Give me leave to strengthen this twofold Request by presenting to thee thine own Interest after the highest manner contained in it after a two-fold form 1. This Divine Love at this heighth in this Latitude is all that is true in Religion all that is good in Man all that is acceptable with God all the hope of future Glory and of blessed immortality If I give all my Goods to the Poor and my Body to be burnt and have not Charity I am nothing Is there any Charity or Love to Man greater than this to give all my Goods to the Poor Is there any Charity or Love to God more Divine than this to give my Body to be burnt for him Yes there is a Charity a Love which transcends all this which if I want I may yet have all this and be nothing This is that Divine Love of which I speak which lifteth not it self up above any of the works of God but keepeth the Unity of the eternal Workman of his Divine Design and VVork in the golden band of an universal Peace and Divine Amity This is that Divine Love which behaveth not it self uncomely seeketh not its own things breaketh not the Harmony of the whole dividing it self from the whole by a particular self-love In the universal Beauty and Melody of the Divine Wisdom and Work it respecteth it self as a part and all parts as it self having one Beauty and Joy together in the Beauty Joy and harmonious Perfection of the Divine Figure in the whole piece This Love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things suffereth all things This we read of the Divine Love 1 Cor. 13. 7. The first expression in that verse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render beareth all things I have three Reasons against this translation of it 1. It makes the last Clause of this verse a tautology a vain repetition It suffereth all things which is the same with the first 2. It is the remotest sense of the Greek word two senses being nearer 1. To cover 2. To contain or comprehend 3. These two nearer senses are more agreeable more full and Divine 1. The Divine Love covereth all things with the Divine loveliness and beauty of the universal Harmony which is the Righteousness of God in Christ the first the fairest Image of the invisible God in which every other Image of God standeth as in the Original the all-comprehending Glory This is that which Solomon saith Love covereth all sin And St. Paul of the Divine Workman of the Divine Love He putteth the highest comeliness that is the universal Comeliness of the Divine Image in its entireness and perfection upon every part even upon the most uncomely parts That there may be no schism or division in the Body that there may be one glory of all 2. The Divine Love in every Person or Spirit lives not in it self as a part but in the life of the whole in the Divine the Universal Spirit the Spirit of Love the Spirit of the whole I live not saith St. Paul but Christ liveth in me Again If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit Thus the Divine Love having its life in each person in the life of the whole the Universal Spirit being one Spirit with that Spirit which is the Unity of the whole comprehendeth all things with strictest tenderest imbraces in it self as one self with it self So faith the holy Apostle All things are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are yours as you are Christs as Christ is Gods that is in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is Love it self Now from this covering Beauty and comprehensive Virtue in Divine Love these effects naturally flow To believe all things to hope all things We easily believe and hope that which we desire The Divine Love hath a complacency in all things as it comprehendeth them in their Divine Root It hath a good will to all things as they stand in the same Divine Root with it self From this Complacency this Desire this Divine Root it believeth it hopeth all things It believeth all things to be Divine Tabernacles like that in the Wilderness which though moving through Desâ—…ts through a Land of Graves through a Land of fiery Serpents yet answer to their Pattern on the top of the Mount though covered with a course Tent exposed to the fury of the Sun and tempests in the midst of Clouds of dust yet are all-glorious within composed of rich materials bearing a Divine Figure filled with the Divine Presence and Glory It hopeth all things light in the midst of darkness a flourishing Garden of Lillies and Roses in a ground covered and bound up with all the darknesses and rigours of the hardest Winter a treasure of Honey-Combs in the body of a Lion The Master of the Sentences hath such an high esteem of this Charity or Divine Love which is the subject of St. Pauls Discourse in this Chapter That he affirmeth it to be the holy Spirit himself the third Person in the Trinity which is the Love in the Divine Nature and so the Virtue the Power As the second Person the Lord Jesus is the Beauty the Wisdom St. James reasoneth after this manner Can the same Fountain bring forth sweet and bitter waters with the same mouth you bless God and curse man made after the Image of God If from the same heart thou bringest forth that Love to some men by which thou givest all thy Goods to them to supply their wants and ragest with wrath or hatred against others who as they have any making are made after the same Divine Image with the rest of Mankind Who as they have any Being have the same Divine Root are sealed with the same Divine Impression thou hast not Charity thou hast not Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit the universal the eternal Spirit thou art nothing If thou hast the gist of Prophesie if thou understandest all divine Mysteries if thou hast a divine Faith if with the same heart thou lovest God to so high a degree that thou givest thy Body to be burnt for him and yet burnest in rage against any man made after the Image of God All these Divine Gifts or Graces in which thou gloriest are nothing thou art nothing thou hast not Charity Thou hast not the Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit of Christ and of God which is the universal Spirit the Spring the Seal the Band of the Divine Unity Dear Reader follow after this Divine Love without which all that which thou hast is nothing which if thou hast it is the band of perfection never faileth never falleth short of the Glory of God but by the incorruptibleness of a meek spirit preserveth in it self a Divine Beauty and Sweetness which is ever perfect which never passeth away in the midst of all changes of Life in Death to Eternity This is thy first Interest in preserving the Divine Love entire in thy
Spirit and Person in heavenly unexpressible sweetnesses This is my first Request to you 2. Study and practise that great Command of Love as the Lesson of thy whole Life with which alone thou art to entertain thy self and all the heavenly Company both here and in eternity This is the first and great Command That thou love God with thy whole self and then That thou love thy Neighbour as thy self which is a second Law a second Love like unto the first Indeed it is so like that it is one with it Be thou thy self in thy whole Person the Sacrifice of a whole Burnt-Offering ascending in a Sacred flame of heavenly love to God the only and eternal Beauty As the zeal of the House of God which is Love flaming did eat up David and Christ so let this heavenly Love of the Divine Beauty which is the Beauty it self descending in a pure and sweet flame upon thee by consuming thee convert thee into one spiritual flame with it self Now live thou no where but where thou lovest in thy Beloved Let thy Beloved alone now live in thee when thou hast thus lost thy self by an heavenly Love in thy Beloved in thy God when thou hast thus by the Sacred and sweet mystery of this Love found thy Beloved thy God in the place of thy self Then love thy Neighbour as thy self Love thy Neighbour in thy Jesus thy God Love thy Jesus thy God in thy Neighbour Let this Neighbourhood of Divine Love be as large as the God of Love himself is Let every other Person and Spirit which lives and moves and hath its being in God within the encompassing upon the Ground and Root of the Divine Being be thy Neighbour thy Brother another self as thy self to thy self the Object to thee of an heavenly and incorruptible Love Upon this Commandment saith Jesus Christ hang all the Law and the Prophets This Love is the Centre and the Circle of all the Works of God of all Motions and Rests of all mysteries in Nature and Grace in Time and Eternity Plato saith That three sorts of Persons are led to God The Musician by Harmony the Philosopher by the beam of Truth the Lover by the light of Beauty All these Conductors to the supream Being meet in this Love of which we speak the first and only true Beauty being the first Birth the first Effulgency the essential Image of the supream Goodness is also the first the supream the only Truth the Original the measure the end of all Truth which by its amiable attractive Light conducteth all Understandings in the search of Truth and giveth them rest only in its transparent and blissful Bosom This also is the first the only the universal Harmony the Mufick of all things in Heaven and on Earth the Musick in which all things of Earth and of Heaven meet to make one melodious Consort While the holy Lover then pursues the tracts of this Beauty through all the works and ways of God he is encompassed with the Light of Divine Truth shining through him and round about him He is carried on in the Spirit by the force of the Divine Harmony He carrieth along this Harmony of things charming all things round about him as he passeth on So he seeth the God of Gods at last on Mount Sion the perfection of Beauty Harmony Truth and Goodness which all Center in the Divine Love the Divine Unity the band of perfection 3. Let no differences of Principles or Practices divide thee in thine affections from any person He who seems to me as a Samaritan to a Jew most worthy of contempt and hatred most apt to wound or kill me may hide under the shape of a Samaritan a generous affectionate Neighbour Brother and Friend When I lie wounded and dying neglected by those who are nearest to me most esteemed by me This person may pour Wine and Oyl into my Wounds with tender and constant care at his own expence bring me back to life and joy How evident hath it been in the History of all times that in Parties most remote one from the other most opposed one to the other Persons have been found of equal excellencies in all kinds of equal integrity to Truth and Goodness Our most Orthodox Divines who have been heated and heightned with the greatest zeal of Opposition to the Pope as the Antichrist yet have believed a Pope to have ascended from the Papal Chair to a Throne in Heaven Had my Education my Acquaintance the several Circumstances and Concurrances been the same to me as to this person from whom I now most of all dissent that which is now his sense and state might have been mine Have the same just equal tender respects and thoughts with the same allowances of another which thou requirest from him to thy self It is a Rule in Philosophy That there is the same reason of Contrarieties Two opposed Parties or Persons by reason of the opposition for the most part looking through the same disturbed and coloured Medium behold one another under the same uncomely form in the same displeasing Colours Hath there not been frequent experience of those who by being of differing Parties alienated exasperated having their fansies filled with strange Images of each other when they have been brought together by some intervening Providence have discovered such agreeable Beauties of Morality and Humanity such an harmonious agreement in essential in radical Principles of Divine Truth of the true and ever lasting good that they have conversed with highest delight they have departed with an higher esteem of each other their Souls have been inseparably united with Angelical kisses and embraces Some entertaining Strangers have entertained Angels Do thou so believe that in every encounter thou mayest meet under the disguise of an Enemy a Friend a Brother who when his Helmet shall be taken off may disclose a beautiful and a well known face which shall charm all thy Opposition into love and delight at the sight of it But now Reader I fall at thy feet I take hold of thy knees by all things moving and obliging I beseech thee If there be any Bowels or comforts of Love any Peace Pleasantness Strength Prosperity in Union any good in Unity that thou wouldst take deeply into thine Heart and treasure up safely there and frequently with fixed studious eyes contemplate this as I humbly conceive it most sure and reconciling Truth which I shall now as I am able represent to thee Often yea for the most part two opposed Parties have something on each side excellently good something exorbitantly evil although perhaps in unequal degrees Both mutually set after an unmoveable manner before their eyes their own good the evil on the other part Thus they blind their minds to all sense or belief of any good there Thus they lift up themselves above all sense of their own evil So they heighten themselves by self-justifications by mutual Condemnations unto an extinguishing of every beam
heart 2. The measure which thou measurest to others shall be measured to thee again If you do well who will harm you St. Paul distinguisheth between a righteous man and a good man This doing well is that goodness of Divine Love pouring forth round about it heavenly beams upon all things which maketh men to be so far from any inclination to harm the person in whom this goodness discovereth it self that they are willing to die for him St. John giveth us a lively figure of the Divine Love in a light of Glory by these words He that loveth his Brother walketh in the light and there is none offence in him The last words are capable of two senses which very agreeably meet here 1. There is nothing in this person at which any man taketh any offence 2. There is nothing of which this person receiveth any Image into his Spirit which offends him He who is this Divine Lover walketh always in those blessed Regions of Divine Light where every thing presenteth it self in his heart as it lieth in the heart of God springing forth from the womb of an eternal Love acted by that eternal Spirit which is Love it self cloathed with an ever-flourishing loveliness lying in the universal Harmony of the Divine Wisdom being one piece with it having the Glory of God resulting from it and resting upon it He that is this Divine Lover shines forth in all his Discourses Conversation and Actions upon all eyes and hearts with such a sweet light and heavenly lustre of the Divine Nature of the supream Love it self the Unity the Mother the Sister the Desire of all things the Joy of the whole Earth that nothing takes offence at this Person nothing can harm him O what a Conquest had we attained if we once did so live that we convinced all persons that we loved them in truth and in deed that we had a Divine Love for them that we esteemed all things in our selves of no value of no effect to our present Beauty and Peace to our eternal Life and Glory to be altogether nothing except this Divine Love alone How would this demonstration of an heavenly Wisdom in an heavenly meekness of Divine Love disarm all hands of the weapons lifted up against us and all hearts of their wrath conceived against us like the Musick of David's Harp the sweet force of this Love would chase away every evil Spirit from every Breast There is no power in Nature like to that of Similitude Every thing draws and attracts its like to it Where this Divine Love flourisheth in any person all the blessed immortal Spirits of heavenly Love above in eternity with all the joys and glories of Love resort to this Person to this Heart planting themselves round about as heavenly Guards and heavenly Ministers to it inhabiting in it as their proper Paradise and Heaven here below In all things below through all their differences distances and divisions the Spirit of Love which bath in it the Root and Idea of each Creature which is in each Creature as the proper Root of that Creature as it s Ideal and primitive Form discloseth it self to shineth forth upon and in all forms of things circleth in this person this heart being attracted by it drawn to it as its proper Centre Some Divine Philosophers teach us That according to the property or power which predominateth in us here such will that Divine Idea be which shall be our eternal Habitation and Palace above in which we shall enjoy all things being sealed to us by this Idea If the Divine universal Love reign in thee here Love which seems to be the highest and sweetest of all Ideas in the Divine Nature the Divine Nature it self in its most proper and perfect Idea uniting the Ideas of all Perfections of all Beauties of all Sweetnesses of all Lives Loves Joys and Glories in it self at their greatest heighth with the most ravishing agreeableness and harmony this shall be thy proper Habitation and Palace set up for thee in thine own person in every Creature in every Created or uncreated form of things to dwell unchangeably in both here and above Here shall all things present themselves to thee cloathed and sealed with this Idea with this pure and perfect Love With the measure with which thou hast measured unto others shall it be measured unto thee Thou hast loved all things with a Divine Love looking upon them stedfastly through all seasons and changes in a Divine Light in the incorruptible form of a Divine loveliness As thou hast looked upon them so shall they all in all seasons and states appear to thee in a Divine Light full and over-flowing with a Divine Love cloathed all over with a Divine loveliness Love all things O Reader after a divine manner that thou mayest be the beloved Object of all divine things and divinely beloved by all things that thou mayest shine with a divine loveliness in all eyes and be received with a divine loveliness into all hearts These are the Requests which I make to thee for thine own sake I have one Request only to present to thee for my self which is That thou wouldst come with this Divine Love to the reading of this Discourse Câ—…me with that love which thinketh no evil We read in the Revelations of an Angel descending from Heaven who enlightned the whole Earth While thou readest let this heavenly love be as a Seraphim flying down upon its flaming wings from the Throne of Love into thy Bosom to enlighten thy whole Soul with its beams unto a Divine Candour that there may be no dark corner left for any suspitious Jealousies Prejudices Animosities or ill will like poysonous Toads in the hollows of some old wall Come with this love which believeth all things all the good that every subject either person or thing is capable of As Bees extract the virtue out of the commonest Herbs and convert it to Honey in themselves So do thou believe every thing here to be intended in the best sense of which it is capable Draw forth this sense from it and improve it in thy self with the utmost advantage to the sweetest satisfaction and the richest treasure in thy own mind Believe this Piece to be the fruit of Love springing from a Root of Divine Love We read in the Revelations of an Angel standing in the Sun Plato somewhere saith something like this that if we stood in the Sun all things even this dark mass of Elements and elementary composition to us beholding them from that center of Light would appear in a Sun-like Glory Be thou this Angel or in this an Angel-like Spirit stand in this Sun the glorious circle of divine Love From thence see the Fountain of Love opening it self to thee in this Discourse all the parts all the lines as so many streams flowing forth from it to water thy Spirit and make it a Garden of Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties If the rich man in Hell
next to the quenching of those flames which burnt upon himself made this his Request to Heaven That his brethren might be preserved from coming to that place of torment How much more do the blessed Inhabitants of Heaven sweetly burn in pure and precious flames of most ardent desires that other persons dear unto them may be brought into the same blessed place to partake of the same incorruptible Joys and Glories Let Love instruct and prompt thee gentle Reader to think that the worthless Authour according to the inexplicable sweetness the unconfined freedom and fulness of this eternal Law the Divine Love which guâ—…deth without difference the Cottage and the Palace the Dunghill and the Throne may have been led by a Sacred beam of this Love touching his heart from on high so near unto the borders of the happy Regions and Kingdoms of Divine Truth as to discover all to be Heaven there Let the same sweet Instructor teach thee to think that he as he may have been by the same gracious beam led farther into the blissful Continent of this Love may have met with Heavens which open themselves into Sweetnesses and Glories ever increasing ever extending themselves to a more vast amplitude and compass which heighten themselves in Joys and Glories in Sweetness and Beauty past all description or belief except to him alone who hath been by the same shining guide led into the same places Then let the sweet waters of this Divine Love from its own Fountain sprinkled upon thine heart raise this candid belief in thee that as a pair of silver-feathered Doves flying before Aeneas guided him to the Tree laden with golden-boughs in the midst of a thick and obscure Wood So this Discourse aiming at a resemblance of those beautiful and lovely Birds sacred to love in a whiteness of unspotted Candor may be a birth of Love though weak and flying low sent forth to allure and guide thee into those ever lasting Heavens of Divine Truth and Goodness which as thou entrest into the discoveries of the Divine Love and passest on farther in them thou wilt find in the obscurities and tumults of these earthly shades of this life of dreams opening themselves to thee with inexplicable delights and satisfactions with transcending glories endlesly raising themselves to greater heighths and spreading themselves to a wider compass But you will say what connexion hath the Divine Love with Free-will the subject of this ensuing Discourse Very fit and harmonious in two respects 1. The Will it self is love Thomas Aquinas defines the Will to be the inclination of the Soul The Object of the Will is good The inclination of the Soul to good is love St. Augustine calls Love Pondus Animae the weight of the Soul by which it moves to its attracting Object as to its Center The Object of Love is loveliness or beauty Beauty in its Essence is good in its effulgency in its proper and essential Image Thus the VVill and Love are both one in their Object and in their proper formality both are the Souls vital spring or principle of motion to good The Understanding receives its Object into it self to be a living Light shining within it and illustrating it The Soul in the VVill flyeth forth upon the wings of Love into the bosom of the beloved Object to live there where it loves He who with a clear eye distinguisheth the curious and close workings of the will may find all its motions or affections to be the same love in various postures as it rests with sweetest complacency in the embraces of the beloved Beauty or faints under a dispair of fruition or an irresistable opposition in its prosecutions as it sails on smooth Seas with soft and prosperous gales to its haven in its eye or wrestles with tempests of Waves and Winds with chearful courage raising it self to surmount them As the colours of the Rainbow are the same light variously reflected from the Sun and variously falling upon the watry Cloud so are all the motions of the VVill the same Love raised from the same good beautifully shining forth and reflecting itâ—…lf variously upon the Soul in different postures of presence or absence of doubt difficulty impossibility in the attainment or facility and assurance of fruition The freedom then of Love is the freedom of the Will We frequently say VVhat so free as Love yet what so inevitable as the golden-headed darts of Love like beams shot forth as from a golden Quiver from the face or bosom of the amiable and shining good What so inevitable as the sweet wounds made by these darts God is Love the Soul is the Image of God According to our distinctions God is Love most peculiarly and properly in his Divine VVill. The will of man then is also a Divine Love being the Image of the Divine VVill. If that be true as it appeareth so to many of the greatest Philosophers or Divines that the Soul in its essence and faculties are really one The Soul it self is essentially a Divine Love being in its essence an Image of that God which is Love Behold then the freedom of the humane will in the freedom of the Divine Love where as in the Godhead it self the most perfect freedom and the most absolute necessity are joyned together in a Marriage to which the whole Heavens and Earth with unutterable joy sing eternall Marriage-Songs Where liberty and necessity meet in one while the Will is carried most freely and most necessarily to its Object which is goodness Goodness at once becometh the essence and election of the Will for the highest necessity is that of our natures and essences According to which ground Logicians make those Propositions most necessary where there is the most essential connexion between the terms In like manner Love being the principal act of the Soul and carried most freely most necessarily to goodness in its proper and essential Image which is the first the most true the highest beauty Beauty the beauty of Goodness the beauty of Holiness become at once the essence and election of Love Thus the Divine â—…ill and the Divine Good the Divine Love and Divine Beauty are made one by the golden knot of the same heavenly and eternal Marriage diffusing themselves from this marriage-bed in Divine embraces and unconfined enjoyments through all things of Time and Eternity through finiteness and infiniteness it self Let me add to these a third Marriage making up the joys and triumphs of the other two between the Divine Loves the Father the Brother the Bridegroom And the Daughter the Sister the Bride the Divine and the Humane will the Soul and her God the Image and her Original Is any freedom to be compared with this which takes up the Image into the ample glories ofits Original which determining and espousing the Humane will the Divine Love below to the Universal the Divine Good as its dear Object and delightful Bridegroom taketh it up also into one uncontrouled
much dearness and esteem upon my heart He came to a City filled with Reproaches cast upon him I saith he spake not one word to clear my self I received gladly the Humiliation Now gentle Reader I will seal up my Epistle to thee with that golden Sentence of St. Paul Let all your things be done to all in Charity or in Divine Love Let me add this one short Direction as a gloss upon it bear always clearly and deeply engraven upon thy Soul these and the like Precepts Love all Men Honour all men Love your Enemies Love another as thy self Study to know God as he is the Pattern and the Perfection of the Divine Perfection included in these Precepts Be you perfect saith Jesus Christ as your heavenly Father is perfect So he setteth before his Disciples the rich ground out of which these Precepts Spring as Plants of Paradise Study the Reason and the Equity of these Precepts The Precepts of God are true saith David and righteous altogether Every Divine Precept is founded in a Divine Truth The only reason of Love is loveliness Thus shalt thou be every where led into a Paradise and into Heaven while thou shalt now understand that God is Love a Godhead of Love That while thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in God thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in Love it self That while God works all in all fills all in all all within thee all without thee is a work of Love is full of Love Thus these Precepts in the reason of them which will shine out upon thee more and more as thou growest in the practice of them shall be an anointing upon thine eyes by virtue of which thou shalt see in all things every where which way soever thou turnest thy self a Divine Loveliness presenting it self to thee continually entertaining enflaming thine heart with a Divine Love crowning thy thoughts with a Divine Peace and Joy Gentle Reader There were in the Temple Vessels made of Wood but these were over-laid with pure and massy Gold This Treatise is no Temple thou wilt certainly meet with many things of wood and perhaps of the lowest sort of wood worthless the subject of Frailty and Corruption Let it be thy part and glory to over-lay it with the Gold of the Temple above Divine Love which covereth all Sin So my humble Prayer is That thou mayest be together with my self yea so shall we both be if we abide in the Divine Love Priests consecrated by an heavenly Blood and an heavenly Unction to minister to the God of all Loving kindnesses by day and by night in the Temple of Love Here now death is no more here from our Death-beds as from the golden Altar like the sweet and costly Incense we shall ascend in a pure and glorious flame of heavenly Love kindled from the Face and Heart of God above unto the Throne of God the Throne of Grace and Love to be ever in the circuit of that Throne where the eternal Spirit like a Rain-bow shall encompass us round as the seal and band of eternal Love shining with all innumerable beauties and pleasantuesses ever full ever fresh and flourishing Perhaps some one will say Who is this that thus preacheth Love to the World Is he himself a Dove washt in Milk Far is he from pretending to the praise and perfections of that Spirit the Bride of the heavenly Bridegroom which sitteth in the Garden of Divine Purities Sweetnesses and Light making her Beloved and his Companions to hear her Voice while they return their esteem affections and admiration in Songs saying to her Thy Voice is pleasant thy Face thy Person is lovely No the only Character here is that of a Voice in the Wilderness a Wilderness of many Deformities and Distractions within as well as without Crying Prepare ye the way of Divine Love make streight paths for it by bringing down every Mountain of Vanity and Pride by filling up the Vallies of low dejected lost dispairing Spirits He who thus cries to you too frequently too deeply hath â—…erc'd the side of this Love yet still from the woundâ—… heart through the wounds water and blood flow to wash off the stains of this blood upon him and by this blood as a Balsom as a Cordial as a Spring of Life all at once to heal his Wounds to infuse new vigour and joy into his Spirits to renew life in his heart even out of Death it self unto Immortality This is the Innocency and Wisdome which maketh them blessed who aspire to it who as often as they fail in their duty of loving every other person as themselves are sensible of the guilt of breaking the whole Law which is summed up in these two great Commandments and maketh them inseparable as the substance and the shadow in the Sun-shine or as the Fountain and the stream the Sun and the similitude of the Sun in the light surrounding it To love God with all our selves and To love our Neighbour as our selves A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The FIRST PART CONTAINING The Definition of the Free-will in question and the Arguments opposed to it Libertas est facultas ejus quod cuique facere libet ut Romani definiunt faith Grotius upon Genesis This is liberty to do that which we like to do Liking is from likeness Nihil est quod ad se rem ullam tam alliciat tam attrahat quà m ad amicitiam similitudo saith Cicero Nothing so allures and so attracts as similitude and likeness doth to liking and to love Liking then is founded in the nature and harmony of each essence Every thing moves and rests freely at liberty when it moves and rests according to its own nature according to the harmony of its own essence Zeno defines liberty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power of self-acting The Philosopher defines nature to be the principle of motion and rest there where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it self and not by accident Our nature is our true-self Then have we the power of self-acting when we move and rest according to our own natures being acted in them by our own natural and essential Principles We meet with this Rule often in Aquinas Vnumquodque operatur prout est Every thing acts as it is The being or nature of each thing is the Root and the Rule of its operation By these things which I have spoken two marks present themselves to us to guide us in our judgment of liberty 1. Liberty is a relation or harmony between the essence or nature of each thing and its operations 2. According to the Orders and Degrees of Being are the Orders and Degrees of Liberty According to these two Marks we shall find a two-fold measure of Liberty 1. The Principle 2. The Sphere of Activity I shall then upon this ground distinguish liberty into a four-fold Order 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial
it self in these Images presented to the Soul by their essential truths in their understanding is that power which we call the Will The sutableness and agreeableness of these forms of things to the Will The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so more principally the Divine Unity in them the root and life of this agreeableness is the good which is the Object of this inclination the Will of the intellectual Spirit Love is defined the union of the Lover and the Beloved The will as it is an essential inclination to its Object the good shining forth in its proper Image and beautiful forms of truth in the understanding is love it self the essential love of the Soul The Soul in this essential power which we call the Will is the Lover This is that which Plotinus seemeth to mean when discoursing of the Soul he saith That every Soul comes forth with a Cupid or love proper to it and inseparable from it It is commonly known that the Soul is represented by Venus the Queen of Beauty and the Mother of Love the Daughter of Jupiter of Jehovah As the intellectual Soul is the â—…enus so is this essential inclination of the Soul to good which is its will the Cupid or Love born of it and born with it inseparable from it As is the intellectual Spirit so is its Will or Love the highest and loveliest Image of the first Spirit and the first Love so hath it in it next to the Divine Love the highest the most potent the most universal force of inclination and love to the highest and most universal good The Beloved or the Object of this Love and this Lover the intellectual Soul and the Intellectual Will is the highest and most universal good as it presenteth it self in its highest lustre in its richest amplest most unlimited variety of beauties in the Understanding This good being an agreeableness to the Will and so meeting with a mutual and answerable agreeableness in the Will to it self presenteth it self thus by the Understanding in these forms of truth which is the Divinest beauty as a lover and a beloved both to the Will that they may be equally and mutually happy by equal by mutual embraces and fruition This is the liberty of the Will consisting in two parts mutually answering each other The first is the vigour and amplitude of the principle the inclination or love carrying the Soul to rendring it capable of good in its absolute and universal form The second is the vigor and amplitude of its Object which is the highest good the Divinity of good it self presenting it self in its absolute universal or intire truth beauty and essential form presenting it self in all varieties of distinct truths beauties and forms as they are represented in their highest completest Image next to the Original it self in the Understanding Here is the Will like a Bee in a Garden or flourishing Field or rather in an heavenly Paradise flying at liberty over all forms of truth and beauty as the Flowers and Plants in this Paradise resting at pleasure upon every one of them sucking 〈◊〉 sweetness the virtue the good the unexpressibleness of the Divinity and the Divine Unity from them as the Honey which is its Divine Feast Nourishment Life and Treasure This is the liberty of the Soul of the Understanding of the Will in its proper Nature and primitive State This is the liberty which it still enjoys inseparable from its essence under the fall it self so far as by the promised Seed putting forth it self in the moment of the Fall the essence of the intellectual Spirit is renewed and maintained universally by common Grace in the midst of the ruines of the Fall I have this one thing only to add under this fourth Head the Liberty of intellectual Spirits that as God is the Original Spirit as Angels and intellectual Souls are Image-Spirits so is the liberty of the Divine Essence the Original liberty and the liberty of all other intellectual Spirits Humane or Angelical is the Birth and so the Image of that liberty Having thus passed through the several degrees of liberty in the several Orders of Being we come now more particularly and distinctly to state the question concerning the Liberty of the Will which is the subject of our present Discourse There is a two-fold liberty of the Will 1. One by all acknowledged inseparable from the Will in all States and acts 2. The other hath been through all Ages Religions and Philosophyes the ground of many learned eloquent deep Discourses and Disputes between persons eminent in all kind 1. The first uncontroverted liberty of the Will is that which is built upon the grounds already laid It consisteth in two glorious preheminencies 1. The liberty of acting from an internal essential universal Principle of inclination or love which is confined or restrained in its nature and power by no particular differences which is by nothing determined in its actings except only as it determines it self by the Laws of its own universal nature in which it bears the immediate and most express figure of the Divine Nature and so of the Divine freedome or liberty 2. This Principle hath for the sphere and compass of its activity the absolute and universal good in the entire freedome of his unconfined form or Essence in all the varieties of its descents and ascents its divisions and compositions The Will of the Intellectual Spirit is free here in the chase and pursuit of all good unconfined to any particular form of good determined by it self alone and its own internal essential motions to the choice and embraces of every good 2. The second liberty of the Will which hath so different aspects to the differing understanding of excellent persons for the most part in all places and times is generally known by these terms of Libertas contradictionis libertas contrarietatis Liberty of contradiction and of contraricty Suppose an intellectual Spirit in the moment immediately preceding its Action positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum now ready for action in the constitution and concurrence of all circumstances essential accidental from above from below from the first universal cause from all second and particular causes from within from without in respect to any Essence Power and Operation in respect to any thing in any potentiality or act The Will of this intellectual Spirit without any change in any circumstance in any degree may act or not act which is the liberty of contradiction may act either in this way or in the way directly contrary to it which is the liberty of contrariety This is also expressed by a liberty or power in the Will to determine it self in the moment of acting by its act without any predetermination in the Will it self in the power of acting in its proper Essence and the laws of its own Nature in the connexion of causes or in the first and universal Cause The method of my treating upon this Question
of these motions acts of Love Thou knowest that I love thee Object Here it may be said and is said by some The knowledge of all things doth not contribute to the perfection of Knowledge There are many things in knowing of which there is neither beauty nor any beautiful delight The Orator makes it the property of a wise man to seek the knowledge only of things excellent and worthy to be known 1. Individual and particular things are below the Knowledge of God Philosophers teach us That there are no Ideas no Forms no Images in the Divine Mind of individual and particular things All the Ideal Forms and Images seated there are universal eternal Substances Essences and Truths sixed in most beautiful harmonious unchangeable proportions Individual and particular things are uncertain undetermined composed of changeable tumultuous confused accidents slight and ever fleeting like shadows Upon this ground the Philosopher concludeth That individual or singular things can be no Objects of Science or true Knowledge This Master also teacheth us That they are the Objects of Opinion only which is like these things ever fluctuating unsubstantial ungrounded obscure unsatisfactory unworthy not only of God but of all separated and Divine Spirits 2. Many things are too mean and too vile for the knowledge of an excellent Spirit The Understanding is transformed into the Image of that which is known Mean and vile Objects embase the Mind and Spirit into which they are received The similitudes and forms of froth and filth in a Divine Spirit are like Rats and Crocodiles in the Egyptian Temples or dead Carcases in the stately Pyramids Answ. That God knoweth all things to the lowest the last division and distinction that He knoweth the least the obscurest the vilest of all things the Scriptures testifie by their whole design by plain affirmations and instances every where From these which are innumerable I will cite only two 1. The first is that Heb. 4. 12. where we read of the living Word of God That it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The words in Greek properly import this sense A critical Distinguisher and Judge of the motions or agitations in the Will and sensitive Appetite of the notions or images in the understanding or fancy The Word of God in the verse following is clearly declared to be a Person God Himself in Person For these are the words And there is no Creature which is not manifest in his sight But all things are naked and bare in his eyes with whom we have to do There is nothing more universal great or glorious than thought which raiseth it self to the heighth and extendeth it self to the amplitude of the visible Heavens and the most vniversal Glories There is nothing more particular more low more vile than thought which levels it self with every single atome and dust which sinks down to the depth of all divisions darknesses deformities and confusions as low as the neithermost Hell Yet is God a Critical Distinguisher of the thoughts singling every thought setting it naked in its own proper form clear with all its circumstances in his light and sight There is one thing in this Scripture which hath an eminent sense in it self and suitableness to our purpose The 12. verse begins this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God the 13. verse concludes this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word In this last place we translate it thus With whom we have to do The Greek phrase literally sounds thus To whom the Word is to us The Greek term first signifieth Reason which is the internal Word or the Understanding their Speech the external Word the Image of the internal of Reason of the Understanding The Holy Ghost seemeth by this expression in the end answering and ecchoing to that in the beginning to design this sweet and rich sense that our Reason our Understanding in its internal form in its outward Image which is our speech so far as it is right and true answering to Jesus Christ turneth it self to him formeth it self according to him fixeth it self upon him flows back into him who is the first Reason and Understanding in the Godhead within and its Image without in the Creature The inward or outward word of Angels or Men is to this word as the Eccho to the Voice the Face in the Glass to the living Face the reflection of the Beam to the direct Beam the Stream to the Fountain The same term signifieth also the proportion of things All things then which fall within the compass of any created Understanding of any expression in discourse lie first most clearly most compleatly in Jesus Christ the Divine Understanding the Divine Word as the Original spring and measure of all understandings and expressions What ever in the nature of things beareth any proportion of great or little universal or particular beautiful or deformed lieth according to that proportion most distinctly in this Divine Word the Divine Understanding which is the first the most universal proportion and harmony the Original spring and measure of all proportions 2. I will add another Scripture which as in a Picture wrought by a most skilful hand sets with lively force before our eyes the least the lowest things shining with highest beauty in the Divine Mind embrac'd with the dearest sweetnesses by the Divine Love You shall see there the Divine Understanding and Affection encompassing all things after the most universal manner and insinuating themselves into each thing with the most exact distinction of singulars and individuals Jesus Christ endeavouring to bring us into a Divine Liberty by being free from solicitous cares and fears endeavouring to fix our Spirits upon the Divine Goodness by a full Trust and sweet Rest an absolute and delightful Resignation affirmeth That even the hairs of our head are numbred Therefore saith he Fear not Luke 12. 7. Number is defined to be quantity discrete because it doth most accurately discern and distinguish all the differences of things as they lie in the whole and apart both at once What so sleight of so little weight as a single hair of the head yet God taketh an account of every single hair while he numbreth all our hairs The numbring of things marketh each single Unity for a treasure for the object of esteem and of care in its preservation This appeareth by the Latin Poet who bringeth in the Shepheard Swain speaking thus to his Companions upon the Downs when they were to strive for the mastery in their Rural Musick I from my flock dare nothing lay with thee A Father a Step-Mother hard agree To number both each day the bleating sheep One of the wanton Kids the tale doth keep Each single hair then is a Divine Treasure attracting the Eye of eternity which diligently and delightfully watcheth for its eternal preservation for all our hairs are numbred in eternity As it is said of the Stars in Heaven God there calleth
although I be not alwayes so happy as to find my Understanding tuned to a consort and harmony with his seemeth to me like a Prophet as well as a Poet to sing this mystery drawn forth from the sacred retreats of the divinest Philosophy in his Poems There he painteth out with liveliest colours the whole Universe as a great Soul and Spirit as a Contexture as a Quire or as a Dance of many Souls or Spirits where materiality and corporeity are seen not as distinct substances from the Soul but as figures wrought by the Soul her self in the lowest part of that Vestment with which spun forth from her self she is cloathed and comes forth upon this lower Stage As the lowest point of that beam whose head is in the bosome of the Sun So with him matter and body seem to be the lowest shade into which the Soul descends within her self and the various forms which she puts on in this shade That seemeth to be most pleasantly harmonious to this which the same Author hath in that pleasant piece of his Cabbala upon the beginning of Genesis There he figures out to us the Soul and the Body which he calls her Vehicle or Chariot that is the Image into which she descends and rides forth here below by the Male and Female or the Bridegroom and the Bride which are also Father and Daughter The Body thus appears as a beautiful Image of the Soul springing forth from the Soul abiding by a mystical marriage in the eye and bosome of the Soul In it as in a clear and chrystalline Glass the Soul with ravishing delights seeth her self in all her own beauties and sweetnesses Of it she saith This is life of my life beauty of my beauty my self springing forth from my self in a beautiful Image and so represented to my self Thus is the Soul tyed by irresistible Charms to its Body This way the Soul falls from her purity and the joys of her immortality while she sinks into and looseth her self in this shadowy Image as if this were her only true her only beautiful form She hath now drowned in a deep oblivion her Angelical her Divine Beauty and Being unto which she should have risen as to the Original Glory by those inferior and fading figures of her self in this shade On these Original Glories as her golden full-spread wings she should have descended into this shadowy Image and upon the same wings have carried up in her embraces this shadow into the eternal Light This divinely pleasant figure of Dr. More brings to my mind some thing of Plotâ—…nus in his Discourses upon the Soul not unsuitable to him and to our present purpose He teacheth us as from a sacred Oracle That every Soul cometh down into this World as a Caelestial Venus or an heavenly Beauty the beautiful Daughter and Image of the supream God attended with a Caelestial Cupid or an heavenly Love her own Birth ever with her ever before her her dear delight and glory By this Love the seed of the Divine and eternal Beauty in the Soul sprung up into a Child into a pleasant youthful growing Image upon his wings she springeth up and takes her flight abroad into all forms of things as so many scattred figures and births of the first Beauty until with her Love she return into the bosome of that Dr. Cudworth who by giving us a short relish of that rich treasure of Knowledge and Learning remote from the Vulgar causeth also a regret in us that he entertaineth us with no fuller a Feast when that Feast might be a Divine Feast Sacrifice and Marriage all in one enformeth us from the Jewish Doctors That all Souls come down from above in a married or Conjugal state This seemeth to make one entire piece with Plotinus and Dr. More The ever blessed Trinity is the first Marriage and glorious Prototype of all Marriages Here the Father is the Lover and Bridegroome the eternal Word or Wisdome is the Daughter and Bride his essential Image in which his own glories and sweetnesses offer themselves to his Divine View and embraces The Holy Spirit is the Love which springeth forth from these two which is the Fountain of the Divine Birth and Generation between these two which uniteth them in eternal embraces in a Divine fruitfulness by which they Spring up within this Marriage-bed into innumerable Births and Images of themselves in this their Love-Union Souls as they are the Birth so do they bear the Image of this Trinity and Marriage The Soul bringeth forth within her self this sensitive Image which is her Daughter and her Bride The love which unites these two in a Conjugal state which springs mutually from both as they are living Images each of other as they are one self or substance in two distinct forms which is the same in both is the Spirit of life and motion This makes the sweetness of life and of all vital motions That Love is their Spring and their Spirit From this Love as from the Marriage-bed doth the Soul by her own proper Bride which is its Body bring forth it self into all sensitive and corporeal forms which furnish and fill this visible World Thus Souls come down in a Conjugal state while each Soul brings down its Bride and Body in its bosome out of which it springs as Eve sprung forth out of the side of Adam his fair and flourishing Image while he flourished in his pure and Primitive Beauties I confine not that sentence of the Jewish Rabbies to this sense which yet seemeth to me although perhaps not the only sense as proper in it self as it is pertinent to our Discourse If these grounds be good and firm clear will it be That there is nothing vile or mean in the nature of things rightly seen when as all things are Spirits or Souls in their married state that is heavenly Beauties and heavenly Loves in various forms and postures where all their motions are the loves of these Souls in their lovely flights Some one may think this to be understood and confirmed by that of the Psalmist cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews He hath made his Ministers Spirits or Winds his Angels a flame of fire The Fire the Air all the Elements in their various composition the Coelestial Bodies are Spirits in their proper Vestments Vehicles or Chariots with their proper Brides These heavenly Beauties and Loves may be cast into a deep sleep here yet are they still sleeping Beauties and sleeping Loves beautiful and lovely in their sleep Although like Abraham they may have disorderly deformed distracting Dreams in their sleep In these Dreams an horrible darkness may fall upon them strange Visions may be presented to them They may see dreadful fires in the midst of this darkness themselves their dear Bride the sensitive Image like Doves lying dead and divided one from another like innocent Beasts of Sacrifice slain and cut into several pieces with the brands of fire or burning Lamps passing
embraces the fountain of Life the center and circle of all Delights O bitter Peace disordering Melody broken and unpleasant Harmony where Love suffers all evil and is slain on both sides to make perfect the Harmony But oh full Compensation O full and sweet Harmony arising out of the Discords swallowing up the Discords themselves into the most pure the most perfect most pleasant melody whereas Love first suffered and was slain by the disorder and enmity of Sin so now Love again suffereth and is slain for the enmity for sin by the wrath of God against sin that is by the Love in its contrary to the enmity Thus Love it self in the place of us all most lovingly and beauty it self most beautifully is become a Sacrifice for it self to it self 3. Abolition The last step in the way of reducing disorder into order is the Abolition or Renovation this is the finishing of all in the Person of the Lord Jesus The Lord Jesus is the compleat Image of the invisible God Thus he comprehendeth the whole Creation in himself for all the Creatures are so many expressive or manifestative figures of the Divine Glory We read in Scripture That the things which are seen that is all the created Objects of Sense or Reason Humane or Angelical stand up out of the things which are not seen Jesus Christ then being the first highest Image of the invisible God as he is in his own unaccessible Light is the Root out of which and in which the Creation stands the Lord Jesus as this universal Person goes down into the Grave and carries thither into those lowest shades at once with himself all Images of things the Original and the Copy the Substance and the Shadow the Uncreated Glory and the created Figure So Christ dies and the whole Creation dieth with him so he makes an end of Sin and Transgression Here he sings that triumphant Song O Death I am thy death Here all the evil of Sin and Suffering of Disorder and Contrariety which as a grave had swallowed up the whole Creation is swallowed up into Victory in the grave of Christ. In this Divine Death the whole Creation is dissolved and comes to its last end in its last end it meets with its beginning falling quite out of it self falling down out of its own empty obscure shade and nothingness it falls into the bosom of its heavenly and eternal Mother the Original Glory The Original Glory in the Person of Christ hath descended thus low together with its Birth and shadow Here it finisheth its descent in its shadow here diffusing it self and its eternal Light through these shades of death and through the whole Creation in these shades it maketh it self perfectly one by an entire and mutual communion in death with all the Creatures whose life was a continual War with it The Light of the heavenly Image poured forth in these shades of death flowing through the created Image overflowing and taking it into it self is that precious and Divine Blood which by its mysterious washings maketh the crimson and scarlet sins or stains upon this Image whiter than the whitest wooll or snow In this Divine Death the shadowy Image with all its evils of disorder and enmity are now past away for ever in respect to any reality substantiality or subsistence in themselves they remain only as figures in the Divine shade of this death in which shade the heavenly Image bears all in its pure although obscured bosom It is now the Root of eternal Love and eternal Life in Death receiving into it self all the Creatures with all their disorders and enmities They all now do here put off their Realities and become only mysterious shadows through which the supream Beauty and Sweetness springeth and sporteth it self But the Original Glory in the Person of Christ having now finished the mystery of its descent in the Creature and in this final dissolution taken the Creature again into it self as its first and proper Root beginneth now its return and ascent As the Lord Jesus died so he riseth again an universal Person with both Images created and uncreated united in himself The eternal Glory once in the first Creation vailed it self beneath a shadowy Image to die in that Image accordingly he died with it and for it But now he riseth again in the brightness of his heavenly Image he raiseth the whole Creation together with himself as his proper and immediate Birth as its purest and loveliest Bride in the most intimate entire and mutual Union with it self in all its glories thus to live for ever in the richest and closest embraces of each other Here now ye have a three-fold Resurrection in one 1. The Divine Image which is eternal Love and life it self as it had been vailed as it had suffered and died in the Creature riseth sweetly and gloriously from beneath all those shades into its own freshest and fullest Beauties Thus it riseth in the midst of the created Image 2. The created Image was once a fair entire Picture of the eternal Beauty living a Divine Life breathing a Divine Sweetness being a Divine Paradise in it self to it self while it stood as a pure resemblance of its Divine Original But by its fall into the infâ—…rnal Deep of Sin it stained it self it broke it self all to pieces it buried its Life Beauty and Sweetness in a dreadful and hateful death Now having put off that death in the death of Christ it riseth again in the bosom of the Original Glory not only in its fullest Beauty and Sweetness but a Beauty and Sweetness far more excelling It was before its fall a sweet shade an earthly Paradise The shade vanished into darkness the Paradise faded and disappeared But now it riseth as the â—…un-shine of the Godhead as the sweetest Light at once lying in the Bosom of the highest Glory embraced by it and surrounding that Glory with its embraces by a mutual immediate and eternal Union 3. The fall the disorders the wounds and death of this shadowy Image so dreadful and hateful as they stood in time now also have their Resurrection and put on a new appearance in eternity Having now passed through the Death and Sufferings of Christ where they put off all their evil by putting off all their own proper reality they stand in his Resurrection as figures of eternal Glories which are themselves also Glories in the Bosom of their Glorious Original They are seen now as they eternally spring up and flourish in the Garden of the Divine Mind as they bear their part and shine in the universal Beauty of the Divine Image and Work As the eternal Original with its Paradisical shadow lay hid in them like a Flower in its Seed in the Earth as both these Glories now are sprung forth through them and bring forth them again as eternal Lights in the light and circle of their own Beauties So is Christ in the circle of the Throne of God as the
God in it is a Divine secret and mystery of Grace and Glory which hath such recesses such endless Varieties in it that it cannot be traced by the Foot or discovered by the eye of any Creature St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God upon the absoluteness freedom of the Divine Nature ver 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath been his Counsellor or who hath given first to him that it may be given again to him by way of return or exchange As are the Riches of the Divine Mind which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work As is the absoluteness unlimitedness of the Divine Nature which consulteth with nothing considereth nothing in the Creature but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns in his most glorious Essence and is put on and taketh the rise of all his Works from the ever-ful ever flowing over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature Thus St. Paul concludeth and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches Wisdom Knowledge The Divine Wonders of an absolute unconfined freedom in all the Works of God by the cause of all verse 36. Because of him and by him or through him and to him are all things Plato maketh three Causes alone the Efficient Formal or Exemplar and Final St. Paul wraps up all these in one in God alone He is the beginning the way the end of all He is the Fountain out of which they all arise in their several streams He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along He is the Sea into which they all flow where they lose not their Distinctions but rise up to the perfection of them in this Marriage with the first the full and unbounded Glory To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches surmounting all expectations in every Creature may we now raise our thoughts when the beginning the way the end of every thing thus lies in the Godhead when this Bosom the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses is to every thing its Fountain in which it riseth its Chanel in which it runs along its Sea in which it ends How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works To him is glory in the Generations so may we most properly read the words How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith Understanding Love in sweetest Rest and fullest Joy with this Glory Amen Of him through him and to him are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen Thus this last Scripture in a clear Harmony with the other two seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits 1. God the only Good is equally absolute entire universal in shutting or locking up all men in Unbelief the Prison the Dungeon of deepest darkness as in shewing mercy which is the opening to them the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light the Light of Life the Light of Love the Light of Glory He shuts and none can open he opens and none can shut These are the two Cardinal Acts the shutting up under belief and the shewing mercy Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth through Hell and Heaven through Time and Eternity 2. Shewing mercy is the end shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love For all motions to the end are in the virtue of the end the end is the light the life the loveliness of the means All means and ways to the end are first comprehended in the end The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them as so many tendencies to it self as so many gradual orderly springings forth of its self The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self as making up the perfection of the end and having their perfection in the end Thus the severity and wrath of God in its severest Act the shutting up men under unbelief is Love and divinely-lovely 3. God and Love in this Work of his appear to be both one For Love is the end of Wrath By being the end it is also the beginning and the way So also is God For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom is the glory through all Generations The highest expression of God unto our capacity as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love This is his Glory as he is unvailed unclouded This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud This is a sweetning a gilding upon every Vail every Cloud God as he is Love is the beginning the way the end of every Work through every Generation and so the Glory in every Work to all generations 4. God in his Work is absolute and absolutely free He taketh no counsel he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself The reason and rule of all his Works is alone from himself from within All within is the Unity the simplicity of the Divine Essence uncapable of any mixture or composition all meer clear pure Love 5. The Work of God in shutting up in unbelief and shewing mercy is an unfathomable Depth But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely and most loving Sweets and Joys The work of God is unsearchable incomprehensible infinite but an unsearchable â—…ncomprehensible infinite Love and Glory Let us therefore eâ—…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding Let us be content to say Here is a Depth unfathomable not to my Spirit alone but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel Then let us add from our knowledge of whom whose the design and the work is It is a lovely a delightful Depth a Depth of purest Glories and richest Loves So let us gladly cast our selves into it to be swallowed up by it concluding all with these words I cannot receive nor comprehend thee Do thou receive and comprehend me O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me O my self infinitely blessed in being comprehended by thee I
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
new upon the supream Goodness in its heavenly Image of the eternal Truth that here by its Will it may lie down for ever with a most blissful Rest with the fulness of all unexpressible complacency in the fruition of the supream Goodness shining forth upon it immediately clasping and enfolding in its own naked immortal most precious most pleasant Form the perfection of Beauty the Essence of all Beauty Truth Goodness and Love in One But it is time now for me to pass from this second Excellency in the Mediatory Form and Person of our Jesus the Harmonious Order and Proportion of the parts The third Excellency in this Mediatory Form of Christ is the Unity of the whole and of the parts as in themselves so with the whole The ground of this Unity is two-fold 1. The Spiritual Nature 2. The Divine Person 1. One ground of this Unity is the Spiritual Nature of all things here St. Paul speaking of the Lord Jesus in this his proper Kingdom and Glory saith of him The Lord is that Spirit That Spirit in the same place he describeth to be the Spirit in which the Vail the Shade and Cloud of Flesh is entirely removed where all things are with open face in the Liberty of the Divine Light and Glory The Lord Jesus faith of himself The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life It is the Spirit which quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory casts off the Vail of Flesh as from his Divine so from his Humane Nature The days of his Flesh are now past He is a quickning Spirit all Spirit and Life His Humane Nature is now all Spirit and by having the Godhead hath the Fountain of Spirits and Life in it self All his words in this spiritual state are substantial living immortal Spirits springing forth from and abiding in himself as their heavenly Root and Element After this manner do all Forms of things arise and flourish in him being his words of Power and Glory as the Images in Humane or Angelical Understandings are the words of those Minds Spirits are Unities There is with them no distance of Space or division of Parts All Spirits intimately entirely throughout penetrate possess and inhabit each other transcending all this Image and measure of space of place of corporeal extension The streets in the heavenly Jerusalem are said to be Gold and Glass If I conjecture aright Jesus Christ in his Mediatory State is this glorious City where the great Assembly of the First-born all Spirits born of the Father of Lights Humane or Angelical on Earth or in Heaven dwell together in One. It is expresly said That this City hath the Glory of God that the Glory of the Lord 〈◊〉 it and that the Lamb is the Light thereof How agreeth all this with that Description of Christ the brightness of the Glory of God In this City of glorious and immortal Spirits which is it self the Spirit of Unity and of Glory where Jesus Christ is built up not only into a Temple but into a City in this Spirit the streets the lowest Forms of things are Gold and Glass Such gold as hath the transparency of glass Such glass as hath the substance the solidity the glory the incorruptibleness of Gold Thus is the Unity in the spiritual Nature of things most beautifully and most agreeably figured to us Like Gold it is every where full of it self compact and uniform sending forth continually all various Forms as Beams of Glory Like Glass it discovereth all Forms of things within it self in every point of it self by a perfect transparency all Forms of things endlesly appear in each form At every single view at every single glance the eye of the Spirit is every where terminated no where bounded every where at rest no where restrained 2. The second ground of the Unity in this heavenly Image is the Divine Person All things here are joyned by an hypostatical or personal Union all are one Person A Person is an Intellectual Unity an Intellectual Essence compleatly existing and subsisting in it self The Unity here is not that only of an Intellectual but of a Divine Person God is the Person here As is the Person such is the Unity both are supream The eternal Spirit God himself in the height of Eternity makes both Natures the Uncreated with the Created one in our Lord Jesus without any confusion or lessening the Distinction between the Natures themselves The Unity of a Person is understood by these three Maxims concerning it in Metaphysicks 1. The Person is the Subsistence or the Existence that Unity which is both the Spring and the Chanel the Center and the Circle of the whole Essence or Nature by which it is one by it self and distinct from all other things distinct from it self as it lies in its Causes and is there one with them 2. All Operations are from the Person 3. All denominations belong to the Person The Person then is the indivisible Unity which within it self according to its amplitude springs up into all Varieties of Forms Operations Denominations through the whole Essence and Nature in its utmost extent This is that which works all in all Operations which appears in all Forms which hath all names and denominations which in all these is one and the same hath one Form one Name which comprehendeth all entirely clearly distinctly undividedly According to these grounds we shall see a three-fold Divine and Personal Unity in this Mediatory Form of Christ. 1. The whole is one entire and Divine Person altogether compleat all over divinely beautiful and pleasant All Distinctions Diversities Distances Divisions Contrarieties meet here without distance diversity or division in the supream Unity of one Divine Person onc all-glorious Spirit one Life one most harmonious Image one Love one eternal Joy Behold the Beauty of this more than heavenly Person in these several Elements which compose all Beauty 1. Here is the Variety of lines and colours All forms of things in their richest Variety lie together here 2. Here is Light The substance of the created Image in this Person is the Flower of Light the most immediate sweetest freshest Sun-shine from the Face of the Godhead it self 3. Here is Life esteemed the chief part of Beauty Here is the Life of Love As it is Life which heightens so is it Love which sweetens all A Divine eternal Spring of Life and Love openeth it self in every part and from every part with most pleasant intermixtures diffuseth it self through the whole Thus are all the Beauties here perpetually in sweetest motion in the liveliest and loveliest activity of mutual fruition and the delightful exchange of their Divine Sweetnesses their never-fading Pleasures 4. All this Variety Light Life and Activity are composed into and governed by the most charming the most exact the most universal Harmony 5. The eternal Sun of Beauty it self the eternal Spirit of Harmony the