they should not only brake Prison but carry her up in an holy extasie to these glorious Mansions O that this pious love and holy joy fixt to the Fiery Chariot of a true zeal moulding this Dust burning up this Chaff at least letting fall this fleshly Mantle would make me a second Elias in a speedy ascent and present fruition of my God But alass poor Soul how are thy Wings limed thy Feet lamed thy Chariot-wheels clog'd with Earth and Sins O by way of preparation since certainly Elias shall be parted from Elisha thy Soul from thy Body let the sharp beak of the Law pick and prune thy Wings the healing Oyl of the Gospel supple thy Feet and thy Heavenly Conversation of a Christian disburden thy motion that when the Whirlwind of Death shall make a separation thou mayest cheerfully and swiftly go up alive unto the Heavens The Body hath during these my last Meditations seemed to sleep in the dust But since the Body as hath been shewed shall have a glorious Resurrection at the last Day so it must be raised here also by my weak thoughts as the fit and next object of a Christians faith I believe then that at the shrill sound of the last Trumpet which is no other than the mighty and powerfull voice of our Arch-Angel Christ Jesus the innumerable Atoms of my Body shall incorporate and after the re-union of my Soul stand up a most glorious substance mortality putting on immortality and corruption incorruption This Worm-hill this mouldering Hutt of white and red Sands shall then inherit the name of an eternal mansion and become not as now a little Cage a loathsome Dungeon but the glorious Pallace of the Soul O surpassing glory of this re-animated Phaenix So excessively radiant that the Holy Spirit who is eloquence and truth it self pitches upon the most illustrious of visible Creatures the Sun the light to be the resemblance of this divine transfiguration The righteous shall shine like the Sun in the Kingdome of their Father They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever The Jewish Temple seemes to be a resemblance of this Temple of God Man glorified in which the Body may be stiled the Sanctum the Soul through the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit the Sanctum Sanctorum Oh if that Earthly Temple transcended others and Heaven be Heaven because of the more special manifestation of Gods glorious presence there shall not each glorified Saint be a Heaven of Heavens It being a necessary and consequent Truth that the great God will more declare his excellency in his living members then in his inanimate works in his adopted Sons than in his inferiour Creatures and Mansions If an humble heart contrite for Sin be now Gods dwelling shall not a sanctified heart purified from Sin become then his Throne of Majesty Our Bodies which now Imprison and Eclipse the Soul's lustre shall then not only be coagile but like a Chrystaline Lanthorn transparent and coruscant not hiding but by a radiant concomitancy augmenting the others splendour For as in the Sun there is the containing and the contained the sphear and the light yet both conspire and meet in a heighth of brightness or as in sounds strings apart musical being struck together produce a harmony so though the Body and Soul are two distinct excellencies yet being united they shall mutually conveigh and reflect their beauty conducing to and effecting a joynt perfection of Glory Further whereas the Creator is now but in part magnified in Man because of the partial knowledge of our selves as concerning the admirable secrets and excellent curiosities of the humanity Then not only our understanding but our Eyes and other bodily sences shall coadjute to make each Saint a most exact Anatomist a most divine Phylosopher O let not then that better covetousness of secular knowledge make us bankrupts in spirituals Let not imprudent pursuits after the shadow make us over-run the substance Being confident of this that a true Christians life shall not prove then as it is now by the World accounted of a devourer of time folly and madness but a Tree of Life in the midst of Eternity Yea a Tree of Knowledge whose fruits shall be fully ripe in Heaven Perplex not thy self then vain Sophister in those scholasticals and endless labyrinths I mean those difficult and so much controverted Questions whether the Soul be ex traduce or immediately from God whether it be confined to a Throne or Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte Whether there be three distinct Souls in Man or only the rational How the Soul sees hears smells tasts touches by those sences Whether we see Intra mittendo or extra mittendo of the species Whether the course of the blood be circular or direct whether odours nourish or only refresh with many others of the like stamp Rather O wandering Disputant let thy chief study be to resolve these questions thus that in our Saviours sense thou art born of God that thou art wholly holy in every part both of Soul and Body that he the incomprehensible three in one is Soul of thy Soul and sees hears tasts smells and touches in thy chast looks devout attentions spiritual relishes faithfull imbracements and in the sweet savour of a pious conversation That thy holy love the blood of action and the life of practise is circular and endless having God to be its Centre that from him it may receive daily new Spirits and new fervour That thy Prayers which the learned call Gods perfume his incense do not only revive but by the powerfull attraction of saving grace feed thee to Eternal life Such thoughts as these O Man if practical shall make thee transcend the natural and become a divine Phylosopher These exercises which are the study of Angels and the liberal Arts of Heavens Academy end in the perfection of knowledge But to proceed O my Soul thou now groanest under a Body of Lead made up of corrupted flesh and stuft full with noisome humours either so fat as it sweats under its own burthen or so lean and weak that it needs wooden supports In its motion is so Worm-like that its contemptible if compared with the pace of most four-footed Creatures But in this thy melioration it shall become thy winged Chariot and be as swift as thy thoughts can imagine or thy wish desire even like lightning then which it shall be far more sprightfull passing in an instant from one end of the Heaven to the other thy whole body shall be then all feet not moving as now but incredibly swiftly guiding through those immeasurable spaces of the Empyrean Heavens These Locomotive Mussels if at all useful shall then only serve for the graver measures of Glory for our Bodies shall as the Apostle speaks be made like unto Christs glorious body not only
me My Sheep hear my voice and I give unto them Eternal Life To these let us for further testimony add the expressions of the Apostle Paul The life which I now live in the Flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Our life is hid with Christ in God When Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we appear with him in Glory The first Man was made a living Soul the last Adam was made a quickning Spirit That was not first which is spirituall but that which is natural and afterward that which is spiritual By one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body whether we be Jew or Gentile whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit By these bright Scripture-lights is evidently discovered and manifested to us that as the head in the natural body contains the animal spirit and conveyeth and gives animation to all the Members of the Body so the Lord Christ God-Man in one Person is the head of his Spiritual and mystical Body the Universal Church and that from him alone not only that spiritual life consisting in holiness and righteousness but also that eternal and immortal life in which both in Soul and Body we shall live in him and with him at the Resurrection for ever and for ever is given and communicated into every Member of his body the Church united to him in this life by a true faith and by the animation and in-dwelling of the Holy Ghost who is the life and spirit of God the Father and of God the Son Therefore in these and other Scriptures God the Father is sometimes called our life other-times Christ and the Holy Ghost is said to be our life thereby evidencing that this eternal life of the Saints hath its immediate rise and Original from the Trinity in Unity God blessed for ever Not by participation of the Essence of the God-head but by the real and spiritual union of their Persons as Members of Christs mystical Body unto the Person of Christ through faith and the inhabitation and vivification of the Holy Ghost The first of which viz. Faith shall cease and be swallowed up after death in fruition But the other shall continue to Eternity From what I have here offered although in great weakness for who is sufficient for these things I hope it is abundantly cleared that the eternal life of the Saints and the glorious incorruptability and immortality of their Bodies flowes from a far higher Principle or cause than from only meer nature made new refined and incorruptable And that though the Elements through their incorruptability are become Eviternal like the Superior Orbes and are in a natural possibility if God please so to continue without change or alteration Everlastingly yet in all this they fall far short of the Eternal duration of the glorified Souls and bodies of the Saints which have not only a perpetuity arising from the refined and incorruptible nature but an Eternity flowing from the spiritual real and inseparable union of their Persons through faith and the Holy Ghost to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ God-man as Members united to their Head In which respect besides the declared positive and unchangeable decree and promises of God who cannot lye as these Scriptures witness amongst many others formerly mentioned viz. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Who so eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last Day The Saints I say are placed and fixed in such a blessed and certain state and condition as living spiritually in God and God in them as hath been proved that it is as possible for God who is Eternal Life to perish and dye as for any of his Saints to dye or perish that live by and in his life according to that unanswerable Argument of our Lord and Saviour As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me Because I live yee shall live also To conclude I humbly conceive that this Eternal Life of the Saints as to the reason and nature thereof far transcends the Eternal Life of the glorious Angels in that as far as is revealed in Scripture their life was given them by an act of Gods goodness will and power in their first Creation and is preserved continued and confirmed to the Elect Angels by an act of his grace And therefore those of them that kept not their first state are forever separated from God who is life and swallowed up into Eternal Death whereas the life even to the Saints proceeding from Gods spiritual inhabitation and communion with them is undeterminable unchangeable inseparable and is therefore Eternal O my Soul shall this thy impure mortal body immediately after the making of a new Heaven and a new Earth the refining of the four Elements of which it was formed and out of which it shall again be raised and reassumed appear at the Resurrection of the just as having its substance purified and made incorruptible Therefore according to the Scripture-phrase immortal and everlasting like as are the bright and superior Orbs Yea which is much more wonderfull shall this incorruptability everlastingness and immortality of thy soul and body be unchangeable and eternal because thy Person is spiritually and really united by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost unto the Person of Christ thy Head and unto God in Christ who is Eternal Life yea lastly doth this life excell and transcend as in respect of the cause and nature of it the life and being of all other Creatures even of the ever blessed Angels as being built not only as theirs is upon the Basis of Gods creating power and goodness which gives a beeing to all things but is establisht upon his declared promise and eternal truth and hath its unalterable duration from our dwelling and living in God and he in us and from that inseparable fellowship we have with the Father and the Son in the communion of the Holy Ghost O my Soul are these things true Have they been evidenst to thee out of the Scripture of truth O how oughtest thou in all humility and enlarged thankfulness to prostrate thy self at the foot-stool of thy infinite good gracious and mercifull God and Father in the Lord Jesus Christ admiring and adoring him First for the Revelation and manifestation by his Word and holy Spirit of so high ravishing and stupendious a mystery the wonder and praise of glorified Saints and Angels and the miracle of divine love Next let as the Prophet speaks one deep call unto another and from the sight of the
a Glass darkly and imperfectly taken a view of the Land of Promise the Inheritance of the Saints in light and presented to the Lord and to his Spouse the Church what discoveries he hath in great mercy given me as concerning Eternal Life that last and great Article of the Christian faith begun visibly in the Saints glorified condition in the new Heaven and new Earth and continued unto Eternity in the Heaven of Heavens Wherein concluding with the glorification and blessed use and exercise of our Tongues in that happy state I thought it proper both as to the general subject I have been upon as being the Vision exercise and Tryumph of Faith and as to the subject matter both lauditory to God and declarative to one another about which our Tongues shall in our renewed life be imployed to declare in this life with all humility and thankfulness of Heart and Tongue to both which my Pen is but the Secretary in the Ejaculatory part of that Meditation what by faith I behold and am assured from the Word of Truth shall come to pass here and be injoyed by me and all Gods Elect in the life to come and shall be there a blessed Subject of our praises to all Eternity In which Song of 12. parts or Jacobs Laddar of 12. Staves whose foot stands upon Earth and top reaches to Heaven we may by faith ascend beginning here upon Earth in this present Year of our Lord 1666. by twelve successive Steps wonderfull and most signal periods noted afore in the Margint to the last and highest ascent the Glorification of the Saints in the Heavens Being now come to Hercules Pillars the Ne-plus ultra of Faith beyond which all sacred Scripture the light of Faith is silent I can proceed nor walk any further in these Contemplations lest walking without a Light I fall into the Darkness of Error It being alike sinfull curiosity and presumption to inquire what God will do after this silence When time shall be no longer as to ask what he did before time was and before this World was Created Wherefore I shall here conclude these my imperfect Meditations and with all humility and reverence return all Honour Glory and Praise to thee O glorious Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost one God blessed for ever for thy most gracious assistance by the light of thy Word and Spirit in this great Work a subject too weighty for Angels how much more for me a simple sinfull and weak Worm Lord I acknowledge that whatsoever is good right and true in this Treatise is of and from thee who art Goodness Light and Truth and to thee alone belongs the praise and that whatsoever therein is Hay or Stuble is mine who humbly takes shame therefore and Petitions for thy free pardon in my Lord Christ Jesus beseeching thee that in the assurance of thy love and mercy in him and in the faith light and assurance of thy glorious Truths herein declared out of thy Word I may with Holy Job all the Days of my appointed time wait until my Change come And with zealous Paul desire to depart and to be with Christ that so my faith and hope may be swallowed up in the possession of thee and Vision may be changed into fruition Thy Spirit and thy Bride say come And let him that heareth say come Thou O Lord that testifieth these things sayest Surely I come quickly Amen Even so come Lord Jesus The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all Amen Soli Deo Gloria An Advertisement by the Author to the Reader FOr the more cleer and fuller proof of the Twelve great things mentioned in the Conclusion of this Work I refer the Reader to my Treatise almost ready to be published Entitled An humble Exposition of most of the Scripture-Prophesies concerning Twelve great Periods to be fulfilled to the Church beginning to be manifested in the Year 1666. and concluding with the end of our Lords Mediatory Kingdome and the Translation of the Saints to the highest Heavens FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Of the Things contained in the TREATISE Intitulated MEDITATIONS ON FAITH A. THe Affections lose their appetite if ye do but change the object viz. Spiritual for Temporal Page 4 Christs Agony as described should much act upon our spirits Page 27 The use and abuse of the Affections Page 45 46 All Arts and Sciences are in the Scripture as Metaphysick Phylosophie Astronomy Chronologie Rhetorick c. Page 71 Christs answer to the soul complaining of her Affections Page 81 The Antiquity of the Scriptures Page 102 Of the Affections glorified Page 151 Of holy Anger glorified Page 160 A Soliloquium upon it Page 161 An Ejaculation upon it Page 161 A caution against blotting Assurance Page 185 B. The Body of man like the pool of Bethesda with its five Porches Page 22 The curse and judgement of the Body Page 52 The Souls complaint against the Body with Christs answer Page 88 89. c. Of the Body glorified Page 164 Of the spirituality and swiftness of our Bodies at the Resurrection Page 169 A soliloquium and ejaculation on those two qualities of the Body Page 170 The glorious shining of the Body at the Resurrection Page 171 A soliloquium on that shining of the Body Page 173 Item an ejaculation upon it Page 174 Of the Immortality of the Body glorified Page 175 C. The Certain condition of man is to be uncertain Page 8 A man may be a Conduit-pipe to others and be a Vessel of dishonour himself Page 15 17 Of Christs Death and Burial Page 33 34 His victory over Hell Page 35 His Resurrection Page 36 His Ascension Page 38 Man in respect of Conscience is as one possessed Page 42 A Contemplation on love Page 47 A Contemplation on the insatisfaction in Riches Honours Pleasures Wisdom Page 49 A Contemplation on fear Page 51 A Contemplation on the sinfulness of the Eyes Ears Nostrils Taste and Touch Page 56 Of Christs Priestly Office Page 57 The occasion of Christs Priest-hood Page 58 A Contemplation upon Christs Priest-hood Page 60 Of Christs satisfaction Page 61 Christs answer to the poor soul complaining of his Conscience Page 75 The souls general Complaint answered by Christ Page 85 86 The souls Complaint against her Senses Tongue and Members of her body and Christs answer to it Page 88 89 A meditation on the excellency of Christs person Page 99 Against Coveteousness Page 123 An Ejaculation upon the glorious Change of the body at the Resurrection Page 185 D. Demas described Page 14 A Dialogue between Christ and the poor complaining soul in many particulars which Christ answers and satisfies Page 74 Our victory by Christ over Death Page 130 Our victory over the fear of Death Page 132 Our victory over the pain and separation by Death Page 133 All things fall short of the Duration of glorified Bodies and Souls and the high
with thy Neighbours Wife to defile thy self with her The Adulterer and Adulteress shall surely be put to death Be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor abusers of themselves with Man-kind shall inherit the Kingdome of God Mortifie your Members which are upon the Earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection evil concupiscence For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience And commit not Fornication as some of the Israelites committed and fell in one Day three and twenty thousand Without the new Jerusalem are Whoremongers who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with Fire which is the second Death Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts which are an abomination to the Lord. Wherefore hate all vain thoughts Let them not lodg within you for the thought of foolishness is sin I understand your thoughts afar off and am a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your hearts Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouths but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers But fornication and all uncleanness let it not be once named amongst you as becometh Saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of disobedience Be not therefore partakers with them I say unto you every idle word that Men shall speak they shall give account thereof at the Day of Judgment For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Whosoever looketh upon a Woman to lust after her hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart Wherefore with holy Job make a Covenant with thine Eyes that thou think not upon a Maid to lust after her For when thy Eye is evil thy Body also is full of darkness The Eyes of the wicked shall faile But chiefly them that walk after the Flesh in the lust of uncleanness Having Eyes full of Adultery and that cannot cease from sin and are reserved to the Day of Judgment to be punished and to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever The Night is far spent the Day is at hand therefore cast ye off the works of Darkness and put on the Armour of Light walking honestly as in the Day not in rioting and drunkenness not in Chambering and wantonness But put ye on me the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Let not Sathan who is a lyar from the beginning and the Father of lyes fill your hearts to sin against the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of truth that ye be not strucken with sudden Death as was Ananias and Saphira Ye shall not lye one unto another but every one speak the truth with his Neighbour For ye are Members one of another For I will destroy them that speak leasing and the mouth that speaketh lies shall be stopped The Earth mourneth and fadeth away the World languisheth and fadeth away the haughty People of the Earth do languish the Earth also is defiled under the Inhabitants thereof because they have transgressed the Laws changed the Ordinance broken the everlasting Covenant I am the Mediator of the new Covenant sealed unto you in my Sacraments of Baptisme and my Supper Tread not then under foot the Son of God nor count the blood of my Covenant wherewith ye are sanctified an unholy thing nor do despight unto my Spirit of grace For vengeance is mine I will recompence yea I will judge my people It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God When thou vowest a vow unto God defer not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fools Pay that which thou hast vowed The Lord thy God will surely require it of thee and it would be sin in thee That which is gone out of thy Lips thou shalt keep and perform to God and to Men lest thou be excluded my holy Hill and suffer alike Judgement with King Zedekiah for shall he escape that doth such things Or shalâ— he break the Covenant and be delivered Surely where the King dwelleth that made him King whose Oath he despised and whosâ— Covenant he break even with him in the midest of Babilon shall he die Thou shalt not desire thy Neighbours Wife neither shalt thou covet thy Neighbours House his Field or his Man servant or his Maid-servant his Oxe or his Ass or any thing that iâ— thy Neighbours Woe unto him that covered an evil covetousness to his House that he maâ— set his Nest on high that he may be delivereâ— from the power of evil He that maketh haâ— to be rich shall not be innocent No covetouâ— Man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Take heed and beware of Covetousness For woe unto him that buildeth his House by unrighteousness and his Chambers by wrong Beware of Ahab's sin and his punishment No Man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Therefore I say unto you take no thought for your Life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink nor yet for your body what ye shall put on Is not the life more than meat and the body than rayment For after all these things the Gentiles seek for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things Wherefore having food and rayment be therewith content for I have said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown Men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows Wherefore love not the World nor the things that are in the World if any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him There is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that with-holdeth more than is meet and yet tendeth to poverty The liberal Soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himself There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun and
to me my confiscated Estate but greatly increased it giving to me four good Houses most pleasant Seats which I built and planted not as thou didst once to Israel together with a revenue of about Three Thousand Three Hundered Pounds a Year Lands of Inheritance And now Lord which is a favour above all the rest thou hast been pleased to exchange my earthly possession for an Eternal Inheritance purchast for me by the infinitely precious blood of thy own Son the Lord Jesus Christ And made sure unto me by thy deed and new Covenant of Grace Witnessed Sealed and delivered to me by the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth Thus Lord hast thou made my loss my gain and converted my earthly poverty into the riches of Heaven made me to thy people and to after Ages a Monument of thy mercy and a witness of thy faithfulness in preserving me when thou leadest me through the Fire and through the Water and deliverest me in Six and Seven troubles Yea whatsoever thou didst so largely promise to thine in the Ninety first Psalm by thy Prophet thou hast graciously fulfilled to me Wherefore I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon thy Name O Lord and pay my Vowes unto Thee in the mid'st of the Congregation of thy People Yea by this Paper-Herald I will proclaim and transmit to posterity the many great and unparallel'd favours to me and mine that so the future Generations of those that love and fear thee may trust in thee and praise and serve thee also until time shall be no more Amen The ROYAL EXCHANGE A Corolary Poem upon the former Subject WHen the Almighty Power the Eternal Light The Abyss of Wisdome living Spring Of Life and Goodness out of Nothing 's Night Brought forth the Seeds of every thing All Creatures were Created good no change From their first Law did then produce Any defect in all this lower Range Of Works prepared for Man's Vse Till Man their Lord by Deviation From God's blest Rule brought through his Curse A Change upon this Worlds Creation Yea Death of all things the worst Hence is it that the once pure Elements Corrupt imperfect are yea fight With one another not at all content With Natures bounds and their first right Yea limping Age succeeds our frolick Youth And poverty a prosp'rous State Disgrace high honours and disasters doth Dog our delights now love then hate Affects Vs This Day we speak high The next we cause have for to mourn Now we are well to Morrow sick and die Like Seas our Calmes fore-go a storm Thus living Creatures and Inanimate Prove and obey God's just Decree That Man that was unstedfast and ingrate Might plagu'd be with Inconstancy Of theirs and of his own Condition And as in a cleer Mirror see In order unto his Conversion Their Emptiness and Vanity These are Gods Hieroglyphicks in which we By a conjunct Experience May read all Creatures Mutability If fixt not in the Eternal Ens. Blest be our great Mathematician That from this low'r circumference Drawes all these lines and makes them meet again Fixt in our Centre God Immense Lord to my self and others thou hast me Order'd to be a Map of Change One of these teaching Figures never free From some removes These last more strange Then all forepast As from the second place Of honour in three Nations State To be the Object of this Worlds disgrace Of obliquy and highest hate That after Twenty Years hard service done Vpon my Countreys call wherein I lost Five Thousand Pounds yet askt no boon Nor wages whil'st I sate therein Should now a Prisoner be for life and dead As to the World to Children Wife From Saints and publick Worship separated My food and comfort joy and life That after divers Thousand Pounds a Year Possession in a Moments time I should deprived be of all and fear A starving both of me and mine That of four noble houses and sweet Seats In the prime places of this Ile I should no Hive have for my swarmes receit But live abroad as an Exile Dear Lord am I Elisha-like beset With Troops of troubles doth the World Like to his Servants crie He 's lost a Net Of Misery is on him hurl'd Lord open thou their Eyes and they shall see That more is with me than against That Changes have Exchanges sent from Thee By which my State is much advanst Instead of Mundane honors buble thou Hast me Adopted for thy Son And granted me to know it and to bow Both Knee and Heart for what is done Impris'nment for life and long restraint Thou hast converted made to be A freedome much inlarg'd of which I vaunt As now enjoying more of Thee For Thousands loss of Pounds and annual Rents And Houses like to Paradise Thou hast a Hundred-fold freed from events Giv'n me and life that never dies An House not made with Hands which is above Eternal built by Thee yea more A Crown a Kingdome where there 's no removes Assur'd reserv'd for me in store O! who is like to thee who but a God Can gifts confer so rich as these Who would not service do to thee whose Rod Is dipt in Hony and whose fees Are for our weakness sake set forth compar'd To Empires pretious Diadems But do as far exceed Terrene rewards As Monarchs do our common Men Let Worldly Princes then set a great rate Vpon their Crowns and Signories Wallow in pleasures I 'le not change my State Nor Prison for their Royalties Much less my future hopes and sure intaile On me O Lord through thy free grace Of an Eternal Kingdome not to faile In Heaven at th' end of my short Race Vntil which blessed Hour for which I wait The Dayes of my appointed time With Job my Prison I will dedicate Vnto thy Service as a place Divine To sing thy praises in for this Exchange Of Earth for Heaven So shall I be On Earth in Heaven until I change My Place but not my Company Amen Soli Deo Gloria AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Containing the Subject Matter of the foregoing Treatise to direct the Reader by the Folio to finde readily any of the distinct Meditations and Poems set forth therein Occasional Meditations Corolary Poems upon each immediatly foregoing Subject A Abortion COncerning the Authors Recovery from the danger of an Abortion and untimely Birth The New Birth folio 348 B Breaches Burning Concerning God's gracious prevention of Breaches betwixt him and his own Father and betwixt him and his Father-in-Law The Vmphire folio 381 Vpon God's preservation of him and his Servant from being Burnt in their Lodgings in Sommerset-House The Deliverance folio 410 C Coach Cough Children Concerning his preservation from any harm when being alone in a Coach he was violently cast out by the Jolt of the Coach-whâ—el upon a Stone The Huricane folio 355 Vpon his Recovery from a dangerous Cough and
Kingdome Nor are we only Kings but dignified above such expressions the Image of the only true God being renued and imprinted in us For through our Lord Jesus Christ 's most great and precious promises are given unto us that by them we should be partakers of the Divine Nature Hath Saul chosen David to be his Son in Law yea and he esteemed it an honour worth the hazarding of his life But behold what love the Father hath given to us that we should be called the Sons of God Was Mordecai so publickly honoured by Ahasuerus God doth far exceed in his free favours towards his Witness St. John saying I saw round about the Throne four and twenty Seats and upon the Seats four and twenty Elders sitting clothed with white Rayment having on their Heads Crowns of Gold Come hither O thou loytering Soul that carest not to ascend the Mount with Abraham and Isaac but stayest below with his Servants and Asses that choosest rather to stand still and become a barren and unmovable Pillar of Salt with the faithless Wife of Lot then with no less hast than good speed to travel toward Zoar a place of safety with her righteous Husband The Poets tell us a Fable of one Tantalus whose hunger-starved Mouth covetously gasped after Golden Apples which continually fled from him I would O half Believer thou hadst his hunger his thirst then would our Saviours loving invitation be joyfully obeyed If any Man thirst let him come unto me and drink such living Waters which shall not flie from but into the longing Soul Art thou Adam's Son O here behold a Tree of Life whose Root is only transplanted from Paradise to Heaven that so the Fruit might hang down to Earth Here is now no prohibition to restrain thy ambition but a commission to warrant thy affection Take and eat O take it even Christ in his Word and Sacraments not carnally as Adam but spiritually with the hand of thy Soul which is a saving and applying faith Next relish it by Meditation and digest it by prayer Then shall thine eyes be enlightned and thou shalt perceive thy nakedness that so Christ may cloath thee with his righteousness here and his glory hereafter Then shalt thou behold the vanity of earthly pleasures riches and honours confessing that God is all these yea all in all unto thee That the happiness of Divine knowledge consists most in fruition That it is better to acknowledge God to be Immanuel with Isaiah then Daniel's God with Darius To imbrace Christ in our armes by faith with Simeon than to see his Star afar of with Balaam To rejoyce in God our Saviour with the blessed Virgin then to confess Jesus to be the Son of the most high God with the Legion of Devils Then shall that virtual and spiritual Figure of God which according to our capacity the holy Spirit hath shadowed out by attributes in his Word and Works be appropriated unto us by Faith That so those glorious rayes of his to wit his Holiness his Justice his Power which before our Souls were Eagle-fighted our minds illuminated rather scortcht than cherished dazled than enlightned us meet all in the centre of his mercy Jesus Christ and from him as it were by reflection powerfully work upon us and comfortably refresh the whole Man renewing justifying and sanctifying thee here and glorifying thee hereafter All this while O my Soul thou hast been viewing the first draught of Faith rudely painted after a Landskip fashion and therefore ever beheld at distance Now observe a second model limb'd out more exactly having in every part a seeming perfection O that the Colours would be but as lasting as lively The defect then of this Pourtraiture is a false ground manifested and proved by its short continuance The truth of which since it cannot aptly or charitably be demonstrated or discovered by any extant piece I know lest I should seem to be my own Judge or judge my Brother I will with reverence look into our Ark the sacred Scriptures wherein as there is the two Tables of the Law for our instruction so there is a Pot of Manna to encourage and strengthen our obedience An Aaron's Rod to tell us what we have been are and should not be There I doubt not but to finde some Antiquities of the infant Age before the Law or the middle Age under the Law and some in the old Age of the World that last measure of time under the Gospel Which although dusted by death survived in those living characters for instruction and our purpose All humane judgments may erre Neither is there any Seat of Judicature upon Earth no not Peter's Chair altogether free from injustice and false opinions If it be the certain condition of Man to be uncertain in all his ways Nam humanum est errare it is his Custome to erre How can he then which is a stranger at home make a true discovery abroad He that stumbles in a known and even path cannot choose but fall headlong if he ascend craggy passages He that is ignorant of earthly things cannot be spiritually judicious The best oft-times are deceived by their own hearts For the heart of Man is deceitfull above all things who can know it much more by others Those which in the false Ballance of our understanding have seemed down weight being placed in the Scales of the Sanctuary have been found wanting as may appear in these following examples Who although they out-went the prospect of Men in the right way towards Heaven in the outward acts of Faith yet afterwards either stood still or wanting Oyl for their Lamps were benighted and strayed in the broad Paths of prosperity Cain the first draught of humanity that ever Man drew the first born to whom hereditarily belonged the blessing and the double portion the fourth part of the then visible Church and a sacrificing Priest before God viz. by his birth education offering proved to be a Member of the Church a Professor by his Prayers implyed as the inseparable Companions of Sacrifices the fruits of that profession are manifest so that to the superficial view of Man he seems not only practically Religious but also to parallel faithful Abel Yet behold in process of time his want of perseverence shewes his defect of Sincerity the murder of his Brother his former Hypocrisie and afterwards concluded of and punished with the Curse of God the Hatred of good men and his self Despairation Lots Wife was a member of the apparent Church and as it is probable forsook her native Country her Fathers Gods to be a sojourner a stranger in a remote Land with Abraham And no doubt while she lived in that sinful Sodom was a frequent Hearer of that Doctrine of Repentance which her Righteous husband Preached with so unhappy success Yea in conclusion she forsakes Sodom being not only aided by the presence but led by the hand of an Angel
ravishing contemplation of the infinite Power and Wisdome of thy Creator manifested in the multiplicity variety and unexpressible excellencies of smells and odours as also of his wonderfull mercy love and goodness in making them and communicating them to thee for thy use and benefit that as in a clear mirrour and by this blessed medium thou mayest behold and enjoy him who is essentially sweetness and by whom through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which grace as a spiritual internal and common sense and Architype of all thy Bodily senses beholds hears tasts smells imbraces and possesses him thou mayest I say in God alone be delighted refresht and nourisht unto Life Eternal O infinite holy ever glorious and Eternal Spirit who art the power and love the goodness holiness and sweetness of the Eternal Father and the Son as proceeding from all Eternity from them and who art co-equal co-eternal and co-essential with them in the unity of one Divine Essence and God-head who art the Comforter Counseller Preserver and Sanctifier of all the Elect and Children of God give me a new heart and a new spirit and make me a new Creature according as the Father hath promised in the new Covenant of grace so shall not only my Soul with all the faculties and affections thereof but my Body also with all its Members and Senses be meliorated renewed and sanctified and this rare wonderfull and curious sense of Smelling with the sinfulness of pride voluptuousness excess curiosity and vanity hath made not only unprofitable and destructive to me but of ill savour offensive and dishonorable to thee become like the laborious Bee a gatherer of sweetness out of every object thereof Of which various mixtures my Soul shall compound and make up an holy Incense in resemblance of that under the Law prefiguring this of love as in return for thy goodness of admiration in the acknowledgment of thy wisdome of adoration as declaring thy Omnipotency of praise and thanksgiving as glorifying thee for these thy manifold gifts and blessings and be not only Adamiz'd and like him as in Paradise before the Fall but Angeliz'd yea like my Lord and Saviour who from every object Creature and occasion observed and raised matter of honour and glory to God his Father and mine yea by such an holy exercise of this Sense my Soul as well as my Body shall be refresht delighted and nourisht in its Eternity of Life begun here and to be made perfect together with this sense at the first Resurrection of the Just in Glory I need not prove that the Sense of Feeling shall continue and have existence in the Saints glorified state since to deny it is tanto-mount as to affirm that their Bodies shall not have a beeing or which is equally absurd that they shall in this new life be sick of a dead Palsie This Sense being now and so without doubt shall be then one of the clearest signes and demonstrations of the life of the Body and hath in one respect a singular preheminency and difference above the rest of the Senses For whereas every other Sense hath its proper Seat and Organ This may be truly said to be like the Soul and to Organize and reside in every part and member of a living and perfect Body Neither is this Sense less necessary to motion than to life insomuch as that when a Body is totally deprived thereof it is insensible and moves not and is accompted no better than a dead Trunk and inanimate Corps I shall add further that this Sense as it is now so certainly it shall be then the Souls chief Instrument and Inquisitor to discern by and give Judgment with much pleasure and delight of those four principal Elementary qualities that are respectively inherent to and in all created things and bodies that consist of matter and are made up and compounded of the four Elements as to heat or coldness driness or moisture or of those remoter qualities and adjuncts soft or hard smooth or rough arising from them So that as the Soul united to the new-raised Body without Eyes and the Sense of Sighâ— may truly be said to be imperfect and blind as to all visible objects so should the Body want this Sense of Feeling the Soul may as truly be said to be incompleat and ignorantly dark as to its knowledge and understanding as to all Tangible subjects From what hath been said I assert that the Saints at the Resurrection shall in their glorified Bodies have both the continuance and exercise of this Sense of Feeling and that in an incomparable perfection as to what it is now I will not positively affirm that spiritual substances as Angels may be subjects of this glorified Sense that shall be spiritualiz'd with our Bodies which though now a Natural Body shall then according to the Word of Truth be raised a spiritual Body If so is it not probable that as now to our natural Bodies natural things are touchable so to our spiritual bodies spiritual substances as Angels may be Tangible Our Saviours expression to his Apostles not at all contraducing or excluding this inquiry or inference he affirming only that a spirit hath not flesh and bones as he had not denying that a spiritual glorified body may touch and feel a spiritual Beeing and Essence But should this not be I am assured we shall both touch and imbrace him and be imbrac'd by him I speak this according to the Scripture-phrase with all due and humble reverence who is far above all Creatures and Angels our Head our Spouse our Saviour the most glorious Lord Jesus Christ God-man in one Person as also Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Holy Patriarchs Kings Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and glorified Saints as also our formerly neer and dear Relations which then shall be known of us in that perfection of knowledge and in this our exaltation that so their salvation may add such an accidental joy to the augmentation of our blessedness as the Holy Angels are said by our Saviour to have now super-added to their happiness at the conversion of a sinner To these I shall annex and subjoyn other more inferiour subjects of this glorified Sense the then refined and well-tempered Aire and Elements the delightfull contact of Fowles Birds and Beasts now willingly subject and obedient to Man the super-excelling and numerous Trees Fruits and Plants the Arbors of soft and sweet-smelling Roses the banks of Lillies the beds of Violets the Carpets of all manner of rarest Herbs and Flowers with which this new Heaven and new Earth this renewed Paradise shall be even to perpetuity plentifully garnisht and adorned with to the great glory of God the Creator of Christ the Restorer and of the Holy Ghost the Efficient and to the unexpressible pleasure and delightfull use and benefit of the Elect and glorified Saints As the blessed Canticles that Song of Songs hath been and is reproacht and abused by wanton Amorists
Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for 〈…〉 Created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Thou O blessed Saviour art worthy to take the Book of the Providential Decrees and actings of the Father as concerning thy Chuâ—ch and to open the Sealâ— and to discover the meaning thereof for thâ—â— wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation And hast made 〈◊〉 unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall 〈…〉 the Earth Worthy 〈…〉 O Lamb â—hat was 〈◊〉 to receive power and riches and wisdome and strength and honour and glory and blessing Blessing â—â—nour glory and power be unto thee O Father That 〈◊〉 upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for eâ—er and ever Great and marvailous are thy works Lord God Allmighty just and 〈◊〉 are thy ways O King of Saints who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorify thy Name for thou only 〈◊〉 holy For all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgments are made manifest and thy 〈◊〉 in the raising thy Witnesses thy Magistracy and Ministry and pouring forth thy wrath upon the Beast the Man of Sin that Western Anti-christ the Pope and upon that Mystery of Iniquity Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth which is also spiritually called 〈◊〉 and Egypt and literally Rome the Throne and Seat of the Beast and two-horned Beast the false Prophet which is come now into remembrance before thee O God to give unto her the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of thy wrath she saith now in her heart I sit iâ— Queen and am no Widdow and shall see no sorrow therefore shall her Plagues 〈◊〉 in owâ— Diâ—â—y Death and Mourning and Famine and she shall be utterly 〈◊〉 with Fire for strong are thou 〈◊〉 God that Judgeth her And the Beaâ—â— the Pope that was and is not that is the Eight Head and is of the Seventh shall go into Perdition and be taken and with him the false Prophet the Roman Church and Hierarchy that wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his Image These both shall be cast alive into a Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone First in this life by a direfull excommunicaâ—tion by all the Churches of Christ and after this life 〈◊〉 the Fiery Lake of Hell O Almighty Saviour who 〈◊〉 King of Kings and Lord of Lords shall my Tongue 〈◊〉 my glorified condition as hath been shewed sing thy praises declare and perpetuate the memory of these thy wonderfull actings after thou hast done them O 〈◊〉 me now before thou doest them as beholding 〈◊〉 very neer through the Perspective of thy Word by the Eye of my Faith Sing that new Song of praises before thy Throne concerning thy great and marvellous proâ—idences with the hundred forty and four thousand thy Virgins and redeemed ones that stand with thee oâ— Mount Sion the Figure of thy Church and tryumphingly declare with the Angel that the Hour of thy Judgment is come and that Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the Wine of the wrath of her Fornication Let me also as by the same prospect of Faith beholding the Call and Conversion of thy antient People Israel and scattered Jewes to be at hand and the total destruction of Gog and Magog the blasphemous Mahumetan Turk by their Sword and in their Land and bless and praise thy Name for it is wonderfull fearfull and glorious O my Lord hast thou also declared and promised by thy Holy Apostle John that thou wilt shortly Lay hold on the Dragon that old Serpent which is the Devil and Sathan and bind him for a thousand years Casting him into the bottomless Pit and shutting him up and setting a Seal upon him that he should deceive the Nations no more untill the thousand years shall be fulfilled And that then all the ends of the World shall remember and turn unto thee O Lord and all the Kindreds of the Nations shall worship before thee And the Kingdomes of this World shall become the Kingdomes of Thee our Lord and of thy Christ and He shall raign for ever Lord shall I we see such a blessed and happy age as this when as a natural and rational effect of Sathans binding and thy casting him and all his Legions of Devils into the local Hell and of thy plentuous pouring forth of the gifts and graces of thy Spirit according to the Prophets the whole World shall be converted to Christianity all Wars and Contentions shall cease Swords shall be turned into Plow-shares and Speares into Pruning-hooks and the Nations shall learn Warre no more And long life and peace and plenty shall Crown this Orbe when all Idolatry Ignorance open profaneness and wickedness shall be laid aside and purity light and unity in life and doctrine worship and discipline shall shine forth throughout the Earth even above the Primitive times when saving knowledge and a Salomonial wisdome shall cover the Earth even as the Waters cover the Seas Shall I I say behold all this by faith through the gracious illumination of thy blessed Spirit in thy Word of Truth And shall I not cry out with holy David Lord open thou my Lips and my Mouth shall shew forth thy praise yea often glorify thee in singing the 96. Psalme which being a clear Prophesie of this time thy Spirit indited to that purpose as also the 97. the 98. the 99. and the 100. Psalmes O Lord hast thou foretold and promised by thy Prophet Daniel That Judgment shall be given unto the Saints of the most High and that the Saints shall possess the Kingdome That then Righteousness shall be the Girdle of thy Loynes and faithfulness the Girdle of thy Reines That thou wilt give us Judges as at the first and Counsellers as at the beginning and that thou wilt make our Exactors righteousness That the Judgment shall fit and the Kingdome and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdome under the whole Heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the most High whose Kingdome is an everlasting Kingdome and all Dominions shall serve Him Yea is this that fift and universal Monarchie and victorious Kingdome which is by thy Almighty Power and Spirit to be acted and carryed on by thy Saints when as it is witnessed by the Prophets and thy Servant David Thou shalt break thy Enemies with a Rod of Iron and shalt dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel when the Lord at thy right hand shall strike through Kings in the Day
unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traytors heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God having a forme of Godliness but denying the Power thereof from such turn away For of this sort are they which creep into Houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with sins led away with divers lusts ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Now as Jannes and Jambres with-stood Moses so do these also resist the truth Men of corrupt mindes reprobate as concerning the faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all Men as theirs was The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good Therefore the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them For God hath shewed it unto them For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are cleerly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and God-head so that they are without excuse O righteous Father the World hath not known Thee but I have known Thee No Man cometh to the Father but by Me. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For I and the Father am one Believe also my works that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in him For in the beginning was I the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by Me and without Me was not any thing made that was made In me was life and the life was the light of Men. I the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst you and ye beheld my glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth I am the image of the invisible God By me were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers All things were created by Me and for Me I am before all things and by me all things consist There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one I spake unto my Apostles and true Ministers saying Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost What high blasphemers then are they that deny the Holy Ghost to be God The Spirit of God moved upon the Waters And by the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the Spirit of his Mouth The Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testifie of Me. For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak He shall glorifie Me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Peter said unto Ananias In that thou hast lied to the Holy Ghost thou hast not lied unto Men but unto God Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men. The Grace of me the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost the Comforter Preserver and Sanctifier be with you all This is the will of God even your Sanctification that you should abstain from Fornication and that every one of you should know how to possess his Vessel in Sanctification and Honour Not in the lust of Concupiscence as the Gentiles that know not God Wherefore to avoid Fornication let every Man have his own Wife and every Woman her own Husband Have you not read that he that made Man in the beginning made them Male and Female I the Lord will bear witness against them that deal treacherously with the Wife of their Youth Is she not thy Companion and the Wife of thy Covenant And did not I make one yet had I the residue of the Spirit And wherefore one that I might seek a godly Seed Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the Wife of his Youth For I the Lord God of Israel hate putting away Therefore I say unto you whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery and whosoever marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The Husband is the Head of the Wife not of Wives as I am the Head of the Church Let every one therefore in particular so love his Wife even as himself And the Wife not the Wives see that she reverence her Husband Despise not Prophesyings quench not the Spirit He that heareth you that are my true Ministers heareth Me and he that despiseth you despiseth Me and he that despiseth Me despiseth him that sent Me. He that is of God heareth God's words My Sheep hear my voice He that knoweth God heareth my Ministers but he that is not of God heareth them not And as oft as you eat the Bread and Drink of the Cup in my Sacraments ye do it in remembrance of Me and shew my Death until I come Pray without ceasing The workers of iniquity call not upon the Lord. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill For verily I say unto you till Heaven and Earth pass one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandements and shall teach Men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the Kingdome of Heaven Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are Gods Let every Soul be subject unto the higher Powers For there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation For Rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and
Order of Melchizedeck I say dost thou now being on Earth neerer to their reproaches and yet not further off from thy power pass over their iniquities suffering thy self to be crucified by them whom thy Justice should have crucified to be sacrificed by the wrath of them whom thy anger hadst thou come to destroy not to save should have sacrificed Was Noah Lot Moses Elisha all Prophets all Types of Thee by thee aided and made victorious over their unbelieving and insulting adversaries and why dost not thou O Lord of all Prophets being now thine own Orator and yet despised demolish Corazin or Bethsaida with other Cities of Judea either by Water or Fire O Lord thou art still the same God then thy Justice was manifested but now thy mercy is magnified as appears by that Deploration over Jerusalem where the Floods of Waters are now converted to an Inundation of Teares the Fire and Brimstone to love-burning and pittying sighes though some murmuring ask From whence hast thou this Authority others blaspheming make thee a Sabbath-breaker and esteem thee as a Conjurer a Glutton a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners yet hast thou not now a devouring Gulf for such Repiners Teeth of wilde Beasts for such calumniating Blasphemers unless we behold that one alone bottomless Gulf of thy mercy most extended and most deep even to Man in the depth of his misery Father forgive them for they know not what they do O Christ Did fear dead thy revenge due to those Sinners against their own Souls No fear is a duty of the Creature ruled by thee not over-ruling thee Passion is incident to inferiours and therefore below thee which hast no Superior Did want of ability smother thy anger No thy Power is not extinguished no less than â—nfinite although in thy humiliation clouded during thy pleasure Lord why did those many Legions of Heavenly Souldiers suffer thy Enemies to carry thee their General away Captive those Bonds which could not resist Sampson's force fetter the Armes of thee the Almighty who gave him strength those Nailes fasten thee to the Cross who wert as able to deliver thy self as thou wert willing to suffer O Saviour my thankful Soul by way of confession replies thus The unmeasurableness of thy love patiently swallowed up all these contumelies and reproaches for love instead of revenge thou forgavest thine Enemies instead of calling for power to destroy Man thou proclamedst his Salvation crying out It is finished the Angels when thou wert attached by Judas although within thy Call must only be admiring Witnesses of thy Patience not Executors of those Traytors Lastly thy Mercy only manacled thy hands and nailed thee to thy Cross making Thee a Transgressor by the bearing of our Sins that we might become righteous through the Imputation of thy Merits according to that of Peter Who his own Self bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree that we being dead to Sin should live in Righteousness by whose Stripes we are healed These things gracious Saviour yea infinitely more hast thou done for us which since we cannot apprehend let us with reverence admire rejoycing that we have view'd thee in thy Birth to be our Kinsman in thy Life our Example in thy Death our Saviour after Death our Resurrection and Glory Lord what art thou not unto us a Balme for our Wounds a Laver for our Souls a Sacrifice for our Sins and the Life of our Death What hast thou not suffered for us Wert thou not humbled in thy Birth persecuted all thy Life and though innocent adjudged to Death that our Nature might be exalted our Life enlarged our Guilt acquitted Wert thou not scourged disrobed Crowned with Thorns lifted upon the Cross derided athirst forsaken and slain that we might be delivered from the Judgments of thy Father clothed with thy Righteousness Crowned with thy Glory lifted up into Heaven freed from the mocks of Sathan satisfied with the sweet draughts of thy Love received of thee for ever to Live Eternally What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon his Name saying Glory be to God in the Highest Peace on Earth good Will towards Men Praise and Honour and Glory and Power be unto Him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for evermore Soli Deo Gloria A Concluding Prayer O Eternal Infinite and Everlasting God by whom all things were Created that are made and in whom we Live Move and have our Beeing I thy poor Creature humbly beseech Thee to deal graciously with me thy Servant pardoning all my Offences and passing by all the errors wants and imperfections committed in these my feeble Meditations O Lord I praise Thee for thy favourable assistance of my weakness ever confessing thy gâ—eat Goodness in my Creation the Pride Incredulity and Weakness of my Nature in Man's Fall and thy Infinite Mercy in my Redemption O let the one rejoyce me the other humble me and the last make me obediently thankful in the observant performance of all thy Commands that so I may glorifie Thee which is the end of my Beeing repent and believe in Thee who art the Resurrection of my Fall and live with Thee Eternally which is the Compleatment of my Salvation and fulfilling of my Hope which is fixt in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all possible Praise Obedience and Thanksgiving now and for ever Amen Vpon several temporal Mercies Providences and Deliverances Graciously Vouchsafed By the Lord Infinite in Goodness To the most unworthy Author And to many also of his neer Relations EBENEZER HETHERTO hath GOD helped me 1 Sa. 7.12 Bethel the House of God Gen. 28.19 A Pillar of PRAISE Erected by An English JACOB unto the onely Infinite Eternal and Almighty JEHOVAH in all Sincerity Humility Reverence and filial fear Hallelujah Eternal FATHER Glorious SON and Holy GHOST Three Persons but One GOD in Essence who the HOST Of Heaven and Earth did'st make and art Goodness Power Justice Truth Love Wisdome Holiness To Thee with JACOB SAMUEL A PILLAR I ERECT to tell All Future AGES to thy PRAISE Thy MERCIES to Me all my DAYES Their 's like their Faith was of firm Stone Mine weak like Me a PAPER One O let thy Strength made Perfect be In my Great IMBECILITY Two Mites Goats Hair from Hearts most free Are JEWELS in Thy TREASURY LORD had I Men and Angels Tongues That KEY would be below the SONGS Of THANKS-GIVING I owe to THEE For what in CHRIST thou did'st for MEE From which Eternal Love forth Springs The Temporal Mercies which these Hymns Commemorate O let Free GRACE Be Adamantine and my BASE And IRON-HEART to THEE attract Seal'd by Thy SACRAMENTAL Act So shall my Person and these Sheets Which I prostrate at THY blest FEET Received be as being PERFVM'D By thy sweet SPIRIT and only
and other such like Is it so O my Soul And hath the Lord so extraordinarily and abundantly blessed this Ordinance and condition unto thee as thou hast declared in thy foregoing Memorial and thankful Acknowledgment Let upon this occasion thy Meditation be further stirred up and inlarged and from this great temporal blessing and mystery behold declare and point out the far greater and excelling blessings which are and shall be enjoyed by thee and the Church the Spouse of Christ by our spiritual Marriage and Union unto Him As Marriage in the Institution and in the particular Application is the Holy Ordinance of God and the blessed effect of his gracious Providence and Eternal Decree All Marriages according to the Proverb being made in Heaven so is that great Architype thereof the Marriage of the Church and in it of every true believer unto Christ. The Father bringing every one of us to him as he did Eve to Adam For none comes to me but whom the Father draws saith our Saviour Christ yea our Election effectual Calling and Regeneration together with our Union by Faith and spiritual Espousal to Christ our Heavenly Husband is of and from the Eternal Decree Love and Election of God our Father As the Woman was of the Man and not the Man of the Woman and the Woman was Created for the Man and not the Man for the Woman so was the Church typified by Eve taken out of the side of the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ that she might be made as being his Rib Beloved and neer to his heart Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone his only Spouse and one with him as the Apostle Paul asserts Eph. the 5. ver 30. This was effectually done when being asleep in Death upon the Cross the Beeing and Redemption of his Church arose and sprung forth of his side in a Flood of infinite precious and Cordial Blood and Water To conclude this our spiritual Union and Marriage is by the Apostle called a great Mystery as being the blessed effect of the free grace of God who is assentially love and therefore it is as to the heighth and depth length and breadth thereof Incomprehensible and passing all understanding By vertue of this Espousal in Baptisme we as Wives amongst us change our names into his and instead of Adamites are called Christians And on our part promise to forsake Father and Mother and all things else for him and to honour love and obey him On the other part the Lord Jesus Christ thus betroth'd to us in holiness and everlasting righteousness becomes thereby our Lord Law-giver and Spouse our Pattern Protector and Saviour as in the Type Husbands amongst us are or ought to be unto their Wives and as they so he endowes us here not only with all temporal blesings so far as shall be for our good For Godliness hath the promises of this Life and of that Life which is to come But with the rich dowry of all the saving Graces of his holy Spirit Cloathing us with the white Robes of his perfect and immaculat righteousness As being made of God unto us righteousness wisdom sanctification and redemption Yea the Lord our righteousness And as for hereafter he gives us the earnest and assurance of being Co-heirs with him of Eternal Life and Glory Amen EPITHELAMIVM Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject BReath not this Aire Men of unchast desires No Fewels here for your unhallow'd Fires Lord I adore thy wisdome and thy love That shadow'st in blest Wedlock things above Teaching Vs that this Vnions Mystical And sets forth thine with Vs Before the Fall A crooked Kib thou streightnest gav'st it Life Mad'st it a Virgin pure first Adam's Wife That she of thy dear Spouse the Type might be Once crookt by sin but now made streight in Thee Yea in the chast delights of Marriage-Bed Her union thou holdst forth with thee her Head In which thou giv'st to her thy loves that she Be'ng first belov'd might flame in love to Thee Kissing her with the kisses of thy Mouth Quickned with sp'rit and life thy sacred Truth Thou also her incirclest in the Armes Of thy protection And her frees from harmes For why thy right hand-power doth her o're-spread And left hand-care supports her graceful head Her sp'rit'al senses ear tast smell touch sight Thou satisfi'st with ravishing delight Her piercing eye of Faith sees and applies Thy excellency hid from Worldly eyes Her eares be'ng fill'd with Musick of thy Voice Doth in thy Word and promises rejoyce Thou altogether lovely art unto Her inward touch whence mutual love doth flow She tasts thy Spice Myrrh Hony Milk and Wine Of Hope Joy Peace Delight all sweets Divine Thy Spicknard Camphire fills her smelling sence Also thy Cassida Aloes Frankinsence And fragrant Oyntments All which well express Thy love truth mercy wisdome holiness Thy power and goodness grace and righteousness Sweet Oders which her cherish and refresh In fine thy Nuptial-Bed is covered o're And pav'd with love and fill'd with Graces store Here in her thou shed'st incorrupted Seed Begets in her a Christ-like forme indeed Whence follows that which joyes both Heaven and Earth Divine Conception and thy Saints new-birth So that one Christ one Sp'rit one flesh and bone One Body is thy Church thus 't was made one Hence as of Faith and mutual love the effects Thou rul'st and in her dwell'st and her protects Cloaths her with Golden Robes thy righteousness Mak'st her within glorious through holiness Giv'st her the promises of this World's life And of that life to come and as thy Wife Crown'st her with Glory sets her on thy Throne With thee on Earth as thy beloved One Next to thy Fathers Kingdome her translates To live with God Thy Churches highest State Another Hymn upon the same blessed Subject being Meditations upon my Marriage-Day The TYPE BLest Miracle of Love whose sacred Rights Restores to Man his own and re-unites Natures Division Two Bodies were combin'd In Adam once Loe here two Souls I find Knit in a purer union How doth the smile of one Attend the others joy her sighs my groane If absence parts us like as though one breath Did fan two hearts both seem to suffer Death If distance Clouds our view the strength of Love Doth make our thoughts as well as Bodies move In visits to each other So though two parts We seem to be we still are one in Heart The Anti Type or Application MY Love my Spouse my Sav'our Can the Fires Sprung from weak Natures notions and desires Produce such Sympathies O let thy flame Spir'd by a purer spirit effect the same In my unworthy Soul The Loves of all Compar'd with that of thine the Original Are but as shades to substances the Ray Vnto its Globe of light as Night to Day Lord in my Baptisme
Baptisme and in thy faithful promise made to me as well as to Abraham since thou hast given me to believe and to plead it here before thee I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed What shall I render unto thee O Lord for all these thy benefits Since I and my Children are but like seventeen Cyphers which signify nothing unless thou place with and before us that only blest Unite thy Holy One the Lord Jesus in and by whom we shall be accounted of a great value with thee and be numbred amongst thy Saints O let me and my Childrens Children obey and glorifie thee until time be swallowed up in Eternity that what is wanting now as to our thankfulness may be in some measure although never enough for thy mercies are unmeasurable be supplyed in the length of years and by so many and in and by their multiplyed Generations for whose sakes as well as for this present Age I humbly Register here both thy blessings and my perpetual praises Amen The BEE-HIVE A thankfull Poem on the same Subject HAst thou O gracious God so highly honor'd me As to co-work and be thy humble Instrument To bring forth Souls array'd with Immortality 〈◊〉 worth than this whole world with its rich ornaments 〈◊〉 being living Images of Thee by right Of Christ in posse to be glorious Saints in Light Hast thou by me O Lord as thy blest second cause 〈…〉 that for their rare excelling frame Are 〈◊〉 worlds and through obedience to thy Lawes And Faith shall be like thee and truly fear thy Name Hast thou me given sixteen Tongues and sixteen pair Of Hands and Feet to praise serve thee for thine they are And shall my Muse be silent All these Tongues be dâ—mb As to thy praise No Lord through thy assisting grace I and my swarm of Children shall become A holy Quire a little Church thy dwelling Place The Trumpets of that Goodness which gives me to see Sixteen fair Branches from one blessed Tree Lord did thy Abraham esteem one Isaac more Than all his Earthly wealth Are a Posterity The living Monuments of Parents a rich Ore Our lively Pourtraictures in whom we never die Pillars of Families and the Foundations And Builders up of Churches Cities Nations The strength of Kingdomes Riches of a State The honour and defence of their weak aged Sires As ready for to meet the Enemies in the Gate A gift only from thee the fruit of chast desires Natures prime Flowers for beauty and which long endure Our choicest Houshold-stuff and richest Furniture O let me as my prop'â—est act of Gratitude As living Sacrifices offer them to thee And to thy Service since such servitude Their freedome is as once I did in Baptisme Lord hear my fervent Prayer and answer give Granting them all in thee a renew'd life to live Amen ARGUMENT Vpon the Lord's most bountiful goodness in giving me an Estate of Inheritance of about Three Thousand Three Hundred Pounds a Year and upon his wise and righteous Providence since in his Re-assumption and taking it from me Naked come I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thither The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. Soliloquium or Discourse HOw wonderful various and mysterious are the actings of God in this World so that no Man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Let no Man therefore rashly Judge himself or his Brother as to these mundain and subsolary Dispensations lest he be judged of the Lord and possibly before he dies in another give Judgment upon himself This was the great sin of Job's Religious Friends and David's wicked Enemies in their change and low condition who censured the one for his hypocrisie and the other as a Rebel and a Traytor Wherefore as private persons Judge not before the time when the Lord hath promised that the righteousness of all his people shall shine forth as the light and their Judgment as the Noon-day Man's state in this World is much like the Moon to Day in the full glorious and lightsome to Morrow in the Wane dark and scarcely visible The Holy Spirit styling all our good things here uncertain Riches and compares them to an Eagle that hath Wings and suddainly flies away Of this truth the Lord to his praise be it spoken for shall I receive good and not evil from the Lord hath made me an eminent Example when he ordered my light to be blown out by one breath And I and my numerous Family to be lest to starving and darkness And all this not in hatred but in his wonderful love which I shall here declare to all the people of God from experience which is the truest demonstration and to the carnal World to whom this is a great mystery My gracious God since this my suffering condition having instead of my Earthly possessions given me himself the everlasting fulness of all things to be my unvaluable Inheritance The knowledge and assurance of which inestimable gift of being his and he mine And of the Concomitants and fruits thereof Eternal Life and Glory notwithstanding my early Convertion I would had it been purchaseable have given a World for in my prosperity For what shall a Man gain though he possess the whole World if he lose his Soul yea what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul And as to the present Cloud over me the World beholds only the dark not the light-side thereof Viz. The wonderful providences and preservations confer'd and accumilated both upon me and mine during my above Eight Years restraint and separation which is the Lord give me leave and life I shall in all humble thankfulness to God's glory and his Churches good more at large declare He having preserved me often as he did David Daniel and the Three Children in the Cave Lyons Den and Fiery Furnace and provided for me and mine as strangely as he did for Eliath when fed with Flesh by the Beaks of wilde and Flesh-devouring Ravens Eternal Father Son and Holy Ghost Three glorious Persons One Omnipotent and Incomprehensible God and Beeing my God in Covenant my gracious Father in thy only begotten and beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ my alone Redeemer The only Fountain of love and goodness for thou art love and a God of tender mercies Who didst not only give me a large paternal Estate but when that was all taken from me for five Years in the late Wars didst in that time of my want and necessity relieve me and my numerous Family by the gift of a good Revenue the Legacy of my Wiâ—es Father who did not only after the end of the late troubles in the Year 1646. Restore
Lord knowest the thoughts of man For what end therefore O Ananias tends the subtil compact with thy Wife The strength and ripeness of Sin hastens the harvest of Judgment wherefore then this bare notion of Religion This worst Sin hath Hells worst Punishment What serves for O Sapphira the impudent defence of this act which is as lightning before the thunder-clap of Justice since the spirit searches all things yea the secret things of God He knew thy untruth thy lie and therefore at once pronounced and executed the truth of thy Judgement Behold the feet of them that have buried thy Husband are at the dore and shall carry thee out Whereupon she fell down at the Apostles feet and yeilded up the Ghost Justice depriving those of life Gods gift which any way detain mans gift to God to wit their Offerings or whatsoever else is set apart for an Holy employment The indulgent Parent fears that the life story of that child will prove but a compendium whose Infant years are an Abridgment of Mans stature The like observation will be proved true if doubted in many preposterously forward Christians who are like to Childrens Bubbles which while they last are but Topographies to the Beholders Or like Lightning which though it invelop Heaven hath nought remaining yea scarcely time and place to bear witness of its glory So these hypocritical and temporary Professors seem a perfect Map of Christianity the splendor of Religion Yet at the appointed time they vanish becoming so much further off by how much nearer they seemed to Heaven View the experiment of this truth in the Scribes and Pharisees from the opinion of whose Righteousness the Jews drews this Maxim That if any two on Earth should be glorified in Heaven the one must be a Scribe the other a Pharisee That their Purity was but a Blaze this vulgar conceit a Falsehood Hear and believe the Word yea the Word of Truth concluding these Wise men Fools these Guides Misleaders these Patrons of the Common-wealth unnatural Vipers sealing them up with a seven fold Woe for manifest an hypocrisie to eternal Damnation Our Saviour was many times guarded with troops and multitudes of Disciples whose momentary affections proffered Him an Earthly Crown Yet he which knew all Hearts knew the unconstancy of theirs and therefore committed not himself to them For had they been as Powerful as Willing had their affections been as sincere and durable as they were fervent yet could not any earthly Monarchy allure him to Reign who lest his Heavenly Throne to Suffer exchanging a crown of Glory for a Crown of Thornes that his Humiliation might be be mans Exaltation O here behold the Unchangeableness of Gods Love the Vanity and Unsteadfastness of Mans best Resolution Those Disciples which even now would have Crowned him those which traced him through Sea and Land and having found him said What should we do that we might work the Works of God yea those who as it were filled with a passionate desire of possession prayed Lord evermore give us this Bread these now instead of honouring him with a Diadem deny his Regal descent saying Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph These whose appetites desired evermore to enjoy this Bread of Life think there is now no living with this Food as being too hard for their digestion their tongues testifying their distate saying This is an hard saying who can hear it To conclude they that so fast followed him now as fast depart from him Witness our Saviours question to his Chosen ones Will ye also go away O blessed Saviour Let my Soul be a follow respondent with Peter and say Lord to whom shall I go Thou hast the Words of Eternal Life My Meditations have spent much time in the discovery of this out-side of Faith I should now proceed did not the hateful example of Apostating Demas stand branded in Holy-Writ for my observation and conclusion of this Point Knowledge is the foundation of Faith but God only is the Master builder of it Christians are Priests imputatively and derivatively from our Saviour as offering up the Evangelical sacrifices of Prayer and Praise but the Ministers of the Gospel in a more especial manner Demas was a Priest because a Christian Learned as being without doubt a Teacher Pauls scholler and companion one whose eyes were daily witnesses of Signes and Miracles whose ears were frequent auditours of Gods Word yet this man wanted the witness of the Spirit in his Conscience Therefore no marvail if his actions were destitute of its power The Wisdom of this world is Foolishness with God and proves at length so to Man Demas's worldliness discovers his Folly and his second choice shews the Hypocrisie of the first That affection which towards Christ hath an end had never a beginning The Love of God is Lasting And though our weak understanding through the interposition of some great Afflictions may conceive it to be extinct yet that eclipse past this overture of falling out proves the renewing of Love He that perseveres to the end shall endlesly be Beloved But he that grants God the Major his youth and strength and of his full age the Minor the lesser part of that time and yet at last doth in fact deny the conclusion is as little a Christian as a Logician The Word of God as it is the great luminary of Divinity so likewise the Sun of our Souls which discovers unto us those glittering counterfeits which the false and weak lights of our depraved understandings would present as blameless This is that Star which guides all Wise men to Christ. A Pole Star directing only all Heavenly Observers being either unknown or else not useful to worldly Stargazers This Word as it makes us know our selves which is the principal of wisdom so it makes us discern in some sort others which is the Divinity of Knowledge Which of the Devout Jewes would have thought the Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites had not the Word of that All-creating Word Christ Jesus anatomised their shameful Corruption Who amongst us would have judged a Miraculous Faith less than a Saving had not the same Verity assured us That many which have Prophesied cast out Devils and done many wonderful Works in his Name should be excluded Heaven with a Nunquam novi vos Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity That a man may be a Conduit-pipe to convey Water of Life to others and yet prove a vessel of Dishonour the Religious care of Paul witnesseth who subjected his body lest when he had Preached to others be himself should become a Reprobate But that they whose Word aided by the power of Faith was mighty to cast Sathan out of others should be possessed themselves is both Lamentable and Wonderful These indeed have cropt the Leaves of Faith leaving the Fruit and Root behind seeking therewith like Adam presumptuously to hide their Nakedness and want both of
O have these fleshy eyes of ours such various presentations of pleasure to delight these Bodies of Clay with and can we imagine Faith the eye of the immortal Soul can be destitute of a subject worthy its view and contemplation O no my Soul The weakest-sighted Faith enjoys a far better and more excellent prospect viz. with Eagles eyes looking abroad upon the glorious Son of Righteousness and Son of God Jesus Christ. The Life of the Body gives the first power and motion to the Eye but this Heaven-aspiring sight gives the Soul its first Life Hear me saith God that is believe in me and your Soul shall live The Earthly Sun suffers sometimes an Eclipse so did ours once for all An interposition caused the one the other not any defect in his own Body or Light but a condense Darkness an Orb of Sin for a time obscured his brightness Women and Children whose shallow reach fathome not the depth of Natures works may with a flying fear hide themselves not daring to behold the labouring Sun when a learned Artist by Water or reflection searcheth out the cause and greatness of an Eclipse Worldly and carnal Men may mask their understanding with a wilfull ignorance But do thou O Lord which hides these things from the Wise and revealest them unto Babes make me to apprehend the reason and admire the infiniteness of thy suffering Earth affords not a neerer Union or Relation than friendship That mysterial incorporation and perfect conjunction of Wedlock is but an inclusive of this that being more particular this more general Society is the happiness of Mans life this is the height of that Conjunction and the perfection of that happiness He is either most miserable or undeserving that hath not had some taste of this reciprocal foelicity Since vice and vertue have both their favourites the one exceeding in number the other in worth Thus far hath my Meditations roved on Earth ascending this height of temporary delight that from such a rise my Soul may take a quick flight to Heaven The friendship of the World and all things else in it eminent or praiseâ—worthy are but dark shadowes of Heavenly things beames derived from that eternal Light to give Light to Man Doth not the Holy Spirit express the exceeding love of the eternal Father to us his Children by the tenderness of Earthly Parents His infinite and free mercy by the charity and friendship of the Samaritan stranger The ardent and unparallel'd affection of our Saviour Jesus Christ to us his Church by a Matrimonial and espousal love O all yee that have any illumination of Faith come and witness with me if there were ever or can be any love amity or affection like unto this which God hath shewed towards us Lord I would fain express thy acts of mercy the witness of thy love and object of my Faith but who is sufficient for these things or able to express what he cannot sufficiently conceive of How or where shall I begin when Lord my beginning was from thee Yea from all beginnings hast thou chosen me and in time hast thou called me void of love desire and freedome of will or any other congruity remote or sufficient to answer thee calling being the servant of Sathan and Bond-slave of Sin and therefore an Aliene from thee and the common wealth of Israel One not only sick but dead in sins and trespasses and therefore unable to move towards thee A natural Man perceiving not the things of God and therefore ignorant of thee Thy love alone was the cause of mine for herein is love not that we loved thee but that thou loved'st us first Nor foreknowledge of my after works or willingness to receive grace occasioned this free Election For not of works which I had done but according to thy mercy didst thou elect and save me From thy free and gracious predestination my faith with a devout affection makes haste to behold the Foundation thy dear Son Jesus Christ my Saviour O wonder O infinite Love O admirable friendship He whose glory and greatness the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain was inclosed within the Womb of a poor though pure Virgin God descends in humility from Heaven that Man might ascend Heaven in Glory becoming like to Man that Man might be like to him Not Rome the Metropolis of the World nor Jerusalem the glory of Judea must tryumph in the birth or be made more honourable by the first presence of Emanuel but Bethlem the least of the Cities of Juda. Which poor place either ignorant or regardless of so high a favour was not only void of thankfulness and common courtesie but of neighbourly hospitality A Stable a Manger and brute Beasts being the Palace the Cradle the company it prepared for the entertainment of the Worlds Saviour Behold here a mystery of mysteries He who knows no beginning now begins to be that his being in nature might give us a being in grace in glory And in his Infancy did our gracious Redeemer begin to suffer the entrance of his life being but the Prologue of his sorrow and the total thereof a continued passion His innocent Child-hood is made the subject of treason and nought but his slaughter must allay the Tyrants suspition What needed any unjustly or violently to have sought his Death who willingly came to Dye only living the life of Man that for Man he might be capable of Death This Herodian cruelty hath a deeper dye than Nero's Tyranny For he destroyed the World only in his wish but this Man by one act would have made not our Bodies only but our Souls mortal O sweet Jesus thou fleddest into Egypt not to preserve life but to die daily avoiding his merciless Power that thou mightest declare thy powerfull mercy Thy Death by which we live must not be constrained least ungrateful Man should esteem it no gift The strength and policy of Herod are unable to wrest that per-force from thee which thou purposest freely to give Infancy must not suffer for Man-hood since the greater includes the less but the lesser cannot comprehend the greater That perfection of Age that made Mans rebellion and sin more full more hatefull must make thy obedience and sufferings more compleat more acceptable Not Bethlem but Jerusalem the center of the World must be the Theatre of infinite mercy of merciless cruelty that thy passion being acted in the place wherein the Legal Ceremonies were celebrated the Types and Figure might more clearly point out the substance All those bloody Sacrifices being abolished by one Sacrifice of blood After this escape of danger in his Child-hood and reprieved of his life for a time did not the increase of his years multiply his sorrows No doubt he suffered as well as fulfilled the Law for us during those thirty years he obscured himself At twelve years of age we finde him disputing in the Temple when surely
whatsoever piece of his workmanship hath this glorious stamp or pourtraiture erazed or defaced must needs remain useless naked and without honour To apply this to my own Soul Is it thus How miserable then and deformed is the Person of every Man by Adam with and in whom we have lost our God our selves and all our perfections Hast thou heard O my Soul of that material and obscure darkness which the Egyptians felt On thee there was and upon all natural Men there is the like obscurity Only they differ in this Man feels it not That darkness being no more empty of light than the mind of Man is vacant of the knowledge of God the worship of God and his own eternal happiness witness that of the Apostle The natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto Him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned that is by the light of the Spirit In Egypts deficiency of light no doubt it was a part of their torment to mistake one thing for another so in this sinfull deprivation such is the vanity of the mind that it calls good evil and evil good It takes sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet Salvation the contrary to damnation being in his understanding in the end only free from its mistake or fruition Noah was not more drunken with the strength of Wine than the understandings of wretched Men with the strength of sin to which the Prophet alludes saying They are drunken but not with Wine they stagger but not with strong Drink Neither was Eutichus more dead asleep when he fell even into Death then the prodigal Sons to whom justly God hath given the spirit of slumber Eyes that they should not see Eares that they should not hear Sin as sleep deprives Man of the true use of all those sences which should serve for the use of his Soul The Man possest in the Gospel is the miserable and true Figure of an unregenerate Soul We finde him possest with a Devil and tormented with a Legion of Devils And is not the accusing conscience of a wicked Man as a thousand Witnesses We read that he only lived unto himself avoided society the Tombes being the fittest mansions for such unsociableness His actions there were to be his own Executioner and enemy Night and Day crying and cutting himself with stones O my Soul proceed but to bring the substance to the shaddow and thou wilt confess how lively this Satanical lunary acts the tragical part of a depraved conscience Cain the first that received and took away life from Man affrighted with the terrour of his bloody conscience was forced to fear and flie the face of Man his own tongue bellowing out his own misery in that tormenting Exclamation My punishment is greater than I can bear The distempered and melancholy â—its of Saul which the Holy Ghost calls an evil spirit we are partly occasioned without doubt by the barking fury of his conscience Such Hell of minde being seldome without a Devil to add fuell to the flame and torment to the tormented Let Judas conclude all and by the conclusion of his life who went out and strangled himself preach to all the conclusion of that Soul which spurd with guilt thinks to flie from its self and from the uppermost Hell of despair leaps into the nethermost Hell of pain Bearing still about him what he shun'd even that only immortaliz'd Worm of insect sprung from corruption which then shall gnaw more furiously Eternity and despair of remedy doubling the unmeasurableness of the torture Should my thoughts now pass from the conscience some consciences would at least in their own conceits account themselves like those of Laodicea to be rich and increased with goods and to have need of nothing when as they are indeed wretched and miserable and poor and blinde and naked Therefore that we may all know that we are miserable the better to confess Gods mercy the more to thirst after his salvation we must know that there are hardned Pharaohs aswell as a despairing Judas As that Body is most dangerously diseased whose external parts the vital and animating spirits having as it were made a recess are left insensible and without feeling So that Soul is in a deadly that is damnable estate whose conscience the quickning power of the holy spirit being utterly with-drawn remains speechless and cauterized Of this condition were many before the Flood notwithstanding the preaching of righteous Noah After the Flood the Sodomites Under the Law Pharaoh and some of the Israelites in the Wilderness Under the Gospel the Scribes and Pharisees of whom our Saviour observes that God had blinded their eyes and hardned their hearts that they should not see with their eyes and be converted that he might heal them He is no friend that is not an eye a hand a tongue unto his friend to fore-see his peril and to fore-warn and assist him in danger Nor can that conscience be a faithfull inmate to the soul whose searching sight the sun-shine of the World hath bleard whose awakeing touch custome in sin hath deaded and whose sharp point and wounding edge the Devil hath rebated the delights of the Flesh prooving a Sibyls sop unto this Cerberus a Dalilah unto this Sampson That part which the Chyrurgion intends to cut off he first benums And those Persons whom the Lord determines to rescind from the visible Body of his Church he commonly hardens as were those spoken of by the Apostle whose Consciences were seared as with an hot Iron Lord let my conscience be neither like Nabal's heart dead as a stone within him Nor yet like Dives tongue tormented in merciless flames But like Peter's Cock never ceasing to crow until I weep bitterly Yea let it be my Nathan who am as David a sinner my Samuel who am disobedient as Saul So shall my conscience be unto me a happy copesmate one whose words are better unto me as a friend than her kisses as an enemy Of all the faculties of the Soul the will is most dependent its act and operation being moved by the determination or suggestion of the rest viz. the minde understanding and affections For before any thing is done by Man there is a consultation had in the Soul where after a disputation pro con at length this thing or that is agreed of to be the bonum which in due season the will as the â—ouls agent puts in execution Now there is Gods bonum such a one as we shall finde in holy Chronology exprest in the Frontispiece of every good Kings life Instance in Hezechiah He did that which was right or good in the sight of the Lord. And there is Mans bonum also so called not because positively or simply so in it self but in relation to purblinde Man who so esteemeth it Witness that sacred and historical annotation
adversaries an Angel pointing out a living Fountain to all thirsty Hagars even that Spring of grace his Prophetical Office Thirsty I say for none but such taste present and perfect comfort and refreshâ—ing from hence Encouragement indeed all others may have from this Office which are not yet called to enâ—deavour and exercise themselves in the means which beget faith and repentance notwithstanding the resisting impossibility of their nature as beholding the free promise and enabling gift of God in Christ. But the Covenant and the blessing belongs and is effectual to those sensibly and chiefly That hunger and thirst after righteousness For they shall be filled To proceed then let all Men observe with me two spiritual streams or works flowing from this Office The first is the Divine Revelation of the will of God so far as it was necessary for his Church by the Mouths and Pens of the Prophets and Apostles and that through the immediate inspiration and instinct of the third Person in Trinity his most Holy Spirit All which issuing from the living Fountain the Lord Jesus who is in the midst of his Garden the Church as so many Rivolets do make glad the City and water the Paradise of God This is that work that is wâ—ought without us yet with an end to work within us and upon us all being according to St. Paul that Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles upon which the Church is built Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone O Eternal Beeing who art as mercifull as great a Father God to me thy unworthy Creature should I in this prospect of my weak faith carelesly oâ— silently pass by so high a favour so gracious a work of thine as this towards my Soul Thou mightest justly take my object or my sight or both from me for such unthankfulness Is the revelation of secrets the greatest expression of friendship And to be of the Kings Council the chiefest honours And shall not I as a Christian apprehend apply and be gratefull for such â—avours as these confer'd by a far greater Person in a far greater manner and measure upon a far unworthier object than ever they can sample If the Letters and mandates of Princes are received with so much reverence preserved with so much care esteemed honoured and obeyed How much more the Words and Scriptures of God the Prince of Princes Are Books but the Soul in Print the Beams of Mans wisdome what is this but the life of the Soul the Book of Wisdome and the Book of Books Here is the height of Metaphysicks as revealing what so ever can be known either of God or Angels The use and summe of both Phylosophies in the Creation and Decalogue The knowledge of Astronomy in Job The exactest Geography and truest Chronology in Genesis and Chronicles The mystery of Numbers in the Levitical Ceremonies Daniel and the Revelations The exercise of Rhetorick throughout the Prophets especially in Esay The marrow and art of Logick in Saint Paul's Epistles and in all which is above all as the Sun amongst the Planets the whole Body of Divinity Here are Politicks for the Statist in Ecclesiastes Oeconomicks for the House-keeper in Proverbs Instruction for the Woman from Solomon's Mother And David's Poesie for the Poets Lastly here 's wisdome for the ancient for it maketh wise unto Salvation Here 's a beautifull Spouse and love Canticles for the youthfull and religious Amorist And here is Milk from the Sacramental Teaâ—s for the new-born Babe Yea what can my heart seek Lord which thou hast not placed in this Book of Life in this library of my Soul It remains nâ—w only that I beseech from thee the true use thereof viz. the knowledge and worship of thee So shall I be not only a hearer and Reader but a doer of thy Word not deceiving my own Soul From this work of Gods Spirit iâ— the Word without us I proceed to that second work of the Spirit wrought within us viz. Sanctification being a conformation of our willâ— unto his O my Soul here is that thou seekest for The knowledge of the greatest happiness without possibility of fruition is not the least of torments And to behold the Crown Robes and Priviledges of a Christian without either visible means to obtain or a true propriety of weaâ—ing them makes but our misery more miserable Thou weart even now lifted up and cast down exalted with joy and humbled with sorrow For looking upward thou beholdest with holy Stephen Heaven open and the Lord Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God But alass whilst thou weart ravisht with this Vision a multitude of thine Enemies not much unlike nor less cruel than his Persecutors thy original Corruptions have blind-folded thy eyes and manacled thy hands separating for the present both it from thee and thee from it But now be of good comfort though thou liest dead in sin and intranc'd in astonishment the Lord of life is come down unto thee Who manger all these Hell-hounds that watch over thee will give thee part in the first Resurrection He is thy spiritual Elisha and the Prince of the Prophets who will lay his Mouth to thy Mouth that so thou maist praise and confess him his Eyes to thy Eyes that thorough faith thou maist behold him his Hands upon thy Hands that in deeds thou mayest obey him yea his whole and living Body upon thy dead Body that so thou maist revive and live in him Behold there Him of whom his own saying concerning John the Baptist is evidently verified A Prophet yea and more than a Prophet even the God of the Spirits of all Prophets Who least thy weak and sinfull nature should fear to approach unto or lend an Eare unto his Word hath vailed his glorious Deity with humanity therein being typified by Moses when he covered his shining Face as well as prophesied of him saying A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you amongst your Brethren like unto me Like unto Moses indeed as being a Man an Israelite a Prophet full of Miracles meekness of the Spirit yet with this difference of degrees the one was comparatively the other perfectly full the one a Vessel the other a Fountain the one the Servant the other the Son according to that of the Apostle This Man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses in as much as he who hath builded the House hath more honour than the House Moses being faithful as a Servant but Christ as a Son Next whereas O my Soul thou objectest the deadness of thy nature thy sleeping in sin I confess indeed thou art so But hearken unto thy Saviours Tryumph which doth not only pierce but give thee Eares Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light The hour being come and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live
O but sayest thou I am spiritually dead how then can I hear Know poor wretch that thy Saviours Ephata works as powerfully on the Soul as upon the Body Yea the Apostle reciting the prediction of Moses saith not him may you hear But him shall yee hear Even so be it Lord Jesus Christ that so loving me a Lazarus thou maist raise me though a Lazarus and be unto me a Jesus Notwithstanding these saving and comfortable promises me-thinks I feel my Soul still heavy and sorrowfull within me Objecting that these indeed are favourable and sweet expressions but they are too general considering her several defects grievous soars and Ulcers Requiring not only external and powerfull Baths and washings but particular application of Remedies and Medicines She confesseth that from these she is assured of the abilities and sufficiency of her spiritual Physician but she desires to have experience of his skill and to apply his several Medicaments unto her special infirmities Is this thy further request O my Soul Be strong and of a good courage Loe he calls thee Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Again I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance For The whole need not a Physitian but the sick Nay that thou mightest not have the least doubting or fear hearken to the voice of his Prophet seconded and expounded by himself and that in a full Auditory The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me there 's his calling to preach the Gospel to the Poor there 's his Office He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted to preach deliverance unto the Captives and recovery of sight unto the blinde to set at liberty them that are bruised to wit thee O distressed Patient with all thy Diseases Well thou art now even by his own most gracious Call admitted into his presence Be not ashamed but with boldness approach unto his Throne of Grace unâ—bareing thy soares and discovering all thy spiritual wants That so the two estates in Adam fallen and in Christ risen being compared all may behold with thee a revival from death even that first resurrection spoken of in the Revelations As also the difference and disproportion that is betwixt a Man in grace and a Man in sin And lastly be ravisht in the apprehension of such infinite mercy which administers Plaisters to every soare and in the conclusion works a general cure effecting in a good measure though not in absolute perfection those two great works of mortification and vivication in us For the more accurate perception and meditation of which great works I presume in all humility of Soul to speak Dialogue-wise unto my Saviour and according to my weak ability to describe him answering in and according to his Word That so both my self and others may the better understand how excellently and powerfully a true faith begotten and strengthened by God's Spirit doth apprehend and apply the saving and spiritual promises Doth mortifie our corruptions silence all objections and overcome all kinde of temptations by degrees perfecting holiness in the love and fear of God O Gracious Saviour and skilfull Physician seeing thou calledst me I come although ashamed to come I have brought if not a dead yet a deadly sick Soul unto thee If illumination be the antecedent of faith and faith the eye of the Soul and seeing a symptome of life in how dangerous an estate am I who walk in the vanity of my minde having my understanding darkned being in my own apprehension alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in me because of the blindness of my heart Poor Soul faint not nor despair thou wast once dead but now thou art alive I finde no signes of death but of life in thee A Trunck or senceless Corps perceives not nor complains of its misery as thou dost Neither art thou hopelesly sick for in thee witness these strivings there is the strength of a renued nature to co-act with the work of Grace Take then these receipts out of my Book and apply them I am the true light that lighteth every Man that cometh into the World and am come for Judgment into this World that they which see not might see and they which see might be made blinde I am made unto thee wisdome and will enlighten thy darkness yea if thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and finde the knowledge of God For I the Lord give wisdome and out of my Mouth cometh knowledge and understanding Again faith is the gift of God O then ask and thou shalt have seek and thou shalt finde knock and the treasury of all good and perfect gifts shall be opened and bestowed upon thee Even the holy Spirit whom thy Heavenly Father will give to them that aske Him The voice of my beloved Thy Mouth is most sweet yea thou art altogether lovely The roof of thy Mouth is like the best Wine that goeth down sweetly causing the Lips of those that are asleep to speak But alass Lord how can I be delighted in these thy gracious promises or take comfort in this cure as long as the tormenting worm of Conscience feeds upon my entrails inditeing bitter things against me and making me to possess the sins of my youth being both my Judge and Accuser O my Patient I confess this thy pain and grief is unsupportable for the Spirit of a Man may sustain his infirmity But a wounded Spirit who can bear Yet for thy comfort know that there is balme in Gilead for all wounds and a Physician there for all Diseases And I even I am he and there is no other God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal yea I will restore health unto thee and will heal thee of thy wounds And as for this gnawing Worm which thou complainest of know that it as other infects are generated of a putred matter even thy sin and corruption Yea it is nourisht therewith If then this cause of thy torture be withdrawn the effect will undoubtedly cease For I will forgive thy iniquity and will remember thy sins no more making them though as red as Scarlet to be as white as Snow Through my blood thou hast redemption even the forgivenesses of Sins If the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heyfer sprinkling the unclean Sanctified to the purifying of the flesh How much more shall my Blood that through the eternal Spirit offered my self without spot to God purge thy Conscience from dead works O my spiritual healer as thy Word assures me of thy ableness to cure so it also informs me of my uncapableness of cure In the sickness of the Body so
place a Memento in the midst and as it were in the front thereof Further thy holy Spirit in the Prophet doth brand and note this privation as the root and cause of all Rebellions Because saith he my People have forgotten me they have burnt Incense unto vanity Lastly which adds to and most aggravates this my languor wicked Men are in thy Word thus described and painted out To be without God in the World and not to have thee in all their ways to cast thy Laws behind them and to forget thee as I have done O Lord since I have lost this precious gift in the first Adam let me receive it again in thee the second that my Soul being adorned with holy impressions may become the Temple of thee my Saviour Strengthen thy self in Me O dejected Soul and in these thy wants Look unto me who works in thee both the will and the deed of my good pleasure and will my self also freely give thee all things As I am not ignorant of thy defects so I am not to seek of thy cure I know there is a double forgetfulness in corrupted nature the one of thy sins to repent the other of my Word and Laws to practice But know thou this also that although for a time my Elect may forget me yet they shall never be forgotten of me Can a Woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her Wombe yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee for I will remember my Covenant with thee and will establish unto thee an everlasting Covenant And because I will do thus thou shalt also remember thy ways and be ashamed and thou shalt loath thy self in thy own sight for all the evil which thou hast committed And as for the other defect be assured that the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom my Father will send in my name he shall teach thee all things and bring all things into thy remembrance whatsoever I have said unto thee For This is the Covenant that I will make with thee I will put my Law into thy inward parts and write it in thy Heart and will be thy God and thou shalt be my Servant O my Lord I can never sufficiently admire thy power thy free Love and the healing vertue of thy sacred and refreshing word But what sweetness or relief what hope of remedy and recovery can my diseased Soul receive from it that wants a will to receive or apply thy comfortable Plaisters unto my festred sores Can the knowledge and sight of Meat feed the hungry Can the beholding of riches satisfie the needy or the Physicians Medicament cure without application No Lord they cannot How then can thy Holy Word work upon me any gracious effects that have a wretched will refractory to hearing reading meditation or any good use thereof If the mind and understanding be evil the will which is their servant and agent must needs be so also And if it hath its work in all evil actions it must not be left out nay cannot be idle or wanting in those that are good But my will is continually opposite to thine which is the rule of equity and justice and therefore cannot work the works of God It is true thou canst not For as I said before I work in thee both to will and to do But because thou canst not wilt thou limit my power also Cannot I that at first gave thee a will now at the last give thee a good will Is it not as easie for me to bend move and change thy nilling will into a willing one as to enlighten and quicken the other dead faculties of thy Soul Or is my free grace and love less benevolent unto it than unto the rest No surely It is not for my honour nor is it in thy power to be primarily and voluntarily assistant in this work For of my own will I beget my Children that those that glory may glory in the Lord humbly confessing that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Mercifull Saviour I know thou canst cure dangerous yea desperate diseases But Lord I fear that I am too far gone that I have lost and let slip my opportunity and time of grace even that Day wherein thou wilt speak and be spoken to So that now I may justly expect that thou wilt swear in thy wrath that I shall not enter into thy rest And that this my fear may not seem groundless be thou pleased to feel the Pulses of my corrupted Soul and thou shalt finde that they beat not at all or if they do their motion is either exorbitant or full of intermissions Is it not thy command that I should love thee love my God with all my heart with all my soul with all my minde For thou wilt love them that love thee Is it not negative also thus Love not the World neither the things that are in the World For if thou lovest the World the love of the Father is not in thee What then Lord will become of me who have loved darkness rather than light and have been a lover of pleasures more than a lover of thee my God Further if at any time I be in love or ravisht with thee as beholding that excellent beauty which streams forth from all thy glorious attributes especially thy mercy how weak and of what short continuance are these flashes being like lightning which gone make but the night the darker So that in their so long absence I have just cause to fear their return doubting lest thou wilt say of me as once of the Laodiceans that because I am neither hot nor cold but luke-warm thou wilt therefore spite me out of thy mouth Again doth not thy Kingdome within us consist in righteousness in peace and in joy of the Holy Ghost which kinde of joy for the excellency thereof thou callest thine as also because of its procession from thee and from thy spirit it being that unparallel'd and unconceivable mirth which admits no mixture of sorrow no higher pitch of solace This this was it which so ravisht thy holy ones making them breath forth seraphically with Habakkuk I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation with the Spouse we will be glad and rejoyce in thee with David in thy presence is fulness of joy and with Peter we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious Now O Lord in what ranck shall I place my self who being carnal and sold under sin savours not the things that be of God but those that be of Men not rejoycing in thee but in my own vain and sinfull imaginations proudly boasting and rejoyceing with those reprehended by the Apostle in those few gifts thou hast indued me with as
though I had not received them Further as thine have many objects of holy joy within them so have they many also without them David preferred Jerusalem above his chiefest joy And the spiritual prosperity and welfare of the Church was St. Paul's hope joy glory and Crown of rejoycing But such O Lord is the natural depravation of my affections that instead of wishing well unto Sion I am ready did not thy grace restrain me to persecute thee with Paul in thy members and to cry with those wicked concerning thy Jerusalem Rase it rase even to the Foundation thereof rejoycing on the contrary part with those reproved by Job and the Apostle who make Gold their hope and whose God is their Belly hungring and thirsting after momentary honours like Balaam and Haman taking the Timbrel and the Harp and rejoycing at the sound of the Organ Lastly as within and without so also above themselves they have their objects of joy even thy glory What else made that royal Prophet so piously nimble and so chearfull and publick a dancer before thy Ark what caused the Songs of Moses Myriam and Deborah yea what occasioned those joyfull expressions of thy blessed Mother of Simeon Zachary and Anna together with those two transcendent and affectionate wishes of St. Paul and Moses I say what but the joyfull magnifying of thy glory in vouchsafeing thy presence in destroying thy enemies in fulfilling thy promises and in the Salvation and Conversion of thy People But in me Lord instead of this lightsomeness in seeking of thy glory there is naturally the sinfull popularity of Absolom yea the hypocritical zeal of Jehu the vain-glorious formality of Magus and the self-seeking pride of Herod So that considering these wants and disorders in my affections no wonder if I distrust my self and cry out to thee with the Publican Lord have mercy upon me a sinner Poor Soul let not these fears and doubts discourage thee they make thy state the better not the worse Ignorance of want is the more dangerous when stomachless and silent as being thereby disabled both to ask and to receive relief Thy many complaints of defects are the true effects of those graces thou desirest Neither canst thou mourn because of no affection without some affection But to answer all thy objections weart thou emptiness it self am not I he that made Heaven and Earth of nothing Do I fill all things with my Essence and cannot I fill thee with my grace Can I be love it self for God is love and not be both willing and able to impart some rayes thereof to thee my Creature The fruits of my Spirit is love and joy which Spirit I give unto all that are mine What though the Chaos of thy corrupted nature yields no such fruits The Paradise of God in which thou art replanted doth as being watered with those Rivers of love which flow from me the Fountain Thou therefore loving me because I loved thee first as I am the only cause of thy love for I loved thee freely so I am the continuer For thou shalt abide in my love yea I will continue to love thee for whom I love I love unto the end Wherefore fear thou not the Eclipses thereof Natural Men do not more certainly expect the one than all my Saints the other As their Sun is not extinct no more is thine I thus ordaining it that in my absence thou mightest have a longing for my presence and in my presence mightest lovingly fear my absence these intermissions preceding the increase not the dimunishment of affection And since thou canst cry with David Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation doubt not but thou shalt also confess with him that my anger endureth but a moment weeping may endure for a Night but joy cometh in the Morning Again whereas thou objectest and bewailest the want of the true spiritual mirth Be not discouraged for this thy humble craving argues that thou art free from pride and self-conceitedness which usually so swells the hearts of natural Men that no place is left for grace Further it assures thee of a present possession for thou could'st never have heartily longed for that which thou never tasted nor have hated this false joy hadst not thou had some experience of the true Lastly thou hast an interest in my promise for I fill the hungry with good things As I am always filling so my servants are always hungry A good Archer is not by thee condemned for sometimes missing his Mark neither will I reject thee for some miscarriage since thy affections are bent towards me and thy constant aime is my glory To conclude Longest thou for the joys of Habakkuk David and the rest of my Saints continually petition me to be indued with the same Holy Spirit which my Father will give to them that aske him and to support thee in thy Prayers Remember and rely upon these my promises Aske and yee shall receive that your joy may be full For I am sent to comfort all that mourn to give unto them beauty for ashes the oyle of joy for mourning The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with Songs and everlasting joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flie away Lord Kiss me with the kisses of thy Mouth for thy love is better than Wine But O diseased Creature that I am what shall I do or what will become of me The uncovering of one malady discovers more and my infirmities like the Oyl in the Widdows Cruse multiplies upon me So that in me is verified the complaint of thy Prophet The whole Head is sick and the whole Heart faint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds bruses and putrified sores I had no sooner bewailed my want of love but my misgoverned hatred torments me No sooner I accused my self for worldly and exorbitant mirth but carnal sorrow and servile fear overwhelms me Whereas those that love thee hate evil yea every false way with the workers thereof and that with a perfect hatred My cursed nature with the fool hates knowledge Yea and him that rebukes being like to those wicked Israelites the Prophet Micah speaks of That hate the good and love the evil Whereas I should be humbled and penitently chatter thus with David I am troubled I am bowed down greatly I go mourning all the day long neither is there any rest in my Bones because of my sin And also be so much affected for thy glory as to cry out yea to die with Phineas his Wife because the Ark of God was taken Or be able to say that Rivers of Waters have run down my Eyes because Men keep not thy Laws My carnal and sinful disposition is ready to make me mourn and hang down the head with Haman
in respect of righteousness and charity towards my poor Brethren are rather like Simeon and Levy Brethren in cruelty full of iniquity and ready to shed blood So that O Lord having so many wide breaches in this Bulwark of my Soul through which mine Enemies continually enter how can I with quiet and comfort of heart relish and feed upon thy promises obey thy Commandements and cease to grieve thy holy spirit May I not justly fear the miserable lott of that wretched back-slider in thy Gospel into whom the unclean Spirit which was gone out returned bringing with him seven other Spirits worse than himself So that the last estate of that Man was worse than the beginning Wherefore sweet Jesus since thy Body as well as thy Soul suffered for me let thy Consolation Sanctification and Salvation be extended to both in me also that being not particularly but wholly thine and at one in my self and with thee I may wholly and only praise and serve thee That sin hath miserably metamorphosed thy Body and shamefully deformed mislead and corrupted thy Members is true O my well-beloved And no marvail For thou wast shapen in iniquity and in sin did thy Mother conceive thee And Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Yet be not thou discouraged nor dismaid for though thou art a Naaman I will be thy Elisha Yea to save such sinners am I come What though thou beest even white over with Sins Leprosie I am thy High Priest to heal thee and pronounce thee clean Have I cured thy Soul doubt not the cure of thy Body since all my works are perfect And if I gave freely and unaskt forgiveness of sins together with health of Body to many whilst I walkt upon Earth shall I not much more give thee spiritually both also When as I rais'd up Lazarus I could have left his Soul still spiritually dead for I give many health of Body to whom I deny Salvation But to whom I grant spiritual life as unto thee I bestow all lesser things as included in the greater So that having said unto thee as once unto the Cripple Thy Sins are forgiven thee thou maist be confident that thou art healed of thy spiritual lameness strengthened to arise from thy couch of Sin and enabled to walk in the ways of godliness towards thy heavenly home as having the Image of holiness imparted upon all thy members and the marrow thereof running throughout all thy bones The Trees root being quickened the Body thereof must needs flourish And thy Soul being sanctified all the parts of thy outward Man must needs wax green in an holy conversation and bring forth fruits unto righteousness As a Fountain at the same place cannot send forth sweet Water and bitter no more can the members and consequently the actions which as streams proceed from a regenerate Soul be polluted and impure Notwithstanding what hath been said that thou maist be firmly established and assured of this truth receive apply and lay up these my gracious and particular promises Have thine Eyes been full of Sin vanity and Idolatry thou shalt now look to thy Maker and thine Eyes shall have respect unto the holy one of Israel Art thou spiritually blinde and canst make no good use of outward objects I will anoint thy Eyes with Eye salve that thou mayst see my goodness Are thine Eares closed up to my Word Now shall the Deaf hear the words of my Book and the Eyes of the blinde shall see out of obscurity and darkness Yea thine Eares shall hear a Word behind thee saying This is the way walk thou in it when thou turnest to the right hand or to the left Further have thy Nostrils been inlets and entertainers of vanity Exhautasting the sweet of my Creatures for the serving of sinfull pride and voluptuousness Henceforth thou shalt make them serviceable to thy Soul not thy sence only but thy minde also being by them delightfully recreated imitating herein my beloved Spouse in the Canticles Who from the natural perfumes of Spices and sweet Flowers and the distilling sweetness of fragrant Lillies doth affectionately meditate of and set forth the excellencies of my Word and Ordinances and the mellifluousness of my promises and instructions Yea thou thy self also shalt be sweet unto me in thy obedience and good works which are an odour of a sweet smell a Sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing unto God Next thou complainest that thy Pallate is naturally the Cook and factor of Epicurisme Drunkenness and Gluttony be of good chear for thou shalt now experimentally confess That Man lives not by Bread only but by every Word that proceedeth out of the Mouth of God Neither shalt thou labour any more for the Meat which perisheth but for that Meat which endureth unto everlasting life which I the Son of Man will give unto thee for my Flesh is meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed But in this spiritual nourishment remember that it is the Spirit that quickeneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Hast thou formerly pleased and glutted thy self with dainties even to my dishonour and the abuse of my Creatures Thou shalt now hunger and thirst after righteousness and be both blessed and filled For I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Yea thou shalt be able to make a spiritual as well as a natural use of my Creatures chearfully and tastingly saying with my Espoused Church that in respect of my delightfull and all-surpassing graces I am as the Apple Tree amongst the Trees of the Wood and that my Fruit is sweet unto thy taste And with my Servant David that my words and judgments are sweeter than the Hony and the Hony Combe Further hath thy Touch been a snare unto thee and administred fuell to thy corruption Have thy Hands and Feet been slow in my ways but swift to commit iniquity Hath thy Tongue been silent in my praises and a ready Advocate and Pleader for Sin Know my command is gone forth and my gracious Decree is now efficatious to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees to make the lame Man leap as an Hart and the tongue of the dumb to Sing and say Praise the Lord call upon his Name declare his doings amongst the People make mention that his Name is exalted Now shall thy hands with my Spouse in the Canticles drop with the pretious and sweet smelling Myrrh of holy and fervent endeavours shaking off their former sinfull sloath and drowsiness Now shall all those Members which thou hast heretofore yielded as Servants to uncleannesse and to iniquity be Servants to righteousness unto holiness For whilst thou weart in the flesh The motions of Sin which were by the Law did work in thy Members to bring forth fruit unto Death
Israel Who saith that to Him the Porter openeth and the Sheep hear his voice that he calleth his own Sheep by name and leadeth them out Is it the duty of a King to protect his subjects to reward them as well as to restrain and overcome their Enemies And is not this true of our good Shepward Who giveth his life for his Sheep being not like the hireling who seeing the Wolf coming flieth and leaveth the Sheep Yea all blessings temporal and spiritual abound to them that are admitted into his Fold For he promises that if any enter therein he shall be saved and shall go in and out and finde pasture Lastly is it the office of a King to see and judge of the actions of inferiours to give dignity and honour to the well-meriting and obedient and to inflict punishment and death upon rebellious offenders See this also made good by Gods promise unto us under the rule of our only Shepward Christ Jesus Saying Behold even I will judge betwixt the fat Cattle and the lean and I will cause the evil Beasts to cease out of the Land And I will make with them a Covenant of Peace And I will make them and the places round about them a blessing And I will cause the showers to come down in his season there shall be showers of blessings And as concerning the last and General Judgment our Saviour speaking of the ordering of Persons before his Trybunal and the parting of his true Subjects from Rebels the good from the bad still alludes to the office of a Shepward and saith that he will separate them one from another as the Shepward divideth the Sheep from the Goats Having for the better and more comfortable illustration of our Saviours Kingly Office thus far traced this similitude let us now O my Soul by faith take a nearer and more serious view of this his glorious function as it manifests it self in the excellency of his Person and in the uprightness and perfection of his Laws as also in all those gratious effects which flow from so divine a dispensation That from them God assisting in the application thou maist reap that saving fruit which grace offers and thou expectest As the Basis and Pillar of Peace and tranquility in a Common-wealth is good Government consisting of upright Magistrates and just Laws So the defect of either ushers-in present ruine and destruction This position is not only verified in civil estates but in the spiritual Regiment of the visible Church Which whilst it was governed by the Spirit of Christ and was obedient to his injunctions attained to a Meridional height of quiet and glory witness the times of Solomon Hezechiah and Josiah But on the other side when that there was no King in Israel and every Man did what was right in his own Eyes how was their Land and Church filled with blood-shed Idolatry and vanity witness the Book of the Judges O let their miseries make us beware and let us learn wisdome from their destruction â—et their ill-succeeding rebellions incite and hasten us to do Homage at his Foot-stool whom the Lord hath set King upon his holy Hill of Sion And to kiss him with the kiss of reverence obedience and worship Let us meditate of him all the day long and let our Mouths be filled with his praises O how truly are we happy in thee O Lord Jesus according to that of the wise Man blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles Is there any Nobility like unto thine will any boast of or derive his Pedigree with thee who art the ancient of days the dew of the Morning the Morning-star and in a word â—he Fountain of honour what are the greatest of earthly Princes but thy Vice-roys Conduit-Pipes to convey â—ny favours unto the Children of Men For By thee Kings Reign and Princes Decree justice And from thee proâ—â—eds the sentence which makes poor and makes rich â—rings lowe and lifteth up For thou art that only begotten Son of the Father before all beginnings who then can declare thy generation for thy Birth is hid in Eternity Nor art thou not only glorious in thy Father but in thy self also for thou art God of God equal with God and therefore art not only a wise mercifull just and holy King over us But wisdome mercy justice and holiness it self unto us Witness this in that thy gratious invitation to thy spiritual Feast where wisdome hath builded her an House As also in the former Chapter I am understanding I am strength Further thy Spirit in the Mouth of thy beloved Apostle testifies that thou our God art love And thy Prophet Jeremy foretold to us that the Name whereby thou shouldst be called is the Lord our righteousness As for the last the Prophet David stiles thee so in many of his Psalmes singing thus O yee Saints of his give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness To whom the Saints in the Revelation answer and second with this triple acclamation Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabbath O my Saviour my King my beloved let me feed a while here amongst these Lillies Let me sit down under this thy shadow and let thy fruit be sweet unto my taste O stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples for I am sick of love Who is like the Lord our King on all the Earth Is there any People or Nation alike happy with us Christians whose God and King is the Lord I should now proceed to view and admire that golden Scepter those his righteous Statutes by which he governs and directs us his People But that my Soul possest with a holy fear lest any thing should nullifie my right unto my Soveraigns protection stops me with these objections As that I am not only the Son of rebellious Adam but also an Alien to the Common-wealth of Israel as being not sprung from the loynes of Abraham nor from any of the Sons of Jacob but from the unbelieving Gentiles Lastly that I am out-lawed by my own actual transgressions and therefore may rather expect punishment than any favour happiness or priviledge by his Government As to these I answer with the Apostle The Jews because the Seed of Abraham are not all Children But the Children of the promise are counted for the Seed Wherefore Abraham is called the Father of the faithfull Neither is he a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the Flesh But he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit not in the letter Also he is a light to enlighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of the People Israel Again my being a sinner is so far from disabling my right to the Lord Jesus that by the hearty and penitent confession thereof I am intitled unto his pardon and mercy witness his
a proper sence dares give this title to their Ordinances Comparatively indeed and as parallel'd with others they may boast of their equity But none in a superlative height in the abstract and truth of perfection can be said to be just but the Commandements of God which by common consent are the best rule and touchstone of all others To prove the indirectness of humane constitutions reason it self demonstrates For Man cannot be righteous that is born of a Woman much less his actions his behests as being also the off-spring of a sick brain and streams flowing from a most impure Fountain If we desire examples to confirm this we need not wander out of Divine History where we shall read of the cruel edict of a Pharaoh to drown the innocent males Of a Nebuchadnezzar to burn to Ashes religious Idoll-haters Of a Darius to devour with Lions the frequent worshippers of God Of a Herod even a second Pharaoh to offer up by death those Lambs the happy Proto-Martyrs and Contemporaries of our Saviour Should I convert my Meditation into an History as I could never want examples of Mans unjust Decrees so never Incke for my teares would supply that defect O if the bare Relation move to pitty and to mourning how great is the sorrow and anxiety of my minde that oppresses those Souls which lie under the burden of such a tyranny surely it is ineffable From hence by the rule of contraries I conclude the exceeding mirth and happiness of that People whose Laws are Maximes and Patterns to all others whose God and King is the Lord whose judgments are true and righteous altogether So that if happiness can be separated from joy then may joy be devorc'd from such a Government Wherefore as the Prophet extolls the divine quality the Statutes of the Lord are right so he omits not to point out unto us the no less gratious effect they rejoyce the heart O come therefore and let us sing unto the Lord let us make a joyfull noise unto the Rock of our Salvation for thou Lord art a great God and a great King above all Gods thy Throne is for ever and the Scepter of thy Kingdome is a righteous Scepter Thus O my Soul passing by thou hast taken a view of the beauty of those divine Laws by which Christians are governed If the Heathen Ptolomy accounted them the Jewel of his Library and at their translation into the Greek Tongue was even ravisht in the observation of their supernatural wisdome and Majesty How ought we Christians to be affected who by more than an Historical faith as I have proved look upon them as the Statutes enacted pronounced and engraven in lasting Tables by God himself and also confess them As for antiquity to be the ancientest and most venerable so for their matter the perfectest purest and most righteous of all others It remains now that thou glance over some of their effects and so proceed I have observed already their work upon the understanding They make wise the simple as also upon the affections They rejoyce the heart I will note only three affections more which they beget in us Love fear and hatred of all wickedness That they frame in us even an extasie of love the Psalmist proves by that his Pathetical expression O how I love thy Law I love thy Commandements above Gold yea above fine Gold they are sweeter also than the Hony or the Hony-Combe That they create in us an holy filial fear appears in that the holy Spirit makes it a chief motive to stir us up to the hearing of them Come yee Children hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. As also the confession of David My Flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgments As fear so hatred of all wickedness springs out of this Seed-plot of grace As the offer and fruition of a most beautifull Wife is the best remedy to make a Man hate an unclean strumpet so the discovery of the pure splendor of Gods Law unvailes the nakedness and pulls off the Visard of Sin So the same Psalmist Through thy Precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every false way Lastly as these powerfull Statutes of God are thus effectual in the illumination of the understanding and the inflaming of the affection So also in the subjecting and changing the will making it of a nilling a willing will But here forget not as also in all the rest that the Law works only these effects in us as being the Scepter of Christs Government and linked with the Gospel Which considered we may confidently aver that the Prophesie is fulfilled That the Lord shall rule by his Law in the midst of his Enemies and the People shall be willing in the day of his Power Thus having viewed by the eye of faith according to the weak measure of grace given unto me my gratious Soveraign in his presence Chamber of the Prophets and also learned out of that Magna Charta that Royal Statute-Book Gods Word not only what is his revealed will and rule of Government but also the unparallel'd and excellent properties thereof I proceed to meditate of and to be instructed in those three principal actions of our King towards his natural and true subjects viz. his Protection and victory over their Enemies Correction and Remuneration of which severally and succinctly Man once the Lord of Earth a favourite of Heaven travelling from the peacefull Jerusalem of Gods gratious instructions to the accursed Jericho of his own sinfull lusts and appetite and in that way destitute of the All-mighties guide and protection fell amongst these Thieves the Devil the Flesh Sin the World and Death who having spoyled him of his greatest treasure his Graces and devested him from all his former honours leaving him not half dead but altogether Left him did I say I would to God they were in this so Thief-like But alass such is our misery that our loss concluded not but began our wretchedness and our Enemies Haman-like slaughtering us not out of gain but out of envious malice are so far from leaving us that they are always vigilant to smother even the least motions of life in us But blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath sent his only begotten Son into the Wilderness of this World clothed with our flesh and made like unto us a mercifull High-Priest who like that good Samaritan finding us thus wallowing in our own blood hath not only restored us to a new life but poured the Soveraign Oyl of his comfortable promises into our wounds Making us safe all the time of this lifes sickness under his own royal and gratious protection until his next return to our glory and all our Enemies confusion Fear not then O my Soul the strongest of thy Enemies No not that Leviathan that great Dragon that crooked Serpent King over
who were deprived for a time of their Principalities for their refractoriness to Idolatry In defence against the first assault the pious Christian marching under Christs royal Standard victoriously opposes his Shield of faith with which and the Sword of the Spirit he disorders and puts to flight his Enemies reverberating and expulsing Sathans temptations with the blessed Virgins Antheme God scattereth the proud in the imaginations of their hearts and pulls down the mighty from their Seates and exalts them of low degree With the curse of the holy Prophet Isaiah Woe to the Crown of Pride Yea he concludes the Victory with that holy Maxime of St. James God resists the proud Now who amongst us shall be able to dwell with everlasting burning If the Lord condemns who can justify In pride in all these places the Spirit of God includeth ambition which essentially differs not being connatural and concomitant with her As for the temptation on the left hand the loss of any temporal dignities The valiant Christian poyses them with the glorious promises of Gods faithfull word whereby judging of their lightness he concurs with holy David that surely Men of low degree are vanity and Men of high degree are a lye to be laid in the Ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity And therefore returns this or the like counter-buff Get thee behind me Sathan for I value not thy threats since thou boasts of that which is not in thy power The haires of my Head are numbred the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich he bringeth low and lifteth up But say the Lord should suffer thee as he did in Job to be the Instrument of my debasement I will kiss Gods Rod even in thy hand and say with that holy Man The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the Name of the Lord and with that tryumphing Apostle In all these things viz. disgraces and losses of what kinde soever I am more than a Conquerour through Christ that loved me For what things were gain to me those I count loss for Christ yea doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I will suffer the loss of all things accounting them but dung that I may win Christ. The highest favours of Princes from whom flow Earthly dignities are but shadowes of true honour Shadowes for they weakly express them and vanish when their Sun is set or clouded He that pours contempt upon Princes commands me not to rely upon them Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of Man in whom there is no help If not in them much less in their gifts For in that very day in an instant they their gifts and thoughts perish My happiness is a better hope My honour is more surely fixt than by Man or Devil to be extirpated or extinguisht Can all thy power O Enemy of Man frustrate my Election whereby from Eternity I am enroll'd a Peer of Heaven Can all thy policy or force dim the splendour or annihilate that title of being called and truly adopted the Son of God Canst thou disrobe me of my honourable red and white Garments of Justification and Sanctification in my Saviour O Father of lyes canst thou turn light into darkness and truth into falshood Deprive me of my Crown and nullify these glorious and infallible promises Fear not my little Flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Those that honour me I will honour If any Man serve me him will my Father honour Glory and honour and peace to every one that worketh good I am assured and conclude thou canst not And therefore I trample under foot thy power and vilify thine and the Worlds menaces and offers as believing in the royal might and truth of my Saviour That neither life nor death nor Angels Principalities Powers nor things present nor things to come shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. Having thus routed and discomfitted the Wings and first Squadrons of the Enemy we must not rest here losing both our hopes and advantage A Christians whole life we have heard is a continued warfare To live unto the Lord and by self-denyal to overcome former temptations is a happy progress towards our Victory But to persevere to the end to dye for the Lord is the conclusion the Crown the tryumph of the Christian. By how much the Enemy is more powerfull and terrible by so much is the service more honourable and the conquest more glorious This last Phalanx of the Worlds force Persecutions are her Janizaries her Pretorian bands her last refuge in whom she puts her chiefest confidence led and marshalled by Sathans Lieutenant General described and set forth in the Revelations by him riding upon a red Horse destroying the fourth part of the World who may be also as expressing its mortal effects figuratively called Death whom Hell it self follows and attends Well is this the last and strongest of our worldly adversaries Yea have they begun already or will they shortly certainly assault us and notwithstanding our former Trophies contend with us for our Palme For all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecutions Let us like our English Martyrs with courage leaping and rejoycing run to kiss the Stake to meet our Opposers yea as the Apostle our tortures not accepting deliverance that we may obtain a better resurrection Are we hated by the World It is the surest mark of our Election by God So the word of truth Because yee are not of this World but I have chosen you out of the World therefore the World hates you Have we mourning here It ushers in yea accompanies an unutterable and inseparable joy Yee shall be sorrowfull saith our Saviour but your sorrow shall be turned into joy and your joy shall no Man take from you Yea do we so far suffer for well doing that we are delivered over to Death as Malefactors Remember we are not without a companion in our sufferings our blessed Saviour was Crucifyed and reckoned amongst the Transgressors Now the Servant is not greater than the Lord if they have persecuted him they will also persecute you To conclude if we be conformable to Christ in his Death we shall also be like him in his Resurrection we shall have a change rather than a loss For He that loseth his life for his sake shall finde it viz. Immortality which is only the true life This is a faithfull saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us Thus then have I made good my proposition that this is the Victory that overcomes the World even our Faith Thanks
and shall be ever with the Lord. But this glorified fear is the most bright reflection in and from us of Gods glorious Soveraignty according to that of the Prophet If I be a Master where is my fear a fruit and an effect of Gods ravishing and transporting excellency and therefore this heavenly affection being so necessary a requisite in our heavenly condition is so far from lessening our perfection in glory as that without it it cannot be perfectly glorious O my Soul shall thy affections of love and fear be thus glorious in thy Heavenly state Let them not have a lesser or lower object than the most high let not such High-Born Princesses be enamoured with their Slaves Vse the World as not abusing it and as though thou used it not Neither fear any but him that only can cast both Soul and Body into Hell-fire Let these two graces be as Jethro to Moses eye in the Wilderness of this World to admonish and to keep thee from losing thy way when thou art turning to the right or to the left And like the Lords Pillar of a Cloud by Day and of Fire by Night to direct thee according to his holy will in thy Journey towards thy Heavenly Canaan Converse with these two Royal Virgins continually So shalt thou have Communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son in the Spirit be partaker of the Divine nature and begin to enjoy Heaven here upon Earth Prepare and so enlarge these Divine Vessels by a pious use and continued Exercise that they may be the more capacious of Glory For according to the measures and proportions of graces in this life shall be their repletion in the life to come where of Apprehensors the Saints shall be made Comprehensors according to their several enlargements For as one Star differs from another in glory so shall it be at the Resurrection of the Just when we shall see God face to face and know him as we are known and be made like him in Glory O my God my Father are these two sanctified affections of love and fear the two Eyes the two Armes of the Soul with which the Saints behold imbrace and enjoy thee in all thy glorious excellencies Are they the two Centinels and Guards by which every true Christian discovers and repells all sinfull thoughts looks words and actions Doth that root of all saving Graces Faith work by love in the application of what the Father Son and Holy Ghost hath done for us Turning our Hearts of Stone into Hearts of Flesh and melting them into teares of Gospel-Repentance Doth love oile the wheeles of our universal obedience so that they run swiftly in the pathes of thy Commandements when thou thus enlargest the heart And is fillial fear the whip in the hand of zeal the holy Chariteer to drive and carry us manger all stops of Sin Sathan and the World to the end of our race Is this divine love to thee and thy Saints the summe and the fulfilling of thy Law The more excellent way The compleating continuing and the greatest grace as most like unto thee For God is love and who so dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him Shall these twin-like graces of love and fear not leave the Soul when it leaves the Body and accompany both Soul and Body at the Resurrection to the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb and to the Marriage-Bed of Glory yea shall they be the measures and compleating of our Glory O holy Father who art the essential love my fear and my dread be thou pleased to sanctify inlarge and inflame these my affections that of sinfull passions in the old Adam they may be changed and Heavenized into active and holy graces in me thy new Creature Let them I beseech thee be effectual and usefull to all the aforementioned ends And since it is no sin but a duty to be ambitious of and to covet spiritual things let them be enlarged and heightned like Heaven even to the utmost of a created capacity that I may be as thou hast promised thy dwelling place upon Earth and thou mayest be my inheritance and my Heaven in Heaven Even so Amen Lord Jesus come quickly The sanctified affection of holy zeal in the glorified Saints deserves our next Meditation This to speak properly is not a simple grace but the highest and intense degree of every grace and holy action which if so famous and resplendent in the Saints upon Earth as in Moses in his exemplary Justice upon the false worshippers of the Golden Calf In Phineas his executing judgment upon that Idolatrous and adulterous payre Zimry and Cosby in David who declares that the zeal of Gods House had eaten him up In Elijah when he put to death four hundred of Baals Prophets in one Evening In Paul who preserved the glory of God in the Redemption of his Country-men the Jews before his own salvation and in that highest example of our dear Lord and Saviour in his purging of his Temple Then this Heavenly grace shall undoubtedly not only continue and have then a Beeing in each glorified Saint but shine forth and act in them much more gloriously Is that only infinite and pure Essence our Omnipotent God who is happiness blessedness and life it self so often declared in the Scripture to be zealous for his name and glory And shall not his Saints his Image be like him Is this grace exercised by glorious Angels as when one Angel destroyed all the first-born of Egypt in one Night Another destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians at the command and in zeal for the glory of God Yea did an whole Host of Angels descend from Heaven and with a holy zeal Celebrate our Lords Nativity and Man-kindes Redemption in an holy Hymne And shall not the glorified Saints overflow and express upon all occasions to Gods glory the like zealous and inflam'd affections assuredly they shall For though Sin Sathan and the wicked World which by a kinde of spiritual Antiperistasis made their zeal here burn the hotter shall be cast out and banisht thence Yet the glorified Saints shall not want nor be without constant objects and continual occasions according to every ones measure to exercise this grace To instance only some successive ones Gods unparallel'd flaming Justice upon Gog and Magog and all wicked Men at our Saviours second coming with ten thousand of his Saints Christs Crowning and rewarding every Elect Member in righteousness according to their works together with all his glorious Administrations in that his holy righteous and personal Reign in the new Heaven and new Earth for a thousand years His powerfull raising of the wicked after the thousand years and curious Inquisition into and perfect discovery and bringing to Judgment of all their evil thoughts words and actions and his
righteous sentence pronounced upon them and the Apostate Angels and his translating his Saints from this Paradise of Earth to the Heaven of Heavens These objects and occasions of holy hatred anger and indignation against Sathan and Gods Enemies the wicked of unexpressable love joy delight praise and glorious tryumphing the holy Scriptures holds forth shall be in the state of glory And can we conceive holy zeal which is the height and crown of all these graces can be absent or unnecessary I shall further add that after our Lords yielding up his Mediatory Kingdome to the Father all the service and everlasting praises of the Saints in the remembrance of all Gods wonderfull works from the beginning unto Eternity in the Heavens Earth and Hell shall be heightned and winged with this holy zeal I shall assert this truth and conclude this ravishing Meditation with pointing at and refering the Reader to the frequent and zealous hallelujahs of the crowned Elders and glorified Saints in the Visions of Saint John set forth to us as the types and lively figures of our Heavenly and glorified condition Revelations Chapter the 4 th Verse the 8 th And the four Beasts rest not Day and Night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And the four and twenty Elders fell down before Him that sate on the Throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their Crowns before the Throne saying Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Like to this are their zealous Songs and Thanksgivings upon divers occasions Chapter 5. Verse 8. untill the end of that Chapter and Chapter 7. Verse 9. unto the end thereof and Chapter 11. Verse 15. unto the end of that Chapter and Chapter the 14. Verse the 1. unto the end of the 5. Verse and Chapter the 15. Verse the third and the fourth besides many more to the end of that blessed Book which for brevity sake I omit These being sufficient to prove the use and exercise of this Seraphical grace of holy zeal by the Saints in their state of Glory O my Soul Is this most Heavenly grace of zeal so illustrious and exemplary in the Saints that have lived upon Earth Doth it shine forth with a Heavenly light here in the actings of holy Angels of our for ever blessed Saviour and of our Almighty Father and Creator Yea shall this grace out-live thy hope and thy faith be the Crown and compleatment of thy divine love and the height and perfection of all other thy graces in glory Endeavour then to follow their famous examples Rest not in the cold and middle Region of bare profession with the careless Gallioes of the World and frozen Church-professors The Demasses of this last and worst age but let thy holy zeal upon all occasions for the glory of thy God and purity of his Worship and Doctrine mount up even to the Firie Region and In his cause be Boanerges and like Gods Angels and Seraphins a Cole a flame of Fire So shalt thou excell and exceed others in this grace in thy glorified state as far as thou hast gone before them in this life And as thou hast been more gracious here so thou shalt be more glorious hereafter The larger thy Vessel the larger thy Receipt Every Vessel shall be full and overflow although much different in their measure All shall be Stars although not of the like Magnitude The Saints at the first Resurrection being rewarded according to their works although not for their works O Lord my God is divine zeal a holy flame a Pyramid-like Fire a Spring towards Heaven as to its own place Is my heart my Souls shop where it forges affections and this middle Region of my Body like the middle Region of the Aire cold and naturally void of this thy heavenly Fire Be pleased I humbly beseech thee to cause the same holy Spirit that once sate in the likeness of Fiery Tongues upon the heads of thy Apostles to rest upon unthaw and inflame my frozen heart and affections Then shall not its earthly and sinfull qualities of coldness hardness and ponderousness chill resist or smother the fervency and intensness of any of thy graces in me since thy Almighty Power that produces lightning in the cold middle Region of the Aire that melts the Rock and causes the Mountains Aetna Vesuvius and Hecla to breath forth flames of Fire can yea will because thou hast promised it bring forth and create in me a greater wonder even a new heart and a new spirit a heart of Flesh instead of a heart of Stone Then shall I be not only zealous in all my actings for thee but frequent and zealous in my praises to thee in this life of Grace and that of Glory to Eternity Amen All affections in this life as love fear zeal and the rest although sanctified in their heighths and intensiveness by reason of the weakness of the Organ and our decayed nature may put the whole Man to pain and in that respect are called Passions yet it shall cease to be so with us in our glorified condition Where whatsoever that flowes from Infirmity or Imperfection shall be done away In the new Jerusalem there shall be neither sorrow nor pain We shall then be as the Apostle exhorts not only when occasions shall be offered not to be angry without sin but without passion or disturbance Being herein like to God and the holy Angels whose Image shall then be perfectly renewed in us and who in the Scripture although I grant it to be meant not properly but Anthropopathos is often declared to be angry But as to the Elect Angels I conceive they may as truly be said to be angry witness that famous opposition of Balaam and that action of the Angel that with his drawn Sword was ready to destroy Jerusalem for David's Sin as to rejoyce greatly for the conversion of a sinner If then such accidental affections are testified to be in glorious Angels why not much rather in glorified Saints unless by cessation of so eminent a grace as holy anger we should irrationally conceive the Saints less perfect in this new life than in the other Especially since the sole object of this holy affection the Sin Blasphemy and Rebellion of wicked Souls and Devils to the dishonour of God shall continue and in that great and long day or time of their Judgment be more universally manifested to their view than ever as also afterward in Hell to Eternity Anger here though for Gods cause may possibly inflame the Eyes distort the Visage of a Saint but its lipe as the modest blush of a Virgin doth add beauty to her Face so shall this
zealous flaming Grace of holy anger add light to light and glory to the glory of a Saint O my Soul is holy anger a saving and gracious affection a part of the glorious Image of God in a Saint Do the holy and blessed Angels as the Scriptures witness in their zeal to Gods glory and hatred of Sin express it in their constant oppositions and inflictions of Gods Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils Yea is it an Apostolical Precept and Duty to be angry and sin not Shall this grace have even in Heaven continual objects and occasions to exercise it self to Gods glory and thy own O write after this Copy and endeavour that this grace may not be seldome and casually but habitually in thee here upon Earth Let it be one of the Mortifiers and Crucifiers of thy lusts as they were the Murderers of thy Saviour Let it dash out the brains of all these Babell Beasts against the Stones of holy reproofs even the accursed issue of thy sinfull thought words and actions Let this God-like passion resist the Devil in all his subtle and powerfull temptations and he shall undoubtedly flye from thee Yea let this grace imitate and second the holy Spirit in reproving and convincing the ungodly World of Sin So shalt thou be preserved from the Commission of all evil triumph over all thy worldly and spiritual Enemies and be prepared by thy more full extent and acting of this grace here to be of an higher form in the blessed exercise thereof in Glory O All-mighty Creator who hast made my heart the seat of my affections and plac'd it in the Centre of my Body that it might affect and influence every part alike Let it not I humbly beseech thee be any longer like the middle Region of the Aire the coldest part of this Micro-cosme and void of this Heavenly heat of holy anger But let this sanctified affection flash forth like thunder and lightning and burn up and destroy every crude and evil thought word and action as soon as they appear and purge this Element of my Heart and Soul from all the infectious noxious and sinfull vapours of vain and sinfull thoughts that arise from this Earth this Body of Death and Sin that incompasses me about that they may never come to the maturity of wicked actions or if they do they may be as it were Thunder strucken and torne up by the Roots and not able to stand before this flaming grace so shall I be like thee who art as a flaming Fire consuming all Iniquity That so being renewed and fashioned according to thy Image in this World by such holy affections I may be assured of theirs and my greater perfection in the World to come when I shall be made like thee iâ— thy Image of Glory Amen As the light of the Sun to the World so is the affection of joy to the Soul when it arises there is day when it sets an uncomfortable night Man in his innocency enjoyed a polar day a continued presence thereof but having lost God its cause and object the effect ceased not that the Soul is disrob'd of the affection but of the true use of it hence the distinction of a spiritual and carnal joy The first is the true only found and beginning afresh to bud in the renewed Saints and favourites of God for a stranger shall not intermeddle with their joy but the other is momentary and illegitimate as being begotten in the Soul by false objects and is as it were the Moon-light of the wicked The object then of true joy is God and that in this consideration as he is inclusively and exclusively the compleat happiness of the Creature Whereby it comes to pass that the godly and reprobate may both rejoyce in the same things as Wifes Children Honours Estates c. And yet the joy of the one be holy and spiritual of the other carnal and wicked Leaving then the sensual mirth which is deceivable sinfull and temporary my thoughts pitch upon the Solace of the Elect which the Scripture stiles the joy of the Holy Ghost unspeakable and glorious the first-fruits and earnest of their future happiness By these glimpse O ye Saints of God's may yee judge of that full light you shall there enjoy Which if unspeakable here shall surely be there unconceivable Alas what can I then think and meditate of it chiefly negatively thus that there shall be no cloudings nor intermissions there no measure of our joy for we shall continually behold God and in him see all the grounds of rejoycing If here excesses have proved mortal their exceedings shall make us more immortal this being an increasing and reviving not a surfeiting fulness The capacity of the affection being gradually and continually augmented according to the plentifull infusion our joyes multiplying there even to Eternity The growth of our graces here although God be seen of us through the cleft of the Rock as to Moses teaching discovering and evincing a continued and far greater augmentation in glory hereafter O blessed and happy estate which is not diminished by Eternity but is as unlimitable as lasting O happy place wherein all joyes meet their objects in one Centre There shall we possess and enjoy not guttatim but according to the fulness of each Vessel God our gracious Father Christ our mercifull Saviour the Holy Spirit our everlasting Comforter the glorious Angels and Arch-Angels our fellow-Servants the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets our Tryumphant Leaders the pious Apostles and valiant Martyrs our victorious Champions together with the many millions successively of religious Professors There shall we meet and rejoyce in the like felicity of all our vertuous Parents Brothers Sisters Wifes Children Kindred and Friends There shall we inherit unvaluable and incorruptible riches Be install'd in Thrones of unchangeable and incorruptible honours and be filled with all unspeakable and Soul-ravishing delights To conclude whatsoever things either in conception or possibility can affect or rejoice the glorified Soul are there not interchangeably but contemporarily and continuedly obvious and present And on the contrary all things whatsoever that may lessen or offend in the least degree this divine extasie have an impossibility of subsistence in this Eternal Paradise And that not only in regard of the presence but of the decree of God himself Therefore needs must this joy be ineffably compleat to which all things concur for its perfection O Divine condition which shall thus sweetly impe and restore these mouldring and broken Wings of my Soul O blissfull Paradise and Chrystaline Sea upon which these now maimed Feet of my affections shall walk or rather evenly slide free from all rubs thorns and sinfull interruptions O how melodious will the harmony of these Strings be when mounted to the highest Key not to Ela but to Eli Methinks the very Contemplation of this life should so ravish my Soul and actuate these Wings these Feet that
in its splendour but in its voluntary motion and other glorified qualities Now as he ascended so said the Angels shall he descend not step by step but as it is most like with inconceivable celerity else could not the first Century have confessed him to be at the right hand of his Father in the highest Heavens a hundred of years not being sufficient according to Astronomical discoveries to have ascended so many millions of miles Nor could the Saints after the Judgment past under the expence of many years attain those Heavenly Mansions The glorified Soul being now to re-enter reassume and to be reunited to its own body chearfully takes possession and findes it raised filled and prepared by the Almighty Power of the Creator for its habitation Not as formerly a Prison hindring and streightning its faculties and their enlarged operations by reason of Organical deficiencies but made in every part member and sence capacious and proportionate to its utmost activity Not as formerly a natural weighty dull and earthly body but a Coelestial Heavenly and spiritual body Not as formerly occasioned by the curse of sin corruptible and mortal but incorruptible and immortal Not as formerly weak and infirm especially at Death pale noisome filthy and dishonourable but powerfull and shining with glory according to the Word of Truth declared by the Apostle It is sowne in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption it is sowne in dishonour it is raised in Glory it is sowne in weakness it is raised in Power it is sowne a natural Body it is raised a spiritual Body As we have borne the Image of the Earthly so shall we bare the Image of the Heavenly for Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Hosea the thirteenth Vers. the fourteenth Death is swallowed up in Victory From the preceding Scripture is evidently proved that the glorification of our bodies shall principally consist First in being raised spiritual and heavenly bodies Secondly in being made shining and glorious Thirdly in their being incorruptible and immortal of all which more particularly and first of their spirituality and heavenliness Our present bodies although they are compounded of the four Elements yet are made up in an unequal mixture the proportion being much less of Water than of Earth and much less of Ayre than of Water and of Fire than of Ayre Therefore our Bodies have the denomination from Earth and not from any of the rest and are called in the foregoing Text Earthly Bodies And much different in their mixture from the Bodies of Fishes Fowles Meateors This also our natural motion declares For being placed in any one of the three other Elements and left at liberty by reason of our Earthly ponderousness we violently move towards the Centre of the Earth of which we were form'd and upon which is our habitation But our state place and condition being to be changed at the resurrection of the just our bodies that shall be a live at the Lords second coming shall be changed And though the same bodies for matter and substance as saith holy Job shall be raised yet much differing from what they were before as to their mixture and qualities And therefore are said to be raised Spiritual and Heavenly Bodies A further proof whereof the Holy Spirit gives us in that Text wherein he saith the Lord Jesus Christ shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself The same witnesses the beloved Apostle in that his blessed gradation and comparison of our present and future more glorious condition Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be But we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Whence note this Apostle or the rest did not yea could not with their then bodily eyes behold him as he was then risen from the dead he vailing his glory in condescention to their present state A second Heavenly and Spiritual quality of the Saints glorified Bodies is a swift and speedy local motion prophesied of as many interpret that place in the Prophet Isay They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with Wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint Which I cannot better manifest to our weak apprehensions than by comparing it to a flash of lightning which in an instant passeth from the East to West and from one Port of the vast Canopy of Heaven to the other This quality also was manifested to be in our Saviours glorified Body upon Earth like to which we shall be raised by his swift passage from Jerusalem being many score miles to a Mountain in Galilee when he was seen of five hundred Brethren at once And from Jerusalem to the Sea of Tiberius when he did eat with Peter and the rest after the great draught of Fishes And from thence to Jerusalem again at his Ascention from Mount Olivet And which is also most demonstrable by his discent from Heaven to the Aire when he spoke to and was seen of Paul in the way to Damascus which without doubt was a personal not a visional appearance since the Apostle adds that to his other personal appearances saying last of all he was seen of me which had not it been real had been but a slender proof of our Saviours Resurrection To which end he there vouches it As our Souls are now like the Angels yea Angels in the Flesh so then our Bodies as to this Spiritual quality shall be raised like our Souls That so their future union may be lasting and compleat and this Marriage may continue and be indissolveable In which respect the Apostle saith they shall be raised not only spiritual but heavenly bodies as fitted to dwell in that place which for the matter Philosophers call a Quint-essence far more refined than any or all the four Elements and which the Scripture calls the Heaven of Heavens and the Inheritance of the Saints in light O my Soul shall thy Body at that great change and resurrection of the just be raised heavenly and spiritual like the body of our Lord be pure as the Essence of Angels as speedy and quick as to motion as the lightning and fitted to inhabit Heaven Have a high value and esteem of it and make not this Vessel of honour by sinning a Vessel of dishonour the Members of Christ the Members of a Harlot the Image of God and Christ the Image of Sathan the Temple of the Holy Ghost a Stie yea
a Hell of unclean lusts But labour as much to be like Christ in holiness and righteousness as thou hopest and desirest to be like him in glory Let thy Members be spiritualized and heavenized and made Members of holiness unto righteousness And let thy conversation be in Heaven where thy habitation shall be For our life is hid in Christ with God and when he appeares we shall appear also with him in glory and be ever with the Lord. O omnipotent God and gracious Father in my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who in the beginning madest Man after thy own Image in holiness and in righteousness of body and soul as having from everlasting decreed that thy only begotten Son the Eternal Word should be made Flesh and become Man And therefore thou saidest let us make Man in our Image after our likeness for to thee all things past and future are as in their present being in thy great goodness pitty and with infinite compassions behold what a sad and miserable change Sathan and Sin have made in thy Image and Creature Thou hast made Man upright but they have sought out many inventions Yea every imagination of the thoughts of Mans heart are only evil continually Their hearts are deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know them Their bodies are become so like Sathan that they may well be called Devils incarnate Their Heads imagine mischief continually their Eyes are altogether set upon vanity their Eares are soon set open to let in all verbal uncleanness their Smell is fum'd with pride their Pallates are fur'd with gluttony and excess and their touch is the pander of lust and lasciviousness their Mouths Tongues and Throats are open Sepulchres their right hands are full of bribes iniquity and oppression and their Feet walk in the way of sinners and are swift in running to mischief In summe the whole Body is a Cage of unclean lusts and the wicked Instruments of all ungodliness and unrighteousness O mercifull Creator this is our sinfull condition by nature But thou hast promised to change these vile bodies and to make them glorious bodies like the body of our Lord. O begin I beseech thee this change and new Creation upon my body here since they only that are sanctified and made new Creatures shall be glorified They only that are raised and have part in this first Resurrection from sin shall be raised and have part in the second Resurrection to Glory Let it appear that I am born again of Water and the Spirit and that Christ is already formed in me and let all those senses and Members which have been the Members of uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity be now the Members and Servants of righteousnes unto holiness so shall my glory begin here in holiness and righteousness and be compleated hereafter in the perfection of Glory Amen I proceed next to the second excellency of our Bodies at the Resurrection They shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and as the Stars for ever and ever Yea our blessed Saviour far transcends these expressions of the Angel in Daniel and saith The righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdome of their Father Yea far higher yet They shall partake of the Glory of God which is far above all created Glory he declaring that The glory God hath given him he had given them All which is comprehended in the fore-recited Texts He shall make our vile Bodies like unto his glorious Body And that when he shall appear we shall be like him To this great truth the Apostle Paul further beares witness saying Whom he justifies them he also glorifies That those that suffer with Christ shall also be glorified together with him And that our light affliction which is but for a Moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and Eternal weight of Glory That when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with Him in Glory Of this excelling and blessed state of the People of God in the darker times of the Church under the Law the Psalmist gives testimony saying Let the Saints be joyfull in Glory And of himself in particular Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and after receive me into Glory I shall conclude the proofs of this most comfortable encouraging and ravishing Doctrine with the evidence of blessed Peter When the chief Shepward shall appear ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fades not away The God of all grace hath called us into his Eternal Glory by Jesus Christ. Our blessed Saviour in his great love to us and for our encouragement in his service hath not only from his own Mouth and by his Spirit in the Mouths of his Ministers as hath been shewed verified this precious truth and illustrated it by sensible similitudes such as the Sun Stars and Firmament but became himself even in his state of humiliation a Sign Figure and example of this glorious shining condition and change of the Bodies of his Saints at the Resurrection in that his wonderfull and miraculous transfiguration in the presence of Peter James and John upon the Mount when his Face did shine as the Sun and his Rayment was white as the Light A sight so ravishing and delightfull that it made Peter although but a Spectator to forget Wife and Family and to look upon this World as a Dunghill saying unto our Lord Jesus Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias Consider then was this glorious change in our Saviour so superlatively delightfull to Peter to behold What shall it be to us in the fruition Certainly true is that Word of the Lord Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard neither hath it entred into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him Our Souls are now immund or rather imprisoned with in a fleshly Wall or Jaile of whited Earth and like a poor Prisoner hath only the liberty to peep and look out at the Cinque-ports or windows of the sences Neither is it or can it now be seen or truly known by our selves or others But then that Image of God that Angel-like Spirit that most rich and inestimable Jewel purchased with the infinite precious blood of the Son of God and valued by him to be more worth than the whole World shall dwell and be housed in the body glorified as in a shining pure and transparent Chrystal Cabinet And shall be seen and known by Saints our selves and Angels as to its forme to its glorious operations and perfect beauty The resplendent body like a Concave Mathematical Glass not deminishing but magnifying and adding to its excellent glory and brightness And moves according to its
Lord makes a new Heaven and a new Earth according to his promise which I humbly conceive only extends to this Orbe of Earth and Water and to the Regions and Elements of the Aire and Fire these two last are most frequently in Scripture called Heaven That flaming and Aetherial Fire not Elementary in which the Lord Jesus shall descend and appear with the ten thousands of glorified Souls and Angels and which shall consume all the wicked that are then in the World and burn up their works shall accordingly as it is the nature and true effect and property of Fire to purge and purify each of the four Elements from all that dross and corruptible quality that hath intermixt and cleaved unto them by the righteous Judgment and curse of God for Mans sin Whence shall proceed that admirable change as to their qualities although not of their substance deserving the name in the Scripture promise of a new Heaven and of a new Earth As it is most excellently set forth by Saint Paul in these words For the earnest expectation of the Creature wait for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain together untill now The Elements then are made like unto the Heavenly supream Orbes pure lucid and incorruptible Hence I infer that these four Elements being thus wonderfully changed in their qualities and made incorruptible in which respectively the several parts and ingredients of our Bodies are laid up and reserved as being naturally a part of them There must necessarily follow the same and the like change and alteration in the matter and substance of our Bodies also Whence it will follow that although the first change in the Elements is supernatural and wonderfull that in our Bodies will naturally follow as an effect from that cause Our great God as in the first Creation caused the production of all things out of their first matter as so many streams from that Fountain so in this new and second birth of things he as a rational and natural Agent produceth this excellent change in the fore-mentioned qualities of our new-raised Bodies to be a necessary and certain effect flowing from the change of the principles out of which they are compounded It being more than probable that the Resurrection of our Bodies shall immediatly succeed the making of the new Heaven and the new Earth the Saints habitation as it was in the first Creation when the Lord made the Earth and all the Creatures first before he made Man the Lord and Possessor of it and them The premisses being granted I thence conclude that as Mortality is a necessary effect and consequent of corruption so the immortality of the Body to use the Apostles phrase is as necessary an effect and consequent of incorruption For that substance that can never more be corrupted may truly be said to be everlasting and according to the Apostles expression immortal Death signifying either in sensible or vegitable Creatures a putred and evil change or alteration as also a debasing diminishing and deforming separation as being the curse and fruit of Sin and abhorrent to nature Having hitherto discoursed of this marvellous change of our Bodies at the Resurrection and given some natural reasons thereof as a Philosopher I must now as a Christian ascend higher and prove this eminent change to proceed also from a far higher and nobler cause than meer nature even from the spiritual real and mystical union of our Persons through faith and the Eternal Spirit as Members to our Head the Lord Jesus who is God-Man blessed for ever As since sin God hath enacted this to be one of the Statutes of Nature It is appointed to Men once to dye And by another Law of Nature after Death hath dissolved this Microcosme of Soul from Body Every part of the body as hath been shewed returns to its proper Element so by the Law of Christ God-Man the Eternal Word that was made Flesh it is decreed and affirmed as an indubitable truth That he that believeth in him hath everlasting life And though he were dead yet shall he live Whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never dye From hence it is most cleer that in a spiritual sence the death of the Saints is no death they being so united by faith that although the Soul be divided from the Body and each Elementary part of the body be divided from the other yet neither Soul nor Body or any grain or part thereof can be separated from our head the Lord Jesus in whom who is eternal life is our life Though we are dead in a natural sence yet we live spiritually in and by his Spirit In which sence also the whole mystical body of Christ the universal Church and every Member thereof is said to be joyned to the Lord and is one Spirit as being by the Holy Ghost the ever-living God that fills all things the Spirit of the Father and the Son as by an unmeasurable and everlasting Ligament tyed and united to the Lord Jesus our head So that like as it is said of the Soul That it is tota in toto tota in qualibet parte So it may be said that the for ever blessed Spirit of God the Father and the Son in and by this ineffable union and in dwelling is wholly and spiritually both before and after death in our Souls and in our Bodies and in every part of them although never so far by reason of a natural death separated one from another Here note that although the Scripture declares that in God all things live move and have their being as he is their Creator and Preserver and in whom and by whom they act and have their subsistance yet the difference is very great betwixt that life of the Creatures on Earth and this life of the Saints both as to the nature and duration of it That flowing from his Almighty power and goodness as a Creator this from his Eternal love as our Father in Christ that life being temporary this life Eternal as flowing from the highest Principle our spiritual and real union unto God in Christ. For the further clearing and proof of which immortality as well of our Bodies as of our Souls consider the words of our blessed Saviour As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself I am the way the truth and the life because I live yee shall live also Thou hast given me power over all flesh that I should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given
other Members as looking upon this weak diseased and aged Body as upon an old and weather-beaten Tent. Knowing that If the Earthly House of this my Tabernacle were dissolved I have a building of God an House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens Groaning earnestly and desiring with the Apostle Paul to be cloathed upon with my House which is from Heaven with which if I be cloathed I shall not be found naked That this Mortality may be swallowed up of Life Let me not O Lord with the Worldling who hath his Portion only in this Life be troubled at the Knell of every passing Bell sigh at every striking of the Clock nor be afraid or unwilling to number my Days or to cast up the accompt of my years but greatly rejoyce at the end of every hour day and year as hastning my approach to and the enjoyment of Eternity Being most willing to have my Body interred that after a long time like the matter of China Vessels it may be raised and made lucid transparent and a Vessel of honour fit to be made use of in the Palace of Heaven Shall my Body be shining and glorious like the Sun let it not now O Lord be spotted with sin and changeable and inconstant in its motion and conversation like the Moon Shall it be bright like the Firmament and Stars O Lord let it be a fixt and not a falling Star nor cast down to the Earth by the Taile of the old Serpent the Devil neither let me be a Meteor and seem to out-shine others in a Religious profession and in a short time vanish only leaving behind me an hypocritical and pestilential stench like those wandering Stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever O gracious and mercifull Redeemer shall this corruptible put on incorruptibility and this mortal put on immortality Let this supernatural change begin here as it doth in all thy sanctified ones and let even my Body as well as my Soul be thy dwelling place and the Temple of thy holy Spirit in which let no unclean lust lurk or wicked Spirit enter Make me holiness unto thee O Lord and perfect holiness in thy fear Give thy Angels charge over me to keep me in all my ways Let them bear me up in their hands lest I dash my Foot against a Stone cause me to tread upon the Lyon and the Addar the young Lyon and the Dragon Yea let them according to thy promise be shortly trampled under my Feet Let sin dye in me by vertue of thy Death and let the life and immortality of holiness spring up and flourish in me by vertue of thy Resurrection Hast thou O Lord stiled thy Church thy Dove thy undefiled one And declared that she is fair and that there is no spot in her And is that which is spoken of thy Church applyable to every living Member thereof O thou that art the Eternal truth make good this thy Word unto thy poor Servant thy Spouse although most unworthy to wash the Feet of the Servants of my Lord. And since thou hast promised that all things shall become new And declared that those that are in thee are new Creatures and hast covenanted to give me a new Heart and a new Spirit and to take out my Heart of Stone and to give me a Heart of Flesh to pour clean Water upon me and to make me clean and hast testified that thy blood doth cleanse me from all sin and that by thy righteousness alone I am justified O let all these true and precious promises be fulfilled in me and to me So shall the incorruptibility of my Person as in respect of sin usher in and assure me of the incorruptibility of my Soul and Body in glory Let me dye daily with blessed Paul as to all the evil lusts of the Flesh that I may not dye Eternally but live everlastingly in glorified Flesh. O Lord who art the life and my life let my sinfull mortality even here put on a spiritual and heavenly immortality For thou hast proclaim'd it whil'st thou wert upon Earth That the Day comes yea now is when the Dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live even to Eternity For He that believeth in thee hath already everlasting life Let my union and communion with thee through faith and the in-dwelling of thy holy Spirit begin to make my Face to shine here as did the Face of Moses and thy Proto-Martyr Stephen since thou hast declared that a Mans wisdome maketh his Face to shine Yea we are said to shine here also in a holy conversation since thou commandest us To let our light shine before Men. And hast held forth in thy Word that the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect Day and hast promised in thy Book That if we let not wickedness dwell in our Tabernacles our Age shall be cleerer than the Noon-day and we shall shine forth and be as the Morning Lord although I now live in the Flesh yet let me not I humbly and with importunity beseech thee live unto or after the Flesh since such are said to be dead while they live yea twice dead and pluckt up by the Roots And thou hast justly threatned that those that live after the Flesh shall dye and that Eternally But they that live in and after the Spirit shall live and that for ever and ever But since after this life there shall be no Devil to tempt no World to allure or persecute nor Sin to intice or corrupt Let me with mortified Paul desire to depart and to be with thee which is far better Yea since to live is Christ and to dye is gain Let me with perfect Job all the Dayes of this my appointed time humbly patiently and believingly wait until my glorious change come Amen Having exercised my faith and contemplation upon this ravishing and pleasing subject the glorification of the Bodies and Members of the Saints in general and in the Gross I shall now lastly proceed beseeching the assistance of his most Holy Spirit who is my light the light of Men and he who alone enlighteneth every one that cometh into the World to speak particularly though with much brevity of the glorification of the Five Sences I shall go so far as I shall receive light from the Scriptures and right reason taking that sober and lawfull liberty that is granted to all those that have meditated upon the like subjects where some things are more obscure than others and not so clearly and fully held forth in Gods Word humbly to offer what probably and rationally although not positively may be the truth as not repugnant to Scripture right reason or the Analogie
but such as shall be exceeding ravishing and delightfull and as Musick to the Soul even such unspeakable words as blessed Paul heard when he was caught up into Paradise Then shall we being placed in glory at the right hand of our righteous King and Saviour hear with boldness and without fear or astonishment that most joyfull sentence Come yee blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World Then shall we hear that great voice of God the Father who sits upon the Throne saying Behold I make all things new the Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God Then shall these words which are faithfull and true be fulfilled God shall wipe away all teares from their Eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end I will give unto him that is athirst of the Fountain of the Water of Life freely he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my Son To conclude I shall not say any thing as to the Musick of the Sphears as esteeming them to be only groundless dreams and phantasies of Heathens and Phylosophers I humbly conceive that as far as the glorious Heavens and Angels transcend and excells the nâ—w Earth and the Inhabitants thereof so far shall the ravishing and musical voices and sounds in this glorified state of the Saints excell all the pleasures and delights of this kind in this our low and corruptible condition O my Soul shall the sense of Hearing in the next life be as comprehensive and perfect in its kinde as the sense of Sight Shall it be made capable not only of Hearing and that with understanding also the Musick of Heaven the all-ravishing Hymns the mellifluous speech and voices of Angels the Language of Glory as also to hear him whose voice is as a Trumpet and as the noise of many Waters of him who is the Judge of Heaven and Earth the King of Kings the King of Saints and the King of Nations the Eternal Word the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man blessed for ever Yea shalt thou then O my Soul by the assistance of this glorified sense hear not as now the dreadfull and killing but the all delighting reviving exalting and transporting voice of the ever glorious Trinity even of the Eternal God Himself O let not this so excellent and usefull a sense be deboist so much as to be the Gate or in-let of vain and unprofitable discourses of wanton and lascivious words or of any kind of false slanderous or evil speeches all which are as so many Traytors to thee and Enemies unto thy God and Soveraign Nor let thy Eares be â—urfeited and excessively glutted with any kind of earthly Musick or with the pleasing sounds or voices of any of thy fellow-Creatures which although lawfull delightfull and refreshing to the natural and animal Spirits as being neer a Kin to them yet by the subtilty of Sathan the World and thy Flesh do frequently become snares and an undiscernable flattering and therefore the more dangerous Enemy and means to pollute thee with sin or to introduce some kind of fleshly lust or other But begin even now O my Soul to exercise every sense and member upon such objects and in such employments and actings as come neerest to those of Angels and glorified Saints This is to make this Earth a Paradise and to have even whilst thou art in this World as the Apostle exhorts thy conversation in Heaven To this end let thy delight be with holy David in the converse of the excellent ones upon Earth yea watch dayly at the Gates of Wisdome and wait at the Posts of her Doors yea with attention hang upon the Lips of her Teachers Be much in the exercises of the Church Tryumphant in praising God in the Assemblies of his Saints in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing with grace and making Melody in your heart So shalt thou O my Soul by a sanctified spiritual and internal sense heâ—e frequently even in this thy state of humiliation the counsels and instructions of blessed Angels the voice of God and of his holy Spirit viz. thy Father and Comforter behind thee saying This is the way walk thou in it And the loving expressions and invitations of thy most sweet and gracious Spouse and Saviour who standing behind the Wall of thy Flesh and looking forth at the Windowes of several Providences and shewing himself through the Lattess of thy intervening and impeding weakness and infirmity will often speak unto thee saying Arise up my love my fair one and come away For loe the Winter is past of thy doubts fears sufferings and temptations The rain of thy teares and mourning is over and gone The Flowers of my saving gifts which evidence the Spring of my Grace appears on the Earth of thy renewed nature The time of the singing of Birds the earnest and witness of my Spirit and of thy conscience assuring thee of my love and salvation is come and the voice of me the true Turtle is heard in the Land even in thy Soul my Habitation The Figg-Tree putteth forth her green Figges and the Vines with the tender Grapes give a good smell viz. thou art fruitfull in all holy and good works Now therefore arise my love my fair one and come away and inherit the Kingdome prepared for thee before the Foundation of the World O my gracious Lord and Saviour who when thou wert upon Earth in the zeal of thy Spirit cryed out unto thy Auditors He that hath Eares to hear let him hear and didst declare and expound the Words of thy Prophet That there should be many that hear but understand not intimating to us thereby that there is a spiritual and internal sense of hearing that many want that have the bodily sence and Organ O thou which openedst the heart of Lidia as well as her Eares when she gave attention to Paul's preaching and said to the deaf Man in the Gospel Ephtata and his Eares were opened give me an understanding Eare as well as thou hast given me an Ear of Flesh that I may both hear and understand know and obey thy will declared unto me by the Ministers of thy Word Yea let my Eares be always open to receive entertain and retain the holy instructions consolations reproofes and encouragementâ— of any of thy faithfull Servants and my fellow-members and Brethren But let them through thy grace be turned away sealed up and guarded against the Syrene Songs of all Sin and Sinners And if by force or surpriâ—e oaths curâ—ing lying slandering blasphemies vain
and drink as our Saviour did thrice after his Resurrection probably to shew not only that his Body was truly raised and that his stay upon Earth was a figure and pattern of his Saints first degree of Glory here after their Resurrection as his was his first degree of glory and exaltation after his but also that they should accidentally and at pleasure as he did although not out of a positive and natural necessity eat drink and make use of the Creatures Shall thy body not only have a kinde of secondary nourishment as our first Parents had in Paradise conveighed unto it with a far more exceeding and extraordinary delight that they had because of the excelling transcendency of the subjects and their much more sanctified and spiritualiz'd condition But shall the Taste also administer to thee continually much delight and knowledge from the unexpressible sweetness and wonderfull variety of innumerable Vegitives as to their admirable natures and qualities to thy great content and ravishment and thy Creators glory O do not therefore now vitiate and pollute it with gluttony or drunkenness nor make it a slavish Handmaid to any fleshly and inordinate appetite Be wise and guide thy heart in the way be not amongst Wine-bibers amongst riotous eaters of flesh for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath contentions who hath babling who hath wounds without cause who hath redness of the Eyes They that tarry long at the Wine they that go to seek mixt Wine Look not thou upon the Wine when it is red when it giveth its colour in the Cup when it moveth it self aright at the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder Thine Eyes shall behold strange Women and thy Heart shall utter perverse things yea thou shalt be as he that lyeth down in the midst of the Sea or as he that lyeth upon the top of a Mast They have striken me shalt thou say and I was not sick they have beaten me and I felt it not when I shall awake I will seek it yet again O my Soul in that new life thou shalt only eat and drink as the Apostle exhorts to the glory of God and more for pleasure and delight and that as to spiritual ends than for necessity but in this sinfull life if thou be given to appetite put a Knife to thy throat and watch over thy gust eating and drinking more for necessity than for pleasure as one that eats to live not lives to eat not making like those wicked ones reproved by the Apostle Paul thy Belly thy God But like thy for ever glorious and blessed Saviour at all seasonable Feastings do thou turn Water into Wine that is be a holy and Christian Phylosopher or Chymist extracting Life and Spirits out of every thing thou eatest or drinkest as tasting in the various gusts sweetness and vertues of the Creature the super-excelling sweetness wisdome and goodness of thy God the bountifull giver and the wonderfull Creator Do not with the Swinish and dropsical Drunkard turn Wine into Water but in thy Non-age so train up this Childish sense in all holy temperance and sobriety that it may be prepared and fitted for its sublimer exercise in thy Man-hood of Glory O my Lord and Saviour who art both our example and our Law-giver and therefore hast commanded us not to labour for the Meat that perisheth but for that Meat which endureth unto everlasting life and doth exhort and precaution us to take heed to our selves that our hearts be not over-charged with surfeiting and drunkenness lest that Day either of Death or Judgment come upon us unawares and hast also declared by thy Apostle that Meats are for the Belly and the Belly is for Meats but God shall destroy them both and therefore didst exhort and teach us how to purify and spiritualize our fleshly gust and appetite by faith offering thy self to be drunk and eaten by us when thou saidest My Blood is Drink indeed my Flesh is Meat indeed affording to us such an excellent nourishment that who so by faith spiritually eateth thy Flesh and drinketh thy Blood shall not dye but live to Eternity Yea further thou holdest forth to us that thou art that Bread that camest down from Heaven of which the Manna in the Wilderness was but a Type which whosoever eateth by faith that is by believing in thee shall not dye but live for ever as also that thou art that Water of Life of which whosoever drinketh shall thirst no more O Lord I cry unto thee with the Emauites Lord ever give unto me to eat of this Bread and to drink of this living Spring then shall I be so fully satisfied that I shall never hunger or thirst more after any of the things of this World The lusts of the Flesh the lusts of the Eyes or the pride of life yea Lord I shall not only have enough for my self but such plenty as there-with to feast others also as being enabled to say with thy beloved Apostle That which was from the beginning which we have heaâ—d which we have seen with our Eyes which we have looked upon yea that which we have tasted and our hands have handled of the Word of Life declare we unto you that yee may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Son even with thee O Lord Jesus Christ Lord give unto thy Servant an internal taste as well as thou hast given me an external sense that I may with holy David both taste and see how good the Lord is and binde the one Apprentice to the other making it serviceable to my Soul and unto thee Then shall I enjoy a double relish and sweetness in every drop of drink and bit of meat as being a love-token from thee and an earnest of Eternal Life and nourishment in thee so shall my Earthly Pallate at no time injure deceive or pollute my spiritual sense as Noah's and Lot's did by ignorance surprise and the sweetness of the Grape but be kept in order and in obedience sharpning not blunting the edge of my Meditation and Charity as the full Meats of Nabal and Dives did watering and enlivening not drowning my piety and obedience as it is probable Wine and strong Drink did Nabal and Abihu O Lord it is true that the Beasts of the Field partake and have the use of this sense as well as Man O that they might not one Day shame and rise up in Judgment against the Epâ—curisme of many Men Doth nature moderate the Horse and the Oxen as to their eating and drinking O let the addition of thy grace so order and sanctify my taste and appetite that in their sweetness I may admire thy delectableness mercy wisdome and goodness so shall this sense begin my glory
and a learned Man was declared an Heretick for holding there was an Antipodes or a new World before its discovery so may possibly these my weak notions and contemplations although of a Divine subject because not heretofore searcht into by others that I know of and therefore if the Lord in his providence shall order them to come to a publick view I only recommend them to the devout perusal and judgment of holy humble regenerate and practical Christians who although in the Body do by divine Meditation as it were live out of the Body and have been so far changed into the Image of Christ and taught and renewed by his holy Spirit that they have brought their Bodies and Senses unto such a spiritual frame and exercise as is declared and exhorted to in the foregoing discourse These will rightly judge of this personal Raign of Christ with his Saints upon Earth and how uncharitably and unjustly and I may add ignorantly many in other respects learned religious and to be honoured have ignominiously and falsely branded this Doctrine as though it was New Epicureal and Sensual whereas the truth is it is a most antient and Primative Doctrine and nothing else but the declaration and affirmation of that glorious condition of Christ and his Saints that he himself the Holy Scriptures and Prophets indited and inspired by his Holy Spirit have throughout witnessed to and promised as by the Scriptures quoted in the Margin besides many others is sufficiently proved That he the second Adam should come to renew and restore all things in this lower Creation freed from the curse of sin to as good yea a far better condition than they had before the Fall When God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Now did not God make this so excellent a work for his Glory and for his Creature Man to enjoy and to serve praise and glorify him in the fruition thereof and in the admiration of him in this its excellency and goodness But did any of Man-kinde but only two Adam and Eve enjoy the Earth and the Creatures thereof in their Primitive and created excellencies and that but for a Day or two How then shall God have his end the Glory of his Power wisdome and goodness and Man the enjoyment of all his liberality and bounty and be Trumpets and witnesses of his excellencies in the Creatures How shall Gods promise be fulfilled Of making a new Heaven and a new Earth and restoring all things by his Son the Heir of all things If Man I mean all the Elect in his Soul Body and Senses shall not be renewed and live personally with Christ at this Renovation of all things for a thousand years according to the Scriptures to enjoy what God hath made and Christ hath purchased for them and to admire adore and glorify him in the Primitive end use and enjoyment of them These then that deny this and in a fervent I forbear to say ignorant hast because every Age hath its measure of light would seat the raised Saints in the highest Heavens before their time and before Gods promises and great designs be fulfilled what do they else in the declining of this great truth but force themselves upon false and Allegorical expositions of cleer and literal Scriptures making ineffectual his promise yea do they not affirm contrary to that undeniable maxime that God made these Heavens and this Earth and all the wonderfull Creatures and admirable Ornaments thereof in vain as not known nor made use of by them for whom at first he created it and again renewed it I might here add many more Arguments for the defence of this truth but I shall at this time no further digress but return to my former Method of Meditation upon this glorified Sense of Feeling Referring the Reader to those most excellent Treatises of Dr. Homes Mr. Archer and many others upon this Subject O my Soul shall this Sense be not only continued but exercised upon such excellent subjects in Glory shall it with thy Body be spiritualiz'd and as to its sensability incomparably exceed what it is now O be carefull not to effeminate or pollute it disdaining to vassalage it to pride covetousness lust or vanity But as it more than all the other Senses declares and manifests thy living in the body So let it by an innocent sober chast and holy acting testify Christs living in thee The Lord Jesus hath taken off all legal impositions such as Touch not taste not but not his Gospel and Spiritual restraining Therefore abuse not nor make use of this Christian liberty which he hath purchased for thee to fulfill the Lusts of the Flesh For if thou livest after the Flesh thou shalt dye but if through the Spirit thou mortifiest the deeds of the Flesh thou shalt live Take heed of covetousness which hath not only its seat in the Eye but in the Hand desire not with Mydas in the Poet that every thing thou touchest may become Gold but remember the issue and moral of the Fable his starving and perishing in his enjoyments Neither imbrace thou the bosome of a strange Woman for he that toucheth her shall not be innocent for her ways draw neer to death and her steps take hold of Hell she being compared by the spirit of God to a deep Ditch and to a narrow Pit out of which very few get out and are delivered For although as in the Poet Ixion-like in the height of thy lustfull pleasure thou thinkest to infold in thy Armes a Juno a Goddess The conclusion will be but the grasping of an Airy Cloud nay which is far worse a Pestilential vapour an inflam'd and killing Granado O my Soul since whilst thou art in this vain World and in this sinfull body thou art incompast about with Legions of evil spirits with innumerable snares and with secret and subtile temptations which with those in the Prophet call good evil and evil good which put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter which call light darkness and darkness light abusing lawfull things and turning them out of their right Channel by excess that so they may overflow and drown the Earth again with a far more dangerous Flood than that of Water which destroyed only a temporal Life even a deluge of sin and of flaming Fire long since foretold the cause of that Fire and without true repentance of Eternal Death watch thou therefore and pray lest thou fall into temptation and this sence be adulterated by thy pride excess and luxury and made instrumental to cause those good Creatures the soft Silks of Persia the warm Furs of Muscovia the fine Wools of Britan and Segovia given thee by God to cover thy sinfull nakedness to become a covering of sin and a Banner of pride and vanity Take heed also that this sense be not bewitched and overcome through voluptuousness and corrupt thee by an
Millions of glorified Saints and Angels to sound forth and speak of to one another the wonderfull works and providences of God past present and to come divulged in the large Mapps of our Creation Redemption and Glorification to his continual and everlasting praise and glory Shall it be a principal Engine and Actor as to that Office and Government thou shalt be placed in amongst thy fellow Saints in this glorious and universal Empire of the Lord Jesus raigning Personally as King and Mediator in this his Mediatory Kingdome upon the renewed Earth Yea lastly shall it be the Expressor of all thy Orders and Commands in the Execution of thy restored Dominion over the terrene and inferiour Creatures O with holy David that now glorified Saint Set a watch over thy Lips that thou offend not with thy Tongue and remember that authentick Declaration of thy Judge Lord and Saviour By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned and that of every idle word thou shalt give an accompt at the Day of Judgment Because out of the abundance of wickedness that is within the Heart the Mouth speaketh If any Man saith St. James offend not in word the same is a perfect Man and able also to bridle the whole Body Behold saith the same Apostle we put Bits into the Horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn about their whole Body Behold also the Ships which though they 〈◊〉 so great and are driven of fierce Winds yet are they twined about with a very small Helme whether so ever the Governor listeth Even so the Tongue is a little member and boasteth great things Behold how great a matter a little Fire kindleth And the Tongue is a Fire a World of iniquity so is the Tongue amongst our Members that it defileth the whole Body and setteth on Fire the course of nature And it is set on Fire of Hell For every kind of Beasts and of Birds and of Serpents and the things in the Sea is tamed and hath been tamed of Mankinde But the Tongue can no Man tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poyson Therewith bless we God even the Father and therewith curse we Men which are made after the similitude of God shall out of the same Mouth proceed blessing and cursing O my Soul these things ought not so to be Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet and bitter Can the Figg-Tree O my Soul bear Olive-Berries either a Vine Figgs so can no Fountain both yield salt Water and fresh Therefore If any Man seem to be religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own Heart this Mans Religion is vain Speak evil of no Man Let no corrupt communication proceed out of thy Mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the Hearers Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks Since evil Communications corrupt good Manners O my Soul is cursing swearing vain wanton and evil-speaking the Rant and Garb of the wicked yâ—â— the Language of Hell And is holy and a religious discourse and communication the Character and Dialâ—â—t of Saints upon Earth and praises and thanksgiving the exercise of the Spirits of just Men made perfect and of the glorious Angels Yea the Language of Heaven O let not thy Tongue learn or speak the Language of Ashdod but of Canaan not the blasphemous roaringâ— of the Devils and the damned but the sweet Anthemâ— of the Saints and Angels Yea begin thy Heaven upon Earth and be warbling and tuning this blessed and usefull Instrument thy Tongue to Psalmes Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in thy Heart to the Lord For it is good to sing praises to our God For it is pleasant and praise is comely O bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth theâ— with loving kindness and tender mercies who satisfyeth thy Mouth with good things so that thy Youth is renewed like the Eagles O my Soul shall thy Tongue in the next glorious Life be thy Chronologer and Orator to Gods praise before and to thy fellow Saints of Gods works and providences past present and to come O be exercising and conning over thy Lesson in this Life And inâ—uâ—e it here to what it shall do hereafter Say to my friends relations and fellow Christians Come and hear all yee that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my Soul Yea let thy Tongue be thy glory and as the Tongue of a ready Writer Let thy Mouth speak of wisdome and the Meditation of thy Heart of understanding Remember the Days of old meditate of all Gods works muse on the works of his Hands speak of the might of his terrible acts and declare his greatness Abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness and sing of his righteousness whilst thou livest â—raise the Lord yea sing praises unto thy God whilst thou hast any Beeing O my Soul shall the Saints in this glorious Empire of Christ in the new Heaven and new Earth be all Kings and yet as one â—tar differs from another in glory so they there shall have different degrees of gifts and graces offices and imployments every Vessel being full of grace and glory although of different measures and capacities not ruling or lording it over one another and yet of necessary and excellent use by reason of their various and different gifts manifestations and employments to add an encrease of happiness blessedness and glory to each other a pattern and resemblance of which joynt Kingship under one Head and King the Lord Jesus as was mentioned before is seen 〈◊〉 the natural Body and in the militant and mystical body of Christ The Saints glorified being like so many precious Stones which although of different bigness and value yet being judiciously set by a skilfull 〈◊〉 to radiate one upon other that they add luster each 〈◊〉 other and without any diminution to the worth of any individual Stone serve necessarily to the greater and fuller perfection of the Jewel Will it be thus O my Soul and will thy Tongue be then a principal Actor in this thy most honourable station and vocation Serve thy God with David in thy Generation not hiding any Talent God hath given thee with the slothfull Servant in the Earth Set not thy Candle under a Bushel but upon a Table that it may enlighten the whole House thy Family thy Friends thy fellow-Members yea all except Dogs or Swine that thou conversest with speaking unto them as the Saints no doubt shall do to one another in Glory to edification exhortation and
comfort declaring to them to the praise and glory of God thy experiences thy consolations and Divine manifestations And for as much as thou art zealous of spiritual gifts seek that thou maist excell to the edifying of the Church that spiritual Body of Christ whereof thou art a living Member And since God as the Apostle excellently observes hath set some in the Church First Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers after that Miracles then gifts of healing helps Governments diversities of Tongues Covet thou earnestly the best gifts For there are diversity of gifts but the same spirit But the manifestation of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 to every Man to profit withall To one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by 〈◊〉 same Spirit to another the gift of Healing by the same Spirit to another working of Miracles to another Prophesie to another discerning of Spirits to another diâ—vers kinds of Tongues to another the interpretation of Tongues but all worketh that one and the self same Spiâ—rit dividing to every Man severally as he will For 〈◊〉 the Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body 〈◊〉 also is Christ. If they were all one Member where weâ—â— the Body The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have 〈◊〉 need of thee again the Head unto the Feet I have 〈◊〉 need of you Now we are the Body of Christ and Memâ—bers in particular Therefore O my Soul since 〈◊〉 Tongue as to all divine and spiritual gifts is now thâ— principal Agent and Expressor And shall be then 〈◊〉 as a Member of Christ mystical Body in this his glorious Kingdome thou shalt be plac'd in thy Function and respective administration be not spiritually idle but â—it and exercise thy Tongue continually in declaring to others according as it shall be revealed to thee by the Holy Spirit the Magnalia Dei the wonderfull ways and works of God Freely thou hast received freely give O my Soul shalt thou then be as one of Christs Viceroyes over all inferiour Creatures shall thy Dictates Orders and Commands be received and obeyed by them as the voice of God O let not then thy speech now to them be mixt with oaths and cursings according to the woâ—t and fashion of the wicked of the Earth whose behaviours towards the poor Brutes are more like to Devils than Men or Christians Yea let thy employment of them and rule over them be gentle milde and moderate not cruel or oppressive since the good Man with the Scripture is mercifull towards his Beast And 〈◊〉 tenderness of thy God towards them exprest as 〈◊〉 of the reasons of his commanding a seventh Days 〈◊〉 That thy Beast may rest as well as thee teaches what respect and considerate pitty and compassion he expects from thee towards them as being fellowâ—Creatures suffering what servitude they undergo for thy sin and from which they shall be freed and delivered in thy glorious liberty But instead of speaking evil of or to the inferiour Creatures do thou now as thou shalt do in the World to come with thy Heart and Tongue praise and glorifie thy God after the Example of holy David Psal. 148. throughout in and for them admiring his love and goodness to thee to them as also 〈◊〉 unexpressible yea unconceivable power and wisdome declared in their various formes wonderfull strength 〈◊〉 qualities excellent virtues and uses as being 〈◊〉 great end of theirs and thy Creation as the Lord â—â—clares to Job when he bids him behold Behemoth and â—â—â—iathan and leaves upon Record for our Instruction and Imitation so large a description of them and of others of his Creatures This holy exercise both of mind and voice in the contemplation of the Creatures was without doubt a chief employment of Adam in his innocency Let it be thine then in thy return and travailing to this second Paradise that what is begun by thee here in grace may be perfected there in Glory O glorious God and mercifull Father O infinite loâ—ing and gracious Saviour and Redeemer O holy and Eternal Spirit my Sanctifier three infinitely glorious Persons One Omnipotent onely wise and Eternal God Blessed blessed blessed from everlasting to everlasting who hath so highly honoured and dignified me a 〈◊〉 Worm and no Man As to love me freely in thy Eterâ—nally begotten and only beloved Son the Lord Jesus God-Man and in him from before all beginnings to elect me unto Eternal Life and Salvation Creating 〈◊〉 unto immortality and glory by giving me an immortaâ— Soul and a Body that shall assuredly be raised to life and glory by thy Almighty Power and by the virtue of the Resurrection of my Head and Saviour who hast miraculously raised me from a sinfull death unto a spiritual life in my effectual Calling through Adoption the Sanctification and Inhabitation of thy holy Spirit as 〈◊〉 freely justified me in thy Son the Lord my righteousâ—ness and by this blessed and inseparable union to 〈◊〉 in thy Son by the Holy Ghost given me assurance 〈…〉 Life and Glory which shall indubitably begâ—◠〈◊〉 my Soul at my dissolution and be compleat at the â—â—â—union of Soul and Body aâ— the Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise 〈◊〉 with my glory Awake my Heart awake my Tongue 〈◊〉 self will awake early and joyn with the Arch-Angels and Angels and the Church Tryumphant in Heaven and with the Holy Catholick Church upon Earth in 〈◊〉 Heavenly exercise of praise and thanksgiving O Lord whose only prerogative it is to search the heart knowest that these are the desires and petitions of 〈◊〉 Soul yet with holy Paul I cry out that to will is present with me through thy grace but how to perform know not Blessed Saviour give me of thy fulness so soâ—â— to receive grace for grace Yea be pleased to add 〈◊〉 to grace since thou alone workest in us both the will and the deed and the Heaven aspiring piercing 〈◊〉 of praise ariseth only from thy Divine Fire of Knowledge and holy affections Eternal Father let not this noble Instrument of thy Glory my Tongue be tuned to the vain and wanton Layes of the World and Sin lest thereby being crackt unstrung and made untunable for thy service here it and my whole Body with voluptuous Diveâ— be cast 〈◊〉 useless into the Fire of Hell where a drop of cold Water will not be 〈◊〉 to cool a flaming lascivious Tongue But let me O Lord be continually chaâ—â—ing the Magnâ—lia Dei and be singing those Evangelicalâ— and prophetical Songs of the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders the figure and representative of thy holy Church saying and singing
the World After which act of thy remunerative Justice and thy Raign upon the renewed Earth with thy Saints a thousand years thou wilt I believe raise and Judge all the wicked called the Goats at thy left hand and the Apostate Angels according as thou hast declared in thy Word of Truth when every ungodly one shall be sentenced and punished proportionable and according to the evil of their thoughts words and actions then being all made manifest who with the Devils their Tempters and Tormenters shall by thy mighty Angels be cast into the Lake of Fire the Locall Hell unto Eternity This is the second Death O my King my Judge my Spouse shall this dreadfull time of Judgment fearfull indeed to the wicked but a most joyfull Day to the Godly certainly come upon the World according to thy Word Shall there be a long tract of time measured out in the acting and manifesting thy Judgments and magnifying the glory of thy remunerative and vindicative Justice to the World as well as there hath been a long space of proclaiming and holding forth the Golden Scepter of thy free Grace and incomprehensible love and mercy to the Sons of Men Is this truth one of the Articles of the Christian Faith and as certain to us as the Day of our death according to that unrepealable Statute It is appointed to Men once to dye and afterwards comes the Judgment Shall the Crowns dignities and rewards conferred upon thy Saints be one chief subject of praise and fill the Mouths of Men and Angels with continual Hallelujahs unto God not only whilst they rest upon the renewed Earth but also in the highest Heavens after the end of this long Day and the pouring out of thy wrath and execution of thy righteous Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils when thy glorious justice in both the parts thereof shall be finished and compleated according to that Prophesie of the Psalmist then perfectly fulfilled Verily there is a reward for the righteous Verily he is a God that judgeth in the Earth O let both my Heart and Tongue now inure themselves to this Subject since I live by faith and not by sense and sing with the Elect ones in the Revelations that prophetical Song calculated for this time saying Hallelujah Salvation and Glory and Honour and Power unto the Lord our God for true and righteous are his Judgments Praise our God all yee his Servants and yee that fear him both small and great Hallelujah for the Lord reigneth Let us be glad and rejoyce and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come and hiâ— Wife hath made her self ready And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine Linnen clean and white for the fine Linnen is the righteousness of Saints Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. O King of Saints and King of Nations our Almighty Saviour and Conquerer who hast fulfilled the Law satisfied Divine Justice overcome the World Crucified Sin spoiled Principalities and Powers and wilt at the Resurrection of the Just and the Redemption of our Bodies destroy our last Enemy Death and after the Judging and Hellifying of wicked Men and Devils wilt in Tryumph ascend on high with thy Elect and lead Captivity Captive that the Glory which thy Father gave thee may be given them that they may be with thee where thou art and may behold the Glory which he hath given thee and possess an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us where we shall be ever with thee our Lord and see God face to face and in thee the perfections of all Creatures as in their first cause And know thee according to our measure as we are known by thee Blessed Mediator this is that time when all rule all authority and power being put down and under thee in the Kingdome of thy Saints and under thee in thy personal and glorious raign upon Earth All Enemies even Death it self being destroyed and put under thy Feet thou shalt deliver up the Kingdome so far as it is Mediatory personal and singly acted and managed by thee in thy humane appearance and Man-hood to God even the Father That so thou the Son as being also as Man the Son of God might be subject as to thy present kinde of administration unto him that put all things under thee that God may be all in all And the whole Universe and Creation both in Heaven and Earth especially thy spiritual Body thy Church may be immediately governed and influenced by him who is three in one God-blessed for ever To which mystical Body thy Spouse and Church as also to Angels thou still remainest Head and Lord for ever which being now perfectly and inherently sanctified and graciously admitted through the glorious inhabitation and communion of thy most holy and eternal Spirit to an immediate fellowship real and spiritual union although not essential with the Father Son and holy Ghost one God blessed for ever shall live eternally in the life of God and in whole and in part as respecting every individual Member and Vessel be always full yet always increasing in knowledge grace and glory as Eying and enjoying continually the Divine Nature and cast into an Ocean of infiniteness unto Eternity This is the Generation of them that seek thee that seek thy face O God of Jacob. Therefore let both my Heart and Tongue even now O Lord prepare and begin to praise thee as from Pisgath with beholding Canaan and by faith the eye of my Soul from the raised hill of holy Contemplation viewing this Saint Paul's third Heaven the Throne of God and of his glory and the many yea innumerable shining and starrified Mansions in thy Fathers house the places prepared by thee for thy Saints as also their Kingdome and State of endless glory happiness and blessedness In the ravishing Meditation of these things their translation and thy second most glorious and tryumphant Assention O let me sing and rejoyce in the words of thy Prophet David foretelling both thy Ascentions God is gone up with a shout the Lord with a sound of a Trumpet sing praises to God sing praises sing praises to our King sing praises Lift up your Heads O yee Gates and be yee lift up yee everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in Battel Lift up your Heads O ye Gates even lift them up ye everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord of Hosts He is the King of Glory Selah I have now by Divine assistance according to my weak-sightedness for all Men here know but in part and as in
they may have a like effect upon you as to your spiritual food and edification as the â—irst and second concoction hath in the stomack as to a good and perfect digestion and turning the Meat into a fit Chile to be sanâ—â—fied and made good blood and spirits besides an after chewâ—ng of the Cud by remeditation and practice in a Gospel and spiritual signification will much difference and distinguish you that 〈◊〉 clean Christians from those that are unclean who for want of the heat of Divine affections devour but not digest holy things To include I desire my great suffering condition abounding with sorrows hopes and fears and all kinds of Tentations discomforts and distractions my above Twenty removes to several Residences and more than seven years Exile and separation from my â—ooks dearest Friends and Relations my ignorance infirmities and sinfulness as being the greatest of sinners the least of Saints 〈◊〉 excuse and apologize for me to any of my Brethren of the â—hurches of Christ that shall with you read these Contemplations â—â— to any defects or errors therein as being one of the lowest â—â—rms in the School of Christ and therefore ready in all humility to submit any thing herein contained to the Judgement of the Saints that are learned or judicious and to give or receive light or satisfaction to or from any that differ from me in Opinion Which I cannot but expect because of the diversity and rarity of a great part of this subject which may be a reason that plowing with no man's Heifer in some things I may walk alone yet left not in the dark and without as seems to me a clear light of holy Scripture hoping that this Essay of mine as to those great future mysteries and periods of the Churches state may give some new light through the free condescention of God's spirit to me his poor Exile in Patâ—os as to the understanding of many Scripture Prophesies in my Judgment much mistaken by former Expositors both ancient and modern and that though my weak light be but as a rush Candle yet it may be an occasion of the inflaming and lighting up of great and shining Tapers both in this generation and in the Age to come Most loving gracious and faithful Consort and hopeful Children whom I greatly long after in the bowels of Jesus Christ And for whom in the words of the Apostle Paul I frequently pray that your love may aboâ—nd yet more and more in knowledge and in all Judgment that ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ Being filled with the Fruits of Righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God Phil. 1.8 9 10 11. For this cause I bow my Knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner Man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heigth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes. 3.14 15 16 17 18 19. Having the Eyes of your understanding enlightened that ye may know what is the hope of his Calling and what the Riches of the glory of his Inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us wards who believe according to the working of his mighty Power Ephes. 1.18 19. That you all with open Face beholding as in a Glass the glory of the Lord may be changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 Finally my dear Brethren Sisters and Fellow members in Christ for all other Relation and Denomination shall shortly be laid aside Farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace And the God of peace and love shall be with you 2 Cor. 13.11 Amen Yours in all sincere and tender affection as doubly Obliged by Nature and by Grace W. W. This 29th of June 1666. Sweetnese of Forme Feature Heere 's Combinde Yet much below the Beautie of her minde The True Effigies of the Lady Katherine Harington Wife to Sir James Harington and Baronet AN EPISTLE TO THE ELECT LADY And her Children My true Yoke-fellow and Dearly beloved Children Whom I love in the Truth HEar ye the Instruction of a Father and attend to know understanding forget it not neither decline from the words of my Mouth First seek the Kingdome of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Wisdome is the principal thing the one thing needful and with all your gettings get understanding forsake her not and she shall preserve you Love her and she shall keep you Exalt her and she shall promote you she shall bring you to honour when you do embrace her she shall give to your Head an Ornament of grace a Crown of Glory shall she deliver unto you and the Years of your Life shall be many When you go your steps shall not be straitned and when you run you shall not stumble Take fast hold of Instruction let her not go keep her for she is your life Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who is the power of God and the wisdome of God God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last Days spoken unto us by his Son who he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds Therefore ye ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that ye have heard lest at any time ye should let them slip For if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation If he that despised Moses Law dyed without mercy under two or three witnesses See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not ye escape if ye turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven Hear ye therefore the word which the Lord Jesus speaketh unto you who spake by the Prophets and is the Lord God of the Holy Prophets since all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God even from him who is the Eternal Word of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Counsel is mine
and found wisdome I am understanding I have strength I love them that love me and those that seek me early shall finde me A SCRIPTVRE-CATECHISME I am the only begotten Son of the Father the brightness of his glory the express Image of his Person upholding all things by the Word of my Power I was by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him rejoycing in the habitable parts of his Earth and my delights were with the Sons of Men. Blessed is the Man that heareth me waiting daily at my Gates waiting at the Posts of my Doors For who so findeth me findeth life and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me sinneth against his own Soul all that hate me love death But if ye set at naught my counsel I also will laugh at your Calamity I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear comes as Desolations and your destruction comes as a whirl-wind Then shall ye call upon me but I will not answer for that you hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices But who so hearkneth to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil Believe in God believe also in me I and the Father am one There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one For though there be many that are called Gods whether in Heaven or in Earth The Lord your God is one Lord and to you there is but one God the Father of whom are all things who Created the Heaven and the Earth And one Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World by whom are all things and you by him And one Spirit the Holy Ghost by whom you are sanctified I am the Way the Truth and the Life the Word of God that in the beginning was with God and was God the life and light of Men while ye have light believe in the light in me the Eternal Word that was made flesh and dwelt amongst you was conceived by the Holy Ghost and made of a Woman born of the Virgin Mary of the Seed of Abraham and of the Seed of David The beloved and only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth This is the work of God that ye believe on me whom he hath sent that was delivered to Pontius Pilate the Governor of Judea who gave Sentence scourged me and delivered me to be Crucified who that I might sanctifie you with my own Blood Suffered without the Gate being obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross dyed for your sins was buried and rose again the third Day according to the Scriptures for your Justification O look upon me whom you have pierced and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the Day of his fierce anger whose Soul being in an Agony in the Garden was exceeding sorrowful even unto death so that my sweat was as it were great drops of blood And I cryed out upon the Cross my God my God why hast thou forsaken me my Soul being then made an offering for sin yea sin for you and upon me the Lord laid the iniquities of you all Yet did he not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption To as many of you as receive me and believe on my name I will give power to become the Sons of God For I the Lord am risen indeed And am ascended unto my Father and to your Father and to my God and your God and have led Captivity Captive spoyled Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly tryumphing over them am received into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God having all power given me in Heaven and in Earth where I ever live to make intercession for you until I come in the Clouds in the same manner as I was taken up from you into Heaven the second time without sin unto salvation as being ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and dead For my Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son I am the head over all things to the Church which is my Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all The House and Church of the living God The Pillar and ground of the truth As your Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ. Therefore by one spirit be ye baptized into one body and be made to drink into one spirit the Cup of blessing which you bless is it not the Communion of my blood And the Bread which you break is it not the Communion of my Body For you being many are one Bread and one Body Wherefore let there be no schisme in the Body but let each of you as Members have the same care one for another to the increase of the body unto the edifying it self in love Be it known unto you that through me is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by me you that believe and are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses For God hath exalted me with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins and redemption through my blood according to the riches of his grace I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live And who so ever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye For the hour cometh in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear my voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation If you then will be my Sheep hear my voice and I will know you and you shall follow me and I will give unto you eternal life and you shall never perish neither shall any Man pluck you out of my hand My Father which gave you unto me is greater than all and no Man is able to pluck you out of my Fathers hand For God so loved the World that he gave me his only begotten Son that who so ever of you believes in me should not perish but have everlasting life If ye love me ye will keep
of the Lord is Being wise unto that which is good but simple concerning evil For the wisdome of the World is foolishness with God and 't is earthlie sensual and devillish But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie Wherefore if any of you lack wisdome let him ask of God which giveth to all Men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given you but let him ask in faith nothing wavering Put on humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any Man hath a quarrel against any even as I have forgiven you so do ye For before honour is humility And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted What doth the Lord require of you but to do justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God For God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble Yea I will hear the desire of the humble And although I inhabit Eternity I will dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit Wherefore learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest unto your Souls Blessed are you that are poor in spirit for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven That mourn for you shall be comforted That are meek for you shall inherit the Earth That hunger and thirst after righteousness for you shall be filled Blessed are you that are merciful for you shall obtain mercy That are pure in heart for you shall see God That are peace-makers for you shall be called the Children of God Blessed are you that are persecuted for righteousness sake for yours is the Kingdome of Heaven Blessed are you when Men shall revile you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Marriage is honourable in all and the Bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge Wherefore flee Fornication every sin that a Man doth is without the body But he that committeth Fornication finneth against his own body Know you not that your bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God anâ— you are not your own For you are bougâ—â— with a price Therefore glorifie God in yoâ—â— bodies and spirits which are Gods Also 〈◊〉 you not my Members Will you then take 〈◊〉 Members and make them the Members of 〈◊〉 Harlot God forbid What know you 〈◊〉 that he that is joyned to an Harlot is 〈◊〉 body For two saith he shall be one Flesh But he that is joyned unto me is one spirit This is the will of God even your sanctificaâ—tion that you should abstain from fornication And that every one of you should know 〈◊〉 to possess his Vessel in sanctification anâ— honour not in the lust of concupiscence as the Gentiles which know not God Ye 〈◊〉 heard that it was said by them of old 〈◊〉 Thou shalt not commit Adultery But I say 〈◊〉 to you whosoever looketh on a Woman to 〈◊〉 after her hath committed Adultery with 〈◊〉 already in his heart And whosoever toucheth another Man's Wife shall not be innocent Whoredome and Wine and new Wine takâ— away the heart and by means of a 〈◊〉 Woman a Man is brought to a piece of breâ—â— and the Adulteress will hunt for the precâ—â—â— life An Whore is a deep ditch and a straâ—â—â— Woman is a narrow Pit Her House inclinâ—â— unto death and her path unto the dead Lâ—â— not your heart incline to her ways go not stray in her paths for she hath cast down 〈◊〉 wounded yea many strong Men have beâ—â— slain by her her House is the way to Hell gâ—â—ing down to the Chambers of death 〈◊〉 that go unto her return again neither takâ— they hold of the path of life Know this thereâ—fore that no Whoremonger nor unclean Person nor covetous Man who is an Idolater hath any Inheritance in the Kingdome of God Blessed are ye that keep Judgment and thaâ— do righteousness at all times Offer to God thâ— sacrifices of righteousness and put your trusâ— in the Lord For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright The work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect thereof quietness and assurance for ever He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life righteousness and honour Therefore yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as Instruments of righteousness unto God For he that doth righteousness is righteous even as I am righteous but whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God And shall utterly perish in their own corruptions and receive the reward of unrighteousness and shall not inherit the Kingdome of God But the righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdome of my Father And they that turn many to righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect For he that walketh uprightly walketh surely and shall be saved For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth For the integrity of the upright shall guid them Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart But the hope of the hypocrite shall perish Remove from you the way of lying and let every one speak truth to his Neighbour For I am the Lord God of truth Give thanks for all things to God the Father in my name For he that offereth praise glorifieth me By me therefore offer the sacrifice of praise continually that is the fruit of your lips For every Creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving Praise ye therefore the Lord for it is good to sing praises to your God for it is pleasant and praise is comely These things have I spoken to you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full Verily verily I say unto you that ye shall weep and lament but the World shall rejoyce but your sorrow shall be turned into Joy and your Joy no Man taketh from you For the Kingdome of God is not meaâ— and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Yea the fruit of my Spirit is love joy and
that laugh now for ye shall mourn and weep For your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your Garments are Moth-eaten your Gold and Silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were Fire ye have lived in pleasure on the Earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a Day of slaughter Behold the Judge standeth before the Door and my coming draweth nigh when all such shall receive the reward of unrighteousness As they that count it pleasuâ—e to riot in the Day time and living in pleasure are dead whilst they are alive Spots they are and blemishes sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you feeding themselves without fear Clouds they are without Water Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by thee roots Raging Waves of the Sea foaming our their own shame wandring Stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever Beloved remember the words which were spoken before of my Apostle who told you there should be mockers in these last times who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God These are those scoffers in these last days walking after their own lust and saying Where is the promise of his coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die For as in the Days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away so shall also my coming be Watch therefore and pray lest ye fall into temptation For you know not what hour your Lord doth come Therefore be you ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh But if with that evil Servant you shall say in your hearts my Lord deferreth his coming and shall smite your fellow-Servants and eat and drink with the drunken I will come in an hour which you are not aware of and cut you asunder and appoint you your portion with the Hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth Solomon the Preacher the Son of David King of Israel was great and increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem who kept not from his Eyes whatsoever they desired and with-held not his Heart from any joy For his Heart rejoyced in all his Labours whose wisdome also remained with him when he looked on all the works that his Hands had wrought and the Labour he had laboured to do as is before at large enumerated by him makes this acknowledgment Behold All is Vanity and Vanity of Vanities and Vexation of Spirit and there was no profit under the Sun Therefore love not the World nor the things of the World For all that is in the World the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but iâ— of the World And the World passeth away and the Lusts therefore but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Be ye not weary of well-doing for in due season you shall reap if ye faint not He that soweth to the Flesh shall of the Flesh reaâ— Corruption But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Are there any so foolish as to begin in the Spirit and to think to be made perfect in the Flesh If any Man have run well let none hinder you that you should nor obey the truth Remember Lot's Wife No Man having put his Hand to the Plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdome of God If any Man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him But ye are not of them that draw back unto Perdition but of them that believe unto the saving of the Soul The back-slider shall be filled with his own ways but a good Man shall be satisfied from himself Let back-sliding Children return and I will heal their back-slidings and will love them freely When the unclean Spirit is gone out of a Man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth none Then he faith I will return unto my House from whence I came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other Spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there And the last state of that Man is worse than the first For if after Men have escaped the pollutions of the World through the knowledge of Me the Lord and Saviour they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandements delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true Proverb The Dog is turned to his own Vomit again And the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire I am the Vine ye are the Brances he that abideth in Me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing If a Man abide not in me he is cast out as a Branch and is withered and Men gather them and they are cast into the Fire and they are burned As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue you in my love If ye continue in my Word then are ye my Disciples indeed And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful Hearer but a doer of the work this Man shall be blessed in his deed I am the Lord the hope of Israel all that forsake Me shall be ashamed and they that depart from Me shall be written in the Earth because they have forsaken me the Lord the Fountain of living Waters But he that endureth unto the end shall be saved If any Man see his Brother sin a sin which is not unto Death he shall ask and I will give him life for them that sin not unto Death There is a sin unto Death I do not say that he shall pray for it For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the
me you shall also Raign with Me. Lift up therefore the Hands that hang down and feeble Knees and make streight Paths for your Feet Ye have not resisted unto blood striving against Sin Wherefore consider me the Captain of your Salvation that was made perfect by sufferings and that endured such contradiction of sinners against my self lest you be weary and faint in your minds For the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord. Stand fast therefore in that liberty in which I have made you free only use not your liberty for an occasion to the Flesh nor to the offence of your weak Brother but by love serve one another All things are lawful to you but all things are not convenient Continue not in sin that Grace may abound Nor do evil that good may come whose damnation is just neither turn my Grace into Lasciviousness Watch unto Prayer Deny your selves and take up your Cross and follow Me. He that endureth unto the end shall be saved Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure Add to your Faith Vertue to Vertue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity For if you do these things ye shall never fall For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into my everlasting Kingdom Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World And my Spirit speaketh expresly that in these latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils Speaking lies in hypocrisie having their Consciences seared with an hot Iron Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth For every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving Let no Man therefore deceive you by any means neither by Spirit nor by Word nor by Letter For that wicked one is now revealed whom I the Lord have bgan to consume with the Spirit of my Mouth and will destroy with the brightness of my coming Even him whose coming hath been after the working of Sathan with all Power and Signs and lying Wonders And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And for this cause God hath sent them strong Delusions that they should believe a lie That they all might be Damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness This is that Spirit of Anti-Christ whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already it is in the World That Son of Perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God the Christian Church shewing himself that he is God The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so But he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is Chief as he that doth serve Be not ye therefore called â—abbi for one is your Master even Christ and all ye are Brethren And call no man your Father upon Earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Nor be ye called Masters nor be ye as Lords over Gods Heritage For one is your Master even Christ But he that is greatest amongst you shall be your Servant And he that Exalteth himself shall be Abased and he that shall humble himself shall be Exalted None is Good save one that is God There is not a Just man upon Earth that doth Good and sinneth not Therefore if ye say that ye have not sinned you make God a Lyar and his Word is not in you Be not therefore many Masters knowing ye shall receive the greater Condemnation For in many things ye offend all The Contention was sharp betwixt Paul and Barnabas that they parted asunder And John fell down to Worship before the Feet of the Angel Ye know in part and Porphesie in part Even Fâ—â—er who was first and whom I called Cephâ—â— by Interpretation a Stone and who seemed to be a Pillar walked not Uprightly according to the Truth of the Gospel And before the Cock mowed twice denied Me thrice How much more Fallible is his pretended Successor Why also doth this Man of sin both speak and act Blasphemies Who can forgive sins but God only It is I the Lord the Lord God forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin that have Power on Earth to forgive sins And in Me ye have Redemption through my Blood even Forgiveness of sins Again ye have heard that it hath been said to them of Old time Thou shalt not Forswear thy self thou shalt performe unto the Lord thine Oathes And that if a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or Swear an Oath to bind his Soul with a Bond He shall not break his Word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth But in these last dayes the Beast that ascendeth out of the Bottomeless Pit is a Truce-breaker and with perfidious Zedikiah a Dispiser of Oaths and a Breaker of Covenants Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these my Commandments and shall teach men so He shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven Every Word of God is pure and the Law of the Lord is perfect that the Man of God may be perfect throughly Furnished unto all good Works Add thou not unto his Words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a Lyar. For neither Peter nor Paul much less the Pope nor the False Prophet the Roman Church that other Beast coming out of the Earth that hath Two Hornes like a Lambe but speaks like the Dragon the Devil hath any Dominion over your Faith But are Helpers of your Joy For by Faith you stand For though they or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which my Apostles have preached unto you let him be accursed Whatsoever things I command observe to do them you shall not add nor diminish from them For if any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the Plagues that are written in this Book And if any man shall take away from the Words of the Book of this Prophesie God shall
thou shalt have praise of the same For he is the Minister of God to thee for good but if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he beareth not the Sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but for Conscience sake For this cause pay you Tribute also for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing Render therefore to all their dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custome to whom Custome Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour The whole World lies in wickedness And this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the World and that Men love darkness rather than Light because their deeds are evil Jewes and Gentiles are all under sin as it is written There is none righteous no not one There is none that understandeth There is none that seeketh after God Take heed therefore that the Light which is in you be not darkness If the Light that is in you be darkness how great is that darkness Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God Because many false Prophets are gone out into the World If any Man shall say unto you Loe here is Christ or there believe it not For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect Behold I have told you before such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ And no marvel for Sathan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light Therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of Righteousness whose end shall be according to their works To the Law and to the Testimony If they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no light in them This is that sure Word of Prophesie whereunto you do well that ye take heed as unto a Light that shineth in a dark place until the Day dawn and the Day-Star arise in your Hearts Knowing this first that all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God And that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of any private interpretation For the Prophesies came not in old time by the will of Man But holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost When I was upon Earth they brought young Children unto Me that I should touch them and my Disciples like some in these last days rebuked those that brought them But when I saw it I was much displeased and said unto them suffer little Children to come unto Me and forbid them not For of such is the Kingdome of God Verily I say unto you whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little Child he shall not enter therein And I took them up in my Armes and put my Hands upon them and blessed them Baptism is now the only way for little Children to come to the Lord Christ. The Promise is made to you and to your Children and to all that are afar of even as many as the Lord your God shall call The unbelieving Husband is Sanctified by the believing Wife and the unbelieving Wife is Sanctified by the believing Husband or else were your Children unclean but now they are holy The Examples of the Apostles Baptizing whole Families are of great force And the History of their practice and of the first Churches planted by them is to be believed with an Historical faith and looked upon with much reverence by all true Christians both in this point and in the change of the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day As holding forth without doubt an Apostolical Institution The Lord spake to Moses saying The Land shall be divided for an Inheritance according to the number of Names to many thou shalt give more Inheritance and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours Give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away For the poor you have always with you I charge you that are Rich in this World that you trust not in uncertain Riches but in the living God who gives you all things richly to enjoy that you do good that you be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate When as many as were possessed of Lands or Houses sold them and brought the price of the things which were sold and laid them down at the Apostles Feet in that most sad time of Persecution and distribution was made unto every Man according as he had need Even then Peter said unto Ananias why hath Sathan filled thy heart to lye to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the Land Whilst it remained Was it not thy own And after it was sold Was it not in thine own Power Let no Man therefore seek his own but every one anothers wealth For there are some that walk disorderly working not at all but are busie-bodies Now them that are such I command that with quietness they work and eat their own Bread that they may have to give to him that needeth Come out of Babylon my People but count not the blood of the Covenant by which ye were sanctified an unholy thing If ye have been once born again of Water and the Spirit Can a Man be so again born the second time The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God as being not Baptized of John against themselves Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the holy Ordinance of God Seeing you have been Baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost This only would I know of such Received you the spirit and your Convertion by and under the first Baptisme or your second Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh Now the works of the Flesh are hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions envyings but the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace If ye bite and devour one another take heed that you be not consumed one of another And that it be not truly said of you by my Saints They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us But
continue you in the things that ye have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom ye have learned them For evil Men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived Consider one another to provoke to love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is But exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the Day approaching Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace For there is one Body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your Calling One Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Since then you are the Body of Christ and Members in particular let there be no Schisme in the Body Now I hear that there be divisions amongst those that call themselves Christians For there must be Heresies also among you that those that are approved may be manifest among you which were spoken before of my Apostles that there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the spirit Now by my Name I desire you that you all speak the same thing and that there be no Divisions amongst you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment If you say then I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Are ye not carnal Is Christ divided Who then is Paul And who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed Even as the Lord gave to every Man If then such an one as was Paul plants or as Apollo was watereth It is God that giveth the increase Therefore let no Man glory in Men But do you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not Me but their own Belly and by good words and fair Speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Finally whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any Virtue and if there be any praise think on these things And those things which ye have both known and received and heard and seen in me do And the Father himself that loveth you the God of Peace shall be with you Holy Father who hearest me always This is Life Eternal to know Thee the only true God and Me whom thou hast sent Keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given Me that they may be one as we are one That they all may be one as thou Father art in Me and I in Thee that they also may be one in us And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And that the World may know that thou hast sent Me and hast loved them as thou hast loved Me. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which Thou hast given me I have given to them the words which Thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from Thee and they have believed that Thou didst send me I pray for them I pray not for the World but for those that thou hast given me For they are Thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them I pray that thou wouldest keep them from the evil of the World and that my joy may be fulfilled in them Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Finally Beloved Wife of my Youth and dear Children Farewel be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of peace and love shall be with you For this cause I bow my Knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named That he would give you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man That Christ may live in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with the fulness of God The God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepheard of the Sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is most pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us to him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ throughout all Ages World without end The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen A Post-script of the Father to his Wife and Children concerning the foregoing Epistle with some further Exhortations to the practice thereof MY dearest heart and intirely affected Children the good and salvation of whose Souls I pray for and labour for as for my own I have I trust by the direction of the holy Spirit chosen in this manner to write unto you as hoping that what is delivered to you in the Person and words of our Lord and beloved Saviour For such is every word in the Epistle except some words not substantial necessary for connexion explanation and application requisit in a subject of such various matter You will with the more reverence and affection delight and obedience attend to and receive For although all the words therein were not uttered by his own mouth upon Earth yet were they all indited by his holy Spirit who spake by the Prophets and Apostles and is the Lord God of the holy Prophets So that if ye will not hear and obey him herein speaking to you by himself and by them Neither will you be perswaded though one arose and spake to you from Hell and from the dead Ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons And how I have kept nothing back that was profitable unto you but have shewed you and have taught you both in private and more publiquely Testifying unto you and
exhorting you to repentance towards God and faith to our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold I am as one bound a Prisoner and a banished man separated from you not knowing what things shall further befall me But none of these things move or grieve me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with joy For I am perswaded and assured that neither Tribulation or Distress Persecution or Famine nakedness or peril or Sword Death or Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord or cause to cease my love to him As therefore loving him because he hath loved me first Yea I am further assured that when I have finished my course a Crown of righteousness is laid up for me which my Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto all those that love his appearing And now my dearly beloved ones I know not God he only knows whether we shall see the Face of one another any more Wherefore that living or dead I may discharge my duty as a Husband and as a Father I take you to record this Day that I am pure from the blood of you all For I have not shunned to declare unto you the counsel of God Take heed therefore to your Souls which God hath purchased with his own blood for I know that after my departure grievous Wolves and Enemies such as the mighty Powers of Darkness the numerous tempting and malicious men of the World and that out of your own selves which therefore are the most dangerous of adversaries will arise strong innumerable and impetuous Lusts all endeavouring to draw you from the Faith and to destroy your most precious Souls Therefore watch and remember that by the space of these many years I have not ceased to warn every one of you Night and Day with tears Therefore my dearly beloved and longed for my Joy and Crown stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved And I intreat thee also true Yoke-fellow help counsel and encourage our Children in the way of godliness and righteousness which is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Hide not thy talent nor neglect the gifts that are in thee until I come again unto you Give attendance to reading to exhortation meditate upon these things that I have written and give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all Be an example to our Children in Word in Conversation in Chastity in Spirit in Faith in Purity For in doing this thou shalt both save thy Self and Family now solely under thy charge and as to the care of whose Soulâ— thou must shortly be accountable at God's Tribunal O ye that are my precious Jewels my chief and only riches upon Earth my mouth is open to you my heart is enlarged ye are not straitned in me be ye not therefore straitned in your own bowels Now for a recompence in the same I speak unto you as unto my Children be ye also enlarged And now dear and beloved Christians for this is the highest and shall be my concluding Title and sweetest compellation as therein not knowing you after the Flesh I commend you unto God and to the Word of his Grace which is able to build up and to give you an Inheritance among all them that are sanctified Ceasing not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my Prayers That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ The Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdome and revelation in the knowledge of him The Eyes of your understanding being enlightned that ye may know what is the hope of his calling And what the riches of the glory of his Inheritance in the Saints And what is the exceeding greatness of his Power to us-ward that believe Your most affectionate Husband and Father J. H. From Antwerpe the First of January 1665. A Directory Letter Mutatis Mutandis sent by the Author to every one of his Twelve Children prefixt to the Manuscript of the following Epistle now Printed for the use and benefit of other Christian Families Dear Daughter Mary I Commend unto your serious and often Reading and Meditation this following Epistle a Work which cost me much labour study and time in the Collection yet performed with much delight and chearfulness as moved to write it to all my Relations by the good Spirit of the Lord as the best means I could use to counsel stir up and advise them with Mary to choose the better part which shall never be taken from them Wherefore loving Daughter let me lay this Paternal Charge upon you as I shall do upon the rest of your Brothers and Sisters for whom I am preparing Transcripts out of the Original written by my own hand That you read it over at least once a Quarter as long as you live as being not mine but the Epistle of our most dear Lord and Saviour presented to you only by my hands his most unworthy Instrument The subject matter thereof being his most sacred Word who is the Lord God of all the holy Prophets the Pen-men hereof And the great Prophet of his Church whose Word whosoever will not hear and obey are threatned to be destroyed My design herein I hope through the grace and mighty power of the most holy Spirit of Christ will be prosperous and effectual as being not only a Letter of advice and counsel from an earthly Father whom I am confident you love and will obey in the Lord But the Epistle and most powerful Exhortations of your heavenly Father yea the love-letter of your Head and Spouse the Lord Jesus Christ who hath married you unto himself in holiness and everlasting righteousness Dear Daughter the holy Scriptures being the Foundation of all saving knowledge and true Religion I have by the direction and assistance of the Lord skim'd off for you the Cream thereof and given you a few proofs of many holding forth as from his own mouth First The excellency of his Person Secondly The Fundamental Articles of the Christian faith and belief in the words of the holy Scripture only Thirdly what things are to be practised by you held forth in God's holy Law Fourthly what evil things are to be eschewed either respecting Doctrine or manners wherein you have the Lord Jesus Christ's encouragement and exhortation to the attaining of all saving graces and virtues and his Dehortation from all errors in Doctrine especially those that are sowen and profest in these worst of times and from all sins and vices in practice Fifthly You have herein many of his Holy Counsels directing
Eternal God the Holy Ghost lest you should think it too high presumption to write after so rare a Copy Let me remember you of and set before you also â—s so many laudable and excellent Patterns a few of the many famous Works of our own Country-men such as the divine and eloquent Contemplations and occasional Meditations of Doctor Hall Spencer's Fairy Queen Deveout Hâ—rberts sweet guards and honest Wither's Poems which are as so many eminent Piramides of white and black Marble whose tops point towards Heaven as glorifying God as their chief aime and end and whose substance and Basis shall as their living Monuments stand fixt and undemolish upon Earth to their perpetual honour and as â—eaching Pillars to Posterity for ever Here possibly some of you may object that you are to seek of subjects to imploy our parts and giftâ— upon to the glory of God and the good and Instruction of your Brethren To whom I answer View and contemplate the wonderful Works of our Almighty and most wise Creator in the vast Canony of the Heavens and the large Globe of the Earth and Seas and you shall finde matter enough for all the Tongues Pens and gifts of Men and Angels Be not like the bruit Beasts that remain sensual and dumb in the midst of wonders Are you professedly Christians and shall that great and glorious subject the admirable and stupendious work of your Redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man the Saviour anointed the Mysterious work of the Incomprehensible Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost the Eternal God blessed for ever a work above all expressions and conceptions yea above the praises of holy Saints made perfect and glorious Angels wherein is held forth if ever you hope to be saved from Hell and endless torments your free and eternal Election by God the Father to everlasting Life and Glory your effectual calling and sanctification by the holy Spirit your free Justification by the alone righteousness of Christ and ravishing lively hope of a never ending happy and blessed state in the highest Heavens The blessed fruit and effect of the infinite and free love of God of the unvaluable Righteousness Merit Death Passion Satisfaction and continued Mediation of Christ our Lord that Person who is God in our Nature the eternal begotten and beloved Son of the Father the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person I say shall this Miracle of divine love this wonder of wonders these your chief and greatest concerns together with its most beautiful attendants Faith Hope Love and the rest of the holy Image of God in you be slighted forgotten and not thought worthy to be the subject of your choicest Oratory and Poetry and of the best of your gifts wit and parts O Jewish Ingratitude shall a Heavenly Host of Angels much less concern'd than you begin give and leave you a pattern in that short but full Anthem at our Saviour's Birth Glory be to God on High on Earth peace good will towards Men And will you be still wickedly yea brutishly unthankful and not follow their holy example shall not the French Druids and our own British Bards stand up in Judgment against you at the last Day But possible some of you will say you are as yet but Babes in Christ and your Muse cannot as yet mount so high as these sublime Misteries to whom I answer Is not the large Mapp of God's great constant and marvellous providences actings and deliverances towards his Church in all Ages even from the beginning of the World until this Day spread before your Eyes in the sacred Scriptures of truth and in Ecclesiastical and other Histories Yea in your own Nation in this our Age of wonders All which in honour and gratitude to God and the edification and encouragement of his Church calls for from you in Imitation of God's Saints in former times as hath been afore declared many Triumphant Arches Pillars and Monuments of praise both in Prose and Verse never to be worn out by time or thrown down by the Malice and slanders of traducing Persons But probably some of you may be Politicians and time-servers and therefore although convins't of your duty think it neither prudent nor safe to discover either your Religion Judgment or affection To such that like Naman to the Prophet Elisha say God be merciful to me in this I cannot say go in peace but this I will say that Ingratitude includes all other sins against God and Man Si ingratum dixeris Omnia dixeris Wherefore that all such may convince and Judge themselves notwithstanding all these Excuses and subter fuges Let me ask them this question Have you from your birth until now received no mercies nor blessings from God to your Souls to your Bodies or to your Relations No recovery from spiritual or bodily Diseases nor deliverances from spiritual and corporal enemies and dangers no blessings temporal spiritual and eternal no gracious and extraordinary providences to you or yours If then you cannot deny but must acknowledge to have received from the Lord many favours of this Nature O may I not say of the most of the English Nobility and Gentry as once our Saviour of the Ten Leapers Were there not Ten cleansed where are the Nine Only One returning to give thanks Wherefore lest your unthankfulness mud and stop up the stream of God's mercy to you and the Nation for the future and since it is God's commands the practise of God's Saints and your duty as Creatures and Christians to be Praisefull Yea lest your Talents be taken from you and given to others and you receive that most terrible Sentence declared by our Lord at his return to the unprofitable Servant that hid his Talent in a Napkin Bind him Hand and Foot and cast him into everlasting Fire O let that fearful Declaration like a Thunder-clap rouse and awaken you out of your sleepy sloathfulness the Night is far spent the Day is at hand even of your Judgment and mine Wherefore walk as Children of the Light and Husband that Inch of your Life which is behind redeeming the time because the Days you live in are evil Stir up the Grace that is in you meditate of and contemplate the ineffable excellencies and attributes of our Incomprehensible God as they are manifested in his glorious actings and the fore-mentioned particulars Pen Publish Print to this and future Generations his wonderful works and praises So shall you be Angelical Heralds of his Glory Grandize and Ennobilize your Nobility dignifie and hononourably perpetuate your Gentility And not like most of the preceding Peers and Gentry of this Nation which is worth your observation have like them your Names written in the Dust and buried in oblivion O joyn then with Angels and Ark-Angels and all the Triumphant and glorified Saints in Heaven in spiritual and divine Hallelujahs here and you shall certainly sing your part with them in the blessed
did raise my admiration but not my devotion After this having heard extolled the wit and language of our English Poets and that their Playes a fit name for such Airy Poems were much Visited and by the Youth of our Nation preferred above the best of Sermons As also that they were acted to the life in the publick Theatres I weâ—t thiâ—ther and was both an Auditor and Spectator where I heard wiâ— and language abused Being told of the Noble Buildings of both Exchanges and of the great concourse to them of Coaches and Persons of the best Quality I expected better things there but found in that place an Exchange but as for the Company the like or the same The Shop-keepers and their Feminines being like the Company of Players I saw lately that know how to act all parts currantly and sedantly especially those of lying equivocation dissimulation and over-reaching when they meet with Country Ignoramuses After some time I adventured at the instance of some of my acquaintance not therein my friends to go into a Tavern I stopt and thought the fair structure rich Sign-bush and Bason had some resemblance to the Roman Tryumphant Arches But my admiration was soon chang'd into a detestation for the roaring and singing bawling and swearing of their Tenants at will the knocking of Pots the scraping of Fidlers the gaping of Tapsters at the Bar not of truth and Justice but too often of the contrary made me think it to be a Bedlam a place full of mad-men or the House of Circes where by mixt intoxicating and adulterated Liquors rational Men are changed into Swine Dogs Goats and Lyons yea into all kind of Beasts and bruitishness My mind tasting no good nor finding any satisfaction in these things I thought to entertain it with more private and as most think although therein deceived harmless delights and recreations such as Complemental Visits of fair and vertuous Ladies Balls and mixt Dancings yea I assaid by chast and modest Rules or Bonds to bind Cupid as I vainly held forth in an Herogliphical Order But for and after all these carnal pleasures my heart was and is sad yea I found my soul empty of that Rest and happiness I sought after and being seasonably and graciously taught by the same spirit of wisdome that instructed Solomon I sealed and that experimentally with him to that truth of God Vanity of Vanities all is vanity and vexation of Spirit And though I saw an end of all perfection in Earthly things with holy David yet the Law and Word of God is exceeding broad which caus'd me diligently to attend upon some living Oracles of God in those times Seraphical Holesworth devout Taylor pious Gouge eloquent Shute with others by whose holy wooings and love-tokens my first love to my Spouse begun about a year before in the Country was now renewed increased and confirmed and these great temptations of the World and my Enemy Sathan prevented and overcome who thus a while after my first Conversion assaulted me as he did my Saviour as soon as he entred upon his Office deceitfully shewing to me in these Cities as in a time and contracted Map the Vanities of all the World and the empty glory thereof insinuating to me the enjoying of them would I fall down and worship him that is yield to his temptations and enslave my self to him by the wicked possessing of all these sinful Lusts and delights But blessed be the Lord who hath broaken the Snare and I am escaped For which great deliverance and manifold mercies accept O Lord in my dear Mediator's hand my multiplied praises both here and in this following Psalm of Thanksgiving The METROPOLIS Ejaculation or Hymn on the former Subject LOrd thy Word is Verity Child hood Youth are Vanity Else had not such Troops of Vice Waited on me in Disguise Blest be that Power which from thee Made them Gibeonites to me So that they shall hence-forth be Hart-hewers Water-drawers In my Sacrifice to Thee When in Courts I saw Men rise On Prides Wings by Flatteries View'd dear God their Luxury Sinful Lusts and Gluttony Through thy help I left that place As a School of Vice not Grace A Quag-mire where the rich of 't Lose Estates spent at Court-rates When Poor Beggars mount aloft When Sins Parks Vicinity Had almost impailed Me And those Heards of Women spies Had neer filtcht away my Eyes Then thou shewest me Lord that time Was not mine to lose but thine And that those that spend a Day On such sights and vain delights Do but with white Devils play In the Garden call'd the Spring Where the Flowers and Fruit are sin In which Bound by Day and Night Devils walk like Angels bright Where young Adams by their suit Eat again forbidden Fruit. There thou call'st me Lord to thee From those Groves Of wanton Loves Promist better things to Me. Thence to Theatres I went Where vain Wits their Poems vent Heard and saw such Ribaldry As defiles both Eare and Eye For Man's mind inclin'd to ill Runs not up but down the Hill There thy spirit to me told He 's asleep that comes to seek In a Cole-pit veins of Gold To Exchanges Old and New I repair'd as worth my View There my Eares were deft with Cries Lackt you Sir what will you buy Pride and Conscience in that place I saw sold all things but Grace Lord thou kept'st my wit and purse From deceits And lying Cheats And their Females which were worse Then to Taverns I went in Which I found the sinks of sin There the Devil's Revels be Lust and Drinking Gluttonie Swearing Dancing Carding Dice Cheating and all other Vice On their Doors Lord set a Cross To keep me All that love thee From Souls Bodies Plague and loss Last I thought of a reserve How to please and yet preserve Me from all unchast delights By a choice of vertuous wights Who agreed aâ— modest â—â—lls Oft to meet by mutual calls By mixt Dancing will not quall Sathan's wiles Who Vs beguiles Give an Inch He 'l take an â—ll Blessed Lord that mâ—dest me see Sin and dangers misery And that all things here below Are but Ciphers in a row That a Father was to me When my Parents left me free In my Youth and in a place Where all Vice Hath its rise And true vertues in disgrace Yet where Sathan hath his Thrones Thou hadst Churches precious Ones Vnto which thou leddest thy Youth And declared to me thy truth There thou gavest to me thy love Kist me call'd me Spouse and Dove And imbrac't me in thy Armes Made me tast Thy delicates And deliver'd me from harmes Is thy love Lord set upon Such an Aethiopian Did'st thou take me from the Pâ—ts Cleanse me from my Leopard's spots Let me a chast comfort be Now and ever unto thee Till I be by Angels led My first rise To Paradise
thy free Grace who delightest to do good as being full of Bowels of pitty and compassion and shews Mercy to whom thou wilt shew mercy Wherefore O Lord since thou art not like to ill-natur'd Man but givest without grudging yea hast promised more to them to whom thou hast already given much Add I beseech thee this Grace that I may exceed others in real thankfulness as thou hast made me to precede many others in this and the like favours In testimony of which great and special Mercy to me and mine in our preservation I humbly present to thee this Cordial acknowledgment in this and the following Psalm of Praise Amen The PROTECTION Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject WHen Sin becomes Vniversal No wonder Epedemical Diseases answer Justice call Making each House an Hospital Such was unhappy England's fate When a Vsurper Rul'd our State Then Lord unto my Family Thou wast a healthful Sanctu'ry Thy Mercies great Indulgency Freed us from this Mortality Made Vs to Goshen-like when fear Sickness and Death Triumphant elswhere Sad was these times whon Corn and Grass Like to their owners withered was For want of help to Inn alas And tend them yea to such a pass Were many Housholds brought before It ceast three parts were sick or more Good God! how free 's thy Grace how great Thy Love how sinful uncompleat Am I the Subject Stage and Seat Of Favours which I here repeat With Praise since thou protection grants To worst of Sinners least of Saints Feavers O Lord of Luxury Tumors of Pride and Vanity Dropsies of swelling Gluttony Agues of sad Apostacy Most Families do now infect Make Sick O do thou mine protect And let not an Egyptian Night Of Error now Eclipse the Light Of Goshen but let thy might Preserve their Families upright So shall our Houses Churches be And give all Glory unto Thee Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's gracious Preservation of my Horses and other Cattle from dying in the time of a great Murrain under Oliver Cromwell's Government when many of my Neighbours were very much damnified Soliloquium or Discourse AS Achan's sin let Israel blood So Saul's guilt of blood made Israel fast perforce in three Years of Famine David's pride in Numeration concludes in Israel's humiliation and Pestilential substraction And the High presumption of the Princes of the Philistines in the captivating God's Ark ends in the shame and reproach Plague and destruction of the People of their principal Cities Ekron and Ashdod to all which Examples the Poet bears witness Delirent Reges plectuntur Achivi As Israel suffered for Korah Dathan's and Abiram's Rebellion So England was punished with several Judgments as I humbly conceive for Cromwel's unfaithfulness and ambition witness the great and strange Plague amongst Horses and other Cattle and which was very remarkable it raged most amongst his Troops the Pillars of his Pride Not but that in all these Inflictions the Peoples Sins was the principal cause and the Princes offence as it were the shooing-horn to pull them on them as the Holy Spirit witnesses as to Israels Plague The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them saying go and number Israel and Judah That is he permited Sathan to stand up against Israel and to provoke David to number Israel as it is clearly held forth in the first of the Chronicles Chapter the 21. Vers. 1. But to return This Plague or Murrain was so contagious that it cleaved unto the very Walls Planks and Mangers of Stables insomuch that the fresh and untainted Horses brought and placed in them to supply the former loss were presently infected and dyed alike Mortality was also amongst other Cattle So that it is hard to say whether the dying groans of Beasts and Horses or the Cryes of the Husband-men and Carriers and those whose livelyhood was swept away by this Beasom of destruction was the greater O most gracious God who in the midst of these general Losses and Complaints preserved my Stock untoucht and intire not for my righteousness sake which is as filthy Rags but for thy mercy sake Accept I beseech thee this my thankful acknowledgment of thy singular goodness and Fatherly providence amongst the rest of thy mercies which according to thy own example and thy Saints my duty and thy command I desire to record and declare to my Childrens Children and to all future Generations that when through the Redemption of my Saviour Jesus Christ thou shalt translate me to praise thee in the Heavenly Chore of glorious Saints and Angels They and thy People in succeeding Ages may continue to praise and bless thy Name here upon Earth and be incouraged by thy manifold favours to me thy poor Servant to fear love and trust in thee for ever Lord since thy Glory and the good of my own Soul and others is my only end in this Work Let it receive a blessing from thee Amen The SHAMBLES A Corolary Poem on the former Subject WHence is it that the stately Stalls for Horse Of Noble Men are empty And perforce The Grooms do idly wait bewaile the fate Of their dead Steeds who seem to lie in state Like some in our proud Age yea Gentry fear No course at Brackly will be run this Year For want of raceing Barbes And that their Hounds Will surfeit with much Horse-flesh be unsound For want of Exercise and Troopers cry Old pay will not suffice new Horse to buy Why are our Fields Vntill'd why doth our Grain Now sow it self before brought home again For want of Teames to Inn it And the Road Through Carriers loss of Horse so thinly's troad Yea Dairy-men and Graziers throw up Ground Because their Sheep and Cattle die unsound Our Oracle God's Word gives answer Thus All Plagues are fruits of sin And the first curse Which like the Jewish Leprosie infects All that is ours though Creatures innocent As be'ng on Vs in part a Punishment Thus Rulers righteously do confiscate Not only Rebels Lives but their Estate And Princes use for faults in the Non-age Of a beloved Son to whip his Page O let our sinless Brutes sad dying moanes Stir up in Vs Offenders hearty groanes For all our sins their Plague so shall this loss To Vs become a blessing not a Cross. Lord though my fault did greatly contribute Vnto this common harm yet at thy suite This Judgment thou on others laid Let fall Sparing my goods who was a principal Preserving unto Admiration My Stock in this so great Contagion Lord as thy Mercy here was singular So let my praise the common pitch as far Transcend That so thy favours magnitude May not bring forth make great ingratitude In Me Who for thy Preservation Offer my self for an Oblation Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's gracious Providence in the seasonable quenching and preserving Eleven times four of my Houses then in my possession from being burnt
Church the Body of Christ to which he hath promised his presence and spirit of truth to the end and therefore must as to each particular State or Church though not infallibly yet prudentially end and conclude by obedience either active or passive the discenting Churches whom the civil Magistrate after the Churches Excommunication is to order by Banishment or lesser punishment according as their Doctrines shall be more or less prejudicial to the State wherein they live Which since they suffer as evil doers is as to that Common-wealth a civil and necessary act of preservative Justice not an inforcing of Conscience or Persecution Thus fervently beseeching the blessing of the All-wise God upon my poor endeavours trusting that in the Bowels of love and charity I have in sincerity and plainness declared unto you the mind of Christ in all humility I conclude The unworthiest of all the Servants of the Lord Jesus J. H. FINIS Matth. 6.21 Matth. 6.20 Matth. 13.44 Hebr. 11.1 1 Cor. 9 2â— N. B. Historical Faith Ezek. 49.3 Genes 28.12 Genes 3.1 Numb 13. Revel 22.1 Psal. 75 6 7. Psal. 10.16 Psal. 82.6 Genes 41.45 Dan. 1.7 1 Sam. 18.21 Esth. â— 15 Luk. 12.32 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Ep. Joh. 3.1 Rev. 4.4 John 7.37 Esa. 7.14 Dan. 6.26 Luke 2.28 Num. 23.17 Luke 1.47 Mark 5.7 Temporary Faith Genes 4.3 Gen. 19.1 1 Sam. 10.1 1 Sam. 10.24 1 Sam. 10 10. 1 Sam. 11.15 1 Sam. 14.38 1 Sam. 15.24 1 Sam. 10.21 1 Sam. 10.27 1 Sam. 11.6 1 Sam. 28.3 1 Sam. 28.7 1 Sam. 28 1â— Acts 5.1 Psal. 94.9 Matth. 24.51 1 Cor. 2.10 Matth. 23.13 John 6.30 John 6.42 John 6.60 John 6.68 1 Cor. 1.20 Matth. 7.22 Miraculous Faith 1 Cor. 11.27 Matth. 22.39 John 4.16 1 Cor. 13.2 Matth. 10.1 Luke 10.17 John 7.6 Acts 4.30 Gen. 3.6 John 6.34 Rom. 8.7 Psal. 51.10 Ephes. 2.1 Rom. 1.20 Mat. 21.19 Mat. 7.19 Luk. 13.6 Joh. 13.1 Joh. 6.47 The means of Faith Rom. 12.3 Rom. 10.17 Ejaculation Christ the object of Faith Son of God Esay 55.3 Ejaculation Matt. 11.25 Esay 49.15 Mark 10.33 â— Canticles Ephes. 2.2 Ephes. 2.1 Ephes. 2.2 1 Joh. 4.10 Titus 3.5 Christ was born of the Virgin Mary Persecuted by Herod Luke 2.46 Mat. 4.1 Mat. 11.19 Mat. 12.24 2 Cor. 8.9 James 1.12 Psal. 110. â— Esay 43.2 John 1.14 Christs Agony in the Garden Mat. 25.39 Esay 50.6 Rom. 11.33 Mat. 26.67 John 19.1 Esay 53.5 Christs Condemnation by Pilate Psal. 84.6 Mat. 10.38 Ezek. 37.1 Rom. 5.15 Christ conceived by the Holy Ghost Rom. 5.16 Luke 15.7 Christs crucifying Ejaculation Luke 16.21 Job 16.2 Luke 19.38 Luke 23.21 Matt. 27.46 Matt. 28.42 Luke 16.31 Rom. 11.33 Ephes. 3.18 19. James 1.17 2 Tim 2.19 Of Christs Death Luke 23.34 Luke 23.46 1 Cor. 1â— 54 c. Christs burial Hosea 13.14 Mark 3.27 Christs victory over Hell Revel 20.1 Of Christs Resurrection Judg. 5.1 Christs Ascention Acts 1.11 Acts 7.56 Ezech. 47.8 Mat. 9.12 Ezek. 36.31 Mans misery by nature 1. In his mind 1 Cor. 2.14 2. In his understanding Esay 29.9 Acts 20.9 Rom. 10.8 3. In his Conscience Mark 5.2 Gen. 4.13 1 Sam. 18.10 Matt. 27.5 Revel 3.17 Matt. 13.14 In his will 2 Kings 18.3 Judges 17.6 Jam. 3.11 Jam. 1.13 The affections Gen. 1.27 Rom. 7.24 Of the disorder in the affections in particular Of Love 1 Joh. 4.19 Jerem 2 13. Contemplation Matt. 22.37 1 John 2.7 John 3.11 Of Joy In riches Men cannot joy Job 21.13 Job 27.16 Job 27.17 Nor in honours Eccles. 10.7 Nor in pleasures Job 21.12 1 Tim. 5.6 Not in wisdom 1 King 4.30 Eccl. 1.17 18. Contemplation Matt. 16.11 Psal. 51.12 Of Fear Dan. 5.6 Gen. 4.13 Mat. 27.5 Hebr. 5.7 1 Cor. 15.47 Gen. 3.8 Contemplation Psal. 2.10 114.7 Psal. 34.9 Psal. 119.110 Phil. 2.12 Rom. 11.29 Exod. 33.13 Exod. 34.6 Of the Body Of the Eyes sinfulness Gen. 3.6 Gen. 6.2 Gen. 9.22 2 Sam. 11.2 Of the Eares Acts 12.23 2 Chro 24.17 Exod. 32.1 Dan. 3.14 Matt. 27.24 1 Sam. 26.8 Prov. 7.21 Gen. 39.7 Contemplation Of the smelling Esay 3.24 Of Fasting Ezek. 16.49 Luke 12.16 Luke 16.19 Contemplation Of the Truth 2 Sam. 11.2 Contemplation Psal. 8.4 Psal. 1.4 Luke 3.17 Rom. 7.24 Luke 10.30 Ezek. 16.4 Of Christs Priestly office Gen. 1.31 Gen. 2.17 Dan. 6.12 Rom. 8.33 1 Tim. 2.5 Rom. 6.23 Psal. 37.6 Rom. 6.6 1 Cor. 15.55 Rev. 20.14 Rev. 12.10 John 5.18 Heb. 9.14 Heb. 10.21 22. Gala. 3.15 Rom. 8.2 Contemplation Rom. 10.4 Luke 23.20 (a) Heb. 5 6. (b) Exo. 30.30 (c) Heb. 9.7 (d) Heb. 9.14 (e) Heb 9.12 (f) Heb. 9.24 Heb. 1.5 Rev. 13.8 Mat. 3.17 Of Christs Intercession John 3.16 Rom. 5.19 John 2.17 Luke 13.19 Mat. 12 20. Rom. 8.26 Heb. 9.24 Heb. 7.25 Rom. 10.4 1 Cor. 1.30 John 14.6 Of Christs Satisfaction Psal. 8.4 Of Justification 1 King 19.11 Heb. 1â— 18 Verse 19. Verse 22. Verse 24. Exod. 34.7 Verse 8. Forgivenesses of Sins Psal. 32.1 1 Ep. Joh. 1.8 Mat. 6.12 Rom. 5.18 Heb. 2.15 Eph. 2.1 Rom. 5.10 Eph. 2.3 Psal. 32.1 Of imputative righteousness Gen. 1.31 Definition of imputative righteousness Exposition Proofs of our right to Christs imputative righteousness Psal. 133.2 Revel 6.11 Demonstrations from Scripture Revel 12.1 Mat. 22.11 Exod. 41.28 Gen. 41.14 Luke 15.22 Job 25.4 5 6. Luke 17.7 1 King 8.46 Esay 64.6 Luke 17.10 Luke 15.15 Rom. 8.16 17. Jerem. 33.16 1 Cor. 1.30 Rom. 10.4 General questions or objections answered 1 Quest. John 15.16 2 Quest. Mat. 21.42 Rom. 11.6 Exod. 32.12 Numb 14.16 Object â—â—m 5.18 Necessity of Justification 2 Kings 4.1 Exod. 32.11 Luke 5.20 Mat. 22.10 Rom. 7.24 Prophetical Office Mat. 5.6 Ephes. 2.20 Contemplation 2 Tim. 3.15 2 Kings 4.34 Numb 27.16 Acts 3.22 Heb. 3.3 Eph. 5.14 Joh. 5.25 Object Object Mat. 11.28 Mat. 9.13 Mat. 9.12 Luke 4.18 A DIALOGVE betwixt Christ and the Soul The Souls complaint against the mind and understanding Eph. 4.17 Christ. Joh. 1.9 John 9.39 1 Cor. 1.30 Psal. 18.28 Prov. 2.3 Eph. 2.8 Mat. 7.7 Jerem. 31.33 Luke 11.13 Soul Cant. 5.16.7.9 Against the Conscience Job 13.26 Christ. Prov. 18.14 Deut. 32.39 Jerem. 30.17 Jerem. 31.34 Esay 1.18 Colos. 1.14 Heb. 9.13 14. Soul Against hardness of heart Job 41.24 Mat. 13.15 Gen. 8.21 Gen. 6. â— Ezek. 18.30 Acts 3.19 Christ. Rom. 2.5 Acts 11.18 Ezek. 36.25 Psal. 114.8 Ezek. 36.26 27. Esay 57.15 Phil. 2.13 Col. 2.13 Rom. 9.15 Soules complaint of its unfaithful memory Psal. 46.1 Psal. 119.103 Psal. 119.16 Matth. 13.52 Jerem. 2.32 1 Kings 2.38 Luke 11.28 Deut. 6.8 9. Exod. 20.8 Jerem. 18.15 Eph. 2.12 Psal. 50.17 Job 8.13 Christ. Phil. 2.13 Rom. 8.32 Esay 49.13 Ezek. 16.60 62 63. Ezek. 20.43 John 14.26 Jerem. 31.33 Souls Complaint against her will Christ. Phil. 2.13 James 1.18 1 Cor. 1.31 Rom. 9.16 Souls complaint against her affections Against Love Mat. 22.37 Deut. 11.1 13. Prov. 8.17 1 John 2.15 John 3.16 2 Tim. 3.4 Rev. 3.16 Against Joy Rom. 4.17 John 15.11 Habac. 3.18 Cant. 1.4 Psal. 16.11 Mat.
of the Soul there are some conditions and estates so vitiated and overcome with maladies that they are forsaken of the Physician and left as desperate and past remedy In such a condition me-thinks I seem to be of whose heart by reason of festred corruption it may be said as Job of Leviathan That it is as firme as a Stone yea as hard as a piece of the nether Milstone of whom also thine own speech to the Jews may be verified That my heart is waxed gross and my eares are dull of hearing and my eyes are closed least at any time I should see with my eyes and hear with my eares and should understand with my heart and should be converted and thou shouldst heal me Is then Lord my heart such a Rock and the imaginations thereof wholly and continually evil How can then the pure streams of Repentance flow from thence which is the condition on my part in thy Covenant of mercy and pardon witness thy own words delivered by the Prophet Repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine And that in thy Gospel preached by thy Apostle Repent yee and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Fear not my redeemed nor be dismaid as though any thing was impossible unto God What seems difficult because of thy nature shall be made easie through my grace Think not my Word which is the word of life shall become the savour of death unto any of mine Thou complainest that by it thou hast found thy hardness of heart which thou sayest excludes repentance and consequently pardon O be not deceived here 's no cause of despair but of hope and thankfulness since my Word hath wrought that blessed work upon thee for which I ordained it Having not only selected but prepared thee for my cure There is a reprobate and sick sort of Men I confess Who after their hardness and impenitent Hearts treasure up unto themselves wrath against the Day of wrath Such were those Jews whose insensibleness did sufficiently prove their deadness But thy Eares are bored to give my Word entrance Thy Eyes are opened to behold therein as in a Mirrour thy spots and many defects And thy Heart is agil and willing to know and accuse thy self Therefore thou shalt be converted and I will heal thee If there should be impossibilities imposed on thee in my Covenant how could I then be just And shall not the Judge of all the World do right Or if thy work should either precede or assist mine should not that act of thine though the least detract from my free mercy and make my grace no more grace O cursed be such Sathan-like pride of dust and ashes that thus lifts up it self against my omnipotency mercy and all other my attributes aspiring even unto my Throne of Glory O know that those commands proclaimed in the Old Testament by my Prophets were given as preparatives to the New What I require of thee is my due why I require it of thee is my mercy that so running from me as a Judge thou mightest run to me as a Saviour Who grants both to Jew and Gentile repentance unto life Which conversion since it hath wrought it on thee receive and apply what my mercy out of the same word hath extracted for thee Are thy thoughts only evil I will sprinkle clean Water upon thee and thou shalt be clean from all thy filthiness Is thy Heart a Stone which cannot relent I am he that turns the Rockie Heart into a Well as the Rock in Horeb into standing Water and the Flint into a Fountain of Waters Yea a new Heart also will I give thee and a new Spirit will I put within thee and I will take away thy stony Heart out of thy Flesh and I will give thee a Heart of Flesh. And I will put my Spirit within thee and cause thee to walk in my Statutes For I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive him That so all my Enemies with shame here and torment hereafter may be inforced to confess that it is I that worketh in thee both to will and to do of my good pleasure quickning those that were dead in sins and trespasses As also that I am Lord Paramount over all my Creatures Having mercy on whom I will have mercy and whom I will I harden O my Lord Thou art my refuge and strength a very present help in time of trouble How sweet are thy words unto my taste yea sweeter than Honey to my Mouth O that they were so fixed in my mind and imprinted in my memory that they might remain with me for ever But blessed Saviour this is my misery that though for the present I may rejoyce with David yet for the future I cannot promise and say with him I will not forget thy Word For whereas in my Primitive nature thou didst indue my Soul with a serviceable and faithfull memory to be as it were her treasury or magazine from whence like that wise House-holder in thy Gospel she might upon all occasions bring forth things new and old I finde that Cyttadel battered and possest by my corruptions Who have fore-closed and lodged themselves therein So that the complaint of Jeremy is verified of me as well as of that People that have forgotten Thee Days without number O Lord if the Cistern be broken where shall the thirsty be refreshed my barrenness watered what doth it avail that my Eares as Buckets do continually draw up and are filled from thee the Fountain of life with quickning promises and saving directions if the receptacle and Cistern my memory be faulty and faithless As the Body which wants the retentive faculty and vomits up its sustenance giving neither time of Chilefaction to the Stomach nor of making blood to the Livour can receive little nourishment So that Soul which retains not the spiritual Manna thy Word in the memory that there it might be disgested by Meditation and converted into practice can never thrive in holiness and live spiritually It may be for the present I may say of thy Word as Shimei of Solomon's Thy saying is good When as soon after it will be forgotten and without thy mercy prove to me as that to him death and bitterness in the end Further this holy retention is not only of excellent and necessary use in thine but also highly by thee commended required and commanded Thine own Mouth pronouncing Him to be rather blessed that bears thee in his heart than her that bore thee in her Wombe a spiritual enjoying being far above a corporal Yea for this cause and to help this dangerous defect didst thou ingrave thy Law upon Tables and commanded it to be written upon the most perspicuous places of the House And in the glorious and holy Decalogue it self thou didst
that a general Assembly differs but in Name from a Conclave of Cardinals or Prelatical Synod that every Member of the Church is free and ought not in matters of Faith to conclude himself by Proxy that no Church hath power over another or brethren since the Apostles have dominion over the Consciences of their brethren that their platform of Church Government ought to be and is Jure Divino that the Evangelical Scripture sets forth theirs and no other Now dear Brethren give me your pardon and leave with Moses to step in betwixt your Combatings with his Abraham's words Why do ye contend being ye are Brethren it may be God giving a blessing and each of you in his hand I shall in my Preposition be a Medium to unite you only despise not my endeavours since the Lord hides many things from the wise and prudent and reveales them to Babes But to proceed I observe neither of you arrogate to your selves an infallibility but piously seek an Orthodox and prudential way of Government for the attaining and preserving GOD's truth blessed are your endeavours yea they shall be blessed Wherefore I ask the Presbiterians Why do ye extol and lift up a general Assembly above the rest of the Flock of Christ To the Independents I say Why do ye prefer the Judgment of one particular Congregation before the joynt Votes of all refined Christian Churches of the Kingdome surely the first will yield to me that where most of God's People are in their judgment there is the greatest measure of his Spirit and to such Assemblies principally and to their Votes are made all those gracious promises I need not quote the places concerning Christ's Spirit and Presence I mean to such a Multitude not of Men only but of purged and visible Believers The other I presume both from Grounds of Scripture and Reason will grant that could the Votes of all the reputed and received Members of Christ of their several Churches be joyntly taken and in one place they must be accepted and are but as the Vote of one great Congregation which though it hath an increase of Ministers and Elders yet according to a true definition for Essence is a Church and that more eminently though not more truly than the particular Congregations of whom it consists even as an Assembly made up of many Families called by the Apostles Churches of God is more excellent than its subdivisions But that I may make good by Scripture this incorporaing of Churches conjuncture and union of Votes I shall remember you of these Three Chief Proofs and Lights of Church Government both for Doctrine and manners The first shewes the Primitive and Apostolique way of ending Controversies in Doctrine by the summoning that great Assembly of the Members of the Churches of Jerusalem and Judea of which Churches read Acts 11.1 and Gallat 1.22 Therefore called a Multitude Acts 15.12 In which the Apostles although indued with an infallible Spirit and the Elders of the Churches did not only Vote and Decree matters though that in many cases wherein the People consents such Votes may be and are necessary expedient and lawful but the whole Church Verse 22. which compared with Acts 2. Verse 41. wherein Three Thousand are said to be converted and with Acts 4. Verse 4. wherein Five Thousand were by One Sermon converted clearly demonstrates that this Assembly was composed of many Congregations as further appeares from the Apostles Teaching and Preaching in every House Acts 5.42 How else could Eight Thousand Men besides Women and Children be taught and edified The like is proved from the Election and choice of the Seven Deacons by the Vote of the Multitude Acts 6.5 where the Apostles and Elders also were present yea those whom the Holy Ghost Acts 2.47 calls a Church in a Nationall respect he calls Churches Acts 9.31 in a Congregational consideration And lastly in Corinth there more than probably appeares to be many Congregations else whence or where were these discentions and divisions some saying I am of Paul others I am of Apollo of Cephas 1 Cor. 1.12 All the Members of which were commanded to meet in one Assembly for the Excommunication of the incestuous Persons 1 Cor. 5.4 Where note they were to meet to whom the Epistle was directed and who are admonished to mourn But the Epistle and Exhortation was directed to the whole Church of Corinth and not to the Elders only Ergo the whole Congregation when they shall desire it have a right to a Vote and censure Having thus fully proved by Scripture that in Cities and Provinces and consequently in Kingdomes the Members of particular Congregations may and were by command to meet for the deciding of any great difference yea the Apostles though of an infallible Spirit did not contradict but gave both approbation and institution to that liberty I shall with humblest submission offer this following preposition as a right and fit Medium of reconciliation That in all great Schismes and Heresies over-spreading whole Churches if the breach cannot be made up by advice argument and subordinate Discipline either Congregational or Presbyterian an Appeal be made to a general Assembly who after the stating disputing and voting such Points in difference together with the merit of the offence the Recusant Church or Churches notwithstanding continuing unsatisfied that then the Assembly adjourn that Sessions for Three Moneths in which time the Assembly Members of each Congregation to be ordered after Fasting and Prayer to state the Question and declare their Arguments and Judgment of the General Assembly to their particular Churches and so accordingly at that Meeting receive and bring up each Churches Vote and Sentence with the number because of the disproportion of Parishes summ'd up of those that affirm and those that discent that so at the next Session the Question may be decided and concluded by the major Vote both of Churches and Members which Scripture-way will not only by a Religious Policy from time to time discover the temper pulse and inclination of the whole Kingdome and consequently administer a great help and direction to Government but will give full satisfaction to all unless to obstinate Hereticks as being the Judgment and Vote even by the Pole of all the visible and undividual Christians of the Kingdome politically united as in one Congregation yea the disobedient will be left without excuse and justly lyable to their Sentence of Excommunication But put the Question a considerable number of Churches in the Kingdome give in their Vote with a new opinion hazarding a rent and division in the Nation I Answer that upon so sad an occasion our Church in imitation of the ancient calling of General Counsels upon the over-flowing of Heresie ought to desire the Judgment and assistance and that by additional Votes if it may be of all the reformed Churches in the World which comes neerest to the Judgment of the holy Catholick