Therefore the School-men say of the sending giving powring forth the coming of the Spirit to us to be in us That it is only Novus modus apparendi A new manner of appearing The Holy Spirit the third Person in the Trinity from whom the other two Persons are ever undivided God blessed for ever is ever in every Creature in every Spirit He only changeth his Appearances and Effulgencies there By the change of his Appearance he changeth and formeth each Creature each Spirit in all its Changes Thus he turneth to himself the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Seal according to the Language in the Book of Job How divinely pure and pleasant a prospect or living Picture is now the nature of things while God himself according to the distinct Idea or eternal exemplar of each Creature cometh forth and appeareth together with it as Twin-brothers as Twin-Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the reflection of the other while a Third Love breaks from both these in which they are blest and made perfect with a mutual Union and the fruition of each other The ever-glorious and eternally-joyous Trinity of the highest and first Love seems to multiply and figure it self in each Creature All Creatures now seem to be in a lively and living Beauty represented by the two Breasts of the heavenly Spouse Like two Twin-Roes of a lovely kind two Twin-Loves the Births of their heavenly Mother the Universal and Divine Image in the Person of Christ feeding among the Lillies the Ideal eternal Lights and Beauties of her soft and shining Bosome But all this is to be understood of simple Nature abstracted from the Corruption by Sin with which in the midst of the pure peaceful pleasant Varieties the charming Harmonies the golden Calms and Gardens of Divine Love cometh in a scene of War and Death of tempestuous Seas fields of Blood Contrariety and Enmity God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath. That God who is the God of Love that Will which is Love it self All Love in the beloved Soul to the beloved Soul here in its faln state puts on this strange person of an Enemy Under this dark Disguise and horrid Vizat he hideth all his Beauties and Sweetnesses he acts a part of Wrath. But this it self at last appears to the beloved Soul to be a most delightful Love-part While by it the Variety is made more full being extended to the greatest Contrariety and utmost extreams While in the reconciling of these the Divine Harmony is more full and ravishing The Divine Love heightned to an excess of Sweetness and triumphant Joys The Wisdome of the Design more admird and adored in its rich and glorious Depths All expectations of Men and Angels are suspended most happily deceived and in the end infinitely transcended But how have I wandred and delightfully lost my self by drinking in eagerly this Wine of Angels and glorified Saints the Sweetness of this Divine Light and Love I will now pass from this second Distinction to the third for the illustration of the Divine presence in the soul. 3. Distinction God is one with the Soul not formally but transcendently God is not one with the Soul formally as the formal and proper Essence of the Soul or of any created Spirit much less as a Constitutive part of its Essence This would make God and that Spirit essentially one The Essence of that Spirit would reciprocally be the Essence of God That Spirit would be essentially God Is not this the utmost heighth of Ignorance Profaneness Impiety Blasphemy Giant-like Lucifer-like to war with God for the Throne of his Godhead Besides all this evil how great were the loss to every Spirit of Angels and Men Their Sun which makes the eternal Day and Spring were now set in an hopeless Night of Clouds and Confusions All their Loves Hopes and Joys aspiring to an infiniteness above themselves would now all droop and die in their own Bosome The beginning the end of them all is taken away That distinction of things which is the Mother of all Lives Loves Beauties and Pleasures as Unity is the Father of them would now sink into a rude undistinguished Darkness the first and the fountain of all Distinctions being taken away in taking away the Distinction of the Divine Nature from the created form of things How unpleasant were it to the Eye below to be perswaded that there were no Sun besides it self above it self Now the joy in beholding the face of the Sun and of Heaven the taking in of the sweet Light of Heaven and the Sun the charming Delights in the Varieties of Lights and Shades of Colours and Pictures in the Light and the Sun-shine were no more 2. God is transcendently one with the Soul as he is with all things by the transcendency of his Unity and his Infiniteness He comprehendeth all things in one in Himself after a manner altogether incomprehensible As he is the first the Universal Cause the most immediate the most intimate the inseparable the Ideal Cause of all things He is the Unity of every Unity the Being of Beings the Essence of every Essence not formally but transcendently not after a finite but an infinite manner Cusanus saith God is the Sun in the Sun not formally finitely but after a transcendent infinite manner He is so the Sun in the Sun that he is all things with the fulness of the Divine Nature and eternity in that form 4. Distinction God is present with and in the natural form of the Soul as in an earthly and shadowy Image He is present according to his heavenly his eternal form in this shadow as vailed and hidden beneath it As Jesus Christ at his Incarnation so the first man by his Creation was made under the Law the Law the Glory of the created Image improved and heightned The Holy Spirit saith of the Law That it is a shadow of good things to come not the very Image It is commonly said That the Law is the Gospel vailed the Gospel the Law unvailed Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image the brightness of the Glory of God is the first Adam vailed beneath a shadowy Image He is there as the Truth the Original the Root of this shadow bringing it forth bearing it in himself comprehending it He is in it as the Spirit and beautiful form of a Plant in the Seed ready to spring forth through it to transfigure it into the similitude of its own Beauties to fill it so transfigured with its own Divine Life Virtues and Fruits in the proper season St. Paul makes the first man in his pure State and in his Fall a Type or Figure of Him who is to come Jesus Christ Rom. 5. God in the Light of his Glory Jesus Christ according to his heavenly Image hidden in God The Soul according to its Divine Life in the state of Grace are all present vailed in the natural man as in their
Lamb that was slain where his wounds appear in his glorified Person not as Wounds but as Beauties not as Fractures or Stains but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners and of Sufferings to the Saints There it seeth the end of all There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight Psal. 73. If I be not deceived Jesus risen from the dead in this order and manner is this Sanctuary this Temple of Grace and Truth He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory into an universal eternal Light In this Spirit which is this Light of Life the whole course of his Work in the Creation and in Providence his Incarnation Sufferings and Death present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them as one Diâ—…ine piece as full of Divinity every where Here all in the whole and in the parts present themselves to the spiritual Eye as beautiful and blessed Spirits in numberless troops by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades hiding their Glories beneath these figures breaking with their Glories out of these figures as so many Suns out of their Clouds shewing their figures themselves as Glories Like the Palms and Lilies and Cherubims of the Temple carved first in Cedar and then covered with massy Gold In the mean time all these numberless Spirits in their whole play from the beginning to the end are comprehended in this one Spirit the universal Spirit of Harmony Order Beauty and pleasantness in all Jesus risen from the dead the first and the last the same yesterday to day and for ever O the Wisdom the Power the Grace the Glory the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ What a depth is this without any bottom What an heighth without any bound What a breadth what a length without any measure How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all above all through all beyond all things or thoughts Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest the fullest forms of words or conceptions in conceiving or expressing this Mystery this Jesus But I have now brought to an end according to my weak manner the reducing the disorder it self into order in the Person of Christ by these three sacred steps of Expiation Compensation Abolition of the Disorder in the Order or which is the same the Renovation of the Order in all I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of partâ—…cular order and disorder hath been made beautiful in its season keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb in the Musick of the eternal Word I have also attempted to open that mystery how this Work of God in every part of it with its Beauty is for eternity the light of eternity being the only light of Truth with a golden Calm an unstained Sun-shine of purest perpetual Peace Pleasantness and Glory In this light of eternity alone is the Work of God seen aright in the entire piece in the whole design from the beginning to the end As all times appear in this Light less than a moment a point nothing being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity so are all the disorders of time no more not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony All this is true in the Person of Christ to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony All things are gathered together in one in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him whether they be things on Earth or in Heaven Col. 1. 20. These are true in us as Christ springs up in us Then only are we our selves baptized Then only do we see all things unto us together with us baptized into the sweet shining boundless bottomless Sea of this universal aâ—…d eternal Harmony when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death and into â—…is Resurrection from the dead How then can we live any longer in sin being now dead to it How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh for a licentiousness in sin from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ Rom. 6. 1 2 3 4. I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty Wisdom and Power through this whole Work with the Divine Justice Goodness and Glory in the determination of the Will by its essential Principles by the uninterrupted order and connexion of causes by the first and universal Cause which is most intimate to every effect and worketh most of all Secundum modum naturae in a natural way as being the nâ—…tura naturans I promised two other Scriptures for the making good of this design I will lightly touch them and so hasten to an end of my Discourse The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture 1. An efficient cause or beginning The Lord Jehovah 2. The final cause or end For himself 3. The universality of the effect and influence of these Causes The Lord hath made all things for himself 4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect by a particular and most eminent instance Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Three things are remarkable in this particular instance 1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection and with a two-fold Asseveration Yea even Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence What say they hath God made all things for himself What the evils of Sin and of Suffering Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain in the Work of God one within another Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links and maketh the Chain entire that he may enclose
Apostle scattered throughout this place fall into a most beautiful Harmony St. Paul here setteth himself in the place of all Mankind in Paradise He describeth to us as in a figure the nativity of sin its esssential form or life if we may have leave so to speak of a privation the occasion and manner of its first appearance and taking life I have now finished my Discourse upon the ends of the Law which are of the first sort proper and immediate which are called by Logicians the ends of the work I pass now to the remote and Ultimate ends which are stiled the ends of the Workman I shall make my transition by this consideration A Poetical History or work framed by an excellent Spirit for a pattern of Wisdom and Worth and Happiness hath this as a chief rule for the contrivance of it upon which all its Graces and Beauties depend That persons and things be carried to the utmost extremity into a state where they seem altogether uncapable of any return to Beauty or Bliss That then by just degrees of harmonious proportions they be raised again to a state of highest loy and Glory You have examples of this in the Divine pieces of those Divine Spirits as they are esteemed and stiled Homer Virgil Tassâ—… our English Spencer with some few others like to these The Works of these persons are called Poems So is the Work of God in Creation and contrivance from the beginning to the end named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Poem It is an elegant and judicious Observation of a learned and holy Divine That the Works of Poets in the excellencies of their imaginations and contrivances were imitations drawn from those Original Poems the Divine works and contrivances of the eternal Spirit We may by the fairest Lights of Reason and Religion thus judge That excellent Poets in the heighths of their fancies and spirits were touched and warmed with a Divine Ray through which the supream Wisdom formed upon them and so upon their work some weak impression and obscure Image of it self Thus it seemeth to be altogether Divine That that work shineth in our eyes with the greatest Beauties infuseth into our Spirits the sweetest delights transporteth us most out of our selves unto the kindest and most ravishing touches and senses of the Divinity which diffusing it self through the amplest Variety and so to the remotest Distances and most opposed Contrarieties bindeth up all with an harmonious Order into an exact Unity which conveyeth things down by a gradual descent to the lowest Depths and deepest Darknesses then bringeth them up again to the highest point of all most flourishing Felicities opening the beginning in the end espousing the end to the beginning This is that which Aristotle in his Discourse of Poetry commendeth to us as the most artful and surprising untying of the knot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by a discovery This is that which Jesus Christ pointeth at in himself who is the Wisdom of God The manifold Wisdom of God in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge lie hid in whom all the Divine contrivances are formed and perfected What will you say when you shall see the Son of Man return there where he was at first In this God himself seemeth to place the highest Beauties the sweetest Graces the richest Glories of his whole contrivance and work in bringing things down by the Ministry of the Law to the last point to the lowest state to the most lost condition to the nethermost part of the Earth to the nethermost Hell And in ways unexpected by uncomprehensible to Men Angels to raise things again by the Gospel to that first supreamGlory which was their Original Patern in eternity The Law was brought in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded grace might superabound So the Wisdom of the Heathen and of the Scripture both instructeth us That God entertaineth himself universally and divinely with this great and pleasant Work of making high things low great things little of making little things great and low things high He sendeth the rich empty away and filleth the hungry with good things He grindeth man through pain to dâ—…st and then he saith return again ye Sons of Men. But I have made a long transition I come now from these proper ends of the Law which were the deepest descents which comprehended the reign of sin by the Law unto Death an Universal Death the most killing death a spiritual never-dying death of immortal Spirits as well the natural death of Bodies separate from their Spirits to the Ultimate ends of the Law in which some glimmering lights begin to dawn of the most desired and delightful day shining from this black and hellish night All these Ultimate ends of the Law are generally comprehended in Christ the Ultimate end of the Law The end of the Artificer and of the Agent of the eternal Spirit in the Law is Christ. So saith the Spirit in the Scriptures The end of the Law is Christ Rom. 10. 4. He may well be the end of the Law who is the end of all things for whom all things are made The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth were by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came full of Grace and Truth saith St. John in the same Chapter Joh. 1. 14 17. Grace is the Divine Love opposed to the ministry of wrath by the Law Truth is the naked Face and Beauty of the Godhead the Light the brightness of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ as he is opposed to the Vails and shadows of the Law Thus Christ that is God in the nakedness and simplicity of the Divine Essence as he is Love as he is Light the Light of Immortality and Glory in which there is no darkness is the end of all the darknings dividings and destructions of all the shadows and severities of the Law But this general end is to be subdivided into its several steps or degrees 1. The end of the Law is to be a prison for faln man till Christ comes This is the language of St. Paul Gal. 3. 28. But before the Faith came we were kept in custody under the Law being shut up unto the Faith to be revealed Faith is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for The Divine Faith is a Divine evidence of Divine things divinely invisible from an excess of Divine Light and Glory too great for every natural eye or understanding The Divine Faith is the Divine substance of Divine things the objects of a Divine hope Christ is said by St. Paul to be the hope of Glory and the end of the Faith of all the Saints He also is the Light and the Life This then is the Faith and the Revelation of the Faith of the Gospel in the Saints Christ the Light of the Glory of God eternal Life the quickning Spirit the fountain of Life the heavenly eternal truth and substance of all Good
Spirit and Person in heavenly unexpressible sweetnesses This is my first Request to you 2. Study and practise that great Command of Love as the Lesson of thy whole Life with which alone thou art to entertain thy self and all the heavenly Company both here and in eternity This is the first and great Command That thou love God with thy whole self and then That thou love thy Neighbour as thy self which is a second Law a second Love like unto the first Indeed it is so like that it is one with it Be thou thy self in thy whole Person the Sacrifice of a whole Burnt-Offering ascending in a Sacred flame of heavenly love to God the only and eternal Beauty As the zeal of the House of God which is Love flaming did eat up David and Christ so let this heavenly Love of the Divine Beauty which is the Beauty it self descending in a pure and sweet flame upon thee by consuming thee convert thee into one spiritual flame with it self Now live thou no where but where thou lovest in thy Beloved Let thy Beloved alone now live in thee when thou hast thus lost thy self by an heavenly Love in thy Beloved in thy God when thou hast thus by the Sacred and sweet mystery of this Love found thy Beloved thy God in the place of thy self Then love thy Neighbour as thy self Love thy Neighbour in thy Jesus thy God Love thy Jesus thy God in thy Neighbour Let this Neighbourhood of Divine Love be as large as the God of Love himself is Let every other Person and Spirit which lives and moves and hath its being in God within the encompassing upon the Ground and Root of the Divine Being be thy Neighbour thy Brother another self as thy self to thy self the Object to thee of an heavenly and incorruptible Love Upon this Commandment saith Jesus Christ hang all the Law and the Prophets This Love is the Centre and the Circle of all the Works of God of all Motions and Rests of all mysteries in Nature and Grace in Time and Eternity Plato saith That three sorts of Persons are led to God The Musician by Harmony the Philosopher by the beam of Truth the Lover by the light of Beauty All these Conductors to the supream Being meet in this Love of which we speak the first and only true Beauty being the first Birth the first Effulgency the essential Image of the supream Goodness is also the first the supream the only Truth the Original the measure the end of all Truth which by its amiable attractive Light conducteth all Understandings in the search of Truth and giveth them rest only in its transparent and blissful Bosom This also is the first the only the universal Harmony the Mufick of all things in Heaven and on Earth the Musick in which all things of Earth and of Heaven meet to make one melodious Consort While the holy Lover then pursues the tracts of this Beauty through all the works and ways of God he is encompassed with the Light of Divine Truth shining through him and round about him He is carried on in the Spirit by the force of the Divine Harmony He carrieth along this Harmony of things charming all things round about him as he passeth on So he seeth the God of Gods at last on Mount Sion the perfection of Beauty Harmony Truth and Goodness which all Center in the Divine Love the Divine Unity the band of perfection 3. Let no differences of Principles or Practices divide thee in thine affections from any person He who seems to me as a Samaritan to a Jew most worthy of contempt and hatred most apt to wound or kill me may hide under the shape of a Samaritan a generous affectionate Neighbour Brother and Friend When I lie wounded and dying neglected by those who are nearest to me most esteemed by me This person may pour Wine and Oyl into my Wounds with tender and constant care at his own expence bring me back to life and joy How evident hath it been in the History of all times that in Parties most remote one from the other most opposed one to the other Persons have been found of equal excellencies in all kinds of equal integrity to Truth and Goodness Our most Orthodox Divines who have been heated and heightned with the greatest zeal of Opposition to the Pope as the Antichrist yet have believed a Pope to have ascended from the Papal Chair to a Throne in Heaven Had my Education my Acquaintance the several Circumstances and Concurrances been the same to me as to this person from whom I now most of all dissent that which is now his sense and state might have been mine Have the same just equal tender respects and thoughts with the same allowances of another which thou requirest from him to thy self It is a Rule in Philosophy That there is the same reason of Contrarieties Two opposed Parties or Persons by reason of the opposition for the most part looking through the same disturbed and coloured Medium behold one another under the same uncomely form in the same displeasing Colours Hath there not been frequent experience of those who by being of differing Parties alienated exasperated having their fansies filled with strange Images of each other when they have been brought together by some intervening Providence have discovered such agreeable Beauties of Morality and Humanity such an harmonious agreement in essential in radical Principles of Divine Truth of the true and ever lasting good that they have conversed with highest delight they have departed with an higher esteem of each other their Souls have been inseparably united with Angelical kisses and embraces Some entertaining Strangers have entertained Angels Do thou so believe that in every encounter thou mayest meet under the disguise of an Enemy a Friend a Brother who when his Helmet shall be taken off may disclose a beautiful and a well known face which shall charm all thy Opposition into love and delight at the sight of it But now Reader I fall at thy feet I take hold of thy knees by all things moving and obliging I beseech thee If there be any Bowels or comforts of Love any Peace Pleasantness Strength Prosperity in Union any good in Unity that thou wouldst take deeply into thine Heart and treasure up safely there and frequently with fixed studious eyes contemplate this as I humbly conceive it most sure and reconciling Truth which I shall now as I am able represent to thee Often yea for the most part two opposed Parties have something on each side excellently good something exorbitantly evil although perhaps in unequal degrees Both mutually set after an unmoveable manner before their eyes their own good the evil on the other part Thus they blind their minds to all sense or belief of any good there Thus they lift up themselves above all sense of their own evil So they heighten themselves by self-justifications by mutual Condemnations unto an extinguishing of every beam
most beautiful Ideas of his Skill and Wisdome Shall he not here lay on the greatest Riches of his Divine Goodness Shall he not stamp on these the most glorious Seal of his Truth his Faithfulness to the work of his hands Shall he not give the most heightned life and sweetning to this Seal of his Goodness Truth and Skill Doth not he understand that the perfection of the whole work lies that the praise and glory of the Workman depends principally if not entirely upon these Joynts on which the motion of the whole in so high a degree depends I will briefly conclude this part of my Discourse Reader think of God as Sweetness it self all pure unmixt unconfined Think of God as the Spirit of Love Beauty Joy all in one in their most abstracted Essences in their highest Exaltation in their greatest amplitude in their most potent vigour incorruptible eternal Think of God as the purest and richest Spring without beginning or end as the clearest Sea without bottom or bounds of all Perfections in the highest degree of Pleasantness of all Pleasantness in the highest Perfection Think of all things together with thy self in this God the Unchangeable Original of all according to their first and truest forms according to their eternal Truths one Goodness and Sweetness together with this goodness and sweetness it self one Spirit with this Spirit of all Loves Beauties and Joys in Divine figures divinely distinct as the first and fullest Variety in the first and entirest Unity When thou hast thought thus of God now think whether all things within thee do not with the fullest concurrence meet in this one only most passionate desire that this God may alone conduct his whole Work the whole course of all things that he may be present may act may appear alone in every part in every motion of it as filling so many figures and shadows of Himself After all consider whether that ground in which is founded the desire of this as the most perfect good the Object of all desires be not as firm a foundation for the belief of this no less agreeable Truth to the Understanding than it is of good to the Will Can Goodness and Truth be separated when Truth is Goodness in its essential Image in its fullest fairest reflection Shall not the most perfect Workman bring forth the most perfect Work the best from the best Shall not the highest God the most true of Himself thus do who is the supream Good whose Will is Goodness it self where as Ficinus upon Plato speaks the highest Voluntariness and the highest Necessity most beautifully and most pleasantly meet in the most inviolable band of the most true the most perfect Good 2. Head of Arguments I pass now to the second Head of Arguments taken from the Mediation of Christ and opposed to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in a freedome from the predetermination of its Acts in its essential Principles and superior Causes My method of treating of the Mediation of Christ and directing my Discourse upon it to the service of my present design shall be this I will endeavour with all humility and holy reverence by the conduct of that sweet Light which falls from the Face of Christ by the guidance of his Eyes the only Fountain of Grace and Truth to set before us the Lord Jesus in those three principal Parts of his Mediation as he is 1. The ground 2. The way 3. The end of the whole Work of God 1. Jesus Christ is the ground of the whole Work of God This is the first and principal part of Christ's Mediation in which he is the Golden Head of the whole Image of things in Grace and Nature This well understood according to the weak capacity of our Understanding here below seemeth to make all the other parts of the Mediatorship with the whole tract of things plain and pleasant That which in Divinity and Philosophy is understood by the name of a Person is an Intellectual Being compleatly existing Therefore God Angels which are called Gods and Men made in the Image of God which are also dignified with the Name of God in the holy Scripture are only stiled and esteemed Persons The reason of the Name I humbly conceive to be this Every Intellectual Spirit according to the propriety of its Nature and Essence comprehendeth entirely within it self the principle of its own Essence its essential form and operation by comprehending in it self the whole nature of things The Understanding in its perfect Act and Being in its largest compass are said by Philosophers to meet in a mutual proportion and union the one being the proper and adequate Object of the other Therefore the Greeks call every Intellectual Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole The prime operation of every Intellectual Spirit is contemplation The first and immediate Object of its contemplation is its own Essence In this Glass of living and immortal Light all other things according to their proper essences in their several and essential forms appear to it most clearly and delightfully as its own Births and Beauties God the first and most perfect the Father and King of all Intellectual Spirits is the truest Person He alone in truth subsisteth in himself existeth without and above all things He truly containeth the whole compass of things in their unchangeable Truths and Substances within himself although he Himself be the most absolute and most abstracted Unity Angels and Men in the perfection of their Natures are no more than shadowy persons They have only shadowy Essences a shadowy comprehension of shadows God then alone most perfectly and substantially enjoyeth Himself in the contemplation of Himself which is the Beatifical Vision of the most beautiful the most blessed Essence of Essences This Act of Contemplation is an Intellectual and Divine Generation in which the Divine Essence with an eternity of most heightned Pleasures eternally bringeth forth it self within it self into an Image of it self According to the Perfection in which God knoweth Himself and enjoyeth Himself so is the Perfection of this Image As those are so is this clear distinct and full The more distinct the beam is from the first Light in its emanation the more strong and full is the reflectiou This Divine Image then is at once most perfectly distinct from its Divine Original most exactly equal to it and most perfectly one with it As then God is so is this essential eternal Image of God a compleat and distinct Person in it self in every point with the highest and most ravishing agreeableness answering the Divine Esseunce in its spring out of which it ariseth If this Image were not a compleat Person Gods knowledge and fruition of Himself would be incompleat without the pleasing and proportionate returns of an equal Loveliness Life and Love If this Image were not most perfectly distinct from the bosome out of which it flourisheth the knowledge and enjoyment of God would be confused more
Christ is the Reason of God the Reason of the Divine Nature the universal Reason of the whole Creation in which lieth the particular Reason of each Creature in its Essence in its Operations Thus is Jesus Christ the universal Harmony of the Godhead and of the whole Work of God He is that Harmony according to the measure of which the whole work of God is formed The Reader is desired to take notice That the Authors Papers upon this Head were imperfect and that he will find what can be recovered of them before the finishing of this Work together with a large Discourse upon this whole Argument of the Mediation of Christ at the end of the Book where it was thought most convenient to place it because of its length The third Head of Arguments in this Cause of Free-will is the Universal Nature of the Creature Every Creature is a shadow That that is first in every kind is such by it self and every other thing by that God is the first Being the only Original All created Being in every kind degree or manner of being is a shadow of this Original and so is all that which it is in every distinct form motion or circumstance in its Essence Subsistence and Operations distinctly by this It hath its Being by the first Being It subsists it acts by the subsistency and by the acting of this first Being this first subsistency this first activity in it The whole Creation in its best state is no more than a shadowy Image of the Great Creator Man who is stiled the Glory of God as being the band the sealed sum the circling Crown of the whole Creation is said to be made in the Image of God The various Powers and Beauties dispersed thorow the several Creatures to make the whole a compleat Image of the Divine Nature meet in one in Him as a comprehension of the whole in whom the Divine Image is as entire but more heightned and refined as being more finisht here being drawn out further being more elaborate and having the last hand put to it Thus was He made worthy to be the Son of God the Figure of Jesus Christ in order to lie eternally in his bosome as his Bride and to be a Fellow-Heir of God together with Him Yet was this Image in which man was thus made a shadowy Image only The word by which it is express'd in the first of Genesis is Tselem This word hath in it entirely the name of a shadow It hath also the first and chief letter of Death with which it ends It signifies properly such an Image as is an empty vanishing dying shadow the shadow of a substance without any substance a shadow of life without any true life The same word is used Psal. 39. 6. Man walketh in a vain shew and disquieteth himself in vain The word here rendred a vain shew is Tselem the same with that by which the Image of God in Man is express'd Gen. 1. The words immediately preceding in this Psalm are these Man in his best state is all of him all vanity The Reason is added Man walks in a vain shew Man himself in the purity of his Nature in the unfaded the unstained flower of all his senses in the primitive heighth of all his Intellectual Glories was a vain shew The Paradise of his Understanding the invisible World of Angels with all the Virgin beauties and sweetnesses of both in the midst of which he walketh were a vain shew For they round about him with all their pomp and pleasantness were no more than a shadowy Image of the Divine World lying in the bosome of it He himself was a shadowy Image of the Divine Essence and Person in the midst of a world of shadows We have this word us'd again Psal. 73. 20 As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their Image Image here is Tselem which before was translated vain shew God the supream and eternal Spirit is here presented bringing forth this World as a man doth a dream in his sleep The darkness at the beginning of the Creation described Gen. 1. seems here to be alluded to as a mysterious sleep into which the first Spirit the Fountain of all the Father of all after a Divine manner cast its self Then the Light with the work of the six days and so the whole Creation springeth forth from this Spirit in this sleep as a dream The Devil with his Ministers or Creatures Angels and Man by the Fall become Princes and Lords of this Creation They possess the Powers Treasures and Glory of this World But all this while themselves with all these created Riches Honours and Joys in which they swim and swell are only shadows in a dream beneath the shining and anointed feet of those true substantial immortal Beauties and Sweetnesses to which their hope their sight their imaginations can never raise themselves When this eternal Spirit in whose sleep like painted forms in a dream they vainly flutter about awakeneth himself he at once dissolveth them into their own nothingness and despiseth them as having never been any thing yea less than nothing in the Light of Divine Truth and in the glorious face of the eternal substances Thus we see the universal Nature of the Creature and of Man in their first form to consist in a shadowy Image If the Creature were its own Original and had the truth the life of its own Being its Original form in it self it were no more a Creature but a God As then the Face in the Waters or in the Glass in all its powers parts colours and motions dependeth upon the living face being determinated by it every moment so are all Creatures all Spirits Angels or Men in their Essences Powers or Operations continually figured by those forms in which the eternal Spirit from above presenteth it self as the reflections of that Spirit like the shapes of the Clouds or the Face of Heaven in a clear stream This truth seemeth to be with a Divine elegancy set forth Cant. 5. 12. It is said there of Jesus Christ That his Eyes are as Doves above thâ—… Rivers of Waters washing in milk full set Thus the words in Hebrew most properly render themselves A learned Jew in his Paraphrase hath this gloss upon those words Full set The whole world is the fulness of his Eyes There seemeth to be in this verse a plain allusion to that expression Gen. 1. of the Spirit moving upon the waters or above the waters The Chaldee Paraphrase makes this to be in the form of a Dove The Lamb in the Revelation is said to have seven Eyes a perfect number expressing a full Variety The Ideal forms or the first Images of things those eternal Truths and Lights of Life in the Person of Christ as the essential Image the sweetest the only living Light of the Godhead are these Eyes of the Bridge-groom here celebrated These Eyes are Doves pure eternal
the perfection of every thing The suitableness and convenience makes the Goodness Every thing hath essentially in its nature an inclination to its Good to its Perfection to every thing suitable and agreeable to it Suitableness is from Similitude Similitude is from Unity For it is an agreement in the same form Every thing then hath in its essence an inclination to a suitable Object to its Perfection to its Good as to it self presented distinctly to it self and to the compleating of it self in the embraces of it self Thus it appears that the Soul essentially is its own Will in as much as its essence taken most abstractedly being a substantial Act is in that Act an essential inclination to its own Good and Perfection Thus also it appears that the Understanding of the Soul is the Will of the Soul in as much as in its distinct formality it is an inclination to Truth as to its proper Perfection and Good Again the most proper and most perfective Act of the Will in its most perfect state is Love Love is an Union The Object of the Will is Good in its full Latitude the essential substantial universal Good The Act of the Will in Love is then a mutual intimate Union with the Object by which it adequately comprehends it and is adequately comprehended by it The Will then which is necessarily equal to that which it comprehends can be no other than the essence or substance of the Soul it self of which we have before said that it hath all Essences of things essentially within it self and so the whole compass of Being compleat within it self As it represents it self in this whole compass of Being to it self in a distinct Image and so reflects upon it self it is its own Understanding As it doth by this distinct Image with mutual embraces mutually comprehend and enjoy it self in Love and Joy it is its own Will it s own Love and Joy So we seem to have proved that the Will as it is a distinct faculty is really and formally the same with the essence and substance of the Soul We will endeavour also to prove that the Will comprehends the Understanding in its own proper and distinct formality 1. When the Soul Loves it self and understands it self both these Acts fall under the same definition of comprehending it self in a distinct and compleat Image of it self This Act cannot but be mutual if the Image of the Soul be adequate to the Soul and so are Love and Understanding both in one 2. The Acts and Motions of the Will do imply sense in their essential Formalities Sense in the Intellectual Soul is Understanding 3. The Object attracts and acts the Faculty by impressions of it self The impression of Good upon an Intellectual Subject is an Intellectual tast or relish of the Good The impression of an Intellectual Good which is the proper Object of the VVill is an Intellectual impression 4. The VVill as it is essentially distinguished from the natural Appetite which inanimate things are naturally moved by and from the sensitive Appetite proper to bruit Creatures is defined to be a rational Appetite Thus it comprehends Reason or Understanding in its essential Form So we have attempted to make it plain that Those three the Essence the Understanding the VVill of the Intellectual Soul mutually comprehend one another in their essential Formality and are perfectly adequate one to another so far as the Soul is in a state of Perfection perfectly understanding and loving it self By the way In this Glass you may have a pleasant glimps of the Trinity 1. The Soul in its essence is an Unity comprehending it self and all created forms of things intirely in one substantial and indivisible Act as the Fountain of all This is a shadow of the Father in the Trinity 2. The Understanding of the Soul is the essential and adequate Image of this Unity in which it bringeth forth and contemplates it self within it self This is the Son the Word 3. The VVill is the essential the intellectual and adequate Union of these two with the most full communion and highest complacency by which they propagate and multiply themselves within themselves into an endless Race of innumerable Forms in each of which they are still themselves intire and compleat This is the figure of the Holy Spirit Thus he that knows God knows the Soul as the Picture by the Life and he that knows the Soul knows God as the Life by the Picture Each of these is all to it self within it self God as the Original Life-World the Soul as the shadowy VVorld the World of shadows But to conclude this Argument If the Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill be really one and formally distinct so that every one comprehends all Three in its proper Formality where is that freedome of the VVill by which it may act independent on the Understanding VVe will seal up this Argument with that confirmation of it which seems to have great strength and clearness Powers and faculties are distinguished according to their Objects The Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill differ as Being Truth and Goodness not really but formally only formally comprehending the formality of each other The Reader is desired to take notice That how ever the Author in one of his Copies intended only this short accompt of this Argument taken from the Nature of the Soul yet a larger Discourse upon this Head being found amongst his Papers it is judg'd most fitting in this place to publish it The chief Praise of this Age is that it runs along in a stream directly contrary to the Romish Church having little veneration for an implicite Faith Tradition Antiquity Universality in the persuit of Truth It s labour and glory is with its hands eyes and spirit to penetrate and view the first grounds of Truth I desire it may be as happy in distinguishing between the upper part of the beam of Light where it unites it self to its Sun and Fountain where it is firmest fullest brightest warming enlivening as well as shining and the lower part of the beam which touches the Earth and the Senses where it is weak wavering obscure mixt with and vanishing into the darkest shade I shall therefore endeavour taking my rise somewhat high from the Fountain of things to open the Nature of the Soul with as much clearness and plainness as I am able and the nature of the Subject will bear in these three Propositions 1. Prop. The Intellectual Soul in Man is an Unity altogether indivisible comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms Powers and Parts without and above all Division 2. Prop. This indivisible Unity containeth in it self the full Variety of all forms created uncreated after its own manner according to its own proper Character 3. Prop. The most perfect and full Image of God in the midst of the Creation resulting from the Harmonious Union of the Unity and Variety is the Soul's Essence and
it self in its Essence and Operations in its self and in all its works Thus is Righteousness also as Justice the Harmony and Unity of things The Divine Righteousness is the Divine Harmony and Unity diffusing it self through all things and knitting all things together as Links in one Golden Chain The perfection of Harmony is the Unity in Variety The Harmony is perfect when the Unity is entire and the Variety full A full Variety is that in which nothing of Variety is wanting A principal part in the Variety extending it to a greater amplitude is the Contrariety This then is the Divine pleasure and glory in the Harmony when the Unity by its Divine fruitfulness and force brings forth it self through all degrees of Variety into the remotest forms the most opposite Contrarieties and Extreams When it brings forth it self through these into it self again and reigns triumphantly at once as over the whole so over each part of the Variety residing on the whole as one Throne one Kingdom and on each part as a distinct Throne a distinct Kingdom equal with the whole The Divine Harmony is Three-fold 1. The first Harmony is that of the Godhead of the Divine Essence in it self This is the essential Righteousness of God As it is the Righteousness so is it the Love the Joy the Loveliness the Wisdome Power Glory of God All the Excellencies of God in one one and entire in every Excellency by the Unity Yet in every Excellency most highly distinct by the Variety in the Harmony The Harmony of the Divine Essence is that sacred and adorable mystery of the Trinity the mystery of God 2. The second Harmony is the Harmony of the Divine Nature as the Original And the Harmony in the Nature of the Creature as the figure married together into one Divine Harmony by a mutual and mysterious Union By this Union these two mutually subsist in each other shine upon shine in and through each other The Original Harmony is the Principle of subsisting and shining This is the Head the Person which gives Being Beauty Subsistency Lustre to its own Figure in the created Harmony shining upon it self in and through it This is the Mediatory Righteousness or the Righteousness of God in Christ the Righteousness of the Gospel of our Justification Sanctification Glorification This Righteousness in Christ as our Head comprehending us in it self by virtue of the mutual Union cloathing us filling us overflowing us is our Justification the Beauty of our Persons shining in the Glory of our Head entire from the first moment and unchangeable This Righteousness by virtue of our mutual Union with our Jesus in the Unity of the Spirit as our Root springs forth in us transforms us into its own heavenly Image carries us up into a Communion with it self in its own Divine Life Beauties and Joys Thus by the gradual growths of this Righteousness in us are we gradually sanctified through all changes of life doth this Plant grow in us by Night and by Day In Death it arrives at its perfect growth Our Sanctification thus in Death made perfect is the glorification of our Persons In one moment doth this Divine Righteousness this heavenly Harmony take us up into it self unto the justification of our Persons in its spotless eternal universal Beauties to the filling of us with the unexpressible Peace and Joys of its most sweet eternal universal Musick and in the same moment it springs up in us unto our Sanctification to the framing of us by degrees unto the same Beauty and the tuning of us to the same Musick in our selves This is the moment of our New-Birth our Marriage-Union with our Jesus our believing This is the second Righteousness 3. The third Righteousness is that of the shadowy Image in the primitive state of the Creation This is the Righteousness of Man a shadowy Righteousness the shadow of the eternal Harmony This is the essential Form of Man in pure nature This is the Reason of Man the shadow of the eternal Reason the Word the essential Harmony in the Divine Mind The Lord Jesus being the first the supream the essential Image of God is also the first the supream the essential Harmony the Essence of Harmony in its eternal Spirit the essential Harmony the essential Righteousness of the Divine Nature The Lord Jesus is the Original the Universal Image the Image of Images the Idea of Idea's the Spring the Seat the Truth the first of all Ideas He is the Idea of the Godhead of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Thus is he the Root the Rule the Harmony the Righteousness of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Having laid these grounds for the illustrating of the Doctrine of St. Paul I will now from St. Paul and upon these grounds sum up into a close this part of my Discourse concerning the nature of the Humane Soul or Man The Essence of the Soul containeth the fulness of all thing in it in one substantial indivisible Act. The Soul opens it self into this fulness of things by a three fold Revolution within it self within the spacious Palace of its own glorious Essence 1. From the Bosome or Womb of its own Ideal Glories which are the Original the Measure the Bound of the Souls Essence and Perfection the Soul descendeth into a shadowy Image Thus it first appears upon the beautiful Stage of this World in its first Creation God himself in his invisible Glories with eternity in his eternal Power and Godhead is now in the Soul is seen by the Soul but shadowed by this shadowy and vailing Image within which he resides Thus hath the Soul within her self her Idea in Christ in God in Eternity as her Fountain in Eden which flowing forth all through the Soul in this shadowy Image makes it all a sweetly-shadowed Paradise This is the first Revolution 2. As in the Harmony of this shadowy Image lies the Contrariety a part of the Variety in the Harmony So from the Divine force of this Harmony acted by the Ideal Harmony lying hid in it the Soul rouleth it self out of the lowest and remotest degree of the Unity into the Contrariety as a Note in a Musical Lesson upon the Lute struck and sounding in its proper time Now is the Beauty the Integrity the Sweetness of this shadowy Image in Deformity in Ruines in Bitterness and Enmity Sin and Death swallow up all The Soul stands in a Contrariety to the Divine Purity Love Light Immortality In the place of Purity is Filth of Light Darkness of Love Enmity of Immortality Death God now being the Supream Unity and Harmony opposeth himself as most directly most highly most irreconcilably contrary to this Contrariety to the breach of the Unity to the discord in the Harmony that he may subdue it and reduce it unto an Unity for the making up of the Harmony and so making it more full by the Contrariety more sweet by the Enmity Thus the Divine
come now to the third Reason I am to answer Reason 3 The Language of the Scripture in the whole current of it seemeth generally to run along upon this ground of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering The Will of Man is charged with them Agreeable to this are the Divine Precepts Prohibitions Promises Threatnings Admonitions Reproofs Complaints Expostulations which compose a great part of the sacred Writings Answ. I answer by a distinction This manner of Language As I live I desire not the death of a Sinner Why will ye die O house of Israel with all expressions like to these are either 1. Proper and plain 2. Figurative and mysterious 1. If they be proper and plain two great Difficulties arise 1. The true and living God thus represented appears like Homers Gods and the Gods of the Poets Weak querulous passible ever in contentions and combates 2. While the Divine Will in that on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention is capable of being opposed and defeated it appears destitute of Wisdom Power and Blessedness 2. If they be figurative and mysterious The figures first are to be determined and the mystery vailed beneath the figure to be discovered before we can establish any certain or clear sense upon them 1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language is by the consent of Divines complicated of an Anthropopathy and a Metonymy 2. The Anthropopathy is then when passions proper to man are attributed to God 2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect and the things signified in the place of the sign So those changeable passions in created Spirits which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work So the Jews say That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue and in the Language of a Man But all such figurative expressions concerning God are to be understood with this Caution Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature But all imperfections attending the figure are to be removed All perfections in their utmost heights and most absolute fulness are to be attributed to the Original pattern when by the shadowy figure in the Creature you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God So by these changeable and diverse passions in man you are to represent to your selves in God a Goodness a Power an unsearchable Riches of Variety and manifoldly various Wisdom and all these apart and together with the most absolute simplicity and highest Unity in the Divine Essence producing all diversities of accidents all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design which cometh forth at once as one piece divinely Rich in all Varieties from him and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him who is unchangeable and most perfectly one 2. Having thus determined of the Figure Let us try to lift up the Vail and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret and hidden Glory by several steps or degrees 1. The letter of the Scripture in the general â—…ream and current of it is the Ministry of the Law So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel or the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able speaking of God Ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life In the following verse the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone and Moses are mentioned Again in prosecution of the same Discourse Moses with his Vail is brought in To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses The Spirit of the Lord the liberty of the Spirit the sight of the Glory of the Lord with an unvailed Face the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image from glory to glory and all this by the Lord the Spirit These things laid together seem to make it clear that in the sense of the holy Apostle the letter the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us in a literal and moral way only whether outward or inward amounteth to no more then the old Covenant the Ministery of the Law on the other side the new Covenant the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter and upon our hearts bringing us forth into the Liberty the open Light and the Divine Life of the Spirit giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ in his spiritual and heavenly Glory and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory springing up and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity Suitable to this is that of St. Paul Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law That the man which doth these things shall live by them Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel The Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises He that doth these things shall live by them But the Gospel maketh Promises the sure the sweet the precious pleasant ground of Precepts So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self most great and precious Promises are given us that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises Work out saith he your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2. 2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect is not Love Righteousness Life and Blessedness but Condemnation Death and Wrath 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death At the ninth verse The ministry of Condemnation St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly That if there had been a Law which could have given Life Righteousness should have been by the Law St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel First The Law by Descriptions Commands Allurements Terrors setteth Righteousness before us but infuseth not a new Nature a new Life into us which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness as Plants spâ—…ing up out of the ground and out of their proper root Secondly the Law not giving Christ himself to us to be a quickning Spirit in us to be our Life to be one Life with us cannot give us Righteousness either to the acceptation of our
Epithete of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a large Gallery or Porch in Athens painted at the cost and order of Pericles by the most skilful Artists with the most exquisite skill and with that which is the most heightned point in this skill for life and delight the greatest Variety was called from this peculiar excellency the Variety in the Pictures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Jesus is replenished and adorned with the richest Variety of Divine Forms which that Divine Painter Naetura Naturans the eternal Nature the eternal Spirit is capable of bringing forth Thus is our Jesus become not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Porch or Gallery of Divine Variety for God himself and all his holy Ones to walk in Here do they contemplate themselves the Ideas of their own Spirits all their Works in their liveliest and sweetest Figures Ah! how is the King how are all his glorious train tyed eternally in this Gallery But thus much for the first excellency in this Mediatory Person of Christ. 2. The second is the Harmonious Order of all the Parts These are five 1. Divine Love in its eternal Original or the Divine Unity at its full heighth This is Jesus Christ in his Godhead as he is the essential Image of the Godhead One with the Father as he is the Head the Root the Bridegroom To himself in his created Image sprung forth from subsisting in the Bosom of the essential Image and Glory All Forms in the heighth and exactness of their several Distinctions in their first their fullest Variety are here at the heighth in the absoluteness of the Divine Unity which is most heightned purity the perfection of Light and of Love 2. Divine Love descending into an Image of Light or the supream Unity in a clear and sweet Union with Diversity This is properly our Jesus in his Middle-state in his Mediatory Image Here are all forms of things with all their Distinctions at once in the most perfect Unity and in a Diversity with a subordination Yet is this a clear and shining Diversity a Diversity without distance or division every where full of the Divine Unity 3. The third Part in this Glory of Christ is the Divine Love declining into a shadowy Image or the Divine Unity shaded with the Diversity yet sweetly figuring it self upon the Diversity and subsisting with all its Glories beneath it This is the Divine Love in a sweet sleep fill'd with a pleasant dream where all the Divine Forms vailed with the shading Diversity seem to act a Divine Masque to the Divine Musick of eternal Love seeming to sound at a great distance thorow these shades In the first of Genesis a deep darkness is the ground of the whole Creation This is exprest by Bohu and Tohu Bohu He is in it Tohu the last bound ultima linea rerum This is the Chaos the ground of the first Creation a Divine shadow which the Divine Glory casteth from it self with which it surrounds and vails it self in which himself with all Divine Forms doth lie as the glories of a Plant in its seed under the Earth or as Man with all his Intellectual Angelical Divine Powers Notions Glories in a deep sleep This the Jews call the darkness round about the Throne of God and apply to this the black Locks like a Raven upon the Bridegrooms head of fine Gold in the Canticles This is the Philosopher's Materia prima Metaphysica first Metaphysical Matter out of which Angels Coelestial Bodies Elementary Forms sprung as Flowers out of the ground of Paradise Out of this Darkness God called the Light of the first Day the Primitive Light of the Creation which by varying it self with the Diversity of shades from this ground of the Divine Darkness springs forth into all the several Lives Forms and Motions thorow the whole Nature of things This is not the true Light which hath no darkness in it but the shadowy Image of that Light The Darkness out of which and in the midst of which this Light shineth is the sweet sleep of the eternal Love The Light is the pleasant dream in this Divine sleep Thus Man the Diapason or full Musick of the whole Creation composed of all the several Forms as several Notes is said to be made Betzelem in a shadowy Image of God The same word is used by the Psalmist where man is said to walk in a vain show In which respect the Holy Spirit pronounceth the purest Beauties and Joys of the earthly Paradise to be Vanity Dreams and no more the shadows or figures of things in a Dream Man in his best state is altogether Vanity I beg thy leave Christian Reader here to make use of that History if not in an Allegorical yet an accommodated or Allusive sense God cast Adam into a deep sleep and then divided Eve from him and brought them together again no more as one person but two Before the Spirit had said God made man Male and Female made he him As if Man had been then like the Angels which neither marry nor give in marriage but comprehend both Sexes with all their Progeny as a full Quire in one Person in one Spirit For thus they say of Angels Every one is both Male and Female in himself a God-like Unity diffusing it self within it self into all Variety with a Divine amplitude without division or distance But thus our Jesus first is both Bridegroom and Bride within himself he comprehendeth the Divine Nature the Universal Image of the whole Creation in one Divine Person Spirit Life Image Joy and Glory But then by the Law of the eternal Harmony in the Divine Nature in its essential Image he falls into a sweet and deep sleep In this sleep as in a Divine dream is the Bride divided from her Bridegroom Now they with their Race of Divine Forms meet in diverse Persons as shadows of themselves Yet do they in their Peâ—…sons in all their Motions bear the Divine Impressions and amiable Figures of their eternal Ideas in the Love and Light of eternity These eternal Ideas while they sleep in these shadows yet awake beneath them above them to act them to shadow forth their own Sweetnesses and Beauties upon them These shadows of this dream are indeed shadowy compared with the eternal Glories yet have they a real Being a real existency in theiâ—… own place and order But we will now pass to the fourth part of this Divine Piece 4. This is the Divine Unity opening it self in the shadowy Image into a Contrariety the utmost point of its Variety This is the Divine Love in a storm in its dream and sleep The Divine Love is here in a disguise God who is Love calleth the Work of Wrath his strange Work The ministry of the Law and the Letter which casts a Vail upon the Face of God is the same in the Language of the Scriptures We read in the Revelations Of the Wrath of the Lamb. Wrath is the
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
him If any man be in Christ saith St. Paul he is a new Creation old things are passed away 2 Cor. 5. It is a known story recited by Plutarch That of a great Cry with dreadful shrieks and groans to Thamus a Pilot as he passed by a desolate Island in the Reign of Tiberius under whom Christ was put to death Great Pan is dead this great All is dead The Heathen figured the whole Creation in the Person of their God Pan the Angelical Coelestial and Elementary parts of it 2. The Death of Christ is an universal Resolution or Return of all things as they stand in Christ into their first and Divine Principles The Light the Life the Forms the Essences of all things return into their Ideal Forms their incorruptible Originals and Patterns their pure eternal Springs in the Mediatory Form and Divine Nature of Christ. The shadowyness returns into that blessed shade that fell immediately from the Person of Christ in Glory that Primitive and Divine Darkness which was before the first Day the Womb of the first Light and of the whole Creation which composed those Nights of Beauty Peace and Pleasure the Nights of the six Days the Night of the seventh Day and all the Nights of Paradise Thus was Jesus with the good Thief and all things with him in him in Paradise at his Death The Jewish Rabbins distinguish Paradise from Heaven thus Heaven is a state of Divine Glory and Pleasure above in the open Light of â—…e Godhead Paradise is a state of Divine incorruptible Glory and Pleasure below beneath the shades of the Earth This is that pure primitive Divine Darkness of which I speak which was the shade out of which the pure Earth with all the unstained Forms of things at first arose and into which they now return again in Christ. This is the Divine sleep of all things in the Death of Christ their retirement into their Divine Patterns their sweet and entire rest in them their contemplation and fruition of all the immortal Joys and Glories of their Patterns and of themselves in those Joys and Glories as a Divine dream in this sleep within this sweet this amiable this more than Angelical shade which over-spreads them Here they desirously and delightfully wait for the Day of the Resurrection from the Face of God which they see by degrees dawning and rising upon them when the sweet Peace of this lovely shade shall break up into the more full and glorious sweetness of the supream Light and that eternal Day St. Paul expresseth all this to us when he teacheth us That Christ hath gathered up all things into one in himself Col. 2. The Greek word properly signifies there the Resolution or Return of things back into their first Principle their Original Spring and Pattern 3. The third and last part of the Mediation of Christ in our Redemption as it was accomplished in his own Person is his Resurrection and Ascension These two agree are the same in nature and kind differing only in degree The Resurrection of Christ is the breaking up of that primitive shade which over-spread him into a clear Light of Glory Now he springs up and flourisheth throughout his whole Person and all things together with him in his Person in the Beauty and Immortality of his Mediatory Form He is now become an entire Spirit in his Humane Nature both Soul and Body This two Scriptures make clear to us Jesus Christ saith to Nicodemus Joh. 3. 6. That that which is begotten of the Spirit is Spirit The word there is a Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual substance or substantial Spirit Now it is manifest in the Scriptures that the Resurrection of Christ in the Body was an immediate Generation by the eternal Spirit So Divines interpret and apply those words Heb. 1. 5. cited from the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Suitable to this is that Scripture Rom. 1. 4. Declared the Son of God with power according to the holy spirit by the Resurrection from the dead Two things are manifest from this Scripture 1. That Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the immediate Power and Operation of the holy Spirit 2. That this Resurrection was a Divine Generation by the Spirit through which he was brought forth into the proper Form of the Son of God That which we read declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly defined or determinately formed This receives further Light from St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 18. Being put to death truly in the flesh but quickned in the spirit We read it by the Spirit but in Grâ—… the Flesh and Spirit do so exactly answer one another in the construction and manner of expression that one would think nothing to be plainer than the intention of the Holy Ghost to signifie that the Flesh and the Spirit had both the same relation to the Person of Christ in those different states of his dying and rising again that by this change the Spirit came in the place of the Flesh and that the Flesh was changed into a Spirit as by a natural Generation that that was Water or Air is made Fire The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same sense in which he died in Flesh or to the Flesh So he rose again in the Spirit or to Spirit That same Body which died a fleshly compounded mortal substance rose again a simple pure immortal Spirit As the Humanity of Christ rose again a Spirit so it rose in an immediate inseparable Union with the eternal Spirit upon the same Root into the same Life and Image St. Paul instructeth us in this mystery 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam a quickning Spirit vers 45. The subject of St. Paul's Discourse there and in many verses before is the Resurrection of the Body He said immediately before It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body proper for a Soul It is raised a spiritual Body a Body proper for a Spirit vers 44. He illustrates this afterwards The first man is of the Earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven vers 47. Then he distinguisheth them by the names of the earthly and the heavenly man or the Super-Coelestial vers 48. He likewise distinguisheth their two Images the Image of the earthly and the Image of the heavenly or super-coelestial vers 49. Then he concludes with a a positive and emphatical Declaration But this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God vers 50. From these Scriptures laid together these particulars seem evidently to arise 1. Jesus Christ by the Resurrection in his whole Humane Nature both Soul and Body is a supernatural super-coelestial Spirit far above the nature of Souls or Angels in the first Creation 2. The humanity of Christ hath now its Root in Heaven in that Heaven out of which it comes forth
and appears as Lord of all the Heaven of the Fathers Bosom the Heaven of the eternal Spirit and of the Godhead where it hath the Root of its Personality and its Life hidden with God from the natural eye of every Creature 3. The whole Manhood of Christ is cloathed with an heavenly or super-coelestial Image an Image suitable and proper to that Heaven out which he springs 4. The Manhood of Christ is so immediately entirely mutually united to the eternal Spirit the Godhead it self that Christ as he is man is said to be a quickning spirit The Humane Nature and the Divine in the Lord Jesus are so far now become one Spirit as in a mystical Marriage where at the height of their Unity they keep the distinction as high and clear 5. â—…us Christ in his Humane Nature in his Body as well as his Soul is thus become a Spirit in opposition to the earthly and fleshly substance of the natural Body of the first man which is declared incapable of entring into the Kingdom of God 6. This spiritual and super-coelestial state above the natural Body and above the natural Soul of the first man in his primitive state and so above the Creation in its visible or invisible part when it was most pure is properly the Kingdom of God to which that of St. Paul agreeth when he placeth the Kingdom of God in the eternal Spirit Thus the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is his Return with his Humane Nature with his shadowy Image with the whole Creation in himself into the Immortality and Glory of his Mediatory Form to be there as he was at first This is the Object of his Hope the subject of his Prayer Now O Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was Joh. 17. 5. What time that now relates unto you may understand by the fore-going verse I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work which thou gavest me to do Jesus Christ speaketh this by a Prolepsis or Anticipation having his Eye upon the finishing his Work upon the Face of the Earth by dying and finishing his Work in the Heart or nethermost parts of the Earth by lying the appointed time in the Grave Jesus Christ points out to us three eminent Circumstances in his Resurrection 1. The first is a Glory with his Father an Union and Fellowship with the Godhead and with the Person of the Father in his own proper and Divine personal Glory He expresseth this twice over as the chiefest sweetness of his Hopes and the principal Glory in the Glory Glorifie me with thy self with the Glory which I had with thee 2. This Glory transcends that of the whole Creation in its greatest Perfection as it also antecedes it as it also is a Glory which was before the World was 3. Here are three states distinctly represented to us 1. Jesus Christ in Glory before he came into this World before this World was 2. Jesus Christ coming forth from that Glory into this World and being without that Glory all that interval of his Life here 3. The return of Christ at his Death and Resurrection into the same Glory These three states must necessarily respect Jesus Christ in the same form under the same relation to accommodate this sense and make that proper The Person of Christ in his shadowy Image in which he was the Head of the whole Creation and comprehended this all in himself as he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and set himself in the place of all in their fallen estate So He was without the Glory Before all this in his Mediatory Form he stood together with God and his Father in his shadowy Image in Flesh and Blood with all the changes accompanying him after a spiritual manner filled and cloathed with a super-coelestial and eternal Glory Two Scriptures laid together give more light and strength to this place and this sense Jesus Christ having spoken to the Jews of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood Joh. 6. 56. Of his being the Bread coming down out of Heaven vers 58. Understanding the Jews to murmur and be offended at the hardness of this saying vers 60 61. makes this Reply to their murmurs What if ye shall see the Son of man ascending thither where he was at first or before It is the Spirit quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The words which I speak they are Spirit and Life The other Scripture is that Rom. 1. 4. Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of God From these two Scriptures compared the Truth of this mystery shines forth in these parts 1. The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ in the proper sense of Christ's words are Spirit and Life 2. They were Spirit and Life in the Glory of God before the coming down of Christ upon the Earth 3. From that state they came forth into their shadowy appearance here in this shadowy Image 4. They returned again together with this shadowy Image into that first state where casting off the Vail or rather converting the Vail into the same Nature and Form they were again all Spirit and Life by the Glory of God in the Resurrection springing up in them coming down upon them and taking them into it self Lastly The flesh and blood of Christ even when they are come forth from this spiritual and immortal Glory while they are in this shadowy state upon the Earth abide unchangeably in this Glory and are there still all Spirit all Life without any Vail or Cloud Thus are they the food of a Saint The Lord Jesus expresseth this sense No one hath ascended into Heaven but he who comes down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Two things are remarkable here 1. The being in Heaven is expressed by the Participle of the present Tense a present and constant Act. 2. The Title of the Son of Man is particulary added to that clause of the being in Heaven constantly without interruption while he comes down out of Heaven while he ascends into Heaven in the interval or space of his being on Earth between both these Jesus Christ as he is the Son of Man comes down at first out of that Heaven into which at last he returns and re-ascends In the same Heaven also hath he his present and constant abode while he is on Earth As the Heaven of Christ's Mediatory Glory and of the Fathers Glory which are far above all created Heavens the Heavens of this Creation come down together with him upon the Earth obscured beneath the Vail of Flesh and in this Flesh act all the parts of his living and dying here So do these Heavens also at once comprehend this Earth in the Person of Christ his flesh their obscurity before it All the parts of his Life and Death in the flesh as parts of Glory in these Heavens As Spirit and Life as spiritual and immortal Glories in the Fountain of Life and
one another into the Glory of God is the Rule of St. Paul Divines distinguish between the person together with the nature of the Deâ—…il and the evil The person the nature springs forth from God and so is good hath a Divinity and Glory in it a Divine Root a Divine Image It stands in the Glory of God as a Flower in the Garden a Bâ—…am in the Sun it is maintained by a continual emanation from the bosom of the supream Glory Thus thou art to receive every person clouded with the greatest evils as he is the work of Nature and of God into the Glory of God Thus every other person is to be thy Neighbour thy â—…rother in the Glory of God and the Object of a Divine Love No evil as evil is the nature or choice of any person but the mishap and the disease Truth is the only Object of every Understanding the only white at which it aims Like the Mary-gold it opens it self only to this Sun or that which shines upon it in the glorious form of this Sun and so descends in seeming beams of this Divine Beauty into its bosom Good is the only Object of the VVill. As the Needle toucht by the Load-stone is governed in its motion and rest by the North-pole so is the VVill moved and attracted by that alone which toucheth it with a sense of good It resteth in no bosom but that which courteth and wooeth it undâ—…r the Divine Form of good with the seeming Charms of this its only Beloved and Bridegroom St. Paul saith Sin deceived me and slew me No person is willingly dâ—…ceived in his belief of Truth on disappointed in his expectation of good Every evil is a degree of death a diseafe in the end death When it appeareth like it self all things fly from it as from death But as Cupid in the form of the young and flourishing Prince Ascanius by treacherous embraces and kisses breath'd a fatal poyson into the veins of the Carthaginean Queen So doth sin and evil by the hellish enchantments of the Prince of Darkness form it self into the most alluring resemblance of the heavenly Image composed of Truth and Goodness meeting in one immortal form It adorneth it self all over with the most curious and sparkling Counterfeits of all its most amiable most Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties Thus it insinuates it self into the eyes and hearts of the Sons of God and fills them with its false sweetnesses enflames them with a false Love as the poyson and fire from Hell Yet still in the midst of these enchantments and deaths as the Athenians in the midst of their Atheism and Idolatry had an Altar inscribed To the unknown God The Understanding and the Will according to their own proper natures stand in every natural Spirit as Altars in a Temple shining and burning with continual fires by night and by day aspiring to the highest and clearest Heavens through all opposed Clouds of Darkness while this inscription in clear Characters appeareth engraven round these Altars To the Unknown Good the Unknown God to the unknown Truth the unknown Jesus If any person then be faln into any evil Let those that are spiritual restore him with a spiritual skill with a spirit of Meekness and Divine Love Apply Reproofs Chastisements to evil persons in their seasons as a Brother gives an Antidote to a beloved Brother that by a mistake hath been surprized and drunk in poyson or as one hand applies a Medicine to the other hand or to the eye when it suffers by any wound or distemper If thou art an Angel and hast to do with a Devil use no reviling Language for so the Angel himself is by the Spirit of God markt with a Character of Honour for this that he used no reviling Speeches to the Devil Preserve thy self from that bitter zeal which St. James mentioneth upon which he setteth so evil a mark branding it deeply with the fire of Hell as a Devil transfiguring himself into the form of an Angel If there be saith he amongst you bitter envying this wisdom is not from above but earthly sensual and devillish We read it bitter envying In Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter zeal Take heed of suffering thy zeal against the evil to be mingled and tempered with a bitternâ—…ss against the person As Lightning from Heaven melts the Sword but doth no harm to the Scabbard Discover thou in all thy Reproofs and Chastisements an equal love to the person and hatred to the evil an equal desire to destroy the evil and save the person Or rather let thy zeal against the evil be love to the person flaming forth and burning with a great but with a sweet and Divine force that it may consume the Dross for the Golds-sake to which the dross cleaves that of the Gold thus refined it may make a Jewel for the Bosom or a Crown for the Head of Jesus Christ. Suffer not thy zeal against evil to be like the Locusts from the bottomless-pit which have faces like men hair soft and delicate like women Crowns of Glory upon their heads like Angels but venemous and killing stings in their tails Let it not be like Culinary fire or the fire of Hell black sooty and devouring but like the fire from the golden Altar mingled with sweet Incense filling all round about and carrying up that upon which it feeds as a Sacrifice to Heaven with the rich Odours and Perfumes of a Divine Love If I be lifted up to Heaven by manifold excellencies together with Corazin and Bethsaida from whence I look down upon another far beneath me lying like Sodom and Gomorrah in a loathed and hated deep of darknesses defilements disgraces Let me then think That this Sodom may have a better Spirit a better ground of good at the bottom of its Spirit than my self That if the seed of Love and Light which hath been sown in me had been sown with the like advantage there it would have far excelled me in its fruits Yea let me think that it may not only have a better ground but a Divine seed hid deep in that ground beneath all this soil and dung beneath all this darkness deformity and deadness of its Winter-season which may rise up in its proper Spring into pleasant Flowers and Fruits as the Garden of God Thus let me think and let these thoughts instruct me to love every other person removed to the greatest distance from me cast down to the greatest depth beneath me as my Neighbour my Brother my self This is my double Request to thee gentle Reader 1. That thou love every other person as thy Neighbour thy Friend thy self with that Divine Love in whose flame thou sacrificest thy self and all things to receive thy self again and all things together with thy self in a more excellent and durable form 2. That thou suffer nothing to stain the Candour of this Love whose Reasons being altogether Divine subject all other reason to themselves
Give me leave to strengthen this twofold Request by presenting to thee thine own Interest after the highest manner contained in it after a two-fold form 1. This Divine Love at this heighth in this Latitude is all that is true in Religion all that is good in Man all that is acceptable with God all the hope of future Glory and of blessed immortality If I give all my Goods to the Poor and my Body to be burnt and have not Charity I am nothing Is there any Charity or Love to Man greater than this to give all my Goods to the Poor Is there any Charity or Love to God more Divine than this to give my Body to be burnt for him Yes there is a Charity a Love which transcends all this which if I want I may yet have all this and be nothing This is that Divine Love of which I speak which lifteth not it self up above any of the works of God but keepeth the Unity of the eternal Workman of his Divine Design and VVork in the golden band of an universal Peace and Divine Amity This is that Divine Love which behaveth not it self uncomely seeketh not its own things breaketh not the Harmony of the whole dividing it self from the whole by a particular self-love In the universal Beauty and Melody of the Divine Wisdom and Work it respecteth it self as a part and all parts as it self having one Beauty and Joy together in the Beauty Joy and harmonious Perfection of the Divine Figure in the whole piece This Love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things suffereth all things This we read of the Divine Love 1 Cor. 13. 7. The first expression in that verse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render beareth all things I have three Reasons against this translation of it 1. It makes the last Clause of this verse a tautology a vain repetition It suffereth all things which is the same with the first 2. It is the remotest sense of the Greek word two senses being nearer 1. To cover 2. To contain or comprehend 3. These two nearer senses are more agreeable more full and Divine 1. The Divine Love covereth all things with the Divine loveliness and beauty of the universal Harmony which is the Righteousness of God in Christ the first the fairest Image of the invisible God in which every other Image of God standeth as in the Original the all-comprehending Glory This is that which Solomon saith Love covereth all sin And St. Paul of the Divine Workman of the Divine Love He putteth the highest comeliness that is the universal Comeliness of the Divine Image in its entireness and perfection upon every part even upon the most uncomely parts That there may be no schism or division in the Body that there may be one glory of all 2. The Divine Love in every Person or Spirit lives not in it self as a part but in the life of the whole in the Divine the Universal Spirit the Spirit of Love the Spirit of the whole I live not saith St. Paul but Christ liveth in me Again If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit Thus the Divine Love having its life in each person in the life of the whole the Universal Spirit being one Spirit with that Spirit which is the Unity of the whole comprehendeth all things with strictest tenderest imbraces in it self as one self with it self So faith the holy Apostle All things are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are yours as you are Christs as Christ is Gods that is in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is Love it self Now from this covering Beauty and comprehensive Virtue in Divine Love these effects naturally flow To believe all things to hope all things We easily believe and hope that which we desire The Divine Love hath a complacency in all things as it comprehendeth them in their Divine Root It hath a good will to all things as they stand in the same Divine Root with it self From this Complacency this Desire this Divine Root it believeth it hopeth all things It believeth all things to be Divine Tabernacles like that in the Wilderness which though moving through Desâ—…ts through a Land of Graves through a Land of fiery Serpents yet answer to their Pattern on the top of the Mount though covered with a course Tent exposed to the fury of the Sun and tempests in the midst of Clouds of dust yet are all-glorious within composed of rich materials bearing a Divine Figure filled with the Divine Presence and Glory It hopeth all things light in the midst of darkness a flourishing Garden of Lillies and Roses in a ground covered and bound up with all the darknesses and rigours of the hardest Winter a treasure of Honey-Combs in the body of a Lion The Master of the Sentences hath such an high esteem of this Charity or Divine Love which is the subject of St. Pauls Discourse in this Chapter That he affirmeth it to be the holy Spirit himself the third Person in the Trinity which is the Love in the Divine Nature and so the Virtue the Power As the second Person the Lord Jesus is the Beauty the Wisdom St. James reasoneth after this manner Can the same Fountain bring forth sweet and bitter waters with the same mouth you bless God and curse man made after the Image of God If from the same heart thou bringest forth that Love to some men by which thou givest all thy Goods to them to supply their wants and ragest with wrath or hatred against others who as they have any making are made after the same Divine Image with the rest of Mankind Who as they have any Being have the same Divine Root are sealed with the same Divine Impression thou hast not Charity thou hast not Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit the universal the eternal Spirit thou art nothing If thou hast the gist of Prophesie if thou understandest all divine Mysteries if thou hast a divine Faith if with the same heart thou lovest God to so high a degree that thou givest thy Body to be burnt for him and yet burnest in rage against any man made after the Image of God All these Divine Gifts or Graces in which thou gloriest are nothing thou art nothing thou hast not Charity Thou hast not the Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit of Christ and of God which is the universal Spirit the Spring the Seal the Band of the Divine Unity Dear Reader follow after this Divine Love without which all that which thou hast is nothing which if thou hast it is the band of perfection never faileth never falleth short of the Glory of God but by the incorruptibleness of a meek spirit preserveth in it self a Divine Beauty and Sweetness which is ever perfect which never passeth away in the midst of all changes of Life in Death to Eternity This is thy first Interest in preserving the Divine Love entire in thy
unlimited Sweetness and Liberty with the Divine Love the Divine will above Yea now the will and love enjoy a two-fold full and glorious Liberty while Goodness and Beauty are their Essence as well as their Election 1. They freely and unconfinedly rove through all the fields of Goodness and Beauty in their greatest amplitude in their richest and most unbounded Varieties as freely as through their own proper Essence and Being 2. Their Liberty in this unconfined amplitude of all Goodness and Beauty becomes most ample and triumphant while it is free from all fear danger suspicion possibility of change to any degree of confinement or constraint by this essential Connexion between it self and the highest necessity O good O beautiful O blessed Will which sits upon the Throne of Eternity which governest us and all things While in being good beautiful blessed with a perfect Liberty thou art such also with the highest necessity Thou art now as delightfully and complacentially so unchangeably absolutely universally supreamly soveraignly essentially Good beautiful and blessed in thine whole Nature Person and Duration in all â—…hy works and ways O Good Beautiful Blessed is that will also in whom Liberty and Necessity are after the same manner united by its Union with the Divine will 2. Nothing seems to present the Divine Face of Truth and the whole nature of things with such harmonious and charming Beauties to the eye of the mind as the determination of the will by its essential and universal Causes seen in one view with the Divine Love A single light seen by Mariners resting upon their Ship which as I remember was of old called by the name of Helena Threatneth a dreadful storm But two Twin-Lights known by the name of the two Brothers Castor and Pollux infuse a new life into the hearts of the Sea-men by the sweet hope of a sudden and gentle Calm After the same manner these two the divine Love and the determination of the will shining together as twin-lights entertain us with a most beautiful composure a golden Calm and Sun-shine a Divine Amity spread through the work of God in all the parts of it But either of these alone exposeth all to stormy gusts slawes and wracks We read of the Spouse in the Canticles That the Joynts of her thighs are Jewels the work of a curious workman The indeterminate motions of the Will render the work of God a dis-joynted piece exposing it in its most principal parts and motions to an ungoverned contingency without joynts or bands which may knit them together one to another and to the whole as one piece If the will with its motions by a necessary connexion in the Order of Causes be joynted into the whole and compose with the rests of the parts one entire work answering to one entire design framed in the heart and brought forth by the hand of that supream and eternal Spirit which is love it self the pure unmixt entire Spirit of love How sweet how beautiful how full of all Divine Charms and Perfections through all the parts of it What a Princely Daughter and Spouse worthy of the great and eternal King must we think this work to be which is the compleat and full contrivance of so rich and so high a Love formed in its own Bosom In the midst of all its most amiable and delightful treasures which is the outward work of a most pure and Almighty Love wrought entirely from end to end by its own hand with fingers dropping its own pure incorruptible Myrrh upon every part of it as it wrought it forming it for a compleat Image of it self and a continual delight to it self What Jewels now must we think all the Joynts of the Thighs of this Divine Image and Birth How harmonious the motions by these Joynts when the joynts and motions are all the work of so skillful so curious so faithful a Workman as Love it self the supream and eternal Love I humbly acknowledge that to my weak Understanding a created Will absolute and arbitrary determined in its course by no light of Truth no light or life of good seemeth to lead my Spirit into a Wilderness where there is no way or guide or to thrust me forth without Ballast or Rudder without a Pole-star or Needle toucht with the loadstone upon the face of an unknown and stormy Sea What a golden-thread of Harmony guides us through the nature of things and leads us into all Truth Harmony being the very Essence of all Natures and all Truths when we understand the whole nature of things from the greatest to the least parts and motions of it to be determined and that determination to be the work of the Divine Love the firmest band of sweetest Union the sweetest Life of all beautiful proportion being only Wise only Powerful inasmuch as it is the highest Unity containing all Variety Originally in it self sending it forth from it self and diffusing it self through all We are taught in Metaphysicks That Being Truth and Goodness are really one How sweet a rest now doth the Spirit with its Understanding and its Will find to itself in every Being in every Truth in every State or Motion of Being in every form of Truth When it hath a sense of the highest Love which is the same with the highest Goodness designing disposing working all in all even all Conceptions in all Understandings all Motions in every VVill Humane Angelical Divine With what a joy and complacency unexpressible doth the Will the Understanding the whole Spirit now lie down to rest every where as upon a bed of Love as in the bosom of goodness it self Let not any question the close and Divine Contexture of the whole Work in all the parts and conduct of it by a firm connexion of Causes and Effects like links in a Chain from its first beginning to its last end because he meeteth with an Hell as well as an Heaven in this work of God Divine Love which transcendently excels in all Wisdom and Prudence beyond all the highest wits of men the richest Contrivances of Poets knoweth how to joynt an Hell into its work with such Divine Artifice incomprehensible to Men or Angels that this also shall be beautiful with delights in its place and shall give a sweetness a lustre to the whole piece St. Paul saith to the Saints All things this World Life Death things present things to come are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods and God is Love See a golden Chain see the Order of the precious Links see how in a beautiful circle the beginning is fastned to the end All Philosophy agreeth in this that the last end is the first mover In God then who is Love the first and the last links of this Chain meet All things this wicked World Death it self even the second Death and Hell deaths to come as well as deaths present are shining links in this golden Chain fastened to that superior Link the Saint the spiritual man He
quà ens est objectum intellectus Being it self in all its fulnesses and forms under the formality of truth that is in its own most proper formal and essential Image which is beauty it self the beauty of truth the truth of beauty in all its riches and varieties is the proper object of the understanding adaequately suited to it its entertainment its food and feast its light and life which actuates it its perfection which determines it and compleats it in its proper form and essence It is an acknowledged Maxim That good is the object of the will All things desire good Good is the object of every appetite natural and sensitive also But these are particular goods proper to those particular Orders of Being the mark to which the rational appetite directs it self the Firmament in the face of which this Dove with its wide-spread-wings flyes is the Heaven of the first and universal Good as it comprehends within its embraces all inferiour goods Thus the Will hath the freedome of all good before it a freedome for all good in its self an essential suitableness inclination and capacity to good absolutely as good The soul of man hath a three-fold liberty the liberty of its Essence Understanding and Will 1. The liberty of its Essence is the fulness of Being All Being in the highest amplest and most substantial Image next to the Original it self the Divine Essence For it is the immediate birth of the Supream Original its darling and best beloved Child although it be the younger Brother to those Sons of God the Angels yet is it as Isaac to Ismael and Jacob to Esau their Lord the Heir of all the Nursling of the Angels while it is in its minority for whom they are made to be ministring Spirits to it So hath the soul of man as an intellectual Spirit all things in its own essence within it self the supream and eternal Being in its fairest and fullest Image beneath it self all inferior Beings fairer and fuller then they are in themselves as the Face in the Glasse excels a Picture or as a Statue exactly framed in Gold or Marble excels the shadow cast from that Statue 2. The Soul or intellectual Spirit hath a liberty of understanding Here it is a clear and spacious light the immediate lustre and out-shining of the Supream Light unconfined like to that as the clearest and compleatest Copy of it next to it self In this Light it freely contemplateth all forms of things above it beneath it of the same order with it all are present before it it comprehends them all within its own circle In the same Image of it self in which it contemplateth it self it freely and unconfinedly rangeth in the midst of them taking in their various beauties distinctly and all their beauties with their most delightful proportions and harmonies united in one at its pleasure freely doth it put on all these beautiful forms the truths and essences of all things being made all things in their truest and conpleatest beauties both distinctly and unitedly So it appears to it self in the sweetness beauty reality truth of each form each figure of the Divine truth and beauty apart So it appears to it self in the unconfined sweetness beauty majesty of the forms the truths of all things united in one This with unexpressible delights it looketh upon as its own proper and compleat Image 5 in this it beholdeth all scenes of things at once within it self it seeth it self in all persons and shapes with the beautiful dresses of Divine truths acting all parts in the most beautiful harmony with the Divine truth it self in its eternal Original In all it enjoyeth within it self the truth of reality of distinction of unity as in the highest Copy and the life-picture of the supream life it self far above all other Copies This Aristotle expresseth to us when he teacheth us this Lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The understanding is made all things This also we learn from him and his Followers That the understanding alone doth touch take in embrace the essences of things while all that presents it self below the understanding to the senses is only a various combination of accidents and shadows So also we learn from Plato's School That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Understanding is the Son of God the Word of God the first and most substantial expression of the Divine Unity with all its incomprehensible fulness next to the Divine Unity it self This is in that School the only Seat of the Essences and the essential truths of all things Beneath it in the discourses of reason are the forms of these Essences as lively Pictures without in the senses the shadows only Agreeable to this also doth the sense of the sacred Scriptures seem to be which maketh man that similitude and Image in which God with all his holy Angels in all created forms of things unite center and terminate as the end and perfection of all Upon this ground is the second Person of the Trinity the Godhead in its essential Image as the most adaequate Image of it self most answering and most suited to it self and so fittest for the most perfect Union with it self as of the proper and most immediate Image with its own proper Idea 3. The liberty of the Will is equal to and ariseth from this liberty of the Understanding The Understanding as the eye of the Soul first feasteth upon the beauties presented to it in the truths of things and so inviteth the will as the mouth of the Spirit to tast the sweetness and goodness of them The good of all these forms and essential truths is that which St. Peter calls the sincere milk of the living Word It is peculiarly the Divinity that of the Original and Supream Unity which is in them The nature of good is defined by a sutableness or agreeableness This hath its root in an unity All things that agree agree in aliquo tertio The agreement of things is their meeting in an unity The Soul in its essence is the most complete and immediate Image of the Divine Unity in which all varieties of things lie virtually and eminently as in their first spring The understanding and all forms or truths of things in the understanding are the effulgency of this Divine Unity with all its varieties contained in it as they shine forth in the essence of the Soul and so become the reflexions of it self upon it self and as the highest figure of the eternal Son of God the brightness of its own glory to it self Thus the essence of the Soul and the essential Images of all truths of things according to their Divine beauties in the Soul have an essential sutableness and agreeableness to each other from that two-fold unity their unity in their Original their unity in their own proper form as it is the Image of that Original The essential inclination of the Soul to these forms of Being and Images of the Divinity and to the Divinity
it self in these Images presented to the Soul by their essential truths in their understanding is that power which we call the Will The sutableness and agreeableness of these forms of things to the Will The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so more principally the Divine Unity in them the root and life of this agreeableness is the good which is the Object of this inclination the Will of the intellectual Spirit Love is defined the union of the Lover and the Beloved The will as it is an essential inclination to its Object the good shining forth in its proper Image and beautiful forms of truth in the understanding is love it self the essential love of the Soul The Soul in this essential power which we call the Will is the Lover This is that which Plotinus seemeth to mean when discoursing of the Soul he saith That every Soul comes forth with a Cupid or love proper to it and inseparable from it It is commonly known that the Soul is represented by Venus the Queen of Beauty and the Mother of Love the Daughter of Jupiter of Jehovah As the intellectual Soul is the â—…enus so is this essential inclination of the Soul to good which is its will the Cupid or Love born of it and born with it inseparable from it As is the intellectual Spirit so is its Will or Love the highest and loveliest Image of the first Spirit and the first Love so hath it in it next to the Divine Love the highest the most potent the most universal force of inclination and love to the highest and most universal good The Beloved or the Object of this Love and this Lover the intellectual Soul and the Intellectual Will is the highest and most universal good as it presenteth it self in its highest lustre in its richest amplest most unlimited variety of beauties in the Understanding This good being an agreeableness to the Will and so meeting with a mutual and answerable agreeableness in the Will to it self presenteth it self thus by the Understanding in these forms of truth which is the Divinest beauty as a lover and a beloved both to the Will that they may be equally and mutually happy by equal by mutual embraces and fruition This is the liberty of the Will consisting in two parts mutually answering each other The first is the vigour and amplitude of the principle the inclination or love carrying the Soul to rendring it capable of good in its absolute and universal form The second is the vigor and amplitude of its Object which is the highest good the Divinity of good it self presenting it self in its absolute universal or intire truth beauty and essential form presenting it self in all varieties of distinct truths beauties and forms as they are represented in their highest completest Image next to the Original it self in the Understanding Here is the Will like a Bee in a Garden or flourishing Field or rather in an heavenly Paradise flying at liberty over all forms of truth and beauty as the Flowers and Plants in this Paradise resting at pleasure upon every one of them sucking 〈◊〉 sweetness the virtue the good the unexpressibleness of the Divinity and the Divine Unity from them as the Honey which is its Divine Feast Nourishment Life and Treasure This is the liberty of the Soul of the Understanding of the Will in its proper Nature and primitive State This is the liberty which it still enjoys inseparable from its essence under the fall it self so far as by the promised Seed putting forth it self in the moment of the Fall the essence of the intellectual Spirit is renewed and maintained universally by common Grace in the midst of the ruines of the Fall I have this one thing only to add under this fourth Head the Liberty of intellectual Spirits that as God is the Original Spirit as Angels and intellectual Souls are Image-Spirits so is the liberty of the Divine Essence the Original liberty and the liberty of all other intellectual Spirits Humane or Angelical is the Birth and so the Image of that liberty Having thus passed through the several degrees of liberty in the several Orders of Being we come now more particularly and distinctly to state the question concerning the Liberty of the Will which is the subject of our present Discourse There is a two-fold liberty of the Will 1. One by all acknowledged inseparable from the Will in all States and acts 2. The other hath been through all Ages Religions and Philosophyes the ground of many learned eloquent deep Discourses and Disputes between persons eminent in all kind 1. The first uncontroverted liberty of the Will is that which is built upon the grounds already laid It consisteth in two glorious preheminencies 1. The liberty of acting from an internal essential universal Principle of inclination or love which is confined or restrained in its nature and power by no particular differences which is by nothing determined in its actings except only as it determines it self by the Laws of its own universal nature in which it bears the immediate and most express figure of the Divine Nature and so of the Divine freedome or liberty 2. This Principle hath for the sphere and compass of its activity the absolute and universal good in the entire freedome of his unconfined form or Essence in all the varieties of its descents and ascents its divisions and compositions The Will of the Intellectual Spirit is free here in the chase and pursuit of all good unconfined to any particular form of good determined by it self alone and its own internal essential motions to the choice and embraces of every good 2. The second liberty of the Will which hath so different aspects to the differing understanding of excellent persons for the most part in all places and times is generally known by these terms of Libertas contradictionis libertas contrarietatis Liberty of contradiction and of contraricty Suppose an intellectual Spirit in the moment immediately preceding its Action positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum now ready for action in the constitution and concurrence of all circumstances essential accidental from above from below from the first universal cause from all second and particular causes from within from without in respect to any Essence Power and Operation in respect to any thing in any potentiality or act The Will of this intellectual Spirit without any change in any circumstance in any degree may act or not act which is the liberty of contradiction may act either in this way or in the way directly contrary to it which is the liberty of contrariety This is also expressed by a liberty or power in the Will to determine it self in the moment of acting by its act without any predetermination in the Will it self in the power of acting in its proper Essence and the laws of its own Nature in the connexion of causes or in the first and universal Cause The method of my treating upon this Question
Understanding and that to understand things is to know them by their causes which plainly infers that God alone is the Truth of every Creature and in every Creature that He alone terminates and gives rest to our Understandings in as much as He is the first Cause Our design and desire is to establish most firmely and clearly the immutable and everlasting bounds between God and the Creature The Creature truly really is in the proper rank and order of its own Being but all that it is in the presence of the Divine Being in comparison with it is like a dream when one awakes less than nothing Every Creature at its best estate is vanity an obscure empty shadow of its Divine Original in God The Creature is nothing of it self or by it self but a momentany emanation from God sent forth from him sustained by Him comprehended by him and filled with him God is not the Creature yet is he in the Creature not Circumscriptivè nor Definitivè confined to the Creature or defined by the Creature but Repletivè filling all in all in every Creature St. Paul saith of him That he is above all in all and through all Above all as incomprehensibly transcending all as the eternal universal Head of all In all as the truth the fulness of all by each Idea in each Creature like the Seal in the Impression Through all as the perfection and end of all 2. Argument The second Argument is the Trinity in God God is the first and so the most perfect Unity every way undivided every way unconfined in all-comprehending all-transcending incomprehensible Unity eminently transcendently one in all one with all uniting all most full most fruitful the Spring of all things This is God the Father the God-head in its fountain as it is its own fountain This is the first Person the universal Being in its most complete existence and subsistence in an entire Unity All our senses our intellectual powers every where present to us an unity and a variety equally inseparable the inclinations of all our faculties carry us equally to both these these two joyntly constitute and compose all essences and forms of things all our objects entertainments and delights Unity without distinction or variety is a barrenness a melancholy a solitude a blackness of Darkness a death beyond any thing existent or imaginable in the nature of things A distinction or variety without unity is a confusion a wilderness beyond the wildest fancy a distraction beyond all madness Variety is every way equal to an Unity as positive as real as ample as high As the first and most perfect Unity comprehends all Variety in it self as one with it self and so is as properly as formally variety as unity so doth the first and most perfect Variety comprehend the Unity in it self in its own proper essence and formality for if the Variety were not all things and so the highest Unity it were not a full Variety Thus are both these every way equal equally all most perfectly one most perfectly distinct by being both the proper character of each the first and highest Unity the first and fullest Distinction or Variety The God-head in the second Person is the first Distinction or Variety and so the most perfect Variety equal with the Father equally a Divine Person All variety of Being in a most complete most distinct existence or subsistence in an entire Unity All fulness All the fulness of the Godhead is said to dwell in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodily or personally that is essentially substantially entirely distinctly in the highest and most perfect Unity with the clearest and compleatest Variety Thus is this Person at once most perfectly one with the Father having the Father in himself and being himself in the Father Thus is He also distinct from the Father with the highest and most perfect Distinction being Himself the first the fullest Distinction and Variety in its most abstracted form and so in its greatest amplitude Jesus Christ as He is this Second Person is known peculiarly by this Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to gather together the proper Name of Christ as He is the first and most universal Variety Upon this ground also he is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifoldly various Wisdom of God This is the brightness of the Glory of God that is the effulgency of the Divine Glory or Godhead shining out clearly and distinctly into all beautiful and blessed Varieties so richly beyond all number and limit contained in it This is the effulgency of the God-head shining out into an essential Image a clear distinct Image of it self in the fulness of its Divine Essence and into all Images all forms of things eternally springing up fresh and new in the brightness and glory of this essential Image which is it self ever entire ever new and distinct with the highest Distinction in every one of these This is the first and fullest Distinction this of the Image from its Original in the Divine Nature This is Variety it self in its abstracted and essential form where it is most absolute most free and unconfined being it self entire the first the freshest the fullest Variety an ever springing fountain of all Varieties in every part of the Variety This is the proper form the unvailed face the uncircumscribed Amplitude and Majesty of God Variety it self with its most unlimited fulness with its clearest light and lustre in a most absolute most entire undivided Unity This is the Second of the Three in the adored Trinity God the third Person the Holy Spirit is the Union of these two He proceedeth from these two as the spiration or conspiration of these two meeting in one As the Father and the Son are one by the first and highest Unity as they are distinct by the first and fullest Distinction so are they at once equally one and equally distinct This is the proper form of Union a concurrence of Distinction and Unity where two as two are one retaining their distinction in their Unity Thus meeting in a third this third is equal to the other two containing them both in it self It is one with the other two and in the other two by having the Unity in it self It is distinct from the other two by having the first and highest Distinction in it self The Union of variety and Unity is the essence of Harmòny Unity of a variety variety in an Unity is the essential form of Harmony God then being in Himself the first Unity the first Variety in their first Union is the first harmony the most perfect the most exalted the universal Harmony the fountain of all Harmonies All things lie here in a perfect Harmony This Harmony comprehendeth all things in it self diffuseth it self through all Every thing every where lieth within the bounds and measures of this Divine Harmony is measured and governed by it springeth forth from it beareth the figure
principal parts of the Divine Work to which all the other parts serve The great and Ultimate ends of these intellectual Spirits unexpressible eternal joys or miseries hang all upon a meer contingency upon the motion of the Will which hath no place no part in the Divine Design which receives no form no measure from any model in the Workman or any part of the work Thus are the great consequences the great ends of the work in the great the principal parts and passages of it altogether undetermined and uncertain in the nature of the work and in the continuance of the Worker 2. Answ. Doth not this seem much rather a reflection upon than an exaltation of the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that the righteousness and wickedness of intellâ—…ctual Creatures the highest good and evil in the whole work the eternal blessedness and misery of its own so great so glorious Births and Images should be of so little moment to the Divine Nature to the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that they should be left entirely out of the Divine contrivance and conduct without the compass of all reason and proportion to an uncertainty an indeterminateness of which no account can be given as effects of the blindest chance which was ever entertained into the most blind and confused imagination of the most vulgar Spirits But this subject of the Divine Goodness and Justice and the Argument taken from them to justifie this freedom of the Will belongs properly to the second Book where the Reader may meet with a large discourse upon it I shall therefore thus lightly pass over it here 3. Answ. The inconsistency of the setting up intellectual Spirits in this freedome by the Divine Power and Wisdom with the very essences of all Power and wisdom with the whole nature of things created or uncreated will also find its proper place in other following Arguments which is therefore only toucht here 4. Argument Next to the Wisdom of God the Power of God seemeth to furnish a fourth Argument against this Liberty of the Will We have it proclaim'd from Heaven by the mouth of God Himself That Power belongeth to God God hath spoken once twice have I heard this That Power belongeth unto God Psal. 62. 11. Joseph saith to Pharaoh That his dream was repeated to declare the certainty of it A Repetition also is design'd to express the weight and consequence of that Truth which is twice over affirmed No Truth hath a clearer certainty or beareth a greater weight upon it in the whole nature of things than this That Power belongeth to God Jesus Christ who is the only true God is said by the word of his Power to uphold all things to bring forth and to bear up all things as the Greek word manifestly and commonly signifies This alone bringeth forth all things all spirits This alone beareth upon its bosome all its own Births as a root the plant with all its fruit Here only in the sense of this truth with an immediate repose upon it do all things all hearts find rest Power is here by the Psalmist expressed absolutely unlimited in the abstract all Power is Gods and of Him So the Hebrew phrase imports God is the first Seat and Spring of all Power in every kind All Power supernatural natural civil moral All Power in every State undetermined determined All Power in every degree the Power of acting the Power in act hath its first seat in God and cometh down from Him There is a three-fold Power 1. An Active Power 2. A Passive Power 3. A Power in Act. 1. The Power of Acting which as it belongeth to the forms of things which are either Spirits or spiritual so it self is a Spirit or a spiritual form This is defin'd to be a principle of Acting This is it self an eminent and universal Act or active form like a Spring containing and sending forth from it self variety of Acts or forms as a Spring doth streams This Power is more excellent than the Act which is produced by it 2. The Passive Power is that of matter which as an obscute shade comprehending or hiding variety of Acts or forms in it like Plants obscured and contracted there like Plants in their seeds in the Earth or the Intellectual and sensitive Soul with all its treasure of Intellectual of sensitive forms in a sleeping Body This Power is inferior to the Act which when it is brought forth is the exaltation of this Passive Power to an higher degree of Being it is indeed as a spiritual Act or form encompast with obscured within its own shade As the Sun calleth up the Plants out of their seeds and beds in the dust so the Spirit it self the Spiritual Act or form shining forth from the Active Power upon this shade of matter and of the Passive Power awakeneth it into a beautiful form 3. Power in Act. All Power purely Active is ever in Act. Such Power is alwayes abstracted from matter and a spiritual essence or form eminent above all things in matter an universal comprehending variety of Acts or spiritual forms in it self Every Active Power in matter is compounded being partly Active and partly Passive This Power is never brought into Act but as it is excited and awakened from without by its Object from above by power abstractive and purely active shedding its beams upon it Thus in the Schools they distinguish between the Active Understanding in man separated from matter in its operations and the Passive which ever worketh in Conjunction with the material and imaginative faculty like the Moon having some obscure light in it self but depending upon the illuminations of the Active Understanding as its Sun Power and Act are distinguished not as two several Beings but as the same Being in several states modifications or degrees of Being When Power as it is a spiritual and universal Act comprehending all its own Acts formally and eminently in it self being all at once in Act within it self brings forth it self into any particular or single Act in matter This is the same Power contracted and so in a less degree of perfection When a Passive Power in matter springs up into Act This Act is the perfection of the Power The Power and the Act here are the same form sleeping and awakened in the seed and in the flower All Power is Gods As he is the most pure perfect and universal Spirit so is Power in Him the most pure perfect and most universal Act. God gives this Testimony of Himself I am Alpha and Omega The beginning and the ending saith the Lord Which is and which was and which is to come The Almighty Rev. 1. 8. As the Power of God comprehendeth all Powers most eminently and most actually in â—…imself so all Powers in Him are ever most perfectly in Act being themselves pure Acts God is said to work all things after the counsel of his own will Eph. 1. 11. Power is the principle of Activity The Will is
relations from the Creature to it self Thus doth the Divine goodness in the Divine VVill terminate the relation of every created VVill to it self in the agreeableness or disagreeableness of every Act. This supream goodness then hath in it self the measure of this agreeableness and disagreeableness which it receiveth not from without but hath originally in it self So all the acts of the VVill according to their conformity with or deformity from the first goodness derive themselves from their proper Original in that goodness Accordingly the Goodness and the Will of God hath a complacency in every Act of the VVill if it be agreeable to it or an aversion from it if it be disagreeable Thus is the created VVill in all its motions with their several most exact distinctions the Object of the eternal VVill in its love or hatred Every faculty or power hath an essential relation to its proper object and dependance upon it It is drawn forth by it into the most proper Acts of its essence and receiveth from it the perfection of its essence which consisteth in its Activity The supream VVill the supream Goodness being perfectly eternally in Act hath all its Acts all its Objects by which it is actuated perfectly eternally from and in it self Object You will say How can this be Can the Divine VVill which is infinitely pure in the beauties of Holiness in the joys of all blessedness comprehend in it self Good and Evil agreeableness and disagreeableness to it self which are the proper measures and essential forms of all good and evil Can it comprehend in it self Objects of Love and Hatred Can this Fountain send forth from it self sweet and bitter waters How is it holy if there be these mixtures How is it happy if it be thus divided within it self Answ. The Flats and Sharpes the Bases and Trebles the Concords and Discords of Musick are all comprehended by the spirit of the Musician in one Act of Harmony in one simple and undivided Act of Harmony This single Act of Harmony by its proper force first invented and formed all Musical Instruments prepared them for it self through all the diversity of touches and motions actuated them that it might compleatly figure and display upon them and upon all things round about them it self in its own full sweetness according to all those rich varieties virtually and eminently comprehended within it self in one simple Act. So in one indivisible Act or Idea of beauty in the Spirit of the Painter lie together all the differing lines lights shades and colours by which that Idea reflecteth it self in Picture upon the eyes and spirits of the Beholder In like manner the far greater perfection the Will of God being a simple 〈◊〉 of Goodness supreamly indivisible and eternal containeth originally eminently within it self complacency and aversion love and hatred with their several objects in their several forms and degrees in their several risings and fallings most properly and harmoniously suited to each other From it self doth this supream Goodness bring forth its own Objects like tuned Instruments wound up or let down every way prepared for the diffusion and discovery of it self upon them in those Varieties of love and hatred complacency and aversion with their several steps or modifications which as so many distinct forms or virtues of the Divine Goodness dwell together there in the highest and most absolute Variety as in the fullest and most unconfined Unity The Will of God is commonly and rightly distinguished into positive and permissive Evil is by the permissive Good from the positive Will of God All the determinations and motions of the Will in every Spirit are at least from the permission of the Divine Will I will not now enquire how the most perfect Goodness can be permissive in that in which it is positive This only I take which is universally granted That there is no permissive Will in God without a positive Act. He permitteth nothing without a positive Act of his Will for that permission If the permission of any Act in the will of man antecede that Act then is that act or motion of the humane will the Object of a positive Act of the Divine Will for the permission of it before it be brought forth here below This objective existence in the Divine Will is either the Copy or the Original to that motion in the will of the Creature If it be universally received by all Understandings from the universal Harmony and principles of Truth that the Divine Nature can take no Copy receive no Impression of any thing from any thing without it self it necessarily followeth that all motions in the will of man flow from that antecedent existence which they have in the Divine Will as the Objects of that Thus that I may not be too long upon this Head of Arguments drawn from the Divine Nature I have contracted three sorts of Arguments into one Those from the Will the Goodness the Power of God being drawn together under that of the Divine Power I have in it built upon this sure ground The VVill of God is the first the supream the essential Goodness The Goodness of God is his Power As every thing depends upon the VVill of God in its permission or positive Act As all things in their measures of Good or Evil lie together in the Divine Goodness the Original the eternal measure of all Good and Evil so have all Powers all Acts and Motions of Power their first spring their exact form and rule in the Power of God 5. Argument The fifth Argument is the Knowledge of God This is in our present cause a most celebrated Argument I shall therefore endeavour to represent the state of it with all exactness clearness and integrity that I can bring to it I shall divide this Argument into two parts 1. The first is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge 2. The second is the Original 1. Part. The first part is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge This consisteth in two things 1. The Comprehensiveness 2. The distinctness of the Knowledge VVe then know perfectly when we know all things capable of being known when we know each thing in its proper distinction in all its distinct forms properties and relations Shall not He who made the eye see Shall not the Fountain of Knowledge contain all Knowledges after the most exact and eminent manner Shall not He know all things most accurately by whom all things know and are known St. Peter saith to Jesus Christ as to God Lord Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee See two things remarkable here 1. The universality of Christ's Knowledge extending its self to all things 2. A confirmation of this by a particular instance Thou knowest that I love thee The instance is most pertinent to our present purpose It is that peculiar Object of Knowledge which is the ground and subject of this Discourse the Will of Man the motions of the will the freest
them all by their names none of them is wanting every one shineth as a fixed Star in that supream Orb of Glory God hath made all things in number weight and measure Number is here interpreted to be the Character of the species or kinds of things according to their distinct essences The first and supream link in this Chain of essential forms is the Idea or the eternal Pattern or Spring of each Essence in the Mind of God The Pythagorean Philosophy foundeth its heighest mysteries of Divinity upon the nature of numbers as the most agreeable figures of it The Ideas or eternal Images of things in God so seem to shine forth most clearly with the sweetest and fullest beauties in abstracted numbers Our Lord saith That little Children have their Angels which alwayes behold the face of their Father in Heaven Behold here each single hair of our heads which is an excrement only how much more each part of our Bodies each motion of our Spirits each moment of our Lives or circumstance in our affairs hath its Idea its first Image and Truth its Original first true Being and Beauty eternal in the heart of God These at once are the Eyes of God which by day and by night circle round watch over and guide them the invisible Chambers and Treasures of God where they are laid up and kept safe as his Jewels Number hath been reputed the first seat and measure of proportion Harmony Musick and Beauty in every kind Number and Beauty or Harmony are both by Philosophers and Divines appropriated to Intellectual Spirits who alone are capable of them as their proper operations and objects Both agree in this definition which seemeth to comprehend not only the proper objects and operations but the Essence also of immortal Minds an Unity diffusing it self into Variety keeping it self undivided and entire through the whole Variety bounding the Variety with its self and binding it up within it self A great and learned Divine teacheth us That there is a vast difference as between the natures so between the numbers of the Humane the Angelical the Divine Understanding The numbers which men apply to corporeal and material Subjects divide break and lessen the subject In these numbers that holdeth true that the whole is greater than any single part The numbers with which the Angels number things retain through all the indivisibility of the Unity with diversity of forms Here each form or essence comprehendeth under its own undivided Unity all forms of things according to their proper and compleat amplitude agreeable to the Angelical State but under the Character of its own peculiar and distinct property But the Divine number transcending all divisibility and diversity joyneth in one the simplest Unity with the amplest and most distinct Variety Thus after a Divine manner by this Divine Art of Numeration are all the haiâ—… of our head numbred in the mind of God Thus every single hair there maketh up a Divine Harmony composed of a rich Variety of Divine Proportions according to the number of all the other hairs as in the whole so in the several parts and single unities Euery single hair is a center and a seat to the various proportions between it self and all the rest in particular as well as also to the Harmony of the whole I shall now give a brief answer to the Objections alledged against the Universality of the Divine Knowledge 1. No Object however low however base embaseth the Divine Understanding The figures of Mice and Emraulds formed in Gold lessen'd not the lustre or preciousness of the Gold neither did they detract any thing from the sacred Worth Majesty or Divinity of the Ark by being put into it This Ark was tâ—…e Figure of our Jesus the essential Image the Divine Mind Understanding and Wisdome of the Father Lazarus with his Rags his running Sores and the Dogs licking them represented to the life in an excellent Picture done by the hand of Vandike of Titian or some great Master is a worthy and most agreeable entertainment for the eye and fancy of any Princess a rich Ornament and rare Jewel for the Chamber or Cabinet of a Prince The Plague with all its loathsome and horrid attendance conceived in the mind formed to a most exact Image in Virgil's fancy from thence transferred into his inimitable Poems becomes worthy of the Ear the Fancy the Mind of that great and most polite Prince Augustus Caesar yea cloathed thus with this Image the mind and fancy of the Poet transfuse and present themselves to the spirit of that Prince as of all learned and judicious Readers with a heightned Beauty and kind of Divinity That is a certain Rule That every thing received is received according to the nature and manner of the Recipient The Divine Understanding cloathing it self with the Images and Forms of all Objects desormeth not it self but maketh them Divine To the Pure all things are pure but to the Unclean nothing is pure but even their minds the Angelical part their Consciences the Divine part of their Souls is desiled 2. Individuals and particulars together with Universals appear distinctly to the Eye of God at once in one view The Philosopher of old affirmed all things to be in all The shady blueness in the clear Heavens above us which seemeth to terminate our sight is said to be the deficiency of our sight which is uncapable either of extending it self to so remote an Object or of having any Commerce with a Body so pure so glorious and so near to the nature of a Spirit Thus the contraction the obscurity the materiality which seemeth to be the bound of our eye and sense when we look to individual things here below are in truth the weaknesses of our senses falling short of the glory shining in the nature of things The light of God which is alone the true Light having no darkness in it and so the measure of all Truth is stiled by St. Peter A marvailous Light This is one of the wonders in the Divine Light All things here are transparent each particular each part is seen distinctly in the whole and the whole compleatly in â—…h part The Psalmist singeth of this holy and high mystery That with God the Darkness and the Light are both alike Materiality and corporeity as they appear before him are spiritual and Divine forms In the face of each material individual object shineth the whole nature of things This is manifest upon a three-fold ground 1. All things in Heaven above and Earth beneath meet in the constitution of each individual In Jacob's Vision Angels were seen descending and ascending upon each step of the Ladder from the Throne of God Himself above down to the Earth below Thus by the Scale of Praedicaments in Logick and in Metaphysicks we are taught That universal and superior Beings even Being it self in its absolute and unlimited fulness descend into the essential constitution of each inferior Being In them also the
although I be not alwayes so happy as to find my Understanding tuned to a consort and harmony with his seemeth to me like a Prophet as well as a Poet to sing this mystery drawn forth from the sacred retreats of the divinest Philosophy in his Poems There he painteth out with liveliest colours the whole Universe as a great Soul and Spirit as a Contexture as a Quire or as a Dance of many Souls or Spirits where materiality and corporeity are seen not as distinct substances from the Soul but as figures wrought by the Soul her self in the lowest part of that Vestment with which spun forth from her self she is cloathed and comes forth upon this lower Stage As the lowest point of that beam whose head is in the bosome of the Sun So with him matter and body seem to be the lowest shade into which the Soul descends within her self and the various forms which she puts on in this shade That seemeth to be most pleasantly harmonious to this which the same Author hath in that pleasant piece of his Cabbala upon the beginning of Genesis There he figures out to us the Soul and the Body which he calls her Vehicle or Chariot that is the Image into which she descends and rides forth here below by the Male and Female or the Bridegroom and the Bride which are also Father and Daughter The Body thus appears as a beautiful Image of the Soul springing forth from the Soul abiding by a mystical marriage in the eye and bosome of the Soul In it as in a clear and chrystalline Glass the Soul with ravishing delights seeth her self in all her own beauties and sweetnesses Of it she saith This is life of my life beauty of my beauty my self springing forth from my self in a beautiful Image and so represented to my self Thus is the Soul tyed by irresistible Charms to its Body This way the Soul falls from her purity and the joys of her immortality while she sinks into and looseth her self in this shadowy Image as if this were her only true her only beautiful form She hath now drowned in a deep oblivion her Angelical her Divine Beauty and Being unto which she should have risen as to the Original Glory by those inferior and fading figures of her self in this shade On these Original Glories as her golden full-spread wings she should have descended into this shadowy Image and upon the same wings have carried up in her embraces this shadow into the eternal Light This divinely pleasant figure of Dr. More brings to my mind some thing of Plotâ—…nus in his Discourses upon the Soul not unsuitable to him and to our present purpose He teacheth us as from a sacred Oracle That every Soul cometh down into this World as a Caelestial Venus or an heavenly Beauty the beautiful Daughter and Image of the supream God attended with a Caelestial Cupid or an heavenly Love her own Birth ever with her ever before her her dear delight and glory By this Love the seed of the Divine and eternal Beauty in the Soul sprung up into a Child into a pleasant youthful growing Image upon his wings she springeth up and takes her flight abroad into all forms of things as so many scattred figures and births of the first Beauty until with her Love she return into the bosome of that Dr. Cudworth who by giving us a short relish of that rich treasure of Knowledge and Learning remote from the Vulgar causeth also a regret in us that he entertaineth us with no fuller a Feast when that Feast might be a Divine Feast Sacrifice and Marriage all in one enformeth us from the Jewish Doctors That all Souls come down from above in a married or Conjugal state This seemeth to make one entire piece with Plotinus and Dr. More The ever blessed Trinity is the first Marriage and glorious Prototype of all Marriages Here the Father is the Lover and Bridegroome the eternal Word or Wisdome is the Daughter and Bride his essential Image in which his own glories and sweetnesses offer themselves to his Divine View and embraces The Holy Spirit is the Love which springeth forth from these two which is the Fountain of the Divine Birth and Generation between these two which uniteth them in eternal embraces in a Divine fruitfulness by which they Spring up within this Marriage-bed into innumerable Births and Images of themselves in this their Love-Union Souls as they are the Birth so do they bear the Image of this Trinity and Marriage The Soul bringeth forth within her self this sensitive Image which is her Daughter and her Bride The love which unites these two in a Conjugal state which springs mutually from both as they are living Images each of other as they are one self or substance in two distinct forms which is the same in both is the Spirit of life and motion This makes the sweetness of life and of all vital motions That Love is their Spring and their Spirit From this Love as from the Marriage-bed doth the Soul by her own proper Bride which is its Body bring forth it self into all sensitive and corporeal forms which furnish and fill this visible World Thus Souls come down in a Conjugal state while each Soul brings down its Bride and Body in its bosome out of which it springs as Eve sprung forth out of the side of Adam his fair and flourishing Image while he flourished in his pure and Primitive Beauties I confine not that sentence of the Jewish Rabbies to this sense which yet seemeth to me although perhaps not the only sense as proper in it self as it is pertinent to our Discourse If these grounds be good and firm clear will it be That there is nothing vile or mean in the nature of things rightly seen when as all things are Spirits or Souls in their married state that is heavenly Beauties and heavenly Loves in various forms and postures where all their motions are the loves of these Souls in their lovely flights Some one may think this to be understood and confirmed by that of the Psalmist cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews He hath made his Ministers Spirits or Winds his Angels a flame of fire The Fire the Air all the Elements in their various composition the Coelestial Bodies are Spirits in their proper Vestments Vehicles or Chariots with their proper Brides These heavenly Beauties and Loves may be cast into a deep sleep here yet are they still sleeping Beauties and sleeping Loves beautiful and lovely in their sleep Although like Abraham they may have disorderly deformed distracting Dreams in their sleep In these Dreams an horrible darkness may fall upon them strange Visions may be presented to them They may see dreadful fires in the midst of this darkness themselves their dear Bride the sensitive Image like Doves lying dead and divided one from another like innocent Beasts of Sacrifice slain and cut into several pieces with the brands of fire or burning Lamps passing
and Divine Harmony through the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But we will leave these things to their proper places In the mean time this Truth seemeth tâ—… be firmly established upon unmoveable grounds that nothing as it lies in the whole in all its causes concurrences relations and circumstances is mean vile or little unworthy of the Divine Mind which if it were a stranger to any the least circumstance of things even the first most unperceptible motions of the Will were uncapable of judging of the Harmony of the whole of Good and Evil which consist in order and disorder especially of moral Good and Evil the chief Good and Evil of the chief pieces of the whole Work Intellectual Spirits whose Good and Evil in order to an eternity of Happiness or Misery are defined and determined by every motion of the Will If I have been at the expence of much time and pains upon this Subject the Omniscience of God or the universality of his Knowledge and the exactness of it in this Universality I humbly conceive that I have not done it impertinently being moved to it by these two Reasons 1. Learned men know that this Flower in the Crown of the Great King this Attribute of God hath been denied to him in the face of the whole World with great confidence with bold pretences of Reason and Learning opposed to it I have heard this perfection of the Divine Nature in the Process of a Discourse upon this freedome of the Will questioned Whether it were proper to God or a Perfection and this Question made soberly there where modesty goodness and learning have met together 2. This Argument of the Divine Omniscience appeareth to mewith so great weight in this cause that if this be freely granted and clearly understood I cannot at all comprehend by what way or means the liberty of the Will now examined can suppart it self without the overturning the whole fabrick of our Philosophy and Divinity with the absolute ruines of all their beauties and strengths I hope in a few words to manifest this in the Second Part of this Argument which now follows 2. Part. The Second Part is the Original of the Divine Knowledge This knowledge of God ariseth not from without but from within himself This Truth seemeth to carry the full and sweet light of its own evidence brightly shining in the face of it If God receive any thing from without he is no more immutable impassible independent a pure Act a perfect eternal Act a simple Unity but a composition of divers and different ingredients If any Species or Image if any Knowledge flow in upon the Divine Understanding from any external Object not only all the Properties Perfections and Attributes ascribed to God but his Godhead it self with all its most essential Glories are shaken overthrown and utterly demolished If God be receptive of any thing from any other he is no more the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being and so no more God It is generally and rightly affirmed That the Essence of God and the Operations are the same that his Knowledge is Himself If then He receive the knowledge of any thing He receiveth also Himself and his Godhead from a Forreign Spring Wâ—…o saith St. Paul hath been his Counsellor or who hath given to Him first that He should repay Object Some eminent Divines seeming to understand the force of the Reason in this Point to lie in the fore-knowledge of God have believed themselves to have gained a full Victory over it by an imagined co-existence of God with the Creature For say they God is infinite as in his Essence so in his duration By virtue of this infiniteness he after an immutable manner co-exists with the Creature in all its changes Eternity which is the duration of the Divine Essence in its undivided and unchangeable but unconfined Unity co-exists with time the duration of the Creature in all its numerous and successive motions in all its undivided moments Thus say they God properly foreknows nothing but knoweth every Creature as it is present with Him in its own proper existence and time Answ. If all this in the full Latitude be freely granted I humbly conceive that the present Argument remains still in its full force unshaken untoucht But first I shall crave leave to offer some incongruities and mistakes which make me uncapable of satisfying my self with this co-existence thus formed and founded 1. This seems to take away out of the mouth of God Himself speaking by the Prophet Isaiah one Principal proof of his Godhead which he pleaseth to make use of several times over and in which he glories challenging all the gods of the Heathen to come and try their Divinities by this Test This is the Power of Prophecying the declaring of things to come 2. Doth not the Co-existence mentioned commensurate God with the Creature make God the Subject of a Relation to the Creature establish a proportion between Him and the Creature which are all contrary to the infiniteness of God as to the most uncontroverted Principle of Divinity shining in upon us by the light of Nature or of Revelation 3. If God by Co-existing with the Creature in the moment of the Fall at the beginning of time declares that full Victory of Christ over the Serpent at the end of time which he knows only by coexisting with that action in its proper scene and duration at the winding up of all Ages Doth it not follow that the beginning and the end of time in their proper seasons and durations co-exist and fall in with each other For this is a Maxim of universal force That those two things which meet in a third meet in themselves 4. The best Understandings pure and clear as the Sun it self clouded with flesh while they see through so thick a medium are capable of various and disproportionate views of their Object A weaker sight fixed on and confined to some narrower and more particular Image may in that sometimes discover to better eyes which extend themselves to a more spacious Object an error in that smaller Point Accordingly those great Spirits with whom I now treat perhaps may find themselves mistaken in their sense of the Divine Co-existence with the Creature if they please to consider this which I shall now propound God indeed is infinite By this infiniteness he is above all proportion to all commerce with every thing that is finite By this infiniteness he comprehends in himself all Creatures with all theirExistencies Formalities and Modifications after an infinite manner eminently and with the highest transcendency Thus he beholdeth thus he converseth with all things within Himself Divines generally place the Joys of glorified Spirits in that Beatifical Vision which is the sight of all things in the most amiable face of the most highly adored Trinity as in the only clear Glass of all Images of things in their eternal Truths Is not God Himself blessed in the
first place with this Beatifical Vision Doth not He much more certainly with a delight proportioned to a God behold all things in this Glass of the Trinity in the supreamly beautiful face of our Jesus his own eternal Birth his own essential Image the full reflection of himself upon himself Is not this first and full birth of the Godhead its most universal Birth where by bringing forth him he brings sorth all things at once in him according to their first and fairest Births as beautiful lineaments composed of Divine Lights and Shades in this face and Divine Form where all pleasantnesses dwell Thus of a truth God co-exists with all Creatures hath in Himself in his Essence Existence and Duration the exact measure of all Essences Existencies and Durations but this is according to the manner of the Divine and Uncreated not of the created nature as he comprehends all in himself 5. I come to that now which I promised as my chief and concluding Answer Here I shall endeavour to make it appear that all this established in the most desired sense falls short or flies wide off our present Argument leaving it altogether untoucht For let it be that God doth exist together with the Creature in the proper and formal existence of each Creature yet still we fall upon this Dilemma The knowledge of each Creature in the Divine Understanding arriveth from without or ariseth from within The first of these hath following it an horrid train of direful inconveniencies represented above such as I may well tremble to mention and the holy Angels stand amazed to hear the passibility mutability dependency imperfection of the Divine Essence in it self compositions divisions in the Divine Nature in a word the desposing of God from being God The Devil indeed in all forms practiseth this as his chiefest Artifice the establishing of such imaginations and opinions in our Spirits as by the dividing of the Godhead in it self may divide God from Himself in our sense of Him and so in truth separate us from the supream Unity the only Crown of all Righteousness Rest and Joy that by dividing he may Reign If I deceive not my self thus this imagination of Gods receiving his Knowledge of created things from the objects themselves existing in their own proper forms out of their causes and present before him is thus attended with such a troop of infernal Monsters as cannot but affrighten us from entertaining any such conception The first part of the Dilemma being then removed the second is established namely that the knowledge of all things in the mind of God hath no spring from which it streameth besides God Himself All the Attributes of God all the sense which all Nations all Spirits have of God from the light of Nature or of Revelation his All-sufficiency his Being the beginning the end of all things testifie with great concurrence to this Truth It seemeth to me indeed Impertinent to use many words to clear or confirm it If then God have his Knowledge of every Creature from within he comprehendeth all the Creatures in his own Divine Essence either formally in their own proper Natures and Existencies or virtually and eminently as in their first cause No other way seemeth to me imaginable by which the Divine Mind should be at once both the Eye and the Glasse to behold all things in it self If we place any Creature according to its proper form in the Divine Essence we place it upon the Throne of the Godhead and cloath it with the form of God It remaineth then that the Divine Knowledge is the intuition or view of things in their first and eternal Original Moreover Knowledge is the Imâ—…ge of the thing known in the understanding of him who knoweth it There are only three sorts of Images 1. The Original Image the exemplar cause and pâ—…ttern 2 The essential form which is the thing it self 3. A Copy or Figure of this as the Picture taken from the life and the shadow cast from the substance Thus the Lord Jesus in his spiritual Glories as He is the Divine Understanding is the Original form of the Sun the Suns Sun To him agrees that which Plutarch delivereth to us from the ancient Philosophers that the God of the Sun which inhabits the Sun excels the Sun in the sweetness beauty and glory of his Light ten thousand times more than the Sun doth this Earth or the darkest Cloud The Sun it self shining in these visible Heavens is the essence or essential form framed by this pattern sprung forth from it The Light the Sun-shines and Suns which we severally take in with our eyes are so many figures and pictures or shadows rather of this Sun flowing from him If we believe the Creatures in their essential forms or in their shadowy figures to inhabit the Divine Understanding we either exalt them to an heighth too far above them by bringing them into the Divine Unity and so making them one God with God or we debase the Divine Nature by bringing it down to a composition with things forreign and inferior to it The Philosopher teaches us that Science or clear and certain Knowledge is only the knowledge of things in their causes The first and most perfect Spirit is only capable of this knowledge which alone is most perfectly clear and immutable the knowledge of things in their first and universal cause Thus the Divine Essence in the Person of our Jesus the Divine Wisdome and Understanding the brightness of the Divine Glory the Image of the Godhead pure naked full substantial eternal is both the only Object of the Divine Eye worthy of it and compleatly suited to it and also the Species or Image in which and by which alone all Creatures all forms of things in Heaven Earth and Hell are presented to it This is that Unity which in its pure simplicity being free from all division of parts or diversities of forms is absolutely unbounded and so diffuseth it self into the most perfect and unconfined Variety comprehending it entirely altogether undivided within it self as in a spiritual most spacious Palace of Light and Paradise of the Divine Life upon the high and flourishing Mount of Eternity This is that Unity in its first distinction and so in the most full Variety our Jesus in whom all fulness of Nature Grace and Glory dwelleth in its sweetest repose in the most perfect Harmony of all the most heightning Beauties and Delights This is the Beatisical Vision in which God clearly contemplates compleatly enjoys Himself and all things in Himself as in the Christalline Fountain of the Godhead Let me now bring home to my present mark this present Argument by drawing up my whole Discourse upon it into three short Propositions 1. God who knoweth all things distinctly and exactly knoweth every Act of the Will every actual determination of it in each Act. 2. God who only knoweth all things by beholding them in the Glasse of his own Essence in the
not terminate in some one first mover but did proceed to an infiniteness of successions all things will be at a stand motion will universally cease For an infinite succession of causes could never be past through nor arrive at any effect This determinates the truth of a God and the Nature of a true God that He is the first Mover the first Cause The force and dignity of this first Cause declareth it self to us in these following Maxims which stand fixed in the eternal Reason of things as in their proper root and shine clearly in the evidence of their own Light and have their Truth sealed by an universal Testimony 1. The first Cause is the universal Cause All things all causes and effects all causalities and efficacies all order and connexion of things are virtually and eminently comprehended in the first Cause from which according to their proper places and eternal patterns they flow 2. The first Cause is most of all most truly and most fully most properly and most powerfully the cause of every effect 3. The first Cause is more intimate to every effect than any second Cause It is most intimate to every effect with an intimateness of presence and power it is immediately omnipotent with an immediateness of Person and of Virtue of Operation and of Efficacy 4. Every second Cause hath its causality acteth and produceth its effect in the virtue of the first Cause Therefore Philosophers and Divines have taught us that all Causes and Effects in their orders and connexions are onely explications or modifications of the first Cause 5. That which is the Cause of the Cause is also the Cause of its Effects The Operation of each thing followeth its Essence All Operations which are second Acts are folded up in the first Act which is the Essence and flow forth from it as that unfolds it self in them within the compass of its own proper Orb and Sphere All these Maxims reign with an universal Soveraignty of Truth and Power through all orders of things over all minds They seem to be unmoveably established upon the Basis or Foundation of that Principle That which is the first in any kind of things is the universal Root Rule Truth and Life to all things of the same kind That alone is such by it self All other things of the same kind are such in the force and virtue of that by its presence and power in them Let us now bring this down to the particular Subject of our Discourse If God be the first Cause if the Will be a second Cause if the Acts of the Will and the determination of the Will in these Acts be the effects of the Will then is God the universal cause of all these then is he more truly and effectually the cause of each act and determination of the Will than the Will it self then is he in the immediateness of his Person Power and Operation more intimate to each act and determination of the Will than the Will it self then doth the Will with all its acts and determinations in their several Orders Connexions and Circumstances lie virtually and eminently in the Divine Will as in their first Cause from which in their proper seasons and places they flow distinctly forth as that first Will which is one pure eternal Act unfoldeth it self into them A great Philosopher and Divine representeth all Births and Productions those of Flowers and Trees in Gardens of Beasts in the Fields of Fishes in the Sea of Birds in the Air of Celestial Light of Men and Angels as so many Songs of Praise celebrating the first Birth and Production the eternal Generation of the Son from the Father in the Trinity For saith he all other Productions or Births spring up and stand in the virtue of this All causes and effects in like manner are so many Divine Songs sounding forth through the whole Heavens and Earth the Praises the Power the Efficacy of the first Cause For in the womb of that as they all immediately fall in the bosome of that they lie together in its virtue and presence they spring and flourish its sacred Image and Impression they all bear divinely engraven upon them I have now finished my Arguments drawn from the first Head the Nature of God Gentle Reader Perhaps I may seem to thee to have drawn out to a great length and to have made frequent large Digressions upon this Head of the Deity I have indeed willingly taken every fair occasioâ—… as I have past along through this Land of Life and Bliss amidst the Gardens of true Adonis the eternal Son to stay thy self and me some moments upon the contemplation of the charming Prospect as also to gather and present thee with some of the Paradisical Flowers and Fruits which grow so plentifully here I have endeavoured in my way according to the narrow measure of my weak capacity far below the Glories of this Object if not to open yet to point out to thee the Excellencies of the Godhead as they lie in their first and fairest ground of eternal life Two Reasons have moved me to this 1. God is the first and fairest Ground the clearest and sweetest Light of Truth The Philosopher hath taught us That demonstration is only by first and immediate Principles The first and immediate Principle is that which hath the Light of Truth immediately seated and shining in it self which receiveth not its evidence from any Superior Medium or Argument which immediately displayeth its beams from its own face on the eye of the Understanding without the interposal of any inferior Medium or Argument This is the only Principle of Demonstration and this is God alone He is the Father of Lights the Intellectual Sun God unvailing Himself in our Spirits setting Himself as the golden Seal of purest Light upon our Spirits Thus by his immediate embraces he impregnateth them with the Divine forms of truth In this sense St. Paul saith That our Faith is in the demonstration of God Accordingly he describeth the truly Evangelical or Spiritual Knowledge to be the shining of God in our hearts unto the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He that in a clear Evening fixeth his eye on the Firmament above him beholdeth by degrees innumerable Stars with springing lights sparkling forth upon him If God lift up a little of his Vail and by the least glimpses of his naked Face enlighten and attract the eye of our Soul to a fixed view of Himself with what Divine Raptures do we see the eternal Truths of things in their sweetest Lights springing and sparkling upon us besetting us round in that Firmament of the Divine Essence as a Crown of incorruptible Glory The heavenly Bridegroom in the Canticles singeth thus I am come into my Garden my Sister my Spouse I have drunk my Milk with my Wine I have eaten my Honey with my Honey-comb If this lovely Bridegroom lead our Souls his Bride into
the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind in the eternal Spirit then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth now we drink in the Light as warm Milk most sweet and lively from the warm and living Breasts of Truth now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome as it drops and distills upon our Lips from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature 2. God is the Pleasantest the only pleasure of all Objects He alone is the proper Object the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties of the Understanding and of the Will the only sweet Rest the only and full Feast of them both God as He is the Light which hath no Darkness in it so is He Love without any allay He is that Love which is Goodness it self Beauty it self Sweetness it self all alone unmixt at the utmost heighth of purity sweetness and simplicity all in all of Him and all one in Him This is that Trinity which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence out of which all the Attributes Properties and Perfections arise to our Understanding and into which in the clearest Light they most clearly resolve themselves Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion or goodness as it springs up into beauty and in the delicious bosome of that beauty multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms Goodness is the ever flourishing ever youthful Father and Bridegroom Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride Sweetness the Marriage of these two Goodness as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness is power in the abstract in as much as Evil the only opposite to Goodness is the weakest of all things weakness it self Beauty being the essential and full form of Goodness being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony is Wisdome it self the only Intellectual Beauty of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion is upon this account the first and highest Activity The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net by the reflection of Heavens Light from a piece of glass upon the Earth Thus the best Spirits whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest no force of Flesh mount upward to Heaven and eternity are most properly most powerfully drawn to any Opinion when it appears as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region The first Beauty and the first Truth are one Being both the first Form or Image in which the Godhead represents it self to it self in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections at their utmost heights as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring and of it self with it self as the first Image with the first Original Thus every Truth in all its descents springing from the first Truth is also a Divine Beauty in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth smileth and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces We easily believe that which we desire Reader Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God whose Essence is Love Represent to thy self a Love which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty Goodness and Sweetness all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness that being altogether without any mixture or allay they are also without any bounds all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection that they mutually unfold one another most compleatly and most clearly all three so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual or rather Superintellectual Life that as they are Love the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity they are also in like manner compleat living and immortal Persons When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace in every posture in every glance dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all to be all in all in this work The work of some excellent Painter is known by this that it is a finisht piece Every part every point hath its just and full proportions as from a spring of life opening it self there as if Nature her self were a vital sense This gives the life the beauty the sweetning to the whole piece a living form to the Workman Can we then think that God who is beauty and sweetness it self who works immediately and alone by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence which is one and the same with its Operations will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand Can we think that God whose Beauty is his Wisdome whose Goodness is his Power whose Sweetness is his Life his Joy his Glory will leave this piece his Creation which he hath drawn from Himself to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself unfinish'd Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts upon which the life the beauty the sweetness of the whole depends We read in the Canticles That the heavenly Image of God that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels the work of the hands of a cunning workman Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word trusty and faithful It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work the trust in him the dependance upon him and expectation from him Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life and the spring of Variety This first Creation the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts from its beginning to its end is a living Image of God his Daughter and Bride although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image or the heavenly Image in a shadow Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here the joynts of the Thigh of this Image the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion by which it ascends or descends it turns it self about and moves every way Shall not then the faithful Creator whose Truth whose Goodness whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself infinitely transcends all trust all expectation make these Joynts Jewels Shall he not here express the
power the pattern the meritorious the efficient the formal cause of all this in his Humiliation and Exaltation If Jesus Christ be a created form living immortal glorious containing in himself the whole Creation with all its Vicissitudes of Lives and Deaths in one entire Beauty more fresh more fair more full then ever it can be in it self if it be seen at one view at the uttermost heighth of all sweetness softness amiableness lustre that it is capable of although that be true which some say that the World in the whole is the most beautiful of all things or which others say that it is an Angel This created form then hath a Prototype its Original Image its exemplar Cause in eternity in God on which it depends and from which it flows otherwise it is not a created form but uncreated absolute and eternal This Original Image is one with the first the supream Image of eternity and of God For all things are there as in the fullest Variety so in the most entire Unity This then is the Godhead of Christ that essential Image of the Divine Nature in which Jesus Christ with all his created Glories pre-exists in eternity from whence he descends into a created state and hath there an existency antecedent to every other Creature If this Jesus be the first and universal Creature the whole world in one Spirit and Person who takes flesh of the Virgin Mary then doth the whole world live die and rise again in him Now is his Death the Death of the whole world his Resurrection is the universal Resurrection of the whole world in its Divine Head and in its immortal Root Now is Jesus Christ a Sacrifice for our Redemption Sanctification Salvation not by an imaginary notional arbitrary Imputation but a judgment founded upon the Divine Nature of things and a real immediate Union between Christ and the World as a Divine Seed and a Divine Plant which with a Divine eminency is comprehended in that Seed and virtually produced out of it receiving every moment its alterations from it according to the seminal and Divine proportions treasured up in it Thus Christ takes away the Sin of the World thus he makes all things new These are only glances by the way 2. The second Consideration which moved me to touch this string is the perfection and the heightning which it seems to give to the whole mystery of Divine Truth in the Scripture and in the Gospel A sweet and beautiful line would probably arise from this Point to illustrate many and principal Scriptures many and principal Mysteries of the Gospel if it were found consonant to the letter of the Scripture to the Analogy of Faith and so generally received I will now therefore offer in few words a reason or two in this case leaving the judgment of it and the full prosecution to those who have either Humane or Divine Learning in these things above my self 1. The first or rather cluster of Reasons lieth in that Scripture Col. 1. 15 16 17. 1. Christ is here described in the proper Character of his Divine Person as the general ground of his Mediatorship by these words Who is the Image of the invisible God He is the Image of God by way of eminence the first the supream the most perfect Image representing the Essence the Substance the Unity of God to himself within himself essentially substantially in his own proper Unity He is the Image of the invisible God as he is invisible in that Glory of his own eternal form in which he is visible by no Light to no Light to no Eye in no Spirit besides his own He is the only Image of God in every Image the Image of God in its first state upon the Throne in its descent through all states in the Grave unto the nethermost parts of the Earth until it return and re-ascend above all Heavens thither where it was at first 2. Jesus Christ is here described in the two parts of his Mediatorship one relating to the state of Nature the other to the state of Grace At the 25. verse he is stiled the first-born of every Creature at the 18. verse the first-born from the dead These two being contra-distinguished from each other seem to point at and paint forth Jesus Christ in two different forms agreeing both in this that they have their ground in his eternal form and are subordinate to it These two being contra-distinguished and answering each other seem to be interpreted one by the other Jesus is the first-born of the Resurrection in a two-fold sense He is the first of those that rise from beneath the shades of this Creation into the true Heavens the Holy of Holies the unvailed Glory of God He is the fulness of the Resurrection He as a Divine Head comprehendeth clearly compleatly eminently in himself all these who are to rise as Divine Members of himself inseparably joyned in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit They all rise together with him at his Resurrection He is the Fountain of the Resurrection Every one in his own proper person and season riseth up out of him by his Power in the Virtue of his Resurrection After the same manner is Jesus the first-born of every Creature He is the first the fulness the fountain of the Creation He is the first Creature So in the 17. verse in the illustration of this state as he is the first of every Creature it is said He is before all things He pre-existed in a created form when there was yet no other Creature formed All things were made in him whether visible or invisible Principalities Powers or Thrones things in Heaven or on Earth and all things stood together in him saith St. Paul verse 17. So the Greek words in both verses are most properly rendred Great men in the mystery of Philosophy and Divinty affirm That which is below to be the same with that which is above Every Flower on Earth is a Star in the Firmament Each Star an Angel in the Heavens above If this be St. Paul's sense which we have represented from these words the Elements with all of them the visible Heavens with all in them the innumerable Company of Angels in their invisible Heavens have all met and subsisted together in one created Form in one Divine Spirit and Person which is our Jesus In this Person they are not Flowers of Beauty not Stars of Light not Angels of Glory but Divine Forms antecedent and transcendent to the brightest Cherubims the highest the most flaming Seraphims Thus they exist in Christ. Thus with the unsearchable Riches of all agreeable Varieties they make up the Body of Christ as he is the created Head of all Thus as he is the first of all Creatures so is he the fulness of the whole Creation He is also the Fountain St. Paul addeth also this All things were made by him verse 16. All Creatures flow from him as second Lights are cast from the first
Spirits of Divine Love and Beauty in the bosome in the Unity of the eternal Spirit the heavenly King and Bridegroom of all Spirits These Doves are the lovely Eyes with which this Spirit is all over thick set like the wings of the Seraphims full of eyes within and without These Doves are washing themselves in Milk So the Hebrew hath it as a present perpetual Act. They lie washing and bathing eternally in the springs of Divine Light and Beauty in the softnesses sweetnesses and walks of the Divine Love These are the Milk of the Godhead and of blessed Spirits These Eyes are full set For each of these Ideal Original forms in Christ comprehendeth in it self under the character or property of its own distinct Variety the whole Divine World and all Worlds in their first forms These first eternal Images of things in Christ are his Eyes the sweetly shining Springs of all Light Life Love and Joy For he ever beholds all things with these in these By these as he looks forth with them he guides all things In these is he as the supream Spirit of truth and beauty seen in his liveliest and loveliest appearances These Eyes are Doves being each of them one Spirit comprehending all things in its Unity a Spirit of purest Light and Sweetness the chast and beloved Mate of the eternal Spirit eternally springing up lying eternally in the Bosome and Unity of it These Doves in the Firmament of Divine Glory spreading their Wings flying every where to and fro over the water of this Creation figure themselves and their motions in shadowy Images upon them Thus are all things here formed and mov'd as the face in the Glass by the living Face This similitude hath in it a signal difference from the Truth represented by it The living Eye or Face sendeth forth its Image But this Image hath its reception and subsistence in another substance the glass or the water But the Creation hath no ground to bear it up but that alone which bringeth it forth These Divine Eyes of which we speak at once send forth and support these Images of themselves They are the clear Springs from which they stream and the Christal Looking-Glasses in which they appear In this eternal Spirit in this living Light all things as varied shadows of this Light as shadowy forms of this Life live move have their being and appearance Not as accidents in their subject but after a manner far more eminent aâ—…d altogether transcendent to any resemblance in the Creature This is the Universal Nature of the Creature How pleasant how Divine a Spectacle is this All things in their primitive purity are spotles Doves Coelestial Loves Virgin-Spirits like Angels clothed in white Eyes that are Springs of purest light and sweetness looking up from a Divine Light vailed with a Divine shade to their Life their immortal Mates their Divine Originals those Doves those Eyes above which looking down meet themselves here beneath in shadowy figures in sweetest reflections of themselves from the midst of loveliest shades upon a ground of eternal Light It is time now to close this Argument All the Creatures are shadowy Images both Men and Angels As are they so is their Liberty so are all their motions shadowy as figures they are all formed and determined by the Life in eternity I pass now to the second Argument under this Head 2. Every Creature is an emanation or stream from the Divine Essence the emanation of a moment This is a truth generally establisht upon all the clearest the firmest Principles of truth in Philosophy or Divinity by the most universal consent and harmony in the spirits of learned men in the nature of things â—…sse Creaturae est emanare The Being of the Creature is the beaming sorth from God like light from the Sun The preservation and continuance of things is a continued Creation The whole Creation with every Creature comprehended in it thorow all the moments of time to the end of time riseth up immediately entirely out of God as in the first moment of its Being at the beginning of time The white sheet full of all living Creatures was let down out of Heaven thrice in the sight of St. Peter The World is a Divine Light with all forms of things Angelical or Humane visible invisible appearing in it let down out of the Heaven of the Godhead as often as there are moments in its duration Thus are all things a new World a new Creation each twinkling of an Eye brought forth a new by a fresh glance of the Divine Eye If any Creature could subsist one moment apart from God the first and supream Being without the particular dependance a particular derivation of that moment it would have the principle of Being in it self and so eternity in that moment and so a Godhead The connexion the dependance between God and the Creature the first the universal Cause and every Effect is much more universal intimate immediate inseparable than that between any effect and any second Gause We have a demonstration to our sense from the interposal of a Cloud between our eyes and a clear Sky that the beams are continued streams of light from the body of the Sun In that moment in which they cease to flow from the Sun to subsist in the Sun they cease to be It is affirmed of all things material and visible Fiunt non sunt They are sent forth but subsist not They are only in the making in the same moment in which they are brought forth they are no more This is universally true of all Creatures Men and Angels They have only a transient no permanent Being No eye ever takes in twice the same beam of Light No man standing upon the bank of a River sees twice the same water present with him Before he can cast his eye upon it the second time it is past by and gone So is no Creature no appearance the same two moments We can never say of created Beings or Beauties of our sweetest Solaces or bitterest Sufferings they are For while we are saying it they fly away and are no more like Lightning or the shadow upon any point of the Dial. As our Afflictions in the Language of St. Paul are Afflictions of a moment so are all our Joys Glories and Beings in the Creature No one of them lasteth two moments The Scripture testifies to Jesus Christ of the Heavens and the Earth As a Garment thou roulest them up and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years fail not Again in another place Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever Nothing below Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day the last moment and this This is one part of the Vanity mark'd by Solomon in all things beneath this Sun of the Godhead fixt in the mid-day point of eternity that thorow their whole Being they are ever in motion like the Rivers and the Wind In each point of time
essential Form I design and hope so to open and establish these Propositions that the true Liberty of the Soul in its Operations may all along shine clearly forth from the Divine ground and form of its proper nature 1. Proposition The Intellectual Soul in Man is an indivisible Unity comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms This is the first Proposition There is a three-fold Unity 1. There is an Unity in the Division of Parts This is the most imperfect Unity or rather a shadow of Unity the Unity of shadows of Corporeal substances or bodies 2. There is an Unity in Diversity of Forms or Essences above all divisibility of parts This also is an imperfect Unity This is the Unity of Essences of Intellectual Substances of all created Spirits The Unities of this sort are the Essences of things in their created state which are said to be indivisible 3. Above all Divisibility or Diversity is the first the supream the perfect Unity having in it self the first the fullest Variety and distinction This is the Unity of the Divine Nature or the Divine World This for its infinite heighth above all expression or comprehension by any created Image or Understanding for the equal concurrence of the first the most entire Unity and the first the most full Variety both alike boundless and infinite is well termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above an Unity The Humane Soul is an Unity of the second Rank whether you ascend or descend in the number of Intellectual Substances like the Angels above all Division but subject to Diversity This is an Unity in a Diversity Diversity which is Variety contracted and obscured by a mixture of the Contrariety with the Unity overshadows the Unity of the Soul and rendreth it a shadowy Unity The Divine Unity and Variety lie hid and vailed beneath the Diversity in the shadowy Unity of the Souls natural Form This Diversity as it over-shadows so it also bounds the Unity and renders it finite infinitely beneath the first and supream Unity in the Divine Nature This is the Unity of the Intellectual Soul an Unity free from raised above all Division or divisibility of parts lying one without another as they appear in Bodies or Corporeal Substances The explication of this Unity in the Intellectual Operations of the Soul as I humbly conceive will be a full demonstration of it There seemeth according to common sense and language to be manifest in us a Life a Power which compareth and judgeth things which discerneth the differences of things relations proportions agreements disagreements which is delighted with Harmony Beauty Musick which taketh in entertaineth it self with the Essences of things the whole Universals as its most native and most suitable Companions which adorneth it self with Sciences The Sciences are an Angel-like building which this Life or Power hath framed by single notions or forms of things regularly composed into Propositions by Propositions in a most beautiful order laid one upon another and by fit joynts like Jewels knit together into one Body of Divine Light which setteth its Feet on the Earth and raiseth its Head into the unseen Glories of the highest Heavens This Power and Life within us which makes good all this or a similitude of this with more or less degrees of Perfection is that which we call the Intellectual Soul in Man If the Object or its Image be extended and so composed of parts which lie all one without another if the Subject which receives into it self the Object or the Image be of the same nature Now the one part of the Object is taken into and seated in one part of the Subject Another part in another Thus all lie diffused differently in different parts not only divisible but actually divided from each other Now they no where meet together in one they are no where compared and judged the Discord the Harmony the Whole is no where understood Yea These are no more in the nature of things There is no such thing as Picture Prospect or Person Life Love or Joy Death or Suffering All is an unimaginable heap of unconceivable Atomes which have no Relation to no Commerce with each other if there be no indivisible Unity in which things meet in which they are compared judged and proportioned How an Atome it self or any thing of whole or part can be without Unity which constitutes it which connects it into which it Ultimately resolves it self from which it first ariseth is of all things to me most hard to comprehend But this is a digression and more than is necessary to my present design Let us return The two essential Operations of the Intellectual Soul are to understand and to will The Objects of these are Truth and Goodness real or apparent 1. Truth is a representative conformity of the Image to its Original 2. Goodness is a mutual perfcctive Conformity or suitableness of the Original and Image or of the Object to the Faculty Power or Spirit to which it relates These two are the Divine Meat and Drink of the Soul like the Ambrosia and Nectar of the Gods or separated Spirits with the Poets But where there is any impression any sense or relish of these two Truth or Goodness in the lowest forms of things These three must meet undividedly in one The two terms or bounds of conformity or suitableness the relation between these two their suitableness and conformity to each other The Intellectual Soul riseth an higher pitch according to the Doctrine of all the Schools and its own innate testimony of it self in all its Motions in all its Virtues and Vices It is carried up upon these two soaring wings as the wings of an Angel quite out of the sight of sense above all the tumult of Individuals and particulars to the invisible Glories and Harmonies of universal Forms The universal Truth and Good are its only mark and rest where its motions terminate The heavenly Beauty of the universal Truth can be no where seen the heavenly sweetness of the universal Good can be tasted by no Spirit but that alone where all Truths all kinds and degrees of good all things in their friendships and enmities are met and concentred with a full with an exact Harmony in one indivisible Point or in a perfect Unity It is indeed a Divine Unity running like the Spirit of Musick through all these terminating them all by it self recollecting them all entirely with their several Divisions after the most undivided manner into it self which makes this Harmony the Joy the Glory the Divine Life of Angels of God and God-like men This Divine Unity can be no where received but into an Unity like it self This Unity in the Intellectual Soul makes it a Divine â—…ye Ear and Spirit capable of taking in the Beauty enjoying the Musick being entertained at the heavenly Feast of the universal Truth and Goodness in the Society of all blessed and immortal Spirits Keep the Unity of the Spirit saith St. Paul in the
bond of peace Peace in Hebrew is the same with Persection The word signifieth the Harmony of things mutually answering each other in fit and full proportions In Greek peace signifieth the harmonious Union of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 peace from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to knit or joyn together Without Union without Order and Harmony in the Union Many things can never become One there can be no Beauty to the Eye no Musick to the Ear no Life no Light of Sense or Understanding no Form of things no Peace no Perfection no Power no Pleasantness no Person Without an undivided Unity where all meet in one which is One the same undivided in All there can be no Union no Order no Harmony The eternal Spirit is the first and supream Unity Intellectual Spirits next to this Spirit are Similitudes and Births of it Substantial undivided Unities the Springs the Seats of the universal the supream the incorporeal Beauties Musicks Perfection Order Harmony through the Creation the only Persons the bonds of all Union Order Harmony Peace Perfection Beauty Life Loveliness Virtue Joy Power Personality in all Bodies in all Corporeal Forms By one Spirit saith that Spirit we are all baptized into one Body In spirituality by meeting together undividedly in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is undividedly one and the same in all by which all are one and the same in every one All the Saints become one heavenly Body This Unity of the Spirit springing up into every one as a Divine and compleat Image of it self having thus the Whole the Image the Life the Spirit of the whole in it self is the bond of their fellow-membership This is the ground and spring of their Sympathy of all their Motions by which in a Divine Love and Harmony they exactly accord with each other We have the shadowy figure of this mystery in natural things How inexplicable is motion in Bodies without the understanding of this Unity What shall excite Motion in any Corporeal Subject Accidents Virtues Qualities pass not from one Corporeal Substance to another They are essentially inseparable from their Individual Subjects Corporeal Substances are impenetrable each to other and so cannot operate immediately one upon another In what order shall Motion be advanced if it be excited Shall the part immediately touched move first How can it until that part next before it give place to it Upon what account shall this before move until that behind it on which the impression is first made thrust it forward How Beautiful how Harmonious how Easie is all If an Intellectual Spirit containing the whole Body the whole Corporeal frame in an undivided Unity being undividedly entirely one and the same through the whole Body and in each part immediately at once by it self Act all the parts in a mutual exact Correspondency to each other like persons in a figure-Dance All is now it self in so many shadowy figures of more substantial and sublimer Variety in the Unity and Harmony of its own Essence This is a clear reason for that Sympathy by which all the parts most remote of the same Body have a present sense of are acted and moved together with all the essential acts and motions of each other They are all by one Spirit baptized into one Body They all are comprehended together in the undivided Unity of the same Spirit So they mutually penetrate possess each other in One as One in the Fountain of their Being Life and Motion the same Spirit This Spirit is each Intellectual Soul to its own Body Let us sum up this whole Argument into a brief and clear conclusion The Intellectual Soul in the perfection of its natural form understands compares judges not only particular Beauties and Harmonies but the Beauty and Harmony of the whole Universe the Universal Truth and Goodness All particular Beauties and Harmonies all Agreements and Disagreements Strifes Friendships all forms and parts as they make up the Beauty of the Universe Then all forms of things in all their Similitudes and Differences Conformities and Contrarieties in all their Essences and Accidents in all their several distinct Proportions and order in their Beauties and Harmonies with all the Parts and Elements which compose these as they make up the universal Harmony and Beauty meet together clearly compleatly in the undivided Unity of the Souls Essence Thus also this Soul contains within it self its own Body its Image and Organ in all the forms parts and proportions of it Neither doth it so comprehend this alone but the universal Body as it relates to its own particular Body as it stands in the senses of this Body like Images in a Glass Here in this Unity is the Corporeal Image as in a Divine Mould formed in all its parts and proportions to answer to their Original in the Soul and to each other for here only are they seen together to be compared and judged from hence they come forth by this Unity they consist in their Union are acted every moment unto motions corresponding with each other and to a Sympathy for one Spirit springs up through the whole Body as it self descended into a shadowy figure of it self and abiding ever with it self within the Unity of its own Essence The most eminent Character of the eternal Spirit is its Unity Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God How glorious an Image of God in this Character of the Divine Glory is man in the perfection of his natural form What is the amplitude the majesty of this Divine Unity in which the whole Creation with all its beauties and fulness appear together at once in One as upon its Throne Thus I hope I have from common sense and principles universally received made plain in some imperfect degree this indivisible Unity of the Intellectual Soul in man 2. Propos. The Humane Soul is an indivisible Unity containing in it self all Variety of forms The Argument before taken from the Operations of the Soul in knowing and judging things to explain its Unity declares also this Variety in its Unity The Soul hath naturally a desire and power or potentiality of knowing all things especially the Harmony of things which is the Intellectual Beauty The Harmony in no part can be understood without the knowledge of the whole If the Soul then in the primitive and pure state of the Creation did actually enjoy it self in the perfection of its natural form and faculties it contained within it self in the Unity of its Essence all Variety of things in all their Distinctions Differences and Divisions Originals and Copies Causes and Effects Substances and Circumstances or Accidents Essenceâ—… and Operations The power or potentiality in the Soul of Man is not Passive but Active It is a pure Act free from the passiveness which is the consequent of corporeal or bodily matter The Intellectual Spirit having alwayes in it self the judgment of all things in the potentiality or power of it which either is its
harmonious Motions and most regular diversity of Forms appear together by virtue of the Unity every where indivisible 3. Within the Unity of the Soul lie both the other Natures in a way proper to the nature of the Soul The Angelical the Divine Natures above are there with contracted and dimmer Glories appearing through Images of less brightness and less Majesty All Corporeal Natures are there exalted into Spirits in their Intellectual Patterns and Powers in their rational Forms and Virtues in their Imaginative figures and force in their seminal Reasons and plastical or formative Power That mystical Picture which the Prophet Esay draws of the Seraphim from the Life it self when he saw them will serve in its proportion for the figure of the Intellectual Soul They had each six wings with two they covered their Face with two their Feet with two they flew Spirits are described by Wings The Images of things springing up within them are their Wings not by change of place without them but by these inward Images are they present with things and in each place By these they work after the way of a Natural or rather Angelical Magick By raising and converting themselves to Images in their minds they bring forth new forms without as the Off-spring or Emanations from those Images like shadows from Bodies Upon this account Angels are said to work Cognoscendo by the force of figures in their minds Each Soul hath like a Seraphim six wings The face of the Soul is his Divine his Angelical Idea in which the face of God and the face of the Angel in their proper forms are seen The two uppermost wings with which the Soul covers her Angelical Face and within that her Divine Face is the Divine Image shining in the Angelical Image These wings are full of eyes within and without As by the eyes without they see the Images of Angelical and Divine Glories So by the eyes within they see the Faces of Angels and of God and in them their own faces vailed beneath these Images full of eyes These Eyes are the living Light the reflection of the Angelical and Divine Glory of which these Images are composed and by virtue of which they according to their pure Natures stand in a mutual inseparable Union with the Angels and in the Angels with the Divine Glory By vertue of this Union they at once look inward to their Ideal Beauties and outward to the Images of these Beauties The two lowest wings are the Images of all Corporeal Natures of all Bodies which cover these as the feet of the Soul Nymphs which are Souls according to Porphyrius are described in Poets with silver feet Bodily Natures in their extended and divisible parts are the feet of the Soul its lowest descent the lowest and shadowest forms figured upon it These in the Soul it self which is an Unity appear only in their seminal Unities and Beauties as Spirits in the Harmony of this Universal Spirit For this cause are they represented by silver feet shining and incorruptible for the same reason are they said to be covered with wings which are those Spirits the lowermost forms of things in the Soul the seminal Unity and Harmonies out of which Bodies immediately flow and in which they are seen as in a mystical Glass The middle-wings of the Soul are the proper Image of the Soul it self by which it performs its own proper Motions and Operations flying between those Angelical those Divine Images above and the shady forms of Bodies below The Images or Natures of Spirits are exprest by pairs of wings not only for congruity and the decency of the Parable but from the Truth of the mystery for in Spirits each Image distinguisheth it self by a most substantial Variety into its own Original and Image by that self-reflection or spiritual Generation which is the essential Act of each Understanding of each Intellectual Nature of each Spirit Thus much of this first passage the three-fold Nature united in the Soul 2. Passage Then it by thee unloosened spread doth lye Through Limbs well suited to a sympathy Per Consona membra resoluis Note How elegantly doth this Divine Philosopher and Poet at once paint out to us the Soul extended into Corporeal Forms in divisible parts languishing obscure with a faint and fading light weak with a feeble and dying force as also present in its Divine Unity the spring of Light of Life through the whole extent of these Bodies and binding them up into an indivisible Unity This Unity every where present with all the parts of the wholy Body This Unity comprehending them all in one making them all one by a mutual comprehension of each other in it self is the only ground of the Consonancy the Harmony and Sympathy The Unity of the same Spirit answering to it self every where presenting all the parts in an Unity in it self is every where in all Corporeal Forms the Beauty the Musick the Harmony 3. Passage Of motion and divinest Melody Diffus'd through things below or those on high This is the Spring and Circle Cuncta moventem 1. Note The difficulties in Motion are inexplicable if Motion have not for its Spring and Seat an essential substantial Unity which contains at once in it self the terms of the Motion its Beginning and End the Way the Forms or Parts of that which is moved Without this how shall the Motion be directed How shall the Forms or parts of that which is moved give place to or pass into the place of each other How shall the Impression or force of Motion be communicated But now all things move by a divinely natural Magick that is by the force of Harmony in the Unity of the same Soul or Spirit inhabiting and acting all presenting it self in every form part and motion Now all motions present themselves to our eyes as exact and Divine Dances of persons to a Divine Musick from unseen Musicians sounding entirely and distinctly in the ear of each person to which they all at once in their order move most agreeably 2. Note Immutablity Mutation or Change Motion differ after the same manner with Eternity Aeviternity Time This is best explained by the three-fold Unity the Divine the Angelical Unity the Unity of the Soul 1. The Divine Unity is alone a true and perfect Unity substantial supream unbounded This hath a perfect boundless Variety in it with an Uniformity All forms of things here as they are most perfectly distinct by the perfection of the Variety so are they most perfectly one by the perfection of the Unity This is the Divine World containing innumerable Divine Worlds within it self of which every one is infinitely new and various from all the rest yet entirely one with all the Rest including at once innumerable Divine Worlds all new and all the same As the Variety there comprehends all distinctions below it and infinitely transcends them So each the minutest the least distinction here being a Variety there is a new
hid beneath the ruines of the fall Thus Knowledge springing in the Soul seems to be a remembrance the Life of all good an awakening by reason of the primitive Image of pure Nature raising it self by degrees and sparkling through the Rubbish the confusions of the present state Thus also hath the Souâ—…n her self the measure of all Truth and Good in this pure â—…age which hidden in the Center of the Soul containeth all Forms of Truth and Good in it self 2. That Clause in the 20. vers From the Creation of the World relates not to the sight but to the invisibility of God as appears by the place the point the sense For otherwise there were a Tautology in the Creation of the World and the things that are made There is a Scripture like to this Ephes. 3. The mystery of Christ is there mentioned which is the unvailing of God that he may be seen in the Light of his own essential and eternal Glories in his own proper naked and sweet form of Love unmixt unlimited Thus he appears in the Face and Person of Christ who as he is the Godhead in its essential and eternal Image comes in the Spirit of the Gospel full of Grace or Love and Truth the Light the Life of the Godhead in its unvailed Sweetnesses and Glories This mystery is said to be hid in God from the foundation of the World The Creation of the World was a Vail cast upon the Face of God with a figure of the Godhead wrought upon this Vail and God himself seen through it by a dim transparency as the Sun in a morning or Mist is seen by a refracted Light through the thick medium of earthly Vapours But I shall now attempt from the Life in this Scripture to draw the Picture of the Humane Soul in its natural Perfections and paradisical Beauties In order to this I shall present to you three Propositions into which this Text seems naturally to resolve it self 1. 1. Proposition God is present and shines forth in the Soul of Man in the highest and fullest appearance in which any created Understanding is capable of receiving him in which he is capable of being manifested or communicated by any Image beneath or without himself This is the plain sense of those words That which may be known of God is manifested in them Every Being in every kind and degree is a Beam or Emanation and manifestation of the first the supream Being which is God The whole Creation then all the Creatures in it with all their Essences Substances Accidents in all their Orders Places Postures Motions with every Circumstance of Being are as real in their full proportion as much according to the life in the Humane Soul as in themselves They all as so many lines and features drawn from the Face of God form the Essence of the Soul by forming it into a living Image of God God himself as he is the Author of Nature is as a Sun with all the Creatures as a Ring of Beams round about him which at once hide him and discover him So the Sun the Figure with a Vail of Beams hides from every eye the too bright Glories of that naked Body of Light But by the same Beams is himself seen in a most beautiful though shadowy Image Thus this eternal Sun surrounded with this Ring of Beams forms a Pareâ—…s tâ—… similitude of himself by himself in the Soul of Man In the mean time God himself as he is before this similitude of himself shining upon it is also within it the vital Centre in the midst of it the Root the Truth the Life of it Thus are these two Suns two Eyes full set each with other as they look forth through this Image this Vail of Beams The Soul by its senses takes in only the accidental forms of each Creature the shadow of the shadow The Understanding takes hold of takes the essential Form the Substance The whole visible World is the World of sense the Object of sense The Invisible the Angelical World is the Intellectual World the proper Object of the Understanding If that which may be known of God be manifested in the Soul if every distinct degree of Being be a distinct manifestation of God a distinct mode or form of the Divine appearance then doth the Humane Soul contain the whole World visible invisible with it self in its full greatness and glory in all its most exact Distinctions and Varieties It penetrates it it fills it all within and without with its Intellectual Light In its Unity as the Divine Centre it sits and unites all In its Variety as in the full majesty of its Divine Essence it spreads it self into all Forms and so many Divine Figures in a most beautiful and Divine Order All Being in its whole compass is Intelligible the adoequate Object of the Understanding The Understanding is all in potentiality in its natural capacity tendency and desire These are the Doctrines of the Schools The Understanding then in Act in the perfection of its primitive state is actually perfectly all It is married by an Angelical marriage as in the Marriage of Spirits into a most intimate Union of Essences into a most essential Unity with the whole Creation as it is one Divine Figure of the Divine Beauty and so through this figure with Jesus Christ with God who lives and appears in it 2. Proposition All these forms of things spring up to the Soul from within it self from its own Fountain from God the Fountain of the Soul in the Centre of it the Fountain of all in the Soul to the Soul That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them vers 19. The last Clause well observed in the force of the words and the Connexion will appear to every judicious eye as I humbly conceive to have no common or vulgar sense They seem to contain in them this two-fold mystery 1. God the proper Idea of the Humane Soul that is it s most inward inseparable Principle which hath in it self the Pattern the exemplar form of the Soul sends it forth from it self forms it furnisheth filleth it with all forms of things He also comprehends and conserves it in himself as its own proper place and habitation as a Light sprung from him and abiding in him the Father of Lights He fashioneth it into an Understanding as an Intellectual Angelical Divine Sun This is the greatest Light in the Soul its utmost Centre and outmost Circle encompassing the whole Essence of the Soul the whole nature of things in all their Forms Operations and Motions This shines in the day of the invisible World This as the Region of Angels contains the Essences and Intellectual Forms of all things in it self as so many Angels or Angelical Spirits each of which is a distinct Sun a distinct world of Angels of all Angelical Spirits and Intellectual Forms In the next place God figures this Light which is
the Flower where it appears as a Flower from beneath the water of a pleasant stream Judicious Reader can a place be found or imagined here for any Arbitrary Liberty for any extravagant Liberty for any Liberty besides that only true only desirable only agreeable Liberty the Liberty of the Harmony and Unity Is there any Liberty besides this the Liberty of the part in the Harmony of the whole keeping its proper place order course in the whole with all most plâ—…asing most charming agreeableness to it self to the whole to every part and the Liberty of the whole in the part freely fully posâ—…essed enjoyed in each part by the virtue of the Unity in the Harmony Object But you will say if there were not in the primitive state of the Soul another Liberty a Liberty of Discord a Liberty of breaking the Unity and the Harmony How was the Harmony ever changed into Enmity How fell the Soul from the Heaven of this Harmony from the heavenly Throne of this Divine Unity in which it reigned over all through all with such a full Joy and Glory to it self to all Answ. I shall attempt the removal of this Difficulty in my Discourse upon the Soul in her second state I hope there to represent the Fall springing from the Divine Harmony and Unity in the Essence of the Soul contained in it and a part of it 2. The second state into which the Soul passeth is the Fall This is the second Scene which openeth it self in the Soul a Scene of Trouble and Tumult of Darkness and Storms of Witch-crafts Devils Death and Wrath of Privations and Contrarieties which make the Variety more full which heighten set off enlarge the Harmony and the Unity In this Scene all this World riseth up and appears This the Holy Spirit with Divine skill clearly and fully openeth to us in this Scripture which is the ground of this part of my Discourse Rom. 1. 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned c. I will only touch the Heads of things lightly passing over them I shall comprise that which I have to say of the Fall in these four Propositions 1. Proposition The first change at the Fall of Man was in his Understanding All the expressions in this and the two following verses plainly and alone describe the Disorders in the Understanding as we shall clearly see The first Instance in the Fall is the not glorifying God as God Tâ—…lly affirmeth Glory to be as it were the Eccho of Virtue Glory is the Image of some excellent Object shining forth from it reflecting upon it and upon all things round about it Thus Christ is the Glory of God a Saint is the Glory of Christ. Man glorifieth God as God when the true and proper Image of God in the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Nature shineth in his Understanding from thence reflecteth and multiplieth it self in its beâ—…ms in its continual shinings upon God himself upon all Understandings all Spirits round about it Contraries are seated in the same subject The glorifying of God is the Act of the Understanding Accordingly the not glorifying of God is a defect in the Understanding the want of the Divine Image and its reflections there The holy Apostle in the following words sets forth the Fall by fuller expressions of that Defect which is opposite to the glorifying of God But they became vain in their imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly reasonings their foolish heart was darkned Every word here points to the Understanding as the seat of the first the principal the leading change in the Fall of Man They became vain in their reasonings Vanity is an emptiness It is the same with falshood in the Language of the Scripture an empty false shew without the substance the truth Reason is the Divine Image which is the only Light of all Truth springing and shining in the Understanding or the Understanding it self The reasonings of man in his primitive state were the several Parts the several Truths in this Image calling to answering one another by virtue of the Sympathy and Unity comparing themselves in that Unity with each other This Image in the Fall vanisheth into a counterfeit Image breaking it self into innumerable false Images full of disorder confusion and contradictions ever fighting with each other The foolish heart in the Text as the Greek word imports is the Heart without Understanding deprived of the Divine Image which is the Light Upon this immediately follows Darkness which is the privation or absence of Light Thus their foolish hearts were darkned The Concomitant and formal effect of this Darkness or rather the proper Form of this Darkness is further amplified by a two-fold Illustration if we may attribute forms or effects to privations When they professed themselves to be wise they became Fools vers 22. How manifestly is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil here figured with man eating of it The Divine Image withdrawn the false Image composed of darkness is embraced in the Soul as the true Light the true Image the true Wisdome in which Man now seems to himself to have the power and the perfection of his own Being in himself Now the false shew of a counterfeit Liberty in the Will springs up through this Darkness Thus is the Wisdome of Man become Foolishness verse 22. They turned the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of the Image of a corruptible Man of Birds c. verse 25. They turned the truth of God into a lye Man was made a total but a shadowy Image of God The rest of the Creatures were as several parts of this Image partial Representations of that Glory each a differing Figure from the other in which something of the Glory was seen which appeared not in the other The Divine presence in its own proper and eternal Image stood in this shadowy Image filled it shined through it was the Light and Truth of it As a Sun-beam penetrates fills enlightens appears through a shady coloured Glass so was the Divine Form in the Form of Man The Truth in its shadow When the Divine presence in its own Divine Form withdrew it self into it self the ensuing Darkness fills the shadowy Image As he that looks through the clear glass in a Window sees the face of Heaven When he who casts his eye upon a Looking-Glass beholds only his own face the shadow on the back-side of the Glass terminating the beams and the sight upon the Glass So the Darkness in the Fall terminates the eye of the Soul upon the shadowy Image the shadowy Figures of the Divine Glory as the true Glory the true God Yet these Forms which now appeared were not the true shadows the true Figures of the Divine Glory nor the true Forms of Man or of any Creature These disappeared together with the Divine presence and
As Nature is distinguished in Natura Naturans and Naturata that is Nature in the Fountain God the Divine Nature Nature in the stream the Copy to that Original So the Scripture attributeth that to God which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked as in a Chain for its proper cause Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will for the darkness in their Minds The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it That God as the first cause is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present and immediately operative in every effect He is the Spirit the Beauty of the Order in the whole He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order tying each Link to the other each Effect to its Cause each Cause to its effect He is the sole force in every Cause the sole Cause of every Effect in particular Thus God gave them up to vile affections who had changed the truth unto a lye All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind All Images are formed there The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding as their formal Cause from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause to which they tend in which they end The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self which Images are the only Truth the only Beauty of it The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion which the Soul hath with it self in these Images infusing and taking in a mutual Sweetness Complacency and Joy They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will raising and laying them as the Winds do the Waters So God gave them over to vile Affections This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity so sweet so sure so deep All good is from the presence of God the shine the smiles of his unvailed Face the Reflections of him as he appears in his own Likeness in his proper Form This makes all Light Beauty Joy All Evil is from the absence of God from his Back-parts from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person without the Vail I cannot well proceed any further until I have cleared my way by removing an Objection or two which may be made against the Interpretations which I have made of these Scriptures and the Propositions drawn from them Object 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins that they knew God yet sinned in the Face of that Light Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will rather then in the Understanding This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate To the Heathen as he seemeth clearly to do Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state yet was that Perfection in which we have described it only in Paradise Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin the not glorifying him as God for this was either the same or Concomitant with or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man the want of Understanding the darkning of his Heart Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states A Light which can never be extinguished by any storms But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness which arose upon it within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall and hath ever since dwelt This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light receiveth it not rejecteth it as a Reprobate a false Light so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul and reigneth it self in the place of it This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated in those words As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture 1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind 2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge 3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind in the Rejection of this Light of Glory 4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness in the end of this verse particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind But we shall more evidently more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall this Mixture this War of Darkness with the Divine Light its triumph over it the presence of the Divine Light in the midst of this Darkness maintaining its Glory unshaken unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words Those words They liked not to retain A Reprobate Mind are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence They manifestly allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone or by the Fire God in the presence of his Glory resides in every Creature beneath the form of that Creature as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself Thus he constantly resides in each Creature as the Root and Being of its Being In the pure nature of man he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn or sweetest Light sprung from his own Face In the Fall God drawing in the Beams of his Glory by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome in the place of this pure and pleasant Light thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul in the midst of this darkness The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium through the darkness takes in a dark and falfe Image of it It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self now darkned and depraved It receives the Image as a true Image but rejects the Glory rejects God as reprobate Gold as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory God in like manner by the presence of his Glory toucheth and tryeth the Understanding rejecteth that as a Reprobate Mind This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self and man to this Reprobate Mind from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings Object 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture Answ. An excuse is
Head its inward Principle 3. The Soul of man in its Restitution by Christ hath Jesus Christ as a quickning Spirit in him as the principle of its Life as its life it self I saith Christ am the Resurrection and the Life I saith St. Paul by the Law am dead to the Law I am crucified with Christ and now I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me He saith St. Paul that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Man is now become the heavenly Image of God and one Spirit with Jesus Christ in Glory As he hath now the Understanding of Christ according to St. Paul so hath he also the Will of Christ. This heavenly Bridegroom and heavenly Bride are one Divine Spirit bear one Divine Image have one Life one Righteousness one Glory one Understanding one Will and dwell together in one Light as God is Light in one Love as God is Love in one immortal Joy unspeakable and glorious The Soul now is a chast and spotless Bride which bringeth forth all the rich and heavenly fruits of her Spirit her Understanding her Will her whole Life inward and outward by her own heavenly Husband alone by the sweet force of her Union with him and the Divine Virtue of his embraces that they may be fruits to God that is Divine Fruits having the life virtue and sweetness of the Divine Nature in them the form and beauty of the Divine Nature upon them for a feast of Joys and Glory to God himself to feast both his Eyes and his Heart If then the Soul restored be one Spirit with Christ as in the Spirit of Christ so in the Spirit of a Saint the most pleasant liberty and most potent necessity meet in one The Divine Harmony of the supream and universal good is at once the spacious and blissful Field of this Paradisical freedom and the golden Chain of this most grateful and most glorious necessity The Spirit of Christ is eternity it self which as it spreads it self beyond and above all consinements to a Variety endlesly fresh and flourishing is the sweetest Liberty As it comprehends all things in a most entire undivided Unity the supream Crown and Circle of all true Life and Glory is the highest necessity Eternity hath nothing past or to come in respect to it self being far above all Changes all Beginnings and Ends of things It is the supream Power which rules them all and the supream Wisdom which measures them The Soul then now become one Spirit with Christ is in that Spirit together with Christ seated upon the Throne of Eternity by its Union with this Spirit it reigns upon this Throne over all things by having this Spirit in it self by being one Spirit with this Spirit it hath in it self that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom it is one with that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom which rules and measures all things Thus the glorious Bride of Eternity having her heavenly Bridegroom in her embraces cloathed and crowned with the same heavenly Image being now in the true state of her own proper person in her sirst and last state in her own proper unvailed Substance and Original here with her Bridegroom is her own rule and measure in this heavenly Image which is her true substantial self her Eternity She is also a rule and measure to her self in the earthly and shadowy Image and in all her Pilgrimage through the Regions of time below whether they be the sweeter shadows of the Light above or the melancholy shades of a deeper Darkness This is the true Liberty of Man and the freedom of his Will which is as the liberty and freedom of the true eternal good diffusing it self into all the unsearchable riches of its manifoldly various Varieties varying setting off sweetning and heightning it self by all the ravishing excesses of Harmony of Light of Love by all the extreams of Darkness Discord Contrariety and hate reducing and binding up these also into a most ravishing Harmony by the excesses by the victories and triumphs of the Divine Light and Love So keeping together with this sportful Liberty the golden the firm Adamantine necessity of being it self still through all that is good the true and eternal good This Divine Liberty of the spiritual Bride which is her Kingdom in her self over all is divinely expressed by the blessed Bridegroom himself in that most mysterious Song of himself and his Love composed by himself in the Person of Solomon He there in one place chargeth the Daughters of Jerusalem that is all the holy Angels and spotless Spirits by which the affairs of the whole Creation are administred By the Roes and Hindes of the field that is by all those Pleasures Loves and Lovelinesses with which he sports himself in the midst of them in the Paradise above who alone is the lovely Roe and the lovely Hind That they awake not nor stir up his Love until he please Cant. 2. 7. Thus it is manifestly in the Hebrew although our Translators have changed the Feminine into the Masculine and set the Bridegroom in the place of the Bride But the sense which the words grammatically import is this That as the heavenly Bride is one Spirit with her Bridegroom she sits above together with him upon his Throne in eternity from thence together w th him gives to all the heavenly Ministers their Commissions that nothing moves in her own person or round about her here below as she is in her shadowy disguise and pilgrimage but as it is ordered by her self above in the bosome of her Bridegroom And according to that order executed by the heavenly attendance which wait continually round about the Throne of her Bridegroom 2. Reason If the Will of Man be not free and do not freely determine it self in all moral Actions being undetermined in its own Principles or by any superior Causes what entrance doth sin find How doth any thing of a stain or guilt lie upon the Soul How is God just in the effects of his Wrath upon those that sin if they sin by an inevitable necessity of Nature and a predetermination by the connexion of Causes or by the immediate and intimate operation of the first and universal Cause I shall give my Answer by several steps 1. Sin hath no positive being if it hath God who is the first and universal Being the Fountain of Being is directly by himself and not by accident only the Author of Sin in its formality as Sin Otherwise we must with Manes set two Gods upon two distinct Thrones one of Light or Good the other of Darkness or Evil. Or we shall be forced with some Heathen Philosophers to establish two first Beings equally Uncreated and eternal One God the Agent The other Matter the Patient So where the Agent subdues the matter to it self all Forms of Goodness Beauty Life and Joy spring forth where the matter invincibly resisteth the power of the Agent there are the Regions of all Evil Darkness Death
and Hell But this Heathenism and Manicheism are exploded as by the universal consent of all sober Christians so by the voice of reason it self For if there be two first Beings these agree in Being they differ in being two Being it self as it is One making both these one in its self as it is pure is before and above that state in which it is allayed and abased by being mixt and compounded with those differences which make it two This then alone is the first and supream Being the eternal One the only true God 2. If God then be not properly and directly the Author of Sin Sin is no positive Being but a privation only So the Scriptures express it which call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an irregularity a falling short of the Glory of God a missing of the mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divines generally teach us That the Sin consisteth not in any Act but in the Deordination in the privation a want of the due order appertaining to the Act. Sin then being nothing positive but a meer privation can have no efficient but a deficient Cause only This deficient Cause is that defectibility which is inseparable from every created Nature Darkness is the privation or absence of Light which naturally and necessarily accompanieth obscure and opact Bodies as the Air the Water and the Earth While the Sun shines upon them this deficiency or want of Light discovereth not it self All things are illuminated and the natural obscurity of these Bodies illustrated by the Sun-beams when these beams are withdrawn or intercepted then the defect of Light natural to these substances appeareth and so the darkness is predominant Thus every Creature hath in it self a tendency to annihilation being of it self like the Earth before the beautiful work of the first day which was light void and without form Thus the Soul of Man in its Understanding and in its Will hath naturally of it self a tendency to unreasonableness which is a degree of Annihilation the privation of that two-sold Beauty Truth in the Understanding and goodness in the Will While the Face of God shines upon the face of the Soul by a continued irradiation as in the first moment of the Creation these Intellectual Forms of Divine Beauty Truth and Goodness flourish in the Soul binding up the natural defectibility both of the Understanding and the Will in the golden Chains of an heavenly Light and heavenly Love but in that moment in which God turns away his Face with-draws his beams in the same moment the Soul of Man is left naked its natural defectibility prevails the privation or absence of Truth is now the darkness the deformity of folly and falshood The privation or absence of Goodness is now the evil and the disorder into which as a bottomless pit the Understanding and the Will and the whole Soul with these miserably endlesly sinks This is that horrible pit out of which sin ariseth the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in it self This is the way by which it ariseth upon the Soul over-spreading it and carrying it back into that pit of horrour the deflectibility or nothingness of the Creature prevailing in the absence of the Divine beams The Royal Prophet divinely sings the penury of the Creature and the Praises of the great Creator in this Mystery Psal. 104. 29. Thou hidest thy Face they are troubled thou takest away their Breath or Spirit they die and return to their dust Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the Earth It is a truth asserted by all Philosophers and Divines That the Understanding acteth necessarily being infallibly and irresistably reduced into act by its Object duly presented The Scripture manifestly teacheth us that sin entreth into the Soul by the Understanding Those two places which I have cited above are clear The woman being deceived was first in the Transgression Sin deceived me and so slew me St. Paul speaketh in both these places of the first entrance of sin into the World in the person of the first Woman and in his own person set as a figure of all Mankind as it was collectively and representatively in the first Adam Musaeus joyns these together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Light going out and Leander perishing Man is deceived and so slain by sin As the Light of Truth goes out in the Understanding the Life of Goodness dies in the Will As the sight and light of the eye from the natural composition of the eye faileth as the irradiations from the Sun which it enjoyeth either mediately or immediately from the body of the Sun it self or from other luminous bodies depending upon the Sun are obscured So is the Souls eye the Understanding obscured according to the proportion in which the Divine illuminations in the way of Grace or Nature cease In these two first steps I have endeavoured to make clear the nature of Sin and the way of its entrance into the World in which we see a most genuine conformity to the dependance of the Will and of the whole Soul in all its changes and motions upon the first Cause as a link in the mystical Chain of the order of Causes The beauty and goodness of the Soul in its Understanding and its Will flow in the golden Pipe of the order of Causes as golden Oyl from the first cause as the Olive-Tree flourishing upon the Mount of Eternity As this golden stream from its Well-head fails beauty and goodness are no more in the Soul The deficiency or privation of these is the evil of Darkness Deformity Sin and Death to this intellectual and immortal Spirit But the knot seems to be tyed stronger by this discourse man sins inevitably by the necessity of his nature The first and free withdrawings of the Divine influence give way for the deflectibility of the Creature to spring up into those defects which are properly and formally the evils of Sin the first and greatest evils the fountains of all evils How then doth shame or guilt lie upon the Creature Why is God yet angry How is he just in punishing Is not the evil of sin from these grounds clearly cast upon God as the Author of it I shall endeavour to answer these Objections and to remove these Difficulties in the three following steps 3. I shall endeavour here to bring in some clear light into the obscure shades of this doubt how shame and guilt lie upon the Soul when it falls inevitably from the necessity of its nature Shame is a fear of Infamy from a sense of Deformity Deformity is the absence of the Divine Form originally present and so proper to the subject The subject of the form or beauty while it is present is also in its absence the subject of the privation and deformity To the deformity is annexed the reproach or disesteem Esteem or disesteem is a right judgment and so a value of each thing according to its proper state
in both from the meeting and blissful embraces of these two this Love and Loveliness in the Divine Nature his Joy and Complacency is alike in both equally full equally at the heighth A Divine Philosopher with a pleasant and beautiful Allegory teacheth us That the expansion of Light in the heavenly Bodies which is the Act of the Angelical World in this their most beautiful Figure is Risus Coelorum the laughter of the Heavens God maketh every thing beautiful in its proper place and time to kill as to make alive unformed deformed privations as the fairest and most flourishing forms In every Act of Providence in every accident from the beginning to the end of things he equally preserveth and perfecteth the Divine Order and Harmony This golden Harmony extended like the sweet Light of Heaven over all things is as a Divine laughter the complacency of the Divine Nature in its Work in its Image in it self I have yet one thing more to say before I take my other step We learn from Philosophers That heat and cold which continually fight in the Elements below are in the heavenly Bodies but after so eminent a manner that there they meet and enfold each other with a most harmonious agreeableness By the Laws of Divinity we are answerably taught That Anger and Love as all forms of things most discordant in the Creatures are first in the Divine Nature But they are there with an eminency with a transcendency in which they are refined and heightned far above all imperfections Here they all meet as most grateful and most agreeable Varieties in the entire and undivided Unity of the same eternal Light of the same eternal Love of the same eternal God As from this heighth of a most perfect Unity these Divine Varieties bring forth their various effects in shadowy resemblances here below they make the figure of the whole divinely one and divinely beautiful As Divine Seals they likewise impress the figure of their own Divine Unity upon each single effect Thus the whole work in general each single effect in particular is a divinely beautiful figure of the Divine Beauty shining with delightful beams upon those Eyes and Spirits which anointed with a Divine Knowledge see the golden and secret Seal this glorious and sacred impression of the Divine Unity upon it Thus we have spoken of the shame and guilt of Sin as also of Anger and in part of the Justice of God concerning which there remaineth more to be said 5. Step. We have yet before us that great Deep which swalloweth up all Understandings the face of which seemeth covered with a thick and impenitrable darkness Let us pray to the Father of Lights for irradiations from his eye that so this unfathomable Deep may discover it self to us as a blissful Deep of purest clearest and sweetest Glory If God first from the counsel of his own Will alone withdraw those beams which are all our Light and Beauty and we then by the inevitable necessity of our Natures wander as deformed shades in a wild darkness through the Regions of Sin Death and Hell Is not God now in a moral sense clearly and fully the sole Author of Sin and Evil This is the knot which indeed standeth in need of the Rosy Fingers of the heavenly Morning the beams of the eternal Day to unty it How shall we in this place vindicate the Justice and Goodness of God I have here three things to propound 1. Let us impartially and ingeniously consider whether the freedome of the VVill to determine it self absolutely in all its Acts reflect a greater Glory upon the Justice and Goodness of God than the VVill predetermined in its Essence in its superior Causes in the first and universal Cause That we may make a clearer judgment in this case let us compare these two different states of the VVill together with several Antecedents and Consequencies by placing them both in our view one by another as plainly within as narrow a compass as we can Let us set that Free-will in our eye after this manner God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit with a Divine Light of Truth in its heavenly Beauties shining upon its Understanding with a Divine Love of the true Good with all its heavenly Sweetnesses springing in its VVill. He now sets down the will of this Spirit upon such a ground of indifferency and absoluteness in it self that being undetermined into any forms of good or evil the most heavenly or the most hellish it is equally free for it in the face of all this blessed Light shining in the Understanding in the midst of all the heavenly sweetnesses flowing from the bosome of the true Good through the VVill it self to cast it self forth from the bosome of the eternal Good Appearing thus in its own naked and Divine Form and to cast it self into the embraces of the foulest evil the fountain of all evil presenting it self as evil in its own most direful and haggish shapes A great part of Intellectual Spirits far the greatest part of humane Spirits placed by the Divine Providence in this state refuse the good choose the evil so render themselves obnoxious to the Divine Justice and become by the pursuits and inflictions of that Avenger the lost Subjects of all horror and woes without end Let us now in the like manner cast our eye upon the Will predetermined in its Causes God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit compounded Ex aliquo Dei ex aliquo sui With something of God something of its own That of God in it is all the good of it the clear Face of the eternal Truth shining in its Understanding as in a Christal Mirror the sweet flame of pure Goodness and as pure a love to this Goodness burning in its VVill as upon the golden Altar in the Temple of God the beams of this Beauty and the flames of this Love unitedly spreading varying and forming themselves through the whole Person and Life of this Spirit into all Divine Virtues and Joys by which it becomes as God himself descended into a God-like Image of God himself This is that of God in the Creature That which is ofits own in this Intellectual Spirit is beneath all this heavenly beauty and goodness a deflectibility inseparable from the nature of the Creature bound up only by the heavenly charms of this Divinity resting upon the Person of this Spirit God in the depth of a design perhaps too blessed and too glorious to be penetrated and fathomed by us as the eternal Sun ascends up on high going away from this Spirit and carrying away with him his whole train of immortal beams with a Divine Light Heat and Virtue Now like a mournful and hated darkness from below the natural defectibility of this Spirit covers the whole face of it making it like Hell it self the seat of all evils both of Sin and Suffering which lie eternally upon innumerable multitudes Let us now consider the two-fold Law or
of Free-will casts upon the Glories of God in these other Attributes it doth not at all excel the other Opinion in clearing the Glory and Justice of the Divine Goodness But while as with triumphant flourishes by Rhetorical Reproaches it insulteth upon the other Opinion as equalling God in savage cruelness to the most arbitrary Tyrants to the most inhumane and ferine Man-eaters It leaveth God equally exposed to the same Reproaches and it self to the imputations of the same Blasphemies I have now finished the first thing which I had to propound in answer to that Argument against the predetermination of the Will which is taken from the goodness and justice of God 2. The second thing which I have to propound is this the holy Scripture in many places seems plainly to assert the Divine Conduct with a potent and irresistable efficacy in this dark part of things the evil as also the Glory of the Divine Justice and Goodness in this conduct equal with that in the good I will instance in three Scriptures only 1. My first instance is that of Solomon Eccles. 3. There is a season for every thing and a time for every purpose A time to be born and a time to die A time to kill and a time to heal A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embraces A time to destroy and a time to preserve A time to love and a time to hate from the first to the ninth verse He that is God hath made every thing good in his time verse 11 I know that all which God hath done this shall be for ever I shall draw forth this Scripture into a few brief Maxims which seem to arise naturally and clearly out of it 1. There is all Variety in the Unity of the Divine work a Variety extending it self to the remotest the highest Contrarieties Affirmative or Negative to the most distant perfections and privations So the holy Spirit speaketh expresly in the general every thing every purpose all that can fall within the conception or comprehension of the vastest and most incomprehensible Spirit hath its season and time So the holy Spirit speaketh in particular love and hatred war and peace embracing and abstaining from embracing life and death destruction and salvation have their time and season Do not these particular instances expresly define the highest Contrariety Affirmative or Negative of good and evil in their greatest Latitude and most universal Nature 2. God makes all this Variety and Contrariety and that in the lowest Region also even under the Sun where it appears in a dark tempestuous scene of the greatest disorder and confusion There is a time saith Solomon for all and a season for every purpose The word Season signifieth a set measured time like the times in Musick the time or season of each thing is its duration Duration is the mode or measure of the Essence and so really the same with the Essence the Essence measured and bounded As Essences and Habits so also have privations their measure and bounds as Rests and Stops have time in Musick Every Essence is the Birth of an Understanding of which it beareth the impression and Seal It is the work of an Understanding alone to give measure and bounds to things That then which setteth the time for all Varieties and Contrarieties Perfections and Privations which consequently maketh and formeth them can be no other than the Divine Understanding God in his essential and eternal Word which alone is above and before all things So we read here concerning all these Contrarieties That God hath made them beautiful 〈◊〉 their time God then hath made them God maketh all Contrarieties Affirmative and Negative Perfections and Privations but after a contrary manner He maketh Perfections as the Sun maketh light in the Air after an Affirmative manner by a positive presence power and influence He maketh privations as the Sun maketh darkness and night after a Negative manner by his absence by a drawing in his power and binding up his sweet influence But this negation also and so the privations which flow from it are called here by Solomon the Master of all Wisdom Humane and Divine Purposes There is a season saith he for every purpose then he instances in the Contrarieties following Privations then are Divine purposes that is Designs Contrivances Divine Forms designed contrived and measured in the Divine Mind Upon this ground some Philosophers teach us That God is a transcendent Good above all Beings who comprehends Originally in himself not only all Beings but all privation of Being which themselves also as darkness night absence and death in their place and time are Forms of good although not Forms of Being and Divine Forms Forms in Divinity although not natural Forms nor Forms in natural Philosophy But now I am passing to my third Conclusion Thirdly God maketh all things the Varieties and Contrarieties beautiful in their time They are the express words of Solomon from the heighth of all created Wisdom in its single state They are the words of the Uncreated Wisdom it self speaking by Solomon God hath made all beautiful in his time verse 11. This is manifestly spoken with respect to the general All in the first verse and the particular All 's of the highest Contrarieties of the most distant privations enumerated in the following verses the time of each Being respecteth its relation to the whole Beauty is an Harmony and consisteth in the suitableness or conveniency of the several parts with each other and with the whole Suitableness is a similitude similitude is an Unity in Variety an Unity of Form in distinct Subjects as the same sweetness and colour in several Flowers The same beautiful light of knowledge the same pure and lovely sweetness of Spirit which makes a Divine Friendship the highest suitableness and similitude Philosophy teaches us That the first Good and the first Unity are the most proper Names of the most high God having both the same sense and force It teaches us also That the first Beauty is an effulgency from the first Good the first Good or the first Unity shining out into a distinct Image of it self which is the first Distinction or Variety and so the supream the most ample Variety All Beauty then in its kind and degree is an Unity diffusing it self and shining forth into a Variety where from the whole and from each part it reflecteth it self upon it self with all its united Vertues Proportions and Sweetnesses meeting every where in each point Upon this ground we are taught That the first Understanding is the first Beauty and that every Beauty is the Birth and Object of that Understanding alone at least in some impressions or foot-steps of it For Beauty being the meeting of many parts or proportions in one undivided Point or an Unity in Variety can neither be nor be discerned where there is not a spiritual Form or Substance which is it self an undivided Unity Then doth the Beauty spring with
motions of things spring and flourish as Divine Plants in a Divine Order to open it to the view of the Sanctified Beholder and at the same time to defend it from prophane Spirits by the flaming Sword by the sparkling penetrating consuming or refining beams of a Cherubim We will therefore penetrate so far as we may into this bright Deep which so delightfully swalloweth up the most Angelical Understanding may our dependance be upon that Spirit alone which moveth upon the shining Face of this Deep and is a Baptism of heavenly fire purifying the beloved Soul illuminating with an heavenly Light the purified Eye enflaming with heavenly Love the purified Heart and so initiating him into these holy mysteries But keeping off every profane Eye and Heart by darkning dazeling affrighting and burning upon them Divine Truth is as a Rose-Tree which as it hath its beautiful and perfumed Roses so it hath prickels to guard those Roses from rash and rude hands My Answer then to the fore-mentioned Objection shall be divided into these gradual steps First No Sinner in a sinful state no Soul in any act of sin can see the Divine Order in the Work of God which Order is Jesus Christ the Image the Wisdom the Glory of the invisible God figuring himself upon the whole Work from the beginning to the end as one entire lively living Picture of himself himself being the Life of it and shining in the face of it Sin is the Souls falling short of the Glory of God into the darknesses below being unable to raise its Understanding to the Beauty of this Light Sin is the violation or breach of this sacred Harmony by which the Soul cuts off and separates it self from it by which it over-casts the Glory with a deep stain and a black Cloud which take it altogether out of its sight all defilement is an undue mixture Every sin confounds the Soul it wraps it up in an universal confusion sin is an enmity to this Harmony of things It is a dark confusion from below rising up as a poysonous vapour to over-spread the pure Light of this heavenly Order The Divine Order then and all things as they lie in the Divine Order fight against sin and the sinner their common and only Enemy As the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera St. John the beloved Disciple having first declared God to be Light without the mixture of any Darkness at all Then testifieth That if we say that we have fellow ship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth Sinners universally in the Scriptures are stiled Children of Darkness and not of the Light The Light of the Divine Order and Glory the acting of a part in this Divine Order in the light and truth of it are inconsistent in any Spirit with the darkness of sin 2. If any Spirit by the highest improvement of its Intellectual Powers by Angelical assistances and heightnings by the more sublime and supernatural though common illuminations of the Spirit of Grace himself form to it self an heavenlâ—… Image of this Divine Order and that anointed by the same Operations of the same Spirit with an heavenly Beauty Sweetness and Virtue This Spirit thus far will be sanctified by this sacred Light being taken up out of the tempestuous Seas of its sins into the sweet and pure the calm and clear stream of this Harmony as into a River of Milk and Honey But if this Spirit do take from hence arguments to sin encouragements to sin now it no more seeth a right Image of this heavenly Glory no not in the notion of it As St. Paul speaketh of the Gospel that which shines in this Spirit now this Image perverteth and so the Order is changed into a disorder and confusion That Divine figure sprung from the holy Spirit is withdrawn together with that Spirit a Spirit from below is sprung up as by an hellish Magick or Inchantment into a counterfeit but perverted representation of that heavenly Beauty Thus sin deceives this Spirit then defiles it and so slays it by extinguishing the sweet of sight of its true Light Let such Spirits tremble lest they be found in the number of those unhappy Spirits who having tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the World to come tread under their feet the Son of God that good Word of God that Wisdom of God that golden Chain of heavenly Harmony in Divine Providence and offer injury and dispight to the Spirit of Grace by which the Son of God sweetly lives and shines in the sacred order of things and by which they were once sanctified having been washt in this Spirit of Grace the Fountain of this lovely Order from the Pollutions of the World Are not these the Spirits upon whom wrath is to come so long as Christ shall Reign 3. My two first steps have been as the preparatory to my Answer like the Porch to the main Building my third step will bring you into the House it self which I shall endeavour to present to you as perfectly and perspicuously as I can In this will consist the strength the beauty of the Answer If I be able to set it forth in its proper strength and beauty I am sensible how far I am below this I therefore intreat those that read or hear this Discourse for their own sakes and the Truths sake to assist my weakness with the utmost strength of their candor attention and understanding Dionysius the Areopagite saith in one place That God reduceth into order those things which are out of order and so establisheth all in good and beauty There are two Rules and Maxims concerning Harmony and Order 1. The Order and Harmony is there perfect where the Variety is full Contrariety is an eminent part of the Variety which enlargeth the Variety and heightens the Harmony Contraria juxt à se posita magis elucescunt Contraries illustrate and heighten one another 2. The Order or Harmony is there most compleat where the Unity is preserved most entire and conspicuous in the fullest Variety To this it is necessary that there be no where any leap or gap This makes the Beauty this makes the Musick to which all Spirits sensual and Intellectual on Earth or in Heaven spring and dance with sweetest and liveliest motions of delight and wonder when the Unity unfolds it self into its amplest Variety by just degrees even numbers and exact proportions When one extream passeth not to another but through all the middle terms that stand between these extreams When one passeth not to three but by two Now the Unity is preserved the middle term being as the band or the connexion of the two extreams which joyneth them in one Now the Variety lies in the explication of the Unity as it lies complicated in the Unity when as the Ternary by being first gathered up into a duality lieth folded up in the bosom of the Unity so the Unity from the bosom of the
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of
present moment to the embraces of the Will which was condemned in the general Rules as a most dangerous evil a most certain ruine Two circumstances upon the place and in the moment of action are cast into the ballance upon the place or in the moment of an action or temptation which weigheth it down with a great force 1. One is the difficulty and pain in resisting the alluring evil 2. The other is a flattering hope of enjoying the false sweetness of the present Action and being delivered from the unhappy consequences threatned while they are looked up either as uncertain or contingent or capable of being diverted by the Divine Goodness or by a succeeding repentance and change especially for this one adventure We may seal up this Answer with the impression of this golden Truth mentioned formerly Good under the form of good is the Object of the Will This alone attracteth the Will this alone moveth it The connexion then is inviolable and immediate between the Ultimate proposals of the Understanding presenting any Object to the Will under the formality or appearance of good and the motions of the Will towards that Object to receive it with mutual embraces 6. Reason What do most persons upon this Subject say Can I not walk sit or stand when I will at my pleasure Can I not choose or refuse Can I not Will as I will Is not my Will then free Answ. This Argument indeed is formed Crassâ Minervâ from a very gross conceit from the want of distinguishing between a spontaneity in the Acts themselves and an vndeterminedness in the essential Principles from which the Acts flow The question is not concerning the power or pleasure of the Will in Actibus imperatis in governing the Loco-motive faculty and the Instruments of motion the members of our Body Neither is it about the Elicit Acts of the Will it s own immediate motions of loving or hating whether these be in the power and pleasure of the Will That which is the subject of the Controversie is the root of this power and pleasure in the Will which it putteth forth in its immediate or more remoâ—…e Acts the Essence the essential form and principles of the Will it self However the Will in its essential form and principle be determined by superior and universal Causes which as essential Principles and as nature it self are complicated in the essence and nature of the Will yet doth the Will move in all its Acts with no less power and agreeableness Yea rather the sweet and harmonious concurrence of the superior and universal Cause in the Essence and Operations of the Will by the combinations of all Coelestial Angelical Divine Virtues make the motions of the Will more potent and more pleasant In truth the Will of man in a temptation may be like a Ship in a storm The Ultimate dictates of the Understanding the appearances of good and evil in the moment of Action cloathed with all its circumstances may suddenly and violently vary They may be like contrary Winds and Waves carrying the Ship in several moments unto contrary motions As the last gust of Wind and the last motion of the Waves so the last dictates the last appearances of good carry the Will away whether it be upon a Rock or in a safe course to its Haven Yet still this is true which Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Election or choice is a desirous Understanding or an Intellectual Desire or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A desire from deliberation 7. Reason I have met with this Argument for the freedom of the Will from a learned pen. The chief ground on which the predetermination of the Will is built hath been this Principle That sin is a privation and no positive Being Thus God is believed to be cleared from the evil of Sin in the Acts and Motions of the Will while evil being a deficiency is capable of no efficient Cause An instance is brought to overthrow this Principle from a Spirit hating God Here this Act of the Will the hatred as it is formally drawn forth by and terminated in this Object the Person and Nature of God is formally in its positive Being a sin Answ. 1. If sin in any Subject or Act be a positive thing I know not how by any skill or understanding Humane or Angelical God can be acquitted from being the Author of sin For this is without controversie the sense of all Divines of all sorts except the Manichees and those who with them establish two co-ordinate Godheads of Good and Evil that he who is the only true God is the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being the Being of every Being 2. Here seemeth to be a plain mistake for want of distinguishing this individual Act of hating God as it is considered in genere moris and ingenereentis In its moral and in its natural capacity 1. While we look upon this Act of hatred in a complex proposition as it is determined upon this Object the Divine Essence we consider it not naturally but morally we rightly pronounce it to be morally evil But this moral evil ariseth from a moral circumstance which is the undue determination of the Act upon an undue Object The evil here lies in the irregularity and obliquity of this Act morally considered in the determination to its Object This irregularity and obliquity is a privation of the due rectitude in which principally consisteth a right determination of the Act upon a right Object Thus is the evil of sin no more any thing positive here but altogether privative 2. If you consider this Act ingenereentis in its natural capacity you abstract it from all its moral circumstances you take a naked view of it as it is a natural motion in the will of aversion or opposition Thus it is clearly good It hath a natural or physical goodness as it answereth the proper and immediate Principles of the Form or Essence from which it flows and those formal essential Principles by which it is constituted It hath also a metaphysical goodness as every thing that is is good in its conformity to the Divine Will which as the Seal setteth the impression of being upon every thing that hath Being 3. There is also in this case before us a deception of our Intellectual sense by a mist cast before our eyes in which appearances are taken for realities I humbly conceive that there is no greater contradiction to all Principles of Truth and Knowledge than this assertion That any Spirit hateth God as God as he appeareth in his own proper Form God is that which all things desire God alone is Good saith Jesus Christ. If God alone be good he is the first the supream the universal Good The general Good of the whole the proper good of each particular All Good in one the only Good in all the only Suitableness the only Agreeableness to every Spirit Person and Nature the Truth
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
Contexture of Beams living in and springing immediately freshly every moment from this entire Person which is all one most clear and lively Face of the most compleat and Original Beauty The Divine Person is not hid but shown by this Garment Mi Jesu pelluces Our Jesus shines all clearly thorow it far more clearly than a beautiful Person swimming all naked in a clear stream or the richest Diamond in a Case of purest Christal The Person here the Divine Sun is at once the eminent Head of all the Beams shining above them the vigorous Root of all the Beams springing up in them the pleasant and glorious flower flourishing forth from the end of every Beam the full Glory filling with it self each part of the Beam and every where in every Beam presenting it self entirely to every eye All the Beams in One are one entire Image of this Sun Every distinct Beam a distinct Birth and Figure of a distinct Ideal Light and Glory in this Sun Yet is the Sun in that full compass of all its Glories seen by every eye in every Beam For so is this Divine Sun the essential Idea of the Godhead the same one undivided entire full in all the Ideas in all the Original Forms and Patterns of each Creature The Beams here are Daughters Sisters and Brides to the Sun They flow forth immediately from it They stand upon the same root of the Divine Nature and Personality God is the only Person in this Jesus Both are cloathed with the same Image Both by mutual embraces lie in the bosoms of each other wrapt up together in the same Joys and Glories Yet are the Beams and created Beauties in this Mediatory Image not only distinct as the Ideas in the Godhead where the most perfect Distinction is married to the most absolute Unity with a most exact equality But all the Forms of created Glory here have besides a distinction from their Sun the Divine Glory and from each other a diversity also an inequality a subordination in an hypostatical or personal Unity But I now anticipate my self This will have a more proper place in the following Character of our Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom 4. Christ here in his created Nature is a Spirit a great and universal Spirit comprehending the whole Creation eminently in himself before it have a subsistence in it self The whole Creation is here in greater majesty in greater clearness and glory than in it self when it is freshest and fairest It is the very Iustre and effulgency of the Godhead it self all transparent the Divine Essence at once shining thorow it filling it cloathing and comprehending it as a Temple founded upon it self framed by it self of its own most immediate Light and clearest brightness The King's Daughter is said to be all glorious within and her Garments of wrought Gold Psal. 45. The first Marriage is that of the most High and holy Trinity to which eternity it self is the Marriage-day celebrated with Joys and Glories transcending all measures or bounds The Father and the Son are here mutually the Bridegroom and the Bride while both are in both the Father in the Son the Son in the Father the Love-Spring in its lovely and beautiful Image the Lovely-Image the first and highest Beauty in its Love-spring the first the sweetest the fruitfullest Love and Fountain of Loves The Holy Spirit the conspiration of both these in One is their Marriage-band and Marriage-bed where they preserve entire their Unity and their Distinction in a most blissful Union to make their Loves and Joys more full From this Marriage-bed doth flow the God-like Race of Divine Ideas surmounting all numbers and natures of things The second Marriage is in this Middle-Glory between the Uncreated and created Beauty joyned together in one Divine eternal Person and Spirit The Divine Nature is here the King and the Bridegroom this created Spirit is the Kings Daughter his Queen and his Bride This Queen is described to be all glorious within and to have her Garment of wrought Gold The Hebrew word within signifieth properly in her Person in her naked Face which are within all her Garments and Vails Her God her Bridegroom Jesus in his essential Image her eternal Idea is her Person her Face her internal Form Thus is she all glorious within For the Lamb himself her Bridegroom is her Glory The Glory of the Lord himself in his eternal Splendors enlightneth all within This Queens Garment is all of wrought Gold The word Wrought signifieth properly a work of Eyes set all over the Garment So Dr. Hammond expoundeth it Her Garment was all over set with round Oes like so many Eyes or Suns wrought in Gold The created form of this Spirit being the pure lustre of the eternal Sun the Divine Essence is the Queen's Garment The numberless Ideas of the Divine Nature in each of which the Godhead it self is entire in its Sacred Unity comprehending all its Ideas or Variety in a Variety entirely thorowout infinitely fresh and new form in this Garment secondary Ideas their own most immediate fairest and fullest Effulgencies or Life-Pictures In every one of these is this Queen also according to the Original Patterns in her Father King and Bridegroom compleat with all the full Glories of her Person and equally distinct in a new Variety of all her Glories as a new Queen a new Person a distinct Spirit These are the Divine Suns and Eyes in the Garment of this Queen in which the eternal Eyes and Suns shining in the Divine Essence look forth as thorow Casements of pure living and immortal Christal Each Form each distinction of every kind in the Creation here below is such an eye such a Sun wrought in Gold such a Spirit of incorruptible Glory such a Bride and Queen to the eternal King Every one in particular is a spiritual and heavenly Member all together make up the spiritual and heavenly Body of our Jesus in this Personal Kingdom of his where he in his own Person is a Kingdom to himself containing the Creator with the Creation in all their Amplitudes and Varieties married together into one Person Spirit and Glory which is to it self Bride-groom Bride Ofspring and All. See if this be not that heavenly Hierusalem the Hierusalem above which is indeed free in the spacious embraces and unlimited Amplitudes of the Godhead which at the same time is by the inviolable sweetness of a sweetly-invincible necessity the eternal Law of supream Love confined to these embraces in which she becometh the glorious Virgin-Mother of us all Is not this the Hierusalem whose heavenly transparencies whose Divine lustre whose unstain'd incorruptible Beauties and Virtues are figured by Gold Pearls precious Stones and Glass Glass of Christal Is not this that Bride of the Lamb which cometh down from God out of the Heaven of the essential Image of the Godhead as out of the Bosom of her Father and Bridegroom with this Character in which the perfection of Beauty and
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
is the Divine Wisdom The innumerable Ideas in this Divine VVord or Mind in this Univeral Idea make up that which the holy Apostle stileth All VVisdom When Jesus the essential Image of all Lights and Loves in the Father of Lights and Loves hath wrought upon the Creature the clear and full engravings of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind then hath he finished it unto a compleat Image of himself Now doth this Spirit of Grace of Love and Beauty flow forth upon it in all wisdom in all the various Lights of heavenly Beauty in all the various sweetnesses of the heavenly Love When this work of wrath shall be seen in the whole piece of the Divine Design when it shall be seen in Union with its Divine Idea in the light and brightness of its eternal Pattern What a pomp and triumph of Divine Love Joy and Glory shall we see it how will it increase the pomp and triumph in the Godhead and its Work So we see it there where I now treat of it in the heavenly Image in the Mediatory Person of Christ. St. Paul presenteth this Joy and Glory to the Disciples of Christ All things saith he are yours things present and things to come this world Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods So far as we by Jesus Christ are united unto our proper Idea in the Divine Mind which is our Mansion or Apartment in our Fathers House we through the Unity of the eternal Spirit which by a Love-Union binds up all the Ideas in every one behold possess converse with enjoy all things in their eternal Ideas their Original Truths and Glories All things here are cloathed and filled with the richest Lights of Divine Beauty the purest Sweetnesses and sweetest Joys of Divine Love But thus much for the Universal the Ideal Cause efficient exemplar final The material Cause of this Contrariety is the subject where it is immediately seated the ground out of which it immediately ariseth The shadowy Image the Creature in its shadowy state is the subject and seat of this wrathful appearance The ground is the shadowyness the darkness the ground of defectibility and mutability The form of this legal or wrathful state is composed of many Circumstances God who is the eternal Truth the only ever-glorious Life and Substance appeareth in a shadowy Image God who is Love pure unmixt perfect unbounded who hath all pleasantness in his Face and Person who is all of him in every part in every glance the Spring and Center of all desirableness and delights covers this most amiable most attracting Face and Person with a Vizard of Clouds Tempests and Fires as on Mount Sinai In this Form he divides between himself and the Creature He sits upon the Throne of his Sovereignty and Dominion founded on Righteousness and attended with the Ministers of his Justice He setteth the Creature upon the root of his own shadowy Temporaries faint and fading Principle cloathed with the Beauties and Purities of an heavenly Image in an earthly Form He imposeth a severe Law upon him urged and pressed with terrible Menaces a Law to be observed and performed by the shadowy Power of this fading Principle The Law imposed is that by the virtue of this temporary Root he preserve the Beauties of the heavenly Image in himself eternally pure and entire that he keep his heart chast unstained from all the Glories appearing in this shadowy Image which alone are ever present with the senses and all the powers of the Soul that he place his Heart all the love of his Heart to the eternal Truth the unseen Glory hid beneath the shadowy Image and appearing from the midst of dreadful Tempests devouring Flames encompassing and guarding the Beauties of the shadowy Image The Creatures sading Root no more fed from the rich ground of Eternity now fails the shadowy Beauties wither the Darkness springs up and over-casts all Sin from this bed of darkness springeth up and takes life Sin by occasion of this shadowy Image in which God appears turns all heavenly Love all Divine Charity into Lust and Concupiscence by terminating it upon the shadow From the vizor of severity and wrath which God now puts on sin takes occasion to bring forth in the Creature averseness from God enmity towards him the fiery soarce of all hellish passions Thus as the Wax is turned to the Seal eternal Love by the force of the eternal Idea treasured up in it self in the midst of the rich Varieties putting on a form of Contrariety becometh an occasion for a form of Contrariety and Enmity which is the Root and Essence of all sin to spring up in the Creature The Contrariety on both sides heightens it self unto the utmost extremity that the Idea of Wrath may fully display it self in all its forms and forces to make this part of the Divine Variety full So is accomplished that which St. Paul speaketh of himself as a figure of Mankind Sin taking occasion by the Law taking life from the Commandment deceived me and so slew me The shadowy Light of the Divine Beauty the shadowy sense and life of the Divine Love is now extinguished in the Creature or which is worse corrupted and depraved The whole face of things is covered with a foul and horrid tempest of darkness lust and wrath This tempest riseth to its height when Jesus Christ the God of Love with his essential Image with his Mediatory Image with his Angelical Image in which he is the first Creature the immediate Head of the shadowy Image with the full Glories of all these vailed beneath the fleshly form of fallen man taken from the Virgin Mary and espousing it to one person with himself in all those beautiful and blessed Images riseth up and appeareth in the midst of this Tempest and is slain by the fury of it All the Contrarieties the enmities of God and the Creature meet in him as the mark of them all The rage of the Creature heightned to the utmost height of all sinfulness burns out upon him sealing up the sâ—… of all guilt The Wrath of God in iâ—…â—…tmost force set on by the Divine Justice Holiness and Glory descends upon him at once satiating it self and making him a Sacrifice for all the World Thus is the knot in the Divine Design at once tyed faster and united in the Death of Jesus Christ. This part of the Divine Variety the Contrariety now carried to its utmost point is finished In the Death of Jesus Christ the first and Universal Creature the Head and Spirit of the whole Creation in the Divine Workmanship the whole Creation dies The shadowy Image the seat the ground of Sin Death and Wrath is dissolved in the Grave of Jesus Christ that as eternal Love in him riseth again returning to its own proper form and place it may carry up all the Births of Love together with it self opening it self in its own Divine Sweetnesses and
Godhead it self with open Face with all its unclouded Sweetnesses all its unvailed Glories fills all springs shines forth with golden smiles in every part cloaths the whole Image is the Unity of all the Person in all This is the first Unity the Unity of the whole 2. The second is the Divine the Personal Unity in each part Such is the Virtue such is the undivided simplicity of the Spiritual the Divine Unity in this Person that the Unity the Person the Variety of the whole is equally perfectly entire and distinct in each part in every point of the whole Thus as there is one Body and many members so is Christ in this his spiritual and heavenly Body But such is the spirituality the heavenliness of this Divine Body this Divine Person that in every distinct Member the Unity of the Person and of the heavenly Body the Person in its full Amplitude in the greatness of its Majesty the whole Body in all its glorious Variety is most compleatly the same and distinct in every member Thus we read that in the Throne of God and the Vision of his Glory represented by Ezckiel and St. John The Lamb was in the midst of the Throne as the Center dissusing it self through the whole Circle There appeared also in the midst of the Throne four living Creatures which are interpreted by learned Divines to be four principal Ideas the four-fold Spring and Head of all Ideal Lives and Glories into which the supream and universal Idea the Lamb immediately distinguisheth it self like the Fountain of Eden in its four great streams These four living Creatures are so described that every one hath its own distinct Form that yet all are said to have one and the same Form Every one is said to have the form of a man which is the entire and universal Harmony of all forms the form of that man which rides in the Firmament above the heads of them all the Lamb himself This is the second Unity 3. The third is the Unity of all parts with each other and with the whole Every part equally subsisteth and shineth in all the other parts and in the entire Face of the whole as in it self being every where most perfectly distinct and the same So we read concerning those four living Creatures Whithersoever the Spirit of the living Creatures was to go they still went forward and never turned This is the force of the Unity of each part and with the whole Without change at once every part stands distimctly in every form of Beauty Pleasantness Glory In all the richness of their Divine Motions and Activities ever full ever new The beautiful and Divine Face of each part of the whole in each part standeth and looketh at once every way in every part of the whole and in the whole Now have I finished the three-fold Excellency of our Jesus in this Divine Image and Mediatory Glory Before I pass from it let me entreat you to cast your eye for a little space upon two Divine and delightful sights here 1. There is no particular Form so little or so low there is no privation so empty or so dark which hath not its two-fold Idea or Archetype here We read That Death and Hell are open and manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Where are the Forms of things so divided and broken as in the dust of Death What privations so shady and black so empty and desolate so deformed horrid and dreadful as those of Death and Hell Yet are Death and Hell manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Is not this Jesus the Divine Glass and Light in which alone all things appear to himself and to his Father Are not these Archetypes or Ideal Patterns in Christ both the Divine Eyes with which the eternal Spirit looketh upon all things and the Divine Objects which alone he beholdeth with these Eyes the Divine Images in these Eyes Then Death and Hell all particulars all privations are evidently and eminently here in the beautiful Form and Person of our blessed Mediator Here they are in their proper Ideas in their distinct and heavenly Patterns their eternal Truths But here they are no more particulars or privations inasmuch as every part every point of this Divine Image where these Ideas are seated is both the Center diffusing it self through the whole Image and a Circle comprehending the whole with its full Majesty and Glory in its own distinct propriety and form Thus the Psalmist sings divinely of this heavenly Mystery to Jesus Christ. The Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and the Light both alike This is the first of those heavenly sights to which I invited thee 2. See if our Jesus in this Mediatory Image be not the Jerusalem above ever new altogether heavenly our Mother which bringeth us forth under the Apple-Tree the Tree of Love in the heavenly Paradise which beareth us upon her sides and dandles us upon her knees through our whole course in all our motions and changes of our Birth Life and Death which milketh forth from her Breasts abundance of Glory upon us See if this be not that City of the living God having the Godhead it self for a Foundation where all things dwell together in their heavenly Patterns and eternal Spirits See if this be not Jerusalaiim two Cities in one compacted together by one eternal Love into one eternal Spirit and Person the created and the Uncreated Image where the First-bron the whole Creation in general all Creatures in particular in their first-born Original Images and Truths dwell together See if this be not that Kingdom of God universal over all the last of all without end eternal which is Righteousness Peace and Joy The Righteousness of all Divine incorruptible Harmony and Beauty the Beauties of Holiness the Beauties of the Divine Nature in its most unstained unmixt highest Purity that Peace and Joy which is the most ravishing Harmony of all things as they spring shine and sing together in the Unity of the Divine Light Life and Love in the ever dear and delightful Person of our blessed Mediator I have proceeded thus far in our Discourse of the Lord Jesus as he is the Mediator of the Creation the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God To this end he necessarily toucheth both the extremes is immediately united to both and unites both in himself in a middle state between both I have spoken of the Lord Jesus as he toucheth the extreme above and is God with God the essential Image of God the Original Seat and Image of all Forms of things in their first state We have treated of him in his middle state where he is the Union of God and the Creature of all Forms of things uncreated created joyned together in one Light and Spirit of Glory I now pass to the third Consideration of our Mediator as he toucheth the lower extream of the
Glory the eternal Spirit St. Austin in his Discourses of the Trinity interprets the mission or sending Christ by the Father to be his coming forth out of the invisible Glory of the Father into a visible state and form The invisible Glory being immutable undivided and unconfined comprehendeth constantly in it self after its own manner that visible Form which it sendeth forth from it self Object How do we say that the Manhood of Christ was a Spirit in its Resurrection when he saith in one place to his Disciples A Spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me to have In another place he shewed his hands and his side to the Apostles Joh. 20. 20. Again he calleth to Thomas Bring thy finger hither and see mine hands and bring thine hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving but believing In a visible form he ascended before the eyes of the Apostles and a Cloud took him up out of their sight Act. 1. 9. To this I give three Answers Answ. 1. Jesus Christ intended not that these outward appearances of a natural Form to their outward and natural senses should be in themselves alone any demonstration of his Resurrection and Glory Did not he know that all their senses were equally capable of being deluded by a Fantom or an Apparition of the Devil If Satan can change himself into an Angel of Light to the deluding of our most noble and Divine Faculty our Understanding can he not as easily by the same skill and power change himself into any known or agreeable Object to abuse any of our senses might not he either by false Species or Images impressed upon the outward Organs of sense the natural Spirit the Imagination or by thickning and forming a Body of Air counterfeit the softness the warmth the solidity of Christs Flesh and his Wounds to the touch and to the hands of St. Thomas as well as to his sight and to his eyes Histories of those affairs which write them with greatest Authority and best Reputation tell us of dissolute Persons who have seemed to themselves in the warm embraces of a delightful Person on a soft and rich bed who yet in the end have found themselves with a filthy sow in the mire Answ. 2. We read in Daniel that the Bodies of the Saints in the Resurrection shine as the Sun in the Firmament When Jesus Christ was transfigured his Face did shine as the Sun in its strength If then the Body of our Lord Jesus risen from the dead did remain flesh still yet certainly it was rarified and heightned to such a degree of Spirituality and Glory that it could bear no resemblance to the natural Body the Flesh of Christ in its Humiliation upon the Cross stained and broken with Wounds with Blood with Agonies with the forms of Death invading it Can we think a glorified Body could bear any proportion to our natural senses when our own reason according to the Rules of Philosophy teacheth us That a sensible Object if it excel destroys the sense Our experience makes this plain to us in the Sun which shining clearly forth is uncapable of being lookt upon by us chastizing us with a blindness even to inferior Objects if we dare to cast our eyes upon him yet is he in his brightest Glory but a shadowy Figure of the glorified Body of Christ and of his Saints For when Christ shall appear in his glorified Body and the Saints in their glorified Bodies shall appear and shine in their full splendor with him the Sun shall have no glory before this excelling Glory but be turned into Sack-cloath as the Stars lose their light when the Sun riseth upon them Can we think then our eyes our natural senses or those of the Apostles capable of discerning or taking in the Glory of Christs spiritual Body in its proper and true Form when he was risen from the dead Answ. 3. The holy Spirit saith expresly of these appearances of Christ to the natural senses of the Apostles immediately upon that History of St. Thomus Many truly therefore and other signs Jesus wrought before his Disciples Joh. 20. 30. We read also concerning these appearances of Christ to the Apostles that Jesus Christ presented himself to them alive by many signs or wonders for the space of forty days appearing to them and seen by them These then were Signs or Miracles wrought by Christ which had no force in the outward Form any farther than the eternal Spirit with a Divine Power and Glory wrought in them and shined through them Such Signs and Wonders were the Images of things presented of old to the eyes or imaginations of the Prophets which were of no use any farther than the eternal Word the Glory of God opened it self to the Spirits of the Prophets through them at once discovering them in it self and it self in them So now the Lord Jesus by these Signs to the outward senses at once opened fortified heightned enlarged the Understanding and the spiritual senses of the Apostles and presented himself to them with his whole Man-hood Soul and Body risen into the Glory of his Mediatory Form and of his Divine Nature Here he set before them all those fleshly Forms of his Humiliation of his Incarnation Life and Death through which he had passed in their proper Forms of their several seasons not as shadowy Images to shadowy senses but as the essential eternal Truth the Spirit and Life of them as Mysteries and Glories unvailed and sealing themselves upon the spiritual senses of those whose eyes were thus anointed to behold them This was the sight which Christ presented to Thomas when he said to him with words which carried a new Creation along with them be not unbeliving but believing This was the sight which Thomas saw when he cryed My Lord and my God The Ascention of our Lord Jesus is his passage out of his Mediatory Form and Glory carrying that also up together with himself into the Glory of the Father Jesus Christ distinguisheth between his own Glory and the Glory of his Father Luke 9. 26. When the Son of Man cometh in his own Glory and the Glory of his Father and the Glory of his holy Angels The Glory of the holy Angels is that of this Creation which is subjected to them in which they are according to the Language of the Scripture Principalities Powers and Thrones His own Glory the proper Glory of Christ which he calls his own Glory is that of his Mediatory Form The Glory of his Father transcendeth that shining forth in the supream Unity and purest simplicity of the Godhead This three-fold Glory Jesus Christ united in his own Person Through this three-fold Glory he ascended taking up all with him into the highest Glory He cometh again in the Spirit of Glory and of God as the Root of this three-fold Glory putting forth himself gradually in it through the Saints till by springing and forming himself in them he bring them also
new upon the supream Goodness in its heavenly Image of the eternal Truth that here by its Will it may lie down for ever with a most blissful Rest with the fulness of all unexpressible complacency in the fruition of the supream Goodness shining forth upon it immediately clasping and enfolding in its own naked immortal most precious most pleasant Form the perfection of Beauty the Essence of all Beauty Truth Goodness and Love in One But it is time now for me to pass from this second Excellency in the Mediatory Form and Person of our Jesus the Harmonious Order and Proportion of the parts The third Excellency in this Mediatory Form of Christ is the Unity of the whole and of the parts as in themselves so with the whole The ground of this Unity is two-fold 1. The Spiritual Nature 2. The Divine Person 1. One ground of this Unity is the Spiritual Nature of all things here St. Paul speaking of the Lord Jesus in this his proper Kingdom and Glory saith of him The Lord is that Spirit That Spirit in the same place he describeth to be the Spirit in which the Vail the Shade and Cloud of Flesh is entirely removed where all things are with open face in the Liberty of the Divine Light and Glory The Lord Jesus faith of himself The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life It is the Spirit which quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory casts off the Vail of Flesh as from his Divine so from his Humane Nature The days of his Flesh are now past He is a quickning Spirit all Spirit and Life His Humane Nature is now all Spirit and by having the Godhead hath the Fountain of Spirits and Life in it self All his words in this spiritual state are substantial living immortal Spirits springing forth from and abiding in himself as their heavenly Root and Element After this manner do all Forms of things arise and flourish in him being his words of Power and Glory as the Images in Humane or Angelical Understandings are the words of those Minds Spirits are Unities There is with them no distance of Space or division of Parts All Spirits intimately entirely throughout penetrate possess and inhabit each other transcending all this Image and measure of space of place of corporeal extension The streets in the heavenly Jerusalem are said to be Gold and Glass If I conjecture aright Jesus Christ in his Mediatory State is this glorious City where the great Assembly of the First-born all Spirits born of the Father of Lights Humane or Angelical on Earth or in Heaven dwell together in One. It is expresly said That this City hath the Glory of God that the Glory of the Lord 〈◊〉 it and that the Lamb is the Light thereof How agreeth all this with that Description of Christ the brightness of the Glory of God In this City of glorious and immortal Spirits which is it self the Spirit of Unity and of Glory where Jesus Christ is built up not only into a Temple but into a City in this Spirit the streets the lowest Forms of things are Gold and Glass Such gold as hath the transparency of glass Such glass as hath the substance the solidity the glory the incorruptibleness of Gold Thus is the Unity in the spiritual Nature of things most beautifully and most agreeably figured to us Like Gold it is every where full of it self compact and uniform sending forth continually all various Forms as Beams of Glory Like Glass it discovereth all Forms of things within it self in every point of it self by a perfect transparency all Forms of things endlesly appear in each form At every single view at every single glance the eye of the Spirit is every where terminated no where bounded every where at rest no where restrained 2. The second ground of the Unity in this heavenly Image is the Divine Person All things here are joyned by an hypostatical or personal Union all are one Person A Person is an Intellectual Unity an Intellectual Essence compleatly existing and subsisting in it self The Unity here is not that only of an Intellectual but of a Divine Person God is the Person here As is the Person such is the Unity both are supream The eternal Spirit God himself in the height of Eternity makes both Natures the Uncreated with the Created one in our Lord Jesus without any confusion or lessening the Distinction between the Natures themselves The Unity of a Person is understood by these three Maxims concerning it in Metaphysicks 1. The Person is the Subsistence or the Existence that Unity which is both the Spring and the Chanel the Center and the Circle of the whole Essence or Nature by which it is one by it self and distinct from all other things distinct from it self as it lies in its Causes and is there one with them 2. All Operations are from the Person 3. All denominations belong to the Person The Person then is the indivisible Unity which within it self according to its amplitude springs up into all Varieties of Forms Operations Denominations through the whole Essence and Nature in its utmost extent This is that which works all in all Operations which appears in all Forms which hath all names and denominations which in all these is one and the same hath one Form one Name which comprehendeth all entirely clearly distinctly undividedly According to these grounds we shall see a three-fold Divine and Personal Unity in this Mediatory Form of Christ. 1. The whole is one entire and Divine Person altogether compleat all over divinely beautiful and pleasant All Distinctions Diversities Distances Divisions Contrarieties meet here without distance diversity or division in the supream Unity of one Divine Person onc all-glorious Spirit one Life one most harmonious Image one Love one eternal Joy Behold the Beauty of this more than heavenly Person in these several Elements which compose all Beauty 1. Here is the Variety of lines and colours All forms of things in their richest Variety lie together here 2. Here is Light The substance of the created Image in this Person is the Flower of Light the most immediate sweetest freshest Sun-shine from the Face of the Godhead it self 3. Here is Life esteemed the chief part of Beauty Here is the Life of Love As it is Life which heightens so is it Love which sweetens all A Divine eternal Spring of Life and Love openeth it self in every part and from every part with most pleasant intermixtures diffuseth it self through the whole Thus are all the Beauties here perpetually in sweetest motion in the liveliest and loveliest activity of mutual fruition and the delightful exchange of their Divine Sweetnesses their never-fading Pleasures 4. All this Variety Light Life and Activity are composed into and governed by the most charming the most exact the most universal Harmony 5. The eternal Sun of Beauty it self the eternal Spirit of Harmony the