The Rise Race and Royalty of the Kingdom of God

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

IF thou knew'st the Author of these following Discourses, it is needless to say anything to thee concerning him or them. And if thou art still a stranger to him, it is pity to detain thee from so profitable an Acquaintance as thou mayest yet most happily redeem with him, by these his Excellent Works▪ in which he has given us a much better Account of himself, than it is possible now to receive from any other hand.

However, the Publisher professes so great a Love and Veneration for his Person, and is so great an Admirer of these, and all other Discourses of his, whic • he has yet seen, that he dare not venture to tell thee his own thoughts of either, lest he should offend against the Spring, whilst he commends the Stream. Upon this and some other considerations, which are to him of much weight, he declines doing anything that may pretend to look like a Preface; and believes upon thy due perusal of what is here presented to thee, thou wilt easily justify his Modesty and Prudence herein. Nor wilt thou then wonder that our Author, and this his Book addresses thee so directly, and without the recommendations of some of the Greater Lights and Rabbies of our present Times. It would indeed be a new thing for a Person, and Discourses so very heavenly and spiritual, to receive such a complement; and especially in an Age which has all along discovered such a watchful jealousy over, and opposition to all the increases and growths of Truth above the pitch and stature of Opinions and Principles commonly received among us. An Age, which instead of forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, as the Apostle speaks, Phil. 3. 13. has taken up its rest and satisfaction in present measures and attainments, making them the Rule, the Law, the • est, and the Standard to all the further discoveries and breakings forth of God in the midst of us. It has still been the Lot of the Divinest Births, and Appearances of God in this lower World, to be most solitary and neglected as to an outward pomp and attendance. They are reserved for the Glory and Triumph of another day. We read indeed of a Ruler, who came to Christ by night, being drawn by the fame of his Miracles; and of the Multitude following him for the Loaves: but upon that most spiritual Sermon of our Savior 's in the 6th chap. of John, the Text tells us, Many of the Disciples went back, and walked no more with him: And that the Twelve were themselves so staggered, that our Lord says unto them, Will ye a • so go away?

Leaving then our Author, and his Book among those excellent and best things, whic • have always stood alone in this World, and been contented so to do; I now apply myself to the proper service of these Lines, which is to acquaint thee, that these Discourses are posthumous, and not designed for the Press, when they were first Preached; but are now made public, to answer the imp • rtunities of particular Friends, and th • requiring of a more universal Charity, that so much Goodness should be communicative.

This is the reason, why in the diligent perusal of this Book, thou wilt find an omission of some few Heads of Disc • urse, as to the particular enlargement upon them, both in the Sermons upon Matth. 18. and those upon the 45th Psalm: As also why neither of those Discourses are completely finished: Those few particular Heads being forgotten by our Author in his Original Copy, which is here exactly observed; and he by his death prevented bringing of either Discourse to their desired and designed perfection.

I must also acquaint thee, that the State of a Saint's Soul and Body in death, which makes the last part of this Book, was intended by our Author, as an Introduction only to several Sermons which he afterwards Preached upon that Argument, from those two Scriptures, 1 Thes. 4 14. and Heb. 2. 14, 15. in which he dispatched the several Heads enumerated in the beginning, as also those which are wanting at the end of that Discourse, belonging to the first consolation and joy of death to a Saint; which Sermons, to the Reader's great satisfaction had been here published as the Author's finishing strokes to his excellent representation of Death, had they not proved his own Funeral Discourses; for before he could give us a Copy of them, or correct one, which was imperfectly taken from his mouth, he died; confirming to us his Belief of what he had delivered upon that Subject, by his hastening to the highest proof thereof, which is enjoyment. However, it is judged worth the Reader's while, to make what our Author designed for the beginning of several other Discourses, to be the conclusion of these, it being so sweet a strain in his Dying Song, and so admirable an expression of his Victory and Triumph over the King of Terrors.

I must also tell thee, that some few Errata's have escaped the Press, whi • h the more intelligent may rectify as they read; although for the sake of the more ordinary Readers they are care • ully corrected in the end of the Book. 'It is hoped the Reader will not think it one, that these Discourses are Printed in no bigger a Let • er, and that we have le • t him no fairer a Margent, because we have herein consulted his Purse, and taken care he should buy as little waste Paper as was possible in the purchase of this Book. Nor will the understanding Reader complain it wants the Ornament of a large empty Margent, or the ostentation of one filled with Learned Quotations, whilst in the reading of it, he will find our Author has given him throughout his Book all manner of Human, and Divine learning, after the best sort; Well digested, and converted into an excellent habit, strength, and activity of mind.

And now Reader, I have only some few requests to present to thee for thy own sake, rather then our Authors.

First, It is probable thou mayest here meet with some things which not only from the manner of the expression, but chiefly from the matter of them, may be difficult, and hard to be understood. My request here is, Thou wouldest take great care not to Judge and condemn what thou art not able first to hear and understand, lest by t • y rash Censures thou shouldest blindly rush upon the hiding of power, which the Prophet Habakkuk speaking of Christ in the Spirit, tells us, Chap. 3. ver. 4. is in his hand. That is,

As our Author some where expresses himself upon those words. Who among us is yet able to comprehend all the distinct ages and growths of good minds; To understand the various Improvements, measures and attainments, the several capacities, languages and operations, which are peculiar to those ages and growths? It is impossible for us to set the bounds to spiritual things; To stint that Spirit in our selves or others which is a fountain of Divine Light and Life in all regenerated Souls, continually sending forth new streams, and running along with afresh succession of Waters without any stop or limit. We are too proud to understand the condescensions, too low to take the height, too shallow to fathom the depth, too narrow to measure the breadth, too short to reach the length of the Divine truth and goodness, and the various communications of the • selves to us. We cannot assign the highest or the lowest state of Saints, whilst they are here below. We cannot say all above this is fancy, whimsie, dream, and delusion; all below that, is common, carnal, formal and superstitious. As we ought not then to despise, and contemn that which is below; So let us not censure and condemn that which is above us. Blessed be God all Good Souls in the midst of their greatest distances from one another here below do all meet in the Divine Comprehension above. We are all enfolded in the Divine Arms, we are all encircled in the Divine Love. That has breadth, and length, and depth, and height enough to reach, and hold us all. And if we cannot yet receive and embrace each other in our several ages, growths measures, and attainments, it is because we have little, low, dark, narrow and contracted hearts, feel but little of the love of Christ, and are no more filled with that Spirit which is the spring, the center, the circle, the band to all good Spirits in heaven, and on Earth. There is as great a difference in the statures of Souls, as of bodies; In the growths of Christians, as of men and all other things. St. John, Joh. 12. &c. distinguishes these growths into little Children, Young men, Fathers, twice together; That we might take the more distinct notice of them. Our Author was in the highest of these ranks; Was indeed one of the tallest among his Brethren, whether we consider the height of his own spiritual discoveries and enjoyments, or the depth of his condescensions to the lowest and least of them. For the true stature of anything cannot be exactly taken without measuring from both ends. That is not truly tall or great which seems to stand high, and look big, but that which reaches furthest, which is most extensive, comprehending and Universal. Our Author was indeed a true Father in Christ, and so esteemed by all who knew him For his own great understanding, and experience in Divine things, for the excellency of his Ministry, whereby he did in Jesus Christ thorough the Gospel beget and edify many; As also for the great tenderness, and Father like bowels which throughout his whole Ministry, and in all his other converses, he delighted to be still expressing towards all the weak and little ones. Nor was his skill herein less considerable than his Naturalness. This Character thou wilt find eminently due to him as thou perusest these discourses, in which he is still careful to provide Milk for the Babes, whilst he sets stronger Meat before the men; Those who are Spiritual, and by being so, are able spiritually to discern spiritual things, to compare them with themselves, and to feed on them not only as they are brought down to us in fleshly Images, and resemblances; But as they express and manifest themselves in us in their own spiritual forms and glories. Sure I am if thou art truly come within the compass of the lowest of those growths before mentioned, if thou art become so much as a little Child in Christ, if thou hast but that genuine instinct, and naturalness of Soul towards God and all Divine things, which is essential to, and inseparable from the New birth in its most infant state, if thou • hast but the least degree. of a Spiritual mind, any spiritual sense and savor, there are a great many things in this Book which thy Soul must of necessity understand, echo to, relish, and acknowledge to be exceeeding good. Let then the goodness of what thou dost understand, encourage thy Charity to think that which is above thy reach, may be better; At least let it prevail with thy reason not to judge, sentence, and condemn it.

It is everywhere esteemed an high and difficult Office to be a Judge in the Affairs of this lower World. The Wisdom of our Nation has provided (as a Noble Author observes) that so great a Work should not depend upon One Person, every Court of Judicature having a certain number of Judges or Assistants belonging to it. Nor can a Judge depute his Authority to another, it being an Office and Work of greatest Confidence, Trust and Skill, and therefore personal and inherent. And with what wariness and caution do the Rules of all our Courts direct their own proceeding to a Judgment in every little case here below. It is certainly a much higher and harder work to be a Judge in the matters of another World, in things not obvious to Sense, and transcendent to Reason, in things above all the natural Principles of Wisdom or Truth in any creature: The Jews speak of it as one of the first things delivered by God to Moses, by him to Joshua, and so down to all their Elders and Wise men in all Ages, To be slow in judging. St. Paul cautions us, 1 Cor. 4. 5. To judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come. To pass a Judgment, to pronounee a Sentence upon Persons and Principles in spiritual matters, is in its own nature, and in the consequences thereof, the greatest, the weightiest act our Souls can put forth; and therefore not to be hastily executed; nor indeed at all, without his presence, from whom all the Authority, Power and Capacity of Spiritual Judgment is derived. God has committed all this Judgment in a more especial manner to Jesus Christ, and there can be no true, right, authentic, valid, and final Judgment, without him, and where he is not present. He has nowhere so deputed this Office and Work to any Person or Company of persons, as to alienate the dignity and glory of it from himself. And whether he dispence it immediately or mediately, he cannot be excluded. It is his Presence, and Power, the Appearances of Christ, and the manifestations of his Spirit, which do give to any Society of men the Distinction and Authority of a Church; to every Church or Person, the right, the ability of Spiritual Judgment. No man, no Church has here any other Spiritual Power and Capacity, besides that of Christ, and his Spirit in them. And how rich, full and sufficient soever the several Churches of Christ may at this day esteem themselves to be without him; yet sure I am, there is nothing more speaks the absence of Christ, and his spirit; And their poverty, emptiness, and weakness, then that hasty, rash, sleight, partial, blind▪ and bold judging and censuring one another which everywhere abounds in the present Christian Churches: Whilst in some of them, the greatest acts of spiritual judgment that can be done on Earth, ( as a great man long since complained, ) are made to lackey up and down for Fees, and become the most ordinary process that is. And in others which pretend to be more refined, to attend upon outward forms, inward Opinions, our own parties, interests, and passions. As if instead of judging nothing before the time, until the Lord comes; The Spirit of man would so determine everything, that no knot should be left for him to untie, nothing remain for him to judge. But blessed be God the causeless curse shall not come. All the judgments which are fondly and proudly made in man's day shall be cancel'd in the day of Christ. Your Brethren (as God speaks by the evangelical Prophet to those that tremble at his Word) That hated you, that cast you out for my name sake, said▪ Let the Lord be glorified: But he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.

Be persuaded then to do as God has done: Leave all judgment to the Son, to his manner and measure of appearing in thee. Wait still for his coming who is to set judgment in the Earth, to bring it forth in thy Spirit. Be first able to say, Thou art full of Power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of Judgment, before thou takest upon thee to declare unto thy Brethren their transgressions, mistakes, follies, and errors. Do not venture to step into the Throne of Judicature, till he, whose place it is, lead thee up, lest thou find thyself ere thou art aware, in the Chair of Scorners, instead of the Seat of Judgment. Judge nothing till Christ comes, lest thou shouldest then be judged by him, as an evil doer, and a busy body. 'It is true, the Spiritual Man is said to judge all things. But that Word, that State, that Work, do all of them import a distinct and critical discerning of things: such must thine be of all things before they can be rightly judged by thee. Thou mayest indeed speak evil of what thou knowest not, but thou canst not fairly judge it, till thou doest thoroughly understand it. As a spiritual man read these following Discourses, and as such give thy judgment of them. Remember still, that every Truth is not spoken at once to every good man, nor any Truth opened to him in its full glory at the first sight; but as Luther speaks, we are enlightened by Beam after Beam. It is said of some things our Savior did, and which were done unto him, Joh. 12 That his Disciples understood them not at the first, but when Christ was glorified, when he took away his fleshly presence, and came in more spirit, then they were acquainted with them. What I do, says Christ to Peter, Joh. 13. 7. thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter, And in Joh. 16. 12, 13. He tells his Disciples, he had yet many things to say unto them, but they could not bear them then; howbeit, when the Spirit of Truth was come, he should guide them into all Truth. When St. Paul was a little beforehand caught up into the World to come, the Text says, 2 Cor. 12. 4. that he heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter; that could not, that might not be spoken. Such things as would no d • ubt • ave offended the best men then alive, if he had declared them. Good Souls have their several Orbs and Sphears of Spiritual Light and Life; all below are comprehended by them above, and lie in their Bosoms; but the lesser Circle can by no means contain the greater. A Soul got no further than the first Heavens, cannot hear, cannot receive the discoveries and enjoyments of one in the third. If a Truth be very raised and spiritual, it is not the first Beam of Christ himself can show us that Truth: And if I by my glimmering light shall go about to examine and judge things spoken in a clearer day, I shall be subject to many mistakes, and in great danger of rejecting the Truth, because I do not understand it. In my Father's house, says Christ, are many Mansions. 'It is true of his house of grace here below; as well as that of glory above. Let every Christian then say of his present state and measure, This is my present Heaven, my present Mansion; here my God is pleased to meet me, thus he dispenseth himself to me; here I will wait, until I am called up higher; and if another comes and speaks things beyond my present understanding and experience, I will judge no man's Light, Life and Liberty in the Lord; being constant to this, that as Christ in the flesh came to his own, and his own received him not; so also may Christ in the Spirit. Instead then of judging and censuring what thou do • st not yet understand, be faithful to that which thou already knowest; answer thy present light with a suitable life, so shalt thou grow up, not only into all the Discoveries, Truth and Mysteries which are in this, and all other spiritual • ooks, but into him also in all things who is thy Head. Hast thou received any one ray, any one glimpse of spiritual Light into thy Soul, watch it, cherish it, walk according to the direction and instinct of it; and this Beam shall quickly, swiftly grow up into a glorious day in thy spirit. For, the path of the Just is as the shining Light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Secondly; It is possible thou mayest here meet with some few things very different from some of thy beloved Sentiments; for our Author intended in these Discourses, to tell thee his own thoughts, not to guess at thine. My Requests in this case, are such as these; not to make thyself overwise; not to think thou knowest anything; not to abound in thy own sense; not to lay too much weight upon thy own Judgment, nor too little upon thy Brother's; not to overvalue thy own Notions and Opinions, nor to undervalue his; not to forget that modesty and sobriety of mind which every good man ought still to preserve towards himself; nor that moderation, forbearance, indulgence, allowance and respect which not only charity, but reason and interest oblige thee always to express towards all good men that differ from thee. For we all stand in need of, and have a right to such a tender behavior from one another. To impress a little such Requests as these upon thy mind, let me briefly offer to thy larger thoughts upon them, these few Considerations.

1. It is possible for us then to have wrong Notions and Opinions of Spiritual Truth, when we think we have the rightest. How easily do we mistake an Object, and the true color of it, when we see it through a died and color'd Medium? The Staff that is straight in the Air, seems crooked when it is seen under Water, through the grossness and inconstancy of that Element. Such are all our views, our reports of Divine Truths, whilst we take in, and give forth the Copies of them through the thick, color'd, and spotted Glass of our Natural Understanding. Thou confessest thyself to be a poor fallible creature; thou bemoanest daily thy Ignorance before the Lord, and beggest of him that thou mayest understand thy own Errors: Be not then too hasty in charging thy Brother with false Notions, whilst thou thyself art not exempted from mistakes: Do not think thyself an Infallible Judge of his Errors, whilst thou art but a Fallible Discerner of Truth for thyself.

2. It is impossible for us to have clear Notions and Opinions of Spiritual Truth, whilst we are in this dark and distant World. We now see but through a Glass darkly. We are in a confused state. We can better make a shift to puzzle and perplex the Notions of another. than we know how to disintangle and extricate our own. The Sun appears not to us in his true brightness and glory, but as a red bunning fire, when we see him in the mornings and evenings through those earthly vapors and mists which interpose. Such Fogs are still gathering between the God of Truth and our Vnderstandings, whilst they dwell below. We are as yet but like the blind man in the Gospel, who upon the first touching of his Eyes, saw Men like Trees. How fond and obstinate should we think that man, who going forth in the twilight, when it is impossible clearly to discover and distinguish anything, is however very confident he sees, and reports all things aright? All our Notions of Spiritual Truths here below, are at best but as a Twilight, in which Light and Darkness meet. How unreasonable is it whilst thy own Light is shaded with so much Darkness, to think there is no mixture of Light in thy Brother's Darkness?

3. It is impossible for us to have full and comprehensive Notions and Opinions of Spiritual Truth, whilst we are in this separated and divided state. Our knowledge here below is not only dark (as was said before) but partial. St. Paul with excellent reason puts these two together, 1 Cor. 13. 12. We now see through a Glass darkly; we know but in part; or▪ in division. It is indeed the partiality of our knowledge, which causes and increases the darkness and difficulty of it, and turns it into a Riddle. That will be plain, easy, and pleasant to us, when we come at once to see the whole body of Divine Truth; when we shall in one view behold the entire frame, and universal harmony of it; the connection, proportion, consent and sympathy of one Truth with another, and of each Truth with every Truth; which being now seen alone, puzzles, perplexes, intangles, and labyrinths us. Spiritual Truths are now Aenigma 's to us, because we know but in part, in division. All our Notions and Opinions here can be but broken things, but little pieces of Truth. We are all running away with scattered bits and scraps of Spiritual Truth; every one fondly calling his own share the entire Purchase: But we know not how to put things together. Some are zealous for one; others for another part of Divine Truth; whilst we contend for one, we are apt to let go another; whilst we are seeking after one, we lose another: We continually mistake one another, and the Truth in each other, through our partial discovery of things: We have so much light, so much knowledge, as through the darkness and ignorance mingled with it, and prevailing over it, serves us to wrangle, dispute, and quarrel with our Brethren; but not enough to receive and comprehend them. We have indeed a Notion of the Indivisibility of Truth, and are sure of it in the Theory, but we know not how to make it out in our practice. It is true, that is not Truth which cannot dwell with any, with every Truth; but all Truth is not yet thus reconciled in the head of any Good man on Earth, although it be so in every Good man's heart; he is in love with all Truth, but has not yet found out all its Alliances, the whole compass and circle of it. Truth is one in itself, but it is broken into I know not how many pieces as it is in us; and those pieces through the darkness mixed with them in our spirits, fighting one against another. The next state will give us a clear and comprehensive view of things; all the divisions of Truths and of Spirits▪ will then be at an end. Those Truths, those Spirits shall then be reconciled, and run into the Embraces of one another, that seem now to stand at the greatest distance and defiance: Then the Darkness shall no more predominate over the Light, nor employ it thus unnaturally to contend against itself; but the Light running together from all parts, and everywhere mingling with itself, shall swallow up all the Darkness. But we have now only a glimmering prospect of this happiness. It is impossible to attain here to a full view of the whole face of Truth, which is great and glorious as God. All our present Notions and Opinions are too narrow, too contracted to take in those innumerable Raies and Beams of Divine Truth, which are everywhere scattered and dispersed among all the Children of Light. Thou hast but one little part of it in all thy Notions and Opinions; thy Brother has another part in his. Instead of undervaluing his share, it becomes us much better to acknowledge the shortness of our own; and to say of God (with Job upon another occasion not much different) Job 26. 14 Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him!

4. The same Spiritual Truth may communicate itself to us in various, different, and contrary Notions and Opinions. The whole state of things all along throughout the Christian World, is a sufficient proof of this matter. It is somewhere well observed by our Author to this purpose, as they say in Philosophy. The Essences, and kinds of things, are immovable, and ever the same; However there be an infiniteness of uncertainty and change in the Individuals by the variety and change of outward accidents: So if you compare one good man with all other good men in all ages, you will everywhere find the same New Nature, the same inward savor and relish, the same Divine Principle and God-like life in them all; Whilst the inward forms of truth and goodness upon their understandings, and the outward expressions of them in their conversations, and practices, do exceedingly vary and differ, from the different degrees and ways of their light within and their educations, and customs without. The Apostle tells us, Rom. 14. One Christian believeth that he may eat all things: Another who is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; And let not him which eateth not, judge him which eateth: For God hath received him. One man esteemeth one day above another: Another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; And he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; And he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. Both these are different, and contrary in their Notions, Opinions, and practices; And yet in that difference, and contrariety, do both serve the same Lord, and are accepted by him▪ They both in their several opinions, Notions, and practices, have the same apprehensions of the glory of God, the same reference and regard to it, the same aim and intention of Soul to make themselves a Spiritual sacrifice to him. Nor does this hold only in the lesser matters of Religion, but in the greater also. Besides that Babel and confusion of languages, that variety and contrariety of opinions which are in the Christian World, about things of a lower consideration; What disputes, what controversies, what contradictions, do we see at this day among good men concerning the most substantial, and vital truths of the Gospel? How even among the best Christians themselves, are some of the greatest points of Christianity, darkened and perplexed with Clouds of disputes, with diversity, and uncertainty of opinions, with different and contrary explications? What Principle of Christianity (how clearly and expressly soever it has been revealed to us in the letter of the Scriptures) has been universally received and explained alike by all good men? Do we not every where see those very Persons, who have (as we have reason to judge) entertained the same Divine Truths in the inward power, life, and Spirit of them, do yet discourse, interpret, and preach them in Notions, Opinions, and Forms, very different and contrary to one another? Do we not everywhere see good men puzzling, and confounding each other with their own explanations of those very things, in the life and power of which they are all agreed? Have we not upon this accompt seen some of the best of men such strangers to, and so jealous of one another, that they have been unable to bear one another. Look abroad, lay aside all thy prejudice, fondness, and partiality; And then tell me if thou dost not everywhere meet with the same ingenuity, modesty, humility, and meekness of Soul; The same desire and diligence in the search after truth; the same goodness, holiness of heart and life; The same Love to God, and his ways; the same sincerity, and integrity, the same purity of intention, aim and end; in persons that appear to thee, and to one another, of very different, and contrary minds, and practices, in matters of Religion. Their Souls are vitally quickened, and informed, their conversations beautified, and adorned, with the same Spiritual truths; Which by their explications of them, they seem not to understand, yea to contradict.

I have some where read a story of a blind man who could distinguish and judge of all metals, or precious stones, by weighing them in his hand. I am persuaded if we had learn thus to judge of Spiritual things, not by the beauty of some outward form and appearance, or an agreeableness to our own Notions and Opinions; But by the weight of an inward Principle, and the Power of a Divine life; We should discover a most harmonious agreement in the Essential and radical Principles of Divine truth and goodness, among those who seem most of all to oppose one another, in their Notions, and Opinions. If we did but know how to get into, to open, and interpret each others Souls; How to weigh not only words, and phrases, but Spirits, as God is said to do, Prov. 16. 2. We should quickly find, that we differ more in words, then in thoughts, and in the Notions of things, then in the things themselves.

Our Spiritual wisdom, holiness, strength, and happiness, do not lie in our Notions, and Opinions of Spiritual truth, but in the truth itself. St. Paul excellently distinguishes, and explains this matter, 2 Cor. 4. 6, 7. Where speaking of the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, he tells us, we have this treasure in Earthen Vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. That Spiritual truth which is the shining forth of the glory of God in the Person of Christ, the first, the supreme, the universal truth, is the heavenly treasure; The several Notions, and forms in our understandings, by which this truth appears to us, are but a part of the Earthen Vessel which holds this treasure. How weak is it, to lay the weight of such a treasure, upon such a Vessel, subject to so many frailties, flaws, and cracks? How unworthy is it, to ascribe the excellency of that power to our selves, which belongs wholly to God? Sure I am, it is not the Vessel that makes us rich, but the treasure which is in the Vessel. Thus again, The same Apostle speaking of the same thing in another expression, tells us, 1 Cor. 4. 20. The Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. This Kingdom consists not in the excellency of our notions and apprehensions, of our words, and expressions concerning Spiritual things; But in the inward Virtue, Vigour, Life, Power, and Spirit that is in the Nature of them, to change the whole man into one image of glory with themselves. Spiritual knowledge is not a notional, verbal, and talking; but a real▪ living, and practical thing. Divine truth is better understood, as it opens and unfolds itself in the holy, and heavenly mind, and life of a good man, then by all the Systems of Divinity, and good Books in the World.

Thy Brother has (it may be) several Notions and opinions of Spiritual Truth, very different from thine; But he is really sanctified through the same truth; He has purified his Soul in obeying the truth through the Spirit. He is become a living Edition of the truth, it is written in his heart, it shines forth in his life, he has so learned the truth, that he knows it as it is in Jesus; although he cannot yet receive it, as it is in thee, nor thy notions and representations of it. His Soul, his life, is died, coloured and figured with it; the truth is transforming his whole being into one beautiful and blessed image with, framing, fashioning, his whole man according to, itself. This must needs be a better proof that he is truly one with thee in the same truth, then the highest complement he can pay to thy own notions and Opinions concerning it, can possibly be; Holiness is the Character, and seal of the Spirit of Truth. The result of this consideration is plainly this, That we should not lay too great a stress upon our own notions and Opinions, nor despise our Brothers; That we should make the image of God. and not our own likeness, the reason, rule, and measure of our Brotherly Love; Observing still in all our Christian converses, that excellent League which our Savior himself has established. He that is not against us, is with us. Whilst we see the same truth vitally influencing, and quickening the Souls and spreading itself throughout the lives of good men of different and contrary sentiments, let us no longer judge another by his comprimising with our own sense of things, but his agreement with us in the substance, power, efficacy, and Spirit of the truth.

Thus the primitive Christians judged, before the iniquity of the times, and a worldly interest corrupted the simplicity, and quenched the first and purer warmths of Religion. No man was then censured for his Opinion, that lived well, although there were very strange notions then commenced. So much and so justly did those better ages of Christianity, prefer a God like life, to the rightest notions and Opinions. Nor did they want the highest Example, Authority, and Reason in this matter, God himself having told them, and us. He is no respecter of Persons, but in every Nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness is accepted with him, Act. 10. 34. And again, Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God is not meat and Drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and he that in these things serveth Christ, is acceptable to God, and approved of men: That is, shall be justified in the day of all Divine, and human Principles. Whatever his outward form, or inward Opinion be; Whether he eat, or eat not; Keep a day, or keep it not; So it be to the Lord, to Charity, and to Aedification.

5. All the truest and best notions, and Opinions we can have of Spiritual truth here below, are to be done away▪ when we arrive at that state above, So the Apostle expressly tells us, 1 Cor. 13. 9. 10. We know in part, and we Prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. We shall then lose all our present Notions and Opinions of Spiritual things, not in a blackness of Darkness and Death, violently breaking in upon, and overspreading them; But in the brightness of an unmixed, and eternal light arising upon, and comprehending them in i • self. They shall all be blotted out, not as water quenches the fire; But after such a manner as the Beams of the Sun do put it out, by drawing up the finer, and more fiery parts into themselves. They shall be put out, not as a Candle is by the Extinguisher; But as the darknesses, and shadows of the night are swallowed up by the light of the morning: Or rather, as the several colors of light in the first dawning of the day, are afterwards drunk up into the pure and perfect light of the increasing day. It is yet but a morning light with the most enlightened Souls here on Earth. In the first breaking of the day, the Light (you know) appears to us in a variety of colors, one after another; Till at last as the day comes on, all those colors are changed into an unstained and pure light. Such are the discoveries of Spiritual things to our understandings, whilst our true day is yet but Springing. All our Notions and Opinions of them are as so many colors of light, growing clearer and clearer, unto a Noon day brightness. Now all these colors vanish; Now all our mistaken, dark, mixed, short, and disproportioned notions and apprehensions, break up into a light which has nothing of privation, mixture, imperfection, or shadow in it. But till then it is impossible for us, to have such Notions & Opinions of Spiritual truth as can admit of no change, or emprovement. We are here in a growing & travelling state. And whilst we are so, motion is better then rest. We can now no more stint, and fix our sense of things, then we can hinder and stop our own growth; Or keep day out of the World, when the Sun arises. It is not here, our reproach, but our praise, to be still changing our minds, to be still transformed in the renewing of them, that we may prove what the good and acceptable will of God is. To change for emprovement, to alter our minds for the better, is not our inconstancy, but our virtue. This is only to change, as all things do, when they increase; nothing speaks us more rooted, fixed, and established, then such a change. Thou art not (it may be) of the same mind, at this instant, thou wert in, a few days past, neither dost thou know what mind thou shalt have tomorrow. The spirit of man changes Opinion every moment; And what one reason brings in this hour, a stronger may carry out the next. Nor will the good Spirit (if thou art indeed acted, and informed by it) suffer thee to rest in thy present light, and much less in thy remaining darkness. Thou art not yet so knowing, so good as thou shouldst be, if thou canst be satisfied with thyself, and thy present Notions of things. Art thou not waiting for Christ to touch thine Eyes a second time? Dost thou not pray for his Spirit to lead thee into all truth? Can'st thou be contented to lose thy share in the riches of that glory, thou art yet a stranger to? Thou thinkest (it may be) that thou understandest all mysteries, and hast all knowledge, but still all thou canst attain to here below, is but a little part of what is yet to come; And will be done away, when that which is perfect appears. Why then dost thou lay so great a weight upon those Notions and Opinions, which thou hadst not the other day, which thou mayst lose tomorrow, and which are finally to be swallowed up? Why should an obscure, dark, intricate, curious, unnecessary, uncertain, and fading Notion and Opinion, be employ'd to the prejudice of that Charity that shall never fail? All our Notions and Opinions are changeable, temporary, transient, and perishing things; They pass away, and confute themselves, whilst we are contending for them. but Love is a lasting, permanent, and Eternal Duty, and perfection. This shall remain, when all our Notions and Opinions of one sort and another, shall forever cease to be; Shall either sink down into their first darkness out of which they sprung; Or rise up into, and happily lose themselves in their Original Light.

6. Let us seriously consider how mischievous the want of that moderation, I am pleading for, • has all along been to Christians and to Christianity itself. What depths of inward filthiness have the differences and animosities of good men about Opinions, discovered in them, and drawn forth from them? What floods of outward miseries have they brought upon them? It is this has given such a scope, and power to our lusts, to our pride, ambition, covetousness, anger, wrath, bitterness of Spirit and revenge, as has been more wounding to Religion, then the malice of all the wicked men in the World can possibly be. It is this has set us to rake into the Infirmities, Weaknesses, and Miscarriage of our mistaken Brother; And whilst men have been thus employed, what heaps of dirt, and folly have they poured out of their own Spirits, to the greater scandal of themselves, and their profession? It is this, has for several ages delivered up the Christian World to disorder, blood, and desolation. It is this, has rendered a great part of it unhabitable to a man that asserts the just liberty of his mind. It is this has made Christians (who should be the best of men) much worse to each other, than wild Bears and Beasts of prey, for they devour not one another of the same kind. It is this has raised so many suspicions, jealousies, fears, heart-burnings, evil surmises, mutual provocations to wrath, and thoughts of revenge, and ruin, among ourselves, that we are almost become an easy prey to our common enemies; And if we should escape them, are in danger to be consumed one of another. We have laid the stress, and weight of our Religion upon Notions, Opinions, outward modes and forms, and some of those subservient only to a secular interest, and reasons of state, and not upon the truth and substance itself, which is Jesus Christ, and his Spirit. For this reason the Righteous God seems to have given up the whole frame of Nature to confusion and destruction, and to be drowning the face of the Earth in blood.

St. Paul, 2 Thes • . 2. 1. puts these two together: The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; and, our gathering together to him. And we often read in the Scripture of his coming with all his Saints. Lines are at their greatest distance in the circumference; the nearer they come to their center, the nearer still they are to one another. As we are drawnforth from all those things which we have set up in the room of Christ, and are made to unite in his Person alone, so shall we also draw near to, and be at peace with one another. It is he alone who is our King of Righteousness, and Prince of Peace, the true Shiloe. Unto him shall the gathering of the People be, and unto each other in him. Nothing more proves him to be so far off from us, as our being so miserably sca • tered, divided, and driven away from one another, When he shall again return, and appear to us in his own Person, when we shall for his sake cast away all our Idols, and unanimously running into his Bosom, cry out with an universal shout, None but Christ, he alone is that eternal image itself of all truth, and goodness, which we have been everywhere seeking, our center and rest forever: When we shall no more place our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, our Religion in those forms and Opinions, which are but the outsides, and dresses of it, and must pass away with the fashion of this World; Which are but the leaves and husks that shall fall to the ground; But in him who is that Truth, Life, Power, and Substance which endures forever. Then shall a peace which is to increase without end, bless the World; All our Swords shall then be beaten into Plow shares, our spears turned into pruning-hooks, and nothing be left to hurt, and destroy in God's holy Mountain.

A mutual forbearance, indulgence, allowance, and kindness among all honest hearts of different persuasions, and practices, has not only thy own interest, but the concern of all thy Brethren, and the welfare of the whole Christian World after the highest manner contained in it. For it is the safety, stability, security, strength, and subsistence of a good interest, and of all good men, in the midst of a very unkind, angry and wicked World; Whose rage doth not terminate in the extirpation of any one particular sect, or party of good men, but would by degrees, and as fast as it can, blot out goodness itself. St. Paul with admirable reason joins these two together▪ Eph. 4▪ 2, 3. Our walking with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love; And, our endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It is most plain from this Scripture, That the unity of the Church of God, is not an agreement in inward Opinions. and outward forms; But an Unity of Spirit; an Unity in that Spirit, which is the common Soul of the Church, the specificating form, the constituting and conserving Principle of all true Christianity. We are not united to Christ, and to one another, by the same Opinions, and Forms; but by one and the same Spirit, nor can any Opinions and Forms divide us from Christ, (and therefore ought not to separate us from each other) if they have not in their own nature an enmity to the heavenly image of Christ, which is Spirituality; Or to the natural image of him which is morality. It is again expressly told us in the connection of this Scripture. That the way to preserve this Unity of the Spirit in the Body of Christ, is by walking towards one another with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; And not by a proud, haughty, impatient, peevish and angry, imposing of our own Notions, and modes of Religion upon them. This may indeed be a mistaken piece of humone policy to serve our own Worldly interest upon Christianity; but I am very sure, there is nothing of the true Spirit of Christ in this temper, not of a right endeavoring to keep the Unity of his Spirit in such a proceeding.

How clear is it again from this Scripture. That the bond of Peace has its strength, and root, not in an Unity of knowledge and uniformity of worship, but in the Unity of a Divine Spirit; As the sympathy, and Union of all the members in the body arise from, and is preserved by the Unity of the Soul.

Whilst there is as great a difference in the Original make of Souls as of faces; in the complexions of minds, as of bodies; whilst the variety of human understandings is so great; Whilst we are under the power of different tempers; educations, and interests, several measures and degrees of light; Whilst there is imperfection in our state, negligence in our searchings after truth; & an envious one always ready to sow Tares; It is unreasonable to expect a proportion, and analogy of Notions and Opinions among good men. Whilst we are thus circumstanced, there will be some otherwise minded; Nor do I know any remedy in such a case, but a mutual forbearance, till God clears up the matter of difference. This forbearance cannot be more our Duty, then it is our interest, and necessity; for it is our preservation in the midst of powerful lusts within, and potent Enemies without. If all good men could but make a shift to tolerate one another, this wicked World must be bound to endure them all. Could they but hold together and love one another; No foreign violence could break them. Goodness is stronger then Evil; and therefore the good thus united, and in an Association; Must be too powerful for the Evil, with all its Plots, Conspiracies, and Force. What a root of mischiefs have the Divisions of good men been in all ages to themselves. From hence we may derive all the Evils we feel, and those also we fear. When the sheep push, and run heads against, one another, the Shepherd says, we shall have foul weather. We have already seen the truth of this observation, and I am afraid must feel it once again. 'It is easy to presage a storm when so much ill weather appears in the Spirits, faces, and actions of men. God grant it may prove but a storm, for from the animosities that are yet between good men, and an implacableness of Spirit which is started among us, we have cause to fear a Deluge.

These Reader, are some few General considerations to impress a little upon thy mind▪ that moderation which is thy Duty, and every good man's Right, how different soever his Notions, and Opinions may be from thine. I might now add some others, which more particularly relate to our excellent Author, but I have already too much exceeded the bounds of my own intentions, and thy patience; nor would I willingly depart from the Modesty of my first Resolution, which was to do nothing in this service, that might pretend to pass for a Preface to these following Discourses. I therefore leave the Book itself to open thee its own unspeakable worth, as thou readest it. And I persuade myself, when thou hast duly perused it, and well observed those excellent rules by which our Author governs himself throughout these discourses; That admirable temper, and Spirit; That pleasant, and powerful tendency to holiness, and spirituality, that is everywhere to be found in them? Whatever thy thoughts may be concerning some of his sentiments, thou must needs have a great love for his memory.

There is not in the universal Nature of things a more intimate Sympathy, then that of Truth, and Gooodness; they are really one; They are forever inseparable; They differ only as the seal and the stamp; Goodness being but the Impression of Truth.

This consideration (I must confess) has so far prevailed with me, that I cannot defend myself from thinking, there must be something of truth in all our Author has here delivered to us, whilst I find there is so much goodness in it all.

And now Reader, according to custom, I should spend a great deal more of thy time in a long Apology, for having already taken up so much of it. But in my Opinion to excuse this matter, is at once to abuse my self, and thee. For it was in my power not to have given thee all this trouble, if for the sake at least of some Readers, I had not judged it reasonable so to do; and if thou thinkest otherwise, it is still in thy power to escape as much of it as thou pleasest. I choose rather to take my leave of thee with this serious Request to the, That thou wouldst read these Heavenly Discourses with the same Divine Love which first brought them forth from the fountain of all Loves. It is not by the sagacity of our own Natural understandings, but by being rooted and grounded in Love that we come to comprehend Spiritual truths. That this Love may abound in thee yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment, or sense, that thou mayst approve things that are excellent, Is the hearty prayer of

IN the First Verse, the Disciples of our Lord measuring the State of Things above, by the Principles of Reason, and the Fashion of this World; make this Inquiry; Who should be Greatest in the Kingdom of God; as if Ambition must follow us into Heaven, there also to make a Hell. Our Savior would undeceive those, whom He loved, by answering not so much to their Proposals, as their Principles. Therefore He gives them a full Description of the Christian Mystery, which is expressed in the words of my Text: Except ye be Converted, and become as little Children, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

This Description hath Three Parts.
• 1. A Rise to a Kingdom.
• 2. The Race towards it.
• 3. The Royalty itself.

1. The Rise to the Kingdom lies in these words: Except ye be converted: The Greek word signifies a Turn or Change from the present Principles, and Forms of things to another virtue and view.

2. The Race to the Kingdom is thus set forth: and become as little Children: Diminutives are signs of Affection, Delight, and Dependence; as that; One of those little Ones, that believeth on Me: Mat. 18. 6.

3. The Royalty itself, is magnificently described: Ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heavn hath a Twofold Signification. Sometimes it is generally taken for both States of Grace and Glory: one being the Inchoation; the other the Consummation: Man in one, being as a King Elect: in the other a King Crown'd. Sometimes it hath a particular sense, and points out one peculiar State of Liberty, and Spiritual Glory; as Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God consisteth not in Meats and Drinks: but in Righteousness, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost. So again, 2 Pet. 1. 8, 11. If these things be in you, and abound, a large entrance shall be made for you into the Kingdom of Heaven. The Reason of the Expression in both senses is; because God is both the King of Believers, and their Kingdom, either in Fleshly Types, or in his own Spiritual. Appearance.

These three Parts thus opened, afford us three Doctrines for our Discourse.

Doct. 1. The first Rise to true Religion is a Conversion or Change.

Doct. 2. The second Course of things in Christianity, is a Childhood or Sonshing.

Doct. 3. The third Degree in Christianity is, an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Royalty begun.

Doct. 1. The first Rise to true Religion, is a Conversion or Change. This is the first Doctrine; and I begin with it.

David' s language makes it good, Psa. 51. 13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. He that will pass from the dismal Depths of sin and Woe, to those Heights of Strength, Holiness and Sweetness in God, must make his first Motion a Conversion, a Change from a Descent to an Ascent; from going Outward to the Circle, to go Inward towards the Center of things, which comprehends and casts forth all the Circles.

The Explication of the Point will be its fullest Confirmation. I will open it in three Parts.

• 1. The Change.
• 2. The Circumstances.
• 3. The Cause of this Change.

Part 1. The Change. There are two States to be considered in this Part.

• 1. The State of Man before this Change.
• 2. The State, to which this Change is made.

1. State. That of Man before this Change. Man before his Conversion walks in a threefold Image.

1. The Image of Nature. 2. The Image of the Devil. 3. The Image of Divine Wrath.

1. Image of Nature. St. Paul tell us, 1 Cor. 15. 49. As we have born the Image of the Earthy, we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Man. Earth and Heaven are here opposed, not as Men and Angels, Visible and Invisible things; but as the State of things in the Creature, and in Christ. So it appears manifestly by the Context of that place, that the first Adam, the Earthly Man, the first Creation, Nature in the Visible and Invisible things of it, are all the same thing, and One Image. Into this Image Man is born of his Natural Parents. In this he lives Naturally.

This Image hath three things in it.

• 1. 'It is a Representation.
• 2. 'It is a Meer Representation.
• 3. 'It is a Mixt One

1. The Image of Nature is a Representation. The Earthly Man is an Image of God, as well as the Heavenly. St. Paul teacheth us, Rom. 5. 14. in the latter part of it, that the first Adam is a figure of him, who is to come; that is, Jesus Christ. Whatever Rich workings, and various forms are in him, who is the Wisdom of God. Whatever Depth of Life. Heighth of Activity, Store of Virtues are in him, who is the Power of God: Whatever ravishing Beauties are in him, who is the Brightness of the Father's Glory: Whatever endless Sweetnesses of Love, Loveliness, mutual Relations are in him, who is the first, the Only begotten of the Father; All these are figured out, and represented to us in the Earthly Image. This is the first thing.

2. The Image of Nature is a Meer Representation: It hath a show of things, but not the very things themselves. We read Psal. 39. 5. Man at his best Estate is altogether vanity. Take the first Man at his Best; as he was crowned with the whole Choir of Angels when they were the first and freshest Rayes of Divinity among the Creatures; as he was clothed with the heavenly Bodies, Sun, Moon and Stars, while yet they were the near and transparent Images of Angels living in them; as he hath spread about his Feet, all the Delicacies of Air, Earth and Sea, when they were Pure and Crystalline, Reflections of the heavenly Bodies: The first Man in this State was a mere Phantome, a fleeting Fancy, a Bubble, Vanity quite thorough, and so he vanished in his Fall.

Gen. 1. 27. God made Man in his own Image, Psal. 39. 6. Surely Man walketh in a vain show. Those two expressions; Image, vain Show, are both the same in Hebrew, TSelem. If you translate the same word in Genesis, as it is translated in the Psalm, you will then read thus; God made Man in a vain show of himself.

Obj. But you may object thus against this; If God be Omnipresent, and fill All, how can anything be a Representation of him, without him? He is at the bottom of the Sea, in the shades of Death and Hell, Psal. 139. 8, 9, 10. Can anything be a mere Show, when he who is All, is everywhere, and fills each Show of things.

Ans. 'It is true, as Euthydemus the Heathen taught of old; All things are in each thing: Or as St. Paul since him hath Preacht upon clearer grounds: God is a Fulness filling all in All, Eph. 1. 23. But this also is true, that All things are in each thing according to the Manner of that in which they are. God is as truly in the Froward, as in the Gentle Spirit. But we learn the Differences of his Presence from David, Psal. 18. 26. With the Pure thou wilt show thyself Pure; with the Froward thou wilt show thyself Froward.

God is not only on Mount Zion, but on Mount Sinai; yet so, that on Mount Sinai he is a flame of fire; on Mount Zion a calm and clear Light. So God is in Himself, and in the Creature: In Himself he is Himself; the Eternal Rock and Substance of things. He is in the Creature, only as his own Shadow.

This is the Infiniteness and Unsearchableness of God. He comprehends the thinnest Shadows in Himself, and makes them there Substantial. Again, he casts Himself into every Shadow or Show, and Himself there becomes but shadowy. Thus he is All in All. Thus much for the second thing in the Natural Image.

3. The Image of Nature is a Mixt Representation. The Making of the World was divided into so many Parts, as Days; each Day had its Night; a Morning and an Evening made the Day. This was to signify that the Fundamental Constitution of this frame of things, was laid in a commixture of Light and Darkness. These two mutually catch and enfold one another.

The Light discovers God: The Darkness obscures that Discovery; so that seeing, we do not see. The Light pleaseth us; the Darkness perplexeth those pleasures; so that this Life is as a Shady Valley, as a Shadow of Life and Death, Heaven and Hell both in one. The Light invites and allures us to those Immortal Seats above, pointing out a shining Path to them. The Darkness affrights us, and drives us back, casting a mist of Doubt upon those beautiful Beings, presenting itself between them and us, as a Dreadful Gulf to be passed,

Nature is by this means an Image of the Perfections, which are beyond Nature; but an Imperfect one. God speaks it, Isa. 55. 9. As the Heavens are higher than the Earth; so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. The ways of God are the unchang'd workings of Glory, perpetually casting itself into all Changes in the Divine Nature. The Thoughts of God are the deepest Roots, the most spacious Expansion and Putting forth, the fixed and glorious Platforms or Figures of things, in the Godhead. The Waies and Thoughts of Man, are the figurings of things in Nature, or according to the Forms of Nature. This is a certain Rule: The first thing in every kind is the Original and Substance; all second things are Images of that. The first thoughts and ways are those in God. The Waies of Nature, the Thoughts in Man, are second to those, and so Images of them; but with as vast a Difference, as the Distance is between Heaven and Earth. Thus Imperfect and Mixt is Nature, yet an Image of Divine Perfections and Purity.

We have now taken a view of the first Image, in which Man walks before his Change.

Use 1. Excitation. The first Use is to awaken in us a Sense of our State, as we are Men. This would very advantageously direct, sweeten, assist our Conversion. Let us then to this end consider these four Questions.

• 1. What we are.
• 2. Where we are.
• 3. Whence we come.
• 4. How we came hither.

Quest. 1. What are we? David answers for us, Psal. 39. 6. Surely Man walketh in a vain show, and disquieteth himself in vain. Man is a Shadowy Show. Descend O Man! into thine own Being: Enter into the secretest Retirement of thine own Spirit; there sit, look round about thee and say, Can I comprehend myself? Can I tell into what f • rm my will would grow up? or into what shapes I shall pass after this moment, while I live, or when I am dead? If I cannot tell this, th •• sure I am not my own Origin • l.

Vain Main! why dost thou exalt thyself by Pride, as if thou wert something, seeing thou art not the Beauty, but the Face in the Glass; too slight a thing for thyself to take hold of; too weak a thing to reflect upon itself?

Foolish Man! What dost thou, feeding upon thy Spirit such a numerous flock of Cares, Contrivances, Confidence, Plots and Passions? Hast thou no sense of this, that, it is not in Man, that walks, to guide his own steps? There is some Eternal thing above thy reach, past thy understanding, which fashions thee, and carries thee on in its own Image.

Look upward then, and say, O thou hidden and supreme Substance! which hast cast me, as thy Shadow, upon this Earth; comprehend me. O thou supreme Pattern! which hast sent me forth to pass thorough this world in thy Image; Guide me.

Q. 2. Where are we? I shall give a twofold Answer to this Question.

Ans. 1. We are in a world of Images. This world is a Type of God, insomuch that some Heathens called the world, the Great God. Solomon saith, Wisdom lifts up her voice, and cries in the corner of every street. Wisdom is the Brightness of Eternal Beauties; the Streets are the Outward Forms, on which all the Creatures walk forth; the Corner or Head of the Street is the Power or Principle in these Forms thorough which, as by several Tongues of Fire, the Forms above sparkle and proclaim themselves. Their sound, saith St. Paul, is gone forth into the whole Earth.

Canst thou sleep, be slothful or sad here? Hear and see. O Man! thou art in this world, as at a Show. A Noise of Diving Glories descending thorough the Clouds: Apparitions of heavenly Essences, or Excellencies coming forth shadowed; these fill the empty space. A Repetition of Blessed Sounds; a Restection of Holy Images falling from above; This is the World in which thou livest.

Dost thou not feel Desire awakened in thee? Hast thou not a secret sense of high Joys infused into thy Soul? then spread thy Spirit thorough this world; take it into thy Spirit, as the Noise of a Harmony sounding from far. Take in thyself, as a Part of this Noise. Pass thorough this world, as a Throng of Apparitions, thyself being One among the rest. Ascend now with these; for if thou slide downward, thou siakest out of them into a waste Desert: But if thou be carried upward in them, they will still grow sweeter, brighter, and fuller to thee, till they bring thee to their first Fountain, where thou and they together shall drink▪ and be wrapped up into an Immortal Fulness.

Thus this Shallow world will have a Depth in it, sfill to centent thee, and still to carry thee on farther; while it shall still have a Relative Delight, 〈◊〉 Representative Beauty. Jesus Christ is brought in speaking after this manner, 〈◊〉 . 8. 18. I and the Children which thou hast given me, are for signs and w • nders. So let my Soul say to my God. Highest Beauty! Greatest Love! I and this World, into which thou hast brought me, are for signs of thee, so to move wonder and delight. O! that I might be in the midst of them; that they might be unto me, as figures only of thee, subsisting • nly in thee. So these slight things would have a Divine Fulness; for even they would be thy Pleasures, thy Glories, O God! as in a figure.

Ans. 2. We are in a World of Meer Images. The multitude of Creatures is often in Scripture compared to Waters; for as Water they receive the Images of heavenly things without the Substance into their thin passing streams. Look then on These, and immediately cast thy Eye upward to the Substances which shine fixed above, and shed these Glimpses of themselves. O Men! why do you cast yourselves so ardently on the Faces of Beauty in these unstable Waters? You can embrace Nothing; you can meet Nothing to sustain you. You sink and perish in the midst of these wavy Sun-shines.

The first Creation is often called a Sea. The Sea is unfruitful; nothing can take Root in the floods; untamed, devouring all things. We are launcht forth upon this Sea of Appearances, in this Vessel, the Body, not to Dwell or Grow upon it, much less to Throw ourselves into it; but to Glide swiftly over the Face of it, to a firm Land of Bliss. But, alas! what throngs of people are there on every side casting themselves with a furious Delight into this Gulf, where every Wave is a Grave, when it once receives thee? Most, the Wisest, linger and dally on this rolling, roaring Deep, till their Vessel worn out, or split upon some Rock, they be swallowed up in the midst of the Floods, and never reach the wished Shoar of Immortality.

Angels signify Messengers. The Best things of this world are Invitations only, Messengers sent forth to call the Guests: They cannot Feast us: They have not for us. All cry Wisdom; That which we show, and you seek, is not in us. I am not He. We are not The Life, Beauty, Joy, but a Voice crying in the Wilderness, in a vast Emptiness. Come, taste and see how good the Lord is; what satisfactory sweetnesses are in the Godhead.

Joseph sent Asses laden with provisions, and Waggons, to bring his Father Jacob with his Family into egypt. Our Younger Brother, the New Man, the Lord Jesus, hath sent forth the Contents of this Life, as Waggons and Asses, to bring the Old Man out of the Flesh, into the Bosom of the Father, the Palace of Eternity, there to rejoice forever with our Brethren, all the Children of the Great King. How foolish a thing is it for us to mistake the Waggon for the Court, which is only the Convoy? How brutish a thing is it to forget the Glories of our Father's House, that we may run, feed, lie down with the Asses?

Q. 3. Whence come we? Whence are Shadows cast? from their Substances. Whence do Images flow? from their Original. From an Immutable Substance, from an Eternal Original are we then come forth into this world. Then shall we never have Rest, till we Return thither again. Our first Seed will be most Inward with us, and Inseparable from us; it will travel with us thorough all Forms still working in us, still wearing out, and casting off all Forms, in which it sojourns with us, until it bring us back into itself, and become our only Clothing, our only Content.

Hagar was flying from the face of her Mistress Sarah; but she meets an Angel that sweetly sends her back thither, where God would provide for her Sarah is the Divine Form in the Spirit; Hagar, this Fleshly Being, the Bond-woman. This Earthly Nature is unable to bear the frowns and severity of her Heavenly Mistress; she flies from her Face, her Appearances, which oppress the Flesh with their Glory. But the bright Images of this Beauty, as Angels, meet the Natural Man in the way of his flight, in the Principles of Nature. By the flashes and breakings forth of these, Man is persuaded to return, and submit himself to the supreme Beauty, his Mistress and Parent; so only shall he have provisions of Joy and Rest from his wanderings.

Our Savior takes a sweet farewell of the Earth in this language, Job. 16. v. 28. I came forth from the Father into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father. Happy is that Soul, that after all her weary steps thorough the world, to seek Content, now tired, thinks of Returning to her Father, her first Husband; and breaths forth such sighs as these towards him: O my God! Thy Fulness is the womb, out of which I was brought forth into this world: Thy Sweetness is the Bosom, in which I must eternally rest. How long shall I linger here? O when shall I once leave this world, and come again to thee?

Q. 4. How come we hither? Thorow a Darkness. You shall in the first of Genesis see, that Darkness is the Ground of this Creation, and all Light-Colours are laid upon that Ground. Darkness is the Bound between God and the Creature, thorough which all things pass out of one into the other.

This Darkness holds forth to us the Light of a Twofold Rule.

Rule 1. Let us not think to know eternal things by the Light of this World, or any Creature. When we come into this life, we come well drenched, drawn thorough a Sea of Darkness. There is no more any Remembrance of former things. We know not where we were, when God laid the Foundations of the Earth; or, what we were before that, when all our Bones were first written by God, in his Book; when first those Eternal Forms, which were to frame and sustain every shape or state, into which we should pass, were brought forth in the Divine Wisdom.

We are of Yesterday, and know nothing. We are started up into this Life thorough a Darkness behind us, which lies upon all things which are beyond this Image before us, and swallows up this into itself, as it passeth along. Vain Man would be wise, though he be born, as the wild Asses Co • t. Why should Man undertake to bring forth from himself the Beauties of Wisdom, when he comes upon the face of the Earth out of the same Darkness with the Asses Colt, as void, as that, of all Eternal Images?

Rule 2. Care not to clothe yourselves with the Contents of this World, all which you must put off, so soon as you touch the Brim of this Darkness, into which you must return. Care not for the Cares or Sorrows of this Life. Those waters of Forgetfulness, into which we must all descend, will wash them all away. Imagine this Life, as an Island, surrounded with a Sea of Darkness; beyond which lies the main Land of Eternity. Blessed is he, that can raise himself to such a Pitch, as to look off this Island, beyond that Darkness, to the utmost bound of things. He sees his way before, and behind him. What shall trouble him, on this Twig of Life, on which he is like a Bird but now alighted from a far Region, from whence again he shall immediately take his Flight?

Thou camest through a darkness hither, but Yesterday when thou wert born. Why then shouldst thou not more readily, and cheerfully return thorough the same darkness back again to those everlasting Hills?

Let us then ever be in Tune to sing, that sadly sweet Song of Far-seeing, and so much-suffering, Job, Job. 1. 21. Naked came I out of my Mother's womb; Naked shall I return thither again. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lo • d. Naked camest thou, my Soul, thorough a Darkness into this World, stripit of all the Glories above. Naked must thou return again out of this World, quite stripit of all the Glories; and Griefs here: The Lord gives thee forth thorough this Darkness into this Life: the Lord takes thee in thorough the Darkness out of this Life to Himself. Blessed is the Name of the Lord. Rest thou in the Blessed and Glorious Workings of the High God, while thou art in that Darkness. Thou shalt suddenly be passed beyond it; where thou shalt in an open Light enjoy the Hidden workings there; where thou shall see the Highest Beatitudes and Glories, Eye to Eye, Heart in Heart; They and Thou, being made One Life, One Spirit, and without Partition or Vail.

Use 2. The endearment of the Lord Jesus to us. If this Face of Nature, which now presents itself to us, have such Beauties, Greatnesses, Varieties; as ravish us from all sense of ourselves, our present safety, our souls, our God; from the Love and Delight, which from them flow into our Spirits: what Sights, what Things above Words are there then in Jesus Christ? what Ravishments would surprise us, and snatch us out of Fl • sh, if we saw Him? For Nature and this World is but the Earthly, Inferior, Imperfect Image of God, and of the Person of Christ, which is the Heavenly, and Supreme Image.

Now we under-value and neglect the sweetnesses of our Savior for this World's joys. But if we saw Him, we should much more despise, Ten thousand Worlds, ten thousand times heightened in Glory; as a heap of Dunghills, in Comparison of Him.

Our Blindness, our Blindness clips the wings of Desire, clogs the Spirit of Delight in us. O Jesus! cast thou but one Glimpse of thyself into our souls, and we shall run from all things after thee, fly beyond all things towards Thee. How Dark and cold things are these Shadows to him, that hath seen the Light of Beauty in thy Person, and felt the warm Life of Love in Thine Embraces? Shew thyself to me, and set many Worlds, many Deaths more between me and thyself; my Spirit shall shoot itself, like an Arrow, thorough them all into thine Arms. A Look of thine, can Translate me; as Enoch, or Elijah, of old.

I have thus Finish'd the First Image, in which man lives before his Conversion; The Image of Nature.

2. Image of the Devil. The State of man before his Change is in a Threefold Image. The First was that of Nature; the Second, this of the Devil, which we now are to take a view of. But what can we see or say of this; Who can draw a Picture of, or describe Darkness, and Confusion?

The Power of Darkness, and Division, prevailing over the Powers of Light, and Love, in the Creature; This is the Devil. If you will pourtray a Devil; Darkness must be the Ground, Division, the Work upon it.

There are then two Powers, as two Parts in this Image.

• 1. Power, of Darkness.
• 2. Power, of Division.

1. Power of Darkness. This is the Form, and Division the Figure of this Black Spirit. Darkness is made his Character; The Power of Darkness his Princely Title: Colos. 1. 13. Who hath delivered us out of the Power of Darkness into the Kingdom of his Dear Son. It is read thus in Greek: out of the Principality of Darkness, into the Kingdom of the Son of his Love, The Devil, as the Prince of Darkness, which implies Division, is opposed to Jesus Christ, the King of Love, which is unity, and lives only in Light.

Again: Ephes. 6. 12. We fight against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World. You may thus translate it more to the words: against the World-comprehending Powers of the Darkness of this State. As God is One and Many, by a grateful Distinction in the Unity, so is the Devil, One and Many by a grating Division without Unity: many Powers of Darkness in one Power.

The Devil in this Darkness lies, as a Stain upon the Beauties of the whole Creation; defacing the Image, dimming the Glory of God in them. He lies, as a Cloud upon all the Contents of the Creature; spreading a melancholy Shade over them, infusing a Poison of Fears, Falshoods, Deceits, Mistakes, Dangers, Death into them. He is a Prison, and a Chain Shutting up, holding down the Spirits of men, when they would break forth, and raise themselves into that Light of Divinity, which faintly glimmers in this Darkness. Such is the First Part of the Image, the Power of Darkness.

2. Power of Division. The Name, Devil, comes from the Greek Word, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . which signifies most properly one, that casts in Principles, or Seeds of Division. So he is described by our Savior, in the Parable: The Envicus man, the Enemy hath sown Tares. Our Lord with a Divine depth defines this Spirit in those words: A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Whatever stands, must be founded upon a Unity. The Devil is a divided Kingdom, a Duality, a Ruinous Thing.

This Power of Division divides itself into a Seven-fold Power, which is known by these Names.

• 1. Self-love.
• 2. Lust.
• 3. Covetousness.
• 4. Pride.
• 5. Envy.
• 6. Passion.
• 7. Enmity, or Despair.

1. Power, Self-love. 1 John 4. 8. God is Love: Love in the Abstract; Love Absolute, Unlimited, Infinite, a Universal Sweetness. The Devil is Self-love; a particular Being cutting off itself from the rest of things; from Him, who is the Great, I am; in whom all things have their Being. These are the Circlings of the Serpent, by which he folds, and wraps up himself in himself.

This Serpent, before he spake to the Woman, tempted himself with this glittering language. Es. 14. 14. I will be like the most High. The first word in this aspiring speech is that, which first made him a Devil of an Angel: I: The establishing of a Proper Interest divided from the general Interest of things in the God-head. This Self-love is the Horned head; into which he then sprouted forth; the Cloven Foot, in which he ended; when he first with-drew himself from the all-comprehending Unity, into a Circle, and Center of his own.

2. Power, Lust. This is a praegnancy to multiply himself; to bring forth himself in strange, and diverse forms; upon strange and diverse Images. God is One, Gal. 3. 20. God brings forth himself in One Image, Jesus Christ is his Only-begotten Son: Joh. 1. 14. God brings forth all things by this One Image, and in it: Coloss. 1. 16. In him were all things Created. The Devil is contrary to God in all this. He is that Son of God, which broken, and deformed by his Fall from the First Unity; goes full of monstrous Lust after the Daughters of Men, dark, divided, fleshly Images of the Creature. With these he mingles himself; so he brings forth himself and them into Gyantly shapes, and in a Brood of Giants. Giants, in Hebrew, signify, Dead, Distracted; Prodigious Forms, as appearing from the shades below; or fallen, and sunk thither.

Our Savior calls this Spirit of Lust: Joh. 8. 45. The Father of Lyes: because he begets himself upon all things in base, spurious, and various Shapes. Solomon represents the Image of the Devil in Flesh, and this World, by a Whorish Woman; because she lusts after, and wanders thorough all the diversity of divided Forms in the Devil.

3. Power, Covetousness. Pro. 30. 16. There are two things, that never say, enough: the Grave, and the Barren Womb. This Invisible Power is a Womb of Darkness, which takes in all things; but brings forth nothing. So the Darkness is never enlightened, but ever increased, made deeper and more devouring. This Spirit is the Invisible Grave, which draws all things into it. But then it crumbles them into Dust; it divides them from themselves. So the Principle of Division is sharpened, not satisfied: fretted to a greater wideness, not filled.

This is the Serpent feeding upon Dust; ever encompassing the Earth. This is the Bottomless Pit.

4. Power, Pride. The Devil under this property is called Is. 14. 12. Lucifer, the Son of the Morning. He saith, v. 13. I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God. His ambition is to shine alone; and as he riseth to put out all other Lights by the Malignity of his appearance. He goes on: v. 13. I will sit upon the Mount of the Congregation, in the sides of the North. The appearance of our Lord Jesus in the double flame of Terror and Triumph: Consuming, and Crowning; is from the North: Ezek, 1. 4. The Mount of the Congregation is Mount Zion, where the General Assembly, and Church or Congregagation of the First-born are, Hebr, 12. 22, 23. This is the Mount lifted up above every Mountain: The Spirit exalted above every Spirit.

The Devil would seat himself upon this Mount in the place of Jesus Christ; to be, as he is, the Only One. Yet he would have it with this difference; to be the top of the Mount, while the great Congregation sit, as the Clouds, under his Feet: to be a consuming Fire to all others; a Crowning Glory, only to himself.

God is the Heavenly Jerusalem, where all things are Fellow-citizens. The Devil is that Babel, which saith; I sit alone as a Queen, Revel. 18. She thinks herself never Great, till she have swallowed up all her Companions; never Great enough, till she be Great alone. This is the difference between Pride, and Plenty.

5. Power, Envy. This Power is a Reflection of Darkness and Division upon itself, from the Sense of Beauty and Unity else-where. It is Mystically described, Revel. 20. 1. An Angel came down from Heaven with a Chain in one hand, a Key in the other, v. 2. He took hold of the Dragon, the old Serpent, and bound him up in the Bottomless Pit. Divine Wisdom is that Chain which reacheth from the Top of Heaven to the Center of the Earth; where at both ends, it meets, and is fastened in God. The several Ranks of things, the distinct Orders of Causes and effects are the Links of this Chain mutually enwrapping each other. The Key is a Divine Light, and Spiritual Power, which fasteneth, or looseth, draws up, or lets down; waves this Chain, and every Link of it, at pleasure. The Angel represents our Lord Jesus.

When he brings forth this Glory from God to men; He by it takes such hold of that Power of envy in the Devil; that he makes him to sink himself deeper, lock himself up fast, into the Bottomless Pit, into his own dark and dividing Principle.

6. Power, Passion▪ Passion is a Rage kindled, and heightened by Resistance. It is said of the Devil, He hath great wrath, because he hath a short time, Revel. 12. 12. He is in that Chapter set before us, as a Dragon. A Dragon hath his upper part winged,, like a Bird, that flies in the air: his lower parts Snaky, like a Serpent crawling on the Earth. So is Passion, partly raised to its own pitch, and height, there breathing flames, and sparkling fury: partly kept down, laid low in the Dust by opposition.

The Devil in this Power is, as Fire shut up in close matter, Earth, or Iron; where it burns with a Fierce and dismal Rednes.

7. Power, Enmity, or Despair. God is Eternal Life: The Devil is Eternal Death and Ruin: Apollyon, Abaddon: Revel. 9. 11. The Mystery of God is a Fellowship, Ephes. 3. 9. The Mystery of the Devil is a Desolution: Es. 66. 24.

Jesus Christ is a Brasen Serpent, lifted up; a Glorious, Eternal Principle of Distinction, dividing between the nearest Forms, bringing each one forth to a naked Discovery in its own Property; and all in his own Divine Light. The Devil is a Fiery Serpent below on the Earth; a Dark, Furious Principle of Division, separating all Forms of things, setting each apart in its full Power, in the midst of his Hellish Flames.

These are the Seven Heads of that monstrous Half of the Devil's Image, the Power of Division.

The Man in the Gospel possessed by the Devil was a shadow of the Devil in this Twofold Shape of Darkness and Division. He was ever among the Tombs, tearing and rending his own flesh. So this Distracted Spirit dwells in himself, as in a Living Tomb, into which he labors to draw all other things. He is perpetually dividing, and Tearing all things, but most of all himself.

Qu. I cannot pass from this Image, till I inquire how Man was brought forth in it. Our Savior fully sets forth the Truth, and manner of this in one word: Ye are of your Father the Devil, Joh. 8. 44.

We read in the Third of Genesis, of Two Seeds: The Seed of the Woman, who was the Image given by God to Man, out of himself, through Man; in which Image Man was to enjoy, and bring forth himself: The Seed of the Serpent. When God had brought forth Man from a Divine Seed into a beautiful, and blessed Image: the Serpent sows his dark, and dividing seed in this Fair Field. He brings forth man the second time from this poisonous Seed into his own Image, in which he captivates the Image of God. Thus the Son of God is become the Son of the Devil.

The Spirit of lies and murders by the Forbidden Tree, as by his own Image, begets the Woman into the Form of sin, and death: through the Woman he begets Man in the same Principle and State.

Thus we see Man before his Conversion in the Image of the Devil.

3. Image of Divine Wrath. This is God in a Twofold appearance:

• 1. Fire.
• 2. Smoak.

1. Appearance, Fire. Who shall dwell with Everlasting Burnings: Es. 33. 14. The Nature of Fire is to work upon Confused things, to Separate them in their Distinctions; to gather them together in their Affinities. So the Fire in a Stick, makes the Fiery part to take its way by itself; while the Airy part vapors into Smoke; the Earthy falls down-ward into Dust; the Water weeps out at the ends of the Stick.

The Forms of things in Flesh lie huddled, and imprisoned one in another. God comes down upon the Creature in his Wrath, as in a Fire; to Consume that dark Band of Confusion, that Bar of division, the Flesh; to Dispose all things into their several Varieties; to Collect all things into their proper Unities, both the Vailing, and the Vailed Forms.

2. Appearance, Smoak. So the Wrath of God is described: Psal. 18. 8. A Smoak went up out of his Nostrils. Fuel by Smoak passeth into a Flame: the Flame again works itself into a Smoak, and so vanisheth. God, as a Smoak darkens the Glory of the Creature, and so draws it into the Fire. Again he carries it out of the Fire into a fine cloud of white Smoak, which disappears to appear again in the God-head. Thus the Smoak is God's clothing, as he goes into the Fire, as he comes out of it; both Ascending, and Descending. Yet withal the Smoak, and the Fire are mingled too.

Man stands Naturally in this Image of Wrath, as in his deepest Root, next the God-head in its naked being. Out of this he Springs, into this he Sinks. So St. Paul signifies, Ephes. 2. 3. And were by Nature the Children of Wrath, as well as others. We are the Children of this Three-fold Image; Nature; Devil; Wrath; Subordinately.

God comes forth in an Image of Wrath. This brings forth Devils. These wrap themselves up in the Natural Seed, which first brings forth the Natural Image, then thorough that breaks forth into a Devil, out of which it grows up into a Form of Divine Anger. So the most Radical Principle puts forth itself last into appearance; as the Rational life in Man.

Thus much of the Three Images.

Application.

Use. Admonition. Let us take heed of Sin, for its Father's sake the Devil; and for its own. This Admonition will make its way into your Spirits; if from that, which hath been said, you seriously consider Two Things.

• 1. The Nature of the Devil.
• 2. The Nature of Sin.

1. The Nature of the Devil. Behold in this, as in a Glass, Four unlovely Spectacles:

• 1. Solitude.
• 2. Horrour.
• 3. Torture.
• 4. Ugliness.

1. Spectacle, Solitude. As a high and dreadful Cliff upon some dangerous Shoar: such a Solitude is the Devil. I, saith he will be like the most High: as high as he; but with this difference: God is above all, and in all: The Devil would be above all, and without all: God is such a Height, as is all in all: The Devil would be all alone: God is alone, but so, as that he is One with all Things: The Devil would be alone, but as a Precipice broken off from all things.

As the Mouth of a Burning Mountain, which wastes all things round about it, and makes the neighbouring Circuit a wide Desolation: such▪ a Solitude is the Devil, Revel. 12. He is represented, as a Dragon ready to devour the Manchild, so soon, as he is born. As a Dragon in his lonely Den, the Country a Wilderness all about: So is this Fiery Spirit eager to consume all appearances of Life, and God upon their first discovery.

As the Night, which entombs all things in itself, and makes the richest variety of Shapes, but one Lonely shade: such a Solitude is the Devil.

Consider this, all ye who cleave to the Noise, Glories, Pleasures of this world, and leave your God, least you should be Melancholy. See, and tremble to see into what a Melancholy Shade, what a solitude your souls pass, when you die.

2. Spectacle, Horrour. Imagine a world, where over your head instead of a Sky, black, pitchy Clouds perpetually roll, not suffering any Glimpse of Light, or Day ever to appear: under your feet, instead of Land, or Sea, a vast, amazing depth, which nowhere by nothing bounds your sight, or thought: round about you, a Desolate Darkness, presenting near, and at furthest distance, all those Forms, which are bred in the womb of darkness, and carry an astonishing darkness with them to the Senses, and Spirits of Men; like apparitions, Lightnings, Shrieks, dying Groans, roaring Tempests, Howling of wild Beasts; to a man alone in a Forest at Midnight. Such a world of Horrours is this Evil Spirit. Therefore he is set forth by the Outward Darkness, where the Worm dies not: a Darkness without Light or Limit, in which all gnawing Forms of Horrour live. Let him, that hates not that world of Curses, love this world of Varities, For the Vanities of one are the Porch to the Vexations of the other.

3. Spectacle, Torture. Every Wound is a Division. What are Fears, Pains, Griefs, Death? Separations of Desires from their Delights, Faculties from their Objects, Principles from their Act, End, Perfection; in a word, Things from Themselves. All Deaths and Tortures then are in the Devil, at their heighth, in their fullest Power. For he is the Principle, and Power of Division.

The Life of this Mighty Creature is a Two-edged, Flaming Sword in the midst of itself. Each Act, and Motion of life is the Brandishing of this Sword, Cutting and Burning in every Part, and point of life with ten thousand Anguishes.

4. Spectacle, Ugliness, Deformity is Darkness with a Disproportion. Darkness in harmony with Light makes a Beauty. So the Evening and the Morning make a Day. So the Night, and sleep are the shade of an Angel's wing, dropping sweet sleep, and rest on Men.

Proportion is a Kind, and Image of Unity. Disproportion is a Division without any form of Unity. Where this Division, and Darkness first meet, there is the Center of Ugliness, the Fountain of ugly things. This is the Babel, where Ziim and Ijim dwell, Unclean Birds; Forms dry without any beautiful Water; desolate, no pleasant plant of Life, putting forth itself there; irksome, and hateful, being surrounded with a rude Darkness, like rocky, uncouth Islands in a Tempestuous Sea; or Screech-Owls in a Melancholy Night.

These are the Four Spectacles of dread, & death, in the Nature of the Devil: Solitude, Horrour: Torture, and Ugliness. Now make up these Four into One, let that One be a Living Spirit of greatest Activity, and Capacity: This is the Devil, the Bottomless Pit of Things; the Unpassable Gulf, which divides Heaven from Hell. This is the Father of Sin, and Sinners.

Now before you commit a Sin, propound this Question to yourselves: Can I eternally wander in a Darkness, where I shall never meet Companion or Comfort? Can I make everlasting Clouds my Canopy? Can I lie under these at Rest? Can I sleep sweetly over an unknown, roaring Deep? Can I embrace Fire, feed on Poysons, drink down Tortures, like Water? Can I make those hateful Shapes, at which, when they appear, the stoutest men grow stiff with horror, and feel their hair to stand on end upon their heads? Can I make these ghastly, dismal things my Play-fellows?

If you can do all this, then go, sin freely. But if these be Terrors above Man, to bear: take heed, and start at a Lust, more than you would at a Ghost, for these are but weak Types of those Tormenting Truths, which Sinners must try below. For, as God makes Heaven; so the Devil is the Hell, into him do all polluted Souls descend; they dwell, not only with, but in Him.

Obj. Why should any doubt, whether there be a Devil. But alas! who believes him to be anything besides a Scar-crow; except Children, or weak and superstitious Spirits?

Answ. Yet, you that thus reason, ask those Principles, that govern you: Do not Sense and Reason show, that all things have their Roots, out of which they rise? Are there not such things, as Follies, Filths, and Furies spread through the World? Are they not, if not the All, yet the Greatest part of the word? Can these be, and no Spring be, in which they are United, and at their Height? This Spring is this Spirit, which we call the Devil. This is that untamed Sea, of which Job speaks. Job. 7. 12. Am I a Sea, or Whale, that thou thus breakest me?

What pity then is it to see Millions of men go with merry dalliance down the streams of fleshly delights; and at the same time to see that Cloudy Sea of Horrours, into which they are within a few moments delivered by these streams?

If everything make hast to its own Principle, and Element; Fire to the upper Circle; Earth to its Center below: If it be Natural for every Plant to bring forth its own Seed: then sure, it cannot be, but that each guilty Soul should sink downward to the Element of Woe, and Horrours, the Center of Darkness: then sure, every Sin must at last bring forth a Devil.

You that love your lusts, more than your God, learn from your Bodies, the state determined upon your Souls. Your Bodies are Dust, and to Dust they must return. Your defiled Spirits are of their Father the Devil, and to him they must again go, when they leave this World. This is the first consideration to preserve us from Sin: The Nature of the Devil.

2. The Nature of Sin. We read nowhere of Mary Magdalene, that she was Possess'd according to the common acceptation of that word. We read, that she was a Sinner, eminently, absolutely, without restraint, as if she, who is: said to have been an Hostess, had been an Inn to all Sins. Yet she is thus described: Mark. 16. 9. Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast Seven Devils. All Sins are rankt under Seven Heads. These are the Seven Powers of Evil, in the Devil; which are, as so many Devils there. These are the Unclean Spirits, which go forth from the Mouth of the Dragon into the breasts of all the Sons and Daughters of Adam. Fly then from a Sin; for 'tis a Devil. Fly from the sweetest Temptations. They may look like Angels: but they are the Devil's Angels, the most immediate Emanations or Images from that foul Principle.

Qu. But you will say; What is Sin? How shall I know it? That I may fly from it.

Ans. You may know it by the Image, it bears. Whatever you meet with like a Devil anywhere, that's a Sin. Wherever you see the Cloven Foot of Division, or the Horned head of Darkness; fly, and cry: an Apparition from Hell.

Take then Two Rules, which measure out every Sin.

Rule 1. Every choice of an Act or Object, that draws you down, out of the Light of God; is Sin. In the Light of God, we worship and love the Supreme Beauty; we possess the most perfect, and purest Pleasures; we grow up into the Divine Image, which continually appears to us; we have all our Faculties filled, enlarged to a Freedom, an Infiniteness. When we leave this Light, we fall down before Idols, empty Shows of Beauty; so we become Idolaters, and Adulterers; we mingle ourselves with mixed Pleasures, Dark Delights; so we pollute ourselves: we are transformed into every base, inferior Image, with which we converse: Our Souls are imprisoned in low, and narrow Objects, where they beat themselves against the walls of their Prison into perpetual vexations.

Such are the Loves, Lusts, Ambitions, Entertainments of this World. The Love of the World is Enmity with the Father: Ja. 4. 4. He that casts his eye down upon the Earth, must necessarily take it off from Heaven. He that sets his Face, as if he would go into the Embraces of Vanity; must have his back upon the Eternal Glory.

Rule 2. The Divided enjoyment of any particular Image apart from the Image of God; is Sin. God is one. The Image of God is that, in which all things are United. He that takes any Piece out of this Image, he breaks the Unity, he makes a Wound, to let in Death, and Ruin.

This makes Fleshly Lusts, Sins. Man and woman are each to other, the Image of God, which is One. When therefore they rest not in the bosom of One Another, they commit the Sin of the Devil, in a Type.

St. Jude makes the Lustful Sin of Sodom an exemplar Copy of the Sin of Angels: Jude 6. 7. The Angels kept not their first state, but left their own habitation, &c. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, in like manner, giving themselves over to Fornication, and going after strange (divers, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Flesh, &c. The Sin of Devils was a Spiritual Whoredom, in which they dissolved the Unity of the Divine Image, and fell into a Diversity of divided Images, as into a deep Pit.

Both are joined together in Solomon. At once he multiplied Wives, and Idols. A Converse with the Creatures in Diverse Principles and Images is, as the Familiarity of a Man with many Women. Fleshly Lust is the proper Image, and Fruitfulness of the Devil, by which he brings forth himself into this Visible World most Naturally, and therefore most Potently, most Plentifully.

Obj. But you will say; may we not enjoy the delights of the Creature, which is an Inferior Image?

Ans. Yes, as a Man may have a Conversation with many Women, so that he break not the Marriage-Union. Thy F • untain must be thine own. All delights abroad must be, as Streams of this Fountain, not divided Springs. All other Images must be only Reflections of this One, & concentred in it.

Please thyself to the full with every Content. Only let it be no Cloud to cut off: but a Crystal to take in the Divine Glory, that this may shine, and flame in them.

Use 2. Consolation. Wretched Man: What wilt thou do? Hell is sown in thy Nature. This is the Paradise, which is planted in thee; all manner of loathsome, bitter, venomous deadly Plants. The Sap of these is the Life of thy Spirit: the Fruit of these the Food of thy Life. What shall deliver thee? Shall Time? No: As Nature puts forth itself in thee, so these Trees of baleful Woe grow up. What shall reskue thee from them? Shall Death? No; When thou puttest off this Natural Image, thou must then be transformed into these Invisible Plants, to be everlastingly enclosed in them, to have one Root, one Stock, one Sap, one Fruit forever with them, that is, with Devils.

Is there then no Help? There is. behold, God descends to be thy Savior. He comes by a Two-fold Step, and brings Salvation into thy Bosom.

1. Step. God comes into our Nature, as the Root of each single Person. Here he becomes our Jesus, making himself a New Seed Out of this Seed he brings forth a New Image of Divinity, by which he breaks thorough the Image of the Devil, and Nature, brings forth Man out of them, brings them into subjection to this growing Beauty. As the Fuel is dissolved into Smoak, and the Smoak again breaks up into Flame: So the Image of the Devil riseth up out of the Image of Nature, shaking that to Dust, as it riseth: The Image of God again, sprouts forth in the midst of the Devils Image, First spoiling, then Triumphing over, and in both.

2. Step. God thorough Nature, as the Root, grows up into single Persons, as the Branches. Then, as the shades of Night fly away before the Ascending Day; so, as this Divine Seed our Jesus sends forth itself in an Image of Beauty thorough our Souls; the Image of Darkness and Death sinks down into its own Place, and Principle.

Love this Jesus then. You will love Him, when He shall do this. And He that shall do it, will do it. He is the Root and Branch. He is a Root, which holds every other Root of Pollution and Perplexity, &c. He will grow up thorough them the Last of All. He is the Branch, that is imprisoned in every other Branch of Death, and Hell, which will at last spread forth itself over All; if thou wait for it. As the Head of the Devil is Enmity and Despair: so the Lord Jesus is an Eternal Root of Hope, and Love.

2. State, That to which the Change is made in our Conversion. This is Three-fold.

• 1. The Inward State in Nature.
• 2. The Spiritual State, in Christ
• 3. The Divine State, in God.

1. The Inward State, in Nature. The Change is for the most part, at first, a Conversion, or Introversion into this State. This needs a Three-fold Explication.

1. Explication. The Inward State, in Nature as it is in itself. Man is naturally the Off-spring of God, Act. 17. 28. We are all his Off-spring. God hath an Inward Glory, and Outward Cloathing. The Scripture speaks of both these, Hebr. 1. It saith of One, v. 8. Thy Throne, O God, is forever, and ever. It saith of the Other, v. 10. Thou hast laid the Foundations of the Earth: the Heavens are the Work of thine hands, v. 12. Thou foldest them up, as a Garment, and they are changed. God over-spread his Outward Cloathing with his Inward Glory. he possesseth both his Person, and his Vesture in One Fountain of Life. So both become to him One Life and Beauty.

Man is in Nature the Off-Spring, and Resemblance of God. So Man also in his Natural State is composed of a Twofold Image, the one Inward, the other Outward; the one the Image of God in Man, the other of the Creature. While man stood in Innocency, he abode in the Inward Image, as his Center: in that he Comprehended, and Commanded the Image of the Creature. The Image of God was Eden, the Fountain of pleasures within, from thence a River went forth watering the Image of the Creature, and making that a Paradise. All things were Trees in this Paradise, good for food, and pleasant to the Eye: Trees of perpetual Youth, Beauty, Pleasure to Man, Man was seated in this Inward Image, as on his Throne, from which he commanded, and changed all the Creatures into divers Shapes of Delight, at pleasure. This is the First Explication.

2. Explication: The Departure of Man out of this Inward State. When Man fell, he went forth from his Inward Glory, into the Outward Image, this is signified, Gen. 3. by the Woman yielding herself over to the Will of the Serpent: and the Man giving himself up to the Will of the Woman. So it was true of Man, what is said of the Devils, Jude 6. He left his First Estate, and his Proper Habitation. Now he lived wholly in the Out-forms of things which he broke off from the Inward Image, and so made them all an Image of Vanity, Darkness, and Death; keeping the Image of God imprisoned in this Outward Image, which suffered it not to put forth itself, or appear.

St. Paul expresseth this Departure, as the Root of all Sin, Rom. 1. 18. All wickedness is there summed up in this: Detaining the Truth of God in Unrighteousness. That is, keeping down the Image of God, and True Glory, in a corrupt, and false Image.

3. Explication. The return of Man into this Image, Man hunting, and hunted thorough the exterior face of things, finds neither his desired Prey, nor Rest▪ Poor Man! oppressed with cares and sorrows, he sinks down by a sad Retirement to the bottom of his own Spirit. There he happily falls into the bosom of the Divine Image, which lay buried under the Ruines of his Soul. Here he catcheth some Glimpses of Immortal beauty, some Tasts of a high delight, some sense of a true Rest. Now he loathes the Empty, Tedious, Tormenting Follies of this Outer World.

David experimented this in himself, Psal. 16. 7. My Reins instruct me in the Night-season. When a Night of nature, or melancholy takes away these sensual forms of things from us, or makes them a Torture to us: then this Hidden Image from the retired Principles of Nature, from the secret of our souls, puts up itself before us, draws us down into itself, makes its own Impressions upon us; Impressions which have another manner of Light, Strength, Sweetness in them.

Now the Soul cries out in the language of Cain, to a sweeter purpose: How have I been a Fugitive, and a Vagabond upon the Earth, while I have been driven out from thy Face, and Presence, and thou beautiful Image of things! Come, lock me up in thine Embraces, that I may never go forth more into that Outward Court of things, which is trodden down by the Feet of Lusts, and Confusions. Or if▪ I must go forth again; O that I might carry thee forth with me, as my Brother, that sucked the breasts of my Mother-Nature. I would kiss thee, and I should not be despised. I would enjoy perpetual pleasures in thee; and no shame, but strength, and glory should rest upon me.

This is the First Change into the Inward State, in Nature.

2. The Spiritual State, in Christ. The Change to this State we are to consider in Three Parts.

• 1. The Preparation in Man.
• 2. The Spiritual State.
• 3. The Passage of Man into it.

1. Part. The Preparation in Man to this Spiritual State. Man pursued by Griefs from without, retired into the Inward Image, the Recess of Nature, as David into his Cave, meeteth with a fresh, unexpected view of Beauties here. Now he is refreshit, now he comes to himself. Now he begins to raise himself, and say, as Samuel did, when the eldest Son of Jesse was presented to him: Behold the Anointed of God is before me. Surely this is no other, than the Gate of Heaven.

But after a little Trial, Man finds this to be, but a Natural Image of God, an Earthly Paradise only, which so soon as it puts forth is ready so soon to dis-appear again. He finds it too weak to raise itself clearly from the bottom of those Waters of Vanity, Sin and Trouble, which have over-flown, and over-whelm'd it. He perceives it too slight to satisfy him. 'It is an Intimation of true joys, rather than the Joys themselves. 'It is a fair Invitation, no full Entertainment.

Mans joys and hopes here prove to him like the Seed sown in Rocky Ground; which springs up suddenly, but suddenly withers, when once the Sun, the Tempting Glories, or Scorching Furies of this World beat upon it.

Now the Soul is, as Mary Magdalene at the Grave of her Savior; She looks into her Heart for this Image but finds that gone, and her heart, as an empty Grave. Then she cries; O my God; who hath taken these Comforts away? I thought, that these should have delivered me, and dwelt forever with me. But wipe away thy Tears, distressed Soul. As Jesus carried away his Natural body from Mary, to bring it again a Spiritual body: So thy God hath withdrawn this Natural Image of divine joys in thy Spirit; but he will restore, and bring it into thy soul again a Spiritual Image.

St. Paul gives thee this Consolation, Rom. 8. 3, 4. What the Law could not do, being weak thorough the flesh. &c. That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The weakness of Natures Inward Image prepares the Spirit of Man for the Spiritual State of things.

2. Part: The Spiritual State itself. The Prophet represents this in a Promise. Joel 2. 28. I will pour forth my Spirit upon all Flesh. Three things are here to be explained.

1. The Spirit. 2. Flesh. 3. Effusion, or Pouring forth of Spirit upon Flesh.

1. The Spirit is the Unity of things: Ephes. 4. 3. The Unity of the Spirit. Unity is appropriated to the Spirit. This Spirit is the most High God. For he is the First, Supreme, only Unity: Gal. 3. 20. God is One. God, eminently, and exclusively, is One. This Spirit, the Unity is the Fountain, and Life of Things. All sorts of Life, all Beauty everywhere are Images of this Self-comprehending, A • -comprehending Unity. This is the Spirit.

2. Flesh, Flesh, and Spirit differ, as Unity, and Division; or which is the same, as Life, and Death: Rom. 8. 6. To be Carnally-minded is Death: to be Spiritually-minded is Life, and Peace. Life is the Unity of Things, in which they Contain themselves. Death is the Division of Things from themselves.

Flesh is all Divided Forms of things in the Creature according to the language of the Scripture. The Scripture in this sense reckons Angels, and Souls of Men, as Fleshly things. Though Angels are the most United Things, the First Unities, or Springs in the Creature; and so Spirits. Yet they compared with God are Compounded, and Divided Things, and so fleshly.

St. Peter thus sums up under the name of Flesh, all things, that have a Principle of Division in them, by which they are cut off from their own Beauty or Being; by which they fade, and fall away. This is Flesh.

3. The Effusion, or Pouring forth of the Spirit upon Flesh. This signifies Three things.

1. The Spirit nakedly sustaining the Creature, as its Immediate Root, and Principle. So the Spirit is a Spring pouring itself forth into Flesh, as it's Channel.

2. The Spirit filling the Fleshly form with its Waters, with its clear and fresh Streams, the workings of its own Life.

3. The Spirit planting its own Image upon each Created Image; clothing and overflowing it with its own Appearances.

Thus St. Paul expresseth the Effusions, the Overflowings of the Spirit, Rom. 8. 6. To be Spiritually-minded is Life, and Peace. To be Spiritually-minded is to see Things, as they are in their Spiritual State. In this State all things have a Twofold Representation.

1. Represen. Life, true Life, without any mixture of Death. Every Sight here is Life. For all things are seen; as growing up out of this Life-Principle, the Spirit; and Themselves, as Powers of this Life displaying themselves, and working in themselves.

2. Represen▪ Peace. This is the Efficacy of that Life, in the Harmony of an Inward Sweetness, an Outward Beauty.

Thus this Spiritual State brings forth to Light again in itself, the Inward Image of God, in Nature, For it shows all Fleshly Forms, being yet Fleshly, and yet Harmonious Images of the Supreme Unity, or Beauty. But it brings forth this Natural Image with this Twofold Advantage. 1. It formerly grew upon a Natural Principle, and so was subject to Decay. Now it is rooted in this Immortal Spirit, and so becomes Immortal. 2. It was in Nature an Image only Now it is an Image, and a Glass. It doth not only Represent the Glories of the Spirit by an empty Show: but it sets them before you as Present in their proper substances, and so shining thorough it.

Thus we have gone thorough the Second Part in this Head, and seen the Spiritual State in itself.

3. Part: The Passage of Man into this Spiritual State. When the Soul is taught by her Experience, and her God; that the Secret Delights of the Natural Image are for a Repast only, not a Repose; that in the strength of these; as Elijah's food, brought by Angels, she is to travel thorough a Wilderness, the Ruines of Nature, with all its Principles, and Images; till she comes to the Mount of God: Then she takes up a resolution; to stay no longer in this Field of Swine with the Swine; but to make hast to her Fathers House, where every Servant hath Bread enough; each Fleshly Form is filled with a Substantial Glory.

When God hath secretly instructed the Soul thus to resolve, he as a tender-hearted Father meets her in the beginning of these resolutions, falls upon her neck, and kisseth her. God shows himself in the Soul, gives her sweet Testimonies of his Love, carries her further off from the Outward Image, carries her thorough the most retired Principles of Nature beyond, and above them, into this Spiritual Principle, and State, which is the Spirit of Christ; where God and the Creature are United; where the Spirit is, as Water; the Flesh as a flourishing Earth standing in that Water, and out of it; being continually fed, continually made Fruitful, and Beautiful by it.

As Jacob at the sight of the Waggons, which came from Joseph; so this Soul now revives, she begins to be herself, and to live again, as after a long Trance, or Death. She looks about, and sees herself at home, she perceives herself in that Spirit; in which she came forth from God; in which she sees the Face of God again; by which she is assured to be carried on to the full and eternal enjoyment of her God, and Father.

Now, saith the Soul; I have enough; I have not only seen the Face of my God; but He hath made me to see His Seeds also; the Face of each Object, as the Face of an Angel of God. Now let me die; that I entirely in my Body, and whole Soul may be called home from my Banishment into this remote part of Things, the Out-side of Nature. Now let me die in Peace, with this Spiritual Image in my Embraces, this Sense of Joys, and Glories in my Heart. Let me ever abide here, O my God! never to go forth more from this Inner Chamber of the Great King into the Tumultuous street of my senses, or sensual Reason. O that this Spiritual State so full of ravishing Sights, which like the Sheet full of all living Creatures before Peter, is now let down out of Heaven into my Soul; O! that it might never be drawn up again; until it take me also up with it into Heaven.

I have finished the Second State of our Change at our Conversion: The Spiritual State, in Christ, I pass to the Third,

3. The Divine State of things, in God. As Christ is the way to God. So the Divine State is the Spiritual State made Perfect. The Soul having been a while taught in the Bosom of Christ, begins to grow up to a fuller sense of God, in a more naked, abstracted, absolute, and comprehensive manner. Now she begins to put off all, that ever she put on, that God may be her only Clothing. She begins to think it not enough to live and walk in the Spirit of God; except she be One Spirit with Christ, and God. She perceives some dark glimpse of that, which is meant, 1 Cor. 13. 12. To Know, as we are Known; that is, in patrid, at home in God, Comprehensively, by being Comprehended in God, and so Comprehending him again.

The Soul in the glimmering Light of this State brought forth in her Flesh, as a small Candle in a dark Lanthorn, or faint twinklings of a Star in a Cloud; the Soul rudely descries a difference between making the Creature the Glass, thorough which we see God, and having the Godhead for the Glass, placing itself next our Eye, and discovering all the Creatures in itself, this the Soul climbs up towards, this makes her long for Heaven, that she may enjoy this Beatifical Vision clearly, un • as'd of Flesh.

The imperfectest Beginnings, and rudest Hints of this State in the Soul are to the other State; as Honey, and Wine, to Milk. They melt the Spirit of Man to a Transcendent Sweetness, and heighten it to a Triumphant Strength. As Jesus Christ saith of God out of the Psalmist, Psal. 82. 16. He saith of those to whom the word of God came: I have said: Ye are God's. Joh. 10. 35. So saith the Soul to all things, as she looks upon them in this Divine State. Ye are God-like Appearances, rising up out of God, and abiding in him.

Saul cries, 1 Sam. 28. 13. I see God's ascending up out of the Earth. But this Soul in this Divine Principle sees God Himself with the whole Troop of the Sons of God, God-like Forms ascending out of every Point of the Earth, and the lowest parts of things.

Use. Conviction. Consider with thyself after this manner, Am I Changed? If I be not, I stand in the Circle of Vanity, Darkness, and Woe. I am gone forth from my Center, outward, into a Waste Wilderness, whither no clear Line of Light, or Life stretcheth itself; where are no Sparks of peace, or joy, which are not scattered into wild Distractions, torn in pieces and devoured by Confusion.

Am I still wandering in this World? I am already upon the very Brink, and Precipice of Things. Whither do I wander? Whither shall I fall, when I die? Is there yet anything beyond this World, further from God, and Goodness, besides the Place of Devils.

There are Four Discoveries of a Changed, or Unchang'd State.

1. Discovery. Have I seen a Resurrection in myself. Our Conversion is made the same thing with the Resurrection of our Savior, Coloss. 3. 1. If ye be risen with Christ. When Jesus rose again, He returned to that Glory, which He had with God, before he was in Flesh. His Resurrection was a Return not to that Life, which he had in the World; this was part of his Death: but to that Life, which he had before This among Earthly Men. So when we Turn to God, we Return truly to ourselves. We perceive our Selves now to be our Selves, and all below this, to have been a Shadow of us, or a Disguise upon us.

The Conversion of Man is called an Awakening, Ephes. 5. 14. Awake thou, that sleepest: stand up from the Dead. My God is a Light, in which all Things are seen ever, as they were from the Beginning. My Jesus is a Life, in which all things are the same Yesterday, before the World, as they shall be to Morrow, and forever. My Soul! Art thou awakened into the Light, the Life of thy God, thy Jesus? If thou art, what seest thou? Thou seest thy true, and substantial Being, thy proper Person appearing; thou seest all things in their first Principle, in their right state; thou seest every Inferior Person, which thou hast been clothed with, and each Lower State of Things, in which thou hast acted any Part, as Dreams of a sleeping Man in the Night, out of which he awakens the same, that he was, when first he lay down, and they vanish, as Airy Images.

The Gospel declares the Mystery, that was hid in God from the beginning of the World, Ephes. 3. 9. If you have not beheld present things, things to come, Heaven, Glory, your future State; as it was in the Mystery of God from Eternity: you are still buried under the Ruines of this Confused World, beneath which that Mystery lies hid.

2. Discovery. Can I tell the Difference between Flesh, and Spirit? A Converted, and a Regenerate Condition are thus distinguished by Walking in Flesh, or Spirit, Rom. 8. 4. The Eye guides the Feet. How can I walk after One, and not the Other, if I know not, how One differs from the Other. The Light shined in Darkness, but the Darkness comprehended it not. The Flesh is the Darkness, which understands neither the Spirit, nor itself, The Spirit is the Light, in which both are understood, and discerned.

Say thus to thy Heart: My Heart! Canst thou tell a way to possess all Things in one point, in a Unity of Life? Hast thou looked on all Things at once, and seen them in a Harmony of Beauty? Hast thou taken in the Tunes and Motions of all Things Created and Uncreated in a Concent of Pleasures? Didst thou ever yet descry a glorious Eternity in each winged Moment of Time; a Bright Infiniteness in the narrow points of every dark Object? Then thou knowest what the Spirit means, that Spire-top of Things, whither all ascend harmoniously, where they meet, and sit together recollected, and concentred in an Unfathom'd Depth of Glorious Life. From hence thou lookest down, and seest all Flesh, as a heap of Single Dusts; Dark, though falling from the midst of a bright Flame; Divided, though laid together.

He that knows no Spirit, but that which breaths thorough Flesh, and feeds on the Air. He that understands the highest Spirit, but as a Fleshly Fancy exalted; is yet Flesh, condemned like Nebucchadnezzar to graze on the fading Field of Flesh, till he know, this Flesh to be that Darkness, which covers all Truth; and the most high Spirit, to be the only Light, which discovers all things, and itself.

3. Discovery, Have I seen a Night upon this World? One Day passeth not away for another to succeed, except a Night come between. My soul is not yet born again out of the Light of this World into the Day of Christ, if she hath not gone thorough a Night, a Night of Eternal Darkness upon all Earthly Contents. Thou canst not look down upon Fleshly Things with a Delight, from the Throne of Christ; except thou hast looked upon them, as a Prospect of Horrour; from the Cross of Christ.

Jesus Christ threatens Jezebel, and her Companions, to throw her into a Bed, and great Tribulation: Revel. 2. 22. He never comes into the Bed of Eternal Repose with Jesus Christ, as his Spouse; that hath not been in a Bed of afflictions, and Flames, with his Jezebel the Flesh.

4. Discovery. Have I tasted the Sweetness of a Life within, in my own Spirit? Hast thou not made a Retreat into thine own Depths? Hast thou not seen the Beauties, that shine in this Glass? Then art thou far from the Depths of the Divine Spirit, and the Glories that disclose themselves in that Glass.

Solomon tells us, Prov. 20. 27. That the Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord in his Bowels: if the Spirit of Man within be but a Candle; what then is this Sensual State without? Neither Life, nor Death; nor Light, nor Darkness: but Shadows of Life, and Death between both. But who can think he hath received the Beams of the Sun, when yet he hath not seen a Candles Light?

We read of a Strumpet, Prov. 7. 11, 12. That her Feet abide not in the house; but she loves to be abroad. While the Feet, the Affections of our Souls are ever gadding and our eyes gazing in the broad ways of Sense; while they love not to dwell in the Habitation of their own Spirits; they make themselves Strumpets to every unclean Spirit.

I have ended the First Head of this Doctrine, the Conversion, or Change it self. I am now to pass to the Second, the Circumstances of this Change.

2. Part: The Circumstances of the Change. These are Two.

• 1. Circumstance: A Universal Motion in all the Passions.
• 2. Circumstance: A General Alteration in Practice.

1. Circumstance: A Universal Motion in all the Passions. These are moved at the time of our Conversion, for the most part, in this Threefold Order.

1. Order. 1. Gri • f. 2. Shame. 3. Fear.

2. Order. 1. Hope. 2. Desire. 3. Rage.

3. Order. 1. Love. 2. Hatred.

1. Order of Passions in our Change.

1. Passion: Grief. John 12. 32, 33. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw up all men after me. This he spake, signifying, by what Death he should die. The Explication of the Exaltation, the lifting up, the drawing up, is Death. The Lord I • sus was lifted up to Glory by Death. He draws up all men to himself, and Immortality, by Death, Grief is the Souls Death. God by this for the most part begins to draw us up, out of Sin, and Flesh to himself, and eternal joys.

Grief naturally is the Sense of some Great, and Present Evil oppressing the Soul. Grief Spiritually is the Sense of some Great, and Present Evil oppressing the Soul, and pressing it thorough itself into the lap of the Godhead.

Psal. 119. 67. David communicates his Experience: Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now I keep thy Commandments. The word afflicted signifies to be brought low, or down. When the Soul gone forth into the midst of the Creatures is arrived at the utmost point of one Contrary, then it begins to return towards the other: as the Sun first turns itself towards us again at Midnight. The utmost Point of a worldly life in Sin, and Vanity, is Grief, or Torment taking away all our Rest. The Soul hurried hither by the Torrent of her lusts, here begins to look, and move towards God. So the Grave of our joys, our Grief becomes a Womb bringing us forth to a Spiritual life.

Psal. 40. 2. David speaks of God, and himself: He hath drawn me up out of the Horrible Pit, and Dirty Clay. This world hath a Root of Darkness, which bears for a Flower the Images of Light. When the Spirit of Man lives upon, and makes itself One with these Imaginary Pleasures; they quickly fade: So both together sink down into their Root, where they are swallowed up in a melancholy darkness. Here the Vanities, which before were Light, now grow heavy, weighing down the Soul. Here all her former Contents meet her again, as Parts, and Powers of this Darkness. That, which was before beautiful Clay, soft Clay, easy to any Impression of Desire, is now stiff, and dirty Clay, holding the feet of the Soul fast in the bottom of this Horrible Pit.

Now God takes hold of us thus low, thus lost, and draws us upward. So our Change begins in Grief.

2. Passion: Shame. Es. 6. 11, 12, 13. Shame ariseth from a Mixt sense of Light, and Darkness; Good, and Evil; Beauty, and Deformity. It is a mixed Passion of Grief, Anger, Fear. As when the Light, and Day first sink into Night, and Darkness in the Evening; or first ascend out of these in the Morning, the Sky looks red: So the Soul blusheth in the midst of her Sins, and is ashamed, when God first dawnes upon her, and begins to draw near to her.

Ezek. 43. 10. Son of man, show them the House that they may be ashamed of all their Iniquities, and let them measure the Pattern. Shame is a Reflection of foul, and hateful Deformities, made upon our Spirits by the Light of Beauty, Goodness, God shining forth upon them. Shame is the Divine Glory glowing thorough our Darkness, and Filth; before yet it is broken forth into a clear Flame to scatter, and consume them.

God saith to Jesus Christ, of man: Son, go and show thyself to him, as the Image, in which he was made, in which he should have lived. So let him be ashamed of that dark, narrow, vile, brutish Image, in which he walks. Let him take measure by Thee, as his Original and Pattern.

3. Passion: Fear. As Grief awakens Shame, so Shame rouseth Fear out of its Den. Psal. 119. 120. David cries out: My Flesh trembleth because of Thee: I am afraid of thy Iudgments. Fear is the Commotion of the Soul, upon the sense of some approaching Evil. As the Sea trembles before a Storm: So at the sign of God's breaking forth upon the Soul, the fleshly part trembles, and shakes before its fall.

The Man himself is afraid of the Judgments of God; the ways of God with the Creature. The Devils at the Presence of Christ feared two Things: 1. A Banishment from off the Face of the Earth. 2. A Confinement to the Lower-most parts of the Earth. Such now is the Fear of a Man, lest he should be called off from his Carnal Contents, and cast down into the Straitness, and Horrour of his Carnal Principles.

He discourseth with himself thus: Must not I, who have lived in Flesh, now be separated from all the delights of Flesh, and be shut up in the Darkness of it? Must I not abide there, till I have passed thorough the Fire, and endured the Consumption of all that which is Corruptible in me? The longer I live in the Flesh, will not the Fire be the stronger?

Thus Fear becomes a Spur in the side of the Spirit to increase her speed out of the World, to God. This is the First Order of Passions: Grief, Shame, Fear.

2. Order of Passions.

1. Passion: Hope. Lament. 3. 21, 22. This I call to mind, therefore have I hope: It is the mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed. Hope is the Springing of the Soul towards good, or God, first dawning upon it, and dispensing Himself to it. Jeremy, was all before wrapped up in Sorrows, Despairs, Death: Now one single Beam of Hope, and that a small one, glimmers in his Soul: It is the mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed. Yet this lights him into fresh Fields of Contemplations, and Consolations in God.

There is Mercy with thee, that thou mayst be feared: saith the Scripture to God. When Fear affrights the fainting Soul from God: Hope invites it to entertain that Fear. Fear saith: The Presence of God will take away thy Natural Strength, and Joy. Hope answers: I shall find a better Strength, and Joy in God. Fear goes on: The Glory of God will be, as a Fire in thee. Hope replies: This Fire will be a Glory to me. Fear still urgeth: Canst thou lie down with Everlasting Burnings? Hope concludes: I shall have everlasting Arms beneath me. So the Soul casts herself into these Arms to be carried, whithersoever they will bear her.

2. Passion: Desire. 2. Sam. 7. 27. David thus conveys his Desires to God: Because thou O lord, hast revealed it to thy Servant concerning his House: therefore hath he found in his heart to pray this prayer. Hope is the Conception of Blessedness. Desire is the Teeming, the Breeding, Bearing, and Growing big with it, till it be brought forth. The Vestal Virgins first kindled their Spark by a Beam: then they from that Spark kept a continual Flame upon their Altar. So the Revelation of God in Man is the Foundation of Hope: Hope the Fountain of Desires, which grow into great Streams, and so pour forth themselves into their Sea, into God again.

The Desires of a New Convert, when once they are kindled, increase suddenly to a m • ghty Flame. For they are proportioned by Two things: The Good, at which he aims: The Evil, from which he flies. Desires here are the Attractions of the highest Good, the most high God: backed by the Impressions of the greatest Evils, Sin, Death, Devils. As one draws; the Other drive. The Soul sees God before her opening a World of new Hopes, and Delights. She sees Lusts and Furies behind her, laboring to overtake her, and hold her back from those fresh Glories, which are now in her eye. This makes her Desires, as swift feet, as strong Wings to her.

Now the newly-converted Spirit begins to discover herself by continual, violent Breathings, and cries towards Heaven: How long Lord? Now she speaks in David's tune, and tone Psal. 84. 2. My soul longeth, yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord: my Heart, and my Flesh cry out for the Living God. Grones are now the constant beatings of the Heart; Longings and Faintings become the Language of all parts inward, and outward: Longings after, Faintings for, the Life of God, the Living God.

3. Passion: Rage. 2. Corin. 7. 11. The Corinthians had slept secure in a foul Sin. They now awakened by St. Paul, give those Testimonies of their Change, which he reckons up in this place: What vehement Desire: yea, what Zeal? yea, what Revenge? As a Flood fo • ming, and roaring, when it is straightened: or swelling, and over-bear • ng all, when it is stopped in its Course: So are Anger, or Rage, Desires multiplied, and growing Mighty by Resistance.

There are Thr • e, that resist the Soul in her Conversion: the Flesh, the World, the Devil. The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit: Gal. 5. 17. The In • linations of the Flesh cross, and quench the Motions of the Spirit. The World infuseth a poison of Desires and Delights into the Heart, which kill Heavenly Loves, which infect the Heart with hatred, and enmity against God and his Glory, James 4. 4. The Friendship of the World is enmity with God. The Devil is like a Lyon, seeking whom he may d • vour. 1 Pet. 5. 8. He would draw down our Souls into himself out of the Arms of our Savior.

The World works upon us thorough the Flesh in ourselves. For this is the Property, and the Birth of the World in us, John 8. 23. Ye are of the World: Ye, that is they that are Fleshly. The Devil prevaileth upon us by the World. This is the Body with which he clothes himself, when he comes, he is Prince of this World. This world is his Power.

As God, Christ, and a Saint are all united in the Spiritual part of a Christian: So the Devil, the World, the Flesh are all in one, in the Natural part. These the Soul at her Conversion now understands to be, the Enemies of her Hope, the Tyrants over ••• joy, the Rubs in the way of her Desires. She riseth to a brave heat of Rage, and height of Revenge against these. Thus she vents her Rage, thus she takes Revenge. By fastening her own Flesh to the Cross 〈◊〉 her Lord, She Crucifies Spoils, Triumphs over, them all. Gal. 6. 14. I Glory saith Paul, in the Cross of Christ, by which the World is crucified to me, and I to the World.

Nothing now is so sweet, nothing so Glorious to this Soul, as the Cr • ss of her Jesus. By this she revengeth herself upon her Spiritual Enemy, as they treated her Lord, her Life; that is with Scorn, and Despight.

First she puts them to open Shame. She uncloaths them of all their fair Appearances. In the face of Heaven, in the eye of her Sun, her God, 〈◊〉 displays them naked in their ugly monstrous Shapes; in their loathsome, and hateful Uncleannesses.

Then she nails them by a constant force to the • r Pa • ns, and Sufferance; till they languish to Death.

I have gone thorough the Second Order of Passions: Hope, Desire, Rage.

3. Order of Passions.

1. Passion: Lov • . Love is a C • njunction with, a Complacency in Goodness, God. Gal. 2. 20. I am, saith St. Paul, Crucified with Christ, and now I live, yet not I, but Christ liv • th in me, &c. The Holy Soul having st • ugled thorough the Streights of Grief, and Shame; though • ow the Cro • stides of Hope, and Fear; having wrestled with the Principles of Nature, the Principalities, and Powers of this world; Fleshly Honors, and heights: now comes to taste the Freedom, and Sweetness of life; which is Lov • ; now she knows what 'tis to Live indeed, to live in the Embraces, and mutu • l Twini • gs of the Lord Jesus. Now she hath no Life, but his L • ve: now her L • v • hath no Object, but • is Li • e.

By this time our Convert is grown up out of a