solitary a while as if she had left her Husband and her heart also behind her when she came down from Heaven and her cry all along even to the very end of all the Revelation is Come Lord Iesus Come quickly As if Christ were not with her on earth But the greatest stresse of the Argument may seem to be in this thaâ— God speaks nothing to us now but in and through his Son Our Prayers Praises sighs and groans if right are but reflections back of somewhat spoken to us spoken in us Which must therefore be through Christ and to Christ Immediately by His Spirit in us Which or who for that is the Scripture Language as he knows the mind of Christ and so of God in him and brings it into us So he toucheth our heart and makes it warble as the Heart of Christ did when God spake to Him and in Him to us And he whose Spirit it is that helps us by sighs and groans unutterable knows the meaning of his own Spirit For it is he that maketh intercession for us Yea and in us also so that all our breathings out to God are but his breathings by his Spirit in us And in this sence we may and do pray to the Father as Christ in us the hope of Glory prayeth to the Father of Glory so he is called and the Father of mercies as he is the Father of Christ who therefore is both Grace and Glory as the Psalmist expresseth him and yet still the onely begotten of the Father Let me add also that the Spirit in us crying Abba Father is the Spirit of God made Flesh or in actual Union with Humanity For else it calls not God its Father and in us it speaks its own Natural Language for it speaketh in us Praying Crying Abba Father Our Father For Christs Spirit speaketh boweth prayeth in us Hollowed be Thy Name let Thy Kingdom come for it is ours also And if God be glorified in us He will also glorifie Us with himself Yea he will straight way gloryfie us Let thy will be done in our Earth as in thy Heaven Even in thy Highest Heaven For in this Petition it is in The Heaven but in the preface it is in the Heavens even all the Heavens For Thy will is ours also and not only wiser but better for us also then our own will is till fully moulded into thy Will And then a poor Soul dare say forgive us even as we forgive We and not I but we as all the members together with the Spirit of the Head also and in his Person too which hath often made me hope he meant and had promised also for our Prayers or His in us are good Promises also to forgive more of his Enemies then it may be I ever thought or believed Which I cannot much wonder at when All his enemies must come to be at peace with him as his wayes please the Lord. And when the spirit also shall come to Act His Kingdom which it shall do in the Heart of His Spouse for the spirit the Bride shal abide and Act and shal stil Live together as they cryed together here I hope it will also forgive more then it may be all men now believe or hope Yet as the Soul should generally say and pray to Christ as the Apostles did Lord shew us the Father which is also his great promise to us and his Father also in his solemn prayer John 17. I have declared Thy Name and I will declare it that the Love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Yet there may be some seasons also in which a poor soul may think it self so great a stranger unto Christ or at such a distance from him that it may and doth cry to the Father Draw me to the Son shew me thy Son and acquaint me with thy Son for I am a stranger to him or at a losse in seeking Him And yet sure this is not very usual in a Woman or it may be handsom or civil for her to come to a strange man and say Pray Sir acquaint me with your Son that I may woe him But when the Good man hath first broken the matter in discourse to the Virgin soul and hath Invited and woed for the Son Then doth the Son come and is sent of the Father and woes the soul for himself and yet perhaps till the marriage be or at least the contract or betrothing It may sometimes not onely be fit but requisit to Treat with the Father also for settlement of state or other things But Then she goes and speaks and converseth with the Son when she is Married or at least betrothed which indeed is Most if not All that is yet done between Christ and our souls it may be the whole Church yet is no more but betrothed onely till the New Jerusalem Which yet in some measure doth come down and appear unto and in every poor soul betrothed unto Christ. For Jerusalem which is above is Mother to us all The good Sarah spouse to Abram The High Father as the name signifies before it was Abraham a Father of many rather then to Isack the Son who was not married till his Mother Sara was dead Though perhaps That was onely to the Gentile Church brought out of Syria a Gentile Land after Sara the Jewish Church was dead or gone But she must appear again and that out of Heaven also where the Woman first appeared as a great wonder in the person of the Wife of Jaacob as some think or Mother to the twelve Patriarchs presented there as in Josephs Dream also by twelve stars round about her But there is more in it seeing she was also in the Sun or clothed with His Light and Glory Having also the Moon at her Feet and a crown of twelve stars about her head of which we may speak more hereafter And when the Virgin is espoused then she begins to speak freely to Her spouse And I know not any more sure character of being so betrothed unto Christ then such a free converse with him as our friend our Brother Yea our neerer Relation And yet truly we do not receive His spirit but some glances onely through his eyes or mouth at a distance if we may so expresse it till we be actually married which is scarcely consummate in this Life though it may be also at the coming of the new Jerusalem So that all we speak or do of Praying or such manner of converse as is yet usual with Christ is in our way only Yet as betroathed rather than in our end or spiritual enjoyments of him in the marriage bed where only we shall fully receive his Spirit And those whom he sent as his Father sent him received it but as in his breath for he breathed on them saying Receive the Holy Ghost And afterwards also they received but the first fruits of the Spirit as themselves expressed it saying also it belonged
are by Thee Thou shalt not press him with Usury or be as an Userer to him nor any way Hard for if he Cry unto me I will Hear for I am Gratious and will God Hear when we cry of a man oppressing or pressing us and will he not hear us against the Devil also and our spiritual pressors or Oppressors seeing he Fxecutes Judgement for All that are Oppressed And His Word is as pure silver seven times refined from Earth sweetly applyed to this very thing If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray and in another place This Enemy is called a Brother which may shew us how far that Phrase of Brother or Neighbour reacheth even to an Enemy and One that Hateth us As also Christ sheweth us in his Parable of the good Samaritan and divers other places Where he tells us 't is â—a little Love to love a Friend or one that is like us or friendly to us Thankful and Kinde which even sinners and Hypocrites use to do in Their Love But his Children and Servants and himself also must love Enemies and such as hate backbite blasphem and offer all despite unkind and unthankful and all this that they may be like their Heavenly Father Who with love of delight and complacence loveth only himself and his own Image but with pitty and compassion which may be a better or a kinder kind of love he loveth and is kind and Merciful to his very enemies and those that are unlike him froward and unthankful Yea to their very Ox and Asses also even as the Law here bids in Exodus If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Asse going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If the see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen Thou shalt surely leave thy businesse or lay aside thy Garments to help him up or help with him Which may be improved much in our addresses to Christ. For we may justly tell him Our poor souls are as the very Asses of his Enemies and those that hate him nay yet worse as the wild Asses Colt as the Scripture expresseth it and that is more unserviceable then the Ox or Asse or other beast of burthen is I am Behemoth with thee as the psalmist expresseth it But though I stray yet Thou hast put thy self under That Law which bids us help a straying Beast and much more when he lies under an heavy Burthen under which he cannot stir much lesse come to Thee as thou callest All that are heavy laden Now sherefore shew thy pitty and compassion to the poor Asse or the poor soul the bruitish Heart of him that is thy Enemy and Hateth Thee And I know one that said He never received a more sweet and kind return from our Saviour then when in great anguish of spirit he bowed unto him crying onely This Now shew thy kindness to thy Poor Enemy the Kindnesse thou hast spoken of to a Poor Enemy which is now at thy foot and mercy whom thou hast taken captive with thy Sword and thy Bow and while I am speaking Thus I think also of That spoken by the Prophet to the King of Israel when he had so many of his Enemies at his Mercy in the midst of his great City Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them and the Prophet answered No by no means wilt thou smite them thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow give them to eat and drink and let them go and he prepared great provision for them and sent them away so overcome with this Kindnesse that they could hardly be drawn to come any more as Enemies against the King of Israel who was so Merciful a Prince And Mercy doth preserve and establish a Kings Throne more then any thing in the World as Solomon shews and David also in divers places and so it doth and still shall establish Christs Throne also Which is a white Throne even when he cometh to Judgement and Mercy shall still go before him and be the stability of his Throne and Kingdom and blessed be they that hear and know and believe that joyful sound which is sweeter then all the Trumpets or the Bells about the fringe of Aarons Garment Which yet had a better Ornament even that sweet perfume of the Good Oyntment a meek and quiet spirit as Saint Peter expresseth it and the Psalmist compareth it to Love which with God is of great value and it drencht his beard throughout even Aarons Beard which was yet but an Excrement and often to be cut away and ran down through all his Garments even to the seams and fringes also round about And as if God had not yet enough provided for the Poor through all the Laws in Exodus and Leviticus He repeateth and addeth in Deuteronomy Thou shalt not harden thy Heart or shut thy hand from thy Poor brother As if all shutting of hands came from Hardnesse of Heart and that This also was mainly or onely against a poor man But thou shalt open thy hand wide and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in That which he wanteth Beware there be not a word or thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of Release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him Nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be Sin unto Thee Thou shalt surely give him which before was lend him but at or near the year of Release it was a gift because to be forgiven then and Thy Heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him a most sweet Command and Promise because that for This thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in All thy Works and in All that thou puttest thy hand unto VVhich is the great promise to the Reading and Observing of the whole Law so that love and pitty to our poor Neighbour is rewarded as keeping of the whole Law As Daniel also to Nebuchadnezar even when the decree was made against him I councel thee to break off thy sins by justice and by shewing Pity to the poor And when the people asked John the Baptist What shall we do He said nothing but Pity the poor And so our Savior also to the wicked Pharisees Give Alms of all you have and All things shall be clean to you And lest All This might yet be too little or too narrow because it begun with a Poor Brother It concludes as general as well can be expressed Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy Brother to thy Poor and thy Needy in the Land Which Phrase is remembred to Christ several times in the Psalms crying Thy Poor and Thy Needy and forget not the Congregation of Thy Poor c. Where it is also Kite as the English sound the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Kite or Knite the Beast or Beasts of thy Poor As alluding to the Oxe or Ass or wild Asses Colt
witnesse Judges or Jury to Indict arreign condemn and execute this Malefactor but Himself and his own hands in his own bowels had not some over-ruling secret Power restrained him or prevented opportunities Which ere long yet might seem to be offered when he heard the sad doleful shreekings of his fellow passengers while All at once saw their hopes and ship broken together spliting on a scraggie Rock where they all bid adieu to themselves and Time Now lanching out as they all thought into the boundlesse Ocean of Eternity Wearied with expectance and pursuit of death which they feared and he wished as a little pauze to that Horror which he judged worse than Death rather then struggling for life he lay gasping on the top of a scrag somewhat higher then his fellows where those waves that had cast him up seemed to leave him a while as stepping back a little in regret rather then pitty that with greater and renewed force as he was like enough to fear they might return again to assault and afflict him In these hoping fears and strength enough to recollect so much of his bewildred reason as to think he yet lived though he knew not how or where a grave aged Person came or was rather sent from some higher power that had seen and pittied him it seems as having been a mournful spectator of that shipwreck After some real expressions of most cordial sympathy with his sad forlorn condition which came out in sighs and groans and Tears rather than words the grave Hermite for such he seemed carried rather then led him into his Cell which was hard by the place and in the same Rock where the proud swelling waves had been commanded so to leave him As he was preparing such repast as that distance from the World could afford he perceived such a meen and carriage with other characters in his wearied Guest as made him much guesse of his native Countrey and Education to which therefore he suited his Language as he judged likest to be understood by his Stranger Who yet replyed little but so many sighs and broken groans onely as with piercing looks might intimate he was very sensible of his goodnesse and compassion but that it could not avail him now since he was become the most wretched object of the Creators wrath and the whole Creations scorn and hatred There needed no more to melt the good Fathers heart and make his bowels yern over his Strangers soul and spirit more then before on his broken and distressed body Yet it was some comfort to discern such a sense of his sore and what it was For which also he was the better prepared by the like workings and sufferings in his own spirit which by many years experience of much affliction and sorrow had been taught to sympathize with all dejected spirits and to long much for their cure and healing To which therefore he now soon applied himself after some few questions onely to discover more clearly the breadth and depth of the wound that so he might more perfectly discern what Teincts Plaisters or other remedies were proper for his oure The poor Soul had very few words to answer any question not that he would not but he could not speak his grief and sorrows of a heart too full to vent it self in ought but Horror and amazement when a necessity of Breathing sometimes forced out such sighs and groans as otherwise were unutterable In those breathing pawses when he had not strength enough to weep more his eyes and spirit rather then words expressed such an ingenuous willingnesse to speak his heart without any reserve or such shinesse as is usual to strangers that the Father had no need to presse him to Confession which he waved rather seeing his poor Guest ready enough to pour out his soul when ever he could and in some things which he thought not meet to hear much lesse to presse him to All particulars which might occasion such Horror as was like enough to overwhelme his soul and body both so that he thought it very requisite to apply Cordials as soon as he might seeing him ready to faint and swoon away in his spirit almost every moment Here the Authour craveth pardon if he be forced to be more confused then becomes so great a Subject But the poor soul being then in great sorrow and confusion of spirit could not keep method in asking questions or returning answers or be clear in stating their discourse It being written also some pretty time after so that he cannot be punctual in saying this was first and this next His intent being matter and substance much rather then Manner or circumstance Nor must the Reader wonder if he sometimes find a long discourse of many things added together which came out by degrees at several times and occasions as their mutual discourse or dialogue invited or lead rather then drew them although one part of the Dialogue Questions and Objections be omitted now He is also desired to consider All things are better much in their Original or native dresse and Language then they well can be in a Translation and from such a Language as constraineth the Translator to conjecture that I say not divine at the Authours meaning in some places Where haply also a broken line and points may hint the Original there imperfect or somewhat wanting Which yet possibly might be supplied from some other copy which is not yet found and the characters of this in some places also scarce Legible Yet All things material and of consequence are as faithfully represented and expressed as they well may be from such a discourse as sighs and great pangs of sorrow and perhaps also some other causes make abrupt and broken more then is usual especially in the first Book which is therefore presented by way of Abstract rather then a literal Translation and as the Ancients did their Parables To all the poor soul said against it self it was replyed to this purpose All this may arise very much from mistakes of God and your self and although you cannot have too great and high thoughts of God in any thing yet you may have too great thoughts of your self in every thing yea in your very sins God hath made all our hearts so much alike that there is perhaps no great difference in Temptations Thoughts or Actions but what is common unto men And to think our selves better or worse then other men may be from Ignorance of our own and other mens heart which is general and special is so desparately evil and deceitful above all things that it may be worst when we think it best and it may be best when we judge it worst Yea it may be great Pride and no Humility to judge one self a greater sinner then others from conceit of having greater Light or Love then our neighbours have Or if you think you have more abused these though not more of these then others yet in this also you may be
it And our experience may shew us that some times we think to speak to God and we find our selves such strangers to him or at such a distance that we flie to Christ and cry Lord shew us the Father and Lord teach us to Pray as John taught his Disciples Yea and better too as Thou art a better Teacher At another time it may be we bow down and think to speak to Christ and then perhaps we find a damp upon our spirits unto him and some estrangement from him so that we flie to the Father and cry Good Father shew us Thy Son Draw us to thy Son yea draw us heartily that so we may know him more and better then ever for we are strangers to him And I have known some that usually began their prayers unto Christ or at least bowed their spirits silently to him before they spake to God and desired Christ both to help them expresse their own wants and then also present them to His Father Praying in them to His Father while they bowed in his spirit crying as he bad his children say Abba Father for all persons and for all things they ought or might pray for which perhaps are more then they are Tied to and so usually they concluded with the plainest sence rather than words of the Lords Prayer Which also seemeth to have been a more ancient custom in the Church than only of late when some discoursed only what they wanted or would beg of God Which yet I should not disallow if done with such an Heart and life and Power and Spirit as it may and yet I hope it will be done among the Churches of Christ. But I may sum up all in this the good Father by the Holy Ghost in his Ordinances first breaks the Match to the Virgin soul and shews her great want of an helper in her wretched and forlorn estate He tells her also he hath a Son who will use her kindly and tenderly if she will accept him Then he sends the Son a woer and till all be agreed for portion and joynture and other things the Treaty is much with the Father who also giveth assurance of his hearty consent to the match and to his making good all the Son shall promise and indeed is as it were his Sons surety to the poor soul. And when the Son is admitted yea and contracted he still useth his Fathers Name and bids the spouse be confident of all his Father ever promised And if there do arise any doubt or scruple in the matter or manner of contract dowrie or the like the soul hath not onely leave but most great encouragement to go and speak to the Father as also to reconcile any difference or strangenesse that at any time shall rise or seem to be between the parties But when they be married or espoused the Son useth her so sweetly and kindly that she never hath occasion much lesse cause to complain to the Father which yet she might freely do upon any cause but she is so wholly taken up with the spouses affection and most hearty love that her main converse and solace of her life is with Him Though she often ask her Father Blessing and very often bow to him with most child-like Reverence and dutiful Love rather then fear which if servile or slavish is exceeding much displeasing unto God and Jesus Christ and to the true genius of a Christian established with a free Noble Royal spirit Have we not a Type and Emblem of this or somewhat more in Caleb and his son and daughter Achsa Caleb As the Heart it signifies and may shadow out the Heart of God whom he wholly followed with an honest plain upright which in scripture Language is a perfect heart He saith who ever conquers Kiriath Sepher which may note the book of scripture which was also called Dehir that is the Oracle shall have my Daughter and my blessing with her Othniel conquers it and afterwards is made a Judge and saves his people from the cruel Tyrant and he getteth Calebs Daughter Who first moveth her Husband to ask a field of her Father and afterwards freeing her self from her Asse or bestial nature she boweth her self to her Father and asks him in her own person saying O my Father Thou hast given me a piece of Earth O but give me thy Blessing with it and a spring of Water So he gave her both the Upper and the Lower Springs An History so repeated in the Bible that I have often thought some great matter is in it Besides that it cleerly shews us the Heart of God such an infinite Fountain still flowing up and flowing over that he is so far from being drawn dry by our sucking or from being displeased at our Asking and Begging of him that he expects rather that all we have received from him even by his Sons Asking should but encourage us yet to ask more and more still as we receive more from him And when he hath given us a Field or a piece of Earth He expects we should ask his Blessing even the rather and the Springs of Water Even as our Father Abraham when God came to him after his great deliverance from the four great Kings which may be Types as their names import of the four great Monarchies that should captive his people and the good men of the world also till He should bring back their Captivity and the Captivity of Sodom also to be paralel'd with the 16. of Ezekiel just before the appearing of Melchizedech resembling Christ in his second Coming Pursuing them to Dan even to the great Judgment as the place imports And when God might so justly expect that Abraham should have been bowing down in great Thankfulness for That deliverance Abraham saies not a word of That but is Begging a new boon O the mans confidence and cries Lord God what wilt thou give me as if he had received nothing yet or at least very little in comparison of That he knew the Infinite Heart of God still had for him and was straitned till it was more drawn and sucked And the Mothers Breast is somtimes so full that she is glad of a strangers child to suck that which her own child cannot master And when it might have been expected of the Daughters of Zelophehad that the modesty of their Sex should have kept them silent or the shame or sorrow which they should have born for their father being cut off in the Wilderness and dying in his sin and they left Orphans and Virgins Yet they sue for their Inheritance And the Lord heard it and it pleased him so that upon this occasion he Enacted a new Law very beneficial to Women who had therefore much cause to remember and bless the memory of these Daughters And God was so far from upbraiding them or their father that he answers They have well done or well said and rightly too in what they say in that they do not judg themselves unworthy
every one of them I am the Lord thy God and upon this Rock I will build my whole Law and therefore thou shalt have no other God or make to thy self any Images c. For I am a jealous God which yet I could not be if I did not Love thee dearly as a spouse Or else I should not much care whither thou goest or what thou doest But for my great and spouse-like Love which maketh me so jealouse over thee But this very jealousy causeth such visiting as is most like to recover us again from all our wâ—oorish wanderings from the God of Love and the Guide of our youth And so intended by God to recover them so visited as we may clearly see by Elihues discourse unto Job and the Psalmist in the 107 th and many other Psalms to be compared with the 3 d. of Jeremy and the 2 d. of Hoseah with the first and second of Zechariah with divers other Scriptures And our great comfort is that all the Law also lay on Christ as much or more than any of us or all of us And besides his love to his own flesh and nature or to himself or his Father His very Duty to Him by this Law requires him so to love his God with all his Might also as to propagate his love to all he may and to manifest his Name and Worship with the true way and means thereof That is as the 72 d. Psalm expresseth to redeem our souls from all deceipt and violence or as Ezekiel hath it in the Laws of the New Temple to order a sacrifice for every one that erreth or is simple And the Psalmist saith He hath received gifts for Rebels also that the Lord may dwell among them Yea and to cast down all our vain Imaginations as Saint Paul expresseth it And though we strangely degenerate into very Beasts or to the worst of Beasts or worse than Beasts Yet the very same Law which biddeth us and Christ also to Love a Neighbour biddeth also to love a Stranger and an Enemie Yea and the very Oxe and Asse of an Enemie so as to help it under a Burthen or straying out of the way And is not our heart as Ishmael was foretold to be the wilde Asses Colt on which no man can sit till Christ send his Apostles as in the Gospel who finde it bound and tyed in a broad place where two waies met and They loose our Asses Colte and bring it to Christ who then rideth on it O daughter of Zion Meek and Lowly on an Asse the foal of an Asse And may we not find All this in the very fourth Commandement where every Man and so Jesus Christ also is bid to remember to keep the sabboth so that not only his Children but his servants and his Cattle and the Stranger in his Gate may Rest and keep that Rest of God That they may Rest as well as Thou as it is repeated in Deuteronomy And in the 23. of Exodus it is that thine Oxe and thy Ass may Rest and the Son of thy Handmaid to which the Psalmist may allude several times calling himself the Son of thy Handmaid And that the stranger also may be Refreshed The very same Phrase and word that is used by God of himself and his own Kest and Refreshing on That Sabbath day in the 31. of Exodus And our Saviour maketh the helping of an Oxe or Ass and their Loosing and leading to the Water to be a special work or duty of the Sabbath daies Rest. Which we may compare with that of the Prophet Esay He led them gently as an Horse in the Wilderness or as a Beast is led down a Valley or to a Brook So his spirit caused them to Rest. And in the Proverbs Agur saith I am more bruitish than any Man and the Psalmist so Bruitish was I yea Behemoth with thee as alluding to Behemoth in Job and That some render Congregation of thy People in several Psalms is Beasts or Thy Beasts As under Those Banners of four Beasts or Animals of which we read in Ezekiel and the Revelation Yea Solomon saith the great design of God that is Christ who as Man also is the great Searcher of hearts is to Try us and to make us know we are but Beasts She hem Behema Hemma lahem And that the Stranger also may be Refreshed Which is but a piece of that great Law in the very same chapter of Loving our Neighbor Thou shalt also love a Stranger as thou lovest thy self And in several places it is added For thou wast a stranger and thou knowest the heart of a stranger in Aegypt And the word for stranger in the Heb. is so neer to Hagar as if God would put them in mind of that Bond-woman who was an Aegyptian also and as Paul saith Gendered unto Bondage with a spirit of Fear which is another signification of its Root also And Gods Love to Hagar and to her son Ishmael that is God will Hear as he will appear also in the Mount may shew the Heart of God and his Goodness more than all his Kindness to Abraham who was Kind and Thankful unto God also And among other reasons for our Loving strangers it is added that God loveth Strangers and in a special manner provideth for them And it hath been an especial argument used by good men in all ages of the Bible For we are strangers and Pilgrims And when we consider that the Sabboth day did Typifie some greater Rest may it not be hoped that at length we may hear the Lord of that Day also saying to his children and his servants and the Sons of his handmaids also and his Cattel and the stranger also within his gates Come enter into your Masters Rest seeing it is greater than can enter into you For this Commandement I have received of my good Father Do we not also read that the Owles and the Dragons and the Beasts of the field and every thing that hath breath yea and All his Works shall praise the Lord but his Saints shall Bless him Do we not find Sabbatical Years â—nd Jubilees provided for the Poor and Strangers that had no Harvest and for the Beasts of the field and for the Earth also that it might Rest the Rest of God and that every one might return to his own Inheritance and the possession of his Fathers and why not also of our Father Adam in Innocence and that All Debts and Debtors might be remitted which it may be is minded us dayly in the Lords Prayer not only in That Clause of Forgiving our Debtors which yet He doth also for it is He that speaketh in us who else dirst not say Forgive us as we forgive but also in That Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on Earth as in the highest Heaven And He that set us All on Praying so knew very well that it should be so He hath willed it and his people will it also Let it be
It shall be so Amen For the whol Earth also must Rest and keep its Sabboth And not only the Land of Israel which was but as the First Fruits of the Earth and That had such a strict Command of observing Sabbatical Years that they must stay so many yeers in Babylon as the Land should have kept Sabboths by the Law while They were in it As we may find in that remarkable Discourse of God on Mount Sinai in the 25 26. of Leviticus which I have somtimes thought not only the Epitome of the whole Law but the Foundation of the Gospel also to be very often considered Yea and the Wilderness shall be as Lebanon and Carmel Yea Every Tree of the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce in praising God As we read in many places of the Psalms and Prophets Yea and the Gospel must be preached to every Creature under Heaven and the whole Creation longeth and travelleth for it is now made subject to Bondage but in Hope for it shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God For God is able even of stones to raise up sons to Abraham Whose seed must be as the Dust and more than all the stones of the Earth And we also can dayly Turn Plants and Beasts yea and Pearls and other stones also into our own selves and our spirits so as that they give us also a New spirit and refresh and joy our souls yea and the Heart of God also as Jotham saith in That remarkable Parable of the Trees choosing them a King How much easier is it for an Infinite God to Turn All these into himself and his own Image by his Spirit making All things New as they All came out first from him and must All return to him For of him and from him and To him are All things From the Throne of God and his Lamb when His Kingdom comes shall issue out Waters of Life Yea to the Sea also even the Dead Sea and they shall bring Healing with them And where ever the Waters come there shall be Life and Healing For the very Leaves of the Trees on the Banks of those Waters shall serve for Healing os the Nations even of the Gentile Nations And the VVilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the Desert shall rejoyce and blossom as the Rose It shall rejoyce abundantly with joy and singing The Glory of Lebanon shall be given to it The Excellency of Carmell and Sharon They shall see the glory of the Lord and the Excellency of our God Yea All the Earth shall Rest and Rejoyce and be full of the Glory of God as Waters fill up the Sea And Then the Lord shall be called the God of All the Earth and the Possessor of Earth as well as Heaven Which was the phrase used by Melchizedeck in blessing Abraham when he had pursued the four Monarchs or four Monarchies to Dan even to Judgment and brought back the Captivity of Sodom also of which we read in several places Although Sodom was so accursed and made a Perpetual Desolation that it is a Type of Hell or of the worst Judgments in all the Bible Yet even Sodom must return again and her Daughters And when our Lord Jesus Exulted in spirit as he saith Abraham did to see his Day he said I bless thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth even of the Earth also as of Heaven as alluding to that Blessing of Melchizedecks at the return of Sodoms Captivity And the Revelation tells us that when the seventh Angel sounded there was great Voyces or Joy in Heaven saying The Kingdoms of this world are become the Lords and His Christs and he shall reign for ever and ever And the twenty four Elders blessed God that yet at length he had taken to him his great Power and reigned and the Nations were Angry and thy Wrath is come and the time of the Dead that they should be Judged and that thou shouldest Reward Thy Saints c. and shouldest destroy them which destroy the Earth And Then the Temple of God was opened in Heaven c. Where before the twenty four Elders and the four Watchers also had blessed the Lamb that They should come even out of Heaven to Reign upon the Earth even upon the Earth As if the Earth should be the Centre also to All the Glory of God and that it should be more and greater on the Earth than it is in Heaven And yet it may be remembred that from the very first sin of Adam in Paradice the Earth was the Great that I say not the Only Object of the Curse of God The Serpent it self was not Absolutely Cursed but above all Cattel and above every Beast of the field And when the Earth shall be New moulded yet Dust shall be the Serpents meat as we read Esay 65. Adam must labor and sweat the Woman must be in subjection and bring forth in pain but not a word of Cursing them For God had loved them and Blessed them Yea and they shall be Blessed But the Ground is Cursed for Mans sake and in sorrow must he eat thereof All the daies of his life Yea it shall bring forth thorns and thistles and when Nothing else comes after Dews and Rain of Heaven It is nigh unto Cursing as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews And when the Cursed Earth had also drunk up the blood of Righteous Abel every word of our Savior is Remarkable Then Cain the Murderer as every One is that Hateth his brother was also Cursed from the Earth but not from Heaven that we read and yet a Sacrifice was provided and laid at his door for sin that he may have Dominion over it Though I shall not here dispute the Jews Tradition that Cain also was saved Or that the Earth it self was cursed as a Type of our Heart or somwhat in us more spiritual than our fleshly Heart which is a Metathesis of Earth as in Hebrew of Babel which is Lebab the Heart turned backward And an Heart turned back from God is but Babel Confusion As the Earth which the Lord cursed Bringing forth nothing but Thorns and Thistles yet its Conception is greatly multiplied and its sorrow But I must not here shew How our Body represents the whole World with its three Regions of Heaven above in our Head and the Earth below in our Heart with its Pericardium of Waters compassed with the Lungs as the Air separate by the Firmament of the Midriff from the Heaven above in the Head and the Waters under the Earth in the Bowels which in Heb are expressed by the same word with the Waves of the Sea whose Rowlings and Ebbings and flowings are much akin to the motion and yearnings of our Bowels And in Scripture the off-spring of our Bowels is compared to the Sand of the Sea and the gravel thereof As the Hebrew words for the Thoughts of
OLBIA THE NEW ILAND LATELY DISCOVERED With its Religion and Rites of Worship Laws Customs and Government Characters and Language With Education of their Children in their Sciences Arts and Manufactures with other things remarkable By a Christian Pilgrim driven by Tempest from Civita Vecchia or some other parts about Rome through the Straits into the ATLANTICK OCEAN The First Part. From the Original For Samuel Hartlib in Ax-yard Westminster and John Bartlet at the Guilt-Cup near Austins-Gate London and in Westminster-Hall 1660. The sum of this Discourse HAving lost his Father and other Relations about the great Sickness in Naples the Author becometh a sad disconsolate Pilgrim all alone by Land till unexpected dangers force him from Rome or there about to the Sea Where in a great Storm and Tempest he falleth into unexpressable Horror and Anguish of Minde till at length by Shipwrack losing all his Company he is cast on a scraggy Rock and There by a Religious Person as an Hermite entertained till recovering his Peace and strength with a quiet minde he also Learned the Religion Laws Customs Language and Characters of That New Iland fully described in the Books following this First Part. In which the Father discourseth the Danger of wrong Judgeing our selves or others with the way to a right understanding and Judgement the great Work of the Spirit promised to the World by Jesus Christ Who was sent to Redeem our souls from All Deceit and violence and to offer sacrifice for every one that Erreth and for him that is simple Cleered from Ezech. 45. 20. with Psal. 72. Of our Access and addresses to Him by Prayer As Saint Paul Learned from the first Martyr at his Death and thence made it the great Character of a Christian cleered from His Epistles and the Acts with the Revelation and other Scriptures in Harmony to the Psalms and Canticles Conversing with Christ and Praying to him From the 17. page to the 44. How Christ taught his Disciples and others to pray Our Father c. How He prayed to His Father and How a Christian to Christ and the Father in and through Christ. As Calebs Daughter to Her Father by her Husband and Her self Of Zelophehads Daughters and Edoms Widows and Orphans from Jer. 49. 11. from 44 page to 53. The great Arguments to be pressed on Christ as our Brother Born for a Day of sorrow made of a Woman made under the Law to Redeem them under the Law How the Law lay upon Christ as the great High Priest and Prophet promised to Moses to be raised from our Brethren and Like us in All things and so in the Law also And as our King to write out the Law by which he Ruled and to keep it all his Dayes that so he may do it and prolong his Dayes and Reign in the Heart of his People Where also the way to settle a perpetual Monarchy to a King and his Sons for Ever As God to Moses Joshuah David Solomon or others from 53. to 59. How the Suffering part of the Law lay upon Christ and sor whom but especially the Doing Part. How All was by himself summed up into Love and that but little if onely to Persons Lovely and Loving again How God Commended his Love to the worst of men to whom the Law it self saith I am the Lord Thy God and I have Redeemed Thee and therefore thou shalt Love me and worship me and Glorifie my Name and keep my Rest because I have provided it for Thee and Do and will both Love Honour and Glorifie Thee from 59. to 64. and 94. to 101. How Gods Jealousie speaketh his Love and all his Visiting from 64 to 70 How God Threatned Adam in Paradice and how he visits to fulfil those Threatnings on Him or others from 70 to 77. How much better for us that infinite Goodness and Riches now fill a Finite Nature that longeth to be sucked as a Breast ready to break with fulnes still flowing up still flowing over and a Drop that runneth over can Enrich our Souls and make us ever Bless him who hath said It is a more blessed thing to Give than to receive And He that hath received freely must give freely Of his having All Power in Heaven and Earth being the Wisdome and Power of God and Better for himself to use it for Edification rather than Destruction from 77 to 81. How Christ Loved the World and Prayed for the World how not from 81 to 86. 94 to 101. Of Gods Hating Cursing in order to a Change and how Places or Persons Hated or Cursed may be Recovered Blessed from 85 to 149. 161 308. Of the Earth cursed for Man but Washed or Baptised by the Flood And of Baptising Children how Holy things of old belonged to every one redeemed by the Priests or born in their Families 18 120 186 365. How cursed Canaan was blessed again 122 c. And cursed Jericho Recovered 128 129. And Gibbeon And Aye And Sodom Moab and Ammon Edom and Amaleck of Esau. Egypt and Assyria with the Philistines Of Death and Hell in Saul conquered by Love in David bound up for 1000 Years As coming loose again in Saul of the same Tribe struck down as with Lightning and Named Paul after Sergius Paulus that Prudent Roman Deputy Of Shimei Cursing David or other Shimeis and of Judas and Pauls rising in the House of Judas Of Aeneas Ananias and Saphira Tabitha Dorcas or others Recovered by the Apostles Of Christs Love to his Father and duty by the Law requiring him to propagate his Fathers Love with all his might and manifest his Name and True Worship to bring in all his Children servants sons of his handmaids Strangers and Cattle also to keep the Sabbath to Rest the Rest of God from 100 to 117. 141. Of the Law of Redemption Laid upon Christ as the Kinsman that is able and hath Power and Riches in his Hand and a Tender Heart and Eye when he doth but see the naked and miserable that hath No Helper though they cannot weep it out to him or do not see him who will not hide himself from his own flesh when their Land or Person but especially their pretious and immortal Soul is Sold or pawned or mortgaged or forfaited How he hath promised to draw All men to him and to make All things new 56. 107. 124. to 163. How a man may put himself out of Christs Neighbourhood by degenerating from a Man to a Beast and of Worshipping the Beast receiving the Name Character Image or Number of the Beast Serpent or Dragon and how all the World worship the Beast but those that are written in the Lambs Book of Life How God with all his goodness knoweth how to punish the wicked but especially those that walk in Lust of the flesh and speak Evil of Dignities the sin of Corah c. the crying sins of the last dayes and how there was no sacrifice for
wilful sinners Of the patience of Christ to a man turning into a Beast and how he deviseth Devises to prevent it or recover him How he fulfilled the Ceremonial Law also and how he was in all the Sacrifices as a Lamb for the Lambs and as a Goat for the Goats Of Benjamin the Son of the right hand with other Children of Rachel a sheep in Hebrew at his right Hand and of the Children of Leah or others at the Left Hand where also of Seir a Goat and of the Goats offered at the New Moons solemn Feasts c. and of the Rams of Ishmael accepted on the Holy Alter Of Gods face in Scripture toward the East and of Bowing to the East and of his Right Hand to the South and Left to the North and of Northern Judgments turned to Mercies and Blessings and of great and good things to come out of the North in the Latter times of the World as from Babylon at the return from Captivity How Christ came in the fulness of time Of Seven Ten the full Rich Numbers of their Powers Compounds for Ages Ever or eternity which yet in Scripture oft hath such or such an End or Revolution in such or such Generations How Christ came out in several Ages and Persons of Note in the Bible to do the Great things of Gods Power Wisdome and Goodness for Man To Man and in Man through all the Times and Seasons of the Scripture and in special the Times of the Witnesses In Heaven the Father and the Word Dabar Bar Bara Creating Heaven and Earth where also the Spirit of the Messiah as the old Jews call it on Gen. 1. 2. Mooving on the Waters an other Witness and parting them by A Dam and Adam of Adama dryed Red Earth akin to Dam in Hebrew Bload the other Witness John 5. and Acts 17. Of one Blood he made all Nations of men and determined the Times appointed and bounds of their Habitations which in parting the sons of Adam he bounded according to the Number of the Sons of Israel Deu. 32. which were 12. and to be measured by the 12 Hours of Day and Night Shadowed on the Tabernacle by the Cloud Pillar of Fire for Light that Beginning of the Creation and works of God and in its outer Court by the Laver of Water and Blood on the Alter of Witness as That called Ed a Witness by the waters also of Jordan where afterward the Baptist heard or saw all the Witnesses of Heaven and Earth to which he bare Record or was made a witness also as divers other in several Ages And All the 7 Washings or Sprinklings of Blood or Water so often required in the Law to represent the 7 Nights and 7 Dayes of the Week As the 7 Lamps in the inner Court or Holy Place as the visible Heavens with its Planets about the Sun in the midst as the greatest Lamp was in the middle of the other 6 or 3 on either side by the 12 Cakes of Shewbread changed every 7th or Sabbath day and made of 24 Omers out of 24 Seahs as the Jewes 24th of Leviticus for the 24 hours of Day and Night Made by the Sun mooving 2 of His Diameters the Moon 24 of Hers in each diurnal motion of 24 Hours parted into 4 great Watches as the 24 Elders in the Revelation had also 4 watchers with 6 wings a piece as in the Prophets And in the Temple also there were 24 courses of Priests and of Levites 24 of Porters and 24 of Singers and 24 courses of Standers or men of the Station representing all the People or 12 Tribes as in the 12 Cakes of 24 as 12 Sons of Jacob or 12 Hours of Light came after the 12 hours of Darkness or 12 Sons of Ishmael or Esau for the 24. Elders And as God gave 24 things to the Priests so they gave 24 to him in their dayly Minha of 12 Rouls at morning and 12 also at Evening And the Seventh in Hours also is very Signal as in Days and Moneths and years by the great Rest and Turn of Sun and Moon as Water and Blood also in the Sea and bodies of Animals after every six hours with Them and All that accounted Lilith that is Night the first Wife to Adam and do call her Eve or Even to the Day As it is to them that are about the Aequator and to All at either Aequinox when Time seemeth to begin And beginning at Sun-set as the Jewes and many other Nations did the First six Hours brought down the Sun to the Midnight Nadir and six more brought it up to the Morning Horizon and six more to the Noon or Zenith and six more to Setting again So that every seventh Hour made a Pauz and Turn And Sabbath is Both in Hebrew As if the watchers stood at the four Corners of Earth or quarters of the Heaven which are called Winds and Spirits also in the Scripture alluding perhaps to the four watching Spirits or Angels to Turn the Sun and Moon or Hour-glass of Waters or Clepsydra in the Seas c. After every six Hours of Day and Night the walks of the Sun and Moon but shadows of the good things within the Vaile or 3d Heaven where the 2 Cherubins of Glory shadowed the Mercy Seat or Heavenly Throne over the Earth or Ark of the Testimony also or Witnes with its 2 Tables or Testaments also For the 2d Covenant as in 29 of Deuteronomy was both Law and Gospel also written in the Ark of the Heart of Christ and all his Members after the first Tables of Stone were broken and disanulled being never put in the Ark or in our Hearts For know you not that your Bodies are the Temple of God As Paul speaketh to the Gentiles also Where our Heads as the Heavens above with two Eyes or Cherubins of Glory The Mercy seat or Throne of God and his Rainbow as in all the Scriptures like our Eye And our Heart Or Altar of Incense As the Earth beneath in the middle Court or 2d Region with its Pericardium of Water and Blood in the Pleura with twelve Ribs on either side and seven distinct from the other Nothi As also the seven Rackets of the neck with its spirit or spinal marrow from the Cerebellum As the Brain hath also seven spirits or pair of Nerves with Animal spirits Veyles and Ventricles which are shadowed in the Lower Regions both of the Earth below in the Heart and Waters under the Earth in our Bowels where the Duodenum and Ilea with all the Rest are but shadowes of things above As of the Laver or Molten sea or great Ocean with its Ebbings and flowings as the Earning of our Bowels and the Altar of Burnt-offerings in our Stomack with its heat or fire never quenched and the seven Planets with the Firmament of the Midrif parting between the Bowels or Waters under it and those above it as high as the Brain
fulness of Christ. And concludes that Epistle Peace be to the Brethren and Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Grace be with All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen So to the Philippians every where Especially in that famous place of Bowing in the Name of Jesus paralel to that of the Psalm Early will I seek thee and ever will I bless thee and lift up my hands as here bow the knee in thy Name when I pray I will pray in thy Name and confesse to the glory of God which Christ challengeth to himself in the Prophet Isaiah and at conclusion The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And in the Epistle to the Colossions For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and having made Peace by the blood of his cross by him to reconcile All things unto Himself by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Which to the Ephesians is according to the good pleasure of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather All into One in Christ All things in Heaven or Earth even in him And to the Thessalonians Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in Love to One another and to all men even as we to you that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God And again That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Iesus Christ. And again Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us for the Father is Love and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and patience of Christ. Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother walking disorderly yet count him not an enemy but admonish him as a brother Now the God of Peace himself give you Peace alwayes by all means The Lord be with you All. The salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen And it may also be observed that what we read be with you might be read is with you and so it is not onely a prayer but a promise and assurance that the grace of Christ is with All calling on Christ and so believing on him for how can they call on him on whom they believe not And Timothy This is a faithful saying and worthy of All Acceâ—ation as much or more then all the Mazoreth or Kabâ— that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Now unto the King Immortal Eternal Invisible the onely wise God which Jude also calleth Our Saviour speaking in the language of this very Text be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Which he subjoyns on this Great Cause I obtained Mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a patern to them even to all them that should hereafter believe on him to Eternal life So that Christ did not mainly mind Paul in shewing him that patience and kindnesse but did it to Him that he might be a patern unto others even unto all others that should ever after believe even to all Eternity And to the same Timothy he writeth Flee also fleshly lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart And concludes the Lord Iesus Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you Amen The great businesse of St. Peters Epistle is to presse forward in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so he concludes Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Which also runs very much through the whole Epistle The Revelation of Jesus Christ wch God gave to him to shew to his servants is ful of prayers praises blessings of and from and to the same Jesus Who so plainly calling himself the first and the last which is and was and is to come the great Iehovah Lord God Almighty leads us plainly to the paralel places in the Prophet Isaiah where he saith the same of himself adding also that there is no other God or indeed no other True Being besides himself Representing himself in several species or Idea's For Plato was not the first that taught there was but One which yet was All. And yet again in the same chapter of that Prophet he saith Lo here I am and His spirit hath sent me even the Lord God and His Spirit though I am God and there is none besides me or none else but I and in me and One with me as the Root and every Branch is One with the Vine And in the same Prophet It is this One True God the First and the last and so All True Being which yet is sent by God and anointed by his Spirit and so the Messias or-Jesus Christ which plainly sweareth by Himself and therefore hath no greater that every knee shall bow or pray to Him and every tongue shall confess to Him which the Apostle citeth in that noted place of praying in the Name of Jesus and confessing to the glory of God even the Father also And may we add or may we not add what Christ of himself said If God be glorified in Him or in Them will not God also glorifie Him or Them with Himself Yea he will shortly do it nay he hath already done it before any other can glorifie Him for who can give him first or lend to him that it may be paid again To this also we might refer those passages of holding fast his Name and not denying his Name and confessing his Name as he will also confesse their names before his Father and the holy Angels both in the Gospels and Revelation and the call and Counsel of Christ as also the Fathers Drawing being that we come to Christ and learn of Him and buy of Him and open to Him that is still knocking to come in till his locks be wet with dew and his spirit be not onely abused but dispised and blasphemed argue much our speaking praying to him as well as hearing him who indeed is the end of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings so that he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh wil come to Jesus Christ and converseth with him as a man with his friend whom he most loveth and honoureth also And the Angels of Heaven for they are all bid to worship him as we
wherewith he loved him might be in us and he in us also which is the great thing he promised and prayed for that All that did and shall believe in him through all ages might be One with Him He that is joyned to the Lord is One spirit with him and know you not that Christ is in you and the hope of glory in you also except you be Reprobates and that they might be made perfect in One They in Him and He in them For if they be In him onely they may bear little fruit except he also be In them as the sap of the Root is in the Branch or the spirit of the Head is in every member of the body knit together by bands or nerves receiving nourishment from the Head yet so also that every joynt supplies to one another so blessed a thing it is to be in union with Christ Jesus our Head and in communion of Saints and fellowship with them as his Members and fellow Members to each other So that as the eye may not say to the hand I have no need of thee so neither may the Head say a very sweet scripture to the foot or least toe of the foot I have no need of you For he doth not onely take care of the least pin of the Tabernacle but indeed is made up of a multitude of differing Members for if they did not differ they were All One and the whole Body were but One Member and as in all our bodies one part is Hot another cold One Hard another soft one puls up another down and so it must be and yet most accurate Harmony in All parts and in the whole So is it and so must it be with the Body of Christ the fulnesse of Him a most remarkable expression that filleth All in All and yet they are All in Him and His Body and have all His Mind and spirit flowing acting and abiding in them even the same spirit which is in the Head but in several and differing measures and proportions to several ends and uses as in all the differing Organs and Members of our Bodies For All are not eyes or ears or hands or feet and yet All are Members And as it is natural to the spirit that is now in any of our members on the least touch of fear or other passion presently to run to the Head or Heart as its fountain and thence soon to bring out new supply of more spirits as occasion is whence we first look pale in our passions and then quickly redder then before so in the Body of Christ any little Touch upon any of his members makes the spirit of that Member presently run to the Head which is chief or to the very heart of God the Root of the matter in him also and soon returns with a Legion of Angels as a stock of new spirits or it may be with Christ himself calling as to Saul when he pinched some of his little fingers and toes or other parts of his body Saul Saul why dost thou pinch or persecute me Even me the Head or Heart of all these Members and the whole Body for if any one member be pressed or hurt the Head and all the Body is grieved or pressed also And why do you press me saith Christ for in all their affliction he is afflicted And certainly it is not more Natural for the Spirit of the Body or any one Member of it to run up to the Brain or Head then it is for the Spirit of Christ and those that have received it upon all occasions yea alwayes to be breathing to God in Christ Yea to Jesus Christ himself the head of the Body And through him onely to God the Father that is the whole Deity who is the head of Christ also As Christ is the Head of his Members Yea as St. Paul saith the Head of every man and the Church is his Glory also as his Fulness even as the Woman is the glory of the man and man is the Image and glory of God So is the Church and special Members or Messengers of it as Titus was the Glory of Christ. So also Christ speaketh in the Prophets I will place Salvation in Zion for Israel my glory And again Thou shalt also be a Krown of glory in the hand of the Lord and as a Royal Diadem in the hand of thy God Thou shalt be no more termed forsaken but Hephzibah Which also was the very Name of Hezekiahs Queen living about that time And again that they might be unto me as a People and a Name and a Praise and a Glory And although they then rejected that great honour offered them yet it must be and shall be For God hath said it and ordained it The skies shall power down Righteousnesse and the Earth shall open and they shall bring forth Salvation And again I will build them as at first and I will cleanse them from all Iniquity and I will pardon all their Transgressions And it shall be to me not onely a name of Joy But a Praise and Honour or Glory before all the Nations of the Earth Should not a Spouse converse with her Husband Or should she be runing to his Father rather or Himself in all her wants or desires And yet his Father also will hear and Answer For he that speaks to the Son speaketh to the Father also And the Son speaketh nothing of Himself but as the Father speaketh And That surely is one great Reason why we should speak to Christ Immediately to Christ and to God onely through Him As of old they might not offer up their own sacrifice but by the hand of the Priest So now he is our Priest our High Priest also to receive all the Vials of Insence even from the Elders who are Priests also but the High Priest as the great Angel of the Covenant offers up the Prayers of All Saints And we should bring them all to him and desire him to present them with all our wants and all our returns also of praise and service unto him And this seemeth clearly the sence of those Scriptures that bid us offer all we offer unto God not only in his Name but also Through Him presenting them to Him that he may present them to the Father And our Immediate coming to the Father while we say 't is through Christ though it may be lawful also in its season if rightly understood Yet surely may be fitter for that time when the Son also shall give up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be All in All. Though it may be Then our Prayers shall cease Or be turned to Praises or Embracings as also with the Spouse when she is not onely betrothed as now but maried also to Christ as she shall be As the Revelation also represents her when the New Ierusalem comes down from Heaven as a Bride decked for her Husband And yet Then also which I have a little wondered at She seems to be
unto all the Lord should call For it was then but the Feast of Pentecost or fiftieth Day of first Fruits and that but of Barley O but now we wait and hope and expect the Feast of Tabernacles also and the latter Rain as the former little drops even the greatest Feast of Tabernacles which all Nations also must keep with Israel when they shall joy as at Harvest even at the end of full Harvest when all the fruits of the Earth shall be gathered in and all Nations also shall come flowing in as the fruits of all the Earth in that solemn Feast Which was acted also in a Type as we may say of somwhat to come when in the last and great day of the many Feasts of that great Feast of all the Feast of Tabernacles Christ stood out and cryed as the Gospel saith O every one that thirsteth come unto the Waters and he that believeth on me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water as alluding both to their custom of drawing and powring out Waters from Siloam with joy from the wells of Salvation and also to the most remarkable place in Zech where all Nations are invited to that Feast that they might have Water and the Rain of Heaven And it may be he that can rightly count the time between the Feast of Pentecost and Tabernacles may guess also when that latter Rain or fuller powring out of the Spirit shall be Which in general was in the seventh Month yet by another reckoning at the end of the yeer as the seventh Day was the end of the week Even as Gods appearings and Angels also were generally towards the end of the day or about the evening Sacrifice which is one of many Reasons why I think the Lords Supper was and now should also be at Supper or at Evening rather then Morning And to all yet said to perswade us in our prayers to direct our hearts and words to Christ and to God only as he is in Christ as of old in the Tabernacle between the Cherubims of Glory over-shadowing the Mercy Seat covering the Ark I may add That Prayer is a Dialogue between our Soul and God indited by the Spirit of Christ which differeth from the Spirit of God as being That cloathed with flesh and actually united to a Humane Spirit which the Spirit of God as God or of the Father as such is not Which distinction it may be St. John observeth by the Holy Ghost in Heaven One with the Word and Father and by the Spirit on Earth or in the fleshly Members of Christ. Now as Christ in the daies of his flesh did offer up strong sighs and groans and tears and prayers yea and himself also by his eternal Spirit unto him that was able to save him and was heard in all he feared or prayed So doth he now by the same Spirit in the hearts or flesh of his Members which are here on Earth Yet so as all those Members give up their Spirit to their Head As the Elders also in the Revelation present their Vials full of Prayers of Saints to the Lamb and he as the great Angel of the Covenant mingles them with his dayly Incense in his Temple and presents them all even all the Prayers of all Saints to his God and his Father and their Father in and through him They all being indeed but his own sighs and groans or motions of his own Spirit in his Members That we may yet more cleerly understand this let us first consider how Christ prayed to his Father and then how the Christian prayeth unto Christ or to his Father through Christ. As the Apostle saith God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself so in a right sence I may say God was in Christ Praying or speaking to himself even as our Soul communes with it self or as a man communes with his own Heart a Phrase we find in the Psalms or other places of Scripture and we may use it to illustrate This. For which also I may cite that notable passage of our Saviour which I somtime look upon as one of the Keys to open and discover the rich but hidden Cabinet of the Mysterious Scripture where he doth so plainly tell us that he never said one word of himself and yet he said all that was ever said by God for he is the only Word and Mouth of God and in the Prophet Esay he tells us plainly that he said all that was ever spoken and yet now he tells us that he never spake one word of that is From Himself or of his own but of and from his Father and what He said yea and As He spake it unto Him so he repeated it Being as it seems but Gods Holy Echo to repeat those Words and only Those his Father speaketh of himself and in himself and to himself As if Christ also compared with God were such an Infant that he could not speak one sentence word sillable or letter but as God sounded it before him and In him and To him and so He only Ecchoed back some little part it may be as the latter end or loudest part of that Infinite Discourse the Father had and hath to Him from all Eternity to al Eternity Thus when God saith in and to Christ My Son Give me thy Heart Christ then as it were ruminating or repeating in himself what the Father saith He Ecchoes back Give me Thy Heart And so it sounds as a Prayer To Bow down He cries Bow down To Seek my Face Seek my Face And at length his Spirit cries in his Members also Thy Face I will seek Lord Hide not thy Face from me So that the Head only properly speaketh in Prayer but His Members draw also by the spirit of the Head resting and sighing In Them Thus we have seen a tender Mother or a Father Teaching their children to speak and do and go by speaking To them in them as it were and going bowing kissing their hand and Doing All before them and as much as they can in them That they would have them to Do and say Bow down They say and kiss your Hand and say I am your servant or the like by doing and by saying what they mean their child should do or say And then he stammers after them and after many Essaies comes at length to stumble on that gesture posture carriage word or work the Parents have been often Teaching Him or speaking In him For one may speak his heart out to a child or other person who will never learn and Do till he have the Fathers or the Teachers spirit or his meaning and his Meen by accent gesture or some other way rather than by word only impressed on him So that we see our children and such as are acquainted with our spirit can discern and understand our minde by becks or nods or looks or otherwise somtimes without words and somtimes directly against our words and quite
and clean contrary to our words As when we say O well done perhaps they know we mean Ill done and when we say now fall or go do so or so they understand we mean they should not fall or do so and many other things we speak by way of tempting or of Irony or otherwise directly contrary to our words It being Thus also in the Scriptures where oft times the sence might be gathered by accents stops or pauses with the signs of questions parenthesis and Ironies with many other things which are now very hard to understand especially in the old Testament This is one of the many reasons why we cannot pretend to the full or True sence and meaning of the Scriptures without That Spirit which did make them and interpret them as Christ pleased to give out through all the several Ages of his Church Which yet possibly might differ as the sence and understanding of an Infant or Minor differs much from That of a Man a Wise Man who now sees another sence and meaning of his Fathers words spoken or written long since than he once did or could do by many readings And this differing sence and understanding even in Principles may somtimes occasion or cause different Practice also among good men and children of the same Father in the same or several Ages Which we might observe from the difference of Judgment and Practice that I say not Affection found among the Apostles themselves and the most primitive Christians about the good Will of God to the Gentiles and about the Law and Circumcision that I say nothing of the Nature and Office of the Holy Ghost or of Christ himself in Person Natures Offices the manner and the Vertue of his Death and Resurrection with the Form of his Government and Kingdom with his Coming again and Judgment which are so cleerly written in the old Testament and yet so little understood by Them or Us either even to This day And as the Spirit of God in Christ doth say and do all that Christ saieth prayeth worketh so also doth the Spirit of Christ in his Members so that every one of them may truly say I cannot speak or pray or do any one thing pleasing to God or my self if I know my self but what the Spirit of Christ my Head and Father also as my Spouse saieth prayeth doeth in me I do nothing of my self and I say nothing of my self but what my Fathers Spirit worketh speaketh in me What and How he saith in me I say and what he doth I do My Father worketh hitherto and I work but my Father worketh what I work And This takes me off from solicitous Care what to say or do as well as what to eat and drink because it is given in that hour by our Fathers Spirit For Without me saith Christ you can do nothing and by Him we may both do and bear and suffer All things All our Fruit is found in Him whose Dew is as the dew of Herbs As the Dew of the morning from the Womb of Eternity Now as the spirit of God never comes on us or speaks in us or to us Immediately as from the Father to his Onely begotten Son but only mediately through Christ who is the Mouth and Word of God which may be one character to try the spirit in some these dayes that pretend to immediate voices from the Father concerning His Son Jesus whereas God speaketh not to us but through his son Jesus So when we speak to God we do not may not yet speak to him Immediately but through Christ and to Christ that He may speak it unto God his Father Even as God speaks to Christ and sent him a new Revelation after his Ascension that he might speak and give it to his Members As I cannot speak Immediately to the soul or spirit of a man though he be with me but through his ear or eye or somewhat of his outward man or body So I yet cannot may not speak to God but through his outward man if I may so speak of Jesus Christ and yet I speak to a mans ear or eye or outer man that it may reach also to his heart and soul or spirit and may affect that also And so I speak to Christ also as the Outward Man of God that yet it may affect his heart the very heart of God his Father who is in him And I tell him that I do no so worship him or pray to him or trust in him as a Man only or mainly for I am forbidden to put my trust in any man or in the Son of Man himself as Man onely but as he hath God in him and the Heart of God in his heart Yea is One with God his Father and so One that there is no other God besides him as himself often speaketh in the Prophets where he also calleth himself the first and the last as in the Revelation and the onely True God and so he is called the Onely Wise God our Saviour He is so perfectly One with the Father that when we see him we see the Father also and we pray to the Father when we pray to him who is the everlasting Father or the Father of Eternitie or World to come as some translate the Prophet Isay. So that we may say to him Our Father let Thy Name be glorified and Thy Kingdom come for it is the Fathers also And it may be marked that Our Saviour taught that Prayer Twice first to the Multitude in his sermon on the Mount and 't is no little comfort for them All to see their leave or Right to cry Our heavenly Father Afterwards alone and praying some or one of his Disciples came and said Lord teach us to pray for Thou hast Told us a Prayer before but now we pray thee Teach us to pray even as John taught his Disciples Then he said When you pray say Our Father c. much as before but then he said After this manner therefore pray ye and 't is there Forgive us as we forgive our Debtors but in Luke to his Disciples in private it is Forgive us for we also forgive all our Debtors Which is better rendred so then some that read it Those that Trespasse against us But it seems plainly to allude to that Law and custom of remitting debts to all their Debtors as the Law required in the Jubile and other sabboth years and so they might speak it more sensibly then it may be we or I now can if we should render it Forgive us as we forgive all that trespasse against us Yet I have sometimes thought that Christ even drives us to Himself when we dare not speak those words to the Father Yet to speak freely the spirit of Christ in a Christian is or will be very free and 't is hardly at Any time much lesse at All times tied up to a form of words or kept in rank and file of any One mans Method but as God leads
Neighbor and it took in a Samaritan with one of Jerusalem though at more defiance and distance of heart and affection than of Place or Nation For this also see the 2. of the Hebrews and the 10. last verses And we may see what a stress God himself put and would have Us put upon This that Christ is our Brother by That Great Promise in Moses cited so often in the new Testament I will raise them up a Prophet from among their Brethren like unto Thee which words are also expressly repeated several times in the Acts. A Prophet of your Brethren like unto me Which is also the more considerable because in the very next Chapter before This Promise of Raising up a Brother Prophet It is also strictly commanded that when at any time they desired a King they might not choose a Stranger which was not a Brother but from among thy Brethren shalt thou set a King over thee Which is also several times pressed and repeated with an especial Emphasis on that of a Brother and from among your Brethren So that I may now tell Christ that I neither do nor may receive him either as a Priest or Prophet or King but as he is and so must be My Brother Else he is not That Prophet which the Lord promised to raise nor may I choose or set him King over me except he will own himself to be my Brother and so carry himself towards me and must not exalt himself above his Brethren Which was read it seems at the Coronation of their Kings and the Jews tell us of such piercing looks at the Reading of This before Agrippa was admitted or Crowned for their King that Himself also could not hold from Tears because he was not their Brother Born but only made And when their King was chosen and set over them He is bounded and limitted in that Law and the great Reason is added that his Heart be not lifted up above His Brethren One of the great things required of the King set over them was This That when he sate on the Throne of his Kingdom he should write him a Copy of the Law out of that which was before the Priests and he must read therein all the daies of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this Law and these statutes to do them as we read expressly in the 17. of Deuteronomy The Phrase of Writing when he sate on the Throne of his Kingdom hath made me remember that when the Revelation hath with very great solemnity brought Christ or the Lamb to the Throne of his Glorious Kingdom He that sate upon the Throne said Behold I make All things even All things New Write saith He to St. John For these words are true and faithful And is it not a most sweet Promise seeing All in Christ Jesus must be New Creatures that Himself promiseth to make All New Yea and that also sitting on his Throne and bidding it be written with a Behold also before it as a faithful and True saying of Him also who before his death promised that being lifted up he would draw all men to him And being lifted up and set on his Throne instead of Writing the Law in Tables of stone or other materials he promiseth in the Prophets to Write it in our Hearts and by that also to make us New and to give us a New Heart and Mind and Spirit yea His Spirit in us and by This to make us New Another great matter to be pressed also upon Christ our King sitting on the Throne of his Kingdom out of that very Law of Moses is this That he must so Write the Law for himself that he must study it and Keep it also all his life Even the very same Law he gives and governs by he himself must Write it and study it and Keep it To us all his daies Which St. Paul also hath taught us saying That he was not only made of a woman as we observed before but also Made Under the Law and that he was made Like us in All things but sin and therefore in Obedience also Nay as if it would be vain to promise the Law written in our hearts before it was written in his own he professeth in the fortieth Psalm that it was written of him that he should do the Will of God even the whole Will of God yea it was written in his heart also so that he came to do it and delighted in it even with his whole heart As we also find the Law written over a second time by God himself in the new Tables also that Moses as the forerunner of Christ had prepared after he had broken the First Tables made and written by God as an Emblem of our Hearts written and broken also yea and renewed too by the Law new written in them and put in the Ark a Type of the Heart covered by the Mercy Seat representing Christ also covering and comprehending the Law over-shadowed also with the Cherubins of Glory as the Seat and Throne of God dwelling between the Cherubins who stand prying into the Ark or Heart of Man and the Law in it seeing by the Churches the manifold Wisdom of God is made known to the very Angels who thus pry into the mysteries of Christ. This I take to be one of the sweetest things I ever learned or can teach another that the same person who is to Teach and judg and govern me is made under the same Law with me Yea rather more than I or the first Adam was who was Put or Brought under the Law rather then Made under it as Christ Was. So that he can as soon cast out his own Being as he can cast out the Law of God or any one Title of it from his own heart Which hath it All so moulded and rivetted into it self that Heaven and Earth shall pass away much sooner than any one Tittle or Jota of the Law of God pass away or be unperformed by him For he came not to disanul the Law but to perform it in his own person most of All. And while others dispute for whom he did it I ask only Whether we think or doubt he did it not in his own person Which is one of the greatest things I therefore study that by seeing All the Law in its greatest Latitude I may see the Duty of Christ for I may so speak with Reverence and his great Obligation both to God and Man and his Joy and Delight being written in his Heart to do the whole Law of God So God spake to Joshua that great Type of Jesus Thou shalt divide the Land and make them possess it only be strong that thou mayest observe to do All the Law of Moses my Servant that thou mayest be wise or prosper in all thou dost which is Thence in the Psalms and to Solomon divers others and I will never leave thee Which is also applied to us
All in the Epistle to the Hebrews with so many repetitions as God spake it several times to Joshua That which destroyed Israel was observing the Laws of Omry or other Kings among them and leaving the Law of God which was so good and just and wise that all Nations also should say they were a wise people that had such a Law Which indeed made them the people of God and so owned by him so long as they accepted and owned his Law for their Rule And he never cast them off till they chose a stranger for their King and a New Law to govern them Yea the great badg of Antichrist which we should hate may be to place himself above the Law and think to change the Law which God hath promised to magnifie among all Nations And although it be exceeding sweet to see and know that he was made under the Suffering part of the Law In all its heavy Threatnings and its Curses also so that all the Waves of God and all his Billows rowled over him and all his Arrows did stick fast in Him and in Job David Heman Jonah but as Types of Christ and partakers of his Spirit and acting some part of his Sufferings and when God had so powred out his Anger his Soul rested his Spirit was quiet and he will be no more angry as he often speaketh as an angry person that hath vented his heat and is quiet So was he in Christ when he had born his Wrath the Fathers Soul Rested in him and his Spirit is quiet so that he can be no more angry But we may come to him as the Psalmist Lord Thou hast turned from the fierceness of thine anger and hast put away all thy wrath even All thy Wrath in Christ Why then should it lie on us thy poor Worms O Turn us therefore as thou hast turned thy self and Reconcile us also seeing Thou art Reconciled and art in Christ also Reconciling the World to thy self and not imputing sin Yet because this hath occasioned so many disputes How far and for Whom or How many he so bare the Curses of the Law I shall therefore Now rather consider the Doing part of the Law and what it required of Man to Man as well as to God There being no doubt at all that I know but that he was made under this to All and for All the Law required it So that now look what ever was required of man either to God or to man Christ was surely made and put himself under all that as his Duty to God also whose Law lay upon him and was written in his Heart also as his Pleasure Honor Joy Delight and Happiness as to be made and kept in the Image of God Though also the Suffering part would soon be cleerer to us if we did consider That the Infinite God could have no other fit and full Object of his Infinite Power and Justice or could shew the strength of his Almighty Arm the Power of his Wrath or its heavy weight in no other But himself only or his own Match and his Fellow which surely no meer finite Beeing was or could be If we therefore may imagine God could be any more Angry in Time then he was from all Eternity before the fall or sin of any Creature which sure he could not be in himself but to manifestation and as he maketh us afraid we judg him Angry Or that he had a mind or saw it requisite to shew his mighty Strength and Justice with the Power of his wrath to the uttermost yet sure he would not chuse a little Worm to shew it on or such as are much less than the dust of the Ballance or a drop of a Bucket even nothing less than nothing When he had his full Match and Fellow which his Sword might challenge when it most would wake and shew it self in all its sharpness hardness with all power and strength of that mighty Arm that held and drew and brandished that flaming Sword Which therefore none have cause to fear or strength to feel as Christ but such only as are high and strong and stout to think themselves Gods fellows or his match and so challenge him As He or she that sits as God even in the Throne of God and Temple who must therefore look to feel the Sword of God and all that take that Character which All will take whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life even before the Foundation of the World And yet These also shall not feel the Sword of his Hand or Arm as Christ felt it but only the Sword of his Mouth a bright two edged blessed Sword which shall scatter and pierce them so that as the Psalms and Prophets speak in several places He will speak them under him for so the Phrase is and may be so translated rather than he shall destroy or subdue them under him or under us Which Phrase of Speaking them under him even then when they have most cause to expect destruction makes me remember a notable place in the 3. of Zephany Which the Jews also have marked as one of the most especial places in all the Scripture having in one verse every letter of their Alphabet and those also that are only final as they call them with other things observable Which it may be also bids us often read and meditate upon it as One of the most notable descriptions of the mind and purpose of God even in his greatest Judgments or in that we use to call the great or last Judgment Which perhaps is There also hinted While he speaketh Thus Therefore wait upon me saith the Lord to the Day of my Rising up to Eternity which some read to the Prey for my Judgment is to gather the Nations that I may assemble the Kingdoms to powr upon them my Indignation all my fierce Anger for by the fire of my Jealousie All the Earth shall be devoured For though it seem a strange For Then I will turn to the Peoples it is plural in the Original a pure Lip or Language Is not this a Blessed Speaking of them under him That all of them may call upon the Name of the Lord with one consent or with one shoulder Or one Sechem For That is the word in the Hebrew Text being the very same with His Name that circumcised himself and All the men of his City Sechem for the Love of Dinah which also signifies Judgment and may perhaps lead us to the great or last Judgment which may circumcise more men than may be is expected and be a sore surprize or ravishment to those that think to ravish it Which should also be compared with the Judgment on Sechem in Judges But I will come rather to the plain things of the Gospel cleerly comprehended in the Doing Part of the Law Which I am therefore made to study that I may see not only my Duty to God or man but Christs Duty unto me a poor Worm sprauling
that I say nothing of David in the 50. Psalm and Ezekiel the Son of Man and so a special Type of Christ the Son of Man is bid to make his people Know their sins and the Transgressions and Iniquities of their Fathers Which are forgiven when Seen and acknowledged bemoaned and repented as God promiseth he will bring them unto For it is not as some read it If they shall confess c. But 't is an absolute Promise in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and so cited also by Nehemiah or Daniel and Ezekiel that he would bring them to confess and that they should confess their own Iniquities and their Fathers also and be ashamed for them That which also followeth in the second Command is very sweet and far from shewing God to be an Angry Wrathful God as Satan would fain represent him As at first in Paradice some of his very first spawn cast on our great Mother and continued ever since till Christ shall break his head and destroy his malice with his works was This That God was an Envious God the Root of all evil and hard thoughts of God Who even in Judging and in Chastening and in all his worst visitations There Threatned where yet he spake his heart and seems to speak his worst will still remember Mercy Even in Judgment and in visiting most as a Jealous God he will remember Mercy And will but correct in measure and will not contend for ever lest the Spirit fail which he hath made But will visit only to the third or fourth Generation even in those that Hate him Which yet we All do and could not but do Till he Turn us by manifesting Love to us Love which he still beareth in his heart and it is there Rivetted so fast that he can as soon Un-god himself I would speak with Reverence as he can cast out Love from his Heart or act to his poor creatures without Love Nay give me leave to tell you he loved Adam Better more or with a Better Love or more Godlike after his Fall than before Nay it may be Now much better since his long sorrows and sufferings than before in Paradice Nay I had almost said with a better Love than he loved Christ himself before his Fall or Sufferings For he tels us it is a Little Love to love our like our Friend one lovely fair and beautiful kind and thankful still to us for all our love A very smal and poor and little Love which sinners shew and Hypocrites and All to All their like But that God might encrease his Love to Adam or might shew a Better Love than he could manifest be it spoken with Reverence while Man was Like him Holy Wise and Just Truly Fair and Beautiful in All he let him fall into the dirt and dust of death Into the Pox or worse disease that might deform him wholly so that he might commend his love indeed to such as hated him and were unworthy ugly more deformed then poor Job when botched all and naked most forlorn and miserable in his own and others thoughts and left in the hand of Sathan at his will But onely save his Life or Soul as God expresseth it Not onely for a Type of somewhat yet to come unto All that will wait with Job and expect the Lords End but it may be representing Adam also as accused and tempted by Sathan and at length left in his hands till God could shew his love was not onely skin deep as we say but everlasting Nay encreasing more and more as it could make or find an Object for that pity and compassion and that gracious Mercy which could not appear but still had been unseen abroad from God or hid within him had not his Wisdom contrived an Object for it which was Misery and guilt which was not till Sin came in and so he let him fall and shut him up under sin and guilt that he migh shew him Mercy which he could not do before And as before his fall God did not absolutely tye himself to Punish him So After the fall he did not execute That upon him which he might have done but devised devices as the Wise Woman of Tekoa said to David that his poor Banished might not perish And yet still preserved his own Honour and Majesty Truth and Justice too with such a kind of Love and Tender pity merciful compassion which could not appear abroad or possibly be shewn till sin or guilt or shame or fear or sorrow grief or pain or some such misery or other made an Object capable of pity mercy or compassion I shall yet a little more insist on these Particulars shew I hope they very well agree and no way contradict the Words and Mind of God even in the Law or harshest part of all the Scriptures First I premise God loved him and could not but love him very intirely if he loved himself while he was in his own Image And having so loved him and being so Immutable in his Heart Love and Nature he loved him to the End And I do not yet clearly see how any Promise can Oblige God to a more Constant Love of Man restored to that Image Then his own Nature and Heart moved him to love Adam In that Image Now if his Heart be not so truly Tender Gratious and Perfectly Good and immutable also in his most Genuine and Natural Love but that it could really change towards Adam in his own Image yea and that also before his fall or any demerit what ever as to decree his everlasting ruine or at least to leave him to it so foreseeing that he would so fall and rise no more in himself and his Posterity How can any man be sure and rest upon his Word or Promise that he will not leave him when he is renewed again into that Image Seeing it may be still doubted whether any man living can fully know Gods heart and mind by his words or expressions except there be some way else to know it and to rest and trust in it then his words can expresse or import Or unlesse a man may also be taught to believe his Word is Better Truer and more Certain Fixed and Obliging also then his very Heart and Nature is Which as some Teach or Believe was Such even then when it loved most or as much as it could love its self or its own Image that it yet hated and forsook and left to I know not what Irrecoverable misery his own Image and his dearly beloved in his own person or at least his posterity even his very next Son and Sons Sons to all Generations yea to all Eternity for the far greatest part of his Posterity May we not therefore believe and say that with a true constant and Eternal Love of Delight and Complacence from all Eternity to all Eternity God loved himself and his own Image where ever it was And nothing else but kimself and his own Image with that kind of
Precious in his eyes shall be their Bloud and yet more precious their souls which himself said was so exceeding precious as not to be compared with the World must it only be precious in our own eyes and shall it not be so in his also Let us then bowe down to him as the third Captain of 50. did to Elijah saying Let my soul be precious in thine eyes and the soules of thy servants for so the words are in the original And himself summed up all the Law into Love adding also that it was a little love to love a friend or one that was lovely or like us fair and beautifull kind and thankfull even sinners and Hypocrites do so but I say unto you love your enemies and them that hate you pray for them that persecute you revile you blaspheme and offer all despite to you Blesse them that curse you yea blesse and curse not be ever blessing and never cursing In a word Be mercifull as your Heavenly Father is mercifull and then addeth Judge not that you be not judged Which is the more to be marked because himself so often intimates that although the Father hath committed all judgement to him and authority to execute it also as we shewed before yet that he neither came to judge the world nor will judge it or any man it may be in his own person but will commit it to his Children who shall judge the world and Angells also and then the Son of man shall sit on the Throne of his Glory to seperate those that are judged And there also none are condemned but those that justifie themselves for if we could or would Judge our selves we should not be judged Yet even then also we are judged by the Son of man For we must all stand before his judgement seat who yet loved our nation and our nature and was made our Advocate and under the same Law with us The same Law of Love And did any man ever Hate his own flesh though he may chasten it and keep it in subjection Plucking it under the eyes as some render the Apostles phrase Or if he could hate his own flesh will he not love his own Spirit and his owm Image Will not That love seek to propagate it all he may he hath received the Spirit without measure He is infinitely full of that as Elihu speaks which is as New Wine yea as Fire in his bones and heart which as the Spring in the watch is ever clicking and the cause of all the beating in the Arteries and all the Pulses and it must have vent he cannot hold it in So it hath now pleased infinite Wisdome and Goodnesse to screw it selfe into the finite heart of Christ in his humanity so that he cannot hold it in or stifle it if he would as that which is infinite might have done and so swallowed it up as that we might never have seene or felt or any way enjoyed it But infinite is now so riveted into finite that this finite cannot comprehend it or detain it if he would He cannot detain it in unrighteousnesse not so much as he may the wind in his hand or all the great Ocean in his bowels So that if his eye were evil or his heart hard and narrow when he seems so kindly to invite and call and woo us to his dainties which the Scripture yet forbids us once to tast from an evil eye or from one that cryeth eat and drink but his heart is not with us which the soul of God abhors Yet indeed if Christ do but love himself and his own Spirit and his own ease he still will and still must give out freely having received that which is too great and strong for him to hold in and keep down if he would being an infinite Fountain still flowing up and still flowing out with Rivers of living water round about him So it is in all that do but receive some little drops of it from him How much more is it so in himself that hath it without such bounds and limits O how is he straitned t is his own expression till he poure out himself and his Spirit among us It cannot be taken from him against his will and yet it cannot be held in but is as an Ointment or a sweet perfume in ones hand the more it is pressed and heated the more it flows out and sends forth it's sweet Odours And she came behind him saying If I can but touch him or so much as the hemme of his Garment I shall be healed and vertue went out at every touch As the sweet perfume and precious Ointment on the Sacrificers head it drencht his Beard even Aaron's beard which yet was but an Excrement and to be cut off with every Sissors and it ran down through all his Garments and to every hemm and Fringe of them although to be changed and laid off very many times besides every nights rest And the Laver of old in the Tabernacle had no cover how much lesse the great Molten Sea in the Temple which had such a Fountain or Fountains still flowing up in it or into it as the very words in the Hebrew may teach us Have you not seen a tender Mothers breast so full and swel'd for want of sucking that she hath been glad of a strangers Child to draw it when her own could not or would not So and much more is it with the full breast of Jesus Christ which is such an infinite Fountain that the more it gives the more it may And if thou knewst the gift of God and who it is that giveth thou wouldst ask and ask again and never give over asking as we found before in Acksa and divers others till he filleth thee also with the upper and the lower springs Rejoyce yee then and be glad with him all yee that love him rejoyce with him all yee that mourned after him that you may suck and be satisfied with those breasts of Consolation And a drop that runneth over for he hath enough for his Children Servants Strangers Cattle all his Creatures every drop hath power enough to make us hunger and thirst and long for more till it may stretch out our narrow hearts and make them as wide as the very Heavens And he hath received gifts for Rebels also and his own Law was he that received freely mâ—st give freely yea and he said It is a more blessed thing to give then to receive As if he thought himself also and made himself more blessed by giving out freely then by receiving all the fulnesse he hath which would be a burthen to him if he could not did not give out freely as he receiveth And for more clear expressing his own mind and heart and will for doing good according to his Power which is still the measure of goodnesse also He hath not only promised to receive All that come to him and by no means no means to cast them off or out but also to
draw All men to him and to make All things new being as the Psalms expresse not only to satisfie the desire of every living thing which is no great matter except also they have great and good desires for else I know not ought I feare or more oppose or pray against then his giving me the desire of my own foolish narrow heart but also that he shall give forth Good and goodnesse so that all things shall be filled with it As we may find by comparing the 85. Psalm concluding thus Yea the Lord shall give forth Good or goodnesse and Righteousnesse shall go before him and direct or set us in the way of his steps with the 104. and 145. Psal. which of all is to be marked most as that which giveth name to all the Book of Psalms as the Jews tell us being thence All called Praises or Songs of blessing The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to All and his tender mercies are over All his works All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Sainis shall bless thee The Lord upholdeth All that fall and raiseth up all that are bowed down which is again so repeated and enlarged in the next Psalm also that it may teach us how Christ put himself under that Law also to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth yea and to make us sensible of our own wants and emptinesse that so he may fill us being sent to comfort every one that mourneth and to replenish every empty soul. At this I awaked and my sleep was sweet to me as the Prophet expresseth it Yea and Christ is such an Head to every man as Paul expresseth and such a Root to all our soules and Spirits that our mourning and our sufferings reach and pierce his soul also And in all our afflictions he is afflicted For if any one member suffers all suffer but especially the head and heart and if one be honoured all rejoyce with it The strength of a King is in his Subjects and his glory in their multitude and greatnesse Riches Honour Happinesse and Freedome it being more honour also to govern one freeman then many slaves And it is a union with free Subjects that maketh a King so strong that as Solomoâ— saith There is no rising against him Where the Arabick also may help us to a better sence and notion of Alkum then is yet common May we not all say to our Saviour as Abigail did to David When my Lord shall sit on the throne of his Rest and when the Lord hath done to my Lord according to all he promised shall it indeed be any offence or grief of heart to my Lord that he spared us and did not shed our blood or avenge himself which is so much forbidden or reserve a grudge in his heart against the Children of his people When he shall see us all come bowing to him to his glory and his Fathers glory also who is glorified he saith when we bear much fruit And is not he so also When He beareth much And as much as he can If he could have been contented to be happy glorious all alone he never needed any world of men or Angels But O! how was he straitned in himself till he had found a means to multiply himself his Image Happinesse and Glory by Creation How much more than by Redemption while we live we shall praise him and shall ever bless him if he save us But the grave cannot praise him death cannot celebrate him the living the living shall praise thee as Hezekiah said And what profit is there in our bloud He did not care to drink the bloud of beasts doth he now delight in eating mans flesh and drinking mans bloud Or what doth he gain by losing us Can the enemie give a recompense for us As Esther spake of Haman And if he cut us off will he not look in the morning and when he sees our places empty will he not have desire to the work of his own hands as Job and the Psalmist to that needle work he curiously wrought in his closet When he hath ground us to powder will he not say return again againe yee sons of men O that God would perswade us even in suffering according to his will to commit our souls to his keeping as to a Faithfull Creator Can he be angry more in time then from eternity before he made the World or ought that could provoke him Or if he can may little children so provoke him with their raising dust or dirty pies against him that he must also turn and curse them in the name of God and give them up to Bears to teare them will he offer children also and his own to Moloch Or with musick drown their yellings in Gehinnon or in Tophet which he so much hates and threatens and his soul abhors so much in others Or if fury can be in him which yet himself denyeth in the Prophet Isa. can it rest in such a bosome When as Solomon saith it resteth in the bosome of fools Can it remain in such a soul which hath so often spoken it self well pleased satisfied and infinitely delighted in himself and his Image his Son and his own most glorious and most gracious Righteousness Can the Sun go down upon his wrath Or if he must for some great reason act a part awhile and wear a mask or frown and cast abroad his Thunderbolts and shew the fierceness of his sore displeasure or the Power of his anger or wrath can it be shown upon a moath a bubble nothing weaker than nothing will he also set his eyes or heart or heavy hand on that which is not What Glory Honour Profit Pleasure can the Power and Wisdom that we lay aside awhile the Goodness of an Infinite God beget it self in crushing us Will the King of Israel hunt a Partridge in the Mountains or pursuite a fly will he prosecute dry stubble or the little moats of dust in the balance can his Almighty Arm delight to strangle little worms or wrestle with a shadow will he create a mighty whirlwind to contend with nothing less than nothing and lighter than vanity when his very thoughts may easily create the Angels and his Word this glorious World and think it down again at pleasure Drawing in his breath or spirit and they perish and then giving it out again and they are created as the Psalmist shadoweth out his Respiration or his hearts Diastole Syslole VVill his sore and great and strong sword contend with feathers or lead captive atomes will it boast it self in cutting little straws or glory in a Triumph over that which is more feeble than the tender grass when yet it might awake against a man that is his Fellow and his equal match Mighty to bear his weight and power and wrath and strongest blowes when we are all to him as
then he will dispence with loving our Neighbour yea but shewing pitty to his Oxe or Ass fallen into a pit And as if God would measure all our Love to himself by our loving our poor Neighbour St. John saith Let a man never talk of loving God whom he never saw if he do not love his Brother whom he hath seen and if he do but see him in want and shut up his bowels though his wants be not wept or worded out but only Seen How doth the love of God dwell in such a man as we found also in Esay when thou Seest the naked that thou cover him Which hath sometimes been very sweet to me when I had no words or tears to expresse my miseries to Christ or was sensible enough of any of my wants Yet I have often spoken to him from that place and others in the Psalmes or Job or Lamentations Crying See my affliction though I do not see it or am afflicted for it as I should or would Yet do thou See my miseries Even when I see them not and let thy tender eye affect thy tender heart for the Love of God dwelleth in thee Do not therefore shut up thy bowels when thou seest my want though I do not see it or am not affected with it Give me Eye salve that I may see And thou hast promised an holy Spirit to Convince the world of sinne Righteousnesse and Judgement Withhold not Good whilst it is in the God of thy hand to do it Why then wilt thou send me away saying Come again to morrow when it is in the power of thy hand to do me good For thou hast All power in Heaven and Earth Thou art the Wisdome of God and the Power of God And a Brother is born for a day of Adversity And there may be also the greatest â—ffering where there is but little sorrow yea and the greatest sorrow where the least Expâ—ession either in tears or words A piercing look with an eye fixed on Christ in a promise as one able to help and made for it and why then do we doubt of his Will may be a better Prayer than a great many words or tears They are little Griefs that speak or are spoken Great ones are stupid or at least silent So also are Praises They may be best when they attend God in Silence As the Jews also teach us on those passages of the Psalms My soul is silent before thee and Praise waiteth on thee in silence for so it is And Silence is commanded us all not only in those places which bid our words be Few as Solomon and our Saviour also But when God ariseth and doth manifest himself out of his Temple or in his Holy place as his Presence Chamber we are especially commanded to be Silent before him as we read in the last words both of the second of Habakkuk and the second of Zechary And there is not only an Evil but a Good Day also when All prudent men will hold their Peace as we read in another Prophet But it is yet sweter than many words or any can express to consider that if Christ did neither love Us nor Himself nor his Father as he surely doth Yet his very Duty to Him and that Law which bids him Love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and minde bâ—ddeth him do it also With all his Might And so also to propagate his love to All he can by all means he may Yea and to work while it is Day and to do whatever is in his hand to do with all his might least the night cometh on him also and there be no more working or Councel in the place whether we are all going Is it indeed enough for Him in himself and his own person to have no other God or other wayes of worship than are Right and set by God and not to bear his Name in vain who yet beareth it more upon him both in words and Actions than all men living Except he also propagate this Love of God his waies of worship and his Name his True Name which is his Nature all he can or may and he may quicken whom he will with all his Might to all his Children Servants Neighbours Subjects and Relations under him and in his Povver and they are All. May I indeed suffer any Servant or any other though I may bear vvith children vvhile they are children and vvith Naturals or Ideots alas vve are All so to Him all our lives May I suffer any man within my power or Family to worship a false God or the True God in a False manner or to take his Name in vain while I can help it Is He not Lord of All the Family both in Heaven and Earth Are we not All in his hand and under his power who hath All Power in Heaven Earth and hath All things delivered to him of his Father Can we wonder now why he so often promiseth to manifest the Name of God that All may know it from the greatest to the least Yea and his Enemies also It being so usuall in Ezekiel and other Prophets to close up all his Threatnings with this You shall all know me or I will bring you to Know my Name Which is also the great end of the Psalmists sharp and bitter prayers against All the enemies of God which we find mustered up together in the 83. Psalm That they may seek thy Name O Lord and that they may know that Thou whose name is Jehovah art the most high God over all the Earth which was also the great end of that great work on Nebuchadnezar And the same Psalms tell us also that when men come or are brought to Know the name of God they will trust in it And there also Christ often promiseth He will declare his Name to his Brethren and as if they were too few to the great Congregation also And how great that Congregation is or shall be I cannot tell When also he came to dye he acknowledgeth this for the great work he had to do in the World I have finished thy work I have manifested thy Name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world And as if this were not yet enough towards the end of that prayer he prayeth for More this being the Covenant Ask of me and I will give thee All Nations and Peoples and persons even the utmost ends of the Earth and those also afarr off in the Seas And is his heart so narrow that he will not Ask when he might have us All and all things for asking Ask then heartily that thou maist receive seek us All heartily and thou shalt find us All Knock heartily at the door of our hearts and by virtue of the promise and Covenant of God they shall be opened to thee Neither pray I for these alone which thou hast yet given me shallâ—at â—at any tâ—me hereafter beleeve on me through their word That they All may be
severall times in the Prophets and twice in Jeremy of his own dearest Children whom he saith he will not Cut off or destroy but only chasten visit or Correct in measure but not Hold Guiltless or acquit them wholly The very same Phrase used in the Third Commandement and in the Name of God Proclaimed in Exodus and Numbers 14. And the very same Phrase is used by Job of himself divers times although we may be sure he did not beleeve God had cut him off for ever or would never acquit him or hold him Guiltlesse though he so speak of himself But it is such a phrase as the Prophet Esays Therefore forgive them not which yet is no worse or more then we find commended and commanded also by Solomon to a tender Father who is bid to chasten his Son and not to spaâ—e him or forgive or acquit or Hold him Guiltless For they are much the same Phrases Yet I may ad to make us fear the Goodnesse of God rather then All his Wrath He that taketh the Good Name of God this gracious God in vain or he that so Turneth it into wantonness is the most guilty Person in All the Bible that I know or most in danger not to be quit or held Guiltless as we find hinted in severall places from the third Commandement Except haply we may also say the most Guilty Person in the World whom God will least acquit or hold guiltlesse is Jesus Christ In whom the Curses also are Yea and Amen or fulfilled rather more then the Promises For in These he joynes his Children who are Co-heirs in All the Promises and Purposes of God But in bearing the Threatnings and Curses He is more alone then in All the Promises He treads the Winepress of Gods Wrath alone and of the People there is none with Him He alone can bear it He alone need fear it All the Billows of the Almighty rowled upon Christ and All his Arrows stuck in his Heart and drunk up his Spirit more then All the world besides All else being little weak nothing lighter then vanity Compared with Him that was Gods Fellow and his Match Who thought it no Robbery to be Equall with God who therefore laid his stroaks upon H m who was only able to bear them with our guilt So that in a right sence He is the most guilty Person as Bearing Gods most Holy Name more then All the World besides And bearing all our guilt for bearing at in vain And as the third Commandement hath its not Acquitting So the second hath it's Jealousie and visiting the Fathers sinn upon the Children As if this were most proper to the false or Superstitious wayes of Worshipping the true God rather then to the having other Gods forbidden in the first As if God also were Jealous of none but such as were Marryed to him and had chosen him for their Husband But now wandred out in strange wayes of Worship which provokes his Jealousie and makes him visit more it may be then any other sinnes If it had been an Enemy I could easily bear it O but my Friend and my Familiar in my Bosome as the Lord may speak when his own Spouse dresseth her selfe in an Whorâ—sh Habit as it were inticing Strangers Which the Lord abhorreth more it may be then the grossest Idolatry of those that are Strangers Which is not so grievous as the Provocation of his Sonns and Daughters as Caesar also cryed What and thou my Sonn Brutus or his nerest Relations which perhaps also may be more properly called Haters of God in Hebrew Sone much akin to the Saxon English Name of Sonn rather then Strangers who have not knowledge enough to Love or Hate Him in a proper sence as those that by not walking in the light and love they have received come at length to be so guilty and full of slavish fear that they turn downright Rebbels and such Sonns as God commanded should be brought out to the Judges to be stoned for Rebellion Which is very neer perhaps if not the very sin against the Holy Ghost Or that presumptuous wickednesse which David so prayed against remembring that there was No Sacrifice for presumptuous Sinners but as the Epistle to the Hebrews speaketh A certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation to devour the Rebbels As the Jews also had the Cutting off and the Hand of Heaven yea and that also they called the Rebels stroake But of All Images forbidden in the second Commandement as so much moving God to Iealousie Those which are most common and most dangerous as little taken notice of being most Spirituall or most Divelish are the Images we are so prone to make and mould of God by that within us which is therefore rightly called Imagination and the proper forge of Images which yet may reach farther higher and more inward then our sences or that which the Schooles call Imagination Worse much then Images made by hands which we are so long in Moulding and Carving that we blâ—sh to worship That we have sweat so much about and warmed our selves with part of But a deceived Heart makes us eate the very Excrements and ashes of those Images or Image-makers And as the great thing which brought the Flood was the evil Imagination of mans Heart continually So it is the great promise in many places of Scripture that his people should no more walk after the Imagination or the Image making or the Idols of their own foolish Hearts And it is the great Judgement and Punishment of those that when they knew God did not glorifie him as God nor were thankfull that they should become vain in their Imaginations or in Image making and their foolish hearts so darkened as to change the Glory of God into an Image or an Idol of their own fancies the most dangerous Idolatry And thus indeed they change the Image and glory of God in themselves to the Image of a Beast eating grass as Nebuchadnezar and it may be This is some emblem of worshipping the Beast or receiving that character which the Revelation saith All the World should do but those only whose names were written in the Lambs book of Life before the foundation of the World And That Beast or sensual beastly spirit may be more common than is thought And when man was made in the Image of God He was to Rule over all the Beasts or Beastly natures or spirits But now losing the Image of God and of man also he taketh the Image of a Beast and of The Beast so much spoken of in the Revelation But as Love was the foundation of the very Law also springing out of the Heart of God which is Love However it may now gender unto Bondage yet it rose from Love So it speaketh Love to the very worst of men as Saint Paul affirmeth till their Rebellion make them Outlaws and put them out of the Protection of that good Law which is given to them all saying to
Jerusalem shall be as David and every one that Thirsteth receiveth His Everlasting Covenant and His sure mercies or his Holy Things in all things Ordered and sure His seed shall endure for ever His Throne As the Sun before him It shall be established for ever as the Moon as a faithful Witness in Heaven Selah Then follows the Laying or slaying of those faithful Witnesses But How long wilt Thou O Lord be Hidden Here is the Great Nister as the Jewes call the 3d Person As Hidden or Mister as the English or Mistery we touched before and Lanetsach And Cheled the word here used with others leading us to Adam and Abel Then to Enoch and Elijah When we shall resolve that Dying Eclipse on the Cross in Hours and Dayes and Months and Years As we shall be enabled by Him whom to acknowledge on all Occasions is our Happiness and Glory What is the Proper Age of the Moon its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when called Jareach may not be easie to determine We found her before in her Casing sucking the Sun as a Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till her Heat as That in the Earth and our Heart also the Cause of all motions and clicking Pulses make her first Reak and then Boyl as a seething Pot or a Boyling Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seath Seeth as the Greek 〈◊〉 Spirit boyling up as enflamed by Heat within And so the Moon and Sea also may flow as we touched before to be compared with Esay 64 1. 2. Psal. 147. 18. In Numbers Jareach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes 218. Which in Hours is but 2 or 3 more then Three times Three Dayes Or if you will Three Nights because the Moon is to Rule the Night And all the Nights of the week make but 3 whole Dayes of 24 Hours and an Half before the Sun of the Sabbath Riseth As the Lamb of the Sabbath Day with his 144000 Virgins following the Lamb of the Sabbath as the Jewes Clakins of the 144 Hours of the six Dayes before the Sabbath as the first Fruits to God and the Lamb of which before Of Dayes and Months and Years in Characters To 3 times 3 Dayes each 3 is 72 Hours adding6 Hours more we are brought to Midnight of the 10th Night before the 10th Day the time of Jerecho In Hours 222. the 3d part of 666. And Jerichos Walls mightr each to Heaven or at least to the Moon as it signifies Though we have not yet compared its Trumpets with them in the Revelation Or the Last Plagues of God and the Last Woe When it is past No more Curse But as we saw in Jericho though Cursed as Gibeon also yet built again by Hiel the Living High God from Bethel the House of God in the Dayes of Ahab Brother and Father also As we saw before If we go forward to reckon the Age of the Moon and the World together we may remember that although the Jews Night were in Winter about 7 minutes more than 14 Hours long yet they alwayes made or accounted it Even to their Day and so it was There and elsewhere at the Equinox in which they agree the World was Created Let us a little compare it with the first Month in which they came out of Aegypt When the first Night of Time was past as the Cubits first Span of 3 Taps or Watches of 4 Hours apeece or 4 of 3 12 Hours brought up That great Change of Light for Darkness It is made of 3 the Father of all Numbers and Ab in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 3 on 4 the Mother as 7 is 3 with 4 which we found the first square Number or Compound as 3 are all Simples The 2d 12 Honrs were All Children of Light which we called the sons of Israel as the former 12 were sons of Darkness or 12 sons of Ishmael the First-born of Abram the High Father The 25th Hour brought in the next great Change of Darkness for Light and is the nearest Root of 666 the Course of the Moon that Eve of Night as the Sun is the Adam of Day with his 12 also as Apostles the Root of 144. 35 and 36 Brought in the Second Change of Light for Darkness As 350 and 360 Dayes bring up the 2d Year both Solar and Lunar which is as the Day Dawning in the 35th Hour before Full Light in the 36th which is 3 times 12. And the Half being also added maketh 42 which brings up Noon or perfect Light of the 2d Day Which is ended by 12 drawn into 4 the first square Number bringing up the 3d Nights Rest and great Change beginning with 49 or 7 times 7 as the Jubilee and Hebrew Midda Measure of measures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 49. 60 Hours bring up the Morning of the 3d Day and 66 its Noon and 70 is the Hour of its Evening Minha had it been appointed to be compared with the Pentecost and Return from the 70 Years Captivity and many other 70 in Scripture It coming so up in the 3d Day which is also ended with 72 Hours as the 72 Elders of the Sanedrin 6 times 12. 84 Hours bring up the Sun of the 4th Day and frees the Moon from the Sun as we saw before So that Both those Witnesses might Then be seen in Heaven Where One or Both had yet lay hid till the 4th Day or after 3 Dayes and Half which is the Night of the 4th the Moed of these Heavenly Witnesses to measure all other And as the Sun of Righteousness did not appear till the 4th Great Day of the World so perhaps he came in That very Hour of the 1000 years which answereth to the 4th Dayes Minha or some other signal season that may tell us both his Setting and Rising again when we shall consider all his Moeds also of 3 Years and Half 3 Dayes and Half yea and 3 Hours and Half great Eclips on the Cross of which in Characters as God shall help us with the Prayers of his people who must help the Lord against the Mighty Powers of Darkness that He may bring out his Marvellous Light which is Dawning among us 96 Hours end the 4th Day And 7 times 96 are but 6 more than 666. Whos 's 6th part is III. in Hebrew letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Measuring Line we touched in Kav la Kav Sav la Sav. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also just 96 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 106 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 100 and 11. 120 Hours 10 times 12 bring up the 6th Day in which man was Created and when he had fallen and God grieved or Repented or resolved to change him because he had made him on Earth and not kept him in Heaven He said My Spirit shall not be a Don or Dun to Man for Olam 140 or 700 in their Erring who is Flesh. But his Dayes have been or shall be 120 Year as
shave again his Head and Beard and Eye-brows and all his Hair Lev. 14. 9. and Then after Blood and Oyl upon his Ear and Thumb and Toe in All the Three Regions of the Great little World He was cleansed by the Priest O what work he had to do for the Poorest man that was Unclean and could not bring the offerings prescribed And for every House infected also Doth our God take care of Houses and of Clay that Cursed Adama The Hysop Cedar-wood and Scarlet to the Hebrews and Two Birds in Heb. nere akin to Goats One killed in Earth over Water as St Peter on Genesis and Psalms and 2d Command and the other a Scape Bird as the Scape Goat And the Plants and Trees and Fishes and Fowles and Earth and Water and All must Hear and serve Israel and Jezreel also near in Hebrew to the Leaper as the Seed of God! There was also an other shaving for the Nazarite when the Hair of his Separation is shaven as we read in Numb 6. immediately before the Solemn Blessing prescribed As if This had some relation to the Nazarite or Separate person after his coming in again And the very word in Jeremy 7 29 Nizrek may allude to the Law of the Nazarite But yet there was more Hope and Comfort in a Womans shaving than a Mans. For if Her Lord bid her shave off her Hair it might be a sign he meant to marry her For so the Law was If thou lead Captivity Captive as Christ hath done and see a Woman that thou lovest She shall shave her Head and pair her Nails or Goatishness Sipharnea We saw it in Saphira the Goat as also Seir is Hair and a Goat Yea the very Time may be There Hinted perhaps for God is Infinite How long Christ must stay for his poor Captive Spouse before he may be Married to her though she be prepared and adorned as Ester was in order for her going in to the King As the Lambs Bride in the Revelation cometh down from Heaven As if There All the Saints departed were but perfuming and preparing to be his Bride on Earth and Reign on Earth at the End of the Weeks How Long Thou shalt bring her Home to thine House and the souls under the Altar cryed How long Lord and she shall put off her Captive Weeds and shall remain in thine House and bewayle her Father and her Mother in their Enemies Land they shall confess their Fathers sins we saw it before A Full Month or Moon of Dayes And after That Thou mayst be her Husband And if afterwards she please thee not Thou mayst leave her to her own soul which is the great thing to be feared of a Backsliding heart from Christ But thou mayst not sell her because thou hast Humbled her Jacob also stayed with Laban before he asked his Daughter a full Month or Moon of Dayes Chodesh Jamim but in the Law of Deut. it is Jerach Jamim As also 2 Kings 15. 13. May we not also compare That in Jer. 2. Thy own wickedness shall instruct thee thy backslidings shall rebuke thee See and know that it is an evil and a bitter thing that thou dost forsake the Lord and yet more Thy God! For of old I broke thy Yoke and burst thy Bonds Ezek. 16. and Epistle of Baruck I planted thee a Noble Vine wholly a Right seed How Then art thou Degenerate And How canst thou say I am not Polluted A Wilde Ass as the Angel said to Hagar we are now There with Ishmael But God will Hear Taught in the VVilderness as Hagar was and snuffing up the VVinde or snuffing at the Spirit in the Lust of her own heart or soul the very word we saw in Deut. 21. 14. VVho can turn her All that seek her will not weary themselves to finde her Or rather Let them not faint or despair For in her Month Chodsha They shall finde her Then withhold thy Foot and Throat But thou saidst It is Desperate But can a Maid forget her Ornament and a Bride her Attire Yet My People My people have forgotten me Dayes without number But why do My people say We are Lords or have Power Radnu VVe will come no more to Thee But then follows the sweetest Chapter of the Bible to an Adulterous Spouse Yet turn again Yet Turn again Return return O Shulamith For I am Married to You c. Which at length melts her into Tears and sweet supplications In the close of the 3d Chapter and God answers in the 4th If a woman bear a son she was Unclean 7 Dayes as in her common separation not observing which cut off and spued out the very Heathens Levit. 18. Ezek. 18. Esay 30. 22. Lam. 1. 17. and her son not Circumcised till the 8th Day and Then she must remain 33 Daies as the Moon 333 Hours and then she may eat the Holy things and come into the Sanctuary with two Turtles or Pigeons if she could not bring a Lamb which made them so dear that the Sanedrin altered this Law it seems and our Saviour scourged the sellers of Doves also which were brought by his Poor Blessed Mother Who presented her self and Him also in the Temple at 40 dayes being the Sabbaths of his 40 Weeks in the Womb As at 40 Daies after his 40 Hours in the womb of the Grave He was presented to his Father in his Heavenly Temple 40 Years before the Sack of Jerusalem But for a Daughter the Woman was Unclean 14 Daies the 2d Sabbath and the Day of Passover and Then she must not enter the Sanctuary in 66 Daies Which is the very Number of Pentecost or Feast of first Fruits or 50th Day after the sheaf which was the 16th Day of the Year And as this was 66 Daies so the Moon returneth to the Sun in 666 Hours And when any Woman or the Church is freed from the Power or Rule of the Moon and her Changes or Courses at the Jubilee of 49 or 7 times 7 Then she need not fear That or any other separation in common course And if she should be sick so long as the Woman in the Gospel spending all her Substance yet she may be healed if she come behinde him and but touch the Hemb of his Garment It is all Perfumed with precious Ointments as we saw before from Psal. 133. Jephtas Daughter returned after Two Months bewailing her Bethulia which again in Judith and the Daughters of Israel went from Dayes to Dayes a Day for a year to lament the Daughter of Jephta 4 Daies in the year Jephta's 6 and Ibsans 7 Elans 10 and Abdons 8 bring us to the Sun of the 15th Day with some Healing in his wings also though but a little Sun as Samson may signifie with his 30 Companions as their Month had 30 Daies and 7 Daies also for the Week and Sabbath Both his Eyes or Witnesses put out He pulls down the House and more are slain by his Death than all his Life And there
will not forsake his People for his great Names sake because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his People Moreover as for me God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will Teach you the good and the Right way Onely fear the Lord and serve him in Truth with all your Heart as Davids Dying words to Solomon and Christ also God is a Spirit and they that worship him must do it in Spirit as here with All the Heart and Truth also For Such the Father Seeketh to worship Him And such he will finde For consider How great things he hath done for you But if you will still do wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King There is yet much more in That History of Nahash of Ammon of Lot the Veyl which must be separate from the face of all people As at first from Abraham as we saw before from Esay and divers places And now Here also he would not onely cover their Eyes but put them quite out or at least their Right Eyes and that also must be A Reproach for All Israel Though This was onely at Jabesh-Gilead the Reliques of that woful business at Gibeah which did not onely cut off Benjamin but Jabesh-Gilead also by 12000 chosen men of Israel as the first Fruits to God and the Lamb as we may see in Judges 21. Where also both Gilead and Mispeh lead us to the Watch and Stones of Witness we saw before in Jacob their Father and Laban when Rachel was going to her long home at Bethlehem Ephrata with this Benjamin the youngest of her sons for whom she wept so much and so long because They were not Joseph was not and Ephraim was not see 1 Chron. 7. 21. and now they Take Benjamin also All these things are against her And yet little Benjamin that had so ruined Jabesh-Gilead must now save it by Saul the first King of that Tribe coming up because of Nahash besieging Jabesh-Gilead And the men of Jabesh-Gilead said Forbear us 7 Dayes and if none can save us we will come out to thee Then came Messengers to Gibeah of Saul That very Gibeah which had caused all the mischief both to Benjamin and Jabesh-Gilead also Then the people wept and Saul yearneth over their Tears so good it is to go or be with a Mourning weeping people of God For who can tell but their tender Eyes may affect and soften our hard Heart and Then the Spirit of God came upon him and remembring that All the mischief came by hewing a woman into pieces He now slayeth the Beast and heweth it into 12 pieces and by Those summons the 12 Tribes as One man with one consent or as the Prophet speaks with One Sechem He had now 300000 of Israel and 30000 of Judah a bad Omen that they should be so Divided and they must be Parted into 3 Bands and by Night also as Abraham his 300 and Gideon his 300 and Jacob his at Mahanaim and Joshuah his at Gibeon and David his for Ziglag and again As Jacob at Mahanaim and in the Morning Watch as before in the Red Sea and Barak or Gideon against the Midnight Midianites who though so near akin to Abraham and Isaak and Moses yet had been the Buyers of Joseph in the Pit and Sellers to Aegypt so that Moses must not dye before he had avenged God on Midian and recovered such a spoyl as possibly may help us to number all the Times and Numbers in their Bondage ever after Now is Nahash defeated and his Ammonites scattered so that two remained not together while Israel was as One man the onely way to destroy the Serpent and to break his Head And when also They shall be As a Beacon on an Hill the Lord will Wait that he may be Gracious to them and Therefore be exalted Therefore That he may have mercy on them and on All that wait for him For the Lord is a God of judgement Blessed are All They that wait for him As we read in the 30th of Esay How Jabesh-Gilead remembred and requited This of Saul even to his Dead body we observed before How David also blessed them for it when he shewed the kindness of God to the House of Saul Dead Saul And which is yet stranger even to this very Nahash or his Son or Namesake King of Ammon also Till they so abused his Embassadors An History that may be more considered And the people said to Samuel Who is he that said shall Saul Reign over us Bring the men that we may put them to death But Saul said There shall not a man be put to death this day for to day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel And David also in his sweet Return after his Banishment from his Kingdom would not slay Cursing Shimei because he knew he was That day King of Israel As we saw before with divers circumstances Then said Samuel to the People Come and let us go to Gilgal and Renue the Kingdom There Even There where God in Joshuah Rouled away the shame of Israel And now They rouled away This shame also of Nahash the Serpent on All Israel Though I add not here again how Circumcision it self was a Type or Pledge of their cutting off Nahash or the Serpents Head in every Age and World and Region also of the little World as we saw before How David or any other of the Kings cut off this Serpent or Nahash also in that remarkable History 2 Sam. 10. we leave for another season as God shall please And though Solomon had but One War as we saw before with Hamath Zoba the Wrath of an Army or fighting Rage or Fury Yet These also as All within the River Euphrates became his Servants or his Tributaries Even to the River of Aegypt whence he married his Queen as we saw before Of Solomons Temple I have little to add to Those Excellent Books lately written by English men also of Both Temples with That of a very Learned man before the Great Bible there also published That may never dyâ— Or Those that did or yet do labour to perfect it But I suppose Many if not All the Numbers we have spoken of may be in those Temples also with the Tabernacle and Noahs Ark in proportion to a mans body with its Three Regions also 30 Cubits High and 50 Broad and 6 times as Long. 300 by 50 is 15000 and the Waters prevailed 15 Cubits Upwards and that by 30 is 450000 filled up with 8 Persons and Beasts Unclean also with their Food and Ayre and other requisites of which again as God shall help us The Tabernacle 30 long and 10 broad that is 300 as the Ark and 10 high 3000. And its Court 100 long and 50 broad 5000. As we touched before in the 5000 fed by our Saviour as after by Peter Ranked by 100 and 50. Solomons Temple Double to the Tabernacle 60 long and 20