corrupt or enlighten'd nature is but a fool and as the Beasts that perish as to all his eternal Concerns Gospel Things or Truths Psal. 49. 12 20. Jer. 10. 23. 1 Cor. 2. 14. All such things are or seem foolishness to him because he is a fool All words or fruits utter'd or brought forth in his own nature at best which he trusts and advises others to trust in are lying vanities perishing transient shadows He walks in a vain shew sees teaches is nothing but vanity altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5 6. Ezek. 13. 6. He neither consider's the fading nature of all he 's possess'd of nor the everlasting Life Righteousness and things of God he wants He hugg's himself as rich and happy when in truth miserable poor blind and naked Such fools were the Laodiceans Rev. 3. 17. and the Corinthians 1 Cor. 4. 8 10. Both these mistake's in embracing and waxing confident in false and in rejecting true riches Christ found the young Man in Mat. 19. 20 -22. Men reckon they want nothing for true blessedness when they want every thing Thus foolish Men's words swallow up themselves or expose themselves and others to be swallow'd up in a spirit of unchangeable darkness and death God will take all such wise fools in their own craftiness as knowing all their thoughts vain 1 Cor. 3. 19 20. They think of trust in relie upon and teach nothing but vanity and this in unchangeable enmity to God and all the reproofs and instructions of true Wisdom Prov. 1. 20 32. They craftily and subtily defend themselves and secure nature's head from his spiritual Cross Gospel-fire and Sword and so swallow up sink and drown themselves and all that follow their words of Counsel into everlasting destruction and perdition Vers. 13. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is mischievous madness From first to last he sets up and pleads for a life that 's changeable in it self and enmity to God as true happiness He begins sets out and 〈◊〉 in this folly till fix'd in enmity and so guilty of mischievous madness 〈◊〉 might and main to render others Children of 〈◊〉 with himself Mat. 23. 15. Vers. 14. A Fool also is full of words a Man cannot tell what shall be and what shall be after him who can tell him Abounding in words is a 〈◊〉 of both literal and mystical Fools as highly 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 false 〈◊〉 measures of 〈◊〉 The mystical or wise Fool is in total darkness as to his 〈◊〉 concerns is wholly ignorant of the obedient Saints true 〈◊〉 or life and state 〈◊〉 to be for ever blessed And as ignorant is he as to the 〈◊〉 most deplorable state of himself and followers incorrigible haters of God in eternal Death This unutterable distress confusion and 〈◊〉 that comes after all the mirth and jollity in his self-pleasing thought and foolish way will be an absolute amazing surprize and disappointment to him Who can tell 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall come to 〈◊〉 after his life and race in this world The truly wise spiritual Saint can But he 'l not hear believe or regard his words Vers. 15. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the City All the labour of 〈◊〉 wise-Fool in the restor'd righteous life and wisdom of man for Salvation is term'd in Scripture but bodily exercise that profiteth little or but for a little time in suppressing the vile affections of corrupt nature but when once knowingly kept up in wilful unchangeable 〈◊〉 to God most highly displeasing to God and not only unprofitable but utterly destructive to man After or by all such 〈◊〉 he 'l find it impossible for him to go or get into the City New 〈◊〉 All such will be found those mystical Dogs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murderers and Idolaters that have loved and made or 〈◊〉 on Satan's lie from first to last against God's truth Rev. 22. 15. So will they be shut out of the said City for ever and 〈◊〉 their portion in the lake of fire Rev. 21. 8. among damned Angels and Men 2 Thess. 2. 11 12. Mat. 25. 41. Ver. 16. Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child and thy Princes eat in the morning In letter a sore punishment to a Nation is a childish Ruler or King unfit for Government as given up to all sorts of evil and misgovernment in his own Person implied by eating in the morning as voluptuous in gratifying his evil sensual appetites or lusts This is Wo to him and the Land under his Government For instead of being a praise and encouragement to good works and workers and a terrour to evil as he ought Rom. 13. 3. he will be found in a directly contrary practice But the mystical and principal sense here is this When the mystical Land or natural State of Man is cleans'd or swept from 〈◊〉 of flesh and Satan rather receiv'd into this cleans'd house Mat. 12. 43 45. then Christ as Ruler and King very great will be the Wo to the said Land For then is Man a slave to the Prince of darkness to do his will in all things This ruling Child or birth of the spirit of the Devil in Man will be found eating in the morning or gratifying his sinful love lust and desire with 〈◊〉 perishing meats and so will be establish'd with him in unchangeable enmity to God which brings him under the unchangeable wrath of God Vers. 17. Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness In 〈◊〉 where Governours are of a noble meetly qualified temper for Rule in a spirit of Justice and Wisdom the Land or people are happy The mystery or spiritual sense is this Those that are born of the spirit of Christ are of the Heavenly extraction and Pedigree Sons of Nobles as begotten by his Gospel-Ministers Apostles or messengers in which sense Paul calls Timothy his Son in the Gospel-life of Faith 1 Tim. 1. 2. and indeed Sons of the great King himself the only Potentate to whom of right all Rule belongs His one Spirit of everlasting Righteousness and true Wisdom sits them to be steddy doers of the divine Will in all things So under Christ's and their peaceable righteous Government will the whole Land Earth or World be blessed Isa. 32. 1. And the mystical Land Spirit and whole person of every Saint will be blessed under the Government of this Spirit of Christ in himself and themselves Vers. 18. By much slothfulness the building decayeth and thro' idleness of the hands the house droppeth thorow Here 's a reproof of Man's negligence or sloth under spiritual convictions of his interest in having the new-building of him carried on a-main and a discovery of the great danger thereof All favouring or keeping up the old hinders the new and so any happy proficiency progress or advance towards
everlasting righteous spiritual Life set up in them to wit the death of their natural state Christ could do nothing of himself or in his fleshly Law-life and state Joh. 5. 30. nothing that his Father sent him about His errand and business was to put it to death Passive obedience to his own Gospel-cross Spiritual-sword or Circumcision-knife was the high duty of his natural spirit and whole Man There 's no other way of coming to do all things well in God's sight which can only be in his Gospel-spirit or principle of everlasting righteousness and active obedience but by the passive obedience and death of our Law-spirit or natural state in which we can do nothing well before God nor ever enter into his Kingdom Christ in his Gospel-spirit the true principle of active obedience to God for ever did and said alwayes what was well-pleasing to to his Father Joh. 8. 29. as found in exact harmony with the very mind and will of his infinite divine spirit He despised the shame and contempt of those that despised his Crucified natural man Heb. 12. 2. And those that do not so he will despise disown reject and be ashamed of when he comes in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels Mark 8. 38. Christ's Doctrine was not his own but his that sent him Whoever does receive or despise and reject the words of his Gospel-spirit in himself or saints receives or despises the Father that sent him and him that sends them The four Gospels abound with words to this purpose especially John's First and second Covenant-Saints poor wise children in the second and Old doting foolish Kings in the first are in a perfectly cross constitution and thought about salvation absolute sools to one another The Cross on Man's wisdom is reckon'd the starkest arrantest folly and madness imaginable by natural Man and Angel But one broken contrite-spirited crucified Saint is of more esteem with God than millions of unbroken uncrucified Men and Angels in all the excellencies glories wisdom and righteousness of their first-creation humane and angelical natures Isai. 66. 1 2. Man's day or light and Judgment in first-covenant wisdom and God's day of Judgment in the second will be found in flat contradiction to each other in this grand concern of men about Salvation Whose Judgment whose word will stand His or theirs Think well on 't before too late Ther 's no speaking at present to the old self-deafned doting foolish King by the poor wise Child He scorns and rejects with a wry mouth Rhetorical mockings in utmost contempt all his words and warnings His whole Gospel-doctrine of the cross on all the foolish King rest's in for Salvation is rejected as absolute foolishness and madness 1 Cor. 1. 18 -- 23. and 4. 8. 10. Hos. 9. 7 8. These foolish self-confident first-covenant fifth-monarchists that tugge it out somtimes with worldly Caesars for the civil sword as that by which to manage the reign of Christ in this world are but at the same work the Jews desired to have Christ have been at by owning himself a King in his first-covenant law-life and righteousness of man which he refused them in 〈◊〉 6. 15. Refusing to be a King in the fading Law-principle of first-covenant life and operation and asserting his kingdom in the Gospel-spirit of the second they crucified their king Joh. 19. 15. They that would have set up Christ for their King in this world against Caesar say to rid their hands of him we have no King but Caesar in answer to Pilat's question This is the confusion and falshood found in man's shusfling wisdom on all accounts at every turn about and against his own Salvation When God not only by words but deeds in his blasting dispensations witnesses his displeasure against them and all their false confidences not suffering them to prosper in them 〈◊〉 2. 37. still they are at the same point When they find mystical gray hairs decays and old age convincing Harbingers and Messengers of the approaching Death upon them as to all that 〈◊〉 Life and Riches they have trusted in still there they 'l hold and hope for safety When God comes upon them in his beginning Judgments on that State they trust in so as undeniably to evidence to them that as six'd in 't is but the Mystical Land of their Nativity and Border of Wickedness and they therein the People against which and whom he hath Indignation for ever Mal. 1. 4. still they obstinately rest and trust for safety therein Here 's the case of these old foolish Kings that will not be brought to any happy obedient chang of mind by any thing the Lord either say's or does to them They obstinately persist in bringing forth Wild Grapes Gall and Worm-wood from a bitter Root of Enmity in them against God And they will still needs pass for his only Gospel-People and Saints when a downright Synagogue of Satan fix'd in unchangable Enmity and Rebellion against him This do they to their litteral Graves And to carry on the like destructive work on others that they leave behind them as their Counsel-Legacy to them in their dying words they 'l charg their hearers the pretended Gospel-Churches of Christ that they look not after regard or receive any other Gospel then that accursed false one they have Preach'd to them even the same the Old Serpent Preach'd to Eve that Eternal Life is to be found in the Old or first-Creation State of nature and that they shall not die at all and so that all Preaching the Cross and Death upon it is a Blasphemous fiction against the Law and that Holy place or State of Man Thus the Jews accused Stephen Act. 6. 13. The whole Gospel is reckon'd by them Blasphemy against the Law The whole current of Scripture in the Gospel-sense of all run's for the Poor Wise Child But the whole current of their false other Law-Gospel and short sighted Interpretation of all Scripture run's cleerly for the old Foolish King in exact Harmony with the Old Serpent that Bewitches Teachers and Hearers through self-love to the sading Life and Glory of their own nature into a state of unchangable Enmity to God and Death to themselvs with him Oh but say they that which you call Satan's and our accursed other Gospel is the very same you call Christ's You only come forth in an affected singularity of words but say all the same things we do We Preach and own the Cross of Christ. Upon what The corrupt Spirit of fallen nature with the vile affections and lusts thereof But what say you to the Cross on your enlight'ned restor'd righteous nature made Wise Strong and Honourable in Conformity to that Life of the Law or Holy Flesh Christ took as Born of a Virgin Is this the Subject of the Cross of Christ Are ye willing to part with all this in case ye had it to part with To despise your own righteous Law-Life or Living Soul for Christ's Gospel-Spirit
will both come to in Eternal Life or Death Vers. XIV For out of Prison he cometh to Reign Heb. Out of the House of Bond-Men or Bondage he goes forth to Reign Whereas also he that is Born in his Kingdom becometh Poor The true Saint finding the Land of his Nativity a narrow strait'ned place the Life of his own nature in the Image of the earthy at best to be but a State of Enmity Bondage and death come's out of this his own Mystical Countrey and Father Adam's House or natural State by a Holy death to reign in another Spiritual more excellent Life He find's his own Spirit of nature in whatever variety of condition a State of Bondage or House of Bond-Men a Prison a deep dark Dungeon a miery Pit of filth and corruption filth of flesh or spirit litteral or Mystical Sodomy or both out of which by the death thereof he find's it his unspeakable advantage to Ascend come or be brought forth into a larg place in a Life above all death to Reign whereas the old foolish King who will no more be admonish'd hear of the Cross or death-Doctrin of Christ's Gospel-Spirit on the restor'd Law-Life of his own wherein he sets up his Kingdom becometh Poor He is even now in this World by Christ and awak'ned Saints seen to be Miserable Poor Blind and Naked as Happy Rich Cleer-sighted and Well-cloathed as he think 's himself He will find this too true at last in eternal Poverty Darkness Nakedness and Death Here are the exceeding different Conclusions they come to even the old foolish King in the birth of a first-Covenant Life fixing himself there in unchangable Enmity to God and the second the incorrigible first-Creation sinner and the poor wise Child broken and undone as to all the fading Life Riches Wisdom and Glory of his own nature and so becoming a truly reigning new-Creation Saint in the spirit of Grace the reigning Gospel-Principle That restor'd natural State which the old foolish King sets up in as his Palace the House of his Kingdom to reign in the poor wise child find's to be a Prison and hasten's out of it as a Spirit of Bondage and Enmity into the true Palace-Light and Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God whom the Son mak's free indeed Where the Spirit of the Lord becom's the principle of Life and action there is true liberty Man's freedom or freewill at best is but a Liberty in Word Figure Letter Shadow not in deed and in truth No true freedom sure in a Spirit of Bondage and Enmity to God a Spirit that 's in Union with World and Devil as the spirit of nature is in all mankind corrupt or righteous Yea so far as uncrucifi'd even in the awak'ned Spiritual Saint himself Ro. 7. and Gal. 5. 17. That renew'd natural State the old foolish King make's his Palace will prove his everlasting prison and dungeon of darkness and death in which he will be shut up for ever as the evil Angels in their narrow Angelical nature All of them shall be dealt with as unchangable Enemies of God and that Heavenly Sanctuary-Spirit that 's his true resting place and the everlasting habitation of blessed Angels and Saints in Chains of everlasting darkness in which reserv'd to the Judgment of the great day The unpardonable sin of Men and Angels is the self-same even a fix'd Enmity against the Holy Ghost God's Gospel-spirit or Heavenly Sanctuary convincingly shewed and offered to them all They were all Created perfect in their own natures Humane and Angelical Ezek. 28. 15. and in Obedient Subjection to the Gospel-Spirit in the Light of it But they soon hated that Life turned from the Light that shew'd it them and this was their Apostasy All this from an evil self-love to the fading Life Wisdom and Glory of their own nature which they chose to set up in in a known contrariety to the reveal'd mind of God and unchangable Enmity to his Spirit of Grace the very Gospel-High-Priest of God the true Melchisedec by whose hand they ought all to have given up that selfish life in Sacrifice to God So become they all Mystical Sodomit's guilty of all the highest and most Criminal Mystical Spiritual Wickednesses Uncleanesses and abominable Idolatries God in Faithfulness Favour and Love to his Saints Plagu's and Chasten's this Rebellious Spirit of nature this Carnal mind of Enmity in them while he gives more then Heart can wish to it in-Enemies to their final ruin Heb. 12. 5-8 Psal. 73. 7. 14. God's giving the old doting Kings their Hearts desire and more is a sore and heavy Judgment on them though they take it for a great favour and Token of his Love to them Desolation and an utter consuming of them with Terrors the true Saint certainly foresees to be the eternal issue of all their Temporal flourish and Prosperity v. 18 19. All the old foolish King dotes on the poor wise Child cast's away as Dung So foolish are the old Mystical Kings and also litteral Heathen Kings of this World as to bandy together against the Lord and his anointed as if hopeful to prevail against the infinite Divine Lord and his Anointed King Jesus with his Saints and Followers Their design is to break their Bands a sunder and cast away from them all their Cords of restraint upon them He that sits in Heaven laugh's at all these foolish Kings He will speak to them in his Wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure Ps. 2. 1-5 Have they an arm like God Can they thunder with a Voice like him What madness to think of prevailing in this Rebellious Insurrection and Contest against the Almighty Divine and Irresistibly Mighty New-Creation Power of Christ These old foolish Humane Kings will all fare as their evil Angelical King the King of all such Kings or Rebellious Children of Pride Job 41. 34. They 'l all 〈◊〉 into the same Condemnation with him will all have their Portion in the same Lake of Fire and Brimstone the Tophet prepar'd of old for them all They 'l be all finally stripp'd of all Power of resisting the Will of God and forc'd to suffer the same to be done upon them in 〈◊〉 Wrath. Then with their everlasting Poverty will they have unutterable Shame and Confusion of Face All they refus'd obediently to part with will be forcibly torn from them in final Wrath. All their fading goodness or beauty 〈◊〉 Consume in their eternal Grave from their dwelling their whole Mystical Houses earthly Habitations or persons all the goodness of that natural State they chose for their dwelling Ps. 49. 14. There 's no middle State for ever between the poor wise Child that will be eternally rich in Heaven and the old rich foolish King that will be eternally poor in Hell The poor wise Child believ's and follow 's the Faithful Sayings of Christ's Spiritual Law or Gospel-spirit the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus He is content willing yea glad
God and death to it self a Body a Law of Sin and Death as Paul found Rom. 7. 24. 8. 2. into the marvelous Palace or Paradisical Light and glorious Liberty of the Sons of God cannot forbear to go tell their 〈◊〉 how they fare They give them an account or true report of the new-creation Land of Promise or state of Life with the fruits and peculiar enjoyments therein above all other Countries Lands or States as far as the Heavens are above the Earth How is this News resented by these two sorts of Sodomites the Prophane in silth of 〈◊〉 or Legal-spirited Professor in filth of spirit enmity to God and all spiritual Truths that 's brought to both their ears by the Gospel-spirited Saint They all hiss at and deride his pretension to such Sun-light as the most presumtuous conceit and phanatical delusion in the World They sit them still won't budg an inch from their opinionated happiness in Rational Light and Moral Heathenism or first-covenant life also in Legal Christianity just as the case was in Plato's Apologue or fabulous Cave-students in their demeanour towards him that had ventur'd up a rocky Precipice with great difficulty and danger into the open Air and Sun-light on his return and tydings thereof to them What of all this The Saint is not to regard these contradicting Blasphemers misregarding him or his words nor be weary nor faint in his mind or Spirit Heb. 12. 3. They are to look wholly to God Christ blessed Angels and Saints that know and own them for what they know themselves to be What matters it for Man's day or judgment in which nothing of their spiritual life or doctrine is rightly seen felt heard or understood Saints by spiritual senses do all this natural never can do They hear see look upon and handle the Word of life even the original new-creature life in the living Word Wisdom of God Christ's Person 1 〈◊〉 1. 1. And they 〈◊〉 such life also in the derived streams of the living waters thereof in true Saints When their own Spirit is dead in Man's sight and judgement 't is most of all alive in God's Sight in his Spirit of Grace And those that live and spend their Widow-hood on Christ's death and departure from them as a 〈◊〉 first-Covenant Bridegoom in the pleasures of that life he has forsaken them in however alive in Man's sight are dead in God's while they so live 1 Tim. 5. 6. Incorrigible sinners in filth of Flesh or Spirit pass along this mortal World and Life jollily in the broad way to an eternal house of mourning Job 21. 13. Psal. 39. 5 6 11. Psal. 49. 10 -- 20. while true Saints through much tribulation and mourning are passing into an eternal house of feasting Those that will on in their various temporary houses or states of feasting literal or mystical making large and swift steps towards the Chambers of death seem to have much the better on 't in this World Who can help them Who can lift them up out of these drowning self-chosen lustful goatish ways of Vanity that will most certainly set them among the left hand 〈◊〉 Goats at last day Mat. 25. 33. Will ye hear a Wonder Spiritual Saints have the best on 't even in this World as thus They have the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come True Godliness the power of Godliness is profitable to all things The form of it and bodily exercise or the fruitful exercise of Man 's cleans'd natural Spirit therein profits little The truely pure sinless use of worldly enjoyments without any sinful love to or delight in them and spending the strength of all in a serviceableness to the designs and interests of Christ upon and in Men belongs to the true Spiritual Saint only And they have a daily encrease with the encreases of God in the promised life of the World to come So have they the best on 't indeed and in truth even in their mortal day and state on earth All their Tribulations Persecutions and seeming worst things are wholly and exactly calculated for their good by him who cannot miss of accomplishing his design upon them therein and by There are three sorts of Men on the stage of this Earth together in a confused jumble as a mix'd heap in mortal bodies Profane inhabitants of the Sea in the corrupt Spirit of nature of the Earth in the righteous cleans'd earthy state or spirit of nature and dwellers in Heaven or in God's heavenly Spirit of Grace Rev. 12. 12. All People upon Earth are living and walking in the corrupt or changeably righteous Spirit of Nature or in God's unchangeably righteous Spirit of Grace No state in changeable nature is unchangeable or everlasting Salvation but a state of Grace only Eph. 2. 8 9. Not our working Spirit of Nature but God's working all in us and for us by his Gospel-Spirit of Grace will give us entrance into his Kingdom 'T is the unspeakable new-creation gift of God and workmanship of Christ fits any for the Kingdom And 't is then the unspeakable folly and madness of Man to refuse the receiving that Gift on any terms seem they never so hard to his nature Wo to Laughers they shall weep and mourn eternally Blessed are the mourners they shall rejoyce and laugh eternally These were Christ's spiritual sayings and warnings to all when in our flesh And he will be the Judge of all in that Spirit wherein himself is justified for ever in our nature before God most high 1 Tim. 3. 16. An innumerable multitude that have thought it so brave to have their wills in this World will meet with unimaginable amazing surprizing disappointments in the next An irresistible blast an irrecoverable death-blow will they be fore'd to receive on all first-creation delights desires and desirables belly and meats 1 Cor. 6. 13. All these dreadful things the living spiritual Saint lays to heart and as knowing the terrors of the Lord what a fearful thing 't is to fall into the hands of the living God and be torn in pieces without any possibility of deliverance Heb. 10. 31. Psal. 50. 22. endeavours to perswade Men while call'd to day to desist from their jovial march and swift posting it in their several sensual and intellectual paths of delight and present pleasure to their mis-judging nature which do all tend to meet and center in one and the same point a state of everlasting darkness and death under the triumphs of divine Justice and final Wrath. Solomon bewail's the unhappy choice most Men make of the merry self-pleasing-paths to eternal mourning But to allay the compassionating grief of this undeniably true observation he discovers an opposite party of happy People that in a new life and spiritual understanding do lay all these errors follies and madnesses of their fellow-mortals to heart though they can have little or no hearing with them and that find it their unspeakable concern
of deceits full of snares and nets as the very Kingdom of God and Salvation to men And they 〈◊〉 others to hope that they will confirm or make good their word Ezek. 13. 6. In a 〈◊〉 spirit of Divination do Devil and Man joyntly declare this and boldly affirm 't is in the Lord's Spirit of Truth they say so They say the Lord saith They see nothing but vanity and preach up nothing but perishing vanities the natural excellencies or fading things of Man or Angel in the first-creation for eternal Life They speak only of the world this world's vanities and the world hears them all the world wonder 's after them 1 Joh. 4. 5. Rev. 13. 3. All in the but earthly spirit of nature corrupt or righteous are for such Preaching or none at all Satan's Apostles or Ministers come forth in great variety of form language and way all making but a universal Babel of confusion running their hearers into the very bosom of the Devil the bottomless-pit of all deceits and falshoods as their only security for Salvation Men are deeply concern'd to take heed who they hear not such strangers to and enemies of Christ's Gospel Jo. 10. 4 5. and then what and how they they hear Mark 4. 24. Luk. 8. 18. that they rightly take the voice or words of the true Shepherd and his Spiritual Apostles or Messengers and obey them Many may hear right Gospel-words and not understand them Mark 4. 12. And then they 'l not follow or obey them but run still after Satan's Law-Gospel Those that distinguish not the Words of God's from those of the Serpent's Man's Wisdom how should they scape the snares of this grand mystical Adulteress If they suffer themselves willingly to be beguil'd into a perswasion that Satan's Gospel and that which true Saints call Christ's are all one they are caught in the snares of the Devil Satan's Apostles say those that pretend to be Christ's differ from them only in an affected singularity and disguise of words not matter While this shuffle will serve the turn Satan's Gospellers find it not needful or convenient to enter the lists for a debating the case with Sion-Saints about a true Gospel-state But if Christ's Gospel come forth in such sharp discriminating language as to evidence its distinction in the whole matter of it from Satan's and Man's then to prevent yet any farther trouble about it they sit in their Majesterial Chair and in general without meddling with any particular in it decry it for the most dangerous destructive blasphemy and falshood that ever was invented or impos'd upon Men worse then Popery or Mahumetanism then the grossest Idolatries or most brutish practices of any Heathens This general vilifying Christ's whole Gospel-doctrine and assertors of it as the vilest of doctrines and men they 〈◊〉 a far easier and safer way then to meddle with any particulars of it Thus far and at this rate only seems the shock of opposition to be given to it and manag'd against it at this day But if matters once grow to that pass that some valuable number of awaken'd Saints and spiritually convinced Men should be the Assertors Followers and Owners of the very Christ the very Gospel so as to give occasion to Satan's Gospel-ministers to say in the same levened sowr spirit of enmity to God with the Pharisees Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing behold the World is gone after them when this comes to pass enemies will go another way to work The Jews when they could not resist or bear up against the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake they could and did through the permission of God and instigation of the Devil silence him as they reckon'd with stones But he being dead yet speaketh as Abel and all other such witnessing Saints most injuriously slain for the Testimony of Jesus in the Spirit of true Prophecy The regenerating transforming assimilating touch of the Gospel-spirit of Christ sixes Man 's versatile changeable Law-spirit in eternal obedience to and harmony with God The degenerating transforming assimilating touch of the spirit of the Devil on Man's fixes it with himself in unchangeable enmity to God as the very principle of his life desire thought word and action By one or other of these unchangeable good or evil spirits comes man to be lodg'd up in a state of eternal life or death a bed of true rest and unspeakable joy Isa. 57. 1 2. or of everlasting sorrow Isa. 50. 11. torment and vexation of Spirit He that 's born of God's unchangeably good Spirit is secure from the transforming touch of the unchangeable evil-one 1 Joh. 5. 18. The touch of spirits is a qualifying alterative touch baptizes Man's changeable spirit into the unchangeable toucher the Spirit of God or of the Devil By the death of their own spirit that Satan can touch and 〈◊〉 into the life of God's Spirit he can 〈◊〉 touch by this way and means and this only are Saints 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 from all the nets and snares of this grand Adulteress the Devil The whole World all that take up in their worldly earthly life of nature run into them A babe a suckling in Christ's Spirit is too hard for 〈◊〉 Psal. 8. 2. Man in the highest restor'd perfections of his own is no body in his hands Job 41. The incorrigible first-creation sinner is taken by her the new-creation Saint who alone pleases God shall escape all her nets snares hands or bands for ever Vers. 27. Behold this have I found saith the Preacher counting one by one to find out the account Solomon in the Sanctuary-balance the al-searching new-Creation Spirit of true prophecy weigh'd one thing after another so as to give a clear and full account of what he was so inquisitive after an everlasting state of Truth and Righteousness He weigh'd and tried all parts of the first Creation the utmost goodness and excellencies found in Man and Angels before their fall or restor'd in Men since and in the total sum of all found the one thing necessary for the true blessedness of any wanting 'T is not in the whole first-Creation Land of the living Job 28. 21. or state of Life No such thing found he in the whole heap of this World's Vanities So arriv'd he at this negative satisfaction that there 's no hope of ever finding true happiness there He resolv'd therefore no longer to squander away his time with others in seeking for the living amongst the dead or true Life and Happiness in a Region of Darkness and of the shadow of Death No such life as will swallow up Death into Victory is to be found there nothing but what Death will swallow up into Victory and triumph over for ever This he declares Vers. 28. Which yet my Soul seeketh but I find not one Man among a thousand have I found but a Woman among all those have I not found No unchangeably good thing could he find in the first-creation What then found he One
wisdom of man is nothing in the case The words of God's Wisdom his oracles whether given in Dreams Visions or by his true Prophets are too hard for that interpreter The new-creature wisdom of God in Daniel and the three Children was ten times better than that in all the Magicians or wise men in the Realm Dan. 1. 20. In this could Daniel tell both the oraculous dream of Nebuchadnezzar and the interpretation those wise men neither Dan. 2. The great prophetical Image of worldly Monarchy from that day to the end of this World Man's day and Satan's reign was the matter of the Dream Then the Dream of the great high Tree which more particularly related to Nebuchadnezzar himself was interpreted by Daniel also Dan. 4. 22. And after this in the reign of Belshazzar grandchild to Nebuchadnezzar did the same Daniel interpret the Mene Tekel on the Palace-Wall none of the wise Men of Babylon knew what to make of Dan. 5. 15. and v. 25 28 Daniel as an awakened spiritual Saint knew the interpretation of the thing or word no wisdom of Man could interpret Yet does the but restored righteous first-covenant Saint Wise Strong and Honorable in Christ there figur'd by the wise Men of Babylon Egypt and the King of Tyre presumptuously reckon himself wiser then Daniel or Paul Ezek. 28. 3. 1 Cor. 4. 10. The Queen recommending Daniel to frighted amaz'd King Belshazzar when she saw his thoughts trouble him and Countenance chang'd said there 's a man in thy Kingdom in whom is the Spirit of God an excellent Spirit having the light understanding and wisdom of God in it by which he had knowledge and understanding for interpreting dreams shewing hard sentences and dissolving doubts or untying knots as the Chaldee reads Daniel interprets the Mene Tekel and the execution was speedy For that night was King Belshazzar slain by the Medes and Persians who after two years siege then enter'd the Town by diverting the River Euphrates Dan. 5. 5 -- 31. Here 's the truly 〈◊〉 man His Wisdom consists in and is evidenced by a right interpreting of Parables and dark sayings of important concern in their significancy but too obscure and difficult for man's wisdom at best to deal with or unriddle Neither literal nor mystical Magicians Men or Angels in any first-creation understanding or learning can interpret them Such another as Daniel was Joseph long before Pharaoh had two Oraculous Dreams that by their impression upon his mind signified that they signified some important thing to him and his people but what he could not tell This was left for the true interpreting Spirit in Joseph to declare Nebuchadnezzar knew tho' his Dream was slipp'd from him that 't was an Oracle from God and had a concerning significancy so his spirit was troubled as Pharoah's in like case till they both knew what their Dreams meant Dan. 2. 1. Gen. 41. 8. They were both perfect puzzlers to the wisdom of man None of the wise men in Egypt or Babylon could interpret either of these Kings Dreams Pharoah's doubled Dream in two distinct Sleeps signified the same things seven years Plenty and then seven of Famine The fat and lean Kine coming out of the River Nile signified the same cause of the Plenty and Famine of the Plenty by its wonted overflowings and of the Famine by failing therein The two Kings for the signal benefits they received by the hand of these two choice Saints advanc'd them to great worldly dignities in their several Kingdoms and days The Reason given was because the Spirit of God was in them Gen. 41. 38. Dan. 2. 48. 5. 11. Is this a qualification for preferment with Kings now a-days tho' call'd Christian that these two Heathen Princes preferr'd Joseph and Daniel for Were there true Gospel-Saints in Heathen Cesars houshold Phil. 4. 22. in Paul's time Where are such now in Christian Cesars housholds The Wisdom then or Understanding that judges or 〈◊〉 all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. and so can interpret all words into those things signified by them as God's full intent and meaning in them this renders the happy 〈◊〉 thereof the wise man here meant It makes him a Seer of God one that can read understand and declare the whole Counsel of God about the Salvation of men Such Wisdom as reaches the deep things of God's very Divinity and most excellent spiritual creature-things of Christ and God sure natural the lowest general rank of things in Man and Angel's first-creation-make can't lie hid from The divine and spiritual things of God knoweth no Man or Angel in their single natural make or state but in the Spirit of God the new-Creature Gospel-spirit of Christ becoming the Principle of their Life and discerning by a new-Creation of them 1 Cor. 2. 10 15. Such Wisdom is not found in the first-creation Land of the living or State of Life Visible or invisible natural things first-creation Vanities are the bounding utmost immediately discernable objects of the highest Wisdom in that state No fowls of the Air Angels by their mystical Vultur's Eye or quickest clearest natural sight do so much as reach that place or spiritual state in Christ where true Wisdom and Understanding are found Job 28. 7 12 13 20 21. Spiritual Light darted on the natural Understanding of Man or Angel may convince them both that there are not only Divine but Spiritual new-Creature things which are quite out of the reach of their bare natural Understandings And that 't is in the awak'ned principle of spiritual Life only they can properly and fully see and enjoy such things All then that undertake to handle the written Oracles or Word of God without this only Key or true interpreting Wisdom of God communicated to them in his Creature-Spirit of Grace we may easily judg what work they are like to make on 't or what recompence they 'l have for their pains How Men that handle the written Word of God in a Wisdom and Spirit that 's foolishness and enmity to the living Word Spirit and Wisdom of God will be handled by that living Word at last may easily be guess'd Man in all first-Covenant Life Light Wisdom Righteousness Holiness is but holy flesh wise strong and honourable in Christ yet but the natural Man that can't receive the things of God for they are foolishness to him and Paul or any true Spiritual Saint is reckon'd a fool for owning or asserting any such things 1 Cor. 2. 14. 4. 8 10. They are not the objects of the natural understanding are only spiritually discern'd And he is offended and stumbles at the cross-doctrine of death to his natural state as undispensably necessary to his coming at true Wisdom or spiritual Understanding Such doctrine he reckons folly and madness 1 Cor. 1. 23. Joh. 10. 20. Hos. 9. 7 8. First then negatively where is true Wisdom not to be found not in the first-Creation Land of the living Then affirmatively where is it to be had
needy natural man of the Saint causes him as a poor man in vile raiment to be bidden by man to sit here under his footstool importing the very height of contempt towards him while there 's a huge bussle for the giving the other a high place in honour and respect to him or rather to his mystical gay clothing kept on in enmity to the Cross but put off by the Spiritual Saint and refus'd ever to be put on again let men take it how they will Jam. 2. 1 -3. Cant. 5. 3. God requir's the putting off those first-Covenant Ornaments Devils and Men put such a preferring value upon that he may know what to do with us by setting up the life and clothing us with the everlasting Righteousness Beauty Glory and ornaments of the second Exod. 33. 5. Wise Holy first-Covenant righteous Men and God are of a directly contrary judgment in this case Rom. 2. 29. Those God highly esteems and loves they scorn and hate as the filth of the World the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. Thus are they found in harmony with the invisible Principalities and Powers of this world the evil Angels They both and all center in this point a resolution in the earthly principle or natural spirit to despise and contend against the impoverish'd natural man of the truly wise rich strong and honourable spiritual Saint They shoot all their malicious revengeful arrows at him So are true Saints by their true Gospel-life Conversation words and way rendred with Jeremy Men of contention with the whole earth or whole earthy party of evil Angels and Men. This evil Solomon saw practis'd under the first-creation Sun or in the first-Covenant spirit the Law-principle of life and action as an errour both visible and invisible Rulers of this world are ioyntly guilty of in using their utmost power for discouraging persecuting and suppressing the truly wise and rich spiritual Saint the only sort of men in this world that God highly esteem's and loves On all these accounts as to the errours of the visible and invisible Rulers of this World he farther says Vers. 7. I have seen Servants upon Horses and Princes walking as Servants upon the Earth The chief sense of these words is that evil Angels are permitted the exercise of a ruling power over this World fulfilling their pleasure both in the corrupt and refin'd spirit and principles of Nature in men Both evil Angels and Men in the said spirit of Bondage are but servants and slaves in God's sight objects of his everlasting contempt and wrath When Christ whose Right it is takes to himself his great Power and reign 's he will take away all their power and tread them under his and his Saints feet for ever But all along this World are these evil Angelical Principalities and Powers in with and by evil visible ones jointly riding over Saints heads Psal. 66. 12. under Christ's overtopping spiritual Power ordering all for the carrying on his designed work of the Cross on the natural spirit of the Saint that 's a spirit of Bondage in them For this reason are the true Princes or spiritual heaven born Sons walking on the Earth in an inferiority and subjection to these slavish servile-spirited Rulers that in their true Princely life they may come to ride over all those Servants heads that have bin their Masters All along this World the said Servants are on Horseback and true Princes a-foot At entrance of the Reign of Christ or beginning of the next such Princes will tread all such Servants for ever under their feet and ride in triumph with their Lord and Master the great Captain of their Salvation over all their heads Col. 2. 15. Heb. 2. 10 14. The very Prince of Life when he had taken our slesh suffer'd death therein under the visible and invisible Princes of this world Act. 3. 15. True Saints following his suffering steps will be found on their mystical white Horses with their Lord at last Rev. 19. 11 -14. Christ refused any ruling Power as a Judge or King in that earthly life of the Law wherein he was to suffer and did in obedience to his Father under the hors'd Princes of this World in the said earthly life and worldly power He walk'd as a Servant on the earth under them and so must Saints in obedience to the will of God and conformity to his example Joh. 10. 17 18. They must lay down their natural wherein they are Servants that they may take up his spiritual life wherein Sons of God and to be Princes on 〈◊〉 Saints are spiritual chast Doves that know not where to set their foot or sind any visible relief or support in this World Gen. 8. 8 9. As kept for their Heavenly Country are they not suffer'd to find any rest short of it They are hunted out of all false rests by their evil Rulers who intend their utter destruction But they find the new Name of the Lord a strong Tower and Ark of safety both from enemies and the flood of God's final Wrath that will overflow the whole first-creation Land of the living all fix'd in their earthly life of enmity to his Heavenly Vers. 8. He that diggeth a Pit shall fall into it and whoso breaketh an Hedg a Serpent shall bite him The pit here is the same blind Leaders with their followers fall into Mat. 15. 14. Psal. 7. 15. Many that are reckon'd to dig deep in Scripture all their interpreting thereof amounts to no more then the digging this dangerous and destructive pit an opening the very bottomless pit of the Devil and asserting it to be the Kingdom of God a teaching unchangeable union with the evil one as God sitting in the Temple of God and shewing himself that he is God And in all their Ministry to this purpose seeing nothing but vanity and lying 〈◊〉 they say The Lord saith and make others hope they 'l confirm the word that they have true peace with God when indeed in unchangable union with the Devil Thus do evil Men giving heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils cry up a fixure and establishment in the first-creation state of enlighten'd Righteous Nature in unchangeable opposition to God and his new-creation Spirit of Grace They prefer their Law-Spirit to his Gospel-Spirit which renders it the very bottomless pit they fall into under the final Wrath of God a deep ditch of stinking mire and silth for evermore Out of it there is no redemption 'T is very Hell Evil Angels Man's conclusive choice of that state makes it a pit of their own digging David found his own nature a deep mire where there 's no standing crying for deliverance out of it by a lifting him up out of his earthy spirit of nature into God's heavenly Spirit of Grace Psal. 69. 1 -- 3. The death of Nature under the Cross is our only way out of this miry pit of corruption into the life Christ will reign in t. And