I should say otherwise in regard of my selfe Answ I should also be a deluder a lyer and a charmer and a Southsayer I would by no means you should look at me or regard me as if I could doe anything I desire to be no other but as a dead instrument used by the Lord and would not be thought of or esteemed any thing I am no more fit to speak then any of you all if God will speak by you ye may all prophesie one by one as the Apostle saith God forbid that I should think my selfe better then any other Saint of God or think my selfe more honoured by standing in a high place above you the Lord hee knows my heart An hill or a mountain in the field were as fit for me any place I passe not but onely for conveniency of Hearing So the Lord wil but set up himselfe and magnifie his own name which he will doe let my praise my glory lie in the dust and I would be no more stirred and disquieted in spirit with any such thing then a man that is naturally dead And therefore let them look to it Math.
23.7 c. who love to be called RABBI or by that Blasphemous Title of DIVINE and they must be honoured above other Saints of God and they are The Clergie and others they are but the Layitie of a meaner rank then we say they And how doe they love to have greetings in the market and the uppermost rooms at Feasts and the like well let them look to it God will judge them one day for all their Sorceries and inchantments and for standing up between him and his glory To whom alone all praise is due but to every man misery shame confusion of face blacknesse of darknesse hell and condemnation But hence we may see that it is no new thing to be bewitched by the Sorcerers and Inchanters and Magicians of the World The Galathians themselves were so for there are many Antichrists in the world there are legions gone out from the Prince of darknesse to deceive the whole Earth And if any from Christ speak but the truth he by his cunning devices will disguise it under the shape of Heresie Schisme Familisme or some odious nickname or other that so the truth may not be owned nor known That so men may stop their eares against the Heavenly voyce of Christ which brings down all things adored or loved in or from man and sets up nothing else but the power wisdom goodnesse holiness and Alsufficiency of the Lord alone He cries Mans heart and all the imaginations thereof are onely evill continually and that there is none that doth good Psal 14.3 Rom. 3 10. no not one They are all gone out of the way and every one is become abominable there is none that understands or seeks GOD. And that there is nothing in man of good but all is evill sin death darkness abomination a lye and utter desolation But Satan cries in the mouthes of his Ministers Let man doe something he can pray he can heare and let him follow those rules that we prescribe and they shall bring peace and rest to his soule But if man were but content to heare the voice of Christ and to stand in the light of God he should be convinced that he had no power no goodnesse and that nothing but onely the power of God could carry him out and that he is dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2.1 and that the voice of Christ alone can raise them from their graves and that no lesse power can quicken or raise but the eternall Almighty power which raised Iesus Christ himselfe from the dead Rom. 8.11 It is not as men say If you will come to us and joyn and walk with us and be dipt with us or break bread with us will give any life any peace to the soule but the standing in the light of God that so man may take to himselfe death and darknesse misery and wrath and here to stand and dwell and that in him is no good thing then this light would also shew him that in Christ is all life liberty fulnesse satisfaction peace and rest and nowhere else If men did but abide in this light it would debase and keep low the lofty thoughts and those great expectations of and from man it would also give Jesus Christ his due it would not suffer him in the least to act against the glory of Christ but man would be dead and buried and Christ would onely ascend and sit upon his Throne There would nothing be esteemed in Heaven or Earth Mat. 19.21 but Christ and he would be content to sell and lose all for him This light would curb every wicked act every desire of the flesh this alone is the means to crucifie and kill thy vile nature and not any outward externall thing by washing or dipping in water or eating such a poore empty carnall thing as a bit of bread or drinking a sup of wine this thing never did nor never will doe it but to eate and drink that which Christ gave which was not a little bread and wine onely but HIMSELFE Joh. 6.56 1 Cor. 11.29 Ibid. v. 20 ch 10.16 and by feeding on him eating his body and drinking his blood this will nourish to eternall life When ye are met together into one place this is not to eate the Lords body For the bread which we break is the Communion of the body of Christ and he that eateth and drinketh unworthily discerneth not the Lords body Object But may I not use these things Object Ans Yea Answ so you think your selves never the better for using them for t is not they can feed or comfort thee nor t is not going on in thy own power nor thy using of means for Christ alone is the way and the means As if you come to a Feast you are not invited to eate the platters or earthern dishes which bring the meat but you are invited to the meat they doe but bring the meat and if thou eate not the meat thou mayst starve and die if thou follow the dreams of thy own heart and thinkest thou eatest and dost not what a horrible delusion and inchantment is this But of these things we may have an opportunity to speak more fully hereafter Thus you see what are those things which the Lord will cut off in that day when he shall come Thy Horses and thy Chariots thy Cities and thy strong holds Thy witchcraft and thy Southsayers Thy graven Images and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee THE SECRET SOUTHSAYER OR Hidden SORCERER discovered By Mr. Jo. WEBSTER SERMON II. Preached at Alhallows Lumbard-street MICAH 5.10 11 12 13. And it shall come to passe in that day saith the Lord That I will cut off thy Horses out of the midst of thee and I will destroy thy Chariots And I will cut off the Cities of thy Land and throw down all thy strong holds I will cut off Witchcrafts out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more Southsayers Thy graven Images also will I cut off and thy standing Images out of the midst of thee and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands I Have beloved according to the appearance of God in me shewed the meaning of these words according to the Spirit and the Mysterie declaring that great work which is brought to passe by Jesus Christ when he appeares gloriously in the world in the soules of men and is exalted as Lord and King and then it is when Jesus Christ is exalted in the earth and not when men are exalted or when there is peace and plenty of outward things But all the speakings of the Prophets and of Christ himselfe tend to set out that Kingdome and PERSONALL REIGNE which generally all men know little of and neither wil nor can own for a glorious state because not accommodated with outward power riches and eternall glory But in that day when Jesus Christ will come and arise in power spiritually in the soules of men then is that
and have familiar spirits and such as do no other in all their Religion but enquire after the dead as the Prophet speaks what 's that Esa 8.19 Mark 5.3 who enquire not after the living the substance and the truth but after the dead and all their delight is to be among the Graves and the Tombs and dead things which have no power nor life in them being men very cruel and fierce But all things of this nature in man shall be cut off when Christ shall arise in us and become Lord and King and be all in all viz. to be alone King Priest and Prophet in us Then we shall hearken and give ear alone to him having no other Guide nor no other Teacher or Master but him when these things come to pass in us then all the delusions within us and all in others without us shall all be discovered and vanish And indeed we can never discover those Spiritual Sorcerers and Inchanters without us till we have sound them out and discovered them within us Then he alone shall shortly tread down Satan under our feet Rom. 16.20 Rev. 18.23 Then this MICHAEL will throw down out of Heaven the Dragon and his Angels which deceived the Nations Onely the Breath and Comming of the Lord can discover those depths of lyes and infinite deceits that are received and rooted in the heart of man and nothing but the good hand wisdom and power of the Lord Almighty can deliver the soule From hence then we may hold out thus much and 't is very clear First that there is no greater Deceiver to be found then is within Man No cunninger Devil no greater ANTICHRIST nor no worse WITCH then what Man hath in his own heart so that HE hath in him all things described by the Name of EVIL There is in him the Devil Sin Antichrist the red Dragon the Jims and Ziims of the Desart There is in him Lucifer and the beast with seven Heads and ten Horns There are in him Conjurers Sorcerers Southsayers Witches Mutterers Peepers consulters with the dead that is delighting and resting in formal and dead Ordinances and with Women which have familiar Spirits with the GREAT WHORE and what not even with all things that belong to the Kingdom and power of Darknesse And all these things and whatever else can be named of this kind they all make up but one body all these are but Satan and his Members and they all have but one and the same Head As Jesus Christ consisteth of whatever is good righteous holy pure undefiled and the seed and sons of God and all things of that nature are his body and he their Head so all the seed and sons of Satan make up but one body and one building which is ANTICHRIST and the Great Whore and the Dragon and Lucifer and the rest And however man is carried out to look for all these things without him yet be sure these Sorcerers these Wizzards these Necromancers these Dragons Devils Antichrists all are in thine own bosome Here is the true Necromancy and Witchcraft the true Antichrist all other without are but shadows pictures and representations of the true and reall body of Antichrist and the Great Whore and the like If thou wouldest find out Antichrist and the true Necromancer and Southsayer It is thy selfe When thou enquirest and askest counsel of thine own heart then thou consultest with a familiar and lying spirit when thou makest a shew of that which thou art not then thou art a Necromancer and a Sorcerer and so every one of these evil ones according to their names you shall find in your own practice the nature thereof And truly Beloved herein lies the great and mighty Delusion and Witchcraft amongst the sons of men that Satan in them is so cunning that he alwayes carryes them out of themselves to find out Antichrist and Wizzards and Southsayers and Lucifer and the Great whore and the like And the true reason is because the Divel he would not by any means have these things be discovered to be in mans own breast where indeed is his Temple and SEAT more then at Room externally or litterally in any other place There is Antichrist there is Belial and there be the Southsayers and the Sorcerers in thine own heart But man will by no means indure this Doctrine And so long as Satan can blind delude and deceive man making him look for that evil one and the son of Perdition 2 Thes 2.3.7 and the MYSTERY OF INIQUITY out of himself so long Satan rests secure and safe But if the Light of God comes and discovers where his lurking and hiding place is viz. to be within and at home while we have been ruuning up and down far and neer to find him Then the soule either fights against this light or else blushes and is ashamed and confounded in it selfe And now it will trust no longer to it self now it sees the greatest cheating and witchcrafts to be acted in it selfe But till this day of the Lord come and this great light shine round about him man rides on boldly and confidently as Saul to Damascus and is not smitten down from his Horse neither sees he what he is doing Acts 9.1 2 but blesses himself and thinks all is well and he censures this wicked man and the other and he can curse the Devil and Antichrist without him bitterly thee whom he thinks to be at Rome and concludes that there he must fall and be brought down but never remembers that there is ONE in him whom he knows not but if any shall say unto him as Nathan to David Thou art the Man Antichrist is in thee and Adam is in thee and the Serpent is in thee and in whatever is said or related of Adam or Satan or Antichrist or Lucifer or of Eve What they did behold I say unto thee 2 Sam. 12.7 Thou art the man all this thou mayest read in thine own actions in thy own practices But oh how tart and harsh is this Doctrine to all the wise sober grave holy and learned men of the world Oh how do they hate and deride this Doctrine But let me tell them before the Lord Angels and Men That for all this while they are blessing themselves 1 Cor. 4.9 from the Devil and Antichrist and the rest and scorning these things should be in them and think that they have discovered them here and there Behold they are nigh them they are within them in their hearts and mouths though they see them not But if ever with all thy learning and parts and righteousnesse thou hadst had but the light of God in thee it would have shewed thee the Divil and the true Necromancer and let thee know that for all thy vain boasting and swelling and high and proud conceits of thy selfe that thou never yet hadst the light of God and that God never yet answered thee by that true URIM and THUMMIM
do all men are alone in the hands of the Father he alone is Judge of quick and dead In his hands alone are the issues of life and death Acts 10.42 Ps 68.20 Joh. 6.44 And no man can come to him except the Father himself draw him and yet men will be drawing and DRIVING to Jesus Christ and they think to beget men and they like well to be called Doctors and Masters and Fathers and yet the spirit expresly sai h Of his own will begat be us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 that we should be a kind of first fruits of his Creatures There is no power wisdome strength rules examples or precepts can do it but onely the will and power of God And he saith againe By one spirit are we all baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12.13 has one man then any more power then another can it be this mans learning or the other mans wisdom or another mans elquence or power of words or perswasions Oh let no man think so far be such thoughts from any that professe to exalt Jesus Christ for what can be more doshonour to him and yet how do the general course of the World and all pretenders to Religion run this way though they say in words Christ is All and man can do nothing and he is dead yet they in all their practices and perswasions and exhortations hold forth that they verily beleeve the power of man and that he is but half dead and may raise himselfe and uphold himselfe and chuse this plant Jesus Christ and ingraff it and nourish it and dig and hedg about it and cause it to bring forth more fruit which is alone the work of the Father Or at least wise if they give so much to God as to say he must give grace yet this they affirm that man must nurse it and water it and cherish it and maintain it else he may lose it quite say some and others to his own apprehension sight and feeling And what 's all this but to say himselfe he is the Dresser and he is the Pruner and Purger and Rectifier of all things amisse He is the True Husbandman But the Scripture holds forth otherwise that these things are done onely by the hand of God and that instruments are nothing t is onely the sword of the spirit can cut off and the word of God that is quick and powerfull and sharper then a two-edged sword Heb. 4.12 and that can divide between the soul and the spirit the joynts and the marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart There is nothing else plants nothing else cuts off from the root but only this spirit which is as the wind bloweth where it listeth and man hath nothing to do Joh. 3.8 I say the Creature hath nothing to do but to wait and expect when the Angel will move the Waters This is the Circumcision which is done without Hands Joh. 5.8 Rom. 2.28 29. And he is not a Jew that is one outwardly made by Men or any power of or in man but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the Heart and not in the Letter whose praise is not of men but of God And this work the Lord doth manageth and carrieth on by his own strength and by his owu power he is not at all beholding to mans wisedome or care but what is done in man or by man t is not he that doth it but Christ in them his work is not done by any outward and external means but by a secret invisible and spiritual power He is that secret invisible sap that communicates vertue and nourishment to every part and member through the whole body so that mans power wisdom and care is not used at all but only as an instrument or subject in which and by which it works and therefore man hath nothing at all to speak of or boast in And one man is not more holy then another or improves more because he hath more wisdom diligence endeavour or the like in the work of God all things tending in the least to lift up man are to be cut of but the spirit works where and when it listeth and man by all his care Joh. 3.8 cannot fetch in the spirit but when it self pleaseth so that no flesh may boast or glory in his presence nor one man lift up himself above another For we are alone his workmanship 1 Cor. 1.29 Eph. 2.10 1 Cor. 1.30 31. created unto good works And we are of him in Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption Therefore from hence let us make this conclusion and seal to it not in our words and judgments onely but in our hearts in our practices that we may say these are the very things that we have heard and seen with our eyes and we have looked upon and which our hands have handled of the word of life 1 Joh. 1.1 for there is nothing more usual then to consent to truth in the Notion thereof and in the Doctrinal part but when they come to the Practical and Applicatory then they declare plainly that they have no experience of the things of the work of God in themselves but they make man a Worker an Agent Heb. 12.2 and a finisher of Faith Some confesse that God he begins and layes the foundation but man must carry it on and do his part else all is nothing what an high indignity is this to the grace and power of God And hence it is that men glory and pride themselves so much in their own doing and are so forward to censure and judge other men wen alas man hath done nothing at all in this spiritual planting and watering but onely taken up a conceit of his own doing acting and working and priding himselfe in a meer empty fancy without any real doing at all For be sure this is that great work which Christ alone hath undertaken Heb. 2.10 Esa 42.8 Joh. 3.8 To bring many sons unto Glory and in this He will never give his glory unto another He will be free and his wind shall blow when he listeth and work when he pleaseth And for man to say that there must be any other power or any other meanes in the whole earth is to rob God of his glory and to give it to another But the practice of all the Saints is I do not say in words onely but in their practice they ascribe all to God only How violent was Paul against the Truth and the Professors thereof and yet he had attained to be a forward and an exact Pharisee far more strict then any we shall finde in our days And how zealous was he as he thought for the Truth Act. 26.11 Act. 9.1 2. exceedingly zealous against errours in his way and yet it was no other but madnesse against the truth and
Catechisms and prescribing of Rules in mending this way and the other form and are still in mending and altering and making their ways and forms better and more reformed as they think when alas all this is nothing but man taking upon himself to cut pare and mend the worship of God This man he thinks to cut out a neater way then his neighbour-gathered-church and a another he thinks to mend and make his way more handsome then he and another then both Every one hath a Doctrin a Psalm hath a Tongue 1 Cor. 14.26 hath a Revelation hath an Interpretation none done to the edifying of the body of Christ For all this is but to rend and tear the Seamlesse coat of Christ in that man would fain be something do something by his own wisdom and power and his righteousnesse must not be sleighted nor vilified nor all his glory must not be laid in the dust all these Worshippers and pretenders to Christ they live on the shadow and rely on the shape and form of Christianity but not on the life and power How have men beat their wits and layd their counsels together to form and model Religion to make it passe for currant in the world that they may be accounted Artists and Pastors and Doctors and according to that fine invented word ORTHODOX and some adding that blasphemous title DIVINE and they will prescribe Rules and make Articles of faith for all men to beleeve and receive and conform to and still they are new-modelling to cut it and square it as like the Letter of the Word as may be and then they are pleased and others applaud them as wise Master Builders And yet we may say of them as the Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 2.17 c. 2 Pet. 2.17 18 19. They are those which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam who loved the wayes of unrighteousness These are Wells without water clouds carried with a tempest to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever For when they speak great swelling words of vanity they allure through the lusts of the flesh those who were clean escaped from them who live in error And while they promise them libertie they themselves are the servants of corruption for of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage They are alwaies learning and teaching others to do this and do that and yet they themselves are the servants of lust and corruption Therefore be not deceived but if they cry loe here or loe there Go after such a Man and such a Man Luk. 17.23 joyn with this Church or that Fellowship and ye find Christ but go not after them believe them not for they do but deceive they cannot deliver nor redeem themselves And therefore this point is clear that none but Jesus Christ could ever free the soul or deliver it from bondage and this is a truth against which the Gates of Hell shall never prevail Mat. 16.18 Therefore we may conclude that whatever spirit goes out any other way or to any other thing to find Rest or Liberty or Redemption by but only by Jesus Christ he is deceived for t is only in Immanuel God with us there is no Redeemer no Deliverer no Saviour but only He All the Saints who have all experience therof in themselvs know this to be true and give out their witnesse that in vain did they run out to any thing else and these only are the true Wayters for the Kingdom of God and the consolation of Israel Mar. 15.43 here was the true Wayting and the true using of Ordinances Oh that men did but know what this waiting upon the Father was that they knew that there was no life but in Christ no power but in him that they had no wisdom nor goodness nor that they could never be delivered but by and in the power light and life of Christ Oh that men knew in experience as they pretend in words and notions Joh. 5.22 that all judgment is committed to the Son And that in him alone was the power of life and death and that he alone had the keys to unlock the Mysteries of Salvation then whether if they were perswaded of this could the heart of man go for relief If it saw its own utter emptiness nothingness and that all Creatures and all Ordinances and forms were broken Cisterns Jer. 2.13 how could they depend and wait on them If then Jesus Christ be the only fulness the only power the only riches the only joy the only treasure then would they sell all to buy this Pearl Mens running out to this thing and to that is because they are unsatisfied Luk. 11.24 and are in want of peace and rest and this makes them go out and walk through dry places to find rest but can find none this want makes them heap to themselves so many varieties of things to give them peace their souls fly to and again from florwe to flowre but cannot rest any where they fly to this duty and tother form but they are all emptie they are no other but dry places Oh wonderful to see how Satan hath deluded the sons of men and all is because they cannot be content to sit down in their own poverty to see themselves naked and miserable and then to wait upon Him who would certainly come in in due time with true Peace Riches Rest Power Righteousnesse Satisfaction Fulnesse and whatever is good But because men are not able to stand in the sight of their own nothingness how doth Satan continually carry them out they cannot endure to stay within to see themselves but either they are carried out to Lust or Luxury or Wantonnesse or Drinking or Company and the like and if that will not hide and cover the pit so that the mouth of conscience will not be stopt then it runs out to Duties and Forms and wayes of Worship and thinks that will do it when alas they are meer delusions and things which the soul hath invented to play withal to get peace and liberty by to make it forget its Misery Poverty and Emptinesse but the end of this peace is death and misery and the end of this liberty is confusion Rom. 6.21 And what fruit have ye of those things whereof ye are now ashamed But oh happy is that soul that can say from experience and not onely in words but really Job 16.2 That they are all miserable comforters and that all below and besides Christ Esa 28.20 all gender to death and bondage and that he hath found the Bed too broad and the Covering too narrow so that he could not wrap himself therein and that he is resolved never to run out to any thing to relieve or stay his spirit but only to the Riches Power and Fulnesse of Christ not to the grosse lusts of men nor to the riches of the world to
away their captivity Oh! that men were but to come to this condition to be sensible of their misery that they did but really see they were in Babylon in Captivity Oh then what mourning what hanging their Harps upon the Willows Psal 137.1 c. sitting down by the Rivers of Babylon weeping and crying out Oh how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange Land And wishing and saying Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Will the Ox lowgh when he hath fodder Job 6.5 saith Job Till they have deliverance they cannot but mourn Rev. 5.5 and none can deliver them but the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah to such a soul only is Iesus Christ precious others may talk of him and make a great profession of Iesus Christ in the Letter and talk of Iesus Christ his dying at Jerusalem and of beleeving and Salvation by him but they cannot love him till Iesus Christ be IMMANVEL a Saviour in them Mat. 1.23 then and never before can these Elders throw down their Crowns before the Lamb saying Thou only art worthy to receive honour and glory and power Rev. 4.10 11. for thou only hast redeemed us by thy Blood Thou seest thou canst not so much as move hand or foot to help thy self All thy tears thy prayers are nothing but as Iesus Christ prayes and cryes in thee by his spirit with groans unutterable which cannot be exprest Rom. 8.26 This take as the first difference and examination between those that are wounded and sick and condemned the one he is so and he can go to no other but only to Iesus Christ to be healed and saved The others when they are so they can finde help and rest in men in means in ordinances in fellowships in reformations and better ordering of their lives by their own power The other finde there is no resting no sitting still in any thing below Christ but they hunger and thirst and wait the good pleasure of Iesus Christ and when the spirit which bloweth where it listeth will blow upon their Hearts John 3.8 They are like a hungry man whose stomack doth so gnaw he cannot rest without food and like a thirsty man who cannot be satisfied without drink It is not husks nor shadows nor pictures nor Idols will serve his turn but he must have real food he must have Christs body which is meat indeed Ibid. 6.55 and Christs blood which is drink indeed He must have the Eternal God help him or all he can do is nothing to him Beloved were men but come to this to be really miserable and truly in bonds which men so much talk of and so little feel ye need not direct them this way and that way ye need not bid them cry or pray or run to hear or the like their very misery would constrain them whereas otherwise men take up these things for form and for custom and complement and to be thought religious and to quiet their consciences and the like But they would be like the blind man which notwithstanding they hindred him and reproved him and bid him not pray nor cry yet the sense of his blindness made him cry out after Jesus Christ Jesus thou son of David have mercy on me Luke 18.39 If men did but find see and feele the burning within them and the sting of the fiery Serpent they need not be bid to look up to the Brazen Serpent John 3.14 Secondly If thou beest a true seeker of deliverance a true waiter thou wilt abominate and scorn all other Deliverers but only this Only Deliverer Jesus Christ all other thou lookest upon them as Physitians of no value Job 13 4. Thou seest there is but one Teacher but one Counsellour but one Saviour They will not go after them that say Loe here is Christ and loe there Mat 24.23 in this way and in that form saying joyn to us we are in the best way here ye shall find rest and satisfaction but they see really and are fully convinced that there is nothing else but the Eternal Father making out himselfe through his son 1 Tim. 3.16 c. even Christ manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles beleeved on in the world and received up into Glory And sayes the Apostle Gal. 4.3 4. Even so we when we were Children were in bondage under the Elements of the world but when the fulnesse of Time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the Adoption of Sons And because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father So that it is clear that soul that truly seeks deliverance it sees Jesus Christ only to be able to deliver that there is nothing lesse then Him nothing besides Him But herein lies the misery of all the Sons of men they pretend to seek Iesus Christ and think they have found him because they have heard of a Iesus Christ who died at Ierusalem and though they have no union with him yet if they can externally beleeve in him that 's enough though they never receive any vertue from him nor he was never formed in them And herein generally most men professing Christ sit down and rest and blesse themselves and never yet saw truly their own misery how they are departed from the fountain of living waters Jer. 2.13 and how they dig to themselves broken Cisterns which are empty and dry and can hold no water And in their extremity hither they come to their own Cisterns thinking to refresh themselves and quench their thirst but they are empty and dry and so many men who are great professors of Religion dig wells for themselves but they are not the Wells of Salvation Oh my dear friends Esa 12.3 my heart bleeds to think how these men delude themselves with golden dreams And they pretend great love to Christ and say he is their hope and their help and they will wait upon him and cast their soules upon him when as they do but as it is Ps 78.34 35. they returned and inquired early after God Ps 78.34 35. and remembred that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer Neverthelesse they did but flatter him with their mouths and they lyed unto him with their tongues for their heart was not right with him neither were they faithful in his covenant How do these men keep a great stir and make a great noise for their Religion and who seem more zealous then they or more eager for worship who more flattering and smooth in their expressions and say thy Servants thy Servants and who seem to be more affected with dishonour to Christ and are very much offended at errors and heresies and blasphemies but I fear and
not without demonstration enough that they do but flatter Christ with their MOVTHS when their hearts are far from him sayes Iehu 2 Kings 10 16. See my zeal for the Lord of Hosts but we know his zeal was but for himself So these men are offended if any thing be said to touch them or their wayes pretending dishonour to Christ and they cry out BLASPHEMY because it reproves their blindnesse or ignorance shewing that they are the blind leaders of the blind and both fal into the ditch Luk. 6.39 so do it out of pretence of love to Christ and zeal for the Lord of Hosts If so be it were so that they did make God their zeal and Christ their rest and their dependance as they would have all beleeve what is the reason that these men professing themselves Servants to Christ and Messengers from Christ what 's the reason I say they are so in love with the world who more hunting after Honour after Riches after Applause and in all things seeking themselves as much or more then others making no profession what 's the reason that they must come forth as messengers sent out from Christ and yet they must have two coats Mark 6.9 contrary to their Masters command and they must have their scrip and their bag and who more taking care to provide for the body for food and rayment and the like and yet they say they are doing the Lords work yet dare not trust their Master for outward things shall any man think these men have trusted their souls with him who dare not trust their bodies with him but they must have so much a year and they must indent with the people or else they will not work how say you are not these those that make merchandise of the word of God certainly these men can never make out themselves messengers from Christ 2 Cor. 4.2 approving themselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God neither hath he Commissioned them nor given them their errand nor revealed his secrets to them but they run before they are sent and say thus saith the Lord when he sent them not Jer. 14.23 neither have they seen any vision as the Prophet saith Certainly these are not the men that preach the word of God out of a ready mind and constraint of love depending on the Lord for their recompence and reward 1 Pet. 5.2 but for filthy lucre sake These men never yet received the truth in the love of it in themselves but preach for honour and for praise and because it is a place in credit and this delights them and is very pleasing to the flesh and because they are had in honour and so much they will speak forth and no more then may stand with those things and they dare not venture either their honour or riches or credit c. upon the account of truth no not for their lives Are these of Pauls mind who cryed out woe is me if I preach not the Gospel but these men if they can have but the accomodations that attend a Minister in these dayes 1 Cor. 9.16 as riches and honour and praise and full tables and entertainments and feasting and uppermost seats and the like they will doe well enough for dispensing the Gospel and do that warily and tenderly enough without prejudicing their own esteem or offending others And are not these men faithful Stewards think ye as they would fain be esteemed that can thus order their wayes and keep up themselves and dare not for their ears commit themselves nor their works to the Lord nor to the Authority and power of truth in the hearts of men I am much grieved to see these things and yet who seem more zealous then these men who say they are doing their Lords work just so did the Pharisees up and down whom Christ so sharply reproves for Hypocrisie and Blindness and Covetousnesse and Deceivers c. being blind leaders of the blind and both fall into the ditch Mat. 15.14 But the reason of all this is because these men were never yet emptied in themselves they never took up the crosse of Christ Ibid. 10.38 or denied themselves but are rich and full and holy and wise and sober and very strict as they would be thought and think so of themselves for though they talk and babble of these things in a litteral way yet they never had them in experience but boast of things in another mans line 2 Cor. 10.14 15. and stretch themselves beyond their own measure borrowing this mans words and the other mans experience and because Paul and others have been witnesses to the truth and of high manifestations of God brought forth in them this they appropriate and arrogate and say t is their condition when t is no such matter but having a shew of humility and godlinesse they deceive the simple and are such who serve not the Lord Iesus Christ but their own belly and by good words Col. 2.23 and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple and are such who cannot give testimony to the truth in themselves they are full of curious collected choise words but if you bring those words to experience they plainly discover they know nothing of them but do indeed oppose the truth in themselves for they love honour and greatnesse and the praise of men of whom Christ saith plainly How can YEE believe who thus seek honour one of another and not that honour which commeth from God only Joh. 5.44 Certainly these men whatever they talk of Christ and preach of Christ and make a great noise in words yet they will be found to be no other but as sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals 1 Cor. 13 1 They will undertake to invite others to Christ and never found Jesus in themselves for no man can come after him but he that denies himselfe Mar. 8.34 and takes up his cross and follows him and though they in words and notions talk of self-deniall and selling all for the PEARL yet they are wise in themselves and holy in themselves and rich in themselves and they have a power to act in the waies of God and to conform them selves to the rule have these men sold all think you and though they say men are dead in trespasses and sins yet how many MVSTS do they lay upon them and doe Thus and Thus And whence is all this but because indeed they never yet followed Christ never yet found him never yet believed in him never yet denied themselves were never reduced to emptiness and nothingness but are still alive and whole in themselves except it be for a few outward neglects or omissions now and then and that they can make up again with a little double diligence and this is their way and herein lies the life and top of their Religion And truly brethren how can these things be otherwise Did the woman with the bloody
must needs be wavering and unstable like the waves of the Sea and still casting up mire and dirt while thou seekest any refreshment in the patterns themselves whatsoever pattern thou canst imitate or build upon that is made by hands and be sure God dwels not in them for saith the Apostle Acts. 7.43 Ch. 17.24 25. â— he dwels not in Temples made with hands neither is he worshipped with mens hands as though he needed any thing seeing he gives breath and life and being and motion unto all Whatever Tabernacle or Temple man builds they are but like man they are fading and perishing Mark 13.2 Heb. 12.23 and there shall not one stone of them be left upon another but when the soule comes to the true assembly of the Saints to spirits of just men made perfect to the spiritual Manna and to the Heavenly Jerusalem to the true Tabernacle Jesus Christ and eats that Manna that doth not perish but is meat indeed and life indeed then t is silled and satisfied and never before So that while the soule is seeking after a life and to get food in the pattern and shadow and form of Heavenly things it is sure to find nothing but emptinesse bitternesse and vanity he shall be like the hungry man Isaiah speaks of Esa 29.8 who dreams and thinks he eates and when he awakes finds nothing So the Carnal men they are praying and reading and keeping themselves strict to outward rules and when they have done they think they find comfort and refreshment by them and they break bread and they are speaking one to another and think they have consolation by it but alas this food will all fail thou thinkest thou hast eaten Christ when thou hast used these but when the wrath of God falls upon thy soul and thou art summoned to judgement thou wilt finde there was no meat to feed thee in these things thou callest Ordinances nor there is no water in these Vessels to quench thy parched soul for though God of his good pleasure gave patterns of heavenly things yet they were not those heavenly things themselves but are onely the type and shadow of that divine heavenly Tabernacle which God did pitch and not man Heb. 8.2 And hence it apparently appears that the power life and the meat and drink of a child of God is onely and alone Jesus Christ for he never eats and drinks nor moves out of God for he eats and drinks and doth all in God and thus he is come to that which is perfect to the fountain of all fulness Heb. 12.27 28. to the Mount that cannot be shaken now he is gone over and passed by all the similitudes and shadows and patterns and is come to that living fountain of the water of life it selfe of which whoever drinks shall live for ever and it shall be in him a well of water springing up to eternall life Joh. 4.14 Then this further discovers to us that the Tabernacle of God is a hidden thing that the mysteries of God in Christ are covered so that the Saints themselves cannot see them except they be given unto them from above 1 Cor. 2.8 14. then much more the natural man perceives not the things of God which are spiritually discerned and which none of the men nor Princes of this world knew for had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of life Ibid. 1.21 and when the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased the Lord by the foolishnesse of preaching to save those that believe So that I say it is even now too true according as we have a proverb and receiv'd as a Maxim but from whence it arose I am not certain that the place of PARADISE doth not now appeare in the earth no man knows where it is but sure I am that Paradise and place of pleasure which is the enjoyment of Jesus Christ is vanished and disappears is gone away and almost quite removed from the beholdings of all the sonnes of men Adam was turned out and you never heare where it is nor of any that can describe the way to come to it Even so is the true knowledge of Jesus Christ in the mystery So that the light of God and the spirituall Manna it is a thing that is utterly hidden and removed from all the wisdom and endeavours of any of the sonnes of men and unlesse the Lord himselfe come forth and reveale it and make it manifest the wisest of men in the worlds esteem may doe as those wicked men in Sodome when the Angel was sent to bring out Lot being stricken blind Gen. 19.11 they laboured to finde the dore but could not so he that is in the dark knows not whither he goes so this is cleare and true to this very day that the true Tabernacle of the Lord is still covered with a cloud no man can see it till God discover it to him Now notwithstanding this being so yet what are the waies of men what doe they undertake to doe Doe not all men that come out under the name of being the Ministers of Christ undertake the opening and revealing the Tabernacle of God yes but what is the light by which they can shew it unto us Is it any other but what man hath within himselfe and what he hath attained by his wits and industry by the Vniversity and searching severall Authors Yet notwithstanding they will discover this Tabernacle and undertake to take off the cloud that covers it and they will shew how the pattern leads to it and yet if they be put to it they themselves must deny they ever saw it truly and really what it was or is but they will be guessing and imagining the way that leads to it Now for a man to direct another the way that never understood that way may very easily make good what Christ saith If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch And there be other men that are so grosly ignorant as to tell us That if they goe but to an Academy a few yeeres and gather a little Philosophy and although it be that of the worst sort relishing of those that hold the immortality of the World and mortality of the Soule now even these they come out as they think furnished and by this they will undertake to discover to us the heavenly Canaan and Tabernacle of God Generally most men what ever they be though they differ in judgement yet say they are either Papists or Socinians c. And they have the boldnesse to hold forth these things though they be never so blind and dark in the things of God And I finde very few but generally all take up this for truth that Humane learning is the way to discover this by Now I beseech you see whether this be any lesse then the hellish pride of Satan to make men goe out in the pride of their hearts Jer. 29.23 and Ezek. 13.7
8. Matth. 15.14 and say they have heard the word of the Lord and they have seen a vision when the Lord hath not spoken by them and they have seen nothing If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the pit for he that comes out and saith that he can discover the Tabernacle or that any can remove the cloud from the Tabernacle but the Lord himselfe he is a blasphemer and a lyer But I know they will object and say Obj. 2 Indeed if we consider men naturally in their sinfull condition they are ignorant in the things of God and are even as the Heathens but we have the Scriptures given to us and they contain the mind of God And having this help we by our wits and learning and industry are able to know the mind of God for we know and understand the Hebrew and Greek and Syriack Languages Truly Answ if it were so that they did so it were well but that very word to which they appeale in the very Letter of it witnesses against them for the word witnesses that it is a sealed book Esay 29.11 12. Rev. 5.3 1 Cor. 12.3 2 Cor. 3.6 Luk. 8.10 Mark 4.11 Matth. 11.15 Mark 4.9 Luke 8.8 Luke 24.45 whether delivered to the learned or unlearned and none is found worthy to open it but the Lamb the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah and that none can so much as say Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy ghost and again that the letter kils but the spirit gives life and to you it must be given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom or you cannot know them and when Christ spake with a lively and audible voyce and spake and preacht so as never man did yet said he very often he that hath eares to heare let him heare and so t is said of the Disciples that Christ opened their understandings when he was risen again although he himselfe had taught them the same things before his death yet t is said Luke 24.45 then opened he their understandings that they might know the Scriptures that it behoved him according as it was written in the Prophets and Psalms to suffer and rise again the third day So that hence it is clear there is not any wisdom learning or knowledge in the world that can unseale this book for though it be the declaration of the mind of God through those Saints and Apostles by whom it was written yet never can any man read the mind of God in it but by the same spirit that taught it and unless the same Spirit that raised up Iesus Christ from the dead doe quicken us Rom. 8.11 2 Cor. 6.14 Although the learnedest men in the world open it it will not raise up our mortall bodies nor be any savour unto life Now from hence let but the world judge who are the BLASPHEMERS and what is blasphemy if this be not We say none can truly teach the spirits of men but God himself and none can come to the Father but by the Sonne and he to whom the Sonne will reveale him And they say Matth. 11.27 the way to understand the Scriptures is to get learning and the tongues and to reform their lives to get into this or that fellowship I say this sharply reproves them that say they can open it with the WOODDEN and fleshly key of carnall wisdom and humane learning for we have shewed how there is a cloud upon the tabernacle to this day that none can remove but only God Himselfe not onely in regard of men but of Saints for though a Saint be brought to see into the Tabernacle and to behold the glory of the Lord yet when God pleaseth a cloud shall interpose it selfe that this Tabernacle shall be hid and covered again and again nay it shall be in hiding and opening continually unto the soule * Mark this for the glory of the Tabernacle would not be made out were there not a cloud to make it out by the strength of the Lord would not be made out were there not weaknesse to make it out by the light of the Lord would not be made out were there not darknesse to make it out by and therefore there is a cloud on the tabernacle and t is the Lord only that removes it that they may goe on in all their Journeys and when he doth it not they must sit still and he doth it for this very end that the glory of God may be more made out and that the soule of man might more fully more gloriously and more welcomly enjoy those discoveries Light cannot be made out in light and wisdom in wisdome but light in darkness and wisdom in folly and strength in weakness and fullness in emptiness and riches by poverty and grace by sin Alsufficiency by insufficiency and nothingness and even things that are high in things that are low one deep calls unto another the DEEPNESSE of that glory and FVLLNESS that is in God calls upon that DEEPNESSE and EMPTINESSE and nothingness that is in and upon the poor Creature and this is that Cloud that is still covering and removing from over the Tabernacle that the Glory of the Lord may be made out in and by that cloud that we may know and behold that glory that was hid from us and that we may know how pretious it is by the cloud that with-holds and covers it from us And again that we may know light is not in mans hand as Peter said Master let us be here and build three Tabernacles c. So I say Luk. 9.33 it is that man may not build a Tabernacle of his own least he should say he was Master of it and would think to give and carry the light where he pleased but with a Christian it is otherwise ordered that he might walk in darkness Esa 50.10 and stay himself upon his God so that the condition of a true Christian is not like the men of the world with their light for they are the Orderers and Masters of it But it may indeed be said of your ordinary formal Christians that they have a light never goes out in regard of their forms of Church-Government so that their candle is always burning and they are Masters of their own light and if it be out they can light it again and recover it by their own pains and industry but it is not so with those that truly fear God For when the light appears then they walk and journy but when their light appears not then they must stand still for they dare not go nor stir till the glory of the Lord appears and leads them and that the Lord Himselfe goes before them Further if this Cloud be removed onely by the hand of the Lord then I say First it shews plainly the vanity pride folly and uselessness of mens labouring to remove it in their taking upon them that which belongs to God and First I say it discovers
persecuting both men and women that were of that way that he might bring them bound to Jerusalem dragging them out of every City and breathing out threatnings and slaughter and compelled them to blaspheme Who now do you think turned Paul about and of a Saul made him Paul was there any other hand did this but the good hand of the Heavenly Husbandman who of a Devil made him a Saint No no he clearly saw he opposed salvation fought against it and he had onely a Notion of Salvation and Happinesse in his mind but really to desire Salvation he neither did nor Knew not what salvation was Gal. 1.16 1 Tim. 1.13 but it pleased the Father to reveal his Son and Salvation in me and to receive me to mercy because I did it ignorantly and through unbelief It was alone his good pleasure to cut me off from the wild Olive and to plant me into the true Olive And as the Apostle saith so say I Such were some of you but ye are washed 1 Cor. 6.11 but ye are sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God There is not one natural man in the whole world that can desire salvation but under a false notion as he thinks it will bring peace and rest honour and glory and happinesse but salvation indeed all men who are not possessed of it oppose it fight against it and should it be revealed to them in the true nature thereof they would persecute it and breath out slaughters against the Professors of it Then certainly no man loves Salvation nor no man seeks after it nor can use any means to attain it as men ignorantly affirm and beleeve For can a man love his own death can any man love crucifying and hate his own life I tell ye nay but he must be changed new moulded and be leavened with a new leaven that he may be a new lump And therefore when men talk of such things 1 Cor. 5.7 they know not what they say That man must do and man must act and man must use the means and the like it declares to me they were never yet met in the way going to Damascus they were never yet un-horst and laid flat to the earth Oh Beloved this work of Salvation it is a marvellous work for the Lord to reveal his Son in man Gal. 1 16. the world knows nothing of it but they have some notions of Heaven without them and of a Christ without them and Religion is now made an easie and a common thing almost every one is Religious Religion is the fashion of the Age and its a shame to be otherwise and they think this is enough But to make Christ in us the hope of Glory this is none of mans work but t is the Lords doing and t is marvellous in our eyes For Christ to dye for us when we were sinners and enemies to salvation Col. 1.27 Psal 118.23 Rom. 5.8.10 and for him then to dye for us and to reconcile us by his death this the world knows little of I appeal to every renewed soul here whence is it that any of you are come to be Christians and of men and women of a Devillish nature to be made partakers of the Divine Nature of a Bryar and a Thorn and a Bramble 2 pet 1.4 which was fit for nothing but the fire and burning to become a Heavenly plant and a branch in the true Vine Jesus Christ How came this about was it ever your own work or your own seeking nay did you not fight against this work and oppose it he that findes it not so never yet was partaker of it He never yet could say Vnto me a Child was born and a Son given whose name is called Wonderful Councellour the Mighty God the Everlasting Father and the Prince of peace except he have found in himself as the Lord saith there in Isaiah 9.5.6 Esa 9.5 6. Every battel of the Warriour is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood this must be with burning and fewel of fire This * As that precious instrument in the hand of the Lord Dr. Everard expounds that place in his Sermons call'd Gospel Treasure opened pag. 61. c. alwayes goes before that Christ is given to any of the sons of men Beloved do but examine your own hearts and you shall finde it was thus and it must be thus was ever the strong man bound and cast out of his house and possession without resisting will man lose his life and suffer all his riches and goods to be taken away and never strive nor oppose And was this work ever done by a still-work and using of Ordinances and joyning here and there and man never disturbed but that out of his natural and dead condition he hath dreamed and slept himself into a new nature and into the condition of a Christian No my brethren conversion is an otherguesse thing then most men hold forth And if men see but a want in themselves and then resolve that they must seek after a Heaven to fill up this want and to that end run to this duty and tother fellowship and think he must be constant in the use of Ordinances and if he do but beleeve in an external Christ then the work is done and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs Alas all this is but the way of man and by all this they do but make a Proselyte and those that teach thus they do but sew pillows under all arm-holes and cry peace peace when there is no peace but have made themselves Aprons Ezek. 13 18. and blesse themselves in an unsound condition and heale the wound of the daughter of my people slightly Wo to these Women saith the Prophet there for this is nothing but Weakness nay herein they have made them two-sold more the Children of Hell then before Mat. 23.15 Col. 3.1 If men are risen with Christ let them shew me how they were crucified dead and buried with him if they are come to Canaan let them shew me how the alone Mighty and Outstretched hand of the Lord hath brought them out of Egypt and how they came through the Sea and through the Wilderness Indeed I confesse these people they talk of signs and marks of the people of God Mat. 12 38 c. but to them there shall be no sign given but that of the Prophet Jonah as he was three days and three nights in the Whales belly so must the Son of man be buried in the heart of the Earth Go ye and learne what this means Art thou cut off from thy old root from the wilde Olive hast thou felt this burning hast thou lost thy own life art thou buried with Christ hast thou been three dayes in the heart of the earth and in the Whales belly hast thou had in thee the battail of the Warriours and the confused noise Esa 9.5 and the
garments rolled in blood hast thou seen the massacre of thy own life and the burning and the spoil and the fewel of fire in thee Then this shall be a sign to thee that to thee the Child is born and the Son given And thou hast then seen him to be the Mighty God the great Councellour the Wonderful and the Prince of peace Beloved you may talk what ye will of this mark and tother sign for saith Christ Ver. 6. Indeed the men of this Generation seek after signs but let them never once name and other sign till they finde this sign in them Have ye found this cutting off from your selves and this planting by the Lord alone Never tell me of Ordinances nor of Washings nor of Breaking bread nor of any of your rules or forms mind you only this signe this mark before ever ye look for any other of being risen with Christ and the like He that knows not these things in himself knows nothing Christ comes not to send peace before he hath sent the sword Mat. 10.34 What 's now all your doings all your dippings washings baptisms if ye have not this Baptisme all the other can never make the doers thereof nor the commers thereunto perfect Heb. 9.9 10.1 And till this be all your baptisms and worships are but from men and not from Heaven and all your Ordinances are but the Ordinances of men neither do you know what an Ordinance of Christ is for all these are but shadows your Sabbaths your new moons all things of this nature for the body is Christ Col. 2.17 If Christ himselfe will make use of these then indeed they are HIS Ordinances and there is life and power in them but as men use them they are empty cold dead and they change not the commers therunto at all for they are alive still and their spirit is yet whole in them and they have no change wrought in them from the men of the World for they are as much in love with honour and credit and all the things of the world as any other men Mat. 7.20 Col. 3.1 by their fruits ye may know them and yet they professe to be risen with Christ and to seek those things that are above why because they mistake things that are above But because they go to Church and hear and pray and fast and conform to Johns Baptism therefore they conclude they mind the things of God and seek after them Beloved to be risen with Christ is another manner of thing and it must be done by another manner of power then these men ever felt Even the very same Almighty power that raised up Iesus from the dead else they do but delude themselves This work is done by no other but by his own eternal spirit And men need not seek to any other help or means but him as thinking they can doe themselves any good But here now comes in the common Objection at which all men having not the work wrought in themselves stumble and fall Obj. and over this block they cannot get Although it is true that God does all and he must give a new heart Ezek. 11.19 and take out the stony heart and give an heart of flesh Thus far they will joyn in with you But must not man do his part and use the means that it may be effected This indeed hath been Answ and is and shall be the great stumbling block in all ages for men having not the experience of these things done in themselves they dreame of mans doing acting and working and he must put himselfe upon this duty and that when as I told you before no man seeks for Heaven as this Heaven and how then can he use the meanes for it when he never once desires the true Kingdome of Heaven but hates it opposes it runs from it useth all his inventions and weapons offensive and defensive to keep it out and desires the Lord to depart from him Job 21.14 Mat. 8.34 for be desireth not the knowledge of his wayes and with the Gergesens rather then they will part with their swinishness and that mire wherein they wallow they will meet Christ and desire him not to come neere them but to depart out of their coasts so well do all men out of Christ love him and seek after him or use meanes to come to him But to answer more particularly I do not ☜ nor never did deny the use of the meanes in the hand of the Father for the meanes do nothing but the Fathers hand only And God never intended a carnal meanes should effect a spiritual work He is a spirit and those that worship him John 4.24 must worship him in spirit and truth The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual And they are mighty in the hand of God 2 Cor. 10 4. John 3.6 not in the hand of man not in our selves but in him That which is borne of the flesh is flesh but that which is borne of the spirit is spirit And what is it that men make out about this Objection but this that men must do and men must strive and men must watch 't is true what meanes soever God pleaseth to use shall prevaile but if use by man it does nothing at all can a spiritual thing come out of a carnal can a cleane thing come out of an uncleane And therefore 't is cleare to me and to all the people of God and to their experience That the Lord makes no use of mans power or strength or wisdome or watchfulnesse or industry but what is done in man Gen. 1.3 't is purely the hand and power of the Lord. If HE say the word Let there be light in such a soul 't is done if he say to the Lepers Luke 5.12 17.17 Mark 7.34 v. 14. Chap. 5.24 be ye cleane 't is done If he say to the eares EPHPHATHA be ye opened And young man I say unto thee Arise And to the sick Arise take up thy bed and walk then the work is done But men not knowing the work and power of God they are alwayes Harping on this string on mans power acting working striving and the like I but they object further I Object but must not man use external meanes as Preaching and hearing and reading the Scripture and the like Answ Although he do Answ yet what doth all this do except the power of God be in it The Lord is pleased in this Book of the Bible to speak out the things belonging to the Kingdome of Heaven and he is pleased to stoop so low to us to represent by external things those things that are high and spiritual and saving but alasse they are all MYSTERIES and they cannot be known but in the light of God and not in the light of man but as God is pleased to make them out in man else no man knows what they meane in their own nature And