unlimited Sweetness and Liberty with the Divine Love the Divine will above Yea now the will and love enjoy a two-fold full and glorious Liberty while Goodness and Beauty are their Essence as well as their Election 1. They freely and unconfinedly rove through all the fields of Goodness and Beauty in their greatest amplitude in their richest and most unbounded Varieties as freely as through their own proper Essence and Being 2. Their Liberty in this unconfined amplitude of all Goodness and Beauty becomes most ample and triumphant while it is free from all fear danger suspicion possibility of change to any degree of confinement or constraint by this essential Connexion between it self and the highest necessity O good O beautiful O blessed Will which sits upon the Throne of Eternity which governest us and all things While in being good beautiful blessed with a perfect Liberty thou art such also with the highest necessity Thou art now as delightfully and complacentially so unchangeably absolutely universally supreamly soveraignly essentially Good beautiful and blessed in thine whole Nature Person and Duration in all â—…hy works and ways O Good Beautiful Blessed is that will also in whom Liberty and Necessity are after the same manner united by its Union with the Divine will 2. Nothing seems to present the Divine Face of Truth and the whole nature of things with such harmonious and charming Beauties to the eye of the mind as the determination of the will by its essential and universal Causes seen in one view with the Divine Love A single light seen by Mariners resting upon their Ship which as I remember was of old called by the name of Helena Threatneth a dreadful storm But two Twin-Lights known by the name of the two Brothers Castor and Pollux infuse a new life into the hearts of the Sea-men by the sweet hope of a sudden and gentle Calm After the same manner these two the divine Love and the determination of the will shining together as twin-lights entertain us with a most beautiful composure a golden Calm and Sun-shine a Divine Amity spread through the work of God in all the parts of it But either of these alone exposeth all to stormy gusts slawes and wracks We read of the Spouse in the Canticles That the Joynts of her thighs are Jewels the work of a curious workman The indeterminate motions of the Will render the work of God a dis-joynted piece exposing it in its most principal parts and motions to an ungoverned contingency without joynts or bands which may knit them together one to another and to the whole as one piece If the will with its motions by a necessary connexion in the Order of Causes be joynted into the whole and compose with the rests of the parts one entire work answering to one entire design framed in the heart and brought forth by the hand of that supream and eternal Spirit which is love it self the pure unmixt entire Spirit of love How sweet how beautiful how full of all Divine Charms and Perfections through all the parts of it What a Princely Daughter and Spouse worthy of the great and eternal King must we think this work to be which is the compleat and full contrivance of so rich and so high a Love formed in its own Bosom In the midst of all its most amiable and delightful treasures which is the outward work of a most pure and Almighty Love wrought entirely from end to end by its own hand with fingers dropping its own pure incorruptible Myrrh upon every part of it as it wrought it forming it for a compleat Image of it self and a continual delight to it self What Jewels now must we think all the Joynts of the Thighs of this Divine Image and Birth How harmonious the motions by these Joynts when the joynts and motions are all the work of so skillful so curious so faithful a Workman as Love it self the supream and eternal Love I humbly acknowledge that to my weak Understanding a created Will absolute and arbitrary determined in its course by no light of Truth no light or life of good seemeth to lead my Spirit into a Wilderness where there is no way or guide or to thrust me forth without Ballast or Rudder without a Pole-star or Needle toucht with the loadstone upon the face of an unknown and stormy Sea What a golden-thread of Harmony guides us through the nature of things and leads us into all Truth Harmony being the very Essence of all Natures and all Truths when we understand the whole nature of things from the greatest to the least parts and motions of it to be determined and that determination to be the work of the Divine Love the firmest band of sweetest Union the sweetest Life of all beautiful proportion being only Wise only Powerful inasmuch as it is the highest Unity containing all Variety Originally in it self sending it forth from it self and diffusing it self through all We are taught in Metaphysicks That Being Truth and Goodness are really one How sweet a rest now doth the Spirit with its Understanding and its Will find to itself in every Being in every Truth in every State or Motion of Being in every form of Truth When it hath a sense of the highest Love which is the same with the highest Goodness designing disposing working all in all even all Conceptions in all Understandings all Motions in every VVill Humane Angelical Divine With what a joy and complacency unexpressible doth the Will the Understanding the whole Spirit now lie down to rest every where as upon a bed of Love as in the bosom of goodness it self Let not any question the close and Divine Contexture of the whole Work in all the parts and conduct of it by a firm connexion of Causes and Effects like links in a Chain from its first beginning to its last end because he meeteth with an Hell as well as an Heaven in this work of God Divine Love which transcendently excels in all Wisdom and Prudence beyond all the highest wits of men the richest Contrivances of Poets knoweth how to joynt an Hell into its work with such Divine Artifice incomprehensible to Men or Angels that this also shall be beautiful with delights in its place and shall give a sweetness a lustre to the whole piece St. Paul saith to the Saints All things this World Life Death things present things to come are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods and God is Love See a golden Chain see the Order of the precious Links see how in a beautiful circle the beginning is fastned to the end All Philosophy agreeth in this that the last end is the first mover In God then who is Love the first and the last links of this Chain meet All things this wicked World Death it self even the second Death and Hell deaths to come as well as deaths present are shining links in this golden Chain fastened to that superior Link the Saint the spiritual man He
much dearness and esteem upon my heart He came to a City filled with Reproaches cast upon him I saith he spake not one word to clear my self I received gladly the Humiliation Now gentle Reader I will seal up my Epistle to thee with that golden Sentence of St. Paul Let all your things be done to all in Charity or in Divine Love Let me add this one short Direction as a gloss upon it bear always clearly and deeply engraven upon thy Soul these and the like Precepts Love all Men Honour all men Love your Enemies Love another as thy self Study to know God as he is the Pattern and the Perfection of the Divine Perfection included in these Precepts Be you perfect saith Jesus Christ as your heavenly Father is perfect So he setteth before his Disciples the rich ground out of which these Precepts Spring as Plants of Paradise Study the Reason and the Equity of these Precepts The Precepts of God are true saith David and righteous altogether Every Divine Precept is founded in a Divine Truth The only reason of Love is loveliness Thus shalt thou be every where led into a Paradise and into Heaven while thou shalt now understand that God is Love a Godhead of Love That while thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in God thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in Love it self That while God works all in all fills all in all all within thee all without thee is a work of Love is full of Love Thus these Precepts in the reason of them which will shine out upon thee more and more as thou growest in the practice of them shall be an anointing upon thine eyes by virtue of which thou shalt see in all things every where which way soever thou turnest thy self a Divine Loveliness presenting it self to thee continually entertaining enflaming thine heart with a Divine Love crowning thy thoughts with a Divine Peace and Joy Gentle Reader There were in the Temple Vessels made of Wood but these were over-laid with pure and massy Gold This Treatise is no Temple thou wilt certainly meet with many things of wood and perhaps of the lowest sort of wood worthless the subject of Frailty and Corruption Let it be thy part and glory to over-lay it with the Gold of the Temple above Divine Love which covereth all Sin So my humble Prayer is That thou mayest be together with my self yea so shall we both be if we abide in the Divine Love Priests consecrated by an heavenly Blood and an heavenly Unction to minister to the God of all Loving kindnesses by day and by night in the Temple of Love Here now death is no more here from our Death-beds as from the golden Altar like the sweet and costly Incense we shall ascend in a pure and glorious flame of heavenly Love kindled from the Face and Heart of God above unto the Throne of God the Throne of Grace and Love to be ever in the circuit of that Throne where the eternal Spirit like a Rain-bow shall encompass us round as the seal and band of eternal Love shining with all innumerable beauties and pleasantuesses ever full ever fresh and flourishing Perhaps some one will say Who is this that thus preacheth Love to the World Is he himself a Dove washt in Milk Far is he from pretending to the praise and perfections of that Spirit the Bride of the heavenly Bridegroom which sitteth in the Garden of Divine Purities Sweetnesses and Light making her Beloved and his Companions to hear her Voice while they return their esteem affections and admiration in Songs saying to her Thy Voice is pleasant thy Face thy Person is lovely No the only Character here is that of a Voice in the Wilderness a Wilderness of many Deformities and Distractions within as well as without Crying Prepare ye the way of Divine Love make streight paths for it by bringing down every Mountain of Vanity and Pride by filling up the Vallies of low dejected lost dispairing Spirits He who thus cries to you too frequently too deeply hath â—…erc'd the side of this Love yet still from the woundâ—… heart through the wounds water and blood flow to wash off the stains of this blood upon him and by this blood as a Balsom as a Cordial as a Spring of Life all at once to heal his Wounds to infuse new vigour and joy into his Spirits to renew life in his heart even out of Death it self unto Immortality This is the Innocency and Wisdome which maketh them blessed who aspire to it who as often as they fail in their duty of loving every other person as themselves are sensible of the guilt of breaking the whole Law which is summed up in these two great Commandments and maketh them inseparable as the substance and the shadow in the Sun-shine or as the Fountain and the stream the Sun and the similitude of the Sun in the light surrounding it To love God with all our selves and To love our Neighbour as our selves A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The FIRST PART CONTAINING The Definition of the Free-will in question and the Arguments opposed to it Libertas est facultas ejus quod cuique facere libet ut Romani definiunt faith Grotius upon Genesis This is liberty to do that which we like to do Liking is from likeness Nihil est quod ad se rem ullam tam alliciat tam attrahat quà m ad amicitiam similitudo saith Cicero Nothing so allures and so attracts as similitude and likeness doth to liking and to love Liking then is founded in the nature and harmony of each essence Every thing moves and rests freely at liberty when it moves and rests according to its own nature according to the harmony of its own essence Zeno defines liberty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power of self-acting The Philosopher defines nature to be the principle of motion and rest there where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it self and not by accident Our nature is our true-self Then have we the power of self-acting when we move and rest according to our own natures being acted in them by our own natural and essential Principles We meet with this Rule often in Aquinas Vnumquodque operatur prout est Every thing acts as it is The being or nature of each thing is the Root and the Rule of its operation By these things which I have spoken two marks present themselves to us to guide us in our judgment of liberty 1. Liberty is a relation or harmony between the essence or nature of each thing and its operations 2. According to the Orders and Degrees of Being are the Orders and Degrees of Liberty According to these two Marks we shall find a two-fold measure of Liberty 1. The Principle 2. The Sphere of Activity I shall then upon this ground distinguish liberty into a four-fold Order 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial
heart 2. The measure which thou measurest to others shall be measured to thee again If you do well who will harm you St. Paul distinguisheth between a righteous man and a good man This doing well is that goodness of Divine Love pouring forth round about it heavenly beams upon all things which maketh men to be so far from any inclination to harm the person in whom this goodness discovereth it self that they are willing to die for him St. John giveth us a lively figure of the Divine Love in a light of Glory by these words He that loveth his Brother walketh in the light and there is none offence in him The last words are capable of two senses which very agreeably meet here 1. There is nothing in this person at which any man taketh any offence 2. There is nothing of which this person receiveth any Image into his Spirit which offends him He who is this Divine Lover walketh always in those blessed Regions of Divine Light where every thing presenteth it self in his heart as it lieth in the heart of God springing forth from the womb of an eternal Love acted by that eternal Spirit which is Love it self cloathed with an ever-flourishing loveliness lying in the universal Harmony of the Divine Wisdom being one piece with it having the Glory of God resulting from it and resting upon it He that is this Divine Lover shines forth in all his Discourses Conversation and Actions upon all eyes and hearts with such a sweet light and heavenly lustre of the Divine Nature of the supream Love it self the Unity the Mother the Sister the Desire of all things the Joy of the whole Earth that nothing takes offence at this Person nothing can harm him O what a Conquest had we attained if we once did so live that we convinced all persons that we loved them in truth and in deed that we had a Divine Love for them that we esteemed all things in our selves of no value of no effect to our present Beauty and Peace to our eternal Life and Glory to be altogether nothing except this Divine Love alone How would this demonstration of an heavenly Wisdom in an heavenly meekness of Divine Love disarm all hands of the weapons lifted up against us and all hearts of their wrath conceived against us like the Musick of David's Harp the sweet force of this Love would chase away every evil Spirit from every Breast There is no power in Nature like to that of Similitude Every thing draws and attracts its like to it Where this Divine Love flourisheth in any person all the blessed immortal Spirits of heavenly Love above in eternity with all the joys and glories of Love resort to this Person to this Heart planting themselves round about as heavenly Guards and heavenly Ministers to it inhabiting in it as their proper Paradise and Heaven here below In all things below through all their differences distances and divisions the Spirit of Love which bath in it the Root and Idea of each Creature which is in each Creature as the proper Root of that Creature as it s Ideal and primitive Form discloseth it self to shineth forth upon and in all forms of things circleth in this person this heart being attracted by it drawn to it as its proper Centre Some Divine Philosophers teach us That according to the property or power which predominateth in us here such will that Divine Idea be which shall be our eternal Habitation and Palace above in which we shall enjoy all things being sealed to us by this Idea If the Divine universal Love reign in thee here Love which seems to be the highest and sweetest of all Ideas in the Divine Nature the Divine Nature it self in its most proper and perfect Idea uniting the Ideas of all Perfections of all Beauties of all Sweetnesses of all Lives Loves Joys and Glories in it self at their greatest heighth with the most ravishing agreeableness and harmony this shall be thy proper Habitation and Palace set up for thee in thine own person in every Creature in every Created or uncreated form of things to dwell unchangeably in both here and above Here shall all things present themselves to thee cloathed and sealed with this Idea with this pure and perfect Love With the measure with which thou hast measured unto others shall it be measured unto thee Thou hast loved all things with a Divine Love looking upon them stedfastly through all seasons and changes in a Divine Light in the incorruptible form of a Divine loveliness As thou hast looked upon them so shall they all in all seasons and states appear to thee in a Divine Light full and over-flowing with a Divine Love cloathed all over with a Divine loveliness Love all things O Reader after a divine manner that thou mayest be the beloved Object of all divine things and divinely beloved by all things that thou mayest shine with a divine loveliness in all eyes and be received with a divine loveliness into all hearts These are the Requests which I make to thee for thine own sake I have one Request only to present to thee for my self which is That thou wouldst come with this Divine Love to the reading of this Discourse Câ—…me with that love which thinketh no evil We read in the Revelations of an Angel descending from Heaven who enlightned the whole Earth While thou readest let this heavenly love be as a Seraphim flying down upon its flaming wings from the Throne of Love into thy Bosom to enlighten thy whole Soul with its beams unto a Divine Candour that there may be no dark corner left for any suspitious Jealousies Prejudices Animosities or ill will like poysonous Toads in the hollows of some old wall Come with this love which believeth all things all the good that every subject either person or thing is capable of As Bees extract the virtue out of the commonest Herbs and convert it to Honey in themselves So do thou believe every thing here to be intended in the best sense of which it is capable Draw forth this sense from it and improve it in thy self with the utmost advantage to the sweetest satisfaction and the richest treasure in thy own mind Believe this Piece to be the fruit of Love springing from a Root of Divine Love We read in the Revelations of an Angel standing in the Sun Plato somewhere saith something like this that if we stood in the Sun all things even this dark mass of Elements and elementary composition to us beholding them from that center of Light would appear in a Sun-like Glory Be thou this Angel or in this an Angel-like Spirit stand in this Sun the glorious circle of divine Love From thence see the Fountain of Love opening it self to thee in this Discourse all the parts all the lines as so many streams flowing forth from it to water thy Spirit and make it a Garden of Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties If the rich man in Hell
eternal life sown in it 4. The Law is an heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ. The Law came in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded Grace might super abound The Law is a three-fold heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ in the Gospel 1. The Law heightens the Glory of Christ by an Antiperistasis As in hard Frosts the Lights of Heaven shine brightest and look with sweetest Glories upon us As in the coldest season the Fire burns brightest and refeshes our Spirits with the liveliest warmth and heat So Darkness Death and Wrath in the Ministry of the Law by their opposition being carried to the greatest extremity excite and stir up the Godhead to pour forth it self from all its richest and unconfined Depths in the most full the overflowing Seas of all his sweetest richest most exalted Loves and Glories 2. The Law heightens the sweetness and beauty of Christ by being a soil to it There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth than over ten righteous persons continuing in their Righteousness The Father of the Prodigal in the Parable giveth this reason for the excess of Joy the unwonted Triumphs with all the heightnings of Feasts and of Musick This our Son which was lost is found which was dead is alive The Violets and Roses of the Spring are the sweeter and more beautiful for the Winter going before them How sweet and amiable is the light of life arising upon those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death As a foil beneath a Diamond so do the darknesses and deformities of Sin the hateful stains and insupportable guilt of Sin the terrors the horrors the torments of Death and the Divine Wrath under the Law make the freedom and fulness of the Divine Grace the Righteousness the Life and Glory of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus appearing to a lost forelorn Soul in the midst of these black shades unvaluably precious infinitely amiable pleasant far surpassing all the sweetness and beauties of the loveliest Morning all the Lights and Glories of the purest Sun arising out of the darknesses of the most melancholy and tempestuous night 3. The Law heightens the brightness and delightfulness of Christ in the Day of the Gospel as fewel to that heavenly and blessed flame of Divine Love As Sin hath reigned unto Death saith St. Paul so Grace reigns through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin exalted its black and fiery Throne by subduing to it self the first man in all his Primitive powers and purities The first Paradise with its sweet peace and pleasantness the first Creation in the whole Compass of its Divine Glories sprung forth from and resembling the Divine World in eternity How great and deep is that darkness bottomless as Hell it self How bitter is that death as the poyson of Asps as the poyson of the old Serpent the Dragon himself which hath extinguished the light of so much Beauty which hath corrupted so much Sweetness which hath devoured and swallowed up into the black and bottomless Abyss of a first and second death an unsearchable depth of confusion and woe such a world of so Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties with all their amiable light and life But now what Tongue can express what Heart can conceive the unmeasurable heightnings of that Divine Grace and Love the unparalleled unbounded Beauties and Glories of that Righteousness the infinite purities pleasures powers perpetuities of that life the inestimable incomprehensible Sweetnesses Beauties Virtues and force of that Person our Jesus in whom all these united who by all these uniteth in his own Person reigneth over these devouring Powers of darkness and death subduing them all unto himself and carrying this whole captivity captive into the Kingdom of Light and Love unto which he himself returneth as he ascends The fire at once encreaseth its own force and flame by the great quantity of fewel on which it feeds and converts the dead fewel into one glorious spreading ascending flame with it self Shadows seen alone have little grace in them but skilfully mixt with the bright colours in a Picture and presenting themselves to the eye in one view together with them encrease the beauty of the Picture are themselves a sweet part of the Beauty and a rich Variety in it Discordant touches upon a Lute offend the Ear but in a Lesson of Musick they are themselves harmonious and enrich the Harmony of the whole Lesson Thus the first Adam who was only an earthly Image a shadowy similitude of the Divinity and made under the Law the Fall the whole reign of sin unto death by the Ministry of the Law with all its Clouds and Storms of shame terror and torment are in themselves a melancholy Image filling us with the afflicting Forms of deformity confusion desolation and woe But when these in the Gospel become fewel to that pure potent and pleasant fire of the Divine Love the eternal Spirit the Spirit of Grace and Glory now they enlarge and heighten this beautiful and blessed flame now themselves are become spiritual immortal flames of highest sweetness and beauty in this Divine flame Now these discordant notes these dark lines and stroaks in the Evangelical melody of the eternal Word in the unvailed Face of the heavenly Bridegroom the Lord Jesus in the Musick of the eternal Love in the beauty of the Righteousness the unvailed Glory of the Godhead in the Person of Christ become themselves most rich heightnings most pleasant and beautiful parts most dear and delightful Varieties in the eternal Melody and unfading Beauty of the Divine Loveliness and Love I have now finished my Reply to this Reason for Free-will in man taken from the Language of the Scripture In which Reply I have endeavoured to set before you in their clear distinctions the difference between the vail of the Letter and the mystery of the Spirit hid beneath this Vail I shall now conclude this Discourse by offering humbly to you three Rules for the right understanding of those expressions in the Scripture which are most of all pressed and pressing in this Point 1. God planteth and establisheth man upon natural Principles of rectitude in the Divine Image he leaveth him to the force and to the trial of these Principles he ministreth to him outwardly inwardly all moral assistances for the strengthning actuating and heightning of these Principles to their utmost perfections Thus God who properly hath no Will nor any thing common to the Creature or proportionable to the Creature But as a Will with other faculties and forms proper to the Creature are given to him by a fit figure and according to the manner of the Creature saith of himself I will not the death of a Sinner but rather that he return and live 2. When God appeareth unvailed in the Face of Christ who is the brightness of his Glory Righteousness Love Life Immortality Joy and Glory attend upon and
is the Divine Wisdom The innumerable Ideas in this Divine VVord or Mind in this Univeral Idea make up that which the holy Apostle stileth All VVisdom When Jesus the essential Image of all Lights and Loves in the Father of Lights and Loves hath wrought upon the Creature the clear and full engravings of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind then hath he finished it unto a compleat Image of himself Now doth this Spirit of Grace of Love and Beauty flow forth upon it in all wisdom in all the various Lights of heavenly Beauty in all the various sweetnesses of the heavenly Love When this work of wrath shall be seen in the whole piece of the Divine Design when it shall be seen in Union with its Divine Idea in the light and brightness of its eternal Pattern What a pomp and triumph of Divine Love Joy and Glory shall we see it how will it increase the pomp and triumph in the Godhead and its Work So we see it there where I now treat of it in the heavenly Image in the Mediatory Person of Christ. St. Paul presenteth this Joy and Glory to the Disciples of Christ All things saith he are yours things present and things to come this world Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods So far as we by Jesus Christ are united unto our proper Idea in the Divine Mind which is our Mansion or Apartment in our Fathers House we through the Unity of the eternal Spirit which by a Love-Union binds up all the Ideas in every one behold possess converse with enjoy all things in their eternal Ideas their Original Truths and Glories All things here are cloathed and filled with the richest Lights of Divine Beauty the purest Sweetnesses and sweetest Joys of Divine Love But thus much for the Universal the Ideal Cause efficient exemplar final The material Cause of this Contrariety is the subject where it is immediately seated the ground out of which it immediately ariseth The shadowy Image the Creature in its shadowy state is the subject and seat of this wrathful appearance The ground is the shadowyness the darkness the ground of defectibility and mutability The form of this legal or wrathful state is composed of many Circumstances God who is the eternal Truth the only ever-glorious Life and Substance appeareth in a shadowy Image God who is Love pure unmixt perfect unbounded who hath all pleasantness in his Face and Person who is all of him in every part in every glance the Spring and Center of all desirableness and delights covers this most amiable most attracting Face and Person with a Vizard of Clouds Tempests and Fires as on Mount Sinai In this Form he divides between himself and the Creature He sits upon the Throne of his Sovereignty and Dominion founded on Righteousness and attended with the Ministers of his Justice He setteth the Creature upon the root of his own shadowy Temporaries faint and fading Principle cloathed with the Beauties and Purities of an heavenly Image in an earthly Form He imposeth a severe Law upon him urged and pressed with terrible Menaces a Law to be observed and performed by the shadowy Power of this fading Principle The Law imposed is that by the virtue of this temporary Root he preserve the Beauties of the heavenly Image in himself eternally pure and entire that he keep his heart chast unstained from all the Glories appearing in this shadowy Image which alone are ever present with the senses and all the powers of the Soul that he place his Heart all the love of his Heart to the eternal Truth the unseen Glory hid beneath the shadowy Image and appearing from the midst of dreadful Tempests devouring Flames encompassing and guarding the Beauties of the shadowy Image The Creatures sading Root no more fed from the rich ground of Eternity now fails the shadowy Beauties wither the Darkness springs up and over-casts all Sin from this bed of darkness springeth up and takes life Sin by occasion of this shadowy Image in which God appears turns all heavenly Love all Divine Charity into Lust and Concupiscence by terminating it upon the shadow From the vizor of severity and wrath which God now puts on sin takes occasion to bring forth in the Creature averseness from God enmity towards him the fiery soarce of all hellish passions Thus as the Wax is turned to the Seal eternal Love by the force of the eternal Idea treasured up in it self in the midst of the rich Varieties putting on a form of Contrariety becometh an occasion for a form of Contrariety and Enmity which is the Root and Essence of all sin to spring up in the Creature The Contrariety on both sides heightens it self unto the utmost extremity that the Idea of Wrath may fully display it self in all its forms and forces to make this part of the Divine Variety full So is accomplished that which St. Paul speaketh of himself as a figure of Mankind Sin taking occasion by the Law taking life from the Commandment deceived me and so slew me The shadowy Light of the Divine Beauty the shadowy sense and life of the Divine Love is now extinguished in the Creature or which is worse corrupted and depraved The whole face of things is covered with a foul and horrid tempest of darkness lust and wrath This tempest riseth to its height when Jesus Christ the God of Love with his essential Image with his Mediatory Image with his Angelical Image in which he is the first Creature the immediate Head of the shadowy Image with the full Glories of all these vailed beneath the fleshly form of fallen man taken from the Virgin Mary and espousing it to one person with himself in all those beautiful and blessed Images riseth up and appeareth in the midst of this Tempest and is slain by the fury of it All the Contrarieties the enmities of God and the Creature meet in him as the mark of them all The rage of the Creature heightned to the utmost height of all sinfulness burns out upon him sealing up the sâ—… of all guilt The Wrath of God in iâ—…â—…tmost force set on by the Divine Justice Holiness and Glory descends upon him at once satiating it self and making him a Sacrifice for all the World Thus is the knot in the Divine Design at once tyed faster and united in the Death of Jesus Christ. This part of the Divine Variety the Contrariety now carried to its utmost point is finished In the Death of Jesus Christ the first and Universal Creature the Head and Spirit of the whole Creation in the Divine Workmanship the whole Creation dies The shadowy Image the seat the ground of Sin Death and Wrath is dissolved in the Grave of Jesus Christ that as eternal Love in him riseth again returning to its own proper form and place it may carry up all the Births of Love together with it self opening it self in its own Divine Sweetnesses and
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
one another into the Glory of God is the Rule of St. Paul Divines distinguish between the person together with the nature of the Deâ—…il and the evil The person the nature springs forth from God and so is good hath a Divinity and Glory in it a Divine Root a Divine Image It stands in the Glory of God as a Flower in the Garden a Bâ—…am in the Sun it is maintained by a continual emanation from the bosom of the supream Glory Thus thou art to receive every person clouded with the greatest evils as he is the work of Nature and of God into the Glory of God Thus every other person is to be thy Neighbour thy â—…rother in the Glory of God and the Object of a Divine Love No evil as evil is the nature or choice of any person but the mishap and the disease Truth is the only Object of every Understanding the only white at which it aims Like the Mary-gold it opens it self only to this Sun or that which shines upon it in the glorious form of this Sun and so descends in seeming beams of this Divine Beauty into its bosom Good is the only Object of the VVill. As the Needle toucht by the Load-stone is governed in its motion and rest by the North-pole so is the VVill moved and attracted by that alone which toucheth it with a sense of good It resteth in no bosom but that which courteth and wooeth it undâ—…r the Divine Form of good with the seeming Charms of this its only Beloved and Bridegroom St. Paul saith Sin deceived me and slew me No person is willingly dâ—…ceived in his belief of Truth on disappointed in his expectation of good Every evil is a degree of death a diseafe in the end death When it appeareth like it self all things fly from it as from death But as Cupid in the form of the young and flourishing Prince Ascanius by treacherous embraces and kisses breath'd a fatal poyson into the veins of the Carthaginean Queen So doth sin and evil by the hellish enchantments of the Prince of Darkness form it self into the most alluring resemblance of the heavenly Image composed of Truth and Goodness meeting in one immortal form It adorneth it self all over with the most curious and sparkling Counterfeits of all its most amiable most Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties Thus it insinuates it self into the eyes and hearts of the Sons of God and fills them with its false sweetnesses enflames them with a false Love as the poyson and fire from Hell Yet still in the midst of these enchantments and deaths as the Athenians in the midst of their Atheism and Idolatry had an Altar inscribed To the unknown God The Understanding and the Will according to their own proper natures stand in every natural Spirit as Altars in a Temple shining and burning with continual fires by night and by day aspiring to the highest and clearest Heavens through all opposed Clouds of Darkness while this inscription in clear Characters appeareth engraven round these Altars To the Unknown Good the Unknown God to the unknown Truth the unknown Jesus If any person then be faln into any evil Let those that are spiritual restore him with a spiritual skill with a spirit of Meekness and Divine Love Apply Reproofs Chastisements to evil persons in their seasons as a Brother gives an Antidote to a beloved Brother that by a mistake hath been surprized and drunk in poyson or as one hand applies a Medicine to the other hand or to the eye when it suffers by any wound or distemper If thou art an Angel and hast to do with a Devil use no reviling Language for so the Angel himself is by the Spirit of God markt with a Character of Honour for this that he used no reviling Speeches to the Devil Preserve thy self from that bitter zeal which St. James mentioneth upon which he setteth so evil a mark branding it deeply with the fire of Hell as a Devil transfiguring himself into the form of an Angel If there be saith he amongst you bitter envying this wisdom is not from above but earthly sensual and devillish We read it bitter envying In Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter zeal Take heed of suffering thy zeal against the evil to be mingled and tempered with a bitternâ—…ss against the person As Lightning from Heaven melts the Sword but doth no harm to the Scabbard Discover thou in all thy Reproofs and Chastisements an equal love to the person and hatred to the evil an equal desire to destroy the evil and save the person Or rather let thy zeal against the evil be love to the person flaming forth and burning with a great but with a sweet and Divine force that it may consume the Dross for the Golds-sake to which the dross cleaves that of the Gold thus refined it may make a Jewel for the Bosom or a Crown for the Head of Jesus Christ. Suffer not thy zeal against evil to be like the Locusts from the bottomless-pit which have faces like men hair soft and delicate like women Crowns of Glory upon their heads like Angels but venemous and killing stings in their tails Let it not be like Culinary fire or the fire of Hell black sooty and devouring but like the fire from the golden Altar mingled with sweet Incense filling all round about and carrying up that upon which it feeds as a Sacrifice to Heaven with the rich Odours and Perfumes of a Divine Love If I be lifted up to Heaven by manifold excellencies together with Corazin and Bethsaida from whence I look down upon another far beneath me lying like Sodom and Gomorrah in a loathed and hated deep of darknesses defilements disgraces Let me then think That this Sodom may have a better Spirit a better ground of good at the bottom of its Spirit than my self That if the seed of Love and Light which hath been sown in me had been sown with the like advantage there it would have far excelled me in its fruits Yea let me think that it may not only have a better ground but a Divine seed hid deep in that ground beneath all this soil and dung beneath all this darkness deformity and deadness of its Winter-season which may rise up in its proper Spring into pleasant Flowers and Fruits as the Garden of God Thus let me think and let these thoughts instruct me to love every other person removed to the greatest distance from me cast down to the greatest depth beneath me as my Neighbour my Brother my self This is my double Request to thee gentle Reader 1. That thou love every other person as thy Neighbour thy Friend thy self with that Divine Love in whose flame thou sacrificest thy self and all things to receive thy self again and all things together with thy self in a more excellent and durable form 2. That thou suffer nothing to stain the Candour of this Love whose Reasons being altogether Divine subject all other reason to themselves
Give me leave to strengthen this twofold Request by presenting to thee thine own Interest after the highest manner contained in it after a two-fold form 1. This Divine Love at this heighth in this Latitude is all that is true in Religion all that is good in Man all that is acceptable with God all the hope of future Glory and of blessed immortality If I give all my Goods to the Poor and my Body to be burnt and have not Charity I am nothing Is there any Charity or Love to Man greater than this to give all my Goods to the Poor Is there any Charity or Love to God more Divine than this to give my Body to be burnt for him Yes there is a Charity a Love which transcends all this which if I want I may yet have all this and be nothing This is that Divine Love of which I speak which lifteth not it self up above any of the works of God but keepeth the Unity of the eternal Workman of his Divine Design and VVork in the golden band of an universal Peace and Divine Amity This is that Divine Love which behaveth not it self uncomely seeketh not its own things breaketh not the Harmony of the whole dividing it self from the whole by a particular self-love In the universal Beauty and Melody of the Divine Wisdom and Work it respecteth it self as a part and all parts as it self having one Beauty and Joy together in the Beauty Joy and harmonious Perfection of the Divine Figure in the whole piece This Love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things suffereth all things This we read of the Divine Love 1 Cor. 13. 7. The first expression in that verse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render beareth all things I have three Reasons against this translation of it 1. It makes the last Clause of this verse a tautology a vain repetition It suffereth all things which is the same with the first 2. It is the remotest sense of the Greek word two senses being nearer 1. To cover 2. To contain or comprehend 3. These two nearer senses are more agreeable more full and Divine 1. The Divine Love covereth all things with the Divine loveliness and beauty of the universal Harmony which is the Righteousness of God in Christ the first the fairest Image of the invisible God in which every other Image of God standeth as in the Original the all-comprehending Glory This is that which Solomon saith Love covereth all sin And St. Paul of the Divine Workman of the Divine Love He putteth the highest comeliness that is the universal Comeliness of the Divine Image in its entireness and perfection upon every part even upon the most uncomely parts That there may be no schism or division in the Body that there may be one glory of all 2. The Divine Love in every Person or Spirit lives not in it self as a part but in the life of the whole in the Divine the Universal Spirit the Spirit of Love the Spirit of the whole I live not saith St. Paul but Christ liveth in me Again If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit Thus the Divine Love having its life in each person in the life of the whole the Universal Spirit being one Spirit with that Spirit which is the Unity of the whole comprehendeth all things with strictest tenderest imbraces in it self as one self with it self So faith the holy Apostle All things are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are yours as you are Christs as Christ is Gods that is in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is Love it self Now from this covering Beauty and comprehensive Virtue in Divine Love these effects naturally flow To believe all things to hope all things We easily believe and hope that which we desire The Divine Love hath a complacency in all things as it comprehendeth them in their Divine Root It hath a good will to all things as they stand in the same Divine Root with it self From this Complacency this Desire this Divine Root it believeth it hopeth all things It believeth all things to be Divine Tabernacles like that in the Wilderness which though moving through Desâ—…ts through a Land of Graves through a Land of fiery Serpents yet answer to their Pattern on the top of the Mount though covered with a course Tent exposed to the fury of the Sun and tempests in the midst of Clouds of dust yet are all-glorious within composed of rich materials bearing a Divine Figure filled with the Divine Presence and Glory It hopeth all things light in the midst of darkness a flourishing Garden of Lillies and Roses in a ground covered and bound up with all the darknesses and rigours of the hardest Winter a treasure of Honey-Combs in the body of a Lion The Master of the Sentences hath such an high esteem of this Charity or Divine Love which is the subject of St. Pauls Discourse in this Chapter That he affirmeth it to be the holy Spirit himself the third Person in the Trinity which is the Love in the Divine Nature and so the Virtue the Power As the second Person the Lord Jesus is the Beauty the Wisdom St. James reasoneth after this manner Can the same Fountain bring forth sweet and bitter waters with the same mouth you bless God and curse man made after the Image of God If from the same heart thou bringest forth that Love to some men by which thou givest all thy Goods to them to supply their wants and ragest with wrath or hatred against others who as they have any making are made after the same Divine Image with the rest of Mankind Who as they have any Being have the same Divine Root are sealed with the same Divine Impression thou hast not Charity thou hast not Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit the universal the eternal Spirit thou art nothing If thou hast the gist of Prophesie if thou understandest all divine Mysteries if thou hast a divine Faith if with the same heart thou lovest God to so high a degree that thou givest thy Body to be burnt for him and yet burnest in rage against any man made after the Image of God All these Divine Gifts or Graces in which thou gloriest are nothing thou art nothing thou hast not Charity Thou hast not the Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit of Christ and of God which is the universal Spirit the Spring the Seal the Band of the Divine Unity Dear Reader follow after this Divine Love without which all that which thou hast is nothing which if thou hast it is the band of perfection never faileth never falleth short of the Glory of God but by the incorruptibleness of a meek spirit preserveth in it self a Divine Beauty and Sweetness which is ever perfect which never passeth away in the midst of all changes of Life in Death to Eternity This is thy first Interest in preserving the Divine Love entire in thy
of these motions acts of Love Thou knowest that I love thee Object Here it may be said and is said by some The knowledge of all things doth not contribute to the perfection of Knowledge There are many things in knowing of which there is neither beauty nor any beautiful delight The Orator makes it the property of a wise man to seek the knowledge only of things excellent and worthy to be known 1. Individual and particular things are below the Knowledge of God Philosophers teach us That there are no Ideas no Forms no Images in the Divine Mind of individual and particular things All the Ideal Forms and Images seated there are universal eternal Substances Essences and Truths sixed in most beautiful harmonious unchangeable proportions Individual and particular things are uncertain undetermined composed of changeable tumultuous confused accidents slight and ever fleeting like shadows Upon this ground the Philosopher concludeth That individual or singular things can be no Objects of Science or true Knowledge This Master also teacheth us That they are the Objects of Opinion only which is like these things ever fluctuating unsubstantial ungrounded obscure unsatisfactory unworthy not only of God but of all separated and Divine Spirits 2. Many things are too mean and too vile for the knowledge of an excellent Spirit The Understanding is transformed into the Image of that which is known Mean and vile Objects embase the Mind and Spirit into which they are received The similitudes and forms of froth and filth in a Divine Spirit are like Rats and Crocodiles in the Egyptian Temples or dead Carcases in the stately Pyramids Answ. That God knoweth all things to the lowest the last division and distinction that He knoweth the least the obscurest the vilest of all things the Scriptures testifie by their whole design by plain affirmations and instances every where From these which are innumerable I will cite only two 1. The first is that Heb. 4. 12. where we read of the living Word of God That it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The words in Greek properly import this sense A critical Distinguisher and Judge of the motions or agitations in the Will and sensitive Appetite of the notions or images in the understanding or fancy The Word of God in the verse following is clearly declared to be a Person God Himself in Person For these are the words And there is no Creature which is not manifest in his sight But all things are naked and bare in his eyes with whom we have to do There is nothing more universal great or glorious than thought which raiseth it self to the heighth and extendeth it self to the amplitude of the visible Heavens and the most vniversal Glories There is nothing more particular more low more vile than thought which levels it self with every single atome and dust which sinks down to the depth of all divisions darknesses deformities and confusions as low as the neithermost Hell Yet is God a Critical Distinguisher of the thoughts singling every thought setting it naked in its own proper form clear with all its circumstances in his light and sight There is one thing in this Scripture which hath an eminent sense in it self and suitableness to our purpose The 12. verse begins this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God the 13. verse concludes this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word In this last place we translate it thus With whom we have to do The Greek phrase literally sounds thus To whom the Word is to us The Greek term first signifieth Reason which is the internal Word or the Understanding their Speech the external Word the Image of the internal of Reason of the Understanding The Holy Ghost seemeth by this expression in the end answering and ecchoing to that in the beginning to design this sweet and rich sense that our Reason our Understanding in its internal form in its outward Image which is our speech so far as it is right and true answering to Jesus Christ turneth it self to him formeth it self according to him fixeth it self upon him flows back into him who is the first Reason and Understanding in the Godhead within and its Image without in the Creature The inward or outward word of Angels or Men is to this word as the Eccho to the Voice the Face in the Glass to the living Face the reflection of the Beam to the direct Beam the Stream to the Fountain The same term signifieth also the proportion of things All things then which fall within the compass of any created Understanding of any expression in discourse lie first most clearly most compleatly in Jesus Christ the Divine Understanding the Divine Word as the Original spring and measure of all understandings and expressions What ever in the nature of things beareth any proportion of great or little universal or particular beautiful or deformed lieth according to that proportion most distinctly in this Divine Word the Divine Understanding which is the first the most universal proportion and harmony the Original spring and measure of all proportions 2. I will add another Scripture which as in a Picture wrought by a most skilful hand sets with lively force before our eyes the least the lowest things shining with highest beauty in the Divine Mind embrac'd with the dearest sweetnesses by the Divine Love You shall see there the Divine Understanding and Affection encompassing all things after the most universal manner and insinuating themselves into each thing with the most exact distinction of singulars and individuals Jesus Christ endeavouring to bring us into a Divine Liberty by being free from solicitous cares and fears endeavouring to fix our Spirits upon the Divine Goodness by a full Trust and sweet Rest an absolute and delightful Resignation affirmeth That even the hairs of our head are numbred Therefore saith he Fear not Luke 12. 7. Number is defined to be quantity discrete because it doth most accurately discern and distinguish all the differences of things as they lie in the whole and apart both at once What so sleight of so little weight as a single hair of the head yet God taketh an account of every single hair while he numbreth all our hairs The numbring of things marketh each single Unity for a treasure for the object of esteem and of care in its preservation This appeareth by the Latin Poet who bringeth in the Shepheard Swain speaking thus to his Companions upon the Downs when they were to strive for the mastery in their Rural Musick I from my flock dare nothing lay with thee A Father a Step-Mother hard agree To number both each day the bleating sheep One of the wanton Kids the tale doth keep Each single hair then is a Divine Treasure attracting the Eye of eternity which diligently and delightfully watcheth for its eternal preservation for all our hairs are numbred in eternity As it is said of the Stars in Heaven God there calleth
although I be not alwayes so happy as to find my Understanding tuned to a consort and harmony with his seemeth to me like a Prophet as well as a Poet to sing this mystery drawn forth from the sacred retreats of the divinest Philosophy in his Poems There he painteth out with liveliest colours the whole Universe as a great Soul and Spirit as a Contexture as a Quire or as a Dance of many Souls or Spirits where materiality and corporeity are seen not as distinct substances from the Soul but as figures wrought by the Soul her self in the lowest part of that Vestment with which spun forth from her self she is cloathed and comes forth upon this lower Stage As the lowest point of that beam whose head is in the bosome of the Sun So with him matter and body seem to be the lowest shade into which the Soul descends within her self and the various forms which she puts on in this shade That seemeth to be most pleasantly harmonious to this which the same Author hath in that pleasant piece of his Cabbala upon the beginning of Genesis There he figures out to us the Soul and the Body which he calls her Vehicle or Chariot that is the Image into which she descends and rides forth here below by the Male and Female or the Bridegroom and the Bride which are also Father and Daughter The Body thus appears as a beautiful Image of the Soul springing forth from the Soul abiding by a mystical marriage in the eye and bosome of the Soul In it as in a clear and chrystalline Glass the Soul with ravishing delights seeth her self in all her own beauties and sweetnesses Of it she saith This is life of my life beauty of my beauty my self springing forth from my self in a beautiful Image and so represented to my self Thus is the Soul tyed by irresistible Charms to its Body This way the Soul falls from her purity and the joys of her immortality while she sinks into and looseth her self in this shadowy Image as if this were her only true her only beautiful form She hath now drowned in a deep oblivion her Angelical her Divine Beauty and Being unto which she should have risen as to the Original Glory by those inferior and fading figures of her self in this shade On these Original Glories as her golden full-spread wings she should have descended into this shadowy Image and upon the same wings have carried up in her embraces this shadow into the eternal Light This divinely pleasant figure of Dr. More brings to my mind some thing of Plotâ—…nus in his Discourses upon the Soul not unsuitable to him and to our present purpose He teacheth us as from a sacred Oracle That every Soul cometh down into this World as a Caelestial Venus or an heavenly Beauty the beautiful Daughter and Image of the supream God attended with a Caelestial Cupid or an heavenly Love her own Birth ever with her ever before her her dear delight and glory By this Love the seed of the Divine and eternal Beauty in the Soul sprung up into a Child into a pleasant youthful growing Image upon his wings she springeth up and takes her flight abroad into all forms of things as so many scattred figures and births of the first Beauty until with her Love she return into the bosome of that Dr. Cudworth who by giving us a short relish of that rich treasure of Knowledge and Learning remote from the Vulgar causeth also a regret in us that he entertaineth us with no fuller a Feast when that Feast might be a Divine Feast Sacrifice and Marriage all in one enformeth us from the Jewish Doctors That all Souls come down from above in a married or Conjugal state This seemeth to make one entire piece with Plotinus and Dr. More The ever blessed Trinity is the first Marriage and glorious Prototype of all Marriages Here the Father is the Lover and Bridegroome the eternal Word or Wisdome is the Daughter and Bride his essential Image in which his own glories and sweetnesses offer themselves to his Divine View and embraces The Holy Spirit is the Love which springeth forth from these two which is the Fountain of the Divine Birth and Generation between these two which uniteth them in eternal embraces in a Divine fruitfulness by which they Spring up within this Marriage-bed into innumerable Births and Images of themselves in this their Love-Union Souls as they are the Birth so do they bear the Image of this Trinity and Marriage The Soul bringeth forth within her self this sensitive Image which is her Daughter and her Bride The love which unites these two in a Conjugal state which springs mutually from both as they are living Images each of other as they are one self or substance in two distinct forms which is the same in both is the Spirit of life and motion This makes the sweetness of life and of all vital motions That Love is their Spring and their Spirit From this Love as from the Marriage-bed doth the Soul by her own proper Bride which is its Body bring forth it self into all sensitive and corporeal forms which furnish and fill this visible World Thus Souls come down in a Conjugal state while each Soul brings down its Bride and Body in its bosome out of which it springs as Eve sprung forth out of the side of Adam his fair and flourishing Image while he flourished in his pure and Primitive Beauties I confine not that sentence of the Jewish Rabbies to this sense which yet seemeth to me although perhaps not the only sense as proper in it self as it is pertinent to our Discourse If these grounds be good and firm clear will it be That there is nothing vile or mean in the nature of things rightly seen when as all things are Spirits or Souls in their married state that is heavenly Beauties and heavenly Loves in various forms and postures where all their motions are the loves of these Souls in their lovely flights Some one may think this to be understood and confirmed by that of the Psalmist cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews He hath made his Ministers Spirits or Winds his Angels a flame of fire The Fire the Air all the Elements in their various composition the Coelestial Bodies are Spirits in their proper Vestments Vehicles or Chariots with their proper Brides These heavenly Beauties and Loves may be cast into a deep sleep here yet are they still sleeping Beauties and sleeping Loves beautiful and lovely in their sleep Although like Abraham they may have disorderly deformed distracting Dreams in their sleep In these Dreams an horrible darkness may fall upon them strange Visions may be presented to them They may see dreadful fires in the midst of this darkness themselves their dear Bride the sensitive Image like Doves lying dead and divided one from another like innocent Beasts of Sacrifice slain and cut into several pieces with the brands of fire or burning Lamps passing
between them In the horrour of these Dreams and in this sleep they may lie till â—…hey be awakened by that joyful sound of a Trumpet from Heaven or of an Arch-angel Arise and shine for thy light is come the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Which St. Paul expresseth thus Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead for Christ shall give thee light Then shall these Bridegroom-Souls with their beloved Brides their Bodies appear after this dark and tempestuous night of their sleep and dreams in the fresh and pleasant morning of a new day as new Heavens and a new Earth with their Beauties all new married anew to each other Some have imagined that these Souls together with their Bodies lying yet in their bosomes above before their descent and fall had a prospect of this terrible dream in that Image of the Divine Wisdom which did then shine clearly in their Natures and Essences It seemed to them an horrible Pit without any bottom a vast and howling Wilderness full of deformed and dreadful Monsters to which their sweet Beauties and Chastities dearer than their Lives would be exposed to be deflowred and defiled by them full of Dearths and Droughts full of fiery Serpents which with stings fixed in them with their infused Poyson would fill them all over with pains and horrors would subject them to that most deformed and most dreadful Monster the King of Terrors death it self Thus were they for their own sakes most averse to this descent and exile from their native home from themselves from their own true sweetest Purities Beauties and Beings But in that Divine Glass in which they saw this Prospect they saw also that this terrible Dream had a Divine mystery of wisdome and love in it that out of it was to arise from every part and circumstance in it a far more transcendent Glory to the supream Love their Father and Bridegroom They saw that this Love it self would go along with them through all though hidden and vailed reserving his own Purities and Sweetnesses in the midst of all They saw that he in the midst of those hidden Purities and Sweetnesses would preserve that Love which he had to them in eternity when he beheld them in that first-born Image of all loves and lovelinesses and that in these loves and lovelinesses he would conduct them and direct their way through this Wilderness They understood that he would be a seed of hope to them by the virtue of which they should certainly in the set time in their proper season ascend out of this Pit return home from this Exile then should they be received with an universal shout of Joys and Glories resounding from all things without them and within them when they should see all these sufferings break up into the most heightned Glories of the supream God the supream eternal Love and themselves with Raptures of highest pleasures transcending all Humane or Angel-like thoughts taken up into the fellowship of these Glories This imagination seemeth to some to be well-grounded upon and naturally to arise from that Scripture The earnest expectation of the Creature or the Creation was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him or for his sake who subjected the same in hope because the Creature or the Creation it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain till now Reader I hope it will not be unacceptable to you that I have endeavoured to divert thee and my self by these Speculations which seem to be very pleasant representing to us the Soul as a Coelestial Bridegroom with its Bride and Bridal Chariot both in one its Body descending and returning as in a Caelestial Dance measured by the Musick of the Divine Harmony Let these things have with thee that weight of probability or truth which thou thy self shalt give to them in thine own judgment However I have thought them proper to my present end the illustration of that truth the harmony of things in the whole and of the several parts as they lie in the whole which seemeth to me to be clearly character'd in all the beautiful and bright lineaments of Reason it self which its essential form is an universal Harmony and to be expressed through the whole Scriptures as their proper design which are a Divine Draught or Description of the Divine Harmony in its eternal Original and in its Figure St. Paul saith That all things work together for good for those that love God The only true love of God is the immediate and proper Birth of the Divine Love its clearest and fullest effulgency and its most perfect reflection upon it self This is the essential Character of a Saint as he is the Spiritual man To this person St. Paul saith All things are yours this world lise and death things present and things to come you are Christ's and Christ is Gods God is the Head the beginning the end the measure of Christ. Christ is the Head the beginning the end the measure of a Saint A Saint is the head the beginning the end the measure of all things All things through the whole World through the whole compass of time in both those bright and black Regions of Life and of Death are exactly tuned each to other and struck with a Divine Hand of Power and Skill with all manner of sweetness to make the most agreeable and charming Musick to God to Christ and to a Saint as they dwell together in one heavenly Image and in one eternal Spirit All things even the most distant and most contrary meet together by a most admirable and ravishing consent in one most beautiful Harmony of a perfect universal eternal good to a Saint as he is in Christ as Christ is in God as all three lie together in the pure the soft the spacious bosome of Divine and eternal Love But I shall speak more fully of this universal Harmony in the Second Part when I shall have occasion to shew what place Sin hath in this Harmony how Disorder it self is reduced into Order by its powerful Charms how the Harmony is made perfect by a full Variety The Variety cannot be full without a Contrariety how in the contrariety the Law ariseth as a ministry of wrath out of which Sin takes its birth as a Contrary which is the proper correlate or mark or object of the Divine Contrariety and Wrath how this Divine Contrariety heightning it self to the utmost upon Sin and Sinners to declare to the utmost their irresistible contrariety to the Divine Nature and prevailing over them in the Person of Christ consuming them consumes it self together with them as a flame with its fewel like a flame it vanisheth into the pure Air Light and Heaven where all things now spring again and are seen new in the beautious Glories and ever-flourishing sweetnesses of an Universal
brightness by various reflections and refractions 3. The design of all this discovereth it self to us in these words That he in all things might have the preheminence verse 18. The first sense of the Greek word is this that he in all things may be first So you have a plain allusion to that word of First-born twice applied to Jesus once in respect to the Creation another time to the Resurrection Jesus Christ as God if so we may speak of him after the manner of Man is alike the first of all things not as by design or any act of the Will but by Nature and his Essence as in our Conceptions it antecedes every act of Council or Will This primacy then which is attributed to Christ as founded in a Divine contrivance properly respecteth him as in a created Form in which he who as God is by Nature the first of all things so by design of the Godhead as a Creature becometh the First-born Son of God in Nature and Creation the First-born Son of God in Grace in Glory in the Resurrection Until he in his created Nature by his Resurrection became a new Creature anointed with the eternal Spirit and entred into the Holy of Holies by the rending of the Vail of Flesh The Seed of the New-Creature of the spiritual Man and the heavenly Image was not yet come up into its proper form nor risen up out of the Earth of the first Creation where it lay buried 4. The ground of this design appeareth verse 19. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell The Greek word signifies a perfect and most agreeable rest of all our faculties a sweet and full complacency in the presence and appearance of an Object most entirely most universally amiable and pleasing Thus the joy of the Father is full to see in the same Person of his beloved Son the dear and entire reflection of himself to dwell together at once in One the fulness of his Godhead the fulness of all his designs and works in Nature in Grace in the Creation in the Resurrection Thus is this Son of his Love ever before him his Delight day by day all along through time and eternity All his works are love-sports with this his Son and Bride various parts of Divine Love which he acteth various forms of Divine Beauty and Joy into which he casteth himself in the Bosome and Person of this lovely only beloved One. Now his Soul resteth in all his Counsels and Works while he seeth the Face of his Son with all pleasantness there Now his Soul resteth in his Son while he seeth all his Counsels and Works as the finished Beauties and unsearchable Riches of his Person Now is the Person of his Son a compleat Paradise while out of this ground he makes to spring every Plant that is desirable for Beauty for Pleasantness for Wisdome for Food for a Feast to Men to Angels to God himself 2. I pass now to my second Reason the Lord Jesus thus set in a created form rendreth the order of the Creatures proceeding from God more harmonious and entire its connexion more immediate and inviolable its dependance more firm and sure for thus the Creature cometh forth from God first in a distinct Nature from him but in the Unity of the same eternal Person with him then in a distinction both of Nature and Person While the universal nature of the Creature subsisting in the Person of Christ reposeth it self immediately upon the Godhead and becometh it self the ground of all the Creatures in their several subsistencies and essences reposing themselves in the bosom of this first Creature How perfect is the order of things without any gap or leaps How full is the Harmony in this entireness of the Order With what clearness and delightfulness are the Links of the Chain in the whole frame by mutual embraces fastned to each other How doth the beautiful blissful Unity and Union of the Divine Love in the connexion in the mutualness of influencies and dependencies shine through all sustain animate beautifie and sweeten all How clear now is the passage between God and the Creature time and eternity by this milky way in the bosom of Christ That Scripture seemeth under that covert of rich expression to contain the riches of this sense where Christ is said to be the brightness of the Glory of God the engraven Image of his Substance and so to bear all things by the Word of his Power Heb. 1. That word Bear signifieth both to bring forth and to sustain as a Root the Plant. The Sun hath a three-fold effulgency or light 1. The essential and internal Image of the Sun within it self 2. The Sun-shine immediately fastned to the body of the Sun and flowing from it 3. The Light cast upon the elementary World as the figure of this Sun-shine Thus is Jesus Christ a three-fold Light or effulgency of the Divine Glory by one he shines as the essential Image of God in the bosom of God by the other he shineth forth as the first Creature fairest freshest and fullest like a knot of beams springing immediately from the face of the Sun and subsisting inseparably in it by the third he shineth out in the distinct forms and existences of all the Creatures The figure of a living substance first engraven upon a golden Seal from thence impresseth it self on manifold various pieces of white or yellow or red or black wax so the essential Image of God engraveth it self first in a created form upon the Person of Christ as a golden Seal from thence multiplieth it self into innumerable figures in the various forms of all the several Creatures Power and Glory are frequently Names of God in the Scripture The Power of Christ is his Godhead The Word of his Power is threefold 1. The internal Word which is Christ in his Divine Nature 2. The Word upon the Lips is the Person of Christ in the first created form 3. The Word from thence multiplied and figured upon the Air all round about are the Creatures in all their various forms thus encompassing their King as figures all round about him flowing out from him Thus Jesus by the out-shining of the Divine Glory by the engraven Image of the Divine Substance by the Word of the Divine Power in an order altogether Divine for beauty and strength bringeth forth beareth up all things 3. I shall propound only one Reason more to give light or strength to this Opinion submitting it entirely to the judgment of the Reader Jesus Christ saith of himself I am the Light of the World 1 Joh. 8. 10. St. John in the beginning of his Gospel manifestly alludes to the beginning of Genesis while he attributes the Creation of all things to that Word with God which is God In the same place he teaches us this mystery That the Life of all was in Christ and that life was the light of man both Intellectual and Sensitive this
Spirits of Divine Love and Beauty in the bosome in the Unity of the eternal Spirit the heavenly King and Bridegroom of all Spirits These Doves are the lovely Eyes with which this Spirit is all over thick set like the wings of the Seraphims full of eyes within and without These Doves are washing themselves in Milk So the Hebrew hath it as a present perpetual Act. They lie washing and bathing eternally in the springs of Divine Light and Beauty in the softnesses sweetnesses and walks of the Divine Love These are the Milk of the Godhead and of blessed Spirits These Eyes are full set For each of these Ideal Original forms in Christ comprehendeth in it self under the character or property of its own distinct Variety the whole Divine World and all Worlds in their first forms These first eternal Images of things in Christ are his Eyes the sweetly shining Springs of all Light Life Love and Joy For he ever beholds all things with these in these By these as he looks forth with them he guides all things In these is he as the supream Spirit of truth and beauty seen in his liveliest and loveliest appearances These Eyes are Doves being each of them one Spirit comprehending all things in its Unity a Spirit of purest Light and Sweetness the chast and beloved Mate of the eternal Spirit eternally springing up lying eternally in the Bosome and Unity of it These Doves in the Firmament of Divine Glory spreading their Wings flying every where to and fro over the water of this Creation figure themselves and their motions in shadowy Images upon them Thus are all things here formed and mov'd as the face in the Glass by the living Face This similitude hath in it a signal difference from the Truth represented by it The living Eye or Face sendeth forth its Image But this Image hath its reception and subsistence in another substance the glass or the water But the Creation hath no ground to bear it up but that alone which bringeth it forth These Divine Eyes of which we speak at once send forth and support these Images of themselves They are the clear Springs from which they stream and the Christal Looking-Glasses in which they appear In this eternal Spirit in this living Light all things as varied shadows of this Light as shadowy forms of this Life live move have their being and appearance Not as accidents in their subject but after a manner far more eminent aâ—…d altogether transcendent to any resemblance in the Creature This is the Universal Nature of the Creature How pleasant how Divine a Spectacle is this All things in their primitive purity are spotles Doves Coelestial Loves Virgin-Spirits like Angels clothed in white Eyes that are Springs of purest light and sweetness looking up from a Divine Light vailed with a Divine shade to their Life their immortal Mates their Divine Originals those Doves those Eyes above which looking down meet themselves here beneath in shadowy figures in sweetest reflections of themselves from the midst of loveliest shades upon a ground of eternal Light It is time now to close this Argument All the Creatures are shadowy Images both Men and Angels As are they so is their Liberty so are all their motions shadowy as figures they are all formed and determined by the Life in eternity I pass now to the second Argument under this Head 2. Every Creature is an emanation or stream from the Divine Essence the emanation of a moment This is a truth generally establisht upon all the clearest the firmest Principles of truth in Philosophy or Divinity by the most universal consent and harmony in the spirits of learned men in the nature of things â—…sse Creaturae est emanare The Being of the Creature is the beaming sorth from God like light from the Sun The preservation and continuance of things is a continued Creation The whole Creation with every Creature comprehended in it thorow all the moments of time to the end of time riseth up immediately entirely out of God as in the first moment of its Being at the beginning of time The white sheet full of all living Creatures was let down out of Heaven thrice in the sight of St. Peter The World is a Divine Light with all forms of things Angelical or Humane visible invisible appearing in it let down out of the Heaven of the Godhead as often as there are moments in its duration Thus are all things a new World a new Creation each twinkling of an Eye brought forth a new by a fresh glance of the Divine Eye If any Creature could subsist one moment apart from God the first and supream Being without the particular dependance a particular derivation of that moment it would have the principle of Being in it self and so eternity in that moment and so a Godhead The connexion the dependance between God and the Creature the first the universal Cause and every Effect is much more universal intimate immediate inseparable than that between any effect and any second Gause We have a demonstration to our sense from the interposal of a Cloud between our eyes and a clear Sky that the beams are continued streams of light from the body of the Sun In that moment in which they cease to flow from the Sun to subsist in the Sun they cease to be It is affirmed of all things material and visible Fiunt non sunt They are sent forth but subsist not They are only in the making in the same moment in which they are brought forth they are no more This is universally true of all Creatures Men and Angels They have only a transient no permanent Being No eye ever takes in twice the same beam of Light No man standing upon the bank of a River sees twice the same water present with him Before he can cast his eye upon it the second time it is past by and gone So is no Creature no appearance the same two moments We can never say of created Beings or Beauties of our sweetest Solaces or bitterest Sufferings they are For while we are saying it they fly away and are no more like Lightning or the shadow upon any point of the Dial. As our Afflictions in the Language of St. Paul are Afflictions of a moment so are all our Joys Glories and Beings in the Creature No one of them lasteth two moments The Scripture testifies to Jesus Christ of the Heavens and the Earth As a Garment thou roulest them up and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years fail not Again in another place Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever Nothing below Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day the last moment and this This is one part of the Vanity mark'd by Solomon in all things beneath this Sun of the Godhead fixt in the mid-day point of eternity that thorow their whole Being they are ever in motion like the Rivers and the Wind In each point of time
Thus the Soul rides forth in her three-fold Chariot Heavenly Airy Earthly upon the Circuit of the Heavens the purest Air and the Earth the true Venus the true Queen of Love and Beauty by which all things spring shine live and love through her Marriage-Union with her Lord and King the true Adonis or Adonai the Lord Jesus who died and lives again with his beloved Bride in the secret of Paradise in the midst of the Field of the Coelestial Light the pure Air in the bosome and nethermost parts of the Earth This is the Soul in its first make and proper state Plotinus teacheth That the first Soul which is the immediate Workman of this World in the order of its procession from the separate Intelligences or Angels and from God the only supream Father of all hath its face ever turned to the face of God and unmoveably fixed upon it from his Face it continually takes in as the Nectar of the Gods the Divine Light the Divine Life and Love it continually takes in as at an heavenly Feast as the heavenly Ambrosia the Ideal Beauty the first the Archetypal Forms in their most immediate sweetest freshest fullest Effulgency or Images This God-like Soul thus bred thus divinely formed thus nourished thus impregnated sends forth from it self this whole visible World in the figures of those first Glories in the similitude of their Unity Variety and Order without thought care or trouble without ever turning a look to this World As a Person with his Face to the Sun casts his shadow upon the ground behind him There is only this difference as this great Soul casts the shadow of this Corporeal World from it self there is no ground for it to fall upon besides the Soul it self All these Heavens this Earth and Sea with all their roulings springings fadings and floatings are then the soul it self in her lowest Form bearing the figures of all her superior Glories most curiously and delightfully wrought in deeper shades The Soul in this her lower form is her own living Looking-Glass of shadowy shaded Light in which she sees with a grateful Variety with a pleasing Reflection of her own Divine force and fruitfulness her own Beauties in a weaker fainter fading Image maintained only by continual beams from her self All Souls as they flow in their Order and successions from this first Soul by virtue of the first production bring forth to themselves and bear within themselves the whole World in its fairest and fullest measures Object If any ask these Philosophers what sign or appearance there is of this sublime state this amplitude this majesty in the soul of Man they will give you such answers as these Answ. 1. The Soul hath now lost her wings by which she flyes through the whole Heavens and Earth She now lies languishing contracted clouded divided wounded sick dying upon the ground of this earthly Body You can take no more any measure of the true nature of the Soul of the Soul in her own proper Divine Form and Image by her present state then you can of the humane Form Spirit and Life by a worm grown out of the putrified body of a man dead Answ. 2. As the Soul of a man sleeping is to the Light of this World so is the Soul in this Body to the Light of its own Intellectual Invisible Divine Form and Beauty As a Prince sleeps in some private Room with the Curtains drawn about him within his own Palace in the midst of all the splendors and splendid Persons of his Court seeming to himself in his dreams as he sleeps to be a naked forlorn Prisoner at the bottome of a dark and deep Dungeon In such a dream doth the Soul appear to her self sleeping in this Body in the midst of all her own Immortal Beauties in the Palace and Court of her own Divine Unity and Essence But I have now done with Humame Authority and Philosophy in its Testimony But as I part I will leave Philosophy with this Honourable Testimony The only and true Philosophy is the Light of Nature in its primitive purity as the scattered Beams and dispersed remainders of it in the midst of the ruines of Nature are collected strengthened and reflected from the most excellent of natural or Divine Spirits like Sun-beams centered in a burning-glass The second Authority I pass now to the Divine Authority which is the testimony of the Holy Scriptures I shall cite only two Scriptures one from the first of Genesis the other from the first of the Romans I being with the last which seems clearest and fullest 1. Scripture The first Testimony from the Scriptures is Rom. 1. 19 20. From this Text to the end of the third Chapter you have the Soul with a profound Depth Like a River rouling along with all her various serpentine windings from the Sea of Love the Divine Bosome till she return thither This Divine Philosopher after a Divine manner sets the humane Soul before us in the whole compass of her Essence in all her circlings through all forms of things as he saw her by a Light of Revelation in the eternal Design in her Idea in the heart of the Father the Fountain in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus the first seat of all Divine Designs and Ideas This Design is divided into three parts 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature presented to us Chap. 1. vers 19. 20. 2. The Soul in her fall as she passeth through the shades beneath of Sin Suffering Death and Wrath from the 21. verse of the first Chapter to the 20. verse of the third Chapter 3. The Soul in its return and re-ascent to a greater Glory from the 22. verse of the third Chapter to the end of that Chapter I shall very briefly with all the perspicuity that I can point out the Heads of things in these three parts of the Souls course and design in the Divine Mind 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature is presented to us Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them For the unseen things of him from the Creation of the world are seen being understood by the things that are made both his eternal Power and Godhead I shall make two Notes upon the Grammar of the words 1. That which may be known of God is manifest in them This relates to the pure state of Nature not to the Corrupt For of that it is said vers 21. Their foolish heart was darkned Things are manifest only in the Light The expression runs in the present time after the manner of the Divine and Prophetick stile which sets before our eyes all forms of things as they appear in the Divine Light where all things are ever present and appear at once in one Besides this as Paradise so the pure Image of God in the Soul seems to some not to be lost or destroyed but
coloured Glass and so uniting it self to the Eye Or in a Royal Bridegroom which in the habit of a Shepheard presents and marrieth himself to the beloved Maid in the midst of the Woods Answ. 3. The Soul acts as it is not in it self nor by it self nor according to it self the Idea the first eternal Pattern and Principle of the Soul in God is the Root all the force the only measure of the Soul in its Being and in its Operations St. Paul saith I live not but Christ liveth in me This was spoken of the New-Creature and so hath its peculiar sense It is as true proportionably of every Creature especially of the Soul in primitive and pure nature I have said before that Christ is the Idea of Ideas and so the proper Idea of the Humane Soul or Person Upon this ground He affirmeth of himself I am the Truth and the Life The Idea is the truth of each thing Nothing is that which it is but in its Idea by its Idea penetrating and filling it in every the least part The Conformity to the Idea is in the Schools defined to be the first the most proper truth of each thing This Conformity is imperfect where there is any Diversity A perfect Unity alone makes a perfect Conformity The Idea is the only Unity of each Person Essence or Form The Soul is one in all its parts is one with it self in all the parts of its duration only by the Unity of its Idea The Soul as every Creature is a perpetual Emanation flowing fresh every moment from God as a Beam from the Sun as the stream of waters from its Fountain If it subsisted one moment in it self it might subsist eternally so and have a Godhead in it self by having in it self the first Principle and Fountain of Being The Soul like a Beam or Stream flows forth from its Spring in Diversity of parts If it were a pure Unity it had a Divinity in its own Nature The Soul then as every Creature is one in it self one with it self the same in each part of its Being and Duration in all the parts of Life in Death in the Resurrection only by the Unity of its Idea which alone is absolutely indivisible unchangeable Accordingly the Soul lives and moves in its Sensitive Rational Angelical and Divine Life by the force of its Idea containing it in it self and communicating it self to it The Idea contains the Soul communicates it self to the Soul not mediately or partially The Idea is the Truth the Unity of the Soul therefore are they most intimate most immediate most intimately most immediately united to each other The Idea is a simple Unity indivisible unchangeable uncapable of being communicated in part The Idea is not received or participated by any thing as without it self for then it were both divisible and changeable The Idea then communicateth it self to the Soul immediately in its entire Unity as by a Divine unexpressible Generation or Propagation within it self Thus the Soul subsisteth and operateth in its Idea by the force and according to the measure of its Idea in it self This is that seed of infiniteness in the Soul and in all its Operations from which they receive touches glimpses of Infiniteness Eternity of infinite eternal Joys and Glories which are altogether invisible to every Eye uncapable of being represented by any Image sensible or Intellectual This is that seed of Infiniteness and Eternity which by an irresistable instinct inclines the Soul so evidently so forceably in all its Desires in all its Operations to immortality and to an unbounded good nor suffers it to rest in any the softest or dearest Bosom on this side these This is that Seed the Idea of the Soul in its entire Unity which is in it self Infiniteness Eternity the purest unmixt good every where full of it self every way uncompounded undivided and so necessarily unconfined This Idea as it is the root the force the measure of the Soul so is it also its ripe fruit When gathering up all the parts of the Soul into its Divine Part unto its highest Point its Unity it at once heightneth that to the most perfect Image of it self and bringeth forth it self into it filleth it with it self taketh it into its own embraces in its purest Form by a most perfect Union as an heavenly Marriage eternally established in its own unconfined Unity But I will now conclude this Point Thus the Soul by the force of its Idea which hath an infiniteness in it is capable of taking in that which transcends all Capacities of seeing that which is invisible to every eye of Men or Angels the eternal Power and Godhead Behold What a Divine spectacle of Beauty and Delight in Paradise in the primitive state of things What an Universal Paradise Nature is the Soul is as it is in it self the whole nature of things from the head of Nature crowned with Intellectual Angelical Light in the invisible World to its feet upon the ground of the lowest shades in corporeity and matter Jesus the first the full the essential Image of the Godhead and so the Idea of Ideas the Soul the first the fairest Reflection and the dearest Off-spring of this Jesus and so the Divine Image of Images These two as Bridegroom and Bride by an Union transcending all Unions Natural or Moral among Angels or Men Yet being of all most natural the Fountain of Nature lie inseparably shining and smiling in the embraces of each other They perpetually seek and find see and enjoy themselves in the Face and Bosom of each other They perpetually seek and find see and enjoy each other within themselves in their own Face and Bosom They spring up together in all forms of things in an Angelical Image within themselves The Angelical Image is as their Chariot in which they ride forth together into all forms of things within themselves They present themselves unitedly in the whole nature of things in each distinct form of Nature with continual changes cloathing all themselves in all with the Angelical Image in a new Light and Glory That their Loves and Beauties may be ever fresh and full ever a fresh and full entertainment to each other in new and varied shapes of Delight Judicious Reader be pleased to Contemplate awhile the Unity and Harmony of the Soul in this its pure its primitive state See how the Idea of the Soul and the Soul See how all the Orbs all the parts of the Soul are knit together into a Divine Harmony a Divine Unity by which it becomes an Universal Beauty an Universal Musick See how the Idea and the Soul the superior parts of the Soul answer one another lie infolded each in other the inferior in the superior as the Copy in the Original the Plant in the Spirit of the Plant in its seminal power and form The superior in the inferior as the Original in the Copy as the Spirit of a Flower its seminal power and form in
the removal of just blame by the removal of the cause As Praise and Glory are the Eccho or Reflection of Virtue of some good so Blame and Shame are the Eccho the Reflection of some Fault or Evil. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness inseparable from the nature of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation This defectibility and deficiency this nothingness and tendency to nothing in the Creature is evidently discovered past all denial or excuse For when God hath cloathed the Creature with the Glory of his own Image in all Knowledge Righteousness and Blessedness The Creature hath no power in it self to retain or maintain this Glory or the least glimpse the least stricture of Light from it one moment In the same moment that God with-holds his Beams and Influences the Soul sinks into the depth of darkness in which darkness it springs up the same moment into all the evils of Sin Deformity Death Wrath Torment Thus man in his best state is Vanity a shadow which hath nothing of its own but nothingness a tendency to nothing Thus being in Honour he continueth not but sinketh into his own nothingness when once he is left to himself This nothingness in the nature of the Creature is not to be understood a meer simple nothing for this hath no existence no expression no attribute no effect nothing can be said or thought of it This nothingness of which we speak or Not-Being is a contrariety to Being so to all the Beauty the Blessedness of Being This is the Contrariety it self which is a part of the Variety of things in the Unity of the whole This taken apart in it self is the breach of the Unity and the Harmony the first and blackest ground of all Discord Division Darkness Enmity Death of all the evils of sin and sufferings Object 3. How is God inexcusable who frames a Creature with this defectibility this Contrariety this Necessity of all Evil in its nature then leaves it to it self to fall inevetiably into all Sin then condemns it and casts it into all manner of Torments into all the Evils of suffering for Sin Answ. Sufferings are the immediate inseparable Companions of Sin The Contrariety when once it hath broken the Harmony of the shadowy Image of God in the Paradise of pure Nature by the withdrawing of the Divine Unity which by its presence tuned it to and bound it up in a Divine Harmony now breaks forth over-runs all with all manner of Evils of Sin of Shame of Sufferings of all kinds But that which seemeth to me alone to justifie God is the design in the whole My desire is here with all humility and submission to conceive and express so high mysteries the way and the Glory of God in so great and Divine deeps The design which with all humility I conceive not to clear God but to represent him through all his way most glorious in the Beauties of Holiness in the most spotless the exactest Justice in the richest lustre the highest sweetness the most exalted Grace of all Goodness and Love hath several steps or parts 1. The first step is the Discovery of man and the Creature in its primitive nature in all its good and glories to be shadowy an earthly and shadowy Image in an earthly a shadowy Paradise 2. The second step is the Declaration of God to be the only fountain and fulness of all good in whose Face and Presence alone are the Beauties and Pleasantnesses of all good whose absence makes the Night of all trouble and evil 3. The opening of new fuller higher Glories in God then did shine forth in the first Creation in the most exalted Natures of all the Creatures of Men or Angels These new Glories of the Godhead open themselves in the last step the full harmonious triumphant close of the whole design after this manner 1. The heighth of the Contrariety between the good in God and the evil of Sin between the purity the beauty of Holiness in the Divine Nature the filth the deformity of sin display the Beauties in the Face of God with a new heightning a new lustre infinitely more sweet and ravishing 2. The Power of the Divine Wrath brings forth a new Scene a new World full of new Forms of things New Wonders in Heaven and eternity in the Divine Nature the Divine Wisdom and Work 3. What is the Glory in the force and riches of the Divine Unity spreading it self into so vast a Variety unto so remote a distance from it self to such Contrarieties to such Extremities comprehending them all in it self gathering them up tuning them all and binding them up into a Divine most agreeable eternal Harmony of all most ravishing most pure most perfect Beauties and Sweetnesses in it self discovering them all to be most melodious musical parts of the Divine Variety and Harmony eternal Varieties of Beauty and Sweetness in the Divine Unity 4. Lastly The shadowy happiness of the Creature is changed into a substantial one There is wrought out by these changes a far more exceedingly exceeding weight of Glory in Man a Glory infinitely transcending that of the first Paradise Now open themselves all these newer fuller higher Glories of the Godhead to man in man Now is man formed to a Divine Image infinitely newer fuller higher in the most immediate similitude and fruition of these highest Glories Now is man brought from the shadowy Union with God in the shadow of the Angelical Image through the dissolution of that Union and Image to the most intimate immediate inseparable Union the most perfect Union with God in the utmost Perfection of all his Excellencies wholly unvailed in the purest Essence of all his Glories in the eternal Spirit the Spirit of all the Divine Beauties Loves and Joys in the most heightned Unity in the most ample and unconfined Variety of the Divine Nature in the highest and sweetest Union of both these Now man sees enjoys God as he is in his own Likeness perfectly without transcendently above all Vails all Clouds all Shadows all Mixtures or Mutability Now is man as he is in the same Likeness together with him without above all Vails Clouds Shadows Mixture or Mutability Now God and Man awakened together as out of a sleep and the dreams in the sleep into the same Righteousness are satisfied with the same likeness in each other reflected from man as the Son the Image of God the Father of Lights the Original Glory But I now am sliding into my last Proposition and have indeed in a great degree prevented my self in it 4. Proposition The change in Man at the Fall did fall from the Divine Harmony in the Universal Design was comprehended in it and part of it I shall add to that which I have already written above only one Scripture with a short gloss upon it for the establishing of this Proposition St. Paul thus discourseth Rom. 8.
the Fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal Design in the Divine Mind being comprehended in it as a part of it I shall proceed by a few short steps 1. The Intellectual soul in the first Man is manifestly eminently comprehended in this Scripture by a Reason from the stronger This not only is a principal part of the Creation but contains in it self according to its primitive state the whole nature of things together with the compleat Image of God in Nature This is the Essence of the Intellectual Soul 2. This Soul in this Image and so in its own Essence as in a Glass beholdeth the Harmony of the Divine Work as it hath the Harmony of the Divine Nature figured upon it in its Perfection from the beginning to the end Through this Image as a finely-shadowed Vail it hath a view of God himself in the invisibility of his Power and Godhead In the same view it taketh in the Universal Harmony of the Divine Work and Design as it lieth in its first ground in his invisible Power and Godhead Invisible to the purest eye of Nature in their own naked Glories but visible through the Divine Cloud or Sky of the Natural the Angelical Image of God in Man 3. In this Image light and view of the Godhead The Soul now seeth the Fall in the Divine Harmony in the Harmony of the Divine Image and its own Essence it seeth this as the next Scene ready to open it self as the next state into which it is immediately to pass by the force of the Divine Harmony The Soul seeth this state in this Glass apart by it self as a state of highest Contrariety to the Purity the Light the Peace the Calm the Incorruption the Virtues the Joys the Harmony the Life the Love the Divinity of its present state It hath a Prospect of it as a Scene of monstrous Defilements Shames Confusions Troubles Darknesses Tempests Horrors Enmities Deaths where there is no Light no Rest. Thus the Soul hath the highest aversion to this state But at the same time the Soul hath a view of this Scene as it stands in the Universal Harmony so it sees shadowed out to it through the natural Image in this shady light of Nature a Glory of the Godhead springing up through it by the Power of the Divine Harmony incomprehensible to the Soul in its purest Light infinitely transcending all those Divine Glories which have hitherto appeared to it in the Godhead and all those which it is by any means capable of figuring to it self It became him saith the Author to the Hebrews being to bring many Sons to Glory to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through Sufferings Thus the Soul in Paradise beholding in the Glass of its own Essence this state of Sufferings to rise up out of the unsearchable depths of the incomprehensibly ravishing and transcendently perfect Harmony in the Divine Essence understanding also the Harmony to be made perfect and the Glory of the Godhead raised to its utmost its purest heighth and beyond the reach of every Intellectual or Angelical Eye by this Variety in its proper place Now for God is subject to this bondage of Vanity and Corruption This Soul in like manner sees in that same Glass an Hope that cannot fail set before it The Seed of a Divine Hope Jesus the Hope of Glory the force and power of the Universal Harmony sown in it A sure Hope that shall accompany it through this Wilderness of Wastness Tempests and Horrours where no water is no Light 〈◊〉 Life no Truth of any good but empty and black shades in a dark and dreadful Night In this Hope it sees the assurance of a passage out of this Wilderness into a good Land a Land flowing with Milk and Honey a Land flowing with Rivers of Waters and full of Springs A Land of Rest and Bliss 4. The Soul thus by this prospect in Paradise is submitted and subjected to its change and fall with an unwilling willingness God now according to the Law of the Divine Harmony in his own Image and in the Essence of the Soul withdraws the Light of his Presence within a dark Cloud from this Cloud falls a deep sleep the sleep of Death a death to the only true the Divine Life upon Man The Soul now like Abraham falls into a terrible dream a blackness of darkness full of horrour passeth over It seeth it self the whole nature of things visible invisible within it self dead divided dissolved all broken and scattered into pieces A burning Lamp the burning Torches of Lust Rage Divine Wrath pass between these mangled pieces Thus the Soul lies in this sleep and dream with hope only as a gleame of heavenly Light now and then breaking upon it through these melancholy shades until Christ the Seed of Hope revive in it When he awakens himself in the Soul he awakens the Soul by his Voice sounding through it Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee Light At the awakening of the Soul the dream flies away as if it never had been The Soul now sees her lost Paradise her lost Purity her lost Peace her lost Love and Joy her lost self with the whole nature of things in its Virgin-Image present with her as if they had never departed from her All past seems as the dream of a moment while she slept upon a Bed of Spices in Paradise in the Bosome of her Beloved But her Beauties and Paradise are not now as before They are no more shadowy Images shady Lights and Mediums or means through which her God appears to her which his Glories dim'd and refracted by the Vails through which they pass No being now awakened into the Resurrection of Christ God himself in his naked Beauties in the purest and sweetest Light of his Divine Essence appears to her as to himself He in the Light of his unvailed Glories is both her beloved Object and the blissful Medium or means through which she sees him The Soul now is in the Light as He is in the Light his Face shining like the Sun of Eternity in the strength of all its Glories the Glories of his supream loveliness and Loves is the Glass in which she sees her self her lost Purity and Paradise the whole nature of things within her self as they all lie in the Harmony of the Divine Nature In this Glass she sees and enjoys her Fall it self as a part and the perfecting of this heavenly Harmony All the storms and darknesses in that Scene have now their Vizors taken off and appear to be living Glories glorious Spirits glorious Varieties in the Unity of the eternal Spirit Thus the Soul enjoys her self with all past present or to come as eternally present with Christ in God Now this Bride repents not of her subjection to the Fall by which she hath passed into this last state more excellent then the first which indeed is the first Now she seeth that
I will yet bring seven times more Plagues upon you As the opposition and disorder and sin encreaseth so the Divine Harmony also is heightned in its contrariety to it All this is done that the evil of sin and disorder the beauty and sweetness of the Divine Grace and Order may set out the Contrariety This also is that the distinction between the Ceator and the Creature the heavenly Image the Original and Substance which is all pure Light and Good without any mixture of Darkness or capacity of Evil. And the earthly Image the shadow which is composed of a figure of Light and true Darkness from which sin with all evils spring and take life according to the Language of the Apostle may be more clearly discovered Thus by the breaking in of sin by blame and shame and sufferings which are as so many Glasses to set before sin the deformity and ugliness of its own face the Creature the shadowy Image is humbled is broken to pieces is brought into the dust that it may give all glory and attribute all good to the Creator the Original and eternal Image that it may resign it self to it seek its rest alone in it and that it may finally return into the bosom of the Original Glory which in these wayes by these degrees through the breakings of it springeth up in it breaketh forth through it and bringeth it back again to lie down eternally in that Bosom of purest Love and Light where it was at first from eternity where it hath been eternally hid with Christ in God All this God doth that he may eternally display the unsearchable Riches of that Variety and Fulness which is in himself that he may swallow up the Understanding of every Creature Man or Angel into an admiration and adoration of the incomprehensibleness of his Wayes his Wisdom his Blessedness and Glory who at once bringeth forth these Varieties which like Morning-Stars and Sons of God in the purest unmixt Light and Love dance and sing together in his Bosom into such fighting Contrarieties upon the stage of the earthly and created Image here below making that the seat of deformity shame woe and death while it figureth out the highest Joys and Glories of eternal Life above who again gathers up all these jarring and tumultuous Contrarieties into the first state and supream Unity where the Variety is far more vast and boundless in the whole far more full and distinct in each branch of it where the whole is all an eternal Melody an eternal Beauty an eternal Joy unexpressibly Divine pure and ravishing where each branch in its own distinct Form is a Beauty a Melody a Joy equally pure perfect and ravishing with the whole being crowned with the Unity and Eternity which is the highest Unity This St. Paul representeth to us clearly and fully in the person of each Saint when he saith Heights and Depths things present and things to come this World Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are Divine distinct eternal Glories in the person of a Saint as a Saint is taken up into the Glory of Christ as Christ is in the Glory of God 3. The evil of Sufferings is the proper way in the Universal Order by which the disorderly Spirit with its disorders returneth into order to possess and enjoy in it self the Divine Beauty and Musick of the whole Guilt is the Obligation upon each Spirit from every Act of disorder unto the Divine Justice which is the Law of the Divine Harmony seated originally in the Divine Nature from the opposing it self to the disorderly Spirit and the reducing it by the opposition into order This is done three wayes 1. By Expiation 2. By Compensation 3. By Abolition 1. Expiation or atonement is the bringing in of something Sacred Divine and Perfect The Heathen in their Expiations generally made use of brimstone which seemed to have something Sacred and Divine in it as appears by the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both brimstone and something Divine perhaps the reason is its aptness to take fire and its resemblance in its pure and fiery flame to the Coelestial Bodies 2. Compensation is of like to like by an equality this turneth the Discord into a Concord and gathereth it up into the Unity 3. The Abolition is the effacing and blotting out the disorder bringing it forth now into order where the deformity of the discord is swallowed up into an amiable and beautiful Harmony This is the chief part of the expiation or atonement in which the Ancients to this end made use of a living stream or fire as things Sacred and proper for purification But this whole work is comprehended in the mystery of Christ it is begun and finished in his Person alone literally or mystically 1. Expiation Jesus Christ the eternal Spirit of the Divine Order and Harmony springs up in the midst of the disorder and takes it all upon himself by taking Flesh. This is the beginning of the Expiation this is the truly sacred Divine and perfect thing brought in to expiate the confusion and the abomination This is the supream Unity the supream Harmony Love it self the Prince of Peace and Harmony the God of Order discovering himself as a sacred and eternal Root at the bottom of the disorder in whom that also stands after an orderly and harmonious manner while he himself also is springing up through it This is the beginning of the Expiation 2. Compensation This Jesus which is Divine Love it self appearing in the enmity the Divine Harmony it self in the disorder seats himself as the mark of the opposition and contrariety by which the Divine Order in the Spirit of Order which is himself sets it self against the Disorder to subdue and reduce it he receiveth himself into his own bosom and heart all the invenomed arrows and fiery darts which the Justice and Wrath of God that is Love it self casteth forth in its highest opposition and contrariety to the enmity This contrariety of the Divine Love to the enmity which hath violated and slain this Love in breaking the Harmony is maintained by a War of Blood and Fire till it come to its ut most height till the contrariety of Love to the enmity be fully displayed and discharged till the enmity and disorder that work of the Devil be subdued and destroyed together with the dissolution of flesh it self The earthly and shadowy Image the seat and ground of sin and enmity by the death of Jesus Christ who hath taken our Sins and Nature upon himself as the first root and ground of all O sweet and Divine Mystery O musical Discord and harmonious Contrariety O peaceful and pleasant War where the supream Love stands on both sides where as in a mysterious Love-sport or a Divine Love-play it fights with it self suffering for it self dying by it self and so it self sinking by death into its own sweetest bosom and dearest
our Hope our End comprehending all the Objects of our Hope all our blessedness in himself This Christ thus coming to us forming a Divine Nature a Divine Light a Divine Eye a Divine Understanding in us shining forth in the midst of us setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory in their heavenly truth and substance before us open and manifest in the midst of us with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed to be enjoyed by us to become one Spirit with us to form themselves upon us to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves in the fore-tasts and first-fruits as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition This is our most holy and most precious Faith the Faith of the Gospel opposed to the Works of the Law This coming of the Faith in this verse is expressed before verse 9. by the coming of the seed why then was the Law It was added because of Transgressions until the Seed came The Law then is a Prison In this Pâ—…ison all men are kept bound in Chains shut up with Locks and Bolts and Bars which no force can break until the Seed which is Christ come This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature a new Creature a new Person into an heavenly Image and a Son of God in him alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Now before this Jesus thus springing up and shining forth in him the Prison of the Law is dissolved and vanisheth like an enchantment The place in which it stood is known no more for all is covered and filled with the Light Liberty and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death and bringeth life and immortality to light 2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come not the very Image Chap. 10. vers 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit and in eternity The Law had a shadow of this Jesus with these good things contained in him The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law as beneath a Vail You may see this 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews While Moses is read the Vail lieth upon their hearts But when there is a turning to the Lord the Vail is taken away He goeth on But the Lord is that Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is freedom from the Vail There is a beholding with open face the Glory of the Lord Jesus a transforming of the Soul into the same Image with an encreasing Glory by the Lord this Spirit Thus Jesus with all his Glories was vailed in the Law By the removal of the Vail the Law becometh Gospel The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us and form us into one Glory with themselves St. Paul teacheth us 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud and in the same Sea eat of the same spiritual Bread drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account that Bread that Sea that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these and vailed beneath all these The Clouds Thunders Fires Tremblings and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person suffering and dying The top of Mount Sinai where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another being mutual Feasts one to another was a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension Divines teach us That the Law is the Gospel vailed and the Gospel the Law unvailed The Jews say That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God The Name is the Image of the thing Christ who is the very Image is the true Name of God and of all true things comprehended in God The Moral Law with all the Precepts and Duties of it is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us but vailed with the Letter with the darkness of the Letter yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory How rich and how sweet is our Jesus and the mystery of God in him through all his works The Law it self hath no Darkness no Death no Fire so full of Dread Horror and Destruction which looked upon with a right eye is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this that Jesus Christ with all the treasures of eternal Love Beauty and Joy is shadowed upon it and vailed beneath it The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery conversed with Christ saw his day grew up into him through this shadow beneath this Vail seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins in their Flesh and Spirit 3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity in the Ministry of the Law is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord to prepare his way The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ. 1. By Conviction Condemnation and Death which all discover a necessity of Christ make him precious make him the desire of all Nations make all wait for him as the only blessed One and their only Blessedness Crying Blessed is he blessed is the Messias the Christ blessed is Jesus who alone comes in the Name of the Lord in the Form Power and Glory of the Godhead 2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality and of the Letter 3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow and under a Vail So the Law fills up the Vallies and makes the Mountains plain It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength in our own Reason or Will into shame It takes away our distrust and despair turning that into hope and a joyous expectation It first burieth all the beauty strength excellency and life of the Creature in a grave of Sin Death and Wrath as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth as the nethermost Hell Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave and sheweth him hidden beneath it as under a Vail and as a Seed of
the Perfection of each Being That which all things desire that which equalleth and transcendeth all desires As St. Paul saith to the Athenians That God whom ye ignorantly worship I preach unto you So by these unquestioned Principles it seemeth unquestionable That God as he is in his own proper Form is alone that Object which all things in Heaven on Earth and under the Earth love seek and adore If he shall please to lift up his Vail and discover his Face to be seen by all eyes of mortal or immortal Creatures all casting away their several Idols would run swiftly and unanimously into his Bosom alone crying out with an universal shoot This is he whom our Souls love This is our Beloved This alone is the Good which we have pursued in all things through all things Here is our Rest for ever If any Spirit then hate God it directeth its hatred not against God but a false Image which it hath set up to it self of God as an hater of him as a cruel one as extending himself to a larger compass in severities and wrath than sweetnesses and loves as an hard Task-Master requiring Brick when he affordeth no Straw as an enemy or a neglecter of the joy and felicity of his Creatures as raising a pleasure and glory to himself in the shame and ruine of his own Work or at least from a want of natural goodness and kindly affection leaving his own Work his own Birth to shame and ruine when it is every way in his Power to make it good and great in Blessedness and Glory So now it is no more God which this Spirit hateth but an Idol set up within it self in the place of God So sin deceiveth it first and then killeth it by a misplaced hatred upon a mistaken Object So this Spirit sinneth by falling short of the Glory of God and manifesteth its sin by this to be nothing positive but a privation only 8. Reason This predetermination of the Will placeth Man in the same rank with Automata the self-moving Works of Art as Clocks and Watches These are determined by the Workman to a certain motion which they cannot vary and being put into motion by the hand of the Workman they continue it without any power over it unto its designed period Such a piece of work Man seemeth to be if the motions of his Will upon which all other Humane motions depend be not in his own power Answ. What if Man be not allowed that Prerogative in respect to the superior and universal Movers which these works of Art have in respect to the Artificer He frameth his pieces for their motion he putteth them into motion they now continue their motions without any assistance from the Workman the Author of their frame and motion Man lives and moves and hath his Being in God Every distinct moment of his Being Life and Motions are new and distinct emanations from God as in their first Beginning as at their first Creation yet are the preheminencies of this self-mover the Soul of Man many great and glorious above the self-moving works of Art 1. The motions of the Will are Intellectual The Soul in the actings of the VVill understandeth reflecteth upon its own motions It comprehendeth the beginning the end of them their causes out of which they arise their nature and differences their course and stream in which they run along their effects and consequents in which they determine 2. The motions of the VVill are with a relish and agreeableness They all flow from Love the love of Good the love of Beauty which is good in its proper Image or appearance This is the first and great wheel in the VVill which puts all the wheels of the other affections or passion sinto motion The motions of the VVill tend all to delight and joy as their mark to the delightful and joyous fruition of the beloved Beauty the beloved Good in the which the VVill together with the whole Soul and the whole Man hath its rest and its end 3. The Soul of Man in the motions of the Will is acted by superior and universal Causes not as an external hand or power but as internal Principles as the springs of Being and Beauty of Life and Light of Activity and Motion of all power sense and relish which are essentially comprehended in the Essence of the Soul and Will which continually feed it Give me leave here again to cite those uncontroverted Maxims in the Metaphysicks the universal cause is most truly is most of all the Cause in every kind of casuality So is it most truly most of all the essential the formal cause of the Soul and of its Will The universal Cause is most intimate to every effect It is then most intimate to the Will and to the operations of the Will VVe read in Proclus That the Soul containeth all things in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is after the manner of a Soul The subordinate and supream kinds of things are comprehended in the inferior kind entring into the definition and essence of each specifical nature together with it Thus man comprehendeth in his Essence the superior forms of a living Creature of a corporeal substance of substance it self in its abstracted eminency of Being the Fountain and Head of all these After the same manner the Divine Ideas their eminencies and virtues the Angelical forms in their powers and properties descending and forming themselves into an inferior Image in which they are all united constitute the Essence of the Soul and are complicated in it But to conclude my Answer to this Reason Doth this darken the glory of the VVill of Man Doth this confine it destroying its freedom and its Joy that it acteth and moveth in conformity to in communion and fellow ship with the Divine VVill from the same Principle in the same amplitude to the same end by the same necessity of good alone of the supream the universal Good comprehending all things in it self unchangeable in all This is the proper nature of Man and of his VVill that Divine Similitude and Image in which he was first created 9. Reason But the Variety of things that it may be entire requires it that there should be in nature a free agent undetermined to motion or a cessation from motion to this or a contrary motion having the disposal of it self of its own acts independantly entirely in it self Answ. 1. I do not remember that I have hitherto read or heard this pleaded That the VVill is equally undetermined and free to Good or to Evil presenting themselves in the formalities or appearances of Good or of Evil. This were to affirm that evil equally with good is the Object of the VVill That all things desire evil in its own proper form as much as good Yet this Variety here asserted clearly asserteth this 2. A full Variety is directed to the most perfect Harmony as its end It is the Unity preserved entire in the Variety
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
the extremes of infiniteness and finiteness of God and the Creature comprehends both in One in himself fills up the middle space between both is the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God by which again God reascendeth together with the Creature and the Creature returneth unto God Having laid down these grounds I shall now upon them build up and establish the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus in the Work of Nature by these three Propositions as so many stories in this Divine Palace of our Saviour's Person raised one upon the other 1. Jesus Christ is essentially eternally the only true God infinitely transcending all Created Excellencies or Powers 2. The Lord Jesus standeth in the middle between God and all Creatures comprehending both entirely in One in himself with an admirable Beauty and Harmony uniting both by himself with an incomparable Love and Sweetness 3. Jesus Christ is the Way by which God descendeth into the Creature by which the Creation cometh forth from God The first two Propositions seem to lie in those words The Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature Here I hope to discover them lying clearly and beautifully infolded in the imbraces of each other I will begin with the Godhead of Christ. 1. Our Saviour our Jesus is essentially the eternal the only true God I shall indeavour to set before our eyes our Jesus unvailed and shining in the pure unmixt Glories of his Godhead by the Lights of two Principles which I think will be granted to me by all who acknowledge a God 1. God is eminently transcendently a vital Act. 2. God is eminently transcendently an Intellectual Act. 1. God is eminently transcendently a vital Act. The Psalmist saith to him With thee is the Fountain of Life St. John in the close of his first Epistle saith of him This is the true God and eternal life He is life it self life pure absolute unmixt unconfined eternal infinite a Fountain ever equally unexhaust a Sea unbounded Life is a perpetual Generation The chief and most essential Power of life is to bring forth its like to propagate and multiply it self in Images of it self The most perfect Life bringeth forth it self into the most perfect Image The most perfect Image hath two Properties 1. It is most perfectly distinct from its Original Take away the Distinction and you take away the Generation the Relation the Representation the Image it self As the Distinction is more or less perfect or imperfect clear or obscure so are all these 2. The most perfect Image is the most exact Representation of its Original most exactly answering it neither exceeding nor falling short nor varying in any part Thus the most perfect Image is most perfectly One and the same with its Original Thus God is a vital Act. 2. God is eminently transcendently an Intellectual Act. In every Intellectual Act three things meet in One Life Light Love 1. The Intellectual Life brings forth it self into an Image of it self within it self in one Spirit one Essence one essential Act and Form with it self 2. The Intellectual Light gives the Intellectual Spirit a seeing knowing understanding comprehension and possession of it self in this Image 3. The Intellectual Love is the mutual Union and Communion of these two the Original and the Image a continual sweet pleasing intimate essential and most agreeable motion of tendency or inclination to each other of unexpressible joy and complacency in each other The Life here is the Generation ever in Act ever perfect The Light is the Image ever actually springing ever actually compleat The Love is the conspiration or the meeting of these two in One as they are Distinct and One Where these are most perfect they are most perfectly distinct most perfectly equal most perfectly One and every One most perfectly and most distinctly all Three in it self The Original and the Image most perfectly adaequate to and exactly in all parts all properties answering each other do alike mutually imbrace comprehend bring forth each other within themselves and within each other The Love being the mutual imbraces and selffruitions of each other equally comprehends both is equally comprehended of both These Three are therefore called Persons being all equally One equally Distinct equally Compleat in one Intellectual substance and subsistence in an Intellectual Essence and Existence having equally their Root or Original their essential Form or Image their operation that is their Life-Spring their Light their Love entire in themselves all infinite eternal without Beginning End or Bound Behold here our Jesus in the high and holy place of Eternity the Image of the invisible God equally God with his Father having his Father in Himself equally invisible to every created eye or finite capacity by the same excess of Light and Glory Behold here the Jesus of the Christians at once the Son of God and God the Father of all at once the second Person in the Trinity and the Trinity compleat in himself which is the Godhead gloriously displaid in the admired adored beloved fulness of Power Beauty Majesty of all transcendent sweetnesses of Life Light Love and Joy a Life ever bringing forth it self a Light or Image ever springing up in the Bosom of this Life which is it self a Love by which this Life and Image are uncessantly eternally in an endless Circle bringing forth each other springing up in the Bosom of each other multiplying themselves into ever-fresh unsearchably rich Varieties in the mutual imbraces of each other with sweetnesses and delights unexplicable ever new ever full ever the same This is the first and principal sense in which our Jesus is the Image of the invisible God This Image is the most perfect Birth of the Godhead within it self All Images all Forms of things which lie wrapt up in the infinite Virtue or Power of the Godhead all which it ever brings forth through Eternity or Time all which it is capable of bringing forth the whole fulness of the Divine Essence or Nature with all the unbounded innumerable Virtues and Powers which as so many fresh everliving Springs open themselves in it flow forth most distinctly most compleatly into their first their most true their most proper Forms and Images here in this Image of which we speak This Image comprehends them all in One in it self and so becomes the Paradise of the Godhead in the heighths of eternity Our Jesus as he is this Image of the Godhead in the Godhead the second Person in the Trinity the Birth of the Father is the first Distinction the first Variety He is then the supream the absolute the most absolutely unconfined Distinction or Variety the Fountain of all Variety and Distinction This is the Wisdom of God with its unsearchable Riches the first the most exact Distinction and Distinguisher All Distinctions and Varieties of things which ever do exist or are capable of existing any where exist first here most perfect and
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
Godhead it self with open Face with all its unclouded Sweetnesses all its unvailed Glories fills all springs shines forth with golden smiles in every part cloaths the whole Image is the Unity of all the Person in all This is the first Unity the Unity of the whole 2. The second is the Divine the Personal Unity in each part Such is the Virtue such is the undivided simplicity of the Spiritual the Divine Unity in this Person that the Unity the Person the Variety of the whole is equally perfectly entire and distinct in each part in every point of the whole Thus as there is one Body and many members so is Christ in this his spiritual and heavenly Body But such is the spirituality the heavenliness of this Divine Body this Divine Person that in every distinct Member the Unity of the Person and of the heavenly Body the Person in its full Amplitude in the greatness of its Majesty the whole Body in all its glorious Variety is most compleatly the same and distinct in every member Thus we read that in the Throne of God and the Vision of his Glory represented by Ezckiel and St. John The Lamb was in the midst of the Throne as the Center dissusing it self through the whole Circle There appeared also in the midst of the Throne four living Creatures which are interpreted by learned Divines to be four principal Ideas the four-fold Spring and Head of all Ideal Lives and Glories into which the supream and universal Idea the Lamb immediately distinguisheth it self like the Fountain of Eden in its four great streams These four living Creatures are so described that every one hath its own distinct Form that yet all are said to have one and the same Form Every one is said to have the form of a man which is the entire and universal Harmony of all forms the form of that man which rides in the Firmament above the heads of them all the Lamb himself This is the second Unity 3. The third is the Unity of all parts with each other and with the whole Every part equally subsisteth and shineth in all the other parts and in the entire Face of the whole as in it self being every where most perfectly distinct and the same So we read concerning those four living Creatures Whithersoever the Spirit of the living Creatures was to go they still went forward and never turned This is the force of the Unity of each part and with the whole Without change at once every part stands distimctly in every form of Beauty Pleasantness Glory In all the richness of their Divine Motions and Activities ever full ever new The beautiful and Divine Face of each part of the whole in each part standeth and looketh at once every way in every part of the whole and in the whole Now have I finished the three-fold Excellency of our Jesus in this Divine Image and Mediatory Glory Before I pass from it let me entreat you to cast your eye for a little space upon two Divine and delightful sights here 1. There is no particular Form so little or so low there is no privation so empty or so dark which hath not its two-fold Idea or Archetype here We read That Death and Hell are open and manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Where are the Forms of things so divided and broken as in the dust of Death What privations so shady and black so empty and desolate so deformed horrid and dreadful as those of Death and Hell Yet are Death and Hell manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Is not this Jesus the Divine Glass and Light in which alone all things appear to himself and to his Father Are not these Archetypes or Ideal Patterns in Christ both the Divine Eyes with which the eternal Spirit looketh upon all things and the Divine Objects which alone he beholdeth with these Eyes the Divine Images in these Eyes Then Death and Hell all particulars all privations are evidently and eminently here in the beautiful Form and Person of our blessed Mediator Here they are in their proper Ideas in their distinct and heavenly Patterns their eternal Truths But here they are no more particulars or privations inasmuch as every part every point of this Divine Image where these Ideas are seated is both the Center diffusing it self through the whole Image and a Circle comprehending the whole with its full Majesty and Glory in its own distinct propriety and form Thus the Psalmist sings divinely of this heavenly Mystery to Jesus Christ. The Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and the Light both alike This is the first of those heavenly sights to which I invited thee 2. See if our Jesus in this Mediatory Image be not the Jerusalem above ever new altogether heavenly our Mother which bringeth us forth under the Apple-Tree the Tree of Love in the heavenly Paradise which beareth us upon her sides and dandles us upon her knees through our whole course in all our motions and changes of our Birth Life and Death which milketh forth from her Breasts abundance of Glory upon us See if this be not that City of the living God having the Godhead it self for a Foundation where all things dwell together in their heavenly Patterns and eternal Spirits See if this be not Jerusalaiim two Cities in one compacted together by one eternal Love into one eternal Spirit and Person the created and the Uncreated Image where the First-bron the whole Creation in general all Creatures in particular in their first-born Original Images and Truths dwell together See if this be not that Kingdom of God universal over all the last of all without end eternal which is Righteousness Peace and Joy The Righteousness of all Divine incorruptible Harmony and Beauty the Beauties of Holiness the Beauties of the Divine Nature in its most unstained unmixt highest Purity that Peace and Joy which is the most ravishing Harmony of all things as they spring shine and sing together in the Unity of the Divine Light Life and Love in the ever dear and delightful Person of our blessed Mediator I have proceeded thus far in our Discourse of the Lord Jesus as he is the Mediator of the Creation the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God To this end he necessarily toucheth both the extremes is immediately united to both and unites both in himself in a middle state between both I have spoken of the Lord Jesus as he toucheth the extreme above and is God with God the essential Image of God the Original Seat and Image of all Forms of things in their first state We have treated of him in his middle state where he is the Union of God and the Creature of all Forms of things uncreated created joyned together in one Light and Spirit of Glory I now pass to the third Consideration of our Mediator as he toucheth the lower extream of the
Creature as its proper Seed He is the seminal Virtue which puts forth it self through the whole Creation from the beginning to the end in every Essence of each Creature in all the powers of every Essence in all the operations of each Power He is the seminal Reason the seminal Form and Proportion which springs up equally in like degrees in each Creature together with it in all the states and modifications of it forming it and figuring it in all Thus saith St. John when he treats of him under this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ratio the Reason of all things and that in order to the Creation that without him or apart from him nothing was made or came to pass that was made or came to pass He lives he dies he flourisheth he falls he triumphs he suffers in all with all In him was Light saith St. John and that light was the life of man The Life of Christ as it was in Christ the Seed of every Creature was the Life of the Humane Form the Light of all Forms as they meet together harmoniously in the Humane Form or as they appear distinctly in their proper places to man to serve and entertain him This was the Light of every Form as it sparkleth forth in all its Qualities and Acts as it appeareth in all states and changes This Light of Life in Christ was the Life and the Light of every Beauty every Sweetness every Form of things in every Creature Together they did spring together they did fade being ever inseparable So was the Creature continually figured and framed in all states by the immediate inseparable presence of the Lord Jesus with it When the Creature falls and dies by sin then also is Jesus Christ slain in it and by it If the Life in Christ be the light of man and so of all things then is the retiring of this Life like the setting of the Sun the darkning of all the over-casting of all with the shadow of Death But then this eternal Love the Lamb our Jesus dies by our death together with us that he may become in death a Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of his blood lying upon us So he becomes also the Seed of immortality and the Resurrection from the Dead that as he riseth we also may rise in him together with him Yet is the difference great between his manner of dying and ours He knows what he doth in both these Deaths We know not at present what he doth nor what we our selves do in either of them He sins not falling short in nothing of the Glory of God which ever fills his Heart his Eye and his Hand through all darknesses and deaths he carries on the Ideal Glories of both the Archetypes his two superior Images and so the universal Design and Beauty of the whole Work in the Creation which is to be a compleat figure of these having its beginning and ending in them By virtue of the Personal Union he at once carrieth down with him the Light of all the Glories the Musick of the universal Harmony in both these superior Images into these Deaths and also comprehendeth these Deaths in the Light of these Glories in the Musick of this Harmony as part of the Glory and the Harmony This he doth as the Head the Seed the First-fruits of the whole Creation Thus he lives and dies in every Creature Thus they that are new born into him most beautifully most blessedly live and die together with him 2. I pass now from the first part of the Mediation of Christ that in the first Creation the descent of things the coming forth of the Creatures from God I come to the second Part the Mediation of Christ in the new Creation the Redemption the return of the Creature to God I shall endeavour to set before you this Mediatory Work of our Jesus of our God and Saviour First In the parts of it as they lie in the Person of the Lord Jesus the Head and Pattern of the new Creature Secondly In the progress and propagation of it through the whole Body belonging to this Head 1. The parts of it most commodiously for my purpose are contained in this three-fold Division 1. The Incarnation of Christ and his Life in the Flesh. 2. The Sufferings and Death 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus 1. The first part of the Mediation of Christ in the Redemption is his Incarnation and Life in the Flesh. We have seen the eternal Light and Love our Jesus our God gradually descending in a three-fold form 1. We have seen him in his essential Form and Godhead comprehending all Varieties of things in their Original and eternal Glories 2. We have seen him in his Mediatory and spiritual Form the Marriage of God with the Creature in one Spirit and Glory where all the Uncreated Glories and all the Creatures according to their distinct Essences in spiritual and incorruptible forms as two are one 3. We have had a delightful view of the same Jesus in both these Divine Forms set with innumerable and distinct Glories descending into a shadowy Image of himself where he becomes the proper and immediate Head of the first Creation in whom all the Creatures consist and flourish together according to their shadowy Originals in the first-born strength and beauty of this created state 4. Our Lord Jesus with these universal Beauties subsisting together and mutually enfolding each other in the Unity of the same Divine Person goeth down one step lower from the beautiful face of the Earth into the dark places and nethermost parts of it This last step of his descent is at once also the first step of his Ascent and Return Together with man and the whole Creation falling by sin he also falls but altogether without sin He subsists in the whole Creation and in each particular Creature beneath the universal Ruine being the weight of all Here he is the Seed maintaining the Remainders of the Divine Image in nature obscured deformed wounded broken and slain Obscured deformed wounded broken and slain in it together with it He maintaineth the Relicks of the Life of this natural Image in the midst of death This he doth by a new spring of Grace opening it self in fallen Nature by the virtue of his Mediatory and essential form now putting forth themselves through his shadowy form in the Creature thus lapsed Thus is he both in one the old Seed of the first Creation and the new Seed of the new Creature which thus in the heavenly Image of the Mediatory Form of Christ makes its way and breaks forth through the ruines of the earthly Image This is the promised Seed the Seed of the Woman the Seed of the Divine Image both in Nature and in Grace which gives a new Birth to Nature This Seed propagating it self through all Generations in the fulness of time when the season is now for Eternity to shine out through the extended shadow of Time and to