2. The Three in the Divine Essence or Father singly and abstractedly consider'd will be absolutely invisible to Saints and Angels in Heaven to all Eternity And the Divine Form Son or Glory thereof in Christ's Person will never be the immediate Object of their Sight but be let down to them in the first Conjunction thereof with his Creature-root through the exalted Creature-Son and Branch in him the immediate Creator of all This is the Branch God made strong for himself Psal. 80. 15. to perform his whole Divine Mind in both Creations in this World and the eternal World to come This is the Branch that shall reign on Earth execute Iudgment and Iustice therein as the Lord our Righteousness Jer. 23. 5 6. 33. 15 16. By and through this exalted Branch the immediate Do-all in both Creations will the same Three in the Divine Essence that shin'd forth in the Divine Form from Eternity let down themselves to blessed Angels and Saints to Eternity All the Three in the Divine Essence and heavenly Creature-Glories are one Trinity and that Trinity one individual God Iohn 10. 20. The Three that are One in the Divine Nature are the immediate Object to the Sight and Enjoyment of the whole Creature-nature in Christ Root and exalted Branch that 's in personal Union therewith but never so to any meer Creatures blessed Saints or Angels 1 Tim. 6. 15 16. Iohn 1. 18. Mat. 11. 27. They are personally united with the exalted Branch in him as Members of his mystical spiritual Body to which he is Head But never so to his Creature-root and much less yet to his Divine Nature The Three in the Divine Nature shining forth to meer spiritual Creatures by and through the exalted Branch are no where in Scripture call'd a Trinity nor said to be three Persons If they be three Persons as three distinct individual Angels or Men in Angelical or humane Nature are would they not be three distinct individual Gods would not this be the asserting a Tritheism the lesser sort of Polytheism If they be call'd three Persons it must be as acknowledg'd in a Unity transcendently above meer Creatures who are so in one specifical humane or angelical Nature The three in God are three in one individual Divine Nature shining forth to Saints and Angels in the Mediator's one individual Creature-nature which in and with his Divine Nature is with his Divine Father or Essence one individual God In this Sense if any may they be call'd three Persons But the acknowledging three distinct Powers in God may justly secure any from the Imputation of Antitrinitarianism They are so three that the first is not the second nor second the third The Divine Form in Christ is not the Divine Essence nor his Creature-nature his Divine nor his Creature-root the Branch in him but all one individual incomprehensible God Iohn 10. 30. He that says knows and owns God the Father and his Divine and Creature-Son says all that God is or is God Man in the fallible Understanding and corruptible Will of his First-creation Life can never truly see rightly know and do the one Will of both All therefore that trust to their own Understanding deny both the Divine Father and the divine and heavenly Creature-Son Whosoever denies the Divine and Creature Son hath not the Father But he that rightly acknowledges the Son hath the Father also 1 John 2.22 23. Antichristian Deniers of both pass in reputed Orthodox Man's Day of Judging under Satan God of this World as the only true Christians excommunicating or casting out of their worldly Churches the true Owners of both as the arrantest Hereticks and Blasphemers in the World God the Son or Mediator in the Divine and Creature-glories of the Divine Essence or Father is call'd a Person 2 Cor. 2. 10. In his Creature-part he is call'd the Brightness of the Divine Glory in himself and therein the express Creature Image of God's whole Divine Person Essence and Form Heb. 1. 3. The Creature-root in the Mediator is God's Soul not immediately discernable to the highest spiritual Understanding of meer Creatures but in its first Conjunction with Divine Nature is let down to their Sight and Enjoyment in and by the exalted Creature-Son and Branch as God's Body or Visibility of all to them Of the Creature-root God's Soul himself says in reference to the unpardonably sinning Shepherds or pretending Teachers of the Way to Heaven and Peace with God in but the restor'd Life and Righteousness of Man my Soul loath'd them and their Soul also abhorred me Zech. 11. 8. Every individual Man in the three essential Ingredients into his personal Constitution Spirit Soul and Body 1 Thess. 5. 23. is a shadowy Image of the three in one God and of the Divine Spirit Creature-root or Soul and Creature-body or Branch in Christ's wonderful compounded Person Man in another Sense was in the primitive Purity of his whole Being a shadowy Image of God's Righteousness This was lost to all Mankind by their first Sin in and with Adam The Reason therefore of the threaten'd Death on Murderers that whosoever sheds Man's Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed for in the Image of God made he Man Gen. 9. 6. relates to Man's being the Image of God in the former Sense Gen. 1. 26 27. The Image of him in the latter being wholly lost the Murderers of him in reference to that might seem unaccountable The Spirit of Man singly and abstractedly consider'd may seem a dark Shadow of the very Divine Essence as comprehending in it a threefold distinct Life rational sensual and vegetable but all three invisible and unexercis'd till brought into hypostatical or personal Union with its fitly organiz'd Body And all the said three Lives when brought into Exercise are called a living Soul in distinction from the Spirit separately consider'd and from the Body that 's the personal Appearance or Visibility of the whole Man And in both and all the Man is but one Person CHAP. VII The Mystery of God in general of all that is truly called God and to be worship'd and in particular of God the Father or Divine Essence and of Christ the Divine and Creature-Son Col. 2. 2. both and all one incomprehensible God John 10. 30. IN general all are one individual God In particular the Divine Form or Son though most intimately one with the Divine Essence or Father in the one infinite Divine Nature became personally united with the Creature-form of God the Divine Essence or Father remaining ever single and uncompounded therewith Gal. 3. 20. A Mediator is not of one Nature but God in his Divine Essence is one God the Mediator as consisting of two Natures Divine and Creaturely in personal Union is fitted to mediate between infinite Divinity and finite Creaturality in blessed Angels and Saints for ever 1 Tim. 2. 5. The Divine and Creature-Son will remain a Mediator for ever in Heaven between infinite Divinity and elect Angels and
A Wakening Call OR An Alarm from Heaven TO THE Wise and Foolish Virgins WHEREIN The Vices of this Age is laid open and bewail'd the Subtilty of Satan discover'd in his Temptations in several Particulars I. As to Original Sin II. As to the Love of the World III. As to the Danger of Ignorance IV. As to the Evil of Pride c. Likewise There is discovered the Nature of Regeneration or the New Birth in several Particulars I. The Nature of Union to Christ. II. The Nature of True Faith III. The Nature of True Repentance IV. Christian Carriage commended V. The Glory of the New-Ierusalem Open'd From a Minister in the Country to a Minister in the City for the Publication A Verse may find him who a Sermon flys And turn Delight into a Sacrifice Herbert's Temple p. 1. LONDON Printed for the Author and Sold by Will. Marshall at the Bible in Newgate-street and Iohn Marshall at the Bible in Grace-Church-street MDCXCVIII CHAP. I. Concerning the purely Divine Nature and Things thereof 1. GOD in his Divine Nature was infinitely blessed in the Sight and Enjoyment of himself from all Eternity above and beyond all possibility of Addition or Diminution to his Blessedness by any thing meer Creatures Angels or Men good or bad can ever be think say or do to all Eternity yea even Creature-nature in the Mediator's wonderful compounded Person set up by the immediate Divine Hand though by unchangeable personal Union with the Divine Nature all one incomprehensible God adds not to the infinite Blessedness of the Divine Nature but was set up from the Beginning and possess'd by the Lord in the beginning of his Way towards the Creation of Angels and Men Prov. 8. 22 23. This was the Beginning of the Creation of God Revel 3. 14. Divine Nature had no Beginning The whole Creature-part in Christ's Person Root and exalted Branch adds not to the Glory of the Divine Nature but was set up in reference to the twofold Creation of Angels and Men natural and spiritual and as the Means to let down the Visions of the Divine Glory at second-hand with safety to the spiritual Sight Understanding and Enjoyment of blessed Angels and Men in their new-created Capacities 2. In the Divine Nature the Divine Essence and Form are the infinite Divine Father and Son The Divine Form Image or Glory of the Divine Essence is the Son thereof by eternal and ineffable Generation very God of very God in the most absolute Sense co-equal and co-eternal with the Father both are one Infinite Incomprehensible Divine Being But the Divine Essence is not the Form nor Form the Essence The Three distinct invisible Powers in the Divine Essence or Father did from all Eternity shine forth in the divine Form or Son to God's own infinite Understanding Enjoyment and Delight The same three are therein the immediate Object of Sight and Enjoyment to the whole Creature-part of the Mediator Root and exalted Branch as in unchangeable personal Union with the Divine Glory or Form in him but are never so to any meer Creatures blessed Angels or Saints to all Eternity in Heaven They can never so approach unto or see and enjoy the Divine Light or Glory immediately as he does 1 Tim. 6. 15 16. Mat. 11. 27. Iohn 1. 18. In with and through his heavenly Creature-Spirit as born of that which in him is God Iohn 1. 1. and therein Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. can and will they see and enjoy the Divine Glory mediately as let down to them by the exalted Creature-Son and Branch being Members of that spiritual Body his true Gospel Church to which he therein is Head Col. 1. 18. For this Purpose it pleas'd the Father or Divine Essence that even in the lowest Creature-part of the Mediator the exalted Son and Branch all Fulness should dwell all the divine and Creature-fulnesses and Perfections of his divine Form and Creature-root The Divine Essence singly and abstractedly consider'd in and by it self is absolutely invisible for ever nor will the Divine Form Glory Image or Visibility thereof and of the three that are one therein ever be the immediate Object of Sight and Enjoyment to any meer Creatures blessed Angels or Saints to all Eternity but only to the whole Creature-nature in Christ's Person Root and exalted Branch Never will any meer Creatures be found in personal Union with the Divine Nature as Creature-nature in Christ is They will never have Divine Nature an Ingredient into their personal Constitution or as the supream Principle of Life and Operation in them as some in our Days have most presumptuously and unwarrantably affirm'd for then would there be an innumerable Multitude of Christs and Gods the greater sort of Polytheism The Divine Form or Son is the Eternity the supream Heaven of Heavens the high and lofty Divine Essence or Father inhabited from all Eternity in distinction from the Creature-form Glory or Image thereof the high and holy Place or heavenly Creature-temple of immediate Divine Building Prov. 9. 1. in personal Union with the Divine inhabitant Isa. 57. 15. This heavenly Creature-Spirit House and Temple with the Life and Things of God therein was prepar'd by and within himself to be communicated in the distinct appointed Portions thereof to them that love him 1 Cor. 2. 9. because he first even from Eternity lov'd them 1 John 4. 19. These spiritual heavenly Creature-things of God communicable to Men and Angels by a new or second Creation are quite out of the reach or sight of the highest single natural Understanding of Man at best in the but restor'd first-Covenant-Law-life of the Creature given in the first Creation No intellectual Eye Ear or Heart therein can see hear perceive conceive receive own or know what to make of them Isa. 64.4 Hence does Man account them and all right Words about them Foolishness 1 Cor. 2. 9 14. Here 's the Case of Man at best in but the living Soul of the first Adam In the Life of the quickning Spirit of the second Adam and the new spiritual infallible all-discerning Understanding therein do Saints see and know all things divine and both spiritual and natural Creature-things in their proper Differences Distinctions Subordinations and Superiorities even the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10. And as they have an infallible Understanding to know all things they have also therein an incorruptible Will in unchangeable Harmony with the Infinite Divine Will for the doing all things after God's own Heart In his Heavenly Creature Spirit can any rightly worship his Divine Spirit John 4. 23. In it only can any rightly perform all Duties to God and to their Fellow-Creatures All these things lie hid from and are unpracticable by Man as out of the Reach of his own Understanding and desiring or performing Power of his own Will So will he not regard look or seek after God for the Life and things hid with Christ in God Rom. 3. 11.
Resurrection of Life and therein the right Exercise of their whole Beings Body Soul and Spirit in the incorruptible New-creation Order of all to Eternity Incorrigible Sinners also will receive their Bodies in a Resurrection of Damnation Iohn 5. 28 29. Saints in their glorified Bodies and whole personal Beings will be everlastingly blessed in the Enjoyment of God and incorrigible Sinners in their whole Beings most exquisitely sensible under God's everlasting Curse and unquenchable Wrath without any Hope or Possibility of mitigation or end of their Torments to an endless Eternity 'T is a most fearful thing thus to fall into the Hands of the living God to be dealt with in final Wrath and infinite revenging Justice Heb. 10. 31. without any Day's-man or Mediator to stand between them and such Wrath but instead thereof will he be their Accuser Witness and Pleader against them Judg and Condemner of them and the infallible irresistible Executor of his infinite and everlasting Wrath upon them All this will he do so easily as by the Word of his Mouth by which he made them With the Breath of his Lips will he slay the incorrigibly Wicked Isa. 11. 4. Satan with his Gog and Magog his innumerable Multitude of evil Angels and serpentine Seed of Men. His Breath like a stream of Brimstone will kindle his unquenchable Wrath upon them both and all as having rendred themselves fitted perpetual Fuel for it in the Tophet ordain'd of old the Lake of Fire and Brimstone prepar'd for the Devil and his Angels with their innumerable serpentine Seed of Men Isa. 30. 33. Rev. 20. 10. This will be the everlasting Condition of all Inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea in distinction from the Dwellers in Heaven who will have eternal Joy and Blessedness in the Sight and Enjoyment of God for evermore All that in this World take up their Rest and Dwelling in but the earthly Law-life and Righteousness of Man as needing nothing therein for true Blessedness Rev. 3.17 these Inhabitants of the Earth will with the Inhabitants of the Sea all that Party of Mankind that wallow in the miry Filths of literal Sodom foaming out their own Shame find their Portion in the same Lake of Fire and Brimstone in the Hell-part of the eternal World to come Rev. 12.12 Isa. 57. 20. Iude 13. Dwellers in Heaven that have their Conversation in Heaven Phil. 3. 20. Minds fix'd on things above the peculiar Delights of the Sons of God these only have true Joy in this World and continual Advantage by all God permits Devils and Men to do to them in their implacable Malice So they rejoice under all Trials and Injuries from evil Angels and Men Matth. 5. 11 12. Act. 5. 41. and Wo is denounc'd to all sorts of incorrigible Enemies of God and them to eternity after all their laughing and delusive Merriment in this short-liv'd World They 'l mourn and weep eternally Luk. 6. 24-26 Under Satan's Reign by his false Prophets and Apostles true New Ierusalem-Saints are counted the Filth of the World and Off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. Under Christ's Reign they 'l be a Praise in the Earth for which therefore Gospel-Angels and Saints continually pray and never keep silence Isa. 62. 6,7 This will Saints come to after a little time spent in this confounded mortal World under and amongst a Throng of innumerable Enemies evil Angels and Men. Come we now to consider what was ever possible to be done by Angels or Men in their First-creation earthly Life at best with reference to their finding eternal Life or scaping eternal Death The Death and Loss of all therein Life Wisdom Righteousness Works Fruits by Passive Obedience in Sacrifice to the Divine Will is undispensably necessary to the finding eternal Life the heavenly Creature-life of the Creator In the Methods of God's unquestionable Wisdom and Appointments of his declar'd undisputable Will this is the Way to eternal Life When any ask'd Christ what they must do to inherit or find eternal Life and confidently asserted all these things they had done in the restor'd righteous Life and Wisdom of their own Spirit in their own Will and Way his reply upon them and Counsel to them was Part with all this and follow me in the true Regeneration by Death and Resurrection out of the Death of the Creature into the Life of the Creator To this effect was Christ's constant Answer to such Enquirers And their constant rejecting such Counsel and departing from him sorrowful and amaz'd thereat we find in these Scriptures Matth. 19. 16-22 Mark 10. 17-22 Luk. 18. 18 -23. None can do the Divine Will of the Father but in the partaken of heavenly Creature-life and Will of the Son nor therefore enter into his Kingdom Mat. 7. 21. None but new Creatures can ever come there Gal. 5.6 6.15 2 Cor. 5. 16 17. In the restor'd Light of the First-creation by him that lighteth every Man that comes into this World Iohn 1. 9. ought all Heathens to walk and keep that kind of good Conscience that consists in a moral Obedience thereto as their Principle In the restor'd First-covenant Law-life ought Men to walk in such Obedience to that higher Knowledg of God as amounts to the legal good Conscience withstanding all brutish Lusts and sinful Desires of their sensual Life But all this done till the partaking of and experiencing the Life of the quickning Spirit of the Second Adam or a living spiritual Faith therein working by Love to God and walking therein so as to have the evangelical good Conscience we have nothing of that eternal Life in which only any can ever enter into the Kingdom of God Paul could truly declare to the Jewish Council that he had liv'd in all these three sorts of good Conscience before God successively one after another in Obedience to the Light of Nature Law and Gospel Act. 23.1 And he found his evangelical good Conscience by living and walking in Christ's Gospel-spirit Gal. 5. 25. to comprehend and unspeakably out-do all performable by any in the two former This indeed is the only right Performer of all Duty to God and our Fellow-creatures in God's Sight All First-covenant Life receiv'd by Angel or Man in their First-creation is figuratively character'd in Scripture by Flesh Grass a fading Flower call'd a vain Shew or vanishing Shadow all their natural Excellencies and Perfections therein all but a Glory to be done away in order to receive the heavenly Creature-life and Image of God in Christ with the eternal things of God therein the Wisdom and Righteousness of God Isa. 40. 6-8 1 Pet. 1. 24 25. 2 Cor. 3. 10 11. Satan with all his humane Disputers of this World in the Words of his and Man's Wisdom against God's and for their way of Salvation quite contrary to his Isa. 55. 8 9. God challenges in a holy Contempt of their vain Thoughts to produce their Cause bring forth their strong Reasons for self-defence
Counsel of God by him declar'd to them therein On this account he tells them they with their Fathers in the like Cainish Spirit of Enmity were guilty of the Blood of all God's true Prophets shed from the Foundation of the World from the Blood of Abel to that day Luke 11 49-51 And so will it be to the end of this World under Satan's permitted Reign and Man's Day under him of judging in Matters of Religion and Worship of God so as nothing must pass for Gospel but what Man pleases to give his Approbation to The Jews built the Sepulchres of the Prophets under pretence of paying Honour to them and owning their Counsel when with their Fathers Murderers of all such and in unchangeable Enmity to all their Words rightly understood If they had been in the days of their Fathers they say they would not have been Partakers with them in the Blood of the Prophets Mat. 23. 29-31 Under all these Pretences and self-deceiving Imaginations Christ declares them fix'd in the self-same murdering Mind of Enmity with their Fathers against all true Prophets and himself also as soon appear'd and therefore ask'd them how they could think to escape the Damnation of Hell ver 33. Since all such dealings of the Jews with their own true Prophets and Christ himself with his Apostles in the foretold long Antichristian Day now near ending how have unchangeable idolatrous Haters of Christ and his Gospel-Truths and Saints been found under the Name Christian building stately Churches or Temples to the Honour of Paul Peter Iohn c. who would as certainly murder them for their Gospel-Doctrine were they now here as others did even in the Primitive Apostolical Gospel-day Let Men under Satan interpret their Gospel-Writings in a Sutableness to their own Wills and so in a universal Contrariety to the Words of God's VVisdom in them and all 's well and they with the Apostles in the way to eternal Life and true Salvation All void of a true living spiritual Faith in Christ's Gospel-life working by Love to him therein are the unreasonable and incorrigible Adversaries of true Gospel-Saints Paul shews the like Figurative Significancy in Iacob and Esau Rom. 9 10-13 Esau mortally hated Iacob and God hated Esau. Esau's murdering Mind of Enmity to Iacob is express'd by himself Gen. 27. 41 42. The like is notified in all his murdering-minded Followers against God Christ and his true spiritual Iacobs Obad. v. 8-10 Amos 1. 11. CHAP. XVI Concerning meer Creaturality in Angels and Men in their first and also in their highest spiritual second New-Creation Capacities with some account of all possible to be done by any in their first and the differing Ends of all at last HAving already spoken of the ready prepar'd Hand the exalted Creature-Son and Branch in the Mediator's Person the living Word of God as qualified and fitted for a first and second creating of Angels and Men come we now to consider what they both and all amount unto for ever as but meer Creatures not only in their natural Beings and Life of the Creature given them by a first but also spiritual Beings and Life of the Creator given by a second Creation of them Angels were all created at first in their compleat Personalities invisible immortal Beings without any innate Capacity of or connatural Tendency to the exercise of a threefold Souly or Animalish Life rational sensual and vegetable in and by a fitly Organiz'd Body As for Mankind they do gradually descend from one another in a continued Succession Generation after Generation for a compleating their Personal Beings from the beginning to the ending of this mortal World What became of Angels good and bad by the first well-pleasing Passive Obedience of the former and first unpardonable Sin of the latter has been above-spoken to Chap. 4. of this Treatise Man inferiour to Angels in their single intuitive natural Understandings tho in the same kind of Mortal Earthly First-Covenant Life is in his compleated Personality a much more comprehensive Being than an Angel He is the most compleat shadowy Image of God on all accounts in the whole Natural Mortal First-Creation World visible or invisible This is signified concerning him in distinction from Angels and all other Creatures therein created before him in a readiness for his Entertainment Of none thereof is it said by God as of him Let us make Man in our Image after our Likeness Gen. 1.26 as the Compend or Epitome of all other Creatures and something more peculiar to himself the rational Exercise of his Mind in and by a Body found in no Creatures above or below him So find we a peculiar Consultation of the three that are one to draw an earthly shadowy Image and Representation of themselves in every individual Man This Enlargement of Man's Personal Being beyond Angels expos'd and rendred him liable to vain sinful Desires and Thoughts so as to wallow in Mire among Satan's Swine feeding on Husks the lowest Dust of this World below any Palate in any evil Angels to savour any Belly Desire or Appetite in them to lust after delight in or feed upon being never link'd with mortal Bodies or sensual Life Pleasures in common with brute Beasts So the Enlargement of Man's Being beyond Angels was a Diminution to his intuitive Understanding in common with them and to the Exercise of his Natural Will as exposing him to a running out in his Desires after the lower sort of Desirables in the vast heap of vanishing Shadows in the visible Parts of this First-creation World And evil Angels tho they care not for such things themselves have Power through God's most wise Permission to shoot their fiery Darts into Mens Spirits and kindle in them evil Lustings after such visible things in which they keep the far greater part of Mankind wallowing in Mire as their Swine far from any looking after God at all The Soul or threefold animalish souly-Life of Man distinct from his Spirit ceases as to exercise at the Death of his Body The Spirit then retreats to the full Experience and Exercise of its supream intuitive Way of discerning and converse with Angels good or bad in a spiritual Intuitiveness with the good Gospel-Angels or natural with the evil Law-Angels Lawyers from the beginning on their First Sin and Fall setting up the Law-life of the Creature given in the First-creation against the Gospel-life of their Creator offer'd by a Second and so their Lie against God's Truth The Devil was a Murderer from the Beginning John 8. 44. and his fix'd Law-party of Mankind in the restor'd Law-life-Wisdom and Righteousness of Man have been under him the irreconcileable Haters and Murderers of Christ himself and his Gospel-Saints all along this World At the Death of the Body Man good or evil is dead His Spirit is for a time strip'd of the threefold Souly-life as to exercise that are essential Ingredients into his personal Constitution At last Saints will recover their Bodies in a