fulness of Christ. And concludes that Epistle Peace be to the Brethren and Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Grace be with All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen So to the Philippians every where Especially in that famous place of Bowing in the Name of Jesus paralel to that of the Psalm Early will I seek thee and ever will I bless thee and lift up my hands as here bow the knee in thy Name when I pray I will pray in thy Name and confesse to the glory of God which Christ challengeth to himself in the Prophet Isaiah and at conclusion The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And in the Epistle to the Colossions For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and having made Peace by the blood of his cross by him to reconcile All things unto Himself by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Which to the Ephesians is according to the good pleasure of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather All into One in Christ All things in Heaven or Earth even in him And to the Thessalonians Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in Love to One another and to all men even as we to you that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God And again That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Iesus Christ. And again Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us for the Father is Love and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and patience of Christ. Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother walking disorderly yet count him not an enemy but admonish him as a brother Now the God of Peace himself give you Peace alwayes by all means The Lord be with you All. The salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen And it may also be observed that what we read be with you might be read is with you and so it is not onely a prayer but a promise and assurance that the grace of Christ is with All calling on Christ and so believing on him for how can they call on him on whom they believe not And Timothy This is a faithful saying and worthy of All Acceâ—ation as much or more then all the Mazoreth or Kabâ— that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Now unto the King Immortal Eternal Invisible the onely wise God which Jude also calleth Our Saviour speaking in the language of this very Text be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Which he subjoyns on this Great Cause I obtained Mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a patern to them even to all them that should hereafter believe on him to Eternal life So that Christ did not mainly mind Paul in shewing him that patience and kindnesse but did it to Him that he might be a patern unto others even unto all others that should ever after believe even to all Eternity And to the same Timothy he writeth Flee also fleshly lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart And concludes the Lord Iesus Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you Amen The great businesse of St. Peters Epistle is to presse forward in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so he concludes Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Which also runs very much through the whole Epistle The Revelation of Jesus Christ wch God gave to him to shew to his servants is ful of prayers praises blessings of and from and to the same Jesus Who so plainly calling himself the first and the last which is and was and is to come the great Iehovah Lord God Almighty leads us plainly to the paralel places in the Prophet Isaiah where he saith the same of himself adding also that there is no other God or indeed no other True Being besides himself Representing himself in several species or Idea's For Plato was not the first that taught there was but One which yet was All. And yet again in the same chapter of that Prophet he saith Lo here I am and His spirit hath sent me even the Lord God and His Spirit though I am God and there is none besides me or none else but I and in me and One with me as the Root and every Branch is One with the Vine And in the same Prophet It is this One True God the First and the last and so All True Being which yet is sent by God and anointed by his Spirit and so the Messias or-Jesus Christ which plainly sweareth by Himself and therefore hath no greater that every knee shall bow or pray to Him and every tongue shall confess to Him which the Apostle citeth in that noted place of praying in the Name of Jesus and confessing to the glory of God even the Father also And may we add or may we not add what Christ of himself said If God be glorified in Him or in Them will not God also glorifie Him or Them with Himself Yea he will shortly do it nay he hath already done it before any other can glorifie Him for who can give him first or lend to him that it may be paid again To this also we might refer those passages of holding fast his Name and not denying his Name and confessing his Name as he will also confesse their names before his Father and the holy Angels both in the Gospels and Revelation and the call and Counsel of Christ as also the Fathers Drawing being that we come to Christ and learn of Him and buy of Him and open to Him that is still knocking to come in till his locks be wet with dew and his spirit be not onely abused but dispised and blasphemed argue much our speaking praying to him as well as hearing him who indeed is the end of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings so that he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh wil come to Jesus Christ and converseth with him as a man with his friend whom he most loveth and honoureth also And the Angels of Heaven for they are all bid to worship him as we
deceived and God needeth not your Lye for him or against your self in any thing And if you judge amisse of your self God is so Holy and Just that you never need fear that He will confirm or execute your wrong Judgement And if you judge rightly of your self you are not so miserable as you conceive your self but as you do that which is one of the Highest and Hardest Acts possible which is to judge ones self rightly so you have one of the Greatest Bbessings which God giveth to the Sons of men or to his own Son which is a right understanding of a right Judgement which was the Great Argument used by the greatest and best man that ever lived to prove that he was of God and had His Spirit and a Will also moulded into His Holy Will for else he saith he could not Judge Righteous Judgement And who ever doth this of himself and his own sins is in a special manner partaker of the Holy Ghost whose proper work is to convince us rightly of sin Righteousnesse and Judgement and who ever judgeth himself rightly shall not be judged of God Here he stopt and sweetly bowed and turned aside a little but returned soon again looking as cheerful as he could well force himself It being not very easie so to clear up his eyes and face but that it might be seen though he hid it that he had wept Which also pierced his Guest both to see the Fathers affection and his own misery Who was still so unhappy as he some way expressed to be a burthen to himself and all he conversed with supposing he had grieved or displeased him by some of his expressions But when the Good Father perceived those thoughts with a most sweet tender and melting look he replyed No my Dear Brother no you do not burthen me at all or in any thing displease me But as my general duty bids or helps me in some measure to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth So my particular respect and affection now forceth me if at least it can be force upon a Fathers tender bowels to yearn over his son or a brother over his own dearly beloved brother Yet there is somewhat in You that maketh me melt in Joy rather then sorrow tho it may be unutterable for I cannot expresse it I saw you were my Neighbour at the first as a Man and so I found my self obliged This is Little and low both to Love and Honour you for that Image of God I ought to acknowledge in you and the great Law of Love that commands Brotherly kindenesse bids us adde Love also yea and to strangers also for the same chapter that bids us Love our Neighbour as our self bids us Love a stranger also as we love our selves And among divers reasons why we should love strangers it is sometimes added Because God loveth strangers Yea and we are bid to entertain them so As if they were or might be Angels seeing some had unawares so entertained Angels But now I see somewhat more in you not onely a Man and my Neighbour but a Christian also and my Dear and pretious Brother whom the Angels do attend and love and honour as a lively Image of their great Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And how is it that the Brother of my Lord thus cometh to visit me And you are so far from having committed that great sin against the Holy Ghost which you so much fear that you are still under the most gracious workings of that Holy Spirit Whose great work is to convince the world even the world and not onely the Apostles or Disciples but the World of Sin Righteousnesse and Judgement which is also promised to the World even to the World and is fulfilled in you who are thus under the convincing spirit of Promise And it will also comfort you for the same spirit that convinceth is also the Comforter and where it wounds it heals and when it hath convinced both of Sin Judgement and Righteousness which is there promised it will also comfort It being the promise or indeed the property and nature yea and heart of God to heal and quicken whom he wounds and kills which from Moses Song runs all along through the Psalms and Prophets Who tell us If he wound he will heal Yea though he kill for two dayes He wil revive and quicken on the Third For he will turn again and have compassion on us because he delighteth in mercy though he cause grief for a while and yet not willingly or from his heart afflicteth the children of men which is his Strange work But Mercy is his Child his Son and comes as naturally from him as a child from any father For he is the Father of Mercy yea of a multitude of mani-fold Mercies which are also One with the heart of Christ for He is the onely begotten of the Father and yet His Father is also the Father of Mercies so that Christ and Mercies lay together in one womb and indeed are the same for how else is Christ the Onely begotten of the Father And you are under the tender mercies of Christ even that Christ who is Mercy it self and this holy Spirit of Promise will certainly be your Comforter being already I see your Remembrancer to bring to mind his words one of his proper Works having also convinced you of Righteousnesse enough in him Everlasting Righteousnesse to satisfie God and sanctifie you And I hear you not onely acknowledge him to be the Son of God and sent of God to be the Saviour of the World but also you are convinced of sin because you have not believed on him the great promise of that Comforter and are made most truly and highly to value defire long and pray for him and To him which you could not but by the gracious workings of that Holy Spirit of promise whose great work was and still is to set up Christ as he set up his Father Which Character given by Christ of his own spirit is repeated also by the Apostles And St. John gives it as the Touch-stone whereby we should try the spirits saying Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is come in the flesh is of God and again he that confesses that Jesus is the Son of God dwelleth in God and God in him and again whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and again He that is born of God sinneth not that sin or worketh not sin which is a common phrase in the Language of the Law of Moses and other places of Scripture Doeth not sin So but that the seed of God still remaineth in him as the sap of an Oake or Teile when it casteth its leaves as the Prophet Isaiah in that most remarkable Chap. cited in the six first books of the New Testament For the Jews rejection and return again as an emblem of the whole Worlds Restoring or Resurrection it being plain in the
by him to a journey when he meets with great storms and danger of death by shipwrack or otherwise For the Lord met Moses in the Inn and sought to slay him in his way to Aegypt though he sent him thither on so great an errand Noah brought rest to the World through the Floud and many tossings in great Waters And we might have lost some of the sweetest portions of the Gospel but for such storms by Sea In one of them Christ is in the Ship but asleep and they wake him crying Carest thou not that we perish And he soon took care and rebuked the winds though blaming their unbelief and fear with amazement which is Peters phrase to the Daughters of our good Mother Sara and he might learn it from our Saviour in their storms and fears with such amazement which is a phrase used several times in the Gospel But doth God take care of bodies Will he not be more careful of our souls and pity them more If we would cry and wake him also when he seems asleep about or in us and among us and say to him Master carest thou not that our souls perish Even those precious and Immortal souls which thou seemest to value above the whole World saying What shall a man give in exchange for his soul It is said Our blood shall be precious in thy eyes and shall not our Souls be more precious O we of little faith At another time Our Saviour did not onely send away his Disciples but constrained them to go in a ship when they might have gone another way But they would have sent away the poor people supperlesse from him and when he had supped them He sends away his Hard Disciples to be tossed in the Sea while he blessed the poor people In the fourth watch of the night he shews himself God is nearer us in a storm then we believe or Expect and he saw them tossed some pretty while it seems but would not help them or appear till the last watch and then they are more afraid and cryed out supposing it to be an evil spirit So easily may we mistake the kindnesse of God and think him to be the Devil to devour us even then when he comes in goodnesse to save us But he first rebuketh their fears and saith It is I be not afraid And when Peter would venture out beyond his strength and ready to sink cryed Save me I perish He is moved with compassion and immediately stretcheth out his hand and catcheth him the very phrase used to the Hebrews He caught not the nature of Angels but he caught the seed of Abraham He suddenly reached out his hand and caught as we snatch a thing perishing in fire or water So he caught Peter As he would do us also if in our fears and sinking we would so cry out to Him Help Lord I perish How quickly did he bring him into the Ship and it with them all safe in a calme to their wished Haven O that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse to the sons of men as the Psalmist repeats it several times in the 107. Psalm Such goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse did the Lord shew to Paul also in that stormy voyage to Rome wherein yet he did not onely preserve Him safe but all his fellow passengers also as he told him in a night vision saying Fear not Paul thou must be brought to Cesar and lo God hath given thee all them which sail with thee And when he came to Rome he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them of Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets And for two years dwelt in an hired house receiving All that came to him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence As we read in the Acts. That he also taught them to pray to Jesus Christ is plain enough from the stresse he putteth on it in his Epistle to those very Romanes in the tenth chapter Where to believing with the heart he joyns also confession with the mouth and explaineth it by praying to him For it is written Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For the same Lord over All is Rich unto All that call upon him But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed And the first Epistle to the Corinthians is directed to the Church of God at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with All that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours And concludes thus The Salutation of me Paul with my own hand If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you my love be with you all in Christ Jesus Amen Which belongeth to every one that in any place calleth on Jesus Christ. And to All us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are All things and we by him as he speaketh in the same Epistle And the second Epistle concludeth with the Grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you All. As that Epistle so all his Epistles generally begin with Grace and Peace and some add Mercy also from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who as the Epistle to the Galathians addeth gave Himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil World according to the will of God and our Father and I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the Grace of Christ. And concludes that Epistle From henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Brethren the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit Amen And to the Ephesians among many other remarkable passages of Jesus Christ he prayes that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnesse of God Namely by him in whom All fulnesse dwelleth Yea all the fulness of the Godhead And therefore He that desireth Him and prayeth to Him prayeth to the whole fulnesse of the Godhead and desireth it And in the same Epistle He that descended is now ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill All things and gave gifts c. for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the
here in dust or thick clay And yet his Wisdom and the Best in him being now united to Flesh will not must not say to the Foot I have no need of Thee yea must not disdain to say to this Worm Thou art my Brother or my Sister and Corruption is my Mother or my neer kindred And while others talk of Doing the Law and performing it to others I am mainly bent to see and hope believe and pray that Christ will Do it and perform it unto me and so by working in me teach me and help me also so to Act to others in some measure As he doth to me What is the Law which hath so long kept us in awe As if it had or could disanul the free Grace of God and Covenant thereof which was made with our Fathers and with us in them also so many hundred years before the Law rose up As also the Goodness and Pities of God were from everlasting to everlasting and so much longer and stronger than his wrath which we use to call his Justice which is not in him but as a stranger coming cross his way or calling on him and at most was but of yester day when some poor creature had sinned Is not the Law the very mind and Heart of God even That God which is Light and Love and perfect goodness Is it not summed up by Christ himself into Love All the Law nothing but Love Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and heart and might and the other is like unto this Like unto This For Man also is like unto God and thou must Love yea and honor Man too But Like as thou dost God Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self But how can I possibly Love God or my Neighbor before God Love me yea and some way manifest his Love to me Can I first give unto God or lend him that it may be paid again Is it Probable or Possible that I say not noble generous or Ingenuous for my God to ask and expect my Heart and Hearts Love to him before he had given his Heart and Hearts Love to me What shall we say then Having loved Man once he loved him still being his own in his own Image which he yet owns still in him after the Fast and after the Flood too Thou shalt not shed Mans blood for in the Image of God He is created Nay St. Paul is so bold as to call man not only the Image of God but also his Glory the Image and Glory of God And yet he speaks of Man as Man and of every man saying also that Christ is the Head of every man and that Man is the Image and Glory of God And Wisdom which is Christ plainly saith His delights were not only with Man but with the Sons of men or Man-kind And there were no Sons of men till after the Fall and when man had sinned And Gods Philanthropy or Love to Man-kind so much spoken of by St. Paul and others in the New Testament is also observed by Moses himself who beginning to bless the twelve Tribes of Israel plainly saith God loveth the Peoples also for the word is Plural and may take in all the Gentile Nations also in the Earth yea he carries them all in his bosom as the word he there useth may import Though he have also some especial to them that sit at his Feet and receive the Law at his Mouth which he there giveth for a sure Character of Gods especial Love even his Giving and their Receiving of his Law the Good and Royal Law of Love And God so loved the World even the World that he gave his Son for the world not to condemn the World but to save it for God even the Father himself is Love and hath sent forth his Son in Love and hath also promised his Spirit to convince the world even the World of Sin and to powr it out on all flesh that All may see the Glory of God Yea every eye may see his Salvation And hath therefore given his Law to the World even to the worst of men as St. Paul argues to Timothy that by it he may convince them and draw them to Christ. Having so shut them all up in unbelief and conclude them All under sin and breach of the Law that he might have Mercy on them Which indeed and properly speaking could not be shewed till there was an Object for it and there was no Misery which is the Object of Mercy till Sin was in the world And doth not This very Law this Holy perfect Royal Law of Love express and speak this Heart and Love of God to every man that it speaketh to and that is the worst of men living Doth it not say Thou shalt love me because I love thee Doth it not begin to every Man to whom it speaks and say I am the Lord thy God even Thy Lord and Thy God! and Therefore Thou shalt have No other God because I am Thy God And therefore thou shalt not bow to Images but Worship me only because I only am the Lord Thy God And therefore thou shalt honor my Name and not abuse my Love or take my Name or Goodness in vain or turn it into Wantonness because I am the Lord thy God And wilt thou not both love and honor That is Reverence that great and Reverend Name The Lordthy God Not a Terrible Name but a Reverend Name and therefore to be loved and greatly honored or Reverenced as God bids us Reverence his Sanctuary and a Woman must Reverence her Husband and the time is coming that we shall not call our God Baali that is My Lord or hard Master But Ishi my Husband And yet we shall then most Love and Reverence him with Godly Sonly Fear and Reverence And because this Name of the Lord my God is so great and holy and reverend Therefore I am bid to reverence it and hallow it even as the first Petition of our Lords Prayer teacheth us to pray and by no means to take it in vain For they that name it must depart from Iniquity And although the words added of not holding him guiltlesse that takes his Holy Name in vain ought still to keep me in great aufull Reverence yet they ought not to make me have any hard thoughts of God as if he were an Hard Master which our Saviour shewed as the Root of all miscarriage And those words may seem to speak a selfish person and so hard to please and so unexorable when displeased that do little suit the sweet and Gracious Heart of God which is Pure and Peaceful hardly provoked and Gentle easie to be entreated Slow to anger and without fury which rest onely in the bosome of Fools Delighting in Mercy and abounding in Goodnesse The Father of Mercies pardoning Iniquity Transgression and Sin And when he is provoked to visit and chasten yet he doth it Gently and Slowly and by degrees not at once
then he will dispence with loving our Neighbour yea but shewing pitty to his Oxe or Ass fallen into a pit And as if God would measure all our Love to himself by our loving our poor Neighbour St. John saith Let a man never talk of loving God whom he never saw if he do not love his Brother whom he hath seen and if he do but see him in want and shut up his bowels though his wants be not wept or worded out but only Seen How doth the love of God dwell in such a man as we found also in Esay when thou Seest the naked that thou cover him Which hath sometimes been very sweet to me when I had no words or tears to expresse my miseries to Christ or was sensible enough of any of my wants Yet I have often spoken to him from that place and others in the Psalmes or Job or Lamentations Crying See my affliction though I do not see it or am afflicted for it as I should or would Yet do thou See my miseries Even when I see them not and let thy tender eye affect thy tender heart for the Love of God dwelleth in thee Do not therefore shut up thy bowels when thou seest my want though I do not see it or am not affected with it Give me Eye salve that I may see And thou hast promised an holy Spirit to Convince the world of sinne Righteousnesse and Judgement Withhold not Good whilst it is in the God of thy hand to do it Why then wilt thou send me away saying Come again to morrow when it is in the power of thy hand to do me good For thou hast All power in Heaven and Earth Thou art the Wisdome of God and the Power of God And a Brother is born for a day of Adversity And there may be also the greatest â—ffering where there is but little sorrow yea and the greatest sorrow where the least Expâ—ession either in tears or words A piercing look with an eye fixed on Christ in a promise as one able to help and made for it and why then do we doubt of his Will may be a better Prayer than a great many words or tears They are little Griefs that speak or are spoken Great ones are stupid or at least silent So also are Praises They may be best when they attend God in Silence As the Jews also teach us on those passages of the Psalms My soul is silent before thee and Praise waiteth on thee in silence for so it is And Silence is commanded us all not only in those places which bid our words be Few as Solomon and our Saviour also But when God ariseth and doth manifest himself out of his Temple or in his Holy place as his Presence Chamber we are especially commanded to be Silent before him as we read in the last words both of the second of Habakkuk and the second of Zechary And there is not only an Evil but a Good Day also when All prudent men will hold their Peace as we read in another Prophet But it is yet sweter than many words or any can express to consider that if Christ did neither love Us nor Himself nor his Father as he surely doth Yet his very Duty to Him and that Law which bids him Love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and minde bâ—ddeth him do it also With all his Might And so also to propagate his love to All he can by all means he may Yea and to work while it is Day and to do whatever is in his hand to do with all his might least the night cometh on him also and there be no more working or Councel in the place whether we are all going Is it indeed enough for Him in himself and his own person to have no other God or other wayes of worship than are Right and set by God and not to bear his Name in vain who yet beareth it more upon him both in words and Actions than all men living Except he also propagate this Love of God his waies of worship and his Name his True Name which is his Nature all he can or may and he may quicken whom he will with all his Might to all his Children Servants Neighbours Subjects and Relations under him and in his Povver and they are All. May I indeed suffer any Servant or any other though I may bear vvith children vvhile they are children and vvith Naturals or Ideots alas vve are All so to Him all our lives May I suffer any man within my power or Family to worship a false God or the True God in a False manner or to take his Name in vain while I can help it Is He not Lord of All the Family both in Heaven and Earth Are we not All in his hand and under his power who hath All Power in Heaven Earth and hath All things delivered to him of his Father Can we wonder now why he so often promiseth to manifest the Name of God that All may know it from the greatest to the least Yea and his Enemies also It being so usuall in Ezekiel and other Prophets to close up all his Threatnings with this You shall all know me or I will bring you to Know my Name Which is also the great end of the Psalmists sharp and bitter prayers against All the enemies of God which we find mustered up together in the 83. Psalm That they may seek thy Name O Lord and that they may know that Thou whose name is Jehovah art the most high God over all the Earth which was also the great end of that great work on Nebuchadnezar And the same Psalms tell us also that when men come or are brought to Know the name of God they will trust in it And there also Christ often promiseth He will declare his Name to his Brethren and as if they were too few to the great Congregation also And how great that Congregation is or shall be I cannot tell When also he came to dye he acknowledgeth this for the great work he had to do in the World I have finished thy work I have manifested thy Name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world And as if this were not yet enough towards the end of that prayer he prayeth for More this being the Covenant Ask of me and I will give thee All Nations and Peoples and persons even the utmost ends of the Earth and those also afarr off in the Seas And is his heart so narrow that he will not Ask when he might have us All and all things for asking Ask then heartily that thou maist receive seek us All heartily and thou shalt find us All Knock heartily at the door of our hearts and by virtue of the promise and Covenant of God they shall be opened to thee Neither pray I for these alone which thou hast yet given me shallâ—at â—at any tâ—me hereafter beleeve on me through their word That they All may be
OLBIA THE NEW ILAND LATELY DISCOVERED With its Religion and Rites of Worship Laws Customs and Government Characters and Language With Education of their Children in their Sciences Arts and Manufactures with other things remarkable By a Christian Pilgrim driven by Tempest from Civita Vecchia or some other parts about Rome through the Straits into the ATLANTICK OCEAN The First Part. From the Original For Samuel Hartlib in Ax-yard Westminster and John Bartlet at the Guilt-Cup near Austins-Gate London and in Westminster-Hall 1660. The sum of this Discourse HAving lost his Father and other Relations about the great Sickness in Naples the Author becometh a sad disconsolate Pilgrim all alone by Land till unexpected dangers force him from Rome or there about to the Sea Where in a great Storm and Tempest he falleth into unexpressable Horror and Anguish of Minde till at length by Shipwrack losing all his Company he is cast on a scraggy Rock and There by a Religious Person as an Hermite entertained till recovering his Peace and strength with a quiet minde he also Learned the Religion Laws Customs Language and Characters of That New Iland fully described in the Books following this First Part. In which the Father discourseth the Danger of wrong Judgeing our selves or others with the way to a right understanding and Judgement the great Work of the Spirit promised to the World by Jesus Christ Who was sent to Redeem our souls from All Deceit and violence and to offer sacrifice for every one that Erreth and for him that is simple Cleered from Ezech. 45. 20. with Psal. 72. Of our Access and addresses to Him by Prayer As Saint Paul Learned from the first Martyr at his Death and thence made it the great Character of a Christian cleered from His Epistles and the Acts with the Revelation and other Scriptures in Harmony to the Psalms and Canticles Conversing with Christ and Praying to him From the 17. page to the 44. How Christ taught his Disciples and others to pray Our Father c. How He prayed to His Father and How a Christian to Christ and the Father in and through Christ. As Calebs Daughter to Her Father by her Husband and Her self Of Zelophehads Daughters and Edoms Widows and Orphans from Jer. 49. 11. from 44 page to 53. The great Arguments to be pressed on Christ as our Brother Born for a Day of sorrow made of a Woman made under the Law to Redeem them under the Law How the Law lay upon Christ as the great High Priest and Prophet promised to Moses to be raised from our Brethren and Like us in All things and so in the Law also And as our King to write out the Law by which he Ruled and to keep it all his Dayes that so he may do it and prolong his Dayes and Reign in the Heart of his People Where also the way to settle a perpetual Monarchy to a King and his Sons for Ever As God to Moses Joshuah David Solomon or others from 53. to 59. How the Suffering part of the Law lay upon Christ and sor whom but especially the Doing Part. How All was by himself summed up into Love and that but little if onely to Persons Lovely and Loving again How God Commended his Love to the worst of men to whom the Law it self saith I am the Lord Thy God and I have Redeemed Thee and therefore thou shalt Love me and worship me and Glorifie my Name and keep my Rest because I have provided it for Thee and Do and will both Love Honour and Glorifie Thee from 59. to 64. and 94. to 101. How Gods Jealousie speaketh his Love and all his Visiting from 64 to 70 How God Threatned Adam in Paradice and how he visits to fulfil those Threatnings on Him or others from 70 to 77. How much better for us that infinite Goodness and Riches now fill a Finite Nature that longeth to be sucked as a Breast ready to break with fulnes still flowing up still flowing over and a Drop that runneth over can Enrich our Souls and make us ever Bless him who hath said It is a more blessed thing to Give than to receive And He that hath received freely must give freely Of his having All Power in Heaven and Earth being the Wisdome and Power of God and Better for himself to use it for Edification rather than Destruction from 77 to 81. How Christ Loved the World and Prayed for the World how not from 81 to 86. 94 to 101. Of Gods Hating Cursing in order to a Change and how Places or Persons Hated or Cursed may be Recovered Blessed from 85 to 149. 161 308. Of the Earth cursed for Man but Washed or Baptised by the Flood And of Baptising Children how Holy things of old belonged to every one redeemed by the Priests or born in their Families 18 120 186 365. How cursed Canaan was blessed again 122 c. And cursed Jericho Recovered 128 129. And Gibbeon And Aye And Sodom Moab and Ammon Edom and Amaleck of Esau. Egypt and Assyria with the Philistines Of Death and Hell in Saul conquered by Love in David bound up for 1000 Years As coming loose again in Saul of the same Tribe struck down as with Lightning and Named Paul after Sergius Paulus that Prudent Roman Deputy Of Shimei Cursing David or other Shimeis and of Judas and Pauls rising in the House of Judas Of Aeneas Ananias and Saphira Tabitha Dorcas or others Recovered by the Apostles Of Christs Love to his Father and duty by the Law requiring him to propagate his Fathers Love with all his might and manifest his Name and True Worship to bring in all his Children servants sons of his handmaids Strangers and Cattle also to keep the Sabbath to Rest the Rest of God from 100 to 117. 141. Of the Law of Redemption Laid upon Christ as the Kinsman that is able and hath Power and Riches in his Hand and a Tender Heart and Eye when he doth but see the naked and miserable that hath No Helper though they cannot weep it out to him or do not see him who will not hide himself from his own flesh when their Land or Person but especially their pretious and immortal Soul is Sold or pawned or mortgaged or forfaited How he hath promised to draw All men to him and to make All things new 56. 107. 124. to 163. How a man may put himself out of Christs Neighbourhood by degenerating from a Man to a Beast and of Worshipping the Beast receiving the Name Character Image or Number of the Beast Serpent or Dragon and how all the World worship the Beast but those that are written in the Lambs Book of Life How God with all his goodness knoweth how to punish the wicked but especially those that walk in Lust of the flesh and speak Evil of Dignities the sin of Corah c. the crying sins of the last dayes and how there was no sacrifice for
given while he was not glorified Or till he was exalted and set on the right hand of God and made a Prince and a Saviour for to Cive repentance and remission of sins Nay he never speaks of himself as a King or Judge till his second coming Being as himself said to go a great journey to receive a Kingdom and after a long time to come again and call his servants to account And if the wicked servant shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his comming and shall begin so much as once begin to beat or strike his fellow-servants for the Lords servant must be gentle towards all and be no striker when he shall but begin to strike his Master will come when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder and give him his portion with Hypocrites the Doom of Antichrist who thus took on him so before his time to sit and rule and judge before his master gave him power or leave or indeed was come to sit and reign and judge in his own Person Which was not till other Thrones be cast down or set as we read in Daniel and the Revelation For he must sit at his Fathers Right hand till all his enemies be put under him and then his Throne and Judgement shall sit and judgement shall be given to them also that shall sit with him who still called himself the Son of man and never a King or Prince or Judge till That Comming and That judgement And then he saith They shall see the Son of man come in the Clouds with great power and glory and when you see those things and that sign of the Son of Man comming in the Clouds Then know the kingdom of God is come even at the very doors Then and not till then it is come actually come and till that time but comming and he bids us pray and say Thy Kingdom come And then shal the Son of man send forth his Angels which before he called his Fathers Angels and the holy Angels now His Angels the Son of Man shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom which is Then his Kingdom all things which offend and them which do iniquity And then and not till then the Son of Man shall sit upon the Throne of glory and then the King shall say to them at his Right hand and again the King shall answer them But to the goats at his left hand He shal say he saith not the King shall say as if he were only a King to the sheep or they only were members of his Kingdom but to the goats he saith Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For as the Son of Man hath his Angels so the Devil hath his Angels also of which we read again in the Revelation Where as also in Pauls great charge to Timothy several other Texts of Scripture we read of his Kingdom joyned or annexed to his second comming or appearing again after his Ascention at which time he was asked If he then would restore the Kingdom unto Israel which he doth not deny but waveth only forbidding their curious prying into times and seasons which the Father yet had kept so secret that the Son then knew them not but had them afterwards it seems by Revelation Which God gave him also to shew unto his servants unto whom he saith it was given to know the secrets or the mysteries of that Kingdom and to search them out also by that Spirit which was given to make known the things which were freely given them of God yea and to search the hidden Depths or Baths of God as that Apostle saith who also tells us The natural man believeth not the things of God or of the Spirit of God nor can he know them being only discerned spiritually And no man can so much as see the Kingdom of God till horn again of that Spirit which the World as such neither knoweth nor receiveth but it is promised to the World also and to convince the world also and when a worldly carnal man is born again of the Spirit and so made Spiritual then he also judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man Nor may any man judge another man or any person whatsoever or can judge himself rightly till he be made spiritual and so fitted by Christ the great and only Judge of all Causes and of all Persons And to whom and in what cases Christ committeth this Prerogative of judging either themselves or others I know not any hath declared better then Saint Paul in divers places of the same Epistle But as Christ gave that general rule Judge not according to appearance and then surely we may not judge things that appear not or things of another world and for all Eternity Whereas the Wise man saith A man cannot know Love or Hatred and much less Eternal Love or Hatred by all before him or appertaining to him So Saint Paul giveth us that generall Rule Judge nothing even nothing at all before the time That is as himself addeth Till the Lord come For his comming is the time of judging and his Kingdom as we have seen from that Apostle and from many other scriptures And I would to God your time were come that you might judge and reign that we might reign also But the Kingdom of God and this judging also is not in word but in Power As our Lord taught us Thine is the Kingdom the Power and Glory And in the Revelation Now is salvation and strength the Kingdom of God and Power of his Christ for the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down For Christ also maketh the kingdom of God to be a Power to cast out Satan by the spirit or finger of God and when Judas was gone out as a Type of Satan or Antichrist he saith Now is the Son of man glorified and God glorified in him And so Christ said Some standing there should not taste of death till they saw the Kingdom of God come with Power Which another Evangelist expresseth by the Son of man comming in his Kingdom And S. Pet. One of the Eye-witnesses of that glorious Transfiguration which was an Emblem or preludium to his Kingdom calleth it The Power and coming of our Lord Jesus And himself being asked if he would restore the Kingdom bad them stay till they received Power from on High or the Power of the Holy Ghost coming on them which he also calleth the Promise of the Father For the Spirit of Promise which is to be given to all the Lord shall call yea to be poured out on all flesh is called by Esay the Spirit of Power and it is so observed of them that received it in the Acts that they were full of the Holy Ghost and Power And Saint Paul also calleth it a spirit of Power and Love and of a sound mind and saith he came with demonstration of the Spirit and of
Power And again when you meet with my spirit and the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this was a Judging Power is plain by all that Chap. speaking of casting out and judging them which are within while God only judgeth them that be without And in the next Chapter Do you not know The Saints shall judge the world Are you not worthy then to judge the smallest matters Know ye not that we shall judge Angels how much more things that pertain to this life Set ye them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church Is there not a wise man among you not onethat is able to judge between his Brethren And in that very Chapter you presse so much against your self he saith Judge in your selves Is it comly that a woman pray to God uncovered And of their Church-meetings he saith If ye speak with Tongues speak by two or three at most but if ye Prophesie do it by two or three at the least for so seems the opposition and let the others judge For you may all Prophecy and you should all desire earnestly and pray that you may Prophecy even above all other spiritual Gifts but it must be in order and not confusion while some Iudge and still the spirit of all Prophets are subject to the Prophets both old and now also while you be in Churches you must keep Church Order and your spirits must be subject to the Prophets before you and among you also But of the Sacrament he saith You must here Iudge your selves and be not concluded by others Judgement But let a man examine himself and so let him eat and drink For He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation or at least Judgement to himself and for this cause are many weak and sick and many sleep For If wee would judge our selves we should not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World Which is one of the most sweet and comfortable places in the whole Bible as before we observed in this Epistle also about Temptation Which also may and should comfort you So far are you from being condemned as you think by God who will never confirm or execute any wrong judgement though you give it against your self And yet you should be tender how you judge your self unworthy of Eternal Life which is the free gift of God least the spirit say as Paul and Barnabas to the Iews Seeing you put the Gospel from you and judge your selves unworthy of Eternal Life Lo we turn to the Gentiles But if you judge a wrong judgement God is so merciful and just also as not to confirm it And if you judge Rightly you are so far from being so wretched and miserable as you think your self that you are one of the happiest men in the World and not onely still under the gracious Spirit of Promise convincing you ofsin and also of righteousnesse setting up Christ in you and making you bow and long for him but also receiving from him one of the greatest and highest gifts possible which is a right Judgement and a power and priviledge to judge your self the hardest and highest work in the world so that you never shal be judged by the Lord. A Royalty not given unto any but the Kings and Princes or first-born of Jesus Christ his Churches as at Corinth or the members of them or such as are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints and to such as in any place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord both theirs and ours as I hear and see and know you do And therefore I pronounce it written to you also as a letter from Heaven or the Throne and Heart of God in Jesus Christ our Lord and yours whom you so call upon and trust in For how could you call upon Him if you had not believed on him As you may read in the Tenth of the Epistle to the Romans compared with the beginning of the first Epistle to the Corinthians which we now speak of Nor do I wonder Paul should put such a stresse upon calling on Christ when by his own experience and observation of all Christians he had found it the great Badge of a Christian and the greatest Character he could well expresse of one taught and drawn by God to come to Jesus Christ who though the Mediator to God yet indeed is the end also of all the Teaching and Drawing of the Father which I will therefore on this occasion more largely insist upon as one of the greatest and sweetest things I can declare to you especially in this great hour of darknesse and temptation When Paul saw Stephen the first Martyr stoned consenting to his death and standing by keeping the clothes of them which stoned him he might easily observe and remember that he died calling on Jesus Christ and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit And again kneeling down he cryed Lord lay not this sin to their charge and saying this he fell asleep He might very well wonder that in the very Infancy of Christian Religion any could so quickly speak and pray to Christ and that also with such courage and boldnesse as daring to die in it and to desire no other rest or happinesse then that Jesus only should receive his spirit and forgive his stoners Doubtlesse it could not but take deep impression in so wise a man as Paul or Saul was And so it seems it did for presently he went and got a Commission from the Rulers to bring bound to Jerusalem all that he should find calling on Jesus Which he could not but see a most distinguishing Character between Jews and Christians for the Jews also called on God but the Christians only called on Jesus Christ and by that character he might easily discern who were only Jews and who were also Christians and so binde All he found calling on Christ. And when Christ appeared to Ananias in a vision he bad him Enquire in the house of Iudas Which we may consider again when we see Paul rising up in the room of Iudas and of Saul also being of the same Tribe much about a Thousand years after David that is Love had cast him out and bound him up as Satan must be bound for a Thousand years and then perhaps struck down as Saul here was by fire from heaven Saul also signifying Hell or the Grave and so might well be an Emblem of Satan which is the very Phrase used by David of Abishai to which Christ also might allude when he called Peter Satan And when Ananias or the Lords grace was sent by Christ to look out Saul he said Lord I hear he hath authority to bind all that call on thy Name To which Christ replyed Go for he is a chosen Vessel to bear my Name to the Gentiles and to Kings and the children of Israel though the Jews shall reject and persecute him yet he shall bear
that I say nothing of David in the 50. Psalm and Ezekiel the Son of Man and so a special Type of Christ the Son of Man is bid to make his people Know their sins and the Transgressions and Iniquities of their Fathers Which are forgiven when Seen and acknowledged bemoaned and repented as God promiseth he will bring them unto For it is not as some read it If they shall confess c. But 't is an absolute Promise in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and so cited also by Nehemiah or Daniel and Ezekiel that he would bring them to confess and that they should confess their own Iniquities and their Fathers also and be ashamed for them That which also followeth in the second Command is very sweet and far from shewing God to be an Angry Wrathful God as Satan would fain represent him As at first in Paradice some of his very first spawn cast on our great Mother and continued ever since till Christ shall break his head and destroy his malice with his works was This That God was an Envious God the Root of all evil and hard thoughts of God Who even in Judging and in Chastening and in all his worst visitations There Threatned where yet he spake his heart and seems to speak his worst will still remember Mercy Even in Judgment and in visiting most as a Jealous God he will remember Mercy And will but correct in measure and will not contend for ever lest the Spirit fail which he hath made But will visit only to the third or fourth Generation even in those that Hate him Which yet we All do and could not but do Till he Turn us by manifesting Love to us Love which he still beareth in his heart and it is there Rivetted so fast that he can as soon Un-god himself I would speak with Reverence as he can cast out Love from his Heart or act to his poor creatures without Love Nay give me leave to tell you he loved Adam Better more or with a Better Love or more Godlike after his Fall than before Nay it may be Now much better since his long sorrows and sufferings than before in Paradice Nay I had almost said with a better Love than he loved Christ himself before his Fall or Sufferings For he tels us it is a Little Love to love our like our Friend one lovely fair and beautiful kind and thankful still to us for all our love A very smal and poor and little Love which sinners shew and Hypocrites and All to All their like But that God might encrease his Love to Adam or might shew a Better Love than he could manifest be it spoken with Reverence while Man was Like him Holy Wise and Just Truly Fair and Beautiful in All he let him fall into the dirt and dust of death Into the Pox or worse disease that might deform him wholly so that he might commend his love indeed to such as hated him and were unworthy ugly more deformed then poor Job when botched all and naked most forlorn and miserable in his own and others thoughts and left in the hand of Sathan at his will But onely save his Life or Soul as God expresseth it Not onely for a Type of somewhat yet to come unto All that will wait with Job and expect the Lords End but it may be representing Adam also as accused and tempted by Sathan and at length left in his hands till God could shew his love was not onely skin deep as we say but everlasting Nay encreasing more and more as it could make or find an Object for that pity and compassion and that gracious Mercy which could not appear but still had been unseen abroad from God or hid within him had not his Wisdom contrived an Object for it which was Misery and guilt which was not till Sin came in and so he let him fall and shut him up under sin and guilt that he migh shew him Mercy which he could not do before And as before his fall God did not absolutely tye himself to Punish him So After the fall he did not execute That upon him which he might have done but devised devices as the Wise Woman of Tekoa said to David that his poor Banished might not perish And yet still preserved his own Honour and Majesty Truth and Justice too with such a kind of Love and Tender pity merciful compassion which could not appear abroad or possibly be shewn till sin or guilt or shame or fear or sorrow grief or pain or some such misery or other made an Object capable of pity mercy or compassion I shall yet a little more insist on these Particulars shew I hope they very well agree and no way contradict the Words and Mind of God even in the Law or harshest part of all the Scriptures First I premise God loved him and could not but love him very intirely if he loved himself while he was in his own Image And having so loved him and being so Immutable in his Heart Love and Nature he loved him to the End And I do not yet clearly see how any Promise can Oblige God to a more Constant Love of Man restored to that Image Then his own Nature and Heart moved him to love Adam In that Image Now if his Heart be not so truly Tender Gratious and Perfectly Good and immutable also in his most Genuine and Natural Love but that it could really change towards Adam in his own Image yea and that also before his fall or any demerit what ever as to decree his everlasting ruine or at least to leave him to it so foreseeing that he would so fall and rise no more in himself and his Posterity How can any man be sure and rest upon his Word or Promise that he will not leave him when he is renewed again into that Image Seeing it may be still doubted whether any man living can fully know Gods heart and mind by his words or expressions except there be some way else to know it and to rest and trust in it then his words can expresse or import Or unlesse a man may also be taught to believe his Word is Better Truer and more Certain Fixed and Obliging also then his very Heart and Nature is Which as some Teach or Believe was Such even then when it loved most or as much as it could love its self or its own Image that it yet hated and forsook and left to I know not what Irrecoverable misery his own Image and his dearly beloved in his own person or at least his posterity even his very next Son and Sons Sons to all Generations yea to all Eternity for the far greatest part of his Posterity May we not therefore believe and say that with a true constant and Eternal Love of Delight and Complacence from all Eternity to all Eternity God loved himself and his own Image where ever it was And nothing else but kimself and his own Image with that kind of
prayeth for the World as such No more than a Man ought to love or cherish his Flesh as such But only in order to change it and make it New And this indeed seems one of the most proper sences of Gods Hating any Which in Hebrew is expressed by a word so neer That which is to Change as if Hating were but in order to a Change which is also very neer the sound of the words that in Hebrew signifie both to Change and to Hate And as Sone comes from their Sana to Hate as we touched before So doth Sin which is Hate or Shun And That which English Saxons whose Language is much Hebrew do call Sin is in Gods Language Hatred For he hateth Nothing but Sin And the Eng Sin is in Heb Hate or Chate or Hhate So that God Hateth Nothing but Sin And no person but as Sinful and so in Order to Changing of him As we see in his own Covenant His First Covenant and so his First Creation and the First born in all Dispensations must give place to a Second which is Better And the Elder must still serve the Younger or give place to it God will still shew himself Better and Better and so will ever to All Eternity And finding fault with his first Expressions or Manifestations he Disanuls and rejects or Hates and reprobates them in order to change them and make them Better VVhich he is still Doing For what he doth once he doth ever And the VVheel still goeth round as we find in the 90. Psalm and Solomon in divers places to be compared with that of our Saviour so often repeated They that are First shall be Last and the last first And behold I make All things New As in the beginning so it shall be ever I may add also That in divers Scriptures we may find Love and Hate to be but relative Terms or comparative God as God Loveth Himself only with an Absolute Love and Hateth nothing but sin with absolute Hatred But among Creatures He Loveth One before another as it cometh neerer to himself and his own Image So he prefers it before another which he hateth in comparison So Leah was Hated that is Less loved than Rachel preferred before Leah who was loved also but below Rachel And in such a sence God speaketh If a man have two Wives the one Loved and the other Hated that is less Loved For else sure God would never countenance any mans Hating his VVife But only as he doth a mans Hating his own flesh in order to change it and prefer somwhat before it And so Christ telleth us that no man can be His Disciple except he Hate his Father Mother Brother Sister Wife and self Whom yet he never should or could Hate if he be His Disciple and be moulded into Love But his meaning is as we find in another Evangelist Except he prefer Christ and so Love Him before All Those Which therefore in Scripture Language are All said to be Hated in comparison of Christ. And why may not Jacob the Younger be Thus Loved that is preferred before Esau who in This sence is Hated and rejected that is set behind his younger Brother But however These may be used or looked upon as Types of the Elect and Reprobate we cannot from Thence determine Final Reprobation as the Schools express it in the person of either Though the Scripture give us very sad Characters of Esau calling him a Profane Person yet I know not that it ever shews him to be Eternally Reprobate That Repentance which is spoken of in the Hebrews being his Fathers and not his own but the changing of his Fathers mind towards him which he could not obtain though he sought it with Tears But yet his Father also Blessed him and though he must serve his younger Brother it was but for a season till he could break his yoak as we shall see anon And This also but as generally in all the Dispensations of God out to the World the Elder as we may commonly see in most or All the Elder Sons named in the Bible or the first must give place to the Second Even the first Covenant it self must be rejected and disanulled and judged Faulty also that is Reprobate in order to a Second Better and more Gracious So it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger And Christ himself came to Serve and to Minister and not to be Ministred unto As it is said Joseph in Prison was Trusted with the Care or Government of all the Prisoners and set to serve them As indeed a Governor is a great Servant to his Servants As it is written Jacob have I Loved is it indeed an Interrogation rather than affirmation But Esau have I hated But How Hated The very next words of the Prophet who is cited by the Apostle shew us that This Hating was some frowning of Gods Face as we may say but not of his Heart and but upon the outward Man or Estate of Esau whom he therefore saith he Hated because he laid his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness But may or can any man know or judg of True Real Love or Hatred especially That which is Eternal by All that is without or before him Is there not much worse spoken of Jacob and Israel in that very Prophet than of Esau Doth not the same Malachy say of Israel VVill the Lord regard your persons Even your persons And no wonder then his Soul abhors their Sacrifice Which yet is one of the worst things that Solomon observes of a wicked man But How frequent in the Prophets against Israel And in Jeremy 12. we see How God Forsook and Hated the deerly beloved of his soul. As an Emblem of Christ himself so forsaken Hated cursed and Rejected by God or of all the Elect who once were as Paul to the Fphesians children of VVrath or curse as well or much as Any others And the same Malachy doth not only observe the Jews so neglected and rejected but Cursed also by God himself several times Yea and that the Lord would also curse their very Blessings Yea and had cursed them already One of the heaviest or worst Curses in the Bible And This is for Spiritual Adultery and Judahs marrying the Daughter of a strange god As Gen. 38. Judah leaving his Brethren for it is not good for man to be alone Turned in to a Canaanite who bore Er and Onan so wicked that the Lord slew them Which is also in Malachy though lost by reading it Therefore will the Lord cut off the Master and the Teacher which in Heb is Er and Oneh And the Scripture seems often to allude to Tamar also at the end of that History Mother of All Judahs Posterity As the Church or every Christian waiting for Christ that Shilo or Shela till with child by his Father also leaving his Signet and Bracelets which save her at the fiery Judgment But we translate Tamar the
terrour of the Lord might perswade men yea and save them by fear and with much compassion catch them as brands out of that horrible pit of which we read so much in Job and the Psalmes and our Saviours own words also besides other Scriptures And dyed this Abner Father of light or Fathers light as Naball or a Fool dyeth Was he drunken also as Naball Or did his heart dye in him or becmoe as a stone before he died Will he not improve his death and all his sufferings all he may Is his heart narrow or his eye evill to himself also Doth he envy us shall I say or himself his full recompence of Reward for which he despised the Crosse and endured the shame and pain being promised that he should see the travell of his soul and be satisfied not only contented but fully Satisfied for all the travel of his soul which should have a full recompence yea a Reward also Will he then lose the things that he hath wrought and Suffered also Which hath oft sounded in my eare or heart from his beloved Disciple to the elect Lady which might represent the whole Elect and Church and Spouse of Christ who cryeth to us all in the words of that Disciple Look to your selves and I am taught to say Lord Look thou to it also that we lose not the things we have wrought or born but that we may receive a full a very full Reward also I should tire you much to observe one quarter of that St. Paul speaketh of the Sufferings of Christ and the mighty weight and stresse he layeth on them yea and upon the very little drops of them he felt or bore in his own person which yet he calleth the sufferings of Christ and to fill up the sufferings of Christ. Which in himself also he is bold to say were for the Consolation and Salvation also of others yea of many others as he writeth to the Corinthians and with them also he joyned all that in all places called on Jesus Christ as we noted before And to the Colossions having said of Christ that it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell and having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself which afterwards in that very Chapter and to the Ephesians also he calleth the Mistery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself to be compared with the 5. to the Romans many other Scriptures He addeth also that this Gospell was preached to every Creature under heaven as our Lords commission was Whereof I Paul am made a Minister who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions or sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his Bodies sake which is the Church And to Timothy he writes For the which cause I also suffer these things Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake for the Elects sake that they may also obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory And to the Philippians In my Bonds you All are partakers of my grace Yea and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith I joy and rejoyce with you all But if Christ neither loved us nor himself or valued his own Glory or his own Sufferings yet his love to his Father or his very duty to him though he did not love him may be found a great foundation of our Faith and Hope in him and in God through him And for this I may not only cite the Scriptures that speak of Gods loving Christ because he loved us and laid down his life for us One of the sweetest and the strangest sayings in the Bâ—ble But also as Paul said A necessity is laid upon me and wo to me if I do not preach the Gospell Even so our Saviour also This Commandement I have received of my Father And had he not received it he neither would nor could have given that Commandement to others which he so often presseth and repeateth as his own his new Commandement to all his Children Friends or servants that they love one another as even as he loved them which was to lay down his life for them and this Commandement he received of his Father and solemny professeth he never said a word but what and how and as the Father spake it to him nor did ever do a work but what he saw the Father do and what he did as if the Father also Suffered in him Nor shall we go far to search for this Commandement of God to him either in that of Ezekiel the son of man the great Watch man and the great Warner at whose hand God would require the soules of all that were under him who are all men yea and at the price and weight of his own blood with which he must therefore prepare a sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple as we touched before to be compared with the 53 of Esay and divers other Scriptures And the 58 of the same Prophet sheweth how it delighteth the soul of God that Christ should break every yoak and deal his bread to the hungry and bring the poore and them that are cast out or banished into his own House when he doth but see a man naked though he weep not beg not yet to cover him and not to hide himself from his own flesh If then thou draw out thy soul thy very soul to the hungry and satisfie the affâ—icted soul the Lord shall guide thee continually c. One of the sweetest promises in all the Bible and yet sweeter if we consider it spoken to Christ before it was to us and then follow the gracious promises upon the keeping of the Sabboth in which also we shall find our Saviour very much concerned But the very ten Commandements and all the Law of God through all the Bible which he took upon him and was made under it was written in his heart and so rivetted in that he can unmake himself again as soon as leave or lose one tittle of that Wise and Just and Holy Law of God which is all yet one Royall Law of Love Did not himself summe it all up into Love Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and might and there is another word of Love yet like to this a strange expression like to this or as good as this or as much required and accepted as this and of as much stresse and strength or force as this which is Thou must love thy Neighbour also as thou lovest thy self Yea and this is not only as the former of loving God but rather before iâ— in Gods account as we may find in his beloved Disciple and divers others So that God will much sooner dispence with his own love and hâ—s worship even of the Sabboth day as we find in our Saviours own words
are by Thee Thou shalt not press him with Usury or be as an Userer to him nor any way Hard for if he Cry unto me I will Hear for I am Gratious and will God Hear when we cry of a man oppressing or pressing us and will he not hear us against the Devil also and our spiritual pressors or Oppressors seeing he Fxecutes Judgement for All that are Oppressed And His Word is as pure silver seven times refined from Earth sweetly applyed to this very thing If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray and in another place This Enemy is called a Brother which may shew us how far that Phrase of Brother or Neighbour reacheth even to an Enemy and One that Hateth us As also Christ sheweth us in his Parable of the good Samaritan and divers other places Where he tells us 't is â—a little Love to love a Friend or one that is like us or friendly to us Thankful and Kinde which even sinners and Hypocrites use to do in Their Love But his Children and Servants and himself also must love Enemies and such as hate backbite blasphem and offer all despite unkind and unthankful and all this that they may be like their Heavenly Father Who with love of delight and complacence loveth only himself and his own Image but with pitty and compassion which may be a better or a kinder kind of love he loveth and is kind and Merciful to his very enemies and those that are unlike him froward and unthankful Yea to their very Ox and Asses also even as the Law here bids in Exodus If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Asse going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If the see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen Thou shalt surely leave thy businesse or lay aside thy Garments to help him up or help with him Which may be improved much in our addresses to Christ. For we may justly tell him Our poor souls are as the very Asses of his Enemies and those that hate him nay yet worse as the wild Asses Colt as the Scripture expresseth it and that is more unserviceable then the Ox or Asse or other beast of burthen is I am Behemoth with thee as the psalmist expresseth it But though I stray yet Thou hast put thy self under That Law which bids us help a straying Beast and much more when he lies under an heavy Burthen under which he cannot stir much lesse come to Thee as thou callest All that are heavy laden Now sherefore shew thy pitty and compassion to the poor Asse or the poor soul the bruitish Heart of him that is thy Enemy and Hateth Thee And I know one that said He never received a more sweet and kind return from our Saviour then when in great anguish of spirit he bowed unto him crying onely This Now shew thy kindness to thy Poor Enemy the Kindnesse thou hast spoken of to a Poor Enemy which is now at thy foot and mercy whom thou hast taken captive with thy Sword and thy Bow and while I am speaking Thus I think also of That spoken by the Prophet to the King of Israel when he had so many of his Enemies at his Mercy in the midst of his great City Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them and the Prophet answered No by no means wilt thou smite them thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow give them to eat and drink and let them go and he prepared great provision for them and sent them away so overcome with this Kindnesse that they could hardly be drawn to come any more as Enemies against the King of Israel who was so Merciful a Prince And Mercy doth preserve and establish a Kings Throne more then any thing in the World as Solomon shews and David also in divers places and so it doth and still shall establish Christs Throne also Which is a white Throne even when he cometh to Judgement and Mercy shall still go before him and be the stability of his Throne and Kingdom and blessed be they that hear and know and believe that joyful sound which is sweeter then all the Trumpets or the Bells about the fringe of Aarons Garment Which yet had a better Ornament even that sweet perfume of the Good Oyntment a meek and quiet spirit as Saint Peter expresseth it and the Psalmist compareth it to Love which with God is of great value and it drencht his beard throughout even Aarons Beard which was yet but an Excrement and often to be cut away and ran down through all his Garments even to the seams and fringes also round about And as if God had not yet enough provided for the Poor through all the Laws in Exodus and Leviticus He repeateth and addeth in Deuteronomy Thou shalt not harden thy Heart or shut thy hand from thy Poor brother As if all shutting of hands came from Hardnesse of Heart and that This also was mainly or onely against a poor man But thou shalt open thy hand wide and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in That which he wanteth Beware there be not a word or thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of Release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him Nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be Sin unto Thee Thou shalt surely give him which before was lend him but at or near the year of Release it was a gift because to be forgiven then and Thy Heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him a most sweet Command and Promise because that for This thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in All thy Works and in All that thou puttest thy hand unto VVhich is the great promise to the Reading and Observing of the whole Law so that love and pitty to our poor Neighbour is rewarded as keeping of the whole Law As Daniel also to Nebuchadnezar even when the decree was made against him I councel thee to break off thy sins by justice and by shewing Pity to the poor And when the people asked John the Baptist What shall we do He said nothing but Pity the poor And so our Savior also to the wicked Pharisees Give Alms of all you have and All things shall be clean to you And lest All This might yet be too little or too narrow because it begun with a Poor Brother It concludes as general as well can be expressed Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy Brother to thy Poor and thy Needy in the Land Which Phrase is remembred to Christ several times in the Psalms crying Thy Poor and Thy Needy and forget not the Congregation of Thy Poor c. Where it is also Kite as the English sound the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Kite or Knite the Beast or Beasts of thy Poor As alluding to the Oxe or Ass or wild Asses Colt
used by the Psalmist and his Rock which yet had a God had a Lord or a Father which is a plain character of Christ. As very many others which an attentive Reader will easily observe through the whole book of Psalmes yea the Prophets also in very many places And the Proverbs do not onely bid us lift up our voyce to Wisdom and cry aloud to Understanding but commands us also to call her our Sister and our near kinswoman which is a plain character he means That Wisdom which was hid in Christ in whom are hid All Treasures of wisdom For He is the Power and Wisdom of God who hath made him also Wisdom for us and unto us Being our Brother who of old dwelt with Prudence and was brought up with him But His delight was with the Sons of men whom he is not ashamed to call His Brethren Nay he commandeth us to call him Brother saying also that a Brother is Born for a Day of Trouble and to call His Wisdom our Sister and His Understanding our near Kinswoman which is a Comment on that of the Psalmes He is Thy Lord and therefore Worship him But He is also Thy Brother and therefore Kisse him also least thou displease and grieve him which we see all along through the Canticles also Shall I add yet more to perswade or encourage you in praying to Christ Or why rather to Christ then to God otherwise Though we may speak to the Father also and with great comfort and boldnesse If at least I can and dare say My Father forgive me as I forgive others which yet I desire to do and in some measure do but oft found it so hard to make it the measure of Gods forgiving me that it made me oft turn to Christ and say Lord teach me to pray this Prayer as John taught his Disciples And at length I hope he taught me and to speak and pray to Him also as He to His Father For he is not onely my Lord but my Father also and the Father of Eternity or as some read it of the World to come Yea and my Father in Heaven where he then also said he was Nay the Son of man which is in Heaven and your Father which is out of Heaven or came out of Heaven in that remarkable passage of our Saviour added by St. Luke to the Lords Prayer taught his Disciples in a secret place as they found him praying and said Lord teach us as John taught his Disciples and he taught them with some difference from what he said before all the People in his Sermon on the Mount whom yet he bid say Our Father c. But in Luke he addeth If you that be evil can give good gifts to them that ask you How much more your Father who is or who came Out of Heaven For so it is in the Original and by that character he may perhaps hint That very prayer may be spoken to him For He that seeth Him seeth the Father also and He that worships him worships the Father also and Him that serveth Him the Father will love and honour He that speaketh to him speaketh to the ear and Heart of God For the whole fulnesse of the Godhead is in Him and that I may not separate the Persons or have wrong conceits of God as I am apt enough to and so it may be worship Idols of my own making in my own brain which may be easier and so more dangerous then Idols made by my own hands I chuse much to speak to Christ and to God onely as in Him As of old They were to pray to the God of Abraham that spake to Moses and dwelt in the Tabernacle between the cherubims of glory shadowing the Mercy Seat covering the Arck so I speak to God onely as He is in Christ where he dwelleth for ever And though it may be very lawful to pray to God through Christ and for Christ Yet not to speak of out aptnesse to look on God as wholly wrath in Himself when he is Love even the Father is Love and so loved the world also that he sent his onely begotten Son to save the world and not to destroy it If one should run me in to the heart and I should cry to God the Father to cure me for Christs sake would he not answer and all wise men Go also to the Physitian or to the Chyrurgion who is to work out thy cure under God and is so appointed by God So when sinne or Satan Tempts or wounds me to the heart if I cry only to God to heal or help me for Christs sake will he not say Go to Ioseph I have trusted him with all things go to the proper Physitian or Surgion for the heart Jesus Christ whom I sent sanctified for that end to heal your soul and body both And He that heareth and learneth of the Father will go to him who indeed is the End of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings as he is the End of all the Law And Himself also crieth Come unto me and learn of me and buy of me and I will give you drink and Ease and Rest and Ey-salve thst you may see And though none come to him but whom the Father drew yet himself also promised that lifted up he would draws All men even All men unto himself And out of his belly shall flow Rivers of Living Waters And to the Woman of Samaria he said If thou knewest the Gift of God and who it is that speaketh to thee Thou wouldst Ask and ask of Him surely and He would give thee Living Water which should be a Fountain still flowing up to Eternal Life And they did pray to Him here on Earth and sure we might do so again if we should meet him here or could see him with our bodily eyes or could lay hold of him with our hands and wash his feet with our Tears and wipe them with the hairs of our heads If I should meet him as I walked why might I not speak to him as Paul did when he saw him in the way or afterwards in the Temple as he was praying Or as Stephen did when he died And is he not as neer us and as ready to hear and help and save us Now though we see him not with our bodily eyes as he was then And yet sure if we could but learn to speak and do all we do in the Name of Jesus Christ as we are bid we should even see and feel and taste Christ in our selves and in one another When it shall please God to reveal Christ in us as St. Paul speaketh to the Galathians intimating that he may be in us when we do not see him or believe him so for God onely can manifest himself and him to us and how or why doth he manifest himself to us and not unto the world But he hath promised to be among and in us and manifest himself and his Fathers Name that the love
wherewith he loved him might be in us and he in us also which is the great thing he promised and prayed for that All that did and shall believe in him through all ages might be One with Him He that is joyned to the Lord is One spirit with him and know you not that Christ is in you and the hope of glory in you also except you be Reprobates and that they might be made perfect in One They in Him and He in them For if they be In him onely they may bear little fruit except he also be In them as the sap of the Root is in the Branch or the spirit of the Head is in every member of the body knit together by bands or nerves receiving nourishment from the Head yet so also that every joynt supplies to one another so blessed a thing it is to be in union with Christ Jesus our Head and in communion of Saints and fellowship with them as his Members and fellow Members to each other So that as the eye may not say to the hand I have no need of thee so neither may the Head say a very sweet scripture to the foot or least toe of the foot I have no need of you For he doth not onely take care of the least pin of the Tabernacle but indeed is made up of a multitude of differing Members for if they did not differ they were All One and the whole Body were but One Member and as in all our bodies one part is Hot another cold One Hard another soft one puls up another down and so it must be and yet most accurate Harmony in All parts and in the whole So is it and so must it be with the Body of Christ the fulnesse of Him a most remarkable expression that filleth All in All and yet they are All in Him and His Body and have all His Mind and spirit flowing acting and abiding in them even the same spirit which is in the Head but in several and differing measures and proportions to several ends and uses as in all the differing Organs and Members of our Bodies For All are not eyes or ears or hands or feet and yet All are Members And as it is natural to the spirit that is now in any of our members on the least touch of fear or other passion presently to run to the Head or Heart as its fountain and thence soon to bring out new supply of more spirits as occasion is whence we first look pale in our passions and then quickly redder then before so in the Body of Christ any little Touch upon any of his members makes the spirit of that Member presently run to the Head which is chief or to the very heart of God the Root of the matter in him also and soon returns with a Legion of Angels as a stock of new spirits or it may be with Christ himself calling as to Saul when he pinched some of his little fingers and toes or other parts of his body Saul Saul why dost thou pinch or persecute me Even me the Head or Heart of all these Members and the whole Body for if any one member be pressed or hurt the Head and all the Body is grieved or pressed also And why do you press me saith Christ for in all their affliction he is afflicted And certainly it is not more Natural for the Spirit of the Body or any one Member of it to run up to the Brain or Head then it is for the Spirit of Christ and those that have received it upon all occasions yea alwayes to be breathing to God in Christ Yea to Jesus Christ himself the head of the Body And through him onely to God the Father that is the whole Deity who is the head of Christ also As Christ is the Head of his Members Yea as St. Paul saith the Head of every man and the Church is his Glory also as his Fulness even as the Woman is the glory of the man and man is the Image and glory of God So is the Church and special Members or Messengers of it as Titus was the Glory of Christ. So also Christ speaketh in the Prophets I will place Salvation in Zion for Israel my glory And again Thou shalt also be a Krown of glory in the hand of the Lord and as a Royal Diadem in the hand of thy God Thou shalt be no more termed forsaken but Hephzibah Which also was the very Name of Hezekiahs Queen living about that time And again that they might be unto me as a People and a Name and a Praise and a Glory And although they then rejected that great honour offered them yet it must be and shall be For God hath said it and ordained it The skies shall power down Righteousnesse and the Earth shall open and they shall bring forth Salvation And again I will build them as at first and I will cleanse them from all Iniquity and I will pardon all their Transgressions And it shall be to me not onely a name of Joy But a Praise and Honour or Glory before all the Nations of the Earth Should not a Spouse converse with her Husband Or should she be runing to his Father rather or Himself in all her wants or desires And yet his Father also will hear and Answer For he that speaks to the Son speaketh to the Father also And the Son speaketh nothing of Himself but as the Father speaketh And That surely is one great Reason why we should speak to Christ Immediately to Christ and to God onely through Him As of old they might not offer up their own sacrifice but by the hand of the Priest So now he is our Priest our High Priest also to receive all the Vials of Insence even from the Elders who are Priests also but the High Priest as the great Angel of the Covenant offers up the Prayers of All Saints And we should bring them all to him and desire him to present them with all our wants and all our returns also of praise and service unto him And this seemeth clearly the sence of those Scriptures that bid us offer all we offer unto God not only in his Name but also Through Him presenting them to Him that he may present them to the Father And our Immediate coming to the Father while we say 't is through Christ though it may be lawful also in its season if rightly understood Yet surely may be fitter for that time when the Son also shall give up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be All in All. Though it may be Then our Prayers shall cease Or be turned to Praises or Embracings as also with the Spouse when she is not onely betrothed as now but maried also to Christ as she shall be As the Revelation also represents her when the New Ierusalem comes down from Heaven as a Bride decked for her Husband And yet Then also which I have a little wondered at She seems to be
severall times in the Prophets and twice in Jeremy of his own dearest Children whom he saith he will not Cut off or destroy but only chasten visit or Correct in measure but not Hold Guiltless or acquit them wholly The very same Phrase used in the Third Commandement and in the Name of God Proclaimed in Exodus and Numbers 14. And the very same Phrase is used by Job of himself divers times although we may be sure he did not beleeve God had cut him off for ever or would never acquit him or hold him Guiltlesse though he so speak of himself But it is such a phrase as the Prophet Esays Therefore forgive them not which yet is no worse or more then we find commended and commanded also by Solomon to a tender Father who is bid to chasten his Son and not to spaâ—e him or forgive or acquit or Hold him Guiltless For they are much the same Phrases Yet I may ad to make us fear the Goodnesse of God rather then All his Wrath He that taketh the Good Name of God this gracious God in vain or he that so Turneth it into wantonness is the most guilty Person in All the Bible that I know or most in danger not to be quit or held Guiltless as we find hinted in severall places from the third Commandement Except haply we may also say the most Guilty Person in the World whom God will least acquit or hold guiltlesse is Jesus Christ In whom the Curses also are Yea and Amen or fulfilled rather more then the Promises For in These he joynes his Children who are Co-heirs in All the Promises and Purposes of God But in bearing the Threatnings and Curses He is more alone then in All the Promises He treads the Winepress of Gods Wrath alone and of the People there is none with Him He alone can bear it He alone need fear it All the Billows of the Almighty rowled upon Christ and All his Arrows stuck in his Heart and drunk up his Spirit more then All the world besides All else being little weak nothing lighter then vanity Compared with Him that was Gods Fellow and his Match Who thought it no Robbery to be Equall with God who therefore laid his stroaks upon H m who was only able to bear them with our guilt So that in a right sence He is the most guilty Person as Bearing Gods most Holy Name more then All the World besides And bearing all our guilt for bearing at in vain And as the third Commandement hath its not Acquitting So the second hath it's Jealousie and visiting the Fathers sinn upon the Children As if this were most proper to the false or Superstitious wayes of Worshipping the true God rather then to the having other Gods forbidden in the first As if God also were Jealous of none but such as were Marryed to him and had chosen him for their Husband But now wandred out in strange wayes of Worship which provokes his Jealousie and makes him visit more it may be then any other sinnes If it had been an Enemy I could easily bear it O but my Friend and my Familiar in my Bosome as the Lord may speak when his own Spouse dresseth her selfe in an Whorâ—sh Habit as it were inticing Strangers Which the Lord abhorreth more it may be then the grossest Idolatry of those that are Strangers Which is not so grievous as the Provocation of his Sonns and Daughters as Caesar also cryed What and thou my Sonn Brutus or his nerest Relations which perhaps also may be more properly called Haters of God in Hebrew Sone much akin to the Saxon English Name of Sonn rather then Strangers who have not knowledge enough to Love or Hate Him in a proper sence as those that by not walking in the light and love they have received come at length to be so guilty and full of slavish fear that they turn downright Rebbels and such Sonns as God commanded should be brought out to the Judges to be stoned for Rebellion Which is very neer perhaps if not the very sin against the Holy Ghost Or that presumptuous wickednesse which David so prayed against remembring that there was No Sacrifice for presumptuous Sinners but as the Epistle to the Hebrews speaketh A certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation to devour the Rebbels As the Jews also had the Cutting off and the Hand of Heaven yea and that also they called the Rebels stroake But of All Images forbidden in the second Commandement as so much moving God to Iealousie Those which are most common and most dangerous as little taken notice of being most Spirituall or most Divelish are the Images we are so prone to make and mould of God by that within us which is therefore rightly called Imagination and the proper forge of Images which yet may reach farther higher and more inward then our sences or that which the Schooles call Imagination Worse much then Images made by hands which we are so long in Moulding and Carving that we blâ—sh to worship That we have sweat so much about and warmed our selves with part of But a deceived Heart makes us eate the very Excrements and ashes of those Images or Image-makers And as the great thing which brought the Flood was the evil Imagination of mans Heart continually So it is the great promise in many places of Scripture that his people should no more walk after the Imagination or the Image making or the Idols of their own foolish Hearts And it is the great Judgement and Punishment of those that when they knew God did not glorifie him as God nor were thankfull that they should become vain in their Imaginations or in Image making and their foolish hearts so darkened as to change the Glory of God into an Image or an Idol of their own fancies the most dangerous Idolatry And thus indeed they change the Image and glory of God in themselves to the Image of a Beast eating grass as Nebuchadnezar and it may be This is some emblem of worshipping the Beast or receiving that character which the Revelation saith All the World should do but those only whose names were written in the Lambs book of Life before the foundation of the World And That Beast or sensual beastly spirit may be more common than is thought And when man was made in the Image of God He was to Rule over all the Beasts or Beastly natures or spirits But now losing the Image of God and of man also he taketh the Image of a Beast and of The Beast so much spoken of in the Revelation But as Love was the foundation of the very Law also springing out of the Heart of God which is Love However it may now gender unto Bondage yet it rose from Love So it speaketh Love to the very worst of men as Saint Paul affirmeth till their Rebellion make them Outlaws and put them out of the Protection of that good Law which is given to them all saying to
every one of them I am the Lord thy God and upon this Rock I will build my whole Law and therefore thou shalt have no other God or make to thy self any Images c. For I am a jealous God which yet I could not be if I did not Love thee dearly as a spouse Or else I should not much care whither thou goest or what thou doest But for my great and spouse-like Love which maketh me so jealouse over thee But this very jealousy causeth such visiting as is most like to recover us again from all our wâ—oorish wanderings from the God of Love and the Guide of our youth And so intended by God to recover them so visited as we may clearly see by Elihues discourse unto Job and the Psalmist in the 107 th and many other Psalms to be compared with the 3 d. of Jeremy and the 2 d. of Hoseah with the first and second of Zechariah with divers other Scriptures And our great comfort is that all the Law also lay on Christ as much or more than any of us or all of us And besides his love to his own flesh and nature or to himself or his Father His very Duty to Him by this Law requires him so to love his God with all his Might also as to propagate his love to all he may and to manifest his Name and Worship with the true way and means thereof That is as the 72 d. Psalm expresseth to redeem our souls from all deceipt and violence or as Ezekiel hath it in the Laws of the New Temple to order a sacrifice for every one that erreth or is simple And the Psalmist saith He hath received gifts for Rebels also that the Lord may dwell among them Yea and to cast down all our vain Imaginations as Saint Paul expresseth it And though we strangely degenerate into very Beasts or to the worst of Beasts or worse than Beasts Yet the very same Law which biddeth us and Christ also to Love a Neighbour biddeth also to love a Stranger and an Enemie Yea and the very Oxe and Asse of an Enemie so as to help it under a Burthen or straying out of the way And is not our heart as Ishmael was foretold to be the wilde Asses Colt on which no man can sit till Christ send his Apostles as in the Gospel who finde it bound and tyed in a broad place where two waies met and They loose our Asses Colte and bring it to Christ who then rideth on it O daughter of Zion Meek and Lowly on an Asse the foal of an Asse And may we not find All this in the very fourth Commandement where every Man and so Jesus Christ also is bid to remember to keep the sabboth so that not only his Children but his servants and his Cattle and the Stranger in his Gate may Rest and keep that Rest of God That they may Rest as well as Thou as it is repeated in Deuteronomy And in the 23. of Exodus it is that thine Oxe and thy Ass may Rest and the Son of thy Handmaid to which the Psalmist may allude several times calling himself the Son of thy Handmaid And that the stranger also may be Refreshed The very same Phrase and word that is used by God of himself and his own Kest and Refreshing on That Sabbath day in the 31. of Exodus And our Saviour maketh the helping of an Oxe or Ass and their Loosing and leading to the Water to be a special work or duty of the Sabbath daies Rest. Which we may compare with that of the Prophet Esay He led them gently as an Horse in the Wilderness or as a Beast is led down a Valley or to a Brook So his spirit caused them to Rest. And in the Proverbs Agur saith I am more bruitish than any Man and the Psalmist so Bruitish was I yea Behemoth with thee as alluding to Behemoth in Job and That some render Congregation of thy People in several Psalms is Beasts or Thy Beasts As under Those Banners of four Beasts or Animals of which we read in Ezekiel and the Revelation Yea Solomon saith the great design of God that is Christ who as Man also is the great Searcher of hearts is to Try us and to make us know we are but Beasts She hem Behema Hemma lahem And that the Stranger also may be Refreshed Which is but a piece of that great Law in the very same chapter of Loving our Neighbor Thou shalt also love a Stranger as thou lovest thy self And in several places it is added For thou wast a stranger and thou knowest the heart of a stranger in Aegypt And the word for stranger in the Heb. is so neer to Hagar as if God would put them in mind of that Bond-woman who was an Aegyptian also and as Paul saith Gendered unto Bondage with a spirit of Fear which is another signification of its Root also And Gods Love to Hagar and to her son Ishmael that is God will Hear as he will appear also in the Mount may shew the Heart of God and his Goodness more than all his Kindness to Abraham who was Kind and Thankful unto God also And among other reasons for our Loving strangers it is added that God loveth Strangers and in a special manner provideth for them And it hath been an especial argument used by good men in all ages of the Bible For we are strangers and Pilgrims And when we consider that the Sabboth day did Typifie some greater Rest may it not be hoped that at length we may hear the Lord of that Day also saying to his children and his servants and the Sons of his handmaids also and his Cattel and the stranger also within his gates Come enter into your Masters Rest seeing it is greater than can enter into you For this Commandement I have received of my good Father Do we not also read that the Owles and the Dragons and the Beasts of the field and every thing that hath breath yea and All his Works shall praise the Lord but his Saints shall Bless him Do we not find Sabbatical Years â—nd Jubilees provided for the Poor and Strangers that had no Harvest and for the Beasts of the field and for the Earth also that it might Rest the Rest of God and that every one might return to his own Inheritance and the possession of his Fathers and why not also of our Father Adam in Innocence and that All Debts and Debtors might be remitted which it may be is minded us dayly in the Lords Prayer not only in That Clause of Forgiving our Debtors which yet He doth also for it is He that speaketh in us who else dirst not say Forgive us as we forgive but also in That Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on Earth as in the highest Heaven And He that set us All on Praying so knew very well that it should be so He hath willed it and his people will it also Let it be