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
Purgatory cleansing them from all Filth of Flesh and Spirit and God's way of bringing them into the never-sinning Life and everlasting Righteousness of his Spirit of Grace and Truth Man in his own Spirit Will and Way at best has no right Knowledg of the true God or God of this World the Devil or what the Heaven or Hell-part of the eternal World to come amount unto so on he goes in the delusive Pleasures of this Mortal World and Things thereof literal or mystical within the reach of his natural Understanding without any looking after God for his Spiritual Heavenly Eternal New-Covenant Life and Things without which 't is impossible to find the Salvation of Heaven or scape the Damnation of Hell The Death of Man's Spirit at best in but the restor'd first-Covenant Life of the Creature is the only way to find the Life of the Creator in the second The living Soul of the first Adam has nothing but what Death will swallow up into Victory The Life of the quickning Spirit of the second Adam will swallow up all Deaths into Victory 1. Cor. 15. 53 54. The deepest Reason and highest Wisdom of Man in a first-Covenant righteous Life is by Death and total loss thereof the only way to find all again by way of Resurrection the very Reason Wisdom and Righteousness of God in the quickning Spirit of the second Adam Paul obediently parted with all the former for the latter Phil. 3. 6-11 God challenges the Disputers of this World standing up with Confidence in defence of their own Reason and Wisdom to produce their strong Reasons against him and see what all will amount unto Isa. 41. 21. 'T is Man's true Interest and greatest Reason to give up his own Reason and Wisdom for God's Iob was a while at this disputing Trade of Man against God as Elihu charges him Iob 34. 35-37 At this work we find him under the Cross challenging the Almighty to answer his strong Reasons in Self-defence and for his Justification in the Life wherein he had been eminently righteous Iob 19. 6-11 30. 1-10 31.35 When Christ told any that enquir'd after eternal Life the parting with all they have or can do in their own Spirit was necessary to the finding Eternal Life in his away they went and walk'd no more with him Mat. 19. 16-22 Mark 10. 17-22 Luke 10. 25. 18. 18-23 Iohn 6. 66. All Words of Man's Wisdom are without any true Knowledg a darkening the Counsels of God's Wisdom as to Man 's eternal Concerns Iob that had been confident in the former acknowledg'd what God charg'd him with Iob 38. 1 2. when in the latter Iob 42.3 I utter'd that I understood not things too wonderful for me which I knew not so darken'd the Counsel of God by Words without Knowledg He that contends with and reproves the Almighty can he answer it Job 40. 2. CHAP. XV. The Mystery of Cain and Abel Ishmael and Isaac Esau and Jacob. CAin Ishmael and Esau were sad Types of all those that with them follow Satan's whole Counsel in his Mystery of Iniquity preferring the Law-life of the Creature in the first Creation to the Gospel-life of the Creator offer'd by a second Abel Isaac and Iacob were the joyful happy Types and Patterns in their Persons and Principles of those that follow obey and declare the whole Counsel of God in the Mystery and Power of Godliness for the Salvation of Men and preventing their Damnation All fix'd in the former under Satan unchangably hate and persecute the latter In their holy Flesh Righteousness of Man they fight against God's holy Gospel-spirit and Righteousness of God in true spiritual Saints There 's for a time something of the Cain Ishmael and Esau even in Saints not only fighting and warring against the true Abels Isaacs and Iacobs Paul's Case before his Gospel-Conversion Acts 26. 9-11 but also against the Gospel-Spirit and Principle of Life Desire Thought and Action in themselves after This also Paul experienc'd after an eminent Apostolical Gospel-Saint Rom. 7. 15 19. And he warns other Saints to expect the like Civil War and Contests within them between their fleshly and Christ's spiritual Mind in them till Nature in the thinking and desiring Powers thereof their own fallible Understandings and corruptible Wills therein be fully crucified and silenc'd in order to their living and walking in the undisturb'd infallible Understanding and incorruptible Will of Christ's Gospel-Spirit of Grace and Truth Gal. 5. 17. Till this War be over and Victory over the Carnal Mind of Nature at best compleated are Saints to be continually fighting the Battels of the Lord against the Foes of their own House or Hearts the most dangerous Enemies within them tho not more subtle and potent than Enemies without evil Angels and Men till they come to live and walk wholly in the Spirit of God their Gospel-Principle and mean while to strive continually more and more so to walk ver 25. As to Enemies without the highest Rank of Professors in but First-Covenant Principles fix'd there in the restor'd Law-Life and Righteousness of Man with Confidence therein for entring into the Kingdom of God these Cains Ishmaels and Esaus are the fiercest Persecutors of true Gospel-Saints in the partaken of Life of Christ's Heavenly Creature-Spirit of Grace and Truth and verily think they do God Service therein Isa. 66. 5. Iohn 16. 2. So thought Paul once Acts 26. 9-11 Paul singles out the particular History of Isaac and Ishmael in this Point Gal. 4. 22-31 Self-confident First-Covenant Ishmaels mock and scoff at true Spiritual Isaacs all along this World Gen. 21. 9. And even Abraham Father of the Faithful was griev'd and loth to part with his Ishmael ver 11. when Sarah as Figure of the New-Covenant Spirit requir'd it and God in Confirmation of her most just Desire and Advice requir'd the same v. 12. Iohn declares the same thing figur'd in Cain and Abel and in them the murdering Mind of Enmity in a fix'd self-confident first-Covenant visible People of God in holy Flesh Law-Righteousness of Man against an invisible People of God in their Gospel-Life and Righteousness hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 3. Cain slew his Brother because his own Works were evil and his Brother 's righteous 1 John 3. 12. He was of that wicked one born of and in unchangeable Union with the Devil in the first Creation and with him in unchangeable Enmity to God and true Saints in the second Cain's Works in the Law-life of the first in his own Law-Spirit of Works are in Man's Day of Judgment the only good and righteous Works and his Words of Man's Wisdom the only right Words for Salvation and all true Abel's Works and their Words of God's Wisdom in his New-Covenant Gospel-Spirit contemptible and blasphemous Christ himself found this murdering Mind of Cain in the most enlighten'd righteous professing first-Covenant teaching and professing Jews unchangeable Enmity to his Gospel-Spirit and whole
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