Iob to say if I justifie my self my own mouth shall condemn me if I say I am perfect it shall also prove me perverse Though I were perfect yet would I not know my soul I would despise my life Iob 9. 20 21. Fourthly and lastly In a forwardness and readiness of mind to forget and leave behind all their present attainments and to be in a posture to receive words whereby they may be saved with which Peter came to the Centurion who seems to have had all these four particulars very visible and eminent in the good conscience he exercised whilst as yet he was neither under the law nor a believer but in the top-perfection as it were of this first dispensation waiting for that greater light and mercy to be revealed and communicated to him words whereby he might be saved Through the exercise of this natural good conscience and use of the means accompanying the same there is no man that comes into the world wherever he be born or educated but is in a capacity of being respected by God as a natural righteous man and so to be accepted with him in his alms and prayers which with the Centurion he may put up to God and thereby be taught how to escape the filthiness and gross corruptions of nature and to arrive at that state wherein he may find the like grace from God which the Centurion did that is to have the means sent unto him whereby he may be saved Thus by Christ is every man in the way of seeking the Lord if peradventure feeling after him he may find him who is not far from every one of us By this work of Christ in the conscience there is set up an enlightned moral principle of judgement and will opposite to and warring with the corrupt and degenerate part according to which Paul Rom. 7. said that he was alive once to wit in the exercise of such a moral good conscience and therefore in the Acts made it a part of his Confession that he had lived in all good conscience to that day that is to say in all the sorts of good conscience which men may live in First in such a one wherein he lived before the Law came to him in the life and power thereof Secondly in that wherein the life and power of the Law consisted And thirdly in that which is the obedience of Faith which Paul experienced after that blameless righteousness he lived in according to the Law And though the first of these be the lowest and weakest yet it brings forth a very beautifull and good change in naturall men under this first dispensation heightning their faculties and operations according to the measure of light and life they have attained unto and keeping up such righteousness which God thinks fit to reward and to carry himself favourably and propitiously towards those in whom it is found through the blood of Jesus the Mediator wherein that sort of men at this day that go under the name of Quakers are a most notable instance and lively witness For through a diligent and faithful improving of this very light within the conscience it is said Rom 2. that those that were without law did so become doers of the law by nature that they outstript the formal Jew and visible professour of God under the law In which case the uncircumcision are accounted by Paul when they keep and fulfill the righteousness required by the law to be equal with those that are under the law yea so far to surpass as to judge such of them who by the letter and circumcision becoming formal do transgress the law and not answer the end of it And indeed in the judgement and acceptation of God the natural man that is found by God doing the work of the law by nature working the righteousness and good therein required is according to his measure and answerable to what he hath received as much respected and regarded by God as he that is under the law serving and walking with God according to the ordinances and judgements thereof So the Apostle concludes Rom. 3. 28 29 30. when he looks upon both these states as comprehended under the law and equally falling short of the glory of God and righteousness that is by faith which comes alike to the one and to the other making no difference And yet comparing one with the other there is a very great difference by reason of the dispensations they are respectively under For so considered the Jew is first and then the Gentile the Jew is above and is neer the Gentile is below and afar off The Jew hath the ORACLES OF GOD committed unto him hath Gods visible sanctuary and presence to Israel pertains the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises and of them as concerning the flesh Christ came Through the want of all these priviledges the rest of the nations are called Gentiles aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise so as the light of the witness shining amongst them is but as the inferiour light appointed to rule the night in comparison of that by the law which is the greater light that rules the day In respect whereof the difference between these two generations of righteous men and sorts of good conscience under this first and second dispensation is very material and considerable For those that are doers of righteousness by nature as the former are not transplanted out of the first Adam but are rather healed of their deadly wound restored in principles to some measure and degree of the exercise of right reason and free will expecting in the way of their own personal righteousness and holiness as Adam did before thefall to live and please God until they be admitted unto such farther manifestation of his counsel as he yet reserves to communicate unto them But those that are doers of righteousness by the Law and as they are made under the power of the Law are taken out of that stock of the first Adam transplanted into the good Olive-tree the man Christ Jesus and made to partake of the fatness thereof Rom. 11. becoming thereby wholly a right seed Jer. 2. 21. a holy and righteous fleshly seed in the principles and operations of their mind answerable to the holy and righteous flesh of Christ and are taught to see the need of coming to God and of being accepted with him in the sacrifice or death of Christ who considered as coming in the flesh is given to them for a new head or root and so the root being holy in like manner are the branches and the first-fruits being holy so is the whole lump yet hereby they have no more security or freedom from the danger of falling away and being broken off again then the Gentile but still abide under works or the righteousness required by the Law wherein they may not only be ignorant of
second in the Trinity As Christ exercises this his creature-sight and discerning to which this outward Volume of Gods book is proportioned seen and known unto him are all the works of the first Creation in the order and manner wherein they are to be and have their share and lot given forth unto them in continuance of time yea the invisible substances of Angels and Men and all the life motion and demeanour wherein they are exercised from first to last upon the wavering unstable and conditional terms of their standing and holding communion with God in and by the first Covenant which communion being conditional throughout Christ doth therefore in this first book of life write down and blot out the names of those that are interested in this Covenant according as the condition is performed or not performed by them as we have in this Chapter already shewed from those Scriptures that describe this first book of life of the Lamb. Thirdly and lastly All things are naked and opened unto Christ the Mediator by reason of that his Heavenly creature-eye and most excellent way of discerning which is begotten in him as he is the first-born from the dead in which he is the quick and two edged sword so sharp powerful and piercing that it is able to divide asunder soul and spirit the joynts and marrow or to state the true difference between the creatures natural mind in the first building and its spiritual mind in the second whose priviledge it is to be admitted to the sight of the glory that is within the veil to hear the inward voyce and see the hidden similitude of God which no natural minds or discernings continuing meerly such have ever seen or can see in their highest attainments and improvements Through this third seeing power in the mind of Christ he is skilled and knowing in reading the third Volume of Gods book which contains the former two writings as well the inward as the outward so joyned and placed together as that they are comparing themselves thereby in their most perfect harmony and agreement as face answers face serving themselves of each other in such manner as may best unriddle and interpret the full and entire meaning of God in them both and herein unloose the seals that were upon the backside of the book so as the glory within the veil or inward writing may thereby shine forth upon the new-creature-discerning and yet keep the seals fast on still as to all natural eyes This writing and manifestation of God is his second appearance as he comes forth upon the creature in life from the dead and makes the Mediator the beginning root and author thereof unto the whole new and second building the true Mount Sion or City that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God being founded in a new and everlasting Covenant and upon better promises then the first with which God found fault This second divine appearance is that which is so adaequate and fitted to the new creature-discerning or eye or faith which hath for object things unseen that the eye of the natural mind single hath no skil in reading this book but unto it the vision of all is become as the words of a book that is sealed Isa 29. 11. a sight which no man hath seen nor can see being the hidden Manna and new name which none knows but they that have it This third writing is the witness which is given by the third in the Trinity the Holy Ghost being that whereby with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. The thickness of the outward Veyl is in this dispensation made so transparent by the loss of its own glory in the grave that now it is made of use to hand out the glory of the inward writing as that which is above and over its head unto which it is made willing and content to be the footstool and to rule only as an inferiour light in subordination and subserviency thereunto By the third power of discerning in Christ to which this third Volume is proportioned he knows who are given to him of the Father of whom he is not to lose one whom therefore he writes down in this his second book of life out of which they can never be blotted Hereby also is seen and known to Christ the end of all Gods works as well as their beginning in the order and manner in which all things have their course and progress unto their final state either in a way of everlasting honour or of everlasting contempt Thus we have considered him before whose sight all things are naked and opened as he is the living WORD of God and hath a three-fold power and exercise of mind suted unto these lively Oracles of God in which he is made conversant by the witness which the Trinity bear unto the eye of his mind Unto whose blessed and glorious person in this his three-fold perfection fitting him to his office of Mediator the Scriptures are exceeding full and plain in their testimony as first Prov. 8. where we find him described in this his fulness and riches of glory under the general term of Wisdom so that ver 30 31. we may behold him as to his first perfection in a co-eternity with God himself and in the exercise of Gods own mind and discerning as one by him and brought up with him his bosome-Counsellour from all eternity in order to accomplish and work out the communications of God by him fore-purposed unto Angels and Men. And of the two latter we have particular intimation in the same Scripture where he saith I was daily his delight rejoycing alwaies before him rejoycing in the habitable part of his Earth and my delights were with the sons of men even whilst he lay in his Fathers bosome Again ver 22 23. We have his perfection described as he is the first-born of every creature and first begotten from the dead who was set up from everlasting that is to say from the beginning or ever the Earth was whom the Lord possessed in the beginning of his way before his works of old intimating thereby the works not only begun but finished in the Mediator from the foundation of the world when there were no depths nor fountains abounding with water before the mountains were settled before the hils was he brought forth v. 24 25. shining in a two fold appearance in which he contained all creature-fulness riches excellency and perfection so is described v. 6. where he saith he will speak of excellent things in the second Covenant the opening of his lips shall be of right things as he is the King of righteousness the Head Minister of the first-covenant light glory in which he was the WORD by whom God created all things in righteousness at first And ver 27 28 29. Was with God in the
body is hereby quickned and brought forth as into its maturity and ripe age in a fulness of stature agreeable to this his raised and exalted state his corruptible having put on incorruption and his mortal having put on immortality to the bringing to pass in himself the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory And now the same Jesus that was crucified and slain by vertue of the compleat exercise of his spiritual senses enters within the veil converses with him that is invisible and sits down at Gods right hand retaining withal in perfect use the exercise of his natural senses powers and faculties of soul and body in a glorified state as being in one and the same person the fulness of Jew and Gentile the perfection of the spiritual and of the natural man joyning them both together in one sheepfold whereof himself is the one great shepheard and overseer This reconciliation Christ hath wrought through the blood of the Cross making in himself of twain one new man having slain the enmity thereby broken down the partition wall and removed that which else would have letted the bringing of life and immortality to light This is the form or fashion of Christs heavenly manhood wherein is to be found the perfection of both seeds built up together in perfect love usefulness and peace and this heavenly image thus wrought out in Christ is the law that shall go forth out of Sion prophesied of Isa 2. 3. and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem that shall establish the mountain of the Lords house in the top of the mountains and exalt it above the hils causing all nations to flow unto it This is the pattern of the house spoken of also Ezek. 43. ver 7. and 10. wherein was the place of Gods Throne and the place of the soles of his feet to dwell in the midst of his people which was to be measured by the house of Israel to make them ashamed of their iniquities and Idols And v. 12. this is the law of the house upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy CHAP. X. Concerning the benefits that do inseparably accompany Christs person where he is received either by the first or second Covenant according to the tenor of both which there is vertue in his blood to reconcile and bring men to God CHrist in the 42. and 49. Chapt. of Isaiah is called The Covenant said to be him that God gives to be a COVENANT to the People to establish the earth and cause to inherit the desolate heritages to say to the prisoners go forth and to them that sit in darkness shew your selves The way wherein Christ given as a COVENANT to any soul is by becoming the received Lord and Christ in that heart ministring a participation and fellowship with him in spirit by the power and presence of himself there either in his first or second appearance and changing that soul into the likeness of himself more or less in one of those his appearances Thus according to the first Covenant he visited the Children of Israel in Egypt brought them out of the house of bondage and baptized them unto Moses in the cloud and in the red Sea causing them to eat the same spiritual meat and to drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of the ROCK which followed them which ROCK was Christ yet with many of them God was not well pleased but as he saith Jer. 31. 32. That my COVENANT they brake though I was an HUSBAND unto them and Isa 63. 8 9 10. he saith Surely they are my people children that will not lye and so upon that condition he was their Saviour admitting them to the benefit of his sacrifice In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them out of the house of bondage and carried them all the daies of old but they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit therefore he was turned from the way of love and pitty he exercised towards them before became their enemy and fought against them Thus also Ezek. 16. he ministers life to them decks them with excellent ornaments yea with his own comeliness and spreads his skirt over them After all which they provoke him with greater abominations then ever before and then he and they part again and he becomes their enemy It is evident then that upon such conditional terms as are comprehended in the tenor of the first Covenant Christ can and doth cause his own reception in the hearts and consciences of men and that there are inseparable benefits attending and accompanying this manner of reception of or believing in Christ which is begotten and held but upon the wavering principles of the first Covenant which in respect of its uncertainty is found fault with by God Heb. 8. 7 8. First they that are thus made receivers of Christ are called out of the world to come out of that heathenish state wherein men live as without God and Christ in the world and so are made of the number of those many that are called whereof there are but few chosen and endued with the wisdom from above which will make their calling sure Secondly Christ is made unto such RIGHTEOUSNES in a way of Justification who having made himself a sinoffering for fallen man is pleased even upon the tenor of this Covenant to make them the RIGHTEOUSNES of God in him that is to afford unto them the benefit of his legal righteousness whereby he satisfied the Law so that the Law hath nothing to say against such yea to make them that in him which God in righteousness imputing the benefit of his sacrifice unto them doth accept and is the justifier of them by in declaring Christs righteousness unto them as a propitiation for all their past sins and so to be continued to them as long as they shall do well In which sense God argued with Cain Gen. 4. 7. Whilst thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lieth at the door Through this Propitiatory-covering of Christs blood they are under SANTCUARY and in a City of refuge from Gods wrath and the avenger of blood kept unto the faith to be revealed till by their wilfull sinning and making themselves unworthy of further or more grace there remains no more sacrifice for sin This Justification the world hath in common with true believers as well as the first faith and calling before mentioned Thus t is said 1 Tim. 2. 3 4. that God our saviour will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth who ver 6. gave himself a ransome for all to be testified in due time The third benefit inseparably accompanying this kind of Christs giving himself by the first convenant is that which we call
threefold nature and spirit proper to each of them In one of which all the nations of the world live and walk as they are distinguished from the earthly Jerusalem the children of Mount Sinai or the first convenant In the second the fleshly seed of Israel or the worldly Church lives and walks distinguished both from the nations of the world and from the heavenly Jerusalem or the true Mount-Sion And in the third the spiritual seed or children of the Jerusalem that is above do live and walk distinguished from both the former each of them therefore are placed by God under a several Rule and law according to which their lives and actions are to be fashioned and conformed and by which they are to be tried and judged at the last day when the secrets of men of all sorts shall be judged by Christ Jesus according to the Gospel which is of that large comprehension as to take in all the three dispensations First for the nations of the world they have judgements given them by God Ezek. 5. 6 7. with which Israel is reproched as having walked short of them so that the uncircumcision did out-doe the circumcision in the righteousness the effect whereof was contained in the law as in a much superiour and more excellent administration These the Apostle cals Rom. 2. 12. such as sin without law and perish without law but yet are acknowledged as such that though they have not the law as it was given to the Jews yet have a law given them from God the work and effect of which sheweth it self in their consciences accusing or excusing them as they walk up to it or short of it even the law of nature in which they are a law unto themselves having that within them that shall witness for them or against them before the Throne and judgement seat of Christ that is to say the law of natural right and just exhibited to them through the ministry of Angels that are invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and powers set up by God for this very end as his ministers for terrour unto evil works and as encouragers and Protectors of them that do well as will presently more fully be evinced The second Rule or law containing the judgements and ordinances of God given unto the fleshly seed or children of the first covenant is the WORD of God coming forth in his first appearance or the law proceeding from Mount Sinai witnessed unto by the Scriptures of truth and Oracles of God that were committed to the Jews first and afterwards to the Gentiles which in all the degrees and steps of its administration answers the true measure and proportion of Christs natural righteousness and perfection as he is and so hath been here described the head and root thereof to Angels and men being that holy commandment that either may be turned aside from leaving them that have been under it to a far worse state then it found them in and rendring their latter end worse then their beginning as 2 Pet. 2. 20. c. or else be kept without spot and blameless through the power of faith by the true Saint or spiritual seed The third law and Rule is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Iesus the WORD of God in his second appearance which comes forth from Mount Sion the heavenly Jerusalem consisting not in meats and drinks and worldly rudiments but in the power of an endless life and an everlasting righteousness written out in fair characters in the death and resurrection of Christ when he ceased from his own works and became the beginning and author of life from the dead as the first-born among the many brethren whose names are written in heaven and upon whom God hath written his new name and the name of the new Ierusalem The perfection and righteousness of which second appearance is brought to light fully by the brightness of Christs comming the second time the first-fruits whereof are already given and set up in the hearts and spirits of the children of promise and of the free-woman being the hidden Manna which they feed on the new name which they can read and the holy anointing whereby they judge all things whilst themselves are judged of no man CHAP. XII Shewing wherein the three Rules and forms of administration in Christs mediatorial Kingdom do differ one from another and maintain an entire jurisdiction within themselves but in due subordination and subserviency still of the lower to the higher over the respective subjects that live under them THE first of these is the law and Rule which is given by God to all nations even to the whole world in their corrupt degenerate and fallen state occasioned by the entrance which sin made by Adam overrunning his whole posterity like a spreading leprosie whereby man that by his creation was made a temple of God became a habitation for Dragons a court for owls or birds of the night a hold for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hateful bird so that although there was a natural being life and motion left unto man it was in the next degree to no being at all if not in some respects far worse Yet how great soever this desolation was and how thick soever the darkness be in this howling and barren wilderness-condition of mankind the blood of Christ is of vertue to make the heart of man again rejoyce and blessom as the Rose and the voice of the Mediator can make it self to be heard in the remotest and darkest corners of the world to the opening of the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf to the making the lame to leap and the dumb to sing to the causing the waters of his manifestation to break forth and stream in this desert in one word to the letting in the sound of the Gospel it-self in the shadowy dark appearances thereof upon the very ends of the world in pursuance of the extent of the reconciliation made through the blood of his Cross by whom all things are reconciled unto God whether they be things in earth or things in heaven so as the very creation it self is made capable to serve unto the ministry of the Gospel the heavens to declare the glory of God the firmament to shew his handy work day unto day to utter speech and night unto night to shew knowledge by means whereof there is no speech nor language where Christs voice is not heard their sound going into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world as Psal 19. 1 2 3 4. compared with Rom. 10. 18. doth evidence Thus the invisible things of God even his eternal power and Godhead shining forth in the face of the Mediator may be seen by the things that are made Rom. 1. and that either inwardly by the influence and operations of the holy Angels maintaining and keeping up the witness of Christ in the manifestation of natural justice
a Name given him above every name either in this world or in the world to come according to that description we find of him Isaiah 4. 2. c. where Christ the BRANCH is held forth in both these capacities called also Zach. 4. the two olive trees or sons of oyl that stand by the Lord of the whole earth by means of the one emptying out the golden oyl of all natural perfection as he is the Son of man singly considered Christ according to the flesh Head and Root of the renewal of natural purity and perfection by vertue of his blood unto Adams fallen posterity and by means of the other emptying forth the oyl of Gods new Name and of all Spiritual perfection as he is the beginning and first born from the dead made Head to the Heavenly body the Church that general Assembly of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven In both these respects this BRANCH of the Lord is to be made beautifull and glorious so as the very fruit of the earth or the earthly Adam shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel Isa 4. 2. For in them the very being of the first Adams perfection considered as built up again in fellowship and harmony with the second Adams perfection through the Resurrection of the dead is as the Ark of the Testament which is to be seen in this Temple whereby the Song of Moses shall be sung as perfectly as the Song of the Lamb as the musick and harmony requisite to be made by the inhabitants of the NEW JERUS ALEM those that are left in Zion and that remain in Jerusalem when God shall have cleansed them and purged them by the spirit of Judgement and burning by the baptism of the fire of the sacrifice of Christs death wherby they are written among the living in Jerusalem that is do become a Heavenly Tabernacle as built up into a life from the dead for a shadow in the day time from the heat and for a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain in which dwelling places of Mount Zion and upon her Assemblies the Lord will create a cloud and a smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence ver 3 4 5 6. From this Scripture it appears that after men have had that work pass upon them which baptizeth them into one living Body with Christ making them living Members of his fleshly Manhood and enabling them to bring forth the excellent comely fruits of the renewed earthly Adam ver 2. unless they yet further abide the trial of fire which is to pass upon them by the Spirit of Judgement and burning of the day of Christs second appearance they will not continue long in ZION nor remain members of this earthly Jerusalem but will defile and pollute the Temple and Tabernacle of God set up in them in conformity to the flesh of Christ and so make themselves fit subjects for God to destroy and to swear in his wrath that even this Generation thus far advanced out of Egypt toward the Land of Promise shall never enter into his Rest as those that are but after such a manner Christs house as is intimated Heb. 3. 6. whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end And as those Paul speaks of amongst the Corinthians that walked like men 1 Cor. 3. 3 17. If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple ye are Those then are the Children of the first Covenant who are Christs seed and off-spring as he is the Head of the first Adams natural perfection and doth renew the Spirit and power of that perfection in the purity thereof as a seed in fallen man that shall grow up and prosper even into a Kingdom in the soul so as to be the prevailing principle there and carry the Rule and sway over the corrupt and prophane part causing men clean to escape the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of him after the flesh only and with this flesh as the true Manna and bread given them from heaven nourishing them up in the beauty and strength of his natural life The character of this sort of Christs children by the first covenant is lively set down by the Prophet Ezekiel instancing in the children of Israel whom God took by the hand and led out of Aegypt under the ministry of the first covenant wherein he was a husband unto them as appears Jer. 31 32. and had made them beautiful and of great renown in the sight of the Heathens round about them from whom they were separated as made perfect through his comliness which he had put upon them Ezek. 16. 13 14. which sort of Gods children Paul ranks those Galatians amongst that still desired to be under the Law in the time of the Gospel Gal. 4. calling them children of that covenant given from Sinai gendring to bondage or of the Ierusalem that now is to wit the earthly Jerusalem in distinction from the children of the other covenant or of the Jerusalem that is above viz. the heavenly For we must not think that this generation of men passeth away through the coming in of the Gospel but is rather much more improved and compleated forasmuch as by the means of Christ death the Holy commandment is now spoken by the Son himself delivered more immediately by the dawning of the light of Christs first appearance in the heart which was in the time of the ministry of the Law the word only spoken by Angels as committed unto them to mannage through whose ministry or disposition Acts 7. 53. the circumcised seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob received it who were as figures of this circumcision to be made immediately by Christ himself among the Gentiles without hands by the pouring forth of his spirit upon all flesh and building them up with him into one living body as the true Israel of God after the flesh all which amounts but to the compleating of Christs living body through this first-covenant-work of his set up in the heart and conscience called in Scripture the FIRST FAITH which may be departed from and prove a faith that fails as being held upon wavering and uncertain principles until it be fixed by the baptism of fire and have that brought forth in fellowship with it which accompanies salvation to wit the incorruptible and immortal seed of the perfection of the second Adam causing them to dwell on high and placing them upon the munitions of Rocks where bread is given to them and waters that do not fail The Rule that is given unto this fleshly seed or children of the first covenant is the pattern of Christs natural life and perfection as he appeareth in the fashion of a man and form of a servant like unto us in all