the lawyer and answer him according to his owne heart and principles What is written in the law sayes he how readest thou The lawyer replies Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all they soule with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self This Christ agrees to be the sum of the things conteined in the commandements of God which man is to doe and in the doing and obeying whereof as he ought and God requires will make him heir and sure of eternall life Therefore all that Christ adds is Thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live But although these few words contein mans whole duty to God and to his neighbour yet as by the following verses does appeare in the parable of the wayfairing man that fell amongst theeves there is more in it then at first we are aware of to perform this duty to God and to our neighbour rightly and after such manner as is acceptable to God For so do to it requires faith that faith which works by love or which makes us new creatures giving us the sight of that man in the person of the Mediatour that hath seen God by whose testimony we also are taught to so him and know that he is and what he is even the rewarder of all those with eternall life who diligently seek him No man knows who the Son is but the Father nor who the Father is but the Son and he to whom the son will reveale him He that beleeveth on the Son of God hath this witnes in himself by the sons comming into his heart and bringing this knowledg along with him giving us to know him that is true and that we are in him that is true even in him that is the true God and eternall life By such knowledg are we preserved from idols and setting up some other thing in our hearts for the true God or from ignorantly bestowing our worship love and service upon him He that beleevs not God hath made him a liar because he beleeves not the Record which God gives of his Son when it is plainly represented and set before his eyes in such legible characters that he is able to understand and perceave the Record even that God hath given unto us eternall life and that this life is in his Son and is to be had only in the gift of the Son made to us in a most intimate and inseperable union which he that hath hath life he that hath it not hath not life Whatsoever comes short of this let it make never so faire a shew for the present it wil be sure to end in death Hence is it that without faith it is impossible to please God because otherwise we cannot know him as we ought with such certainty as not to mistake him for some other thing or some other thing for him And so also will it be with us as to our neibour or brother we shall take him to be our neibour and brother that is not he and he that is not we shall account to be him For not knowing the very Image and first patern set up in Christ our elder brother and the lowly meek spirit in him which with God is of great price how can we know the children and many brethren that are to be conformed to him therein Unlesse we know and love him that begets how can we know and love them that are begotten of him For both he that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren those who if we be are love unto we thereby know that we are passed from death to life And if we love not but hate them sitting and speaking against these our brethren slandering our owne Mothers Sons we are in Gods account no better then Cain wicked munderers whatever righteous works we are conversant in according to the letter of the law Be we as zealous and forward as we will in offering our sacrifices and bringing our gifts before the altar till we be first reconciled to our brother we are directed to leave our gift before the altar as better not to offer it at all with a heart which is without that love by which faith works In this sence are we to understand 1 Cor. 13.1 2 3. If we have al other gifts and good things from God that are possible to be had and not this love with them we are nothing we are but as sounding brasse and tinckling cymballs The saying therefore of Christ do this and thou shalt live according to his owne reading and understanding of the law is do this at present by the light thou art under but give not off be not satisfied til thou come to do it by faith as a new creature with the knowledge and love which faith teaches and workes and thou art a true heir of eternall life and shalt most certainly enter into it and possesse it for ever Leave thy sacrifice and thy guift before the altar in humility and brokenes of Spirit and in lowlines of heart rather then take upon thee to offer it untill thou have the Son given to thee and art regenerated For it is better for thee that thou shouldst not vow then that thou shouldst vow and not pay Keep thy foot therefore when thou goest into the house of God or doest enter upon the performance of his worship and Service in thy natural mutable frame of Spirit and be more ready to heare then to give the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they do evill even in their very prayers and duties of divine worship By faith it is that the right and stedfast Spirit is formed the whole and entire heart which God requires We may then take notice that there is a twofold reading preaching hearing receaving and obeying of the Word of God and doctrine of his law the one after a lesse the other after a more excellent way the one proportiond to the sight hearing and heart of the natural and earthly man in his mutable state properly called the law the other proportioned to the sight hearing and heart of the heavenly and spiritual man properly called the Gospel How readest thou says Christ to the learned lawyer when he would point out the law in the former sence and as to the latter himself is the reader preacher and worker of it as he is the Son himself and word of faith which through our being in him in whose manhood it is as in our mouth and in our heart is made bread to us and not only possible but most desireable and prevailingly attractive unto us to do and fulfil after him In this sence it is that Christ is the end of the law to all that beleeve and the law in its first kind of teaching or reading is the Schoolmaster or teacher that sends us to Christ and is appointed to keep us under its rule and discipline
till it put us into the hands of a better and surer guide which is the Son himself who by the voice of his Servant or messenger that he sends before him gives notice of his comming But when he comes himself he teaches the way of God more perfectly the way of knowing and loving God of fearing him and keeping his commandements which is the whole duty of man According to this gradual discovery and revelation of the mind and will of God in his law there are several degrees of growth and age that man is or may be acquainted with in the conformity and obedience that he is to yeild to Gods holy law and commandement 1. First that of childhood signifying the state of mans mutability and unstable righteousnes wherein he is wavering liable to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine apt to be deceaved 2. The state of youth or years of discerning and settled judgment in those that by faith are strong and have overcom the wicked one in whom the Word of God is abiding and hath taken fast hold and root importing the life of the first resurrection in them at least in the principles thereof over whom the second death is never to have power 3. The state of fatherhood and most ripe years in those that have known him that is from the beginning and are one with him one with the father as Christ and the father are one the church that are in God the father the Bride the Lambs wife by whom is made known the manifold wisdom of God and unsearchable riches of Christ unto the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places the very holy and Elect Angels This importeth the life of the second resurrection in them and the highest ascent into union and communion with God To all these several kinds of growth ages or statures of humane perfection the word and law of God is a Rule suiting itself and commanding the same Duties to be performed as to the knowledg and love which we are to have and bear towards God and towards our neighbour accordingly as the heart is principled and qualified for the performance thereof with a first second or third measure and degree of light and power from God enabling thereunto For that which God requires of man in the obedience he is to yeild unto him is according to what he first gives and causes him to have and not according to what he hath not The commandement therefore of God or the law of his mouth which conteins in it and requires from man his whole duty both towards his God and towards his neighbour is as to the matter of it the same for the rule of mans walking in communion with God either in the first or second Covenant being that which in Scripture is called the law as wel as that which is called the Gospel 1. It is called the law as it is the divine oracle and righteous command of the supreme lawgiver strictly enjoyning exact and compleat obedience and severely punishing the least tittle of disobedience being dispensed in such manner as leaves it to mans liberty and fredom of wil to hear and obey or to refuse and disobey at his owne peril upon the penalties and curse declared in it 2. T is called the Gospel or good tydings as it is the free and gracious condescention or good wil of God appearing towards man which God the Mediatour exercises upon the foresight of what man would doe as left to his owne freewil in and under the law For this in pursuance of his fathers decree does he cleave unto and lay hold of mans nature or the seed of David according to the flesh resolving to bring upon the natural frame of mans Spirit as left to his owne arbitrary choice and freewil a most beneficial and necessary change through which man is prevailed with to give up and resigne back againe that first liberty of his into the hands of his faithful creatour who first gave it and to trust him for the restoring it in such manner and measure back againe as may be best for him and may most certainly and infallibly attein the end for which it was first given which was to fulfil the righteousnes of Gods law Accordingly does he receave it in a new a more excellent and certain manner of hold and exercise wherein it is made impossible for him to transgresse the law of God by sinning and most possible and free for him to run the race of Gods commandements Through this new enlargment and fredom of heart given him by the influencing power of that love which is stronger then death man is so bound up in the wil of God so absolutly subjected to what the law requires as makes him sure to inherit eternal life The living and primitive patern of this obedience is wrought out in mans owne nature in the person of the Mediatour and set before his eyes with an attractive and transforming power to draw man after him and transform him into the same image from glory to glory from the glory of his first creation in conformity to the law in Christs first appearance to the glory of the new creation in conformity to the Gospel in his second And thus Christ enables his beleeving followers to fulfil the law after him who came not to destroy but fulfil it in the Gospel And as some are thus changed by the attractive influence of Christs constreining love others with whom also his Spirit for a season strives by the same Gospel manifestation of him are upon their wilful refusal hardned and fixed in their disobedience To such he becomes a stone of stumbling and rock of offence even to those who after this gracious offer made knowne unto them doe obstinately despise and reject it preferring their first and natural fredom of the Sons of men to this more excellent fredom and glorious liberty of the Sons of God In order to make triall of them herein since the fal Christ hath obteined of the father on their behalf the restoration of that lesser glory and inferiour liberty of nature that ought to be resigned for the greater that excels and is to remain by the price and ransome of his owne blood from whence flowes a conditional remission of al sinners as to sins past and a free and general restoration of them to the priviledg and benefit of their first natural fredom and primitive righteousnes in kind and in such degrees and measure as is requisit and sufficient for the making of such a trial and rendring them without all excuse nothing having bin wanting in him to bring them to repentance and to receave the truth in the love of it He hath given that former sort of gifts to the rebellious also that prove enemies and haters of him in the more excellent gifts and priviledges that he offers them also in a superiour dispensation which cannot be receaved by them without an obedient surrender and losse
one of one immortall seed and he not ashamed to call us and owne us for his brethren As he is so are they that are borne of one and the same immortal seed each one resembling the children of the great King They become one with him through this birth as he is one with the father They are fixed and rendred unmoveable in his love as he is in his fathers love This they arrive at by his declaring to them the fathers name or giving the manifestation of the fathers love as he and the father are one that the love wherewith the father hath loved these his children may be in them and that the Spirit of the Son that lives in the fathers love may also be in them even the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba father From thence-forward are they evidently no more servants but true heaven-born Sons and heirs of God through Christ being taught to know God after the same manner as they are knowne of him and to apprehend that for which also they are apprehended of Christ Jesus It is Christ in the spirit of this love that apprehends the soule layes hold on the heart and cleaves to it as he is the sealed one of the father till he change it into the same love and image from glory to glory working us into such a conjunction in spirit with him and likenes in operation to him that not we in the exercise of our former and naturall free will but Christ in this his love and glorious liberty of the Son of God lives in us and we in him as in a Kingdom that cannot be shaken This love does not only cast out fear but frees from all danger of any more breach of Covenant with God whence his finall departure from us should follow or our separation from him This way of giving himself to us is love indeed in a much more excellent way then appeared in such gift as he made of himself to us in our first creation or in his restoration-work upon us since singly considered as that whereby he makes a new proof and triall of us In both those two former sorts of restoration-work above mentioned God is indeed pleased to make us his people manifesting himself and his will to us and making knowne to us good and evill experimentally so that we have tasted of the evil and of the good when the Lord hath restored our first fredom and put it in our power againe to cleave to him and love him or else to leave and forsake him In this state he set Adam under the counsell rebukes and threatnings declared in his law with a liberty to stand or fall Whoever then stands upon these tearms with God is alwayes in the same danger can never be out of the fear of a breach that may happen between God and him through his owne default The comming of that love and the spirit of it above-mentioned into the soule does perfectly secure from and cast out all such feare And this it doth perform by its attracting prevailing power in and over the will whereby man is brought to give up the absolute Rule and power of keeping himself into the will of him that is this love and is made fully content to be in his hands and under his wormanship as a little child created a new unto the good works before ordeined that we should walk in them The soule is hereby fitted and prepared with a meeknes and lowlines of mind to draw together in one yoke with the spirit of this love whose command is easy and burden light requiring no more nor other thing to be done then what by faith we se our head the second Adam in our very nature to have done before us And as many as are taught and enabled by Christ to walk with him according to this rule that is as a race set before them in his cross they are the true Israel of God and mercy and peace shall for ever rest upon them Conformity to this rule of the crosse is the high way the way of holines which all the ransomed of the Lord are appointed to passe and wherein the waifairing men the true pilgrims on earth though become as fools and little children cannot erre but will infallibly come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads But this way of holines appears to flesh and blood so strait a gate to enter in at so fiery a baptisme to passe through so bitter a cup to drink up that none whoever that are left to the freedom of their owne wills or naturall liberty restored will ever be inclined to drink it off or conforme to Christs example and command therein They looke upon ir as a rock of offence a stone of stumbling which they know not how to get over nor have any mind to it This bitter cup and hard saying is provided by God as the bitter waters were of old to try the adultresse or false hearted wife to her husband It hath the like operation both wayes as the antitype and mystery of the bitter water in the Mosaical ministration It hurts not those that are chast in whose spirit there is no guile but makes them more fruitfull in good works such good works as proceed from a lively operative saving faith which those that truly and savingly beleeve in Christ wil be carefull to maintein But it corrupts and rotts others ripening them faster on to their owne destruction It is to this sacrifice of the first freedom of our wills or free wil offring that the Apostle exhorts us Rom. 12.1 2. I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies or living soules a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God your reasonable service or the service which your reason owes unto God in seing and accounting yourselvs fools under his teachings and weak and insufficient under his ruling power in you Obj But it will be objected If I suffer the freedom of my owne will to be taken from me I either become a perfect slave or am reduced into that necessity of action with which all creatures work by a Kind of instinct so shall I come to be unmanned and made a very beast Answer In such suggestions and groundlesse surmises we erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God If we did both these consequences of mans being reduced to slavery or bestiality through such resignation of his freedom and rational powers that make up his reasonable sacrifice into the hands of God who will returne all back againe with usury would appear exceeding far from truth as is possible For so far is that frō a bestiall state of life and will that succeeds in the room of our rightly resigned freedom to the will of God by the crosse of Christ and fellowship with him in his death that it highly advances man into a more glorious liberty evē the liberty of the sons of God a freedom to good only a liberty
by reason of their mutable principles and slippery standing under the first and conditionall Covenant they come at last to wither and to be cut off from the root and cast into the fire that never shal be quenched Jo. 15 1 6. Rom 11. In this last sort the restoration-work is carried up very high so as to place them that have it amongst the number of those mention'd 1 Cor. 13 1 3. that may speak with the tongue of men and angels have the gift of prophecy understand all mysteries and all knowledg Yea though they should have all faith so as to remove mountains though they should bestow all their goods to feed the poor and give their bodies to be burned and yet not have love or that faith which works by love they will come at last to nothing They will prove and shew themselvs to be in the issue but as sounding brasse and a tinckling cymball This is that the highest restoration-work will discover itself to be where it springs up but from the single seed of that righteousnes which is unaccompanied with true regeneration or that faith which works by love changing the naturall mind of man from its mutable into an immutable principle of life righteousnes and glory 3. Thirdly therefore this work of restoration may and does proceed in some so far as not only to set all right and streight within and without man in a great measure and in an eminent prevailing activity according to what it was at first when he was made in Gods image but it hath a second and farther operation upon the soule which prepares and makes ready the will to deny itself take up the crosse and become absolutely resigned up to the will of another even of the Lord as the sure guardian and keeper of the will in its truest and best freedom which such service of the Lord is that is in such a manner performed that we can do nothing against the truth but all for it Through this second operation the Lord himself who is the immortall seed does most powerfully beget us and that of his owne will as he is the Son of Man begotten into the love of the father and made unmoveable in subjection and obedience to his fathers will He doth cleave unto us lay hold on us and put under his everlasting armes to make our armes strong and to guide us in that way of coworking with him in a joyntnes of will and operation that nothing can dissolve Such fooles for Christ sake with Paul 1 Cor. 4.10 through the intire resignation of themselvs to the ruling power of Christ in their hearts will not cannot erre or miscarry in the holy way of Gods ransomed ones This is that which the Apostle meanes by love 1 Cor. 13. and chap. 8.1 where he sayes knowledg puffeth up but love edifieth that is makes firm and stedfast work of it It erects that building founded on the rock Math. 7. that is unmoveable and cannot be shaken This love of God by which he makes us his choice ones lies close and concealed a great while in the heart during which time the work of faith is weak and low very wavering and apt to faile But afterwards by falling into divers temptations wherein our faith is put to its proof it does of weak become strong When faith thus begins to come forth with power that love by which it workes is spread abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given to us whereby we come to experience our selvs to be firmly rooted and grounded in the love of God to the making us able to comprehend with all Saints what is the length breadth depth and height of it whilst the communication of it is enjoyed by any measures Some do ascend yet farther even to know the love of Christ in its highest and most extensive diffusing of itself passing knowledge exceeding all measure and filling them with all the fulnes of God The former communication of God who is love is the single portion or gift of Christ in spirit which all true Saints have their share in The second is the double portion which they only do inherit who are made Gods first born Sons higher then the kings of the earth whose names are written in heaven Concerning this love in both these sorts of true beleevers and Saints we shall come in its proper place to a more particular search and consideration First we shall enquire into it as it is in its concealed state making us babes in Christ in a low and weake exercise of saving faith 2dly as it hath a time wherein it comes to be spread abroad in the heart to the warming and quickning of it and to the fulfilling of the work of faith with power in an activity that failes not but is immutable encreasing more and more to the perfect day of Christs second appearance In generall we may say that this is that love which 2 Cor. 3. is called the spirit which where it is there is liberty even a liberty with open face to behold the glory or image of the invisible God and by beholding it to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory a state directly opposite to that of the spirit of bondage The love we speak of does truly regenerate and bind up the will in a unity of operation with the will of the Son of God It workes that hearing eare and obeying heart to Christ in spirit in the life and exercise whereof true and saving faith does consist yea it is the activity itself which quickens that faith and by the which faith workes This love hath its beginning in us in and with Christs first appearance but it is perfected and comsummated by working out the redemption of the body at the day of the manifestation of the Son of God in the brightnes of his second comming At that time the creature itself the very animalish and sensuall soule in us with the filthy garments of the mortall body wherewith it is clothed shal be freed from the bondage of corruption and brought into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God putting on the chang of raiment which in that day wil be provided for it With this love the father loved our head the second Adam And the WORD that was from the beginning laid hold on the seed of David so as that both he that sanctifieth and he that is sanctified became one one engraffed WORD that is the fathers love the spirit wherein he is alwayes well pleased which can do nothing but what he sees the father do and those things he does and fulfills after him with a heart after the fathers heart He is so entirely in the fathers love and well-liking that he shews him all that himself doth or hath a purpose and intention to do For this end Christ hath sanctified himself that is our nature in his owne person that he which sanctifieth and we that are sanctified may be all of
for good And although this kind of life and union do lie hid and concealed as it may for a long time asleep in the vessell of the mind as Christ was in the ship when it was in danger to sink with the waves yet by it is the soule Kept and seperated to the Lord as Paul was from the womb notwithstanding which he walked as a Pharise nay as a persecutour of the true church till this seed of Gods love revealed itself in him This is the first degree of the new creatures hidden and concealed state and this foundation of God is sure for he knows who are sealed with this his living seal from the womb though neither as yet themselvs know it or any other but only the Father and the Son The second degree of new creature life arising from the immortall seed of Gods love sealed as yet and concealed in the heart of the beleever is as it yet lies undermost and at botome suffring Esau the elder brother to come out first into view It gives way to the restoration-work which puffs up the flesh in making the spirit of the naturall man full and rich in his first abilities of pure nature and exercise of his freewill Such a saint girds himself as peter had done when he went whithersoever he would He wil be a very active couragious follower of Christ whilst he works miracles and all the world runs after him yea he will promise faire also to goe even to prison and death with him but in the hour and power of darknes the faith he acts upon this bottome and all his other graces faile and abide not the triall unlesse the seed which lies undermost appear and shew forth its preserving overcomming and never failing power In this 3d state or degree of new creature life we are with the Corinthiaus such as are carnall and babes in Christ but cannot properly be addressed unto as spirituall Christians We are ready in this state with good Samuel to say of Eliab the elder brother surely the Lords anointed is before us in the restoration-work wrought by the spirit of Christ in our soules We are little aware that the true David the man after goes owne heart the inward man which feeds upon that which is not corruptible lies hid and is not yet seen as he is but under a veyle only and as through the lattesse In these true saving faith is but weak and low not knowne rightly to themselvs but upon grounds that may and will fail them A third state or degree of this new birth and new creature life is when upon being found triall-proof the love of God comes to spread itself abroad in the heart by the holy Ghost when the seed which is at the bottome and lies undermost works and removes out of the way him that lets every impediment and weight that presses downe It comes now to circumcise the foreskin of the flesh which is the cover and veile under which it hath layn so long hid bringing under and laying low the fleshly man in us teaching him subjection and shewing him that law by which the elder is to serve the yonger and come behind but no longer to lead the way or be preferred before him For the naturall man to come under this discipline is the great crosse which is so fiery and dreadfull to flesh and blood the cup which if it were possible every one would avoyd But 't is by this means that the naturall man is made subject and becomes a meet vessell for the use of his Lord. And now when we are thus in weaknes according to the flesh most low broken and crucified then are we strongest after the spirit and the work of faith springing up with vigour is fulfilled in us with power so comes it to be cleerly seen to ourselvs though yet very much hid as to others When it hath once rooted and grounded the inward man in this love it will diffuse the good ointment to the very shirts of the garment and cloath the beleever with change of raiment that as the soule is made all glorious within the outward man may be glorified also and Christ not only admired in the heart but glorified in and by the mouth of the same beleever which is the fourth degree of new creature life This fourth and last degree of the perfecting of the love of God in us is reserved to the day of Christs second appearance called also the day of the manifestation of the sons of God which we shall now in the next place enquire into and apply ourselvs to search after according to such discovery thereof as God hath bin pleased to make knowne By way of preparation to this enquiry let us take notice of what we find described and foretold of it by the Prophet Hosea chap. 6. v. 2 3. After two dayes he will revive us that is in the end of the second day In the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Life from the dead and immortality shall be brought to light in us The day of Christs Kingdom in the spirit considered as the going forth of it is prepared as the morning which encreases more and more to a perfect day distinguishes itself into two distinct seasons It comes upon us and to us as the raine as the former and the latter rain upon the earth In the former it is a Kingdom of patience in the latter a kingdom of power The Kingdom of Christ in spirit is that stone which whosoever falls upon shal be broken to peices or they shall split and break themselvs in peeces that fal upon it whilst it is yet but the Kingdom of his patience in himself or his suffering servants who amidst all their sufferings in the flesh do remain in spirit true members of the Kingdom of the stone lively stones of Christs spirituall building abiding firme and unmoveable under all trialls of persecutiō and opposition But on whomsoever this stone or Kingdom of Christ shall fall in the day of its power when it becoms a mountain filling the whole earth it shall grind them to powder It will make them as the chaffe of the summer threshing floore which the wind of Gods just anger will so carry away that no place wil be found for them The beginning of the third day mention'd Hos 6. seems cleerly to be about the time of Christs ascension and day of Pentecost when the former rain of the spirit came downe or some few years after at the final ruin of Jerusalem and the jewish Kingdom To know the certain period of the second day and beginning of the third will much conduce to the better forming of our judgments as to the seasons of this Kingdom that are yet to come We may hereby also gain some sight into the two dayes that are past and the distinguished parts of time that the holy Ghost does intend and signify to us by those two former dayes By the
shall first destroy all his enemies even death itself and shall end with the universall resurrection and and passing of the finall sentence winding up all in the resigning up of his Kingdom to the father that God may be all in all Thus the thousand years is no distinct time from the day of Judgment neither before it nor after but the same with it the whole time during which this great day of judgment does continue in the very beginning whereof Antichrist shall finally be destroyed and not before These therefore in Scripture are called the times of Christs Kingdom wherein he will shew himself the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and this for the space of a thousand years in the last period of which comes the last and finall sentence before mentioned to be pronounced and executed The reason therefore why the excellent promises above recited are not yet performed is twofold 1. The times for their performance are not yet fully come though very neer But most certaine it is as we have heard that they shall and will come 2dly Because the seed also to which they are made is not yet come to be made manifest as they shal be in distinction from all counterfeits and false pretenders which say they are Jews and are not but do lie This discrimination and certaine cleare discovery of the true seed of God from the false will be begun to be made by the ministry of Eliah or the ministry that shall rise up in the spirit and powers already discribed This excellent ministry must and wil be attended with a church of saints answerable which shall consist of the risen witnesses the dry bones that this spirit of prophesy brings out of their graves from the foure winds of heaven causing them to stand againe upon their feet an exceeding great army All of them are to be quickned by the means of this powerfull and glorious ministry with a spirit of life from God that enters into them and shews itself to be that life from the dead in them which is never more subject to corruption It is unto these also that God sayes by a great voyce from heaven which they are fitted with ears to heare come up hither and they do accordingly ascend up to heaven in a cloud their enemies beholding them or rather heaven is brought downe into their knowledg and possession here on earth whilst as yet they are clouded with their mortall body which nevertheles shall at last be changed in a moment and they not se death In the meane time they shall experience their very mortall body freed from the bondage of corruption and restored to the primitive purity glory use and serviceablenes unto the mind which it had in paradise in the persons of our first parents before the fall And to these shall it be given to se the opening of the heavens long since promised by Christ and the temple of God that is there opened also and in the temple the arke of the Testament both which Revel 15.5 are put together and called the temple of the tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven which in that day shal be opened the true tabernacle or sanctuary which God pitch'd and not man Heb. 8.2 In this temple dwelleth the fulnes of the God head bodily the vision whereof is to be made plaine to the eye of our sensuall part or to our inward bodily senses that by seing the mind of God in such legible characters in the spirit and person of Christ the like mind may be found and seen in all that are his who are then to appeare in the same likenes by seing him as he is That which Christ is and in spirit shal be seen to be as the mind of the father is wrought out in him the Apostle Paul points out Philip. 2.5 c. 1. He is in the forme of God the WORD of life who was in the beginning was with God and was God And thus considered he accounts it not robbery to be Gods equall 2dly In the dispensation of the fulnes of time the same that is in the forme of God is also found in fashion as a man and is made flesh with the use of a living soule in the very earthly and outward senses of it bearing the form and likenes of the first Adam in his primitive purity 3. He that thus descended into flesh and the lowermost parts of his habitable earth in which earthly make and nature he became inferiour to angels for the suffering of death is the same that out of this does ascend and is exalted far above all heavens by being made in his humane spirit soule and body the temple wherein all the fulnes of the God head dwells bodily and a meet vessel to receave possesse and be the minister of it unto others He is the WORD of life the brightnes of the fathers glory the expresse character of his substance by which this manhood is sealed and made heavenly partaking with the living WORD as he is the Angel of Gods presence in whom is Gods name He is the cheif and highest Angel and as such is head of all principalities and power And over and above all this in his archangelicall estate he is the true Michael Gods equall the man that is made Gods fellow or second in the same divine throne of glory In these three cheif particulars Christ the temple of God in heaven shal be seen and made manifest as that which he is and will witnes himself to be in the hearts of all true beleevers the sons of his love that are to be are his likenes and to be seen with his name and superscription upon them In this respect it is that he hath given that commandement 1 John 4 20 21. that he who loveth God in Christ love his brother also which those that doe not will thereby prove themselvs liars if they say they love God For how can he love God or Christ whom he hath not seen that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen There is a day comming when that which Christ wil be seen to be in himself he wil be seen to be also in his members that shal be receaved and gathered unto him as joynt heirs and possessours of his fathers love and glory When Christ who is their life shall so appear they shall also appear with him in glory They shall no longer remaine in their hidden and concealed state wherein they are judged according to men in the flesh whilst they live according to God in the spirit Nor shall they any longer be like Princes walking on foot whilst Servants ride on horse back Behold then upon the opening of the temple of God in heaven the powerfull and glorious effects that the ministry of the spirit flowing from thence shall produce and be accompanied with for the making manifest the true Israel of God The Lord himself will descend first with the voice of the Archangel that
heavenly aire or Spirit where they are to be ever with the Lord. In effect the day of Christs second appearance brings upon the stage of this world life from the dead working and declaring the first resurrection mentioned Revel 20. which is to continue visible to men on earth one thousand years The glorious chang which shal be made in the progresse of this day upon the soules and bodies of the Saincts shal be such as will no more leave them subject to corruption For over them the second death shall have no power This is another of the dayes of the Son of Man which succeeds the first is to continue a thousand years and then also have its end upon the sons making a voluntary and entire resignation of this his Kingdom unto his Father that God may be all in all For during this thousand years the son in his Kingdom shal be exalted as he to whom the father hath committed all judgmēt to be executed so that what he binds on earth shall be bound in heaven and what he looses on earth shal be loosed in heaven Whom he will he shall slay and whom he will he shal keep alive as the most absolute Monarch and only Potentate that ever reigned on the earth to the end that during this season and space of time all mē may honour the son with the honor due to the father and in this appearance of the Son se the father as in his vicegerent and doe him homage in this his living Image the Lords Christ or anointed one the man that by God is ordeined to rule the world in righteousnes even all the nations upon the earth during this his day which immediatly praecedes the day of eternity and last judgment wherein God is to be all in all The son himself after that all things shall have bin subdued and subjected unto him shal be subject to the Father that put all things under him This second day of the Son of Man is that one day knowne to the Lord not day nor night but a kind of middle state between that which is corruptible and that which is incorruptible It is neither absolutely one or the other but a mixture of both And it shall come to passe in the evening of this day it shal be light and the passage out of this into the day of eternity very pleasing and delightsome It shall distinguish itselfe as hath bin already intimated into the 3 usuall parts of a day MORNING MIDDAY NIGHT. 1. In its morning beauty and appearance the Eliah comes and restores all things as is foretold of him the BRIGHT MORNING STAR which is to shew to the kings of the east the neer approach of the only begotten Son himself and be to them and all other inhabitants on the earth the signe of the Son mans approaching and comming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory 2. In the noontide of this day of the Son of Man in his Kingdom shal be seen the height of the sunshine of that royall power and greatnes which shal be exercised by him in the capacity of universall King over all the earth the season wherein there shal be one LORD in his owne person visible and his name one throughout the whole world 3. There shall also be a declining and evening state of this glorious day which willingly and cheerfully gives place to the day of eternity wherein the father unveyled shall shine forth and be all in all How fitly does Ezekiel in the vision he had of the holy waters represent and describe this growing encreasing Kingdō of Christ revealed in the Gospel the light of Gods law that shines forth in the Son himself into the obedience and power whereof we are to be changed from glory to glory by the Lord the Spirit The waters issued from under the threshold of the house eastward on the right or south side Ezek. 47. Their first comming forth was by measure the measure of a man and gradually from the ankles to the knees from the knees to the loins from the loins to a river unpassable by man as meer man in his first constitution of being 2. 2dly then the same waters came forth in a communication above and beyond the measure of mans first nature into a river that man may swim in without drowning or being at all subject to die any more how much higher soever it rise above the head of the naturall man the first Adam And of this Noah by faith was aware who that he might obtein a state of safety from the overflowing flood by which al the world not made beleevers and taken into the arke were drown'd obeyed the counsel and command of God in building the arke and going into it after it was built and ready to receave him Herein have we a lively type of Christs humane nature offered up by the immortal Spirit and brought forth into the life that is from the dead never to die more but hath the keys of hel and death committed to him Unto the likenes of this heavenly building and temple of the living God in Christs person every true beleever is fashioned and conformed and is thereby made a fit vessel to swim in those waters of life safely and delightfully which by rising up above al the measures and proportions of the first world drowne them but are the proper element for those that are saved to live in They are fitted with enlarged hearts and mouths wide enough open'd to take in and receave those streams and rivers of the emanations of divine bounty and love how broad or deep soever they prove and how high soever they may rise and overflow For they have the man Christ Jesus their head the second Adam who as their forerunner is gone before to prepare the way for them and as the true arke in which are many mansions to receave them into himself that where he is they may be also Of what hath bin already said this then is the sum Christ is the eternall WORD and speaking power of God by whom are all things He is also as hath bin shewed the rock of ages the place of Gods rest throughout all generations the eternal Sabbath Heb. 4. wherein God finished his works so fully to his content that therein he took up his Rest even in the person and Spirit of the Mediatour the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath lain hid in God who created all things according to the eternall purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Further This eternall WORD who is the creatour of all things visible and invisible being in the Mediatour the image of the invisible God does bear the name of the blessed Trinity and stamps the impression and character thereof upon all the works of his hands He is the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and Ending of the creation of God In the Psalms and Ecclesiastes God is called by the name of creatours as being three
mouth These two powers in him are reteined in most absolute agrement and usefulnes each unto the other Answerable to this patern in great is man made in little as to his Spirit and soule with this only difference that the work of mans mind in reference to Gods law and his word and outward action in reference to his mind have not immutability in them but may disagree and chāge from their first harmony and primitive patern set them in God The powerfull impression of this patern on the spirit and soule of man was such as in respect thereof it is said God made man upright or perfect formed his mind in perfect agrement and likenes of operation with his owne mind and in full consent and liking of his law as that which is holy righteous Spiritual and good given for man to obey as his duty He disposed him also by a natural bent and inclination of mind to doe good resist evil love righteousnes and hate iniquity This was the state of mans Spirit or soule as yet seperate from his body and not partaker of that flesh and blood which was afterwards formed out of the dust of the earth The second thing therefore noted concerning mans building or creation is that he also became a living sensual or animalish soule actually clothed with bodily organs that God formed for him out of the dust of the ground Gen. 2.7 And he breathed into his nostrills the breath of life or sent mans soule that was before created in Gods image into that body so appointed and given to it by God as the earth wherein the seed of mans Spirit was planted and the feild in which it was made to grow by reason whereof man became a living soule that is to say by the most intimate union and inhabitation thus wrought by God between the spirit and body of man there was an awakening and bringing into actual exercise the sensual and bodily nature of his mind by sitting to it these meet organs Neverthelesse that which was before in the state of a soule separate an equal and associate to angels comes by this means to be abased and made of little reputation being brought to a kind of equality with the beasts that perish And in like manner as thus the spirit of man was after its first creation embodied and made flesh as a dark shadow of what is done to him t is said to have bin so with the heavens and earth when created yea even every plant of the feild had a state of being before it was put in the earth and every herb of the feild before it grew Gen. 2.4 5 Now through the intimate union and conjunction that mans body is taken into with his soule it is made a living acting speaking creature participant with his rational and intellectual spirit and in fellowship there with meet to have and exercise dominion as God appointed over every living creature that moves upon the face of the earth Thus the bodily life of man became in itself as an Eden the garden of God and the feild that he had blessed and made fruitful unto every good word and work in subserviency and subjection of desire to mans intellectual and angelical part which by the very order and law of nature as having not only priority but eminency of being was given to it both as Lord and husband a superiour and yet a kind of equal joyned with it in such a harmonious consistency that the actings of both natures made up but the compleat and entire Act of mans judgement and will Thus was man created male and female in the spirit and person of Adam before Eve was created as Gen. 1.27 and 2.28.25 do shew And he receaved a charg from God to keep this body in subjection to the dictates of his mind and not suffer it to usurp authority over that part in him which is most the man to wit the angelical or intellectual part When God had thus planted the garden of Eden or pleasure and delight in this spirituall sense as wel as in an outward and literall he puts mans spirit into it giving him the keeping dressing and Rule of it with this expresse command saying of every tree of the garden thou mayst freely eat but of the tree of knowledg of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die For out of the ground the Lord God had made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledg of good and evil Thus was there a paradise without man and within him a garden of pleasant fruit which he might take delight and pleasure in and which he was appointed to dresse and keep in the order wherein God had delivered it over to him and to improve it to the end for which he was brought into it by God And for his instruction herein he was commanded and allowed the use of the outward as wel as the inward senses of his mind with this only caution and Restriction that he should by no means nor upon any pretēce whatsoever hearkē to or obey the voice of his sensual and bruitish nature how rational so ever the judgment of it which is but flesh might seeme to be considered as in its owne single operation tempting and drawing off the cōsent and love of the intellectual part from the streight rule of its duty required in Gods law For the spirit of the mind which is the stronger and better part in man as that which is immortall remains under the morall and perpetuall convictiō of as wel as obligation to the righteousnes required in the law of God the light of which although it may be smoothered for a time cā never be wholly extinguished but is that work of the law in the heart that is and wil be unalterably either excusing and encouraging or accusing and tormēting the mind as cause is give by every mās works It is therefore called the conscience that servs in stead of a thousand witnesses and whē it is awake does alwayes consent to the goodnes and righteousnes that is in the law By this rule therefore sin could not make its approaches but warning would be given and to know evil barely in the abstract without consenting to it or becomming one with it in approbation and delight was not the thing which God forbade him but the feeding on it with consent and delight upon the beholding of its desireablenes in the judgment of the outward senses and as it gratified the bruitish lust and desire of the flesh so as thereupon to be drawn into a compliance and induced to make it the Act of the whole man suffering sin thereby not only to conceave but to be perfected Hence is it said 1 Tim. 2.13 14. that Adam was first formed then eve And Adam or the intellectual and superiour part in man
nor ever be sure of keeping the condition of that Covenant upon which God promises to be his God and to be and abide in loue and communion with him for ever And it is most unquestionable that the Lord will faithfully performe his promise and his oath the two immutable things wherein he cannot lie The only doubt is whether man in this first make and frame of mind be able to performe the duty required of him Every benefit requires answerable duty Gods bounty then to man in giving him his being creating him in his owne image and likenes must needs lay a strong obligation upon him to loue God with the love that he requires And if this love be made by God a necessary condition of mans obteining eternall life it is certainly possible for man to performe this condition even to loue the Lord his God with all his heart soule mind and strength either in the power of what he hath or of what by the same gracious and liberall hand of God he may be made to have For an impossible condition is all one with a negative as if God should say that eternall life and blessednes is utterly impossible and altogether vnatteinable for man The nature of man is most drawne and commanded by love This is that which swayes and carries it in its motions after the object which it pursues Now the appearance which God gives of himself in his Son the image of the invisible God the brightnes of his glory and expresse character of his person is the most beautifull and desireable object that can come into the mind of man for his fruition and inheritance And he is not only lovely in himself but full of love to man He hath such love in him to mans nature as he hath not to any besides no not to the angels For he took not on him the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham which thereby came to be knit in personall union with the only begotten Son of God And yet farther the love of God in Christ towards men is most largly and liberally diffusive to the filling all those that doe become willing receavers and enterteiners of it with its owne fulnes and unsearchable riches of divine treasure shewing itself not in word only but in deed and in truth to all those that are taken into cohabitation with it as the habitable part of its earth The cords of this love are the cords of a man attracting by arguments exceedingly adaequate and suited to the reason and understanding of man Where lies then this great mystery that it should be impossible for man to continue in the love which God commands and declares as the law he is to observe and performe upon the severest penalties of his displeasure Is it not rather indeed a grosse mistake for any to thinke or say so And are we not rather to conclude and affirme that it was not only possible for man to have performed this great and comprehensive duty of continuing in the love of God which is the fulfilling of all law before his fall but is so still by such restoration of strength and ability as men doe receave by the vertue of Christs death and resurrection Man in his first creation was furnished with an ability to be his owne keeper in that righteous and good frame wherein he came fresh and lively out of Gods hands with which he girds himself and goes whithersoever he will He was created unto good workes that he should walke in them he had the enlightning and quickning influence of Gods spirit to assist and direct him therein Yea he was so intimately ioyn'd with the Lord the spirit in love likenes and agreement that it may truly be sayd his soule was as it were a part of his joyned and continued to him as the habitable part of his earth the temple which he built for himselfe to dwell in And must it not needs be very irksome and painfull to depart be cut of disioynted and separated by our iniquity from him that is our life But as man hath thus a righteous and reasonable soule which ought to be guided by the mind and law of his God so hath he also a power of girding and turning himself according to the free motion of his owne will He hath in his soule a changable principle which can move and conclude either way to good or evil according to the differing report and representation that is made to him by the one or other part of his mind that is his intellectuall or sensuall nature of both which he is composed as hath bin shewed So then according to the arguments given by these different parts of his composition on the one hand or on the other being furnished with a competent measure of divine light to discerne and conclude aright as to the way he should goe God leavs him so far forth in the hand of his owne counsell as to be at liberty to chuse and determine within himself as it shall seem best to him In this vnconstant and moveable estate of man this dividednes and wavering of mind inclinable to good and also to evill under the shew of good man being left free and without constraint what is it possible for him to doe can he love the Lord his God with all his heart soule mind and strength and his neighbour as himself and can he continue so to doe unchangably and perpetually The answer very breifly may be 1. That it is possible for man to be perpetually moved in and by that love to God which is required by the law 2. It is possible for man considered either as before or since the fall to move himselfe in the performance of this his duty for a much longer continuance then he shews himself willing and inclinable to do it in his mutable state 3. It must reasonably be supposed that while man reteins such a changable principle and fountaine of action in him as the freedom of his owne will and to be in his owne keeping and at his owne dispose his obedience to Gods law and his walking with him must needs be as God him self complains at an all-adventures and without any stedfastnes in his Covenant But he that as single and at his owne dispose in the freedom of his owne will cannot keep himself firme and stedfast in the performance of his duty may so yeild himselfe to be bound up in the will and motion of another who is unchangable that he may be kept in the power thereof unmoveable and free from all danger of departing or turning aside to the right hand or to the left from the holy and streight way of Gods Commandements And this seeming bondage to the will of another is the truest greatest and most absolute freedome being that which falls to mans share as he comes to be actually united with Christ in the band of the choicest and most excellent marriage union We may then safely conclude that it was possible
for man by the ability and strength of nature given him before the fall to have stood and continued longer in his duty then he did For before any danger appeared of his discontinuance herein or that any temptation thereunto discovered it self a way was set open to him in the tree of life wherein he was taught how he ought to resigne up himself to the teaching and will of another whereby such a change might have bin brought upon him through a new creation and the comming of the son of God to dwell in his heart by faith even that faith which workes by a love stronger then death as would have rendred him unmoveable in his duty and love to God It must needs then be acknowledged to be mans owne fault through unbeleife to resist and harden himself against that working of the holy Ghost which brings upon us the pangs of the new birth as a needfull preparation thereunto This was the folly of Ephraim that unwise son who stayed long in the place of the breaking forth of children Hosea 13.13 as having no mind to endure the pangs required to the birth of the immortall seed This was great folly in our first parents but it is far greater and more dangerous in any restored but to some graduall exercise of the like ability since the fall when proof hath bin made by man at his best estate in his primitive purity what this first ability and sufficiency of nature does amount unto as to the keeping out of sin For what can the man in this case doe that comes after the king If the armour with which our first parents were armed against the great Goliah did upon experience faile them surely though it be prepared to be put on againe by their posterity and attempted anew never so often it is and wil be found alwayes best for us with David to forbeare making use of it with any confidence in such selfsufficiency and to resort to the more sure and effectuall weapons mention'd 2 Cor 10 4 and Eph. 6 11 17. and to put on the whole armour of God to arme ourselvs with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus that may make us inclinable and ready so to suffer in the flesh as to cease from sin or so to crucify the flesh by the powerfull operation of this heavenly mind in and upon us as thereby to put an end to all the motions of sin in our fleshly and sensuall part which is the door by which at first sin entred This brings us to the second particular enquiry in order to the clearing up the third generall Querie in this discourse concerning the losse and deprivall which happened unto man through his sin and disobedience of that naturall ability and aptnes of mind which he had in his primitive purity to love and serve God according to his duty And how far is man by the vertue of Christs blood duly applied to him capable of restitution into the exercise thereof so as to be once more put upon the proof and triall whether in the day of temptation he will hearken to the voice of the gospel by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost which purifies the heart from all filthines of flesh and spirit not only from the blood or naturall pollution from which before it was not cleansed but also from all those things whereby man could not be cleansed and freed by the law of Moses by the best naturall ability and strength receaved by him in his first creation or renewed and revived in him since In answer to this we shall as little as may be repeat what hath bin mention'd before but rather refer to it Only here is the proper place to reassume the pursuit of what was but lightly touch'd before concerning the conditionall Covenant made by God with Cain after the fall which is necessarily implied Gen. 4.7 and may safely be concluded on 1. Because Cain owned himself a visible worshipper of God and brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 2. Because God in effect ownes as much himself when he speakes to this purpose if thou doe well I wil be as good as my agreement with thee thou shalt be rewarded But if thou doe ill know that the Covenant I have made with thee is but conditionall and workes wrath upon thy disobedience whereby the punishment of thy sin will hasten apace upon thee and be neer thee even at the door And that thou mayst certainly know thou wilt be without all excuse for thy disobedience if thou persist in it doe not thinke to lay the fault any where but in the free motion of thine owne will which thou art restored to the exercise of For although through the fall thy lusting proud flesh and sensuall part of thy mind hath gotten the Dominion and usurped authority over thy intellectuall and most purely rationall part it shall be subject to thee againe as it ought by the law and order of nature For thou shalt be more and more renewed into a strength and ability to rule over and keep it to its duty if the fault be not in thy self This conditionall Covenant with the benefits of it thus renewed between God and Cain is that which is renewed by the same blood of the Mediatour between Christ and all the posterity of Adam vertually and radically This is that which Christ hath obteined at the fathers hands to be anew entered into with man for his farther proof and triall Unto this ministry Christ is enabled and qualified either by himself or by his messengers and servants to bring back againe the whole world unto God according to that invitation of his Isai 55.1.2 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no mony come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without mony and without price Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soule delight itself in fatnes All this yet lies short of the saving grace and sure mercies of the new and everlasting Covenant which is propounded by itself afterwards v. 3. So then thus far the Gospell is and may be receaved by Cain and those of whom God swears in his wrath that they shall never enter into his Rest Unto these the promise is made conditionally of entering into Rest and they fall short of it through hardnes of heart and unbeleife The WORD preached unto them does not profit them as to eternall salvation because they are not united to it by faith or have not the inseperable union contracted between the Son of God and them in the Covenant ordered in all things and sure which true saving faith workes The word therefore and command of God consisting in a conditionall and in an absolute Covenant from the beginning are the same two Testimonies of the
enable us to effect this work of faith whereby we may live and also may die to the Lord and in neither sin nor serve our selvs Christ both died and rose againe and is become Lord both of the dead and of the living even in this sense before opened To this agrees what the same Apostle testifies 2 Cor. 4 12.13 compared with 1 Cor. 4.8 13. Here we find the Apostle the father and true elder as to his growth up into Christ strong in the faith and the Corinthians they are the children babes in Christ weak and low in faith but high full and puffed up in their fleshly minds Let us therefore consider the differing characters he gives of the one and of the other though both beleevers such as in their living and in their dying are or may be the Lords Ye now are full sayes Paul or this is your time of being rich and reigning as kings without us but I would to God you did indeed reigne that we also might reigne together with you But it is otherwise with us even a dying time We are troubled on every side perplexed persecuted cast downe alwayes bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus God having set forth us that are the Apostles most strong and eminent in faith as it were appointed unto death and to be made a spectacle to the world to angels and to men We are fools for Christs sake but ye are wise in Christ we are weak but ye are strong Ye are honourable but we are despised So then death workes in us but life in you And we having the same spirit of faith according as it is written I have beleeved and therefore have I spoken we also beleeve and therefore speak knowing that he which raysed up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you That then which is wrought in men by Christ through the ministry of the outward word by the spirit and life of his first appearance is either restoration-work single or restoration-work joyned and accompanied with true regeneration and eternall salvation Restoration-work single is that which is called the spirit of bondage making but those servants that abide not in the house for ever as having never tasted nor partaken of that freedome wherewith the Son makes those free indeed that he knits into an indissoluble union with himself But restoration-work as it is accompanied with salvation or the birth of the immortal and incorruptible seed of life and righteousnes is that which is called the spirit of adoption of power of love and of a sound or stedfast mind that principle of life begotten and springing up in us whereby we put off that which is mutable and corruptible and put on that which is immutable and incorruptible as well in the inward man of the heart as in the outward man of the flesh We have already shewed that their obedience is accepted with God who are faithfull to their light under the first dispensation of Gods word speaking in them to the inward senses of their mind as was the case of the centurion Such persons in every nation are owned by God as those that fear him and work righteousnes And this feare is in a sense faith for they cannot thus come to God and obey him but they must beleeve that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and hearken to his voyce Neverthelesse this is not the faith that is in the regenerate flowing from the spirit and life of the new creature and working by love but it is the faith which all restored enlightned men may have in conformity to what Adam had before his fall that knew and obeyed the eternall WORD as creatour and maker of both worlds though not as the redeemer and Saviour of men by the blood of the crosse from sin and the wrath attending it This sort of faith is that which flowes from mans exercise of his right knowledg and free will wherein he was created after Gods likenes and did receave the truth in his knowledg but in no fixed permanent love thereof because he was left free to change his mind as seemed good unto himself being in case of his failer therein personally responsible to the penalties and curse of the law For to be created with such a righteous mutable principle of activity and free moving power in the mind was simply in itself good and might be lawfully used to answer the end for which it was given which was by way of voluntary resignation to chang and turne out of that wavering unstable active power though at present righteous into that love that should bind up the moving power of mans Spirit into a stedfast and unmoveable delight and rest in righteousnes and into a fixed and unshaken enmity and aversnes of mind to sin and all evill By this new creation and forming of the spirit of man within him his first freedome is taken from him and done away or it is swallowed up into a freedome much better and more excellent wherein man is made more in Gods image and after his similitude then at the first For though all things were in a good estate with man at first when God made him upright that is to say in a due conformity unto the divine will for the performance of a pure and holy worship and service to God justice and true judgmēt to his neighbour and for the walking in a due sobriety temperance and continence as to himself yet God would have him know he might be better made through a new creation which should more then comprehend all the good of his first make and adde also to it an immutability God did therefore forbid man to trust to the uncertaine riches and fading glory of his first estate and timely to look and make out for a better But in stead of this man notwithstanding Gods prohibition runs himself aground into a very bad and evill condition Out of this forlorne state the first thing that God propounds to him in and by the knowledg of the redeemer is his restoration which God is willing to draw him to by the ministry of Moses and turn him to by the ministry of Eliah even the disobedient to the wisedome of the just to make a ready people prepared for the Lord to meet and receave him as he is given by the father in a better Covenant ordered in all things and sure of which there can never be any breach either on Gods or mans part as there was and wil be againe of the first Covenant how often soever it be repeated and renewed unlesse it end in mans being receaved and taken into the second There is then a ministry of the first Covenant in the hand of the Redeemer Sprinckled with the blood of his crosse which is able to rectify the depravation of things caused by sin and mans first breach with God consisting in a restitution towards mans
to do all things for the Truth attēded with a kind of powerfull impotency or impossibility of doing any thing against the Truth What other liberty thē this is left to the holy and elect āgels that are by a secōd work of Christs hāds made immutably good all possibility 〈…〉 in them to evill being removed and utterly and for ever taken away from them This likewise is all the freedom left to Jesus the Son of Man whereby when the evill one comes he finds nothing in him because he and the father are one in their willing power in exact likenes and agreement God himself also the most free agent of all never had the least possibility or fredom to evill He hath not the least ability that way To work evill is utterly impossible to him True fredom then is a power to will immutably that which is good to do it not only without any resistance or hindrance from within him that wills or does it but against all the tempting or attempting power of any other person or thing without him that might induce any chang of mind if it were possible Thus God is most free who tempts none nor can himself be tempted to or by evill And thus is he free who is fully born of God into a likenes and conformity with his divine fredom of will nor can he sin because he is born of God and so far as the immortall seed in him is his keeper the evill one cannot touch him or be able to get within him but at last is totally and finally overcome by him This is the love that with a holy and delightfull efficacy attractivenes and perswasivenes carries the regenerate soule captive to the obedience of faith constraining it with the greatest readines and delight to run the race of Gods commandement Christ is responsible for us also to his father that none of us shal be lost but he will rayse us up at the last day perfected in this love against which there is no law or penalties by the law that are in force because it is the very end for which the law was at first delivered unto man Through the power of this love the inward man of the heart is bound up as in a bundle of life in and with the active and quickning power of the holy and blessed will of Christs manhood And the will of the sensual and inferiour part of our soule which is as the door and mouth to the inward man is so conformed subjected and bound up in unity of operation and agreemēt with it as that where the heart so beleevs in Christ and loves him by the mouth belonging to that heart he is answerably confessed and glorified and comes at length by both in exact harmony to be immutably served and possessed world without end In this third sort of beleevers hearers and doers of the law and will of God under the teaching and outward ministry of the Scriptures this love is and dwells These are the truly regenerate heirs according to promise that are rooted grounded and made stedfast with God in his Covenant These are they that through the transforming and prevailing power of Christs love dwelling and working in them are drawne to that sight and knowledg of the father and of the Son and of the unity and agreement of will that is between thē which flesh and blood cannot reveale They are taught also to employ and make use of their naturall ability and strength in the restored fredom of their will so as to answer the end for which that liberty was first given which was not that they should therein be their owne keepers but suffer thēselvs to be kept and subjected under the Rule that God would send and give unto them for that purpose to lead them in the right way evidently trod by himself that is the way of the crosse and true selfdeniall which does infallibly guide and unmoveably keep the wayfairing man that walks in it from all possibility of erring or falling short of entring into the promised land and true Rest in which eternall blessednes consists And in this they are instructed by the sacraments of baptisme and the Lords supper So much by way of answer to the third particular enquiry in order to the clearing up what is sought after in the 3d generall querie in this discourse 4. The 4th particular enquiry under the same 3d generall head demands how man comes in a judiciall manner to be hardned by God made a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction with an impossibility to chang his mind from evill to good any more then those that are truly saved can change from good to evill These are in a state that can never be repented of nor is there need The other are in a sad estate even such as admits of no repentance neither no though with Esau they do seek it carefully and with tears The answer then to this query may be plain and short from what hath bin already shewen at large The steps and degrees by which men come into this deplorable condition take as followeth By the good will and patience which is shewed to them by the redeemer and by them abused do men come to this judiciall hardning and fixednes in evill Christ is content freely to begin anew with all mankind as he is that word of the beginning unto them which works their restoration more or lesse towards their primitive state as man was created in Covenant with God before any breach hapned And he does commit their soule so restored againe to their owne keeping and under the same law and condition as before save only that now if they be found wilfully to break off and depart from God a second time crucifying the Son of God a fresh and thereby putting him to opē shame there remains no more sacrifice for their sin no restoration out of it no chang of mind from it or aversnes to it but a perpetuall condemnation of them as they justly deserve to be made bondslaves to sin and Satan for ever whose counsell and will they have so inexcusably followed and preferred before Gods And the higher they have bin raised up in light and in the participatiō of heavenly gifts by them abused through the undue exercise of that free will to which they are left the deeper will they sink in everlasting torments and sorrow to all eternity through the sense they shall have of their slighting resisting and rejecting against their owne soules the operations of the spirit of love the yeilding whereunto had bin the only way to have made them inheritours of it as well as others They fondly preferred their conceited way of being saved in the single exercise of their owne freewill and choice before that way which the love and faithfulnes of God had chosen for them and chalked out to them by the rule of the crosse in the knowledg of Christ and him crucified evidently set before the eyes of their very naturall man
in the Sacramentall signes of his death on which he appoints them to feed as so manifesting him unto them till he himself come in his owne personall appearance in spirit to shew them the same mystery in the substance it self or originall patern Of the above-mention'd sorts of beleevers partaking of the light and life of Christs first appearance from the voice and testimony of the scriptures together with the sacramentall signes of his death instituted by commandment from God in his written word does the visible Christian church consist that hold themselvs to the rule of the Scriptures for their guide and are faithfully obedient in putting into practice what is therein revealed Amongst these there alwayes is as we have shewed a select number of hidden and beloved ones kept through the power of faith unto salvation without whom the rest would be as Sodom and Gomorrah And for the sake of this small remnant that truly and properly are Gods heritage out of all the rest as the new wine in the cluster it is that the Lord sayes destroy it not for there is a blessing in it These are they that being in and under the law of the Scriptures the teaching of Gods outward and written word shal be judged by this law as to the things they are found failing in and as to their comming short of the end set before them in this ministry Now the end of it is to bring them by faith to the sight and fellowship of Christ himself speaking in spirit as he is the word of the beginning and gives forth the light of the glory of God in his owne face with which he shines in the hearts of his people This comes to passe when once it pleases the father to reveal his Son in us setting him as a living patern before the eyes of our faith that in unity and similitude of spirit with that wherein the works are done by him in himself we may fulfill the law of God after him and be brought to live and dwell together in the same love which hath its season of dawning in the heart as the true day-star to prepare the soule to meet with Christ in the glory of his secōd appearāce Concerning these is it said Rom 8 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit When they have begun in the spirit they do end there also and draw not back to be perfected in the flesh As they live in the spirit so their care and practice is to walk in the spirit rejoycing in Christ Jesus and having no confidence in the flesh Their praise is of God not of men They lose the prayse and honour of men because they seek both of them from God only They are strangers and pilgrims with him on the earth as all their fathers were They sojourne in tents in the outward land of Canaan the streets of the visible church and various self-chosen wayes of visible worship which Christians of different judgments walk in These invisible saints have their eye set upon the heavenly countrey and building that hath foundations which is the workmanship wrought in God the engraffed WORD and by him is held forth to the eye of that faith that is the evidence of things unseen and is able to espy for us this land of promise in the spirit whilst it is yet at a great distance and very far off There is evidently set before this eye of our faith the crucified spirit of Christ as he offered up himself in sacrifice to the will of the father learning obedience by the things that he suffered in denying his owne will that we may tread in the same steps dying with him that we may live with him and suffring with him that we may reign with him Through such fellowship with him in his suffrings and conformity with him in his death we shall be found still advancing and pressing forwards if by any means we may attein the resurrection of the dead or that redemption of the body which is atteinable in this life by those that diligently presse after the mark for the prize of their high calling which is in Christ Jesus This resurrection and redemption of the body will be experimented upon the rising of the witnesses and then better understood In the mean time the eagle-eyed beleever lives upon the dead carkasse of Christ crucified seen so in spirit And he is content as a mēber of his dead body to be made the scorne and off-scouring of the world a member of the forsaken Zion that dwells in the feild in a wildernes-state solitary and alone that no man regards because his dwelling is in the dust in expectation of rising together with Christs dead body Untill that season this sort of beleevers in stead of being found within the pale of the visible church do follow Gods invitation of them into the secret chambers of his presence and do dwell in his house a building not made with hands in the person and spirit of Christ where they behold his beauty shutting the doors about them as to any visible entercourse with the worldly Church Thus they hide thēselvs as it were for the little moment that his indignation is to last and be exercised on thē by the power and during the reigne of the Beast Blessed are those that thus die in the Lord though by the world called and accounted phanatick waiting for the brightnes of his second comming He that hath ears to hear let him hear To shut up thē and close the ministry of the day of Christs first appearance as after this manner the Redeemer hath bin lifted up in it and the work of common and temporary as well as of peculiar and eternall Redēption hath bin wrought by him and made manifest to all sorts of men and of beleevers in the world we shall now come in the next place to a distinct consideration of the fourth and last generall head of enquiry above mentioned in this discourse which is concerning the very being life and constitution of the new creature or that immutable state in righteousnes and glory that begins in the day of Christs first appearance and is perfected by his second 4. The fourth generall enquiry then is about the immutable state of life and righteousnes in the new creatures constitution or that change which is brought upon man by the new creation The new creatures life is founded as hath bin shewed in the birth of the fathers love in the soule Of this love are they born who are by Christ the immortall seed layd hold on cleaved unto and apprehended in that intimate and inseperable marriage-union in spirit which is never to be dissolved in the Covenant ordered in all things and sure that is contracted in his person between the father and the Son through the holy Ghost Where ever this union is there is Gods love there is Christ inseperably united to that soule
might bring us thus to live in and with him The life that we thus live is through his enlivening and inspiring motiō who for this very ēd gives himselfe to us in such an intimate and unchāgable uniō as makes him our very life or the activity and strength through which we act and live Christs thus being given to us and receaved by us amounts unto true regeneratiō and our being made willing to give up ourselvs thus unto him is the presenting our bodies or lusting fleshly mind a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God This is to make our living soule an offering or reasonable service to God even the freewill offering of those reasonable first created powers of discerning and desiring which however refined do remaine yet corruptible till the transforming work of true regeneration hath passed upon them and this with Abel's is reputed by God and therefore certainly in itself is a much more excellent sacrifice then that which Cain offered or indeed can be offered by any that retaine the life of their owne will as the principle of all their motion and activity in Gods service be it otherwise never so conform to the letter of the commandement They that are under this second work and chang have the Son of God in them so as to be himself the keeper of their soules by oath never to part with or give up his interest in and Rule over them unto any but the father After this manner to receave have and possesse the Son is to beleeve and have life eternall by the new and everlasting Covenant And not thus to receave the son is the unbeleif which when once it takes root springs up with that bitternes and enmity against the principle operation and Testimony of saving faith in true beleevers and so against Christ himself who rules in their hearts by faith as amounts in conclusion to the very second death For it carries them on in to that irrecoverable impenitency and hardnes of heart for which God swears they shall never enter into his Rest To be quickned and risen with Christ in this second work and chang wrought in the soule by him is that resurrection into life which never is to se corruption or change more And he that is thus borne of God doth not commit sin that is the sin of unbeleif above mention'd because his seed remaineth in him which keepeth him from so sinning and the evil one toucheth him not This heavenly immortall seed and birth of the life that is incorruptible keeps the beleever in all trialls and temptations fixed like a rock and as mount Sion that cannot be moved from holding fast the confidence of a lively hope to the end Yet where this resurrection and immortall life is in the seed it does not suddenly appear or shew itself in its owne likenes according to the mightines of the power that works in us But however it is the power of faith through which we are kept unto salvation It is that which after we have passed over the day of temptation the suffering season will be sure to come forth in its powerfull operation and make us perfect stablish strengthen and settle us Hence is it that Christ sayes if we have faith that is of the right kind but as a grain of mustard seed we shall find it to be of such a growing encreasing nature that though it be not presently discerned yet by it shall we be at last enabled to remove mountains and nothing shal be impossible unto it This is Christs meaning also when he sayes that he will raise up such beleevers at the last day that is in the day appointed for the manifestation of these Sons of God in which they shall appear as indeed they are to every eye And the eye that sees them shall acknowledg them the eare that heares them shall bear witnes unto them that they are the seed that God hath blessed not only by strengthning them with might in the inner man and rooting them in love but visibly raising them up in his power to the rendring of them mighty in word and deed With this kind of resurrection that shal be visible in the eyes of enemies and all beholders it is that Christ will raise up the sons of God before described and cause them to live in his sight in this third day at the breaking forth of the brightnes of his second personall appearance as the Kingdom of his power with which as with the latter rain he will visit and refresh the habitable part of his earth and at same time burne like an oven in flames of fire to the consuming and destroying of all his adversaries The way that God will take to make his sons manifest in this day is by a powerfull work of redemption that shal be wrought and passe upon the outward as wel as inward man of the heart upon the speaking acting powers as well as upon the understanding and intuitive faculties of the mind to the freeing of them both from the bondage of corruption and stating the whole person of the beleever in the glorious freedom of righteousnes and true holines 7. This shal be effected first by the ministry of the holy Angels as the Elias that is to come who like the foure winds of heaven shall breath with their influencing gales of prophesy upon the spirits of all men but especially upon beleevers to the gathering them up into a life of spirit and causing them to be as it were absent from the body in order to be present with the Lord whilst yet in the body 2. Secondly This work shal be carried on by the revelation of the son himself from heaven for the changing of our vile bodies into the likenes of his most glorious body We find Mark 1.1 c. that John Baptists ministry though but the messenger sent before Christs face to prepare his way in preaching the baptisme of repentance for the remission of sins is called the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the son of God And the Evangelist luke chap. 1.15 describing that which qualified John for his ministry tells us in the words which the angel spake to his father Zachary that he was filled with the holy Ghost from the womb for the rendring him a fit messenger to usher in the comming of Christ in the flesh by going before him in the spirit and power of Eliah whose work is to restore all things making them right and streight but he is to leave the work of regeneration and ministry of the new creature being and life to the son himself The subject which both these ministries cheifly respected in the day of the dispēsation of Christs first appearance was the inward man of the heart for the rooting and grounding it in love and strengthning it under the many and various trialls of the crosse and temptations that were to be undergone For beleevers are to beare about in their bodyes the markes of
his law in both his Covenants so plaine that those who run may read it And unto this selfsame thing the heart and mouth of those that God will think fit to use in this ministry shal be wrought by Christ spirit as the most glorious earnest they can receave here on earth of the life in glory which they shall for ever enjoy with Christ in heaven For it shall come to passe that those who are thus called into this ministry shal be found speaking with the tongues not of men only but of angels and to have also the love requisite to distinguish them from all counterfeits Yea they shall have this love of Christ and the spirit of it perfected in them to the casting out of all torment and feare making them bold as a lion fearing the face neither of devils nor of men in the discharge of this their ministry which shal be so powerfull as to turne many even innumerable multitudes to righteousnes to the admiration of all beholders The Gentiles shal come to this light and Kings to the brightnes of the very rising thereof Then shalt thou se and flow together and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged because the noise or abundance of the sea shal be turned towards thee or multitudes and prophane persons who before were to be seen foaming out their owne filth shall now be converted to thee the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee Esay 60 5. And not the Gentiles only but the Jews also or the mysticall earthly Jerusalem consisting both of Jews and Gentiles that earth shal be made to bring forth in one day that nation shal be borne at once That Zion so soon as she travels shall bring forth her children whose wall the sons of strangers shall build up and their Kings shall minister unto her For in my wrath sayth the Lord I have smote thee but in my favour I have had mercy on thee Therefore thy gates shal be open continually they shall not be shut day nor night that may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles and their Kings with them For the nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish Yea those nations shal be utterly wasted In these beleevers shall Christ be admired and to the exercise of their faith all things shal be possible The power of the keyes shal be so committed to them as is promised that whatsoever they bind or loose on earth shall be bound and loosed in the heaven These will be found to be the angels that come forth out of the temple with the seven vials of Gods wrath commissionated to poure them out upon the beast the whore the false Prophet and the whole Kingdom of Antichrist They shall not need to take care as to what they are to speak and answer for themselvs when they are brought before Magistrates for Christs name sake for in that houre a mouth and wisdom shal be given unto them which their enemies shall not be able to resist 3. The third particular that shall accompany the second comming of Eliah is the neccessary consequent and product that shall and must attend the excellent and powerfull ministry above made knowne For it is by the breath of this mouth of the Lord in his servants the loud plaine and certaine sound of this seventh Trumpet even when it begins to sound that Jacob must arise as low and as small as he and the dispersed seed of God will at that time be judged to be in the eye of the world or in their owne sight Ezek. 37.11 These bones however they seeme to be dried up must live and by this breath of prophesy from the Lord that is to enter into them they shall once againe stand upon their feet with that firmnes and stability as never to fall more When the command is once given for the spirit of prophecy to come forth in that excellent and powerfull way of ministry before-mentioned it will first make a great noise amongst the inhabitants of the world It wil be a voyce of noise from the city a voyce from the temple a voyce of the Lord rendring recompence to his enemies And after the noise which shal be occasioned by this voice of the Lords second appearance to the great joy of his saints and utter shame of his and their enemies there shall immediatly follow a great shaking or earth quake where in a tenth part of the city shall fall to make way for the more easy and ready comming together of the dry bones which will thus gradually become an exceeding great multitude in excellent order For first the sinews and flesh will come upon them and the skin will cover them above but no breath in them yet This is a typicall description of the state of the witnesses who do for a season lie as it were breathlesse and dead in the street of the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt But upon the command given to the breath of prophesy that was called from the foure winds to breath upon these slain and cause them to live the breath comes into them and they live and stand upon their feet an exceeding great army even these dry bones of the whole house of Israel who looked upon themselvs a little before as those whose bones were dried whose hope was lost and who were cut off for their parts For at this time God will open as it were the very graves of his people and cause them to come out from thence into their owne land the land of the promised spirit Emmanuells land by putting after this admirable and extraordinary manner his spirit within them that shal be in them and to them as life from the dead causing them to know that the Lord hath opened their graves fro them and brought them into their owne land by vertue of the everlasting Covenant that he hath made with them and hath set his sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore The Lord in this day will performe the word spoken by the Prophet Micah chap. 2 12 13. I will surely assemble O Iacob all of thee I will surely gather the remnant of Israel I will put them together as the sheep of the flock in the midst of their fold They shall make a great noise by reason of the multitude of men The breaker up is come up before them they have broken up and have passed thorow the gate and are gone out by it and their king shall passe before them and the Lord on the head of them For the children of Israell shall abide many dayes without a King Prince or sacrifice image Ephod or Teraphim And afterward shall they return and seeke the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodnes in the latter dayes when the Mountaine of the house of the Lord shal be established upon the top of the Mountains and the las shall goe out of Zion and the word of the Lord from