All in the Epistle to the Hebrews with so many repetitions as God spake it several times to Joshua That which destroyed Israel was observing the Laws of Omry or other Kings among them and leaving the Law of God which was so good and just and wise that all Nations also should say they were a wise people that had such a Law Which indeed made them the people of God and so owned by him so long as they accepted and owned his Law for their Rule And he never cast them off till they chose a stranger for their King and a New Law to govern them Yea the great badg of Antichrist which we should hate may be to place himself above the Law and think to change the Law which God hath promised to magnifie among all Nations And although it be exceeding sweet to see and know that he was made under the Suffering part of the Law In all its heavy Threatnings and its Curses also so that all the Waves of God and all his Billows rowled over him and all his Arrows did stick fast in Him and in Job David Heman Jonah but as Types of Christ and partakers of his Spirit and acting some part of his Sufferings and when God had so powred out his Anger his Soul rested his Spirit was quiet and he will be no more angry as he often speaketh as an angry person that hath vented his heat and is quiet So was he in Christ when he had born his Wrath the Fathers Soul Rested in him and his Spirit is quiet so that he can be no more angry But we may come to him as the Psalmist Lord Thou hast turned from the fierceness of thine anger and hast put away all thy wrath even All thy Wrath in Christ Why then should it lie on us thy poor Worms O Turn us therefore as thou hast turned thy self and Reconcile us also seeing Thou art Reconciled and art in Christ also Reconciling the World to thy self and not imputing sin Yet because this hath occasioned so many disputes How far and for Whom or How many he so bare the Curses of the Law I shall therefore Now rather consider the Doing part of the Law and what it required of Man to Man as well as to God There being no doubt at all that I know but that he was made under this to All and for All the Law required it So that now look what ever was required of man either to God or to man Christ was surely made and put himself under all that as his Duty to God also whose Law lay upon him and was written in his Heart also as his Pleasure Honor Joy Delight and Happiness as to be made and kept in the Image of God Though also the Suffering part would soon be cleerer to us if we did consider That the Infinite God could have no other fit and full Object of his Infinite Power and Justice or could shew the strength of his Almighty Arm the Power of his Wrath or its heavy weight in no other But himself only or his own Match and his Fellow which surely no meer finite Beeing was or could be If we therefore may imagine God could be any more Angry in Time then he was from all Eternity before the fall or sin of any Creature which sure he could not be in himself but to manifestation and as he maketh us afraid we judg him Angry Or that he had a mind or saw it requisite to shew his mighty Strength and Justice with the Power of his wrath to the uttermost yet sure he would not chuse a little Worm to shew it on or such as are much less than the dust of the Ballance or a drop of a Bucket even nothing less than nothing When he had his full Match and Fellow which his Sword might challenge when it most would wake and shew it self in all its sharpness hardness with all power and strength of that mighty Arm that held and drew and brandished that flaming Sword Which therefore none have cause to fear or strength to feel as Christ but such only as are high and strong and stout to think themselves Gods fellows or his match and so challenge him As He or she that sits as God even in the Throne of God and Temple who must therefore look to feel the Sword of God and all that take that Character which All will take whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life even before the Foundation of the World And yet These also shall not feel the Sword of his Hand or Arm as Christ felt it but only the Sword of his Mouth a bright two edged blessed Sword which shall scatter and pierce them so that as the Psalms and Prophets speak in several places He will speak them under him for so the Phrase is and may be so translated rather than he shall destroy or subdue them under him or under us Which Phrase of Speaking them under him even then when they have most cause to expect destruction makes me remember a notable place in the 3. of Zephany Which the Jews also have marked as one of the most especial places in all the Scripture having in one verse every letter of their Alphabet and those also that are only final as they call them with other things observable Which it may be also bids us often read and meditate upon it as One of the most notable descriptions of the mind and purpose of God even in his greatest Judgments or in that we use to call the great or last Judgment Which perhaps is There also hinted While he speaketh Thus Therefore wait upon me saith the Lord to the Day of my Rising up to Eternity which some read to the Prey for my Judgment is to gather the Nations that I may assemble the Kingdoms to powr upon them my Indignation all my fierce Anger for by the fire of my Jealousie All the Earth shall be devoured For though it seem a strange For Then I will turn to the Peoples it is plural in the Original a pure Lip or Language Is not this a Blessed Speaking of them under him That all of them may call upon the Name of the Lord with one consent or with one shoulder Or one Sechem For That is the word in the Hebrew Text being the very same with His Name that circumcised himself and All the men of his City Sechem for the Love of Dinah which also signifies Judgment and may perhaps lead us to the great or last Judgment which may circumcise more men than may be is expected and be a sore surprize or ravishment to those that think to ravish it Which should also be compared with the Judgment on Sechem in Judges But I will come rather to the plain things of the Gospel cleerly comprehended in the Doing Part of the Law Which I am therefore made to study that I may see not only my Duty to God or man but Christs Duty unto me a poor Worm sprauling
witnesse Judges or Jury to Indict arreign condemn and execute this Malefactor but Himself and his own hands in his own bowels had not some over-ruling secret Power restrained him or prevented opportunities Which ere long yet might seem to be offered when he heard the sad doleful shreekings of his fellow passengers while All at once saw their hopes and ship broken together spliting on a scraggie Rock where they all bid adieu to themselves and Time Now lanching out as they all thought into the boundlesse Ocean of Eternity Wearied with expectance and pursuit of death which they feared and he wished as a little pauze to that Horror which he judged worse than Death rather then struggling for life he lay gasping on the top of a scrag somewhat higher then his fellows where those waves that had cast him up seemed to leave him a while as stepping back a little in regret rather then pitty that with greater and renewed force as he was like enough to fear they might return again to assault and afflict him In these hoping fears and strength enough to recollect so much of his bewildred reason as to think he yet lived though he knew not how or where a grave aged Person came or was rather sent from some higher power that had seen and pittied him it seems as having been a mournful spectator of that shipwreck After some real expressions of most cordial sympathy with his sad forlorn condition which came out in sighs and groans and Tears rather than words the grave Hermite for such he seemed carried rather then led him into his Cell which was hard by the place and in the same Rock where the proud swelling waves had been commanded so to leave him As he was preparing such repast as that distance from the World could afford he perceived such a meen and carriage with other characters in his wearied Guest as made him much guesse of his native Countrey and Education to which therefore he suited his Language as he judged likest to be understood by his Stranger Who yet replyed little but so many sighs and broken groans onely as with piercing looks might intimate he was very sensible of his goodnesse and compassion but that it could not avail him now since he was become the most wretched object of the Creators wrath and the whole Creations scorn and hatred There needed no more to melt the good Fathers heart and make his bowels yern over his Strangers soul and spirit more then before on his broken and distressed body Yet it was some comfort to discern such a sense of his sore and what it was For which also he was the better prepared by the like workings and sufferings in his own spirit which by many years experience of much affliction and sorrow had been taught to sympathize with all dejected spirits and to long much for their cure and healing To which therefore he now soon applied himself after some few questions onely to discover more clearly the breadth and depth of the wound that so he might more perfectly discern what Teincts Plaisters or other remedies were proper for his oure The poor Soul had very few words to answer any question not that he would not but he could not speak his grief and sorrows of a heart too full to vent it self in ought but Horror and amazement when a necessity of Breathing sometimes forced out such sighs and groans as otherwise were unutterable In those breathing pawses when he had not strength enough to weep more his eyes and spirit rather then words expressed such an ingenuous willingnesse to speak his heart without any reserve or such shinesse as is usual to strangers that the Father had no need to presse him to Confession which he waved rather seeing his poor Guest ready enough to pour out his soul when ever he could and in some things which he thought not meet to hear much lesse to presse him to All particulars which might occasion such Horror as was like enough to overwhelme his soul and body both so that he thought it very requisite to apply Cordials as soon as he might seeing him ready to faint and swoon away in his spirit almost every moment Here the Authour craveth pardon if he be forced to be more confused then becomes so great a Subject But the poor soul being then in great sorrow and confusion of spirit could not keep method in asking questions or returning answers or be clear in stating their discourse It being written also some pretty time after so that he cannot be punctual in saying this was first and this next His intent being matter and substance much rather then Manner or circumstance Nor must the Reader wonder if he sometimes find a long discourse of many things added together which came out by degrees at several times and occasions as their mutual discourse or dialogue invited or lead rather then drew them although one part of the Dialogue Questions and Objections be omitted now He is also desired to consider All things are better much in their Original or native dresse and Language then they well can be in a Translation and from such a Language as constraineth the Translator to conjecture that I say not divine at the Authours meaning in some places Where haply also a broken line and points may hint the Original there imperfect or somewhat wanting Which yet possibly might be supplied from some other copy which is not yet found and the characters of this in some places also scarce Legible Yet All things material and of consequence are as faithfully represented and expressed as they well may be from such a discourse as sighs and great pangs of sorrow and perhaps also some other causes make abrupt and broken more then is usual especially in the first Book which is therefore presented by way of Abstract rather then a literal Translation and as the Ancients did their Parables To all the poor soul said against it self it was replyed to this purpose All this may arise very much from mistakes of God and your self and although you cannot have too great and high thoughts of God in any thing yet you may have too great thoughts of your self in every thing yea in your very sins God hath made all our hearts so much alike that there is perhaps no great difference in Temptations Thoughts or Actions but what is common unto men And to think our selves better or worse then other men may be from Ignorance of our own and other mens heart which is general and special is so desparately evil and deceitful above all things that it may be worst when we think it best and it may be best when we judge it worst Yea it may be great Pride and no Humility to judge one self a greater sinner then others from conceit of having greater Light or Love then our neighbours have Or if you think you have more abused these though not more of these then others yet in this also you may be
given while he was not glorified Or till he was exalted and set on the right hand of God and made a Prince and a Saviour for to Cive repentance and remission of sins Nay he never speaks of himself as a King or Judge till his second coming Being as himself said to go a great journey to receive a Kingdom and after a long time to come again and call his servants to account And if the wicked servant shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his comming and shall begin so much as once begin to beat or strike his fellow-servants for the Lords servant must be gentle towards all and be no striker when he shall but begin to strike his Master will come when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder and give him his portion with Hypocrites the Doom of Antichrist who thus took on him so before his time to sit and rule and judge before his master gave him power or leave or indeed was come to sit and reign and judge in his own Person Which was not till other Thrones be cast down or set as we read in Daniel and the Revelation For he must sit at his Fathers Right hand till all his enemies be put under him and then his Throne and Judgement shall sit and judgement shall be given to them also that shall sit with him who still called himself the Son of man and never a King or Prince or Judge till That Comming and That judgement And then he saith They shall see the Son of man come in the Clouds with great power and glory and when you see those things and that sign of the Son of Man comming in the Clouds Then know the kingdom of God is come even at the very doors Then and not till then it is come actually come and till that time but comming and he bids us pray and say Thy Kingdom come And then shal the Son of man send forth his Angels which before he called his Fathers Angels and the holy Angels now His Angels the Son of Man shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom which is Then his Kingdom all things which offend and them which do iniquity And then and not till then the Son of Man shall sit upon the Throne of glory and then the King shall say to them at his Right hand and again the King shall answer them But to the goats at his left hand He shal say he saith not the King shall say as if he were only a King to the sheep or they only were members of his Kingdom but to the goats he saith Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For as the Son of Man hath his Angels so the Devil hath his Angels also of which we read again in the Revelation Where as also in Pauls great charge to Timothy several other Texts of Scripture we read of his Kingdom joyned or annexed to his second comming or appearing again after his Ascention at which time he was asked If he then would restore the Kingdom unto Israel which he doth not deny but waveth only forbidding their curious prying into times and seasons which the Father yet had kept so secret that the Son then knew them not but had them afterwards it seems by Revelation Which God gave him also to shew unto his servants unto whom he saith it was given to know the secrets or the mysteries of that Kingdom and to search them out also by that Spirit which was given to make known the things which were freely given them of God yea and to search the hidden Depths or Baths of God as that Apostle saith who also tells us The natural man believeth not the things of God or of the Spirit of God nor can he know them being only discerned spiritually And no man can so much as see the Kingdom of God till horn again of that Spirit which the World as such neither knoweth nor receiveth but it is promised to the World also and to convince the world also and when a worldly carnal man is born again of the Spirit and so made Spiritual then he also judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man Nor may any man judge another man or any person whatsoever or can judge himself rightly till he be made spiritual and so fitted by Christ the great and only Judge of all Causes and of all Persons And to whom and in what cases Christ committeth this Prerogative of judging either themselves or others I know not any hath declared better then Saint Paul in divers places of the same Epistle But as Christ gave that general rule Judge not according to appearance and then surely we may not judge things that appear not or things of another world and for all Eternity Whereas the Wise man saith A man cannot know Love or Hatred and much less Eternal Love or Hatred by all before him or appertaining to him So Saint Paul giveth us that generall Rule Judge nothing even nothing at all before the time That is as himself addeth Till the Lord come For his comming is the time of judging and his Kingdom as we have seen from that Apostle and from many other scriptures And I would to God your time were come that you might judge and reign that we might reign also But the Kingdom of God and this judging also is not in word but in Power As our Lord taught us Thine is the Kingdom the Power and Glory And in the Revelation Now is salvation and strength the Kingdom of God and Power of his Christ for the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down For Christ also maketh the kingdom of God to be a Power to cast out Satan by the spirit or finger of God and when Judas was gone out as a Type of Satan or Antichrist he saith Now is the Son of man glorified and God glorified in him And so Christ said Some standing there should not taste of death till they saw the Kingdom of God come with Power Which another Evangelist expresseth by the Son of man comming in his Kingdom And S. Pet. One of the Eye-witnesses of that glorious Transfiguration which was an Emblem or preludium to his Kingdom calleth it The Power and coming of our Lord Jesus And himself being asked if he would restore the Kingdom bad them stay till they received Power from on High or the Power of the Holy Ghost coming on them which he also calleth the Promise of the Father For the Spirit of Promise which is to be given to all the Lord shall call yea to be poured out on all flesh is called by Esay the Spirit of Power and it is so observed of them that received it in the Acts that they were full of the Holy Ghost and Power And Saint Paul also calleth it a spirit of Power and Love and of a sound mind and saith he came with demonstration of the Spirit and of
solitary a while as if she had left her Husband and her heart also behind her when she came down from Heaven and her cry all along even to the very end of all the Revelation is Come Lord Iesus Come quickly As if Christ were not with her on earth But the greatest stresse of the Argument may seem to be in this thaâ— God speaks nothing to us now but in and through his Son Our Prayers Praises sighs and groans if right are but reflections back of somewhat spoken to us spoken in us Which must therefore be through Christ and to Christ Immediately by His Spirit in us Which or who for that is the Scripture Language as he knows the mind of Christ and so of God in him and brings it into us So he toucheth our heart and makes it warble as the Heart of Christ did when God spake to Him and in Him to us And he whose Spirit it is that helps us by sighs and groans unutterable knows the meaning of his own Spirit For it is he that maketh intercession for us Yea and in us also so that all our breathings out to God are but his breathings by his Spirit in us And in this sence we may and do pray to the Father as Christ in us the hope of Glory prayeth to the Father of Glory so he is called and the Father of mercies as he is the Father of Christ who therefore is both Grace and Glory as the Psalmist expresseth him and yet still the onely begotten of the Father Let me add also that the Spirit in us crying Abba Father is the Spirit of God made Flesh or in actual Union with Humanity For else it calls not God its Father and in us it speaks its own Natural Language for it speaketh in us Praying Crying Abba Father Our Father For Christs Spirit speaketh boweth prayeth in us Hollowed be Thy Name let Thy Kingdom come for it is ours also And if God be glorified in us He will also glorifie Us with himself Yea he will straight way gloryfie us Let thy will be done in our Earth as in thy Heaven Even in thy Highest Heaven For in this Petition it is in The Heaven but in the preface it is in the Heavens even all the Heavens For Thy will is ours also and not only wiser but better for us also then our own will is till fully moulded into thy Will And then a poor Soul dare say forgive us even as we forgive We and not I but we as all the members together with the Spirit of the Head also and in his Person too which hath often made me hope he meant and had promised also for our Prayers or His in us are good Promises also to forgive more of his Enemies then it may be I ever thought or believed Which I cannot much wonder at when All his enemies must come to be at peace with him as his wayes please the Lord. And when the spirit also shall come to Act His Kingdom which it shall do in the Heart of His Spouse for the spirit the Bride shal abide and Act and shal stil Live together as they cryed together here I hope it will also forgive more then it may be all men now believe or hope Yet as the Soul should generally say and pray to Christ as the Apostles did Lord shew us the Father which is also his great promise to us and his Father also in his solemn prayer John 17. I have declared Thy Name and I will declare it that the Love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Yet there may be some seasons also in which a poor soul may think it self so great a stranger unto Christ or at such a distance from him that it may and doth cry to the Father Draw me to the Son shew me thy Son and acquaint me with thy Son for I am a stranger to him or at a losse in seeking Him And yet sure this is not very usual in a Woman or it may be handsom or civil for her to come to a strange man and say Pray Sir acquaint me with your Son that I may woe him But when the Good man hath first broken the matter in discourse to the Virgin soul and hath Invited and woed for the Son Then doth the Son come and is sent of the Father and woes the soul for himself and yet perhaps till the marriage be or at least the contract or betrothing It may sometimes not onely be fit but requisit to Treat with the Father also for settlement of state or other things But Then she goes and speaks and converseth with the Son when she is Married or at least betrothed which indeed is Most if not All that is yet done between Christ and our souls it may be the whole Church yet is no more but betrothed onely till the New Jerusalem Which yet in some measure doth come down and appear unto and in every poor soul betrothed unto Christ. For Jerusalem which is above is Mother to us all The good Sarah spouse to Abram The High Father as the name signifies before it was Abraham a Father of many rather then to Isack the Son who was not married till his Mother Sara was dead Though perhaps That was onely to the Gentile Church brought out of Syria a Gentile Land after Sara the Jewish Church was dead or gone But she must appear again and that out of Heaven also where the Woman first appeared as a great wonder in the person of the Wife of Jaacob as some think or Mother to the twelve Patriarchs presented there as in Josephs Dream also by twelve stars round about her But there is more in it seeing she was also in the Sun or clothed with His Light and Glory Having also the Moon at her Feet and a crown of twelve stars about her head of which we may speak more hereafter And when the Virgin is espoused then she begins to speak freely to Her spouse And I know not any more sure character of being so betrothed unto Christ then such a free converse with him as our friend our Brother Yea our neerer Relation And yet truly we do not receive His spirit but some glances onely through his eyes or mouth at a distance if we may so expresse it till we be actually married which is scarcely consummate in this Life though it may be also at the coming of the new Jerusalem So that all we speak or do of Praying or such manner of converse as is yet usual with Christ is in our way only Yet as betroathed rather than in our end or spiritual enjoyments of him in the marriage bed where only we shall fully receive his Spirit And those whom he sent as his Father sent him received it but as in his breath for he breathed on them saying Receive the Holy Ghost And afterwards also they received but the first fruits of the Spirit as themselves expressed it saying also it belonged
it And our experience may shew us that some times we think to speak to God and we find our selves such strangers to him or at such a distance that we flie to Christ and cry Lord shew us the Father and Lord teach us to Pray as John taught his Disciples Yea and better too as Thou art a better Teacher At another time it may be we bow down and think to speak to Christ and then perhaps we find a damp upon our spirits unto him and some estrangement from him so that we flie to the Father and cry Good Father shew us Thy Son Draw us to thy Son yea draw us heartily that so we may know him more and better then ever for we are strangers to him And I have known some that usually began their prayers unto Christ or at least bowed their spirits silently to him before they spake to God and desired Christ both to help them expresse their own wants and then also present them to His Father Praying in them to His Father while they bowed in his spirit crying as he bad his children say Abba Father for all persons and for all things they ought or might pray for which perhaps are more then they are Tied to and so usually they concluded with the plainest sence rather than words of the Lords Prayer Which also seemeth to have been a more ancient custom in the Church than only of late when some discoursed only what they wanted or would beg of God Which yet I should not disallow if done with such an Heart and life and Power and Spirit as it may and yet I hope it will be done among the Churches of Christ. But I may sum up all in this the good Father by the Holy Ghost in his Ordinances first breaks the Match to the Virgin soul and shews her great want of an helper in her wretched and forlorn estate He tells her also he hath a Son who will use her kindly and tenderly if she will accept him Then he sends the Son a woer and till all be agreed for portion and joynture and other things the Treaty is much with the Father who also giveth assurance of his hearty consent to the match and to his making good all the Son shall promise and indeed is as it were his Sons surety to the poor soul. And when the Son is admitted yea and contracted he still useth his Fathers Name and bids the spouse be confident of all his Father ever promised And if there do arise any doubt or scruple in the matter or manner of contract dowrie or the like the soul hath not onely leave but most great encouragement to go and speak to the Father as also to reconcile any difference or strangenesse that at any time shall rise or seem to be between the parties But when they be married or espoused the Son useth her so sweetly and kindly that she never hath occasion much lesse cause to complain to the Father which yet she might freely do upon any cause but she is so wholly taken up with the spouses affection and most hearty love that her main converse and solace of her life is with Him Though she often ask her Father Blessing and very often bow to him with most child-like Reverence and dutiful Love rather then fear which if servile or slavish is exceeding much displeasing unto God and Jesus Christ and to the true genius of a Christian established with a free Noble Royal spirit Have we not a Type and Emblem of this or somewhat more in Caleb and his son and daughter Achsa Caleb As the Heart it signifies and may shadow out the Heart of God whom he wholly followed with an honest plain upright which in scripture Language is a perfect heart He saith who ever conquers Kiriath Sepher which may note the book of scripture which was also called Dehir that is the Oracle shall have my Daughter and my blessing with her Othniel conquers it and afterwards is made a Judge and saves his people from the cruel Tyrant and he getteth Calebs Daughter Who first moveth her Husband to ask a field of her Father and afterwards freeing her self from her Asse or bestial nature she boweth her self to her Father and asks him in her own person saying O my Father Thou hast given me a piece of Earth O but give me thy Blessing with it and a spring of Water So he gave her both the Upper and the Lower Springs An History so repeated in the Bible that I have often thought some great matter is in it Besides that it cleerly shews us the Heart of God such an infinite Fountain still flowing up and flowing over that he is so far from being drawn dry by our sucking or from being displeased at our Asking and Begging of him that he expects rather that all we have received from him even by his Sons Asking should but encourage us yet to ask more and more still as we receive more from him And when he hath given us a Field or a piece of Earth He expects we should ask his Blessing even the rather and the Springs of Water Even as our Father Abraham when God came to him after his great deliverance from the four great Kings which may be Types as their names import of the four great Monarchies that should captive his people and the good men of the world also till He should bring back their Captivity and the Captivity of Sodom also to be paralel'd with the 16. of Ezekiel just before the appearing of Melchizedech resembling Christ in his second Coming Pursuing them to Dan even to the great Judgment as the place imports And when God might so justly expect that Abraham should have been bowing down in great Thankfulness for That deliverance Abraham saies not a word of That but is Begging a new boon O the mans confidence and cries Lord God what wilt thou give me as if he had received nothing yet or at least very little in comparison of That he knew the Infinite Heart of God still had for him and was straitned till it was more drawn and sucked And the Mothers Breast is somtimes so full that she is glad of a strangers child to suck that which her own child cannot master And when it might have been expected of the Daughters of Zelophehad that the modesty of their Sex should have kept them silent or the shame or sorrow which they should have born for their father being cut off in the Wilderness and dying in his sin and they left Orphans and Virgins Yet they sue for their Inheritance And the Lord heard it and it pleased him so that upon this occasion he Enacted a new Law very beneficial to Women who had therefore much cause to remember and bless the memory of these Daughters And God was so far from upbraiding them or their father that he answers They have well done or well said and rightly too in what they say in that they do not judg themselves unworthy
shave again his Head and Beard and Eye-brows and all his Hair Lev. 14. 9. and Then after Blood and Oyl upon his Ear and Thumb and Toe in All the Three Regions of the Great little World He was cleansed by the Priest O what work he had to do for the Poorest man that was Unclean and could not bring the offerings prescribed And for every House infected also Doth our God take care of Houses and of Clay that Cursed Adama The Hysop Cedar-wood and Scarlet to the Hebrews and Two Birds in Heb. nere akin to Goats One killed in Earth over Water as St Peter on Genesis and Psalms and 2d Command and the other a Scape Bird as the Scape Goat And the Plants and Trees and Fishes and Fowles and Earth and Water and All must Hear and serve Israel and Jezreel also near in Hebrew to the Leaper as the Seed of God! There was also an other shaving for the Nazarite when the Hair of his Separation is shaven as we read in Numb 6. immediately before the Solemn Blessing prescribed As if This had some relation to the Nazarite or Separate person after his coming in again And the very word in Jeremy 7 29 Nizrek may allude to the Law of the Nazarite But yet there was more Hope and Comfort in a Womans shaving than a Mans. For if Her Lord bid her shave off her Hair it might be a sign he meant to marry her For so the Law was If thou lead Captivity Captive as Christ hath done and see a Woman that thou lovest She shall shave her Head and pair her Nails or Goatishness Sipharnea We saw it in Saphira the Goat as also Seir is Hair and a Goat Yea the very Time may be There Hinted perhaps for God is Infinite How long Christ must stay for his poor Captive Spouse before he may be Married to her though she be prepared and adorned as Ester was in order for her going in to the King As the Lambs Bride in the Revelation cometh down from Heaven As if There All the Saints departed were but perfuming and preparing to be his Bride on Earth and Reign on Earth at the End of the Weeks How Long Thou shalt bring her Home to thine House and the souls under the Altar cryed How long Lord and she shall put off her Captive Weeds and shall remain in thine House and bewayle her Father and her Mother in their Enemies Land they shall confess their Fathers sins we saw it before A Full Month or Moon of Dayes And after That Thou mayst be her Husband And if afterwards she please thee not Thou mayst leave her to her own soul which is the great thing to be feared of a Backsliding heart from Christ But thou mayst not sell her because thou hast Humbled her Jacob also stayed with Laban before he asked his Daughter a full Month or Moon of Dayes Chodesh Jamim but in the Law of Deut. it is Jerach Jamim As also 2 Kings 15. 13. May we not also compare That in Jer. 2. Thy own wickedness shall instruct thee thy backslidings shall rebuke thee See and know that it is an evil and a bitter thing that thou dost forsake the Lord and yet more Thy God! For of old I broke thy Yoke and burst thy Bonds Ezek. 16. and Epistle of Baruck I planted thee a Noble Vine wholly a Right seed How Then art thou Degenerate And How canst thou say I am not Polluted A Wilde Ass as the Angel said to Hagar we are now There with Ishmael But God will Hear Taught in the VVilderness as Hagar was and snuffing up the VVinde or snuffing at the Spirit in the Lust of her own heart or soul the very word we saw in Deut. 21. 14. VVho can turn her All that seek her will not weary themselves to finde her Or rather Let them not faint or despair For in her Month Chodsha They shall finde her Then withhold thy Foot and Throat But thou saidst It is Desperate But can a Maid forget her Ornament and a Bride her Attire Yet My People My people have forgotten me Dayes without number But why do My people say We are Lords or have Power Radnu VVe will come no more to Thee But then follows the sweetest Chapter of the Bible to an Adulterous Spouse Yet turn again Yet Turn again Return return O Shulamith For I am Married to You c. Which at length melts her into Tears and sweet supplications In the close of the 3d Chapter and God answers in the 4th If a woman bear a son she was Unclean 7 Dayes as in her common separation not observing which cut off and spued out the very Heathens Levit. 18. Ezek. 18. Esay 30. 22. Lam. 1. 17. and her son not Circumcised till the 8th Day and Then she must remain 33 Daies as the Moon 333 Hours and then she may eat the Holy things and come into the Sanctuary with two Turtles or Pigeons if she could not bring a Lamb which made them so dear that the Sanedrin altered this Law it seems and our Saviour scourged the sellers of Doves also which were brought by his Poor Blessed Mother Who presented her self and Him also in the Temple at 40 dayes being the Sabbaths of his 40 Weeks in the Womb As at 40 Daies after his 40 Hours in the womb of the Grave He was presented to his Father in his Heavenly Temple 40 Years before the Sack of Jerusalem But for a Daughter the Woman was Unclean 14 Daies the 2d Sabbath and the Day of Passover and Then she must not enter the Sanctuary in 66 Daies Which is the very Number of Pentecost or Feast of first Fruits or 50th Day after the sheaf which was the 16th Day of the Year And as this was 66 Daies so the Moon returneth to the Sun in 666 Hours And when any Woman or the Church is freed from the Power or Rule of the Moon and her Changes or Courses at the Jubilee of 49 or 7 times 7 Then she need not fear That or any other separation in common course And if she should be sick so long as the Woman in the Gospel spending all her Substance yet she may be healed if she come behinde him and but touch the Hemb of his Garment It is all Perfumed with precious Ointments as we saw before from Psal. 133. Jephtas Daughter returned after Two Months bewailing her Bethulia which again in Judith and the Daughters of Israel went from Dayes to Dayes a Day for a year to lament the Daughter of Jephta 4 Daies in the year Jephta's 6 and Ibsans 7 Elans 10 and Abdons 8 bring us to the Sun of the 15th Day with some Healing in his wings also though but a little Sun as Samson may signifie with his 30 Companions as their Month had 30 Daies and 7 Daies also for the Week and Sabbath Both his Eyes or Witnesses put out He pulls down the House and more are slain by his Death than all his Life And there
OLBIA THE NEW ILAND LATELY DISCOVERED With its Religion and Rites of Worship Laws Customs and Government Characters and Language With Education of their Children in their Sciences Arts and Manufactures with other things remarkable By a Christian Pilgrim driven by Tempest from Civita Vecchia or some other parts about Rome through the Straits into the ATLANTICK OCEAN The First Part. From the Original For Samuel Hartlib in Ax-yard Westminster and John Bartlet at the Guilt-Cup near Austins-Gate London and in Westminster-Hall 1660. The sum of this Discourse HAving lost his Father and other Relations about the great Sickness in Naples the Author becometh a sad disconsolate Pilgrim all alone by Land till unexpected dangers force him from Rome or there about to the Sea Where in a great Storm and Tempest he falleth into unexpressable Horror and Anguish of Minde till at length by Shipwrack losing all his Company he is cast on a scraggy Rock and There by a Religious Person as an Hermite entertained till recovering his Peace and strength with a quiet minde he also Learned the Religion Laws Customs Language and Characters of That New Iland fully described in the Books following this First Part. In which the Father discourseth the Danger of wrong Judgeing our selves or others with the way to a right understanding and Judgement the great Work of the Spirit promised to the World by Jesus Christ Who was sent to Redeem our souls from All Deceit and violence and to offer sacrifice for every one that Erreth and for him that is simple Cleered from Ezech. 45. 20. with Psal. 72. Of our Access and addresses to Him by Prayer As Saint Paul Learned from the first Martyr at his Death and thence made it the great Character of a Christian cleered from His Epistles and the Acts with the Revelation and other Scriptures in Harmony to the Psalms and Canticles Conversing with Christ and Praying to him From the 17. page to the 44. How Christ taught his Disciples and others to pray Our Father c. How He prayed to His Father and How a Christian to Christ and the Father in and through Christ. As Calebs Daughter to Her Father by her Husband and Her self Of Zelophehads Daughters and Edoms Widows and Orphans from Jer. 49. 11. from 44 page to 53. The great Arguments to be pressed on Christ as our Brother Born for a Day of sorrow made of a Woman made under the Law to Redeem them under the Law How the Law lay upon Christ as the great High Priest and Prophet promised to Moses to be raised from our Brethren and Like us in All things and so in the Law also And as our King to write out the Law by which he Ruled and to keep it all his Dayes that so he may do it and prolong his Dayes and Reign in the Heart of his People Where also the way to settle a perpetual Monarchy to a King and his Sons for Ever As God to Moses Joshuah David Solomon or others from 53. to 59. How the Suffering part of the Law lay upon Christ and sor whom but especially the Doing Part. How All was by himself summed up into Love and that but little if onely to Persons Lovely and Loving again How God Commended his Love to the worst of men to whom the Law it self saith I am the Lord Thy God and I have Redeemed Thee and therefore thou shalt Love me and worship me and Glorifie my Name and keep my Rest because I have provided it for Thee and Do and will both Love Honour and Glorifie Thee from 59. to 64. and 94. to 101. How Gods Jealousie speaketh his Love and all his Visiting from 64 to 70 How God Threatned Adam in Paradice and how he visits to fulfil those Threatnings on Him or others from 70 to 77. How much better for us that infinite Goodness and Riches now fill a Finite Nature that longeth to be sucked as a Breast ready to break with fulnes still flowing up still flowing over and a Drop that runneth over can Enrich our Souls and make us ever Bless him who hath said It is a more blessed thing to Give than to receive And He that hath received freely must give freely Of his having All Power in Heaven and Earth being the Wisdome and Power of God and Better for himself to use it for Edification rather than Destruction from 77 to 81. How Christ Loved the World and Prayed for the World how not from 81 to 86. 94 to 101. Of Gods Hating Cursing in order to a Change and how Places or Persons Hated or Cursed may be Recovered Blessed from 85 to 149. 161 308. Of the Earth cursed for Man but Washed or Baptised by the Flood And of Baptising Children how Holy things of old belonged to every one redeemed by the Priests or born in their Families 18 120 186 365. How cursed Canaan was blessed again 122 c. And cursed Jericho Recovered 128 129. And Gibbeon And Aye And Sodom Moab and Ammon Edom and Amaleck of Esau. Egypt and Assyria with the Philistines Of Death and Hell in Saul conquered by Love in David bound up for 1000 Years As coming loose again in Saul of the same Tribe struck down as with Lightning and Named Paul after Sergius Paulus that Prudent Roman Deputy Of Shimei Cursing David or other Shimeis and of Judas and Pauls rising in the House of Judas Of Aeneas Ananias and Saphira Tabitha Dorcas or others Recovered by the Apostles Of Christs Love to his Father and duty by the Law requiring him to propagate his Fathers Love with all his might and manifest his Name and True Worship to bring in all his Children servants sons of his handmaids Strangers and Cattle also to keep the Sabbath to Rest the Rest of God from 100 to 117. 141. Of the Law of Redemption Laid upon Christ as the Kinsman that is able and hath Power and Riches in his Hand and a Tender Heart and Eye when he doth but see the naked and miserable that hath No Helper though they cannot weep it out to him or do not see him who will not hide himself from his own flesh when their Land or Person but especially their pretious and immortal Soul is Sold or pawned or mortgaged or forfaited How he hath promised to draw All men to him and to make All things new 56. 107. 124. to 163. How a man may put himself out of Christs Neighbourhood by degenerating from a Man to a Beast and of Worshipping the Beast receiving the Name Character Image or Number of the Beast Serpent or Dragon and how all the World worship the Beast but those that are written in the Lambs Book of Life How God with all his goodness knoweth how to punish the wicked but especially those that walk in Lust of the flesh and speak Evil of Dignities the sin of Corah c. the crying sins of the last dayes and how there was no sacrifice for
Prophets and our Saviour also that God would never deal worse with any then with that Nation And the Prophet Ieremiah saith he that believeth shall never cease from giving fruit and the Psalmist that his leaves shall never quite fall off and Christ saith that he which beareth any fruit in him shall be purged that he may bear more In him is all our fruit found and in him we go in and out and still find fresh pasture and he that once drinketh of His living waters never thirsteth more or is quite dry but still findeth a fountain in him flowing up to Eternal Life And St. Paul saith If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved For which also he citeth two great Prophets Isaiah and Joel which is cited also by St. Peter in his first publique Sermon For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For this Jesus is Lord of All even Davids Lord also and Rich unto All that call upon him And Paul also saith that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Which was oft no little stay to one I sometime knew in great anguish fearing the good Spirit had forsaken him And to all that so acknowledge Christ for their Lord and as their Lord worship him as the Psalms bid us and call upon him the same Apostle saith that no temptation comes but common unto man And that God is faithful and will not suffer them to be Templed above their strength but with the Temptation will provide an Issue that they may be able to bear it Which is also the last Petition in Our Lords Prayer and so sure to be granted And to All so acknowledging Christ St. John saith If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse And to All such he saith If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sin and not for ours onely but for the sins of the whole World which are some of the sweetest places in the Bible and belonging to All that call on Jesus of Nazareth which I see you do And to All such and therefore to you also St. Paul the great Teacher of the Gentiles writeth as from God in Heaven and his Son Jesus the Judge of all men and Angels also that if we judge our selves as I see you do we shall not be judged by him which is one of the greatest and highest Prerogatives or Royalties a mortal man can be capable of The Jews speak of it as one of the first things delivered by God to Moses and by him to Joshua and so down through all their Elders and Wise men in all ages to be Slow to judge or very slow in judging and it is one of the greatest and most difficult things in the world to be a righteous Judge in any matters of concernment more of our selves and yet more in matters of another world and yet most of all for all eternity so far above our sence and reason also that we know not how to guess about it but by Revelation The great thing foretold of Christ in the Psalms and Prophets is That he was to be the great and most supream Judge of all Persons in all Causes Which we might track through all the Bible up as high as Enoch Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all c and for this he received a most solemn Commission and was fitted and filled also with the spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Understanding Councell Power and Fear of-the Lord yea to make him very quick or tender in the Fear of God that he might judge righteous judgement And this was one great reason of his being made Man that he might be our Peer and an equal daies-man between God and us that should not make us afraid with his Terror when he judged us it being so consonant to Reason and to Scripture also that the Power Legislative Judiciall and Executive should be in distinct persons and run in distinct Channels God would have it so in himself also and came out in the person of the Father giving the Law though indeed the Free persons that receive and submit even the Law-takers are the great Law-makers But the Sonne is the Judge and the Spirit executes his judgements For the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and the Son quickneth whom he will and hath given him authority to execute judgement also because he is the Son of man Jesus Christ therefore being the great and only Judge having all judgement committed to him no man may pre sume to make himself a Judge or take it on him but when Christ committeth it and then onely As he commandeth and directeth Let me therefore first desire you to consider that you run not on a Premunire or be Anti-christian or a Traitor against the main office of Christ while you judge your self or any other for who hath made you a Judge or a divider If you say Christ hath bid you judge your self you must be sure of your Commission that you have it and can read and understand it also For his own general rule out of his own mouth was Judge not that ye be not judged And he that taketh upon him to judge and condemn another or so much as to think evil of his neighbour and t' is worse of a stranger whom he knoweth not speaketh evill of the Law and judgeth or condemneth the Law yea and it may be the Law-maker also And though Christ did promise first to his twelve Apostles Judas also it seems being among them that they having followed him in the Regeneration should sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And afterwards even after his last supper before his death he said to them Yee are they which have continued with me in my Temptations and I appoint you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel there being then also it seems twelve with him and so Judas also though Saint John saith he went out immedately after the sop Yet this was not to be till he himself was to receive his Kingdom and As he did receive it at his Fathers hand and appointment which was not till after Death and Resurrection and Ascention to his glory Then he received gifts for men and for the Rebel also Then and not till then he gave out the Spirit which was not to be
and clean contrary to our words As when we say O well done perhaps they know we mean Ill done and when we say now fall or go do so or so they understand we mean they should not fall or do so and many other things we speak by way of tempting or of Irony or otherwise directly contrary to our words It being Thus also in the Scriptures where oft times the sence might be gathered by accents stops or pauses with the signs of questions parenthesis and Ironies with many other things which are now very hard to understand especially in the old Testament This is one of the many reasons why we cannot pretend to the full or True sence and meaning of the Scriptures without That Spirit which did make them and interpret them as Christ pleased to give out through all the several Ages of his Church Which yet possibly might differ as the sence and understanding of an Infant or Minor differs much from That of a Man a Wise Man who now sees another sence and meaning of his Fathers words spoken or written long since than he once did or could do by many readings And this differing sence and understanding even in Principles may somtimes occasion or cause different Practice also among good men and children of the same Father in the same or several Ages Which we might observe from the difference of Judgment and Practice that I say not Affection found among the Apostles themselves and the most primitive Christians about the good Will of God to the Gentiles and about the Law and Circumcision that I say nothing of the Nature and Office of the Holy Ghost or of Christ himself in Person Natures Offices the manner and the Vertue of his Death and Resurrection with the Form of his Government and Kingdom with his Coming again and Judgment which are so cleerly written in the old Testament and yet so little understood by Them or Us either even to This day And as the Spirit of God in Christ doth say and do all that Christ saieth prayeth worketh so also doth the Spirit of Christ in his Members so that every one of them may truly say I cannot speak or pray or do any one thing pleasing to God or my self if I know my self but what the Spirit of Christ my Head and Father also as my Spouse saieth prayeth doeth in me I do nothing of my self and I say nothing of my self but what my Fathers Spirit worketh speaketh in me What and How he saith in me I say and what he doth I do My Father worketh hitherto and I work but my Father worketh what I work And This takes me off from solicitous Care what to say or do as well as what to eat and drink because it is given in that hour by our Fathers Spirit For Without me saith Christ you can do nothing and by Him we may both do and bear and suffer All things All our Fruit is found in Him whose Dew is as the dew of Herbs As the Dew of the morning from the Womb of Eternity Now as the spirit of God never comes on us or speaks in us or to us Immediately as from the Father to his Onely begotten Son but only mediately through Christ who is the Mouth and Word of God which may be one character to try the spirit in some these dayes that pretend to immediate voices from the Father concerning His Son Jesus whereas God speaketh not to us but through his son Jesus So when we speak to God we do not may not yet speak to him Immediately but through Christ and to Christ that He may speak it unto God his Father Even as God speaks to Christ and sent him a new Revelation after his Ascension that he might speak and give it to his Members As I cannot speak Immediately to the soul or spirit of a man though he be with me but through his ear or eye or somewhat of his outward man or body So I yet cannot may not speak to God but through his outward man if I may so speak of Jesus Christ and yet I speak to a mans ear or eye or outer man that it may reach also to his heart and soul or spirit and may affect that also And so I speak to Christ also as the Outward Man of God that yet it may affect his heart the very heart of God his Father who is in him And I tell him that I do no so worship him or pray to him or trust in him as a Man only or mainly for I am forbidden to put my trust in any man or in the Son of Man himself as Man onely but as he hath God in him and the Heart of God in his heart Yea is One with God his Father and so One that there is no other God besides him as himself often speaketh in the Prophets where he also calleth himself the first and the last as in the Revelation and the onely True God and so he is called the Onely Wise God our Saviour He is so perfectly One with the Father that when we see him we see the Father also and we pray to the Father when we pray to him who is the everlasting Father or the Father of Eternitie or World to come as some translate the Prophet Isay. So that we may say to him Our Father let Thy Name be glorified and Thy Kingdom come for it is the Fathers also And it may be marked that Our Saviour taught that Prayer Twice first to the Multitude in his sermon on the Mount and 't is no little comfort for them All to see their leave or Right to cry Our heavenly Father Afterwards alone and praying some or one of his Disciples came and said Lord teach us to pray for Thou hast Told us a Prayer before but now we pray thee Teach us to pray even as John taught his Disciples Then he said When you pray say Our Father c. much as before but then he said After this manner therefore pray ye and 't is there Forgive us as we forgive our Debtors but in Luke to his Disciples in private it is Forgive us for we also forgive all our Debtors Which is better rendred so then some that read it Those that Trespasse against us But it seems plainly to allude to that Law and custom of remitting debts to all their Debtors as the Law required in the Jubile and other sabboth years and so they might speak it more sensibly then it may be we or I now can if we should render it Forgive us as we forgive all that trespasse against us Yet I have sometimes thought that Christ even drives us to Himself when we dare not speak those words to the Father Yet to speak freely the spirit of Christ in a Christian is or will be very free and 't is hardly at Any time much lesse at All times tied up to a form of words or kept in rank and file of any One mans Method but as God leads
Lords Threatnings and This in particular used to Adam Dying thou shalt die or Thou shalt surely die The very Words spoken to Adam and the worst of All that was Threatned to Him When I say to the Wicked as I did once to my dearly beloved Adam in Innocence Thou shalt surely die Yet if he Turn and Thou must warn him of those very words that he may Turn and Repent and Then he shall surely live he shall not die Which is several times repeated notwithstanding that Doom Thou shalt surely Die. Which in general God hath here interpreted when ever he so speaketh or shall so speak for it is the Infinite Mood or Manner of speaking In my saying or when ever I do say or shall say Dying thou shalt Dië or Thou shalt surely Die Yet it is not nor may be taken as any Absolute Doom but a conditional Threatning Which in case of Repentance shall never come to Sentence and much less to Execution And yet it was to a Wicked Man as Wicked O Thou wicked Man and so to one in a much worse condition and more desperate than Adam was when it was so pronounced to him in Paradice And upon This Occasion also God Comments on that Clause in the second Command of visiting the Fathers sins upon the Children which the Jews judged not Equal and expressed by their usual Proverb The Fathers have Eaten the sowr Grapes and the Childrens Teeth are set on Edge Which he confutes at large in the 18 of Ezekiel and sweareth it shall not be used any more Which is to be compared with That most sweet Chapter the 31. of Jerem. Where also That Evil Proverb is commanded and promised Down with such a sweet and gracious Context both before and after it as can never be too much considered And the Lords Discourse against That Proverb may be a good Comment on that passage in the second Command of visiting Iniquities of the Fathers on the Children But on Those that go on in their Fathers Iniquities And Then also the Children never Die for the Fathers sin They may be visited or chastened But They shall not Die for their Fathers sin No not for their Great Father Adams Which is a very comfortable thing and much to be considered by All and in special with relation to Infants that die without Actual sin having not sinned after the similitude of Adams Transgression But the Lord hath here promised the Children shall not die for or Bear the Fathers sin Nor indeed was That Expressed to Adam or for ought appeareth was intended that His Children should Die for His sin Nay rather God hath expressly declared the contrary that They shall not And yet Death came in by sin and passed over All seeing All have sinned and came short of the Glory of God And yet They do not Die and sure Then not Eternally for their Fathers sin Which may be compared with That of our Savior touching the man born blind and yet neither for His Own sin or his Fathers but that the Glory of God might be seen in his blindness And yet the Fathers Iniquity for That is the Phrase May be visited upon the Children and are the Visitations of God Smal things But yet why should we despair of the Goodness of God even in his visitation seeing Himself also hath chosen such a Phrase that with God and man speaketh kindness And a Love visit rather than any Hatred And if we rightly understand Gods heart in All we would long for his visits though he should come but to chide or to chasten us and we should value the very lowest and the meanest of his visits at a very great rate Sure it is not a little thing to be visited by a great Man How much more by a good Man which if we understood and saw the person they represent to us and the Embassage they still come about we should cry as Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary How is it that the Mother Brother Sister of my Lord vouchsafeth thus to visit me for every one that is His and doth His Fathers will is his Mother Brother Sister as himself speaketh And have not many Thus entertained Angels How much more is it then for God and Jesus Christ to come and visit such poor Worms as we are For What is Man that thou shouldest so magnifie him even so magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him and That Thou shouldest Visit him every morning and Try him every moment Yea as if David would lead us up to the very Visits made by God to Adams Children after the Fall he expresseth it Thus Lord what is Enos that thou shouldest remember him and the Son of Adam that thou shouldest visit him For he very well knew it a great condescention in God and happiness to Man that God should come to visit him For his Visitations sustain our spirits and preserve us alive I need not tel you what the Jews say of Sampsons visiting his Wife with a Kid or Abrahams visiting of Hagar in the Wilderness a Type of what is on her and her Children to this day as St. Paul speaketh Or what is promised to all the Kings and great men in the Terrible Pit that after many daies they should be visited as we read in Esay to be compared also with Zech. 9. 11 12. Yea even when his Visit is to chasten us it is an Honor and an Happiness My Son despise not thou the Chastening of the Lord neither be thou weary of His Correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father doth a Son of his delight Behold Happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth Therefore despise not thou the chastising of the Almighty For be maketh sore and bindeth up He woundeth and his hands make whole Which in That very Book also is more largely repeated by Elihu in the person of Christ as his Name imports He is my God who sheweth Gods designs in afflicting of Man yea and Then when he visiteth in Anger though he know it not in great Extremity a very considerable Expression whether we take it of God or of Job who was taught that all Gods Angry visits were for Good of man to shew him his Way and to hide Pride from him and to recover him from his sins and sorrows also Which is confirmed also by the Psalmist in divers places Especially after he hath so solemnly called Invited and Wooed all Nations and People of the Earth to come in and bow to God because of his Goodness and marvelous Kindness to the children of men from the 95. onward Shewing also that Afflictions and the Lords visits even unto Fools the worst of men is to make them cry to God and stir up his Pities and Compassions that never fail and to make his tender bowels yearn over them so that he will hear them in their trouble and will save them out of their distress He will send his Word and heal them and
draw All men to him and to make All things new being as the Psalms expresse not only to satisfie the desire of every living thing which is no great matter except also they have great and good desires for else I know not ought I feare or more oppose or pray against then his giving me the desire of my own foolish narrow heart but also that he shall give forth Good and goodnesse so that all things shall be filled with it As we may find by comparing the 85. Psalm concluding thus Yea the Lord shall give forth Good or goodnesse and Righteousnesse shall go before him and direct or set us in the way of his steps with the 104. and 145. Psal. which of all is to be marked most as that which giveth name to all the Book of Psalms as the Jews tell us being thence All called Praises or Songs of blessing The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to All and his tender mercies are over All his works All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Sainis shall bless thee The Lord upholdeth All that fall and raiseth up all that are bowed down which is again so repeated and enlarged in the next Psalm also that it may teach us how Christ put himself under that Law also to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth yea and to make us sensible of our own wants and emptinesse that so he may fill us being sent to comfort every one that mourneth and to replenish every empty soul. At this I awaked and my sleep was sweet to me as the Prophet expresseth it Yea and Christ is such an Head to every man as Paul expresseth and such a Root to all our soules and Spirits that our mourning and our sufferings reach and pierce his soul also And in all our afflictions he is afflicted For if any one member suffers all suffer but especially the head and heart and if one be honoured all rejoyce with it The strength of a King is in his Subjects and his glory in their multitude and greatnesse Riches Honour Happinesse and Freedome it being more honour also to govern one freeman then many slaves And it is a union with free Subjects that maketh a King so strong that as Solomoâ— saith There is no rising against him Where the Arabick also may help us to a better sence and notion of Alkum then is yet common May we not all say to our Saviour as Abigail did to David When my Lord shall sit on the throne of his Rest and when the Lord hath done to my Lord according to all he promised shall it indeed be any offence or grief of heart to my Lord that he spared us and did not shed our blood or avenge himself which is so much forbidden or reserve a grudge in his heart against the Children of his people When he shall see us all come bowing to him to his glory and his Fathers glory also who is glorified he saith when we bear much fruit And is not he so also When He beareth much And as much as he can If he could have been contented to be happy glorious all alone he never needed any world of men or Angels But O! how was he straitned in himself till he had found a means to multiply himself his Image Happinesse and Glory by Creation How much more than by Redemption while we live we shall praise him and shall ever bless him if he save us But the grave cannot praise him death cannot celebrate him the living the living shall praise thee as Hezekiah said And what profit is there in our bloud He did not care to drink the bloud of beasts doth he now delight in eating mans flesh and drinking mans bloud Or what doth he gain by losing us Can the enemie give a recompense for us As Esther spake of Haman And if he cut us off will he not look in the morning and when he sees our places empty will he not have desire to the work of his own hands as Job and the Psalmist to that needle work he curiously wrought in his closet When he hath ground us to powder will he not say return again againe yee sons of men O that God would perswade us even in suffering according to his will to commit our souls to his keeping as to a Faithfull Creator Can he be angry more in time then from eternity before he made the World or ought that could provoke him Or if he can may little children so provoke him with their raising dust or dirty pies against him that he must also turn and curse them in the name of God and give them up to Bears to teare them will he offer children also and his own to Moloch Or with musick drown their yellings in Gehinnon or in Tophet which he so much hates and threatens and his soul abhors so much in others Or if fury can be in him which yet himself denyeth in the Prophet Isa. can it rest in such a bosome When as Solomon saith it resteth in the bosome of fools Can it remain in such a soul which hath so often spoken it self well pleased satisfied and infinitely delighted in himself and his Image his Son and his own most glorious and most gracious Righteousness Can the Sun go down upon his wrath Or if he must for some great reason act a part awhile and wear a mask or frown and cast abroad his Thunderbolts and shew the fierceness of his sore displeasure or the Power of his anger or wrath can it be shown upon a moath a bubble nothing weaker than nothing will he also set his eyes or heart or heavy hand on that which is not What Glory Honour Profit Pleasure can the Power and Wisdom that we lay aside awhile the Goodness of an Infinite God beget it self in crushing us Will the King of Israel hunt a Partridge in the Mountains or pursuite a fly will he prosecute dry stubble or the little moats of dust in the balance can his Almighty Arm delight to strangle little worms or wrestle with a shadow will he create a mighty whirlwind to contend with nothing less than nothing and lighter than vanity when his very thoughts may easily create the Angels and his Word this glorious World and think it down again at pleasure Drawing in his breath or spirit and they perish and then giving it out again and they are created as the Psalmist shadoweth out his Respiration or his hearts Diastole Syslole VVill his sore and great and strong sword contend with feathers or lead captive atomes will it boast it self in cutting little straws or glory in a Triumph over that which is more feeble than the tender grass when yet it might awake against a man that is his Fellow and his equal match Mighty to bear his weight and power and wrath and strongest blowes when we are all to him as
every one of them I am the Lord thy God and upon this Rock I will build my whole Law and therefore thou shalt have no other God or make to thy self any Images c. For I am a jealous God which yet I could not be if I did not Love thee dearly as a spouse Or else I should not much care whither thou goest or what thou doest But for my great and spouse-like Love which maketh me so jealouse over thee But this very jealousy causeth such visiting as is most like to recover us again from all our wâ—oorish wanderings from the God of Love and the Guide of our youth And so intended by God to recover them so visited as we may clearly see by Elihues discourse unto Job and the Psalmist in the 107 th and many other Psalms to be compared with the 3 d. of Jeremy and the 2 d. of Hoseah with the first and second of Zechariah with divers other Scriptures And our great comfort is that all the Law also lay on Christ as much or more than any of us or all of us And besides his love to his own flesh and nature or to himself or his Father His very Duty to Him by this Law requires him so to love his God with all his Might also as to propagate his love to all he may and to manifest his Name and Worship with the true way and means thereof That is as the 72 d. Psalm expresseth to redeem our souls from all deceipt and violence or as Ezekiel hath it in the Laws of the New Temple to order a sacrifice for every one that erreth or is simple And the Psalmist saith He hath received gifts for Rebels also that the Lord may dwell among them Yea and to cast down all our vain Imaginations as Saint Paul expresseth it And though we strangely degenerate into very Beasts or to the worst of Beasts or worse than Beasts Yet the very same Law which biddeth us and Christ also to Love a Neighbour biddeth also to love a Stranger and an Enemie Yea and the very Oxe and Asse of an Enemie so as to help it under a Burthen or straying out of the way And is not our heart as Ishmael was foretold to be the wilde Asses Colt on which no man can sit till Christ send his Apostles as in the Gospel who finde it bound and tyed in a broad place where two waies met and They loose our Asses Colte and bring it to Christ who then rideth on it O daughter of Zion Meek and Lowly on an Asse the foal of an Asse And may we not find All this in the very fourth Commandement where every Man and so Jesus Christ also is bid to remember to keep the sabboth so that not only his Children but his servants and his Cattle and the Stranger in his Gate may Rest and keep that Rest of God That they may Rest as well as Thou as it is repeated in Deuteronomy And in the 23. of Exodus it is that thine Oxe and thy Ass may Rest and the Son of thy Handmaid to which the Psalmist may allude several times calling himself the Son of thy Handmaid And that the stranger also may be Refreshed The very same Phrase and word that is used by God of himself and his own Kest and Refreshing on That Sabbath day in the 31. of Exodus And our Saviour maketh the helping of an Oxe or Ass and their Loosing and leading to the Water to be a special work or duty of the Sabbath daies Rest. Which we may compare with that of the Prophet Esay He led them gently as an Horse in the Wilderness or as a Beast is led down a Valley or to a Brook So his spirit caused them to Rest. And in the Proverbs Agur saith I am more bruitish than any Man and the Psalmist so Bruitish was I yea Behemoth with thee as alluding to Behemoth in Job and That some render Congregation of thy People in several Psalms is Beasts or Thy Beasts As under Those Banners of four Beasts or Animals of which we read in Ezekiel and the Revelation Yea Solomon saith the great design of God that is Christ who as Man also is the great Searcher of hearts is to Try us and to make us know we are but Beasts She hem Behema Hemma lahem And that the Stranger also may be Refreshed Which is but a piece of that great Law in the very same chapter of Loving our Neighbor Thou shalt also love a Stranger as thou lovest thy self And in several places it is added For thou wast a stranger and thou knowest the heart of a stranger in Aegypt And the word for stranger in the Heb. is so neer to Hagar as if God would put them in mind of that Bond-woman who was an Aegyptian also and as Paul saith Gendered unto Bondage with a spirit of Fear which is another signification of its Root also And Gods Love to Hagar and to her son Ishmael that is God will Hear as he will appear also in the Mount may shew the Heart of God and his Goodness more than all his Kindness to Abraham who was Kind and Thankful unto God also And among other reasons for our Loving strangers it is added that God loveth Strangers and in a special manner provideth for them And it hath been an especial argument used by good men in all ages of the Bible For we are strangers and Pilgrims And when we consider that the Sabboth day did Typifie some greater Rest may it not be hoped that at length we may hear the Lord of that Day also saying to his children and his servants and the Sons of his handmaids also and his Cattel and the stranger also within his gates Come enter into your Masters Rest seeing it is greater than can enter into you For this Commandement I have received of my good Father Do we not also read that the Owles and the Dragons and the Beasts of the field and every thing that hath breath yea and All his Works shall praise the Lord but his Saints shall Bless him Do we not find Sabbatical Years â—nd Jubilees provided for the Poor and Strangers that had no Harvest and for the Beasts of the field and for the Earth also that it might Rest the Rest of God and that every one might return to his own Inheritance and the possession of his Fathers and why not also of our Father Adam in Innocence and that All Debts and Debtors might be remitted which it may be is minded us dayly in the Lords Prayer not only in That Clause of Forgiving our Debtors which yet He doth also for it is He that speaketh in us who else dirst not say Forgive us as we forgive but also in That Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on Earth as in the highest Heaven And He that set us All on Praying so knew very well that it should be so He hath willed it and his people will it also Let it be
It shall be so Amen For the whol Earth also must Rest and keep its Sabboth And not only the Land of Israel which was but as the First Fruits of the Earth and That had such a strict Command of observing Sabbatical Years that they must stay so many yeers in Babylon as the Land should have kept Sabboths by the Law while They were in it As we may find in that remarkable Discourse of God on Mount Sinai in the 25 26. of Leviticus which I have somtimes thought not only the Epitome of the whole Law but the Foundation of the Gospel also to be very often considered Yea and the Wilderness shall be as Lebanon and Carmel Yea Every Tree of the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce in praising God As we read in many places of the Psalms and Prophets Yea and the Gospel must be preached to every Creature under Heaven and the whole Creation longeth and travelleth for it is now made subject to Bondage but in Hope for it shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God For God is able even of stones to raise up sons to Abraham Whose seed must be as the Dust and more than all the stones of the Earth And we also can dayly Turn Plants and Beasts yea and Pearls and other stones also into our own selves and our spirits so as that they give us also a New spirit and refresh and joy our souls yea and the Heart of God also as Jotham saith in That remarkable Parable of the Trees choosing them a King How much easier is it for an Infinite God to Turn All these into himself and his own Image by his Spirit making All things New as they All came out first from him and must All return to him For of him and from him and To him are All things From the Throne of God and his Lamb when His Kingdom comes shall issue out Waters of Life Yea to the Sea also even the Dead Sea and they shall bring Healing with them And where ever the Waters come there shall be Life and Healing For the very Leaves of the Trees on the Banks of those Waters shall serve for Healing os the Nations even of the Gentile Nations And the VVilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the Desert shall rejoyce and blossom as the Rose It shall rejoyce abundantly with joy and singing The Glory of Lebanon shall be given to it The Excellency of Carmell and Sharon They shall see the glory of the Lord and the Excellency of our God Yea All the Earth shall Rest and Rejoyce and be full of the Glory of God as Waters fill up the Sea And Then the Lord shall be called the God of All the Earth and the Possessor of Earth as well as Heaven Which was the phrase used by Melchizedeck in blessing Abraham when he had pursued the four Monarchs or four Monarchies to Dan even to Judgment and brought back the Captivity of Sodom also of which we read in several places Although Sodom was so accursed and made a Perpetual Desolation that it is a Type of Hell or of the worst Judgments in all the Bible Yet even Sodom must return again and her Daughters And when our Lord Jesus Exulted in spirit as he saith Abraham did to see his Day he said I bless thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth even of the Earth also as of Heaven as alluding to that Blessing of Melchizedecks at the return of Sodoms Captivity And the Revelation tells us that when the seventh Angel sounded there was great Voyces or Joy in Heaven saying The Kingdoms of this world are become the Lords and His Christs and he shall reign for ever and ever And the twenty four Elders blessed God that yet at length he had taken to him his great Power and reigned and the Nations were Angry and thy Wrath is come and the time of the Dead that they should be Judged and that thou shouldest Reward Thy Saints c. and shouldest destroy them which destroy the Earth And Then the Temple of God was opened in Heaven c. Where before the twenty four Elders and the four Watchers also had blessed the Lamb that They should come even out of Heaven to Reign upon the Earth even upon the Earth As if the Earth should be the Centre also to All the Glory of God and that it should be more and greater on the Earth than it is in Heaven And yet it may be remembred that from the very first sin of Adam in Paradice the Earth was the Great that I say not the Only Object of the Curse of God The Serpent it self was not Absolutely Cursed but above all Cattel and above every Beast of the field And when the Earth shall be New moulded yet Dust shall be the Serpents meat as we read Esay 65. Adam must labor and sweat the Woman must be in subjection and bring forth in pain but not a word of Cursing them For God had loved them and Blessed them Yea and they shall be Blessed But the Ground is Cursed for Mans sake and in sorrow must he eat thereof All the daies of his life Yea it shall bring forth thorns and thistles and when Nothing else comes after Dews and Rain of Heaven It is nigh unto Cursing as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews And when the Cursed Earth had also drunk up the blood of Righteous Abel every word of our Savior is Remarkable Then Cain the Murderer as every One is that Hateth his brother was also Cursed from the Earth but not from Heaven that we read and yet a Sacrifice was provided and laid at his door for sin that he may have Dominion over it Though I shall not here dispute the Jews Tradition that Cain also was saved Or that the Earth it self was cursed as a Type of our Heart or somwhat in us more spiritual than our fleshly Heart which is a Metathesis of Earth as in Hebrew of Babel which is Lebab the Heart turned backward And an Heart turned back from God is but Babel Confusion As the Earth which the Lord cursed Bringing forth nothing but Thorns and Thistles yet its Conception is greatly multiplied and its sorrow But I must not here shew How our Body represents the whole World with its three Regions of Heaven above in our Head and the Earth below in our Heart with its Pericardium of Waters compassed with the Lungs as the Air separate by the Firmament of the Midriff from the Heaven above in the Head and the Waters under the Earth in the Bowels which in Heb are expressed by the same word with the Waves of the Sea whose Rowlings and Ebbings and flowings are much akin to the motion and yearnings of our Bowels And in Scripture the off-spring of our Bowels is compared to the Sand of the Sea and the gravel thereof As the Hebrew words for the Thoughts of
may continue all night yet Joy shall come in the morning and we shall be glad and rejoyce all day Make us glad according to the daies wherein thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil and although I might not see thy Face when I prayed to see thy Glory yet let Thy Work at length appear unto thy Servants and Thy Glory also to our Children when we are dead And let the Beauty also of the Lord our God be on us All and establish Thou the Work of our hands to us yea the Work of our hands do Thou establish it And will he not Then also establish the work of his own hands Which is so often brought as a Reason why the Earth must stand and abide for ever Seeing All the Works of God are perfect and must abide for ever Yea and he hath set the World also or Eternity as the word is often rendered in the Heart of every man And though it may be for a while the Glory of God to hide some things Yet it is not only Lawful but our glory and the Glory of the greatest largest Kingly heart like Solomon to searth it out and to search him out For in God there is No Mole or shadow of Deformity Nor will he envy that All Flesh should see his glorious face together Nay our Saviour promiseth that Nothing Shall be Hid no not in God himself I hope but shall be revealed And every New Revelation of God to All Eternity will be to Jesus Christ as That we now read but to shew it to his Children and his Servants Which have also received a spirit not only to know and discern the things of God as the spirit of man doth the things of a man and to know the things that are freely given us of God but also to search out the Depths or Baths of God Who still speaketh perhaps to them All as to the Prophet Jeremy Ask of me and I will yet shew thee great and wonderful things which thou knowest not For such a God we have so Infinite that still he is a Fountain flowing up still flowing over and a little drop of that infinite Ocean can stretch out our narrow souls still wider and yet wider to receive more and yet more and still more to Eternity till we are wider than the very Heavens For our Saviour and our Head is gone up Over All Heavens still spinning out the spring of his Watch which was wound up Here on Earth while He was straitned and made perfect by suffering that he may now-fill All things and bring us All up to his own Ballance of Eternal Glory Even to the fulness of that stature which each Member is to have in His Great Body Which is the Fulness of Him which filleth All in All. This also of Turning Cursed things or places into Blessed might be yet more cleered from Jericho which was the first Fruits of all the I and of Chanaan And as all first Fruits it was so sacred that all were cursed that but touched it And yet the Vallie of Achan or Achor that is the Troubler afterwards is made a Door of Hope in the great day of Iezreel the Seed of God Yet so accursed it was by prophesie that He that should but attempt to build it again was solemnly Cursed by Iosuah the great Type of Jesus Yet in the Reign of Achab the Brother and the Father as the Name implies the guilty Man of the Kings of Israel there riseth up one Hiell the Living God and ventures to rebuild this Cursed City Yet we read of nothing els of harm to him but onely that he laid its groundwork in his Eldest Son and finished it in his Youngest which we may consider again But notwithstanding all the Curss This Jericho in a very few years grew up to be a Blessed School of Prophets as we may gather from the History of Elijahs taking up into Heaven And to make the Cure yet perfecter the Citizens bemoan themselves before Elisha that the situation of their City was indeed pleasant but the Water Naught and the ground so that it caused to miscarry as some read the place And he said bring me a New Cruse and put salt therein and he went forth to the spring or very Fountain of the cursed Waters and cast in the salt and said Thus saith the Lord I have Healed these Waters there shall be Thence No more Death or Curss or Barrennesse So the Waters were Heald unto this day That Elisha the Prophet was in This also a great Type of Jesus Christ Healing the Earth and taking off the Curss thereof as he bore away the sins of the World I do believe the rather because I find Our Saviour thereabout so often with his Healing Wings also to so many That I say nothing of his famous Parable of the good Samaritan Journying towards Jericho Nor shall I now spend time to shew how all this is also shadowed out in the very Heavens by the frequent Changings of the Moon although the Name of Jericho might lead us to That also Or that as Jericho was the First fruits to the whole Land of Israel So was Israel also to the World As we might prove by many Scriptures besides That of Jeremy the 2. Where it is called the First Fruits unto God of All his Increase and All that eat it or in some other places all that touch it to destroy it are Offenders and be guilty So also is our Saviour himself called the First Fruits of the Resurrection Though but as the Barley Sheaf or Barley Cake of Gideon that was Heaved up before the Lord on the Third day after the Passover was slain as an Emblem of the Resurrection on the third day after his death And This is often called in Scripture as in Genesis Revelation and St. Johns Epistle and Gospel the Beginning of the Creation and the VVorks of God So here the Beginning of the First Fruits Which came after on the day of Pentecost when also we received the First Fruits of the Spirit in the 2 of Acts and those first Fruits were Loaves of fine Flowr and moulded together as a Type of the Elect as the very name of First Fruits in Hebrew may intimate or of Christ in All his Members together as before it was Christ in his own person who was the First First Fruits or Beginning os the First Fruits of the Resurrection and of all that slept And the same Apostle tells us also that if the Root be Holy the Branches are Holy and if the First fruits be Holy so is the whole Lump Which should be considered much with all those places that speak our Saviour and the whole Election of God to be as Israel to the whole World besides but as the First born with the double portion or the first fruits of the Earth as we may read in the Revelation and divers other places As the Barly Sheaf first and Then the
God promiseth to bring back the Captivity of Ammon as of Sodom also in Ezechiel and of Moab in the latter dayes or Time of Messiah as the Jews use to expound that Phrase of the latter Dayes And in the Tenth Generation They also may enter into the Church of God though it was threatned They should Never enter And as David was the fourteenth Generation and the fourteenth seventy Years from Abraham so was Boas the Tenth or eleventh who married Ruth a Moabite who might be the Tenth from Lot who by a former Man of Iudah was Daughter to Naomy Beauty Wife to Elimelech who had two Sons Mahlon weaknesse and Chilion consumption or perfection or Espousal who had Orpha stiffneckednesse who left her Mother The other Ruth who choosing her Mothers people and God is led to a field of Boaz and is bid stick close to his Maidens O tell me where thou feedest and restest at Noon for why should I stray and at length is bid to lie at his feet and say Thou art my Kinsman as Solomon bids us say to Wisdome Thou art my Sister And Christ is both Iachin and Boaz the Wisdom and Strength of God and so very near a kin to Elimelech my God the King see the third of Esay compared with the 7 8 17. 22. of the 23. chap. and see the Women of Moab and Ammon married to Kings of Israel and Judah And David in his straits carried his Parents to the King of Moab saying Let my Father and Mother be with you till I know what God will do for me Or as Esay Let my Out-casts dwell with Thee Moab be thou a Covert to them And in Mercy shall the Throne be established as we found before in the Psalms and Proverbs and he shall sit upon it in Truth in the Tabernacle of David judging and seeking judgement and Hasting Righteousnesse And my Heart shall Cry for Moab O the Tender Heart of God! Let his Fugitives flee to Zoar. As his Father Lot did from Sodom to Zoar which seemeth therefore to have stood in Moab on the East of Iordan and not on the West as the Tables place it And again send ye the Lamb to the Ruler of the People to the mount of the Daughter of Zion as alluding to the King of Moabs paying Lambs for Tribute to the King of Israel But about Ahabs Death Moab and Edom also brake their yoak and freed themselves from Iaacob under Iehoram the high Lord in the dayes of Elisha or God Iesus as the Name implies who had a double portion of the Spirit of Elijah the Lord my God And shall a Man be able to give a Double portion of his Spirit and That at his Parting and going away and shall not He that hath the Residue of the spirit in opposition to shear Baser the Residue of the Flesh which is so many times in Scripture Language for near Kindred or He that hath the Spirit without Limits or not by measure shall not He be able and willing also to give His Holy Spirit unto all that ask it and a Double Portion unto All his First Born Who saw and yet see him ascending and cry to him my Father my Father the Charriot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof And it may be That remarkable promise of the Spirit unto all that ask it may allude to This very History of Elijah giving his Spirit to Elisha crying my Father my Father As in Luke it is not as some read it your Heavenly Father But Your Father who is Out of Heaven or came out of Heaven And he took the Mantle of Elijah and smote the Waters saying as we may now say Here indeed is the Mantle of Elijah O but Where is the Lord God and the Spirit of Elijah and the Waters parted Hither and Thither Though I do not yet say when they so parted as before at Josuahs coming over Jordan there began an Other Generation or a New Age of the World As at first dividing the Waters by the Firmament of Heaven with the Waters above the Heavens of which in the Psalms and divers other places that I speak not of Esdras Ecclesasticus or Wisdom of Solomon And the Sons of the Prophets said the Spirit of Elijah resteth on Elisha and they bowed down or Worshipped him and afterwards he enlarged their Colledge and it may be their Spirit also The Hebrew Word Saul used in That History puts me in mind How Saul cut off the Lords Priests and How he fell and How the Jews say He was Recovered aand saved though I dare not say by the Mediation of Elias or Elisha Who they say must come and loose all knots or as our Saviour saith He must Restore All Things yea and that after John the Baptist was beheaded And some other words in That History put me also in mind How Elijah destroyed the false prophets of Baal and Jezabel and how Elisha did encourage and enlarge the True Prophets and at length by one of the young prophets annointeth Jehu which yet was given in charge to Elijah himself One of the best Texts I know for Deputations And Jehu destroyeth Jezabel who had not onely Destroyed and Corrupted the Lords Prophets and driven away Elijah and Elisha but had even quite stifled the very Spirit of Prophecy in the Seed of God as the Hebrew words Naboth in Jezreel may import Which may be compared with That of Jezabel opposed by the Bright morning Star breaking and scattering the Dark Clouds and bringing in the Morning and Our Rising and cloathing with White and fresh Linnen in fourth and fifth Churches and thâ—slaying of the two Witnesses with the Spirit of Prophecy in the Revelation And the sixth Church of Philadelphia or Brotherly Love is plainly the New Jerusalem as Christ himself expresseth in his Epistle to that Church before the General Iudgement of the People or Laodicea as the Word signifies Which may also be compared with the latter part of the eleventh and also the four last Chapters of the Revelation Where the great Judgement also is Described which the Prophets place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat whose very Name implies the Lords Judgement Which was also called the valley of Beraca or Blessing When they had troden down Moab and Ammon and Edom. Which we find also cited in the Prophets as foretelling somewhat yet to be done in the Revelation And had it not been for Jehoshaphat Elisha said he would not have seen the other two Kings met against Moab also saying Nay but hath God gathered these Kings and their people also together to Destroy them But as Jehoshaphat smarted sorely for joyning with Ahab and his Sons so They Got by His good Company In which we may see God pitying a Wicked man and Hearing his Cry and Prayer as most remarkably after he did the Prayer of Jehoahaz 2 Kings 13. 4 5 6. 23. How the Waters came at the morning Sacrifice and How he multiplyed the VViddows Oyl that was like to
did nor ever would do so Hardly to any in the World as to Israel As we read in Ezek. Daniel and from Christ himself in the Gospel And yet This was his darling people and the dearly beloved of his Soul a Type of Jesus Christ and All his Elect or first sruits or Blessed of the Lord that were to have a double portion as his first Born But it was both of shame and glory For even These Darlings and these dearly Beloved of his soul are often called the Forsaken Desolate Afflicted yea Hated Abhorred and Cursed Nay Cursed with a great and sore and heavy bitter Curse as we read in Malachy Where yet to That very People whom he so cursed He presently saith Yet Try me Prove me yet whether notwithstanding all this cursing you yet if you will but do that you may and shall by my Grace if you will and He also giveth to will you shall be Blessed and be Blessings also to your Neighbors and Relations yea and such Blessings that the very Windows of Heaven shall be opened and pour down-blessings on you Notwithstanding all the Curses you lay under So it was with Israel so it shall be For In every Every place Where you were put to shame you shall have Glory and you shall be a praise to All the Earth and where it was said Go you cursed and rejected Loammi and Loruhama on whom I will no more have mercy yet come again ye Blessed for you are my People and I will be your God And you shall be Blessed So it was with Israel and with Gibeon Yet it might be added that This very Gibeon was one of the Cities to which God forbid his People to offer Peace or to shew mercy or to save any living but commanded them utterly to destroy it and to save alive Nothing that breathed in it And so it was with all the Cities of the Amorites the Head of All those Canaanites or if you will the Tongue or Speakers of them All. The Zamzummims or great Thinkers were followed by Amorites great Talkers and their great Lord was Sihon King of Heshbon That is Meditation and Sighing Which are All conquered by Israel Which is also the more considerable because These were Excepted out of that general Law of War which was given to Israel and so to Christ also who was made under the whole Law and was forbidden to kill and commanded to save and keep alive as much or more than Any Being of the Seed of Abraham which was put under the Law More than All other Nations of the World besides So that it may be better for us that he took the Seed of Abraham than the Seed of Any other Man Now the General Law of War given them in Deuteronomy which they might not transgress being but a branch of the sixth Command was This That when ever they went against a City or a People except only those seven Nations which were so cursed by God and devoted to extream destruction They must first offer Peace For the Man and Men of God must be Gentle ready more to save than to kill or to harm Elijah called for Fire from Heaven as it must come on those that compass the Holy City for the Promise to Abraham was to Curse them that Cursed Him and fourty two children were devoured though I do not compare them with the fourty two months in the Revelation But Elisha was generally of another Spirit and especially called the Man of God To which the Apostle may allude or to meek Moses in That to Timothy The Man of God must be gentle But when the Disciples-asked If fire should come from Heaven as to Elijah Christ answered You know not what a sweet spirit you must have and be if you will be Christians or men of God and bearing the Image of God and Christ who was the Man of God more than All the World and gentle unto All even to the worst of Enemies and those that did oppose themselves taken in the snares of Satan and led captive by him at his will Yet even to them and to All the Man of God must be gentle And when he must come to fight against them as we see he threatens sorely in the Revelation but yet closeth sweetly I must come except they repent and yet again Repent lest I come against thee with the Sword of my mouth and whom I love I chasten and Behold I stand at the Door and Gate of the City which I fight against and first I knock and offer peace for so the Law of War commands And if it answer Peace and so His Ministers were sent to every House to offer Peace and Peace be to this House For They and He are sent to Bless us All by Turning us from our sins into the way of Peace and If the Son of Peace be There which the Law expresseth by an Answer of Peace and coming out to them as the Prophet Jeremy intreated Zedekiah to go out to the King of Babylon and to accept his terms of Peace And Then All in the House or City must be kept alive and may be put to Tribute But they may not be destroyed But if it will make no place with thee but will make warr against thee How much wilfulnesse is expressed in this slighting Peace and making War If they will do so thou shalt besiege it But yet so that thou cut not down so much as a Tree any one Tree that yieldeth fruit for mans Life or food to preserve Life And when the Lord shall deliver it into thy hands and thou must be content to stay till thou be clear and sure that God hath delivered it into thy hands Then thou maist destroy the Males but thou shalt preserve the women and the children and the cattel So that the very Cattel must not be slain or hurt These must be kept alive And still take heed thou do not so much as boil a Kid in his dams milk take heed of all and every kind of cruelty besides all superstitious customs of some Eastern Countries which we learn from some of the Karrait writers and thou must not take a bird with its young ones but must let the one or the other go free And thou must not kill the old and young in the same day no not for sacrifice as Jacob cried to God Why shall he smite the Mother and the Children both in one day This great Law of war was also punctually observed by God himself and our Lord Jesus towards the women and children of the Edomites which were hated and accursed people as any in the World as a Type of the greatest Reprobation and yet even to them when their males were to be destroyed or at least so threatned yet Let thy fatherless children come to me for I will preserve them alive as the Law commands and let thy widows trust in me Gods inviting Edoms Widdows and Children with promise to preserve them alive yea and
are by Thee Thou shalt not press him with Usury or be as an Userer to him nor any way Hard for if he Cry unto me I will Hear for I am Gratious and will God Hear when we cry of a man oppressing or pressing us and will he not hear us against the Devil also and our spiritual pressors or Oppressors seeing he Fxecutes Judgement for All that are Oppressed And His Word is as pure silver seven times refined from Earth sweetly applyed to this very thing If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray and in another place This Enemy is called a Brother which may shew us how far that Phrase of Brother or Neighbour reacheth even to an Enemy and One that Hateth us As also Christ sheweth us in his Parable of the good Samaritan and divers other places Where he tells us 't is â—a little Love to love a Friend or one that is like us or friendly to us Thankful and Kinde which even sinners and Hypocrites use to do in Their Love But his Children and Servants and himself also must love Enemies and such as hate backbite blasphem and offer all despite unkind and unthankful and all this that they may be like their Heavenly Father Who with love of delight and complacence loveth only himself and his own Image but with pitty and compassion which may be a better or a kinder kind of love he loveth and is kind and Merciful to his very enemies and those that are unlike him froward and unthankful Yea to their very Ox and Asses also even as the Law here bids in Exodus If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Asse going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If the see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen Thou shalt surely leave thy businesse or lay aside thy Garments to help him up or help with him Which may be improved much in our addresses to Christ. For we may justly tell him Our poor souls are as the very Asses of his Enemies and those that hate him nay yet worse as the wild Asses Colt as the Scripture expresseth it and that is more unserviceable then the Ox or Asse or other beast of burthen is I am Behemoth with thee as the psalmist expresseth it But though I stray yet Thou hast put thy self under That Law which bids us help a straying Beast and much more when he lies under an heavy Burthen under which he cannot stir much lesse come to Thee as thou callest All that are heavy laden Now sherefore shew thy pitty and compassion to the poor Asse or the poor soul the bruitish Heart of him that is thy Enemy and Hateth Thee And I know one that said He never received a more sweet and kind return from our Saviour then when in great anguish of spirit he bowed unto him crying onely This Now shew thy kindness to thy Poor Enemy the Kindnesse thou hast spoken of to a Poor Enemy which is now at thy foot and mercy whom thou hast taken captive with thy Sword and thy Bow and while I am speaking Thus I think also of That spoken by the Prophet to the King of Israel when he had so many of his Enemies at his Mercy in the midst of his great City Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them and the Prophet answered No by no means wilt thou smite them thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow give them to eat and drink and let them go and he prepared great provision for them and sent them away so overcome with this Kindnesse that they could hardly be drawn to come any more as Enemies against the King of Israel who was so Merciful a Prince And Mercy doth preserve and establish a Kings Throne more then any thing in the World as Solomon shews and David also in divers places and so it doth and still shall establish Christs Throne also Which is a white Throne even when he cometh to Judgement and Mercy shall still go before him and be the stability of his Throne and Kingdom and blessed be they that hear and know and believe that joyful sound which is sweeter then all the Trumpets or the Bells about the fringe of Aarons Garment Which yet had a better Ornament even that sweet perfume of the Good Oyntment a meek and quiet spirit as Saint Peter expresseth it and the Psalmist compareth it to Love which with God is of great value and it drencht his beard throughout even Aarons Beard which was yet but an Excrement and often to be cut away and ran down through all his Garments even to the seams and fringes also round about And as if God had not yet enough provided for the Poor through all the Laws in Exodus and Leviticus He repeateth and addeth in Deuteronomy Thou shalt not harden thy Heart or shut thy hand from thy Poor brother As if all shutting of hands came from Hardnesse of Heart and that This also was mainly or onely against a poor man But thou shalt open thy hand wide and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in That which he wanteth Beware there be not a word or thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of Release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him Nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be Sin unto Thee Thou shalt surely give him which before was lend him but at or near the year of Release it was a gift because to be forgiven then and Thy Heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him a most sweet Command and Promise because that for This thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in All thy Works and in All that thou puttest thy hand unto VVhich is the great promise to the Reading and Observing of the whole Law so that love and pitty to our poor Neighbour is rewarded as keeping of the whole Law As Daniel also to Nebuchadnezar even when the decree was made against him I councel thee to break off thy sins by justice and by shewing Pity to the poor And when the people asked John the Baptist What shall we do He said nothing but Pity the poor And so our Savior also to the wicked Pharisees Give Alms of all you have and All things shall be clean to you And lest All This might yet be too little or too narrow because it begun with a Poor Brother It concludes as general as well can be expressed Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy Brother to thy Poor and thy Needy in the Land Which Phrase is remembred to Christ several times in the Psalms crying Thy Poor and Thy Needy and forget not the Congregation of Thy Poor c. Where it is also Kite as the English sound the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Kite or Knite the Beast or Beasts of thy Poor As alluding to the Oxe or Ass or wild Asses Colt
Right Hand Length of Dayes As Riches and Honours at her Left Which was called Smol as English Small in Comparison of the Right Hand Numbers or other things But smell and smile and similis may come from their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which That may allude when Isaac smiled at the smell of his Sons Garments and Blessed Him But as English small may come from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So may the Latine Semel While they reckoned All small Numbers Once on their Left Hand Fingers and Joynts As so many Places for Unites Tenths and Hundreds Greater Numbers had their places at the Right Hand Whence also they began to Write As if That also might allude to the sound of Right in English Coming as All other motions from the Right Hand to the Left But As Christ Lifted up Both his Hands in Blessing his People especially at the Sun-setting or Evening of the World which we may touch again See Luke 4. 40. and 13. 13. and 24. 39. 40. 50. So Here in Daniel the Man in Linnen Lifted up Both his Hands in Swearing and Numbering These Numbers Yet when the Time to be Numbred grew Less as it was in the Revelation Then the Angel Onely Lift up One of his Hands to Swear and Number it And Sware by Him that Liveth for Ever The Revelation addeth to This of Daniel and Made the Heaven and Earth and Seas or Waters under the Earth As all the three Regions we noted before in our Bodies also And the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel in the Revelation putteth so great an Emphasis on That of Fountains of Waters also besides all the sea As if it were One great Demonstration of an Insinite Power in the Living God to create a Fountain or Fountains of Living Water Of which also to Hagar at Beerlahairoi where Isaak also first met his wife although it were Ishmaels well Our Saviour discourseth sweetly to the Woman of Samaria Adding also If thou knewest the Gift of God and who it is that speaketh to thee and he speaketh calleth wooeth weepeth over Us also Thou wouldst Ask and He would give Thee a Fountain of Living Waters ever flowing to Eternal Life For so he saith his Waters were It mindes me of the Psalmists saying Who is still Turning for it is a present and continued Act of Turning The very Flint that great Magazine of Nature into a Fountain of Waters He that can do it hath perhaps Dame Natures Key to One of her richest Cabinets And it may be I may tell you it is Doable He that understands the vertue of This Vegetive Water will not wonder the next words should be Not unto us Not unto us but to Thy Name be All the Glory Shall I add also that Jeremy saith Can All the Gods of the Gentiles give us Rain Which is Mater in Heb. As the Mother to the Works of Nature For a Time Times and Half So it is rendred generally But Moed the word here used and so also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Revelation is Season rather then Time Some certain fixed or appointed season from a word to Fix or appoint some solemn Meeting or the like appointment And it may be we can hardly render it Better then by the usual Grammer Phrase of Mood and Tense of Acting all the great Works of God Whose Seasons are so reserved in his Own Breast as Christ hinteth that Mans Labour is Great under the Sun because he knoweth not his Seasons or the Moeds for All Actions As we read in Salomons discourse of Time and Seasons yet much more to be considered For some little Essay towards This Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus upon the Hearts and Prayers of His Children and Servants For who is sufficient for it Let us remember what was said of Fulness and Rest and Turn or Sabbath in the Number Seven And how Scripture and Nature also Teacheth us to part all wholes as much as may be into Halves as we touched before in Diapasons and other Chords of Musick And this Three and an Half is but just Half that Sacred Number of Seven The Word rendred Half is fron Chatsa to cut into parts more or less So that their Chatsa Slosh is to Cut and Slash into Three parts as Jacob and David at Mahanaim Gideon and Abimelech at Sechem And the Grecian Kingdom in Daniel was cut or broken into Four parts where yet the same Verb is used But the Nown commonly speaketh Half from Halaph to change as if their great changes were by Halving things So The Heavens are Halved but Thou changest not Where also the Psalmist saith O take me not away in the midst of my dayes Or Half thereof as it saith The wicked do not fill up Half their Daies And in many other Scriptures we read of Half in the very same word here used in Daniel for Half a Time or Half a Mood That there be but 7 whole Notes in a Diapason though it be called an Eight yet as the Last Head in the Revelation such an Eight as is One of the Seven also is observed by all who make their different Cliffs or Keys or Moods or Scales in Musick by their different placing That Half Note which they still find in every four Notes and call a Fa Flat or Falling to a sharp or Full. Till we have some other opportunity to discuss the Reason of This in Nature we may remember what was touched before of the Number Four which is the first of all square Numbers and so the Measure of all the Rest which are All made and resolved by 4 as Cubes by 8 which hath a Name in Hebrew akin to squaring This may be some reason why Nature hath placed a Pauze before it Or between the sacred Number of Three which are All simple Numbers and Four the First compound or square Number Thus also in the very First Numbers we have yet found in Nature the 12 Hours of Night are So parted into 4 Threes or Watches The whole being first Halved as we spake before in our Discourse of 6 and 7 which maketh That the Scripture often oalleth Midnight of which First at the Last great Plague of Egypt at Midnight to be compared with That in Job 34. 20. After he had said If he draw in his breath All flesh expireth which we touched before And again Each Half was Halved into Watches which began at Night as the Laments tell us theGospel hath the 4th Watch of the Night whatever the Jews speak of 3 So that after Every 3 Hours came the Watch or Chatsa with such a signal pauze and difference as Chimes or Changes now in some places between the Watches Which seem Then of 3 Hours apiece As each of the 4 sides of that Great and square City had also 3 Gates If we may so again reflect on the Hebrew Shaars whence it may be the English Shâ—re and Shears and Shire also I add
touched before in 3 And Even Numbers for Earth And 7 the first Number in which Heaven and Earth do meet and are Reconciled And the first made of any Three whole Numbers and an Half The next is 14 for 10 and an half is a Fraction As famous for the Passover to Israel as 7 for the Sabboth To Israel I say for when they did not enter His Rest and keep His Sabbath or first seventh as they should have done in great kindnesse he prepared or sanctified the next Sabbath for Them Or the fourteenth day of the first Moneth for their Passover And for their Vnclean or Travellers which God did own and encourage as in Strangers a second Passover on the fourteenth day of the second Moneth But in the New Jerusalem or That described in Ezekiel 45 The Sanctuary is cleansed and the Posts of the House and Gates of the Court also with the Corners of the Alters Settle are sprinkled with Blood On the very first Day of the first Moneth So quick will he be in Cleansing his House And Then on the very first Seventh Day of the first Moneth a Sacrifice is ordered and offered for All and every One that Erreth As also Heb. 5. 2. And least This might leave out Any He addeth also For Him whoever that is Simple or Seduced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even as English use the word Pity and a Piteous simple Creature which is just 490. as in Daniels Weeks from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in Greek and Hebrew to lead one in or from ones Path and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Greek also the great Seducer Which I may not English Though a kin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both full and foul and fool as well as folly and folium Faba sed abstinendum est a fabis and to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also Though it be often used in a good sence as to pun or pound or ponder ones path as Caleb was of Jephunne much a kin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fane and faine and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What ever Time This in Ezekiel may intimate It seems to lessen the great work of Aarons Family and sets up the King or Nasi Is it not the time of Melchisedech who he saith shall no more oppress the people Yet They shall All be His and for Him and but an Offering for him And upon him it shall be to order or offer All the Oles or whole offerings and Minhaes and Sack also the Drink offerings In the Haggings or feasting dayes and New Moons and Sabbaths In All the Moeds of the House of Israel He shall Doe cum vitulo faciam the sins and sin offerings and the Minha and the Ole and Solemn Salems in the Ever of the House of Israel As if Jerusalem it self were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jeru Salem They shall see peace When the first stone was laid they cryed Grace grace But now Peace also Grace and Peace Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and Peace of God that passeth All Passovers and all Pentecosts also with All understanding shall preserve and keep your hearts first and then your Minds also Through Christ Jesus and no wonder Then the next words be Finally my brethren Yet a little while and it shall be Eternally my Brethren For Your Fathers good pleasure is to give you a Kingdom And you shall See Eye to Eye Grace and Peace also He hath willed it and through His Grace We will it also Say Amen and say it Boldly Yet with Reverence Kiss him also but with Reverence Concerning his Sons and his Daughters Ask him They are All Princes and you must but Ask of Them or for Them But concerning the VVorks of his Hands you may Command Be of good cheer He calleth you And stayeth for you Unaware I am carried Back by the Hand to the Number 14. For just so many are in the Hebrew word for Hand which is Jad It shall Cast and It shall Bless As in Juda. The same letters and numbers are in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Day Sufficient for the Day is the Bread and Good and Evil thereof And Shadai who is still Sufficient And how near akin Jad is to Jah 14 to 15 we may come to know when we also see how near the Lamb or the Goat of the 14th Evening was to the Lamb also of the 15th Morning And both and All to the Holy Lamb of God that beareth away the Sin of the Lambs the World This was yet at Bethabara the House of Wrath and beyond Jordan but also the House of That which must Pass Over yea and Pass away which is Wrath in Hebrew Before the sun go down and the Cursed Hanged Ones must then be down also The next Day and next and third He came also But I knew him not but had read in Esay that the Spirit must Rest upon him As a Dove or Master of the Wing on a Branch or Natsar But Now I saw and bear Record Here is is One Witness and when He was Taken off Then Christ followed for His three Dayes and an Half also of which we ought to speak again and then comes Stephan the Crown to the Conqueror and then Paul a Witness with a Witness or a Martyr But after Three Dayes being as Dead or Blinde and then recovered by Ananias the Lords Grace But where is Poor Saphira We may finde Her also And thy Eyes from Tears for there is Hope in the latter End And yet All this while but Saul 1000 years after David and Ananias sent to the house of Judas also to seek Saul as we saw before and Saul of Tarsus a City Built by Lascivious Sardanapalus or by others in pursuit of Io Turned to a Beast they say and now a Beast must be recovered As the sound may hint As Tauros And Mount Taurus Thereabout began to all the East which from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Syriac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just 666. As Tyrus Tyras Thrace Threscos how near to Japhets Tiras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who shal be perswaded yet to dwell in the Tabernacles of Sem in this Feast of Tabernacles But Paul is now at Damsack Blood-sucking or sacking Damascus Though it had suckt the Blood of Righteous Abel as they say There slain yet It had also an Eliezer my God Helping and a King anointed by Elisha God Jesus For Damascus also must be Menuha as we saw before And the Prince that carryed the Heavy Doom to Babilon it self was Seriah the Lords Sir and Servant Son of Neriah the Lords Light Son of Maasiah the Lords Trust and Refuge And he went with Zedekiah the Lords Justice to Babel which is Lebab our Heart Turned Backward in the Fourth year or after Three years and an Half And this
Seriah was also Menuah from Noah Rest a Meek and Quiet Prince As Christ speaketh of Moses and of Himself Rejoyce O Zion For thy Prince is Meek and Lowly which with God is of Great Price and Value As Saint Peter speaketh Who yet struck down Ananias and Saphira But this Boanerges must become a Barnabas Ye know not what spirit You must be And Barnabas Took Saul and knit him to the Church of Christ who sent him back to Tarsus his Native Countrey As Israel to Babylon the Hole or Pit whence they were taken and called And then was Great Peace and Comfort of the Holy Ghost for Jerusalem it self was scattered through All Judea and Samaria and Galilee of the Gentiles also the three Regions of Heaven and Earth and the little World also as we have touched divers times And Then Peter also must come down to Lydia as alluding to Lud with Tarsis and Ludi and Lydia Saint Pauls Convert of Thiatire Divine Tyre or the Sacrificer For Her Hire also must be Holinesse to God and Sarran Tyrian or Sharon of which before with Carmel For That also must blesse Him and Hermon the Cursed Hill And Tabor the very Navel of the Belly or the Lower VVaters Here must Christ be Transfigured an Emblem of this Kingdom and Then must cast out the Foul Spirit which so Mastered All his Apostles Till Himself came down and found the people in a very hot dispute with his Apostles about a Devil they could not master And yet at his going up He had given them Power over All Unclean spirits But This was Beelzebub it seems the Prince of Devils with his Legions Every one 6000 and 666 also If a great Author besides Hesychius do not deceive us A strange spirit with Three Epithites in Three Evangelists As if Cerberus with his Tripple Throat The Devil in the VVorld Or Utmost Court and Antichrist in the Church or Temple But the Old Man in our Heart There the Dragon Then the Beast and the Image of the Beast and the False Prophet also directly opposite to God and Man who was made to Rule the Beast with the Image of God in Man or God-Man and the True Prophet the Holy Ghost See Ja. 3. 16. 1 Cor. 3. 3. Rom. 8. 6. But How long Ever since there was a Childe In the VVaters Above As the Crossing Serpent which we shewed before in Shemes Samson and his 12 Labors also through the Zodiak full of Beasts Aries Taurus Cancer Leo worse In the Earth Below Even in Paradise The Serpent the most subtile Beast and Head of all Beasts Turning Isha into Eva 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before whom Adam only conversed with Lilith the Nights Darkness and Dreams which the Jewes call the Mother of Hobgoblins and make a white Circle with Chuts Lilith Out Night In the Waters Below Leviathan and Tannin the Dragon in the Great Depth or Bottomless-pit as Esay 27. with Iob of Behemoth Leviathan and the Revelation But He shall be cast out of Earth also as first he was out of Heaven Whence he fell like Lightning Though That but as a Prophecy before Apoc 11 and 12. Which brings up the Kingdom of Christ with Casting out Satan As Christ also said If I by the finger of God Cast out Beelzebub Then know the Kingdom of God is very near you But you must say Let it Come on Earth as it is in Heaven Where yet Satan came among the Angels to accuse and resist the Brethren as we may find in Job with Dan. Zech. But at our Saviours coming from the Mount All the three Foul Spirits shall be cast out Yet they may Tear us first and leave us as Dead But for Three dayes and Half and Then Come up hither And the Father said with Tears Lord I believe Help thou my Unbelief Being told that All things even All things are possible to Him that Believeth The same Works Yea and greater Works For I go to my Father And a Grain of True Faith can remove This Mountain also where I was transfigured while Peter would have built three Tabernacles Howbeit This strange and strong and last kinde of Devils go not out but by Fasting and Prayer Yet They had Oyl and so raised the Sick and laying on of Hands Cast out Devils For it was and still is and will be and appear a very Mighty Name of Jesus of Nazareth And Peter at length coming to Japho the old Town of Japhet Who began it before the Flood as hinted in Heathen Authors Having first healed Aeneas Aeneas And after eight years By the same Name by which Himself and Iohn had cured the Cripple at the 9th Hour the Time of Prayer As to Cornelius also the first fruits of the Gentiles He findeth Tabitha Dorcas a Doe of a Goat which in Hebrew and Syriac is also Saphira 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Raiseth Her also from the Dead A greater work perhaps than curing a Daughter of Abraham whom Satan had Bound Lo and Behold these 18 Years And another with the Bloody Flux of which before for 12 years And a Third Talitha 12 years old Here are three Twelves and an Half And a man at the Pool of Bethesda the House of Chesed Tender Mercy 38 Years Here are three Twelves and two also for a Cheâ—si Which I note the rather because it was first shewed Abraham in a Map that his Friends and Tenants of Promise and Sodom also must serve the four Monarchs 12 Years And not be delivered till the second after the 12. or second Sabbath which is the 14th Year as Assyrians broken in the 14th year of Ezekiah as the 14th of Genesis And the 14 Teeth of either Jawe may represent Years also as we shewed before from Shinim Teeth and Shenim Years Where we touched the Turtle and the Pigeon as the two little Witnesses preserved undivided which is their only way of safety between the Divided Heifer and the Ram and Goat also and All of Three years old And Then the Fiery Furnas and Great Horror But at Evening or Sun-setting God speaketh to him in a Vision which he saw not till he had said to the King of Sodom Thou shalt never make me Rich. And After Those words God came in a Vision and said Fear not Abraham for c. And they brought him to an Upper Chamber it is oft spoken of and should be marked where the women were and shewed the Coats of Dorcas For she also loved us and helped to build us a Tabernacle As we touched before in the Curtains or Coverings of Goats-hair and Badgers-skins But He put the Women All out O Woman what have I to do with Thee And Touch me not for I am not yet Ascended Which he had learned also from Him that so Acted before Him and James and John which were His three VVitnesses generally Who put them All out and cryed Talitha Kumi May it not be Rise up the Third Day or Year or Moed As They
he was the near Ancestor of Selah or Siloah Rising up 35 years after his Father Arphaxad and 3 and an Half also The great Reconciler of the Sun and Moons Motions more perhaps than 19 or any other Number Half 70 5 times 7 And next to 6 times 6 perhaps the just Age of our Saviour at his Death In Hours it brings us to the Light of the 2d Morning 36 As 360 Dayes bring up the second Year I will love them freely Though before he had said From my House I will drive them Agarsem As Hagar from Abraham and I will not add to Love them Oseph As minding Joseph sold to the Stocks c. All their Saras are Sorerim Sorry Sirs As the English Proverb to this day They shall be Nodding and Noddies Among the Gentiles Gogim perhaps of Gog and Magog also Both in England and other Northern Countries As we finde in Heathen writers But return O Israel to the Lord thy God Even yet Thy God! As Jeremy 3. and many other places And the great Complaint in Zephany is that the Polluted and Rebellious City would not trust in the Lord Nor draw near to Her God As Manasseh but a Type of their Return though They thought themselves Forgotten as that name may intimate after All his sins Yet Bowed to His God and his Fathers God who Heard him Take words and say Take away All Iniquity Not Ours onely but All. O let the Iniquity of the Wicked wicked also come to an end And He was Heard in what he prayed Receive us graciously This Tob mindes me of Tobiah the Lords Goodness There are strange things in that Book and of These Dayes perhaps in the true Hebrew Copy I will be as a Dew to Israel yet the great complaint and punishment was That His Goodness and Mercy was but a Dew He shall flourish as the Lilly Or as Shushan of which before and in Ester 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 661. Or as Susanna Recovered by Daniel from the Elders as Shushan by Ester and Mordecai There is another Mistress also First His Roots under Ground and out of sight like Lebanon Then his little young Suckers Yonikothau as Younger is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 66. 588. His Glory or Beauty or Head Hodo As India How like to Judea Hodi in Ester also And in English Hoddy is joyful and glad As the Olive-Tree and his Reak as Lebanon Jasuâ—u Joseve Betsillo And again His memorial as the Wine of Lebanon From me is All thy Fruit found See Esay 26. 19 20. and Psalm 107. 40 41 42 43 and 91. and 37. 34. with the close of This Prophet Hoseah In the Prophet Joel we have a Form of Prayer prescribed before the Spirit be poured out as There also promised And Esay 32. My Land shall be desolate for ever c. Till the Spirit shall be Poured from on High And then the Wilderness shall be a fruitful Field and That which is Now fruitful shall be accounted but as a Wilderness And Then you shall sing as in the Night of the solemn Moed Chap. 30. to be added to that before of the Feast of Tabernacles And Chap. 59. They shall fear the Name of the Lord from the VVest and his Glory from the Sun-Rising when the Enemy shall come in like a Flood to end That Generation Then even Then the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a Standard against him And the Redeemer or Goel and Kinsman shall come to Zion or out of Zion and shal Turn away Ungodliness from Jacob. As St Paul renders the words in Rom. 11. applying it to the Fulness of the Gentiles as the Resurrection from the Dead when All Israel shall be saved For This is my Covenant with them when I shall take away their sins My Spirit upon thee my words which I have put in thy mouth for the word which I Covenanted with you in your coming out of Aegypt and My Spirit is still standing in you Fear yee not Hag. 2 They shall not depart from Thy mouth or from the mouth of Thy seed or from the mouth of Thy sâ—eds seed saith the Lord from now and for Ever And though they Rebelled and Vexed his Holy Spirit so that he turned to be their Enemy and fought against them yet he remembred the dayes of Old Moses and his people saying VVhere is He that brought them up out of the sea with the Shepherd of his Fock and where is He that put his Holy Spirit within him And again The Spirit of the Lord caused him to Rest c Chap. 63. And then followeth a most sweet and pathetical Prayer for the time of their Captivity to be Paraleld with that in Joel 2. And Then the Lord will be jealous for his Land or for his Earth and will pity his People Yea the Lord will answer and say Behold c. And fear not O Land Be not Tyred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be glad and Rejoyce For the Lord hath been Great to Doe or to work Great things Be not afraid ye Beasts of the Field Be Glad then O children of Zion and Rejoyce in the Lord your God He hath given you the Former Rain for Righteousnesse and He will bring the showre also the gushing waters as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may sound in English the former Teaching Rain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and That also which filleth up the straw or the stalk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the first Month or beginning of the year which was also the End of the year before And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the Name of the Lord your God that hath been so Marvellous for you and my People shall never be ashamed And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your God and none else and my People shall never be ashamed And it shal come to pass Afterward Afterward I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh c. And I will shew Wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth the Sun shall be turned into Darknesse and the Moon into Blood and may not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Great and Terible Day of the Lord come and it shall come to passe that whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord Iesus as is plain by This cited in Rom. 10 shall be saved or delivered As Paul at Melita which in Greek may be Care but in Hebrew Cure and Deliverance For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be Deliverance Here is also Pelitah which we had before in Paltiel as the Lord hath said and in the Remnant whom the Lord shall call And Peter by these words proveth that This was only begun in Act. 2. and that the same spirit of which They had Then the First fruits as Paul also speaketh was promised to Them and Their Children and to All to All that are afar off even All the Lord shall
who reigned 36 more and thence 390 to the Cities End and Temples make 906. Thence 70 to Cyrus and 80 to Ezraes 7th of Artaxerxes and 490 Thence for Daniels Weeks to the Month of our Saviours Passion make 1546 or 47. So that the Passover at which he suffered and the 3d Day following for the 16th Morning or Barley-sheaf the first of All First-fruits to be Heaved up before the Lord as our Saviour Rose from the Dead upon the 3d Day after his Death and then his Ascension 40 Daies After the Grave As he was presented in the Temple 40 Daies after the Womb by his Mother coming to the Sactuary 40 Daies after her Son was born And Pentecost the 50th Day from his Resurrection might be All in the Year 1547 or 48 From Aegypt But if the 70 Years ending at Cyrus did begin at Jehojakim which is Daniels or Jehojakin Ezekiels often called Our Captivity as many Great men begin them Yet in some respects there may be Greater Harmony For Then abating 11 years from 1547 or 1548 there will remain 1536 or 1537 the very first Hour of the Day of Pentecost beginning from the Evening and allowing 12 or 14 more for Nehewiahs coming after Ezra to finish the Cities Walls and Government we come to the very Tamid of That Day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghoâ— came down in the Third Hour of the Morning Acts 2d But However 1536 Hours bring us just to the Beginning and 1548 to sun-Rising of the Day of Pentecost the 65th of the Year As 65 or 66 Hours bring us through the Tamid of the 3d Day to Noon or Dinner time To 65 135 make just 200 which in Hours bring us quite through the 8th Day on which the Son was Circumcised And in Daies they bring us quite through the Feast of Tabernacles and conclude the 8th or Last and Great Day of That Feast which they call the Great Hosanna Which may also intimate that as a new Year began from their coming out of Aegypt at 360 Hours So also from the First Day of Tabernacles which is the 15th of the 7th Month as That was the 15th of the first Month. And now we may begin all our Acounts from This 7th Month As from the First and from the First of Tabernacles on the 15th of the 7th as from the First of the First Seeing 15 Days in either make up just 360 Hours As Dayes in their Year From 65 the Day of Pentecost taking out the Days before the Passover we leave but 52 as Weeks in the Year and so many just there are between those two Holy Courts of the Temple 135 and 187 But 65 out of 135 leave 70 for the Area of the Porch Temple and Oracle As the 70 Elders many other Seventies in Scripture And as 65 with 135 brought us to the great Hosannah So 187 the Length of the Priests Court in Hours bring us just past Noon or Dinner of the Day of Circumcision or the 8th Day So in Daies they bring us just to the great Day of Atonement or the 10th Day of the 7th Month which as we saw before was by a perpetual Rule 123 Days from Pentecost And as Pentecost did respect All the People who were All to bring and All concerned in the First-fruits which might not be offered before Pentecost or after the Dedication so the Priests were in special concerned in Circumcision though it might be done by Others and yet more in that of Atonement which yet concerned All Israel also And so the same Court of 187 Cubits coming up just to the Day of Atonement was for the Priests and the People also that were Clean men of Israel standing in the same Court about the Altar as we saw before with little Rails And the Standers also came within the Rails and so did All that laid their Hands upon their Sacrifice And though Only the Elders and Watchers said those words in the Revelation Thou hast Redeemed us by thy Blood and hast made us Kings and Priests to God and we shall Reign upon the Earth Yet they said it As the 24 Orders of Standers for All Saints for so 't is said They had Viols full of Odours to the Lamb also the Prayers of Saints And at Solomons great Dedication in the 7th Month also we found the Cloud so filling all the House that the Priests could not enter but stood without among the Common-people as if Then there should not be or need Any such Dictinction as there yet must be observed wâ—reverence lest we fall into the great and proper crying sins of the Last Times and Last Daies also which St Paul distinguished And those are Corahs Rebellion and speaking Evil of Dignities Of which St Peter and Jude also with This Addition that God knoweth How to punish such Sinners in the Flesh and against the Spirit which the Lord forgive in me and All his People Healing us and let his People say Amen I must not omit One more Harmony of Numbers and in These Courts also And that is the famous Number 666 with All its Parts but especially 333 its Half and Half the Moons Course from the Sun or Full Moon Or Hour of the Minha Passover 333 of the Year And All the Courts of Israel made up just 333 Cubits from East to West as we saw before in the Chell before 135 of the Womens and 187 of the Priests and People All concerned in the Full Moon and Passover of 333 Just Half 666 which is but 3 times 3 lesse than 135 by 5 the steps up to it and 5 times 135 make just 675. â—ut if we begin at the bottom of Those 333 Cubits where the first steps began if those were 12 as Some say Then 333 by 12 as the Full Moons and Changes in every Year want onely 4 of 4000. But the 12 are but Half Cubits or 6 Wholes and 333 by 6 make 1998 which want but two of 2000. And Josephus an Eye-witness reckons 14 steps of Half Cubits or 7 whole which may be more sutable to all we saw before of 7 and 14. And so 333 by 14 Halves or 7 wholes are just 3 times 666 and an Half or 2331. Which in Hours bring us into the 98th Day and 98 Daies make just 3 Months and an Half So that This may be the 3 Moeds and Half for the Witnesses If God so please to help us reckon it The rather also because with All we found of 7 before we saw it the very first Number that was made of 3 and an Half in whole Numbers and now by these very Measures of the Temple-Courts we are come to a Number made of 7 and of 3 and an Half Which may contain the Fates as they speak of the Jewish State or Church or if you will of Benjamin and Judah or of Israel and Judah that is indeed both Jew and Gentile For we saw before that Ephraim must make the Fulness of the Gentiles Or what ever other