The Rise Race and Royalty of the Kingdom of God

Christ. Jesus Christ is the Seed, to which the Promises are made, and the Promised Seed, the Pearl in the Casket of every Promise. Thus God is one in the Gospel; the Gracious Maker of the Promise; the Rich Matter of the Promise; the Glorious Heir of the Promise. This Unity is the Love of the Gospel, in which the Seed is one in the Father, in Christ, in all the Saints; and this one Seed is the Lover, the Love, and the Beloved.

God loveth himself in his Son; his Son in his Saints. God, Christ, and the Saints lie all wrapped up in one Seed. This is the Unity; and this Unity the Love of the Gospel. One Seed shining out, and springing up thorough all into the Fellowship of all Beauties, and delights with itself, within itself.

We have set up some Lights in this verse to show the Glories of Divine Love the more advantageously, as they are presented to us. v. 20. in those words; God is One.

Now let us draw nearer to the verse itself, the Center of our discourse.

St Paul raiseth an Objection, and answereth it. v. 19.

Object. This is the Objection: If the Gospel were before the Law of Eternal Force, the only dispensation of Love, Life, and Righteousness: why then was the Law added.

Ans. St. Paul answereth this Objection, by Defining, and Confining the Use, and Times of the Law.

1. St Paul defineth the end, & Use of the Law. The Law was added because 〈◊〉 Transgression. There was a fourfold use of the Law, until Christ came; to discover, to restrain, to heighten Sin, to bring Condemnation, and Death upon Sinners.

2. The Times of the Law are c • nfined to the coming of Christ: Until th • Seed should come.

Then the Holy Apostle giveth us two Arguments to make it plain, that the Law can be no more of force, or have any place, when Jesus Christ appeareth. These two Arguments are taken from two Essential differences between the Law, and the Gospel.

1. Argum. The Law was ordained by Angels. God appeared not under the Law in his own Person, nor in that sweet, and supreme brightness, which floweth immediately from his Face. He clothed himself with the created Light of the Angelical Nature, and Glory, as with a Garment. In the Persons of Angels, and their Beauties, as under a veil, he was seen, and conversed with Man. But when the Seed cometh, which is Jesus Christ; this is God in Person, God in his own Essential Form, and Image.

Now the Scene, the Appearance is changed from the diversities of Angels, and their Glories to the Divine Unity. Now the Angels, thorough which, as multitudes of little Stars in the night, the Light of the God-Head scattered faint glimmerings of itself, vanished out of sight. They resigned their weak Beams, Beauties, and Beings to one Sun, that one Seed their Fountain, the Unity of God in Christ. Here they are New-born, they are made perfect, they shine again in one Glory. The Son of Man cometh now in the Glory of his Father, in his own Glory, in the Glory of all his Angels. When Christ is seen in his Heavenly shape, which alone is the Light of the Gospel, Angels appear no more singly, all Glories are seen united in their Center, the Person of God in Christ. Now hear, O Israel; come forth; and O ye Daughters of Zion; the Lord your God, your Jesus is one. This is the first Argument, and the first essential difference between the Law, and the Gospel.

2. Argum. The Law was ordained by Angels; in the hand of a Mediator. Now a Mediator is not of One; but God is One. v. 19. 20. Thus we are come home to the verse itself, where you shall see all this discourse come home to our mark, at which we aim; the Fountain of all Evangelical Graces, and Loves in the Unity of God.

We shall best understand these words by a distinction of Mediators.

There is a Mediator of Distance, and of Unity. This latter the Mediator of Unity is one with both the Parties, between which he mediateth, comprehendeth them both, maketh both one in himself. Such a Mediator Jesus Christ is in the Gospel. Such a Mediator the Law hath not; this place intendeth not. This hath some shadow of itself in the Medium Participationis, which Philosophy treateth of.

The Mediator of Distance is one, who standeth between two to keep them apart, because they cannot approach one to the other. This is here meant. The People of Israel said to Moses; Let God speak to thee, and we will hear thee. But let not God speak to us anymore, least we die. God approved of their words: They have said well. Thus the Law was ordained in the hand of Moses, as a Mediator. This we may express by the Medium Abnegationis; a Mediator of Distance.

When the Seed cometh, this Mediation, this Administration, the Distance, and so the Law ceaseth. Now God is One. Christ is the Seed, Christ is come Christ hath two Natures in him, but he is One Person in both Natures, and that One Person, the One only God. God is the Person, the Subsistency, the Root, out of which the whole Tree with all its Arms and Branches of both Natures, Human, and Divine springeth; in which it subsisteth; from which all operations, and fruits proceed; to which all denominations belong, which is the name to be named in all, and to which every name belongeth. This is Christ. The one Seed, the one Spirit in all the Saints, in all the Graces, and Comforts of the Gospel is this Christ, that one Person, which is the only true God. Thus God is one in all.

The Lord Jesus in his Heavenly Spirit, and Body is the Glorious Circle of the Divine Unity, in which God, Christ, and all the Elect, Saints, or Angels li • so close, so enfolded, and wrapped up mutually one in another; that no Mediator can come between them; that they need no Mediator; save as this Unity itself, the one Seed is the Mediator.

There are two Promises made to Abraham concerning his Seed; one, th •• they shall be, as the Stars of Heaven for number; the other, that they shall be, as the Dust of the Earth for Multitude.

The Seed is Christ. The Lord Jesus one Seed in all the uncreated Glories, which are fixed, as innumerable Stars in the Heaven of the Divine Nature▪ The Lord Jesus is the same Seed in the Dust here below, sown in the form 〈◊〉 Flesh, and Dust.

When the Lord Jesus cometh in the Power of the Gospel into any Heart this one Seed at once shineth down from all those Glories of the God-He •• above, and springeth up out of the Dust here below. It awakeneth itself fro •• above and below. It meeteth with, receiveth itself, and twisteth into 〈◊〉 with itself, the Glory from on high, and the Dust from beneath. It continually ascendeth, and descendeth into its own Bosom, and feasteth itself eternally upon itself with all Divine Substance, and Sweetness.

I have endeavored to draw aside the Curtain from this Scripture, to sh • you the Joy, and Glory of the Lord in the Gospel, the Unity of God, 〈◊〉 the Fountain of Love with him in that Unity.

Let me add one Scripture to this to bring in more Spiritual Light into a Roo • so rich in, so full of Heavenly Beauties. It is that Rom. 4. 16. It is of Gra • that it may be sure to the Seed. You, whose hearts the Love of God in Ch •• hath touched from Heaven, that you pant after the Water-brooks, and Fou • tain of this Love opened in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus; why come y •• not to your Savior, that you may drink abundantly of the Divine Love Are you discouraged, and driven away by the sense of your own unworth • ness, and weakness, by unbelief? Hear, and believe, and come with bold •• to the Fountain of Love. Love is made sure, and tied fast from the Throne of Love in Heaven to the Hearts of Believers on Earth by a three-fold Cord.

1. Cord. The first Cord is the Promise. By the immutable tie of a Promise in which it is impossible for God to lie, hath he assured, and secured his Love to thee. The two chief Attributes of God, on which all the rest wait, in which they are comprehended are Goodness, and Truth. Both these must fade, and pass away, before one tittle of the Promise can fail of its accomplishment. For Goodness maketh the Promise: but Goodness, and Truth both are obliged to the keeping of it.

2. Cord. The second Cord is Grace. The Promise is of Grace, that it may be sure. You, who are apt to despair of Love, and Blessedness let down from Heaven into your Souls by the Golden Line of a Promise, because your hearts are unfit Mansions to entertain such Heavenly Guests, hear, and consider this: As the Beams of the Sun descend upon the Earth, infuse a precious virtue into it, quicken, and call up the virtue, and Seeds of the Sun there, make it green flourishing, and fruitful; yet lean not, depend not at all upon the Earth; but have their root in the Bosom of the Sun above, from which they shoot themselves down into the lap of the Earth: so the Promises of the Gospel, as B • ams of Eternal Love, are fixed in the Sun of the Divine Nature, as their Heavenly root. From that they are bred, by that they are nourished, and maintained. This S • n poureth them down upon thee to enlighten, enliven, and transform thy earthly, carnal heart into a Spiritual, and Heavenly Garden. But these Beams, that come to warm, and beautify thee, lean not at all upon anything in thee. They depend singly, and entirely upon their proper Sun, which is Love, the heart of God.

3. Cord. The third Cord is the Seed. That the Promise may be sure to the Seed. Lawyers say, that no gift by any deed is good without a consideration: They say also, that there is no consideration, which bindeth more, than that of Fatherly affection; when a deed runneth in those words: I out of my Fatherly affection give to my Son, &c.

This is the consideration in the New Testament the Love of a Father. All the Promises of Grace, and Glory, of Heaven, and Earth, Time, and Eternity are made to the Seed.

The ground of a Fathers Love is the Unity. A Father loveth himself in his Seed. His Seed is one with himself. The Seed lay first in the Father. It cometh forth from the Father. It is one Nature with the Father, and beareth the Image of the Father before him. The same Seed in the Father is the Father, and the Son in the Son. All Relations, the Loves, and Sweetnesses of all Relations are Unions, that is, Participations, and branches of Unity. Paternity, the Relations, and Love of a Father is Unity, the Root, and Head of all Unions, Relations, and Loves.

The Philosopher teacheth us, that the reason of a Fathers Love to his Children is Self-love, and the Love of Immortality. He seeth himself everfresh, and flourishing, propagated to Immortality in his Off-spring. All numbers are said to be the first Unity multiplied. Each number springeth from Unity, is made up of Unities, consisteth in an Unity. Thus God is one in his Seed. The Seed is the Unity of God multiplying itself into many Self-Images in the same Divine Nature, in the same Essential, and Eternal Image, the Lord Jesus. Is not the Promise now sure, when it is to the Seed, in which the Unity of God, the Love-spring of Eternity, is the Band of Love?

I have not yet sounded the Sea of Sweetness opening itself to us in this Scripture: Now a Mediator is between Two: but God is One.

God is said to have created all things by Jesus Christ; Ephes. 1. 9. To have made all things by him, and in him, Colos. 1. 16. God then is One in Nature, and in Grace, in the new Creature, and in the first Creation. There is one Seed of both, the Lord Jesus. All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made, that was made, John 1. 2. As no Wheat springeth without a grain of Wheat cast into the ground, as no Rose groweth without the Seed of a Rose: so no Flower of Divinity, no Divine Work, no Divine Image cometh forth anywhere, in this World, or that which is to come without the Divine Word, the Seed of God, which was in the Beginning with God, and was God.

Acts 17. 24. St. Paul maketh this his great Argument to convince the Athenians, and to persuade them to Faith in Jesus Christ, the Unity of the Divine Seed. They feel after him, saith he, if so be they may find him; although he be not far from everyone of us. In him we live, and move, and have our Being; as in our proper Seed and Element. For as one of your own Poets hath said: We also are his Off-spring. The Apostle in the Authority, and with the Seal of the Holy Ghost confirmeth the Testimony of Nature to this Truth; the Unity of the Divine Seed in Nature. God is One not in Regeneration only, but in the Creation also. We also are his Off-spring.

Thou, who art hitherto Earthly, and Natural, an outcast of Nature, cast down to the nethermost parts of the Earth in Lusts, Unbelief, Blindness of Mind, Hardness of Heart, Profaneness, Enmity, seek thou also after God, feel after him. Thou also mayest see him, and feel, and find him in every motion, in every act, and part of thy Life, in every point of thy whole Being. Every Motion, Act, and Part of thy Life, every Point in thy whole Being is that Field, in which is hid the Treasure of the Divine Being, Beauty, and Blessedness. Thou livest, and movest, and hast thy Being in him He liveth, and moveth and hath his Being in thee. He is thy Seed in thee. For thou also art his Off-spring.

Believe the Love of God, open all the parts of thy Being, and Powers of thy Soul to take in this Love. Thou hast in thee the band of the Love-union, the Divine Love-spring, the Unity of the Divine Seed. For thou also art his Off-spring.

Blessed is he, who believes, and seeks for this Pearl more than Silve and diggeth for it more, than for hidden Treasures. Blessed is he, who findeth it, and goeth, and selleth all that he hath to purchase it. Thou hast this Pearl in thine own Field, the Divine Seed in thine own Soul, and Being.

Let this be the only Seed in thy Soul. Then hast thou sold all for it. Then will it spring up into a living Palace of one Immortal Pearl in thee, which God himself, and all Glorious Spirits will inhabit together with thee, filling it with the sweet Lights of their Divine Beauty, with the Eternal Flames of their Divine Loves, and Joys.

Obj. But you may say; if this be so, why are not all saved? If all be of one Seed, which is Christ, why doth not one Life of Grace, and Glory spring up in all from that one Seed?

Ans. My Answer to this Objection shall be a threefold use; a Reproof to Sinners; a Root of Comfort; a Reason for Holiness.

Use. 1. A Reproof to Sinners. The Sin of the Devil was the first, and Fountain Sin: In that therefore the evil Nature of Sin in the whole Kind, and in every individual Act is most manifest. St. Jude painteth it out in its black, and bloody colors after a most lively manner, Jude 6. The Angels not keeping their first Principle ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and forsaking their proper Habitation 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . O Man! Thy God is thy first Principle. Thou didst stand in him, as in thy Root. Thou wert filled with Sap from him. Thou didst partake of the Fatness, and Sweetness of the Divine Nature. Thou wert a flourishing and fruitful Tree. All the Birds of Heaven; the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Angels delighted to sit, and Sing in thy Branches. All visible things rested under thy Shadow. How art thou fallen to the ground? How dost thou lie withered, and dead upon the face of the Earth? No good thing cometh near thee. Sin hath done this. Thou hast not kept thy first Principle.

O Man! The Divine Image was thy proper Habitation. This Image in thy Person was a Sun of Beauty shining in every part of it; and a Shield of Power defending it on every side. In this Image all Blessed things were united to make a Paradise for thee, which thou didst carry about in thine own Person, as thy proper Form, thine inseparable Habitation, like to God, who carrieth his own Heaven into every place with him. Alas! Thou art now naked in the Eye of God, and all the Creatures. Thou art exposed to shame, to every storm of Rage, Malice, and Wrath from all. Sin hath done this. By Sin thou hast forsaken thine own, thy proper Habitation.

Beware, O Men! Of the Evil of Sin. You cast out anew the Divine Seed out of your Garden by every new act of Sin. You cut off anew the Divine Form, Flower, and Fruit from every Plant in your Garden by every new Act of Sin. As oft as you Sin; so oft you make a fresh wound upon the Divine Unity, you make it to bleed afresh, and die in your Persons.

But besides this there is yet a greater Evil in Sin. The Seed of God is one, the Divine Unity, the Love-spring of Eternity. The Seed of the Serpent the Devil is Enmity, the Hellish Spring of Hate and Death. Every Sin is this Seed of the Serpent in thee, Enmity to the Heavenly Seed, the Unity of God.

In the Law the Jews were forbidden to seethe a Kid in his Mothers Milk for the Cruelty, and Unnaturalness. O the cruelty of every Sinner in every act of Sin! O the unnaturalness! Thou makest a Fire of the Kid, that thou mayst burn its Mother in it. Thou changest the natural Image, the natural Life in thee into a fire of Wrath, and Lust, to burn up, and consume in it the Heavenly Seed, out of which it springeth.

Solomon in his Proverbs telleth us, that he, who curseth his Father, and despiseth his Mother; the Ravens of the Valleys, and the young Eagles shall pick out his Eyes. This hath its highest truth here: go on in Sin. But know, that now in each Act of Lust, of Wrath, of Profaneness, of Unbelief, thou offerest despite to, thou cursest, thou killest the Seed of God in thyself, the Divine Unity, the purest, and perfectest Love, thy Father, which hath begotten thee, and thy Mother, which bare thee, which brought thee forth. What will thine End be? The Ravens of the Valleys, and the young Eagles; Unclean, and devouring Spirits from Hell below, Spirits of blood, of death, of horror, and slaughter shall eat thy Flesh, consume all the Light of Life, and Beauty in thee, shall swallow up thy Spirit into the Bottomless Pits of Darkness, Dread, and Death within themselves.

Use. 2. The Root of Comforts in Believing; the Root of Faith, that we may believe, and have Comfort is the Divine Unity. The Unity of God is thy Seed in thee. The Seed is one, and that one Christ. The Unity of God is the highest, and purest Love. The Unity of God, Divine Love is the Seed of all Things, thy Seed. Believe this Love, believe in this Unity, that is in Christ, who is this one Seed of Love. Let these Arguments persuade thee to believe.

1. Argu. The Unity of God is the Fountain of Love. The Unity is the Simplicity, the Purity of the Divine Nature. God in the nakedness and simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love. Lean, stay thyself upon this Rock of Eternity, the Divine Unity, Simplicity, Purity of Love.

2. Argu. The Unity of God is Love; How strong is this Love? All the Attributes, Powers, Excellencies, Virtues of the God-Head are united, and centred in Love. How great is the force of Divine Love? What is its Virtue, its Excellency, its Sweetness? O Almighty, O Supreme, O Sovereign Love! All Things Good, Great, and Divine are joined, and raised to the highest point of Unity in Love. God assembled all the Powers, and properties of the Creation, all the Angels, the Persons in the Trinity to form a shadow of the Divine Nature in the first Man; saying; Let us make Man. O Man! All the Beauties, Blessedness, and Treasures of the Divine Nature are gathered together into one Sun of Divine Love to make thee new, no more a Shadow, but a Sun in this Sun, a Light in this Light of Eternal Love. Open thine Eye, and thine Heart to this Love by believing it.

3. Argu. Power consisteth in Unity. The Supreme Unity, which is Love, is then Almighty, the Supreme, and Sovereign Power. Is anything impossible to Almighty Love? Is anything too hard for it? What change is there, from Darkness to Light, from pollution to Purity, from profaneness to Piety, from the hardness of a Stone to the softness, and sweetness of a Dove, from a Devil to a Blessed Angel, from a Hell to a Heaven, which Almighty Love cannot make in thine Heart, in a moment, with one cast of its Eye upon thee?

4. Argu. A simple Unity is Infinite: It is ever, everywhere the same. Nothing boundeth it, because it is itself alone, and there is no other thing besides itself together with it, to give an allay to it, or confine it. This is the Infiniteness of the Divine Unity. This Unity thus Infinite is Divine Love.

Come, whoever thou art; Believe, and cast thyself, thy Hopes, thy Fears; thy Griefs, thy Joys; thy Sins, thy Graces into this Abyss, this Sea of Love, which hath no Bottom, nor Shore. This will receive them all. This will swallow them all up into its sweet, and shining Depths. This will cover them all with its own rich, and glorious Floods, as Waters cover the Sea.

Come, Believe, and cast thyself, all thy Relations, the delights of thine Eyes, the dear, and pleasant things of thine Heart, thy whole Spirit, Soul, and Body into this Infiniteness of Divine Love. Thou shalt find them after many days, today, immediately, eternally sporting themselves in this great and wide Sea of Love.

Love in the Person of the Lord Jesus descended to the nethermost parts of the Earth, and ascended above all Heavens, that it might fill all. Behold now a Deluge of Divine Love in the Resurrection of thy Jesus. Love, as a manifold Fountain of a great Deep from below breaketh up, and breaketh open itself. Love poureth down itself thorough all the Windows of Heaven opened upon thee. Thus the Floods of Love increase, rise higher, and higher till they cover the tops of the highest Mountains of Guilt, or Despair, of Desire, or hope in thy Spirit: Only do not thou stop these Fountains of Love from below, shut not these Windows of Heaven above to thyself by thy unbelief. Love in the Person of the Holy Ghost by the mouth of the Psalmist crieth unto thee; Open thy Mouth wide, and I will fill it. Open all thine outward, and • nward senses; open all the Powers, and Faculties of thy whole Man to take • n this Love. Open them yet wider, wider still. Take in still more of this Love. When thou art full of Love to thine utmost Capacity; still that Love, which remaineth is infinitely more, infinitely sweeter, than all that, which thou hast taken in.

5. Argu. That One Seed, the Divine Unity is thy Seed in thee, that is, Love • tself, the first, the highest Love. Thou also art his Off-spring. No Man ever hated his own Flesh. Can a Mother forget her Child? saith the Holy Ghost. Divine Love is the Seed▪ out of which thou springest. Divine Love is thy Father, which hath begotten thee; thy Mother, which hath brought thee forth. Can Love itself hate its own Birth, and Branch? Can Love itself forget its own Child, the Child of Love?

The Prodigal returned first to himself; then he thinketh of his Father, and of Heaven; then his Father, meet • th him, kisseth him, bringeth him home, entertaineth him with the best Garment, with Feasts, with Music, with an Universal Joy.

O Prodigal! Thou hast wasted thy Beauty, thy Strength, thy Parts, thy Comforts, thy flourishing hopes among Harlots, in lewd Company, and Conversation. Thou feedest among Swine upon Husks, and thou starvest in the midst of the Swine, for want of Husks. O Prodigal! The Divine Unity, the Seed of God, Eternal Love is still thy true self, which lieth below all these disguises of Darkness, and Deformity; as Jesus Christ lay sleeping at the bottom of the Ship, which was ready to sink by the violence of the Storm. Thou art the Seed of God. For thou also art his Off-spring. Thou art the Seed of Love. For God is Love.

O Prodigal! Open the Eye of thy Spirit. Believe, and see Divine Love awakening, and appearing in thee, as thy true self to thyself. Feel it drawing thee by a sweet and irresistible force to itself, that is, to thyself, from whence thou hast so long wandered in a strange Form by the Sorcery of Sin, and the Devil. Believe, and see Divine Love, in the true Forms of thy Father, and of Heaven opening their Bosom again to thee, sending forth a virtue of Heavenly Love from themselves, with which they touch thy Heart, soften i • , melt it into kindly repentings, a lovely shame, and tears of Love; kindling sweet desires, lively hopes, and ardent longings in thee after thy Father, and Heaven thine own Country.

Believe, and see Divine Love, thy Father coming into the midst of the Swine to thee, carrying thee in a rich Chariot made of his own Bosom, and Embraces, heaping kisses upon thee, as he carrieth thee. So Love bringeth thee home to its own House, the Heavenly Palace of Love. There Divin • Love clotheth thee with the best Garment, its own Native, and Divine Loveliness: Love feasteth thee with its own Joys, as they have sprung up thorough a Death for thee into a Resurrection for thee also. Love sweeteneth, heightneth all thy entertainment with its own Music resounding with a Divine Harmony from all Heavenly Hearts, all Glorified Spirits round about thee, yea, from all things in Heaven, and Earth tuned by the Eternal Spirit of Love itself, and plaid upon in a most exact, and charming Consort.

Return then to thy true self, thy Father, and to Heaven: Heavenly Love is all these. It is also thy way to these; thy Light, and thy Life in the way. Believe: Say not now; O that I could believe, and repent! Heavenly Love will form itself into inward Divine Meltings, Repentings, Acts of Faith, and of all Grace in thee. Look to this Love, and live Eternally in the Bosom of Love. The Unity of God, which is Love is thy Root, which will rise up unto a Divine sap, and form itself into all Divine Fruit in thee if thou wait for it. For thou art the Off-spring of God.

Use. 3. The Unity of God is the Root, and Reason of Holiness. The Unity of God is the Fountain of Love, of all Grace, and Comfort in the Gospel The Promises are all made to this one Seed, which is Christ in the Unity of the Spirit, in the Unity of the Divine Nature. Thou hast then no further any part, or portion in the promises of the Gospel, or the Comforts of Love, than thou abidest in the Unity of Christ, and of the Spirit. It is the Seed of Love, which is a Holy, and Divine Seed; it is the Life, and Fruit of this Seed, on which, as on the Fleece of Gide • n, all the Dew of Divine Blessings falleth. Every other Seed with its Life, and Fruit is, as the Mountains of Gilboah, on which no Rain, or Dew of any Divine Grace, or Promise descendeth. Abide then in this Love, which is the Holy Seed in thee; bring forth the Fruits of this Love in thy whole Life. So shalt thou be Blessed in thy Seed, and in thy Deed. I have now finished the third Argument for the confirmation, and explication of the third Description of Divine Love which was this; The Love of God is the God of Love. For the Unity of God is the most high, and holy Love. I pass now to the fourth, and last Argument.

4. Argu. The Mystery of the Trinity is a Mystery of Divine Love. This is the fourth Argument to prove, that God is Love.

The Divine Philosopher defineth Love to be a Birth in a Beautiful Subject. As the New Jerusalem is said to come down out of Heaven, a Bride ready trimmed: so out of the Bosom of Divine Love opening itself, as a Heaven cometh forth the Divine Loveliness, the Garden of Heaven, the Heavenly Paradise. This is the Heavenly Bride. In this Garden Love planteth, and maketh to grow all Beautiful, and Divine Images, all Heavenly Pleasures, and Joys.

Divine Love, and the Holy Trinity agree in this, that they are a Birth, and a Marriage both in one. This Mystery is figured in Paradise in the first Man. Adam bringeth Eve forth from himself. Then Adam bringeth forth all Living in and by Eve. Adam first bringeth forth Eve, the Beautiful Image of himself, and of that Paradise, which he then comprehended, and carried about with him in his own Person. Then he brought forth all Beautiful Images of Human Life, and Human Nature in this Beautiful Subject by the Love-union of a Paradisical Marriage.

In like manner the Supreme Love first bringeth forth the Supreme Loveliness, the Image of itself. Then it marrieth itself to this Beautiful Image, and bringeth forth in the Bosom of it all Lives, Loves, Lovelinesses. Delights, and Glories.

Thus Divine Love is a Trinity. There are three in Divine Love. 1. The Love-spring, or the Divine Fountain of Love. 2. The Love-Birth, or the Divine Birth, and Image of Love, the Supreme Loveliness. 3. The Love-union, the Divine Union between these two, the Sacred Fountain, and the Beautiful Image. These are the three Properties in Divine Love, which are all one Love; as there are three Persons in the Divine Nature, which three are one God. In Love, and in God these three are the same Divine Love, the same Divine Nature standing in distinct and opposite Relations to itself, within itself, infinitely above all things without itself. These Relations are in both the same.

1. The God-Head in the Fat • er is Divine Love in the Fountain, the Love-spring of Eternity.

2. The God-Head in the Son is Divine Love in the Birth, or Image, the Love-Birth of Eternity.

3. The God-Head in the Holy Ghost is Divine Love in its Marriage-Union between the Love-Spring, and the Love-Birth, the Love-Union in Eternity.

See, how God being Love is complete in Eternity by being within himself a Birth, and a Marriage, which Two include all Beauties, Sweetnesses, and Blessed • ess • s, all the Beautiful, Sweet, and Blessed Fruits of Love.

Learn here, how Honorable Marriage is, and to keep the Bed of Love undefiled. God hath Sealed upon it the Image of the most Holy, and Blessed Trinity, the Trinity of Divine Love, the Trinity in the Divine Nature.

Marriage in Paradise was the fairest, and fullest Figure of the highest and sweetest Mystery in Heaven, the Ever-Blessed Trinity. The Jews, and Gentiles before the coming of the Lord Jesus were for the most part strangers to the Doctrine of the Trinity. They were therefore loose, and dissolute in the rites of Marriage. They made nothing of Fornication, and very little of Adultery. The Lord in the Revelation of the Gospel at once unvaileth the glorious face of the God-Head in the most Blessed Trinity; and discovereth the sweet, and beautiful Figure of it in the Holy State of Marriage.

Our Savior by the Appearance of the Divine Nature in its numbeless Glories shining thorough every Created Form in his own Mysterious Person, as thorough their proper Figures, and Images hath restored all things. He hath restored Marriage not only to its primitive institution in Paradise, but to its Eternal Pattern, and Original in Heaven, the high, and holy Trinity. Preserve carefully this Marriage-Glory pure from Lusts, untroubled by passions: So shall you see with the Joy of Paradise the sacred Impression of that supreme Mystery of all Divine Loves, Lovelinesses, and Delights the Trinity in the Divine Nature set, as the Seal of Eternity upon it. So shall you draw down the Trinity itself with all its secret, and sacred Treasures of Blessedness to inhabit with you in it. Blessed are they, who hold the Band of Marriage undefiled, unbroken in the sweet, and beautiful Type, in the Glorious Truth of the Heavenly Unity in the most Blessed Trinity.

We have said something in general to show, how the Mystery of the Trinity is a Mystery of Divine Love. Let us launch a little further into this Sea of inexpressible Sweetnesses, and Beauties by contemplating this God-Head of pure loves in the several Persons of the Trinity.

1. The God-Head in the first Person; the Father is Divine Love in its Fountain. The Father in the Trinity is the Love-spring in Eternity: A D • vine plenitude, or fullness, an unfathomable deep of Divine, and Unexpressible Sweetness ever rising up, ever flowing, overflowing all things; this is the Sacred Person of the Father in the Trinity, this is the Sacred Spring of Divine Love in Eternity; and this is that Fountain so dear to you, O ye Saints! out of which you all are made to drink that Sacred Fountain of Free-Grace.

I shall endeavor to open this beloved Fountain, the streams of which are the Life, Love, and Joy of all things in Heaven above, and on the Earth below by three precious inlets into it.

1. Inlet. The Person of the Father is Divine Love in its Glory. St. Paul speaking of the Father terminateth all the mysteries of the Gospel in the Glory of his Grace, as the Beginning, and the end of them all, the sweet, and shining Sea, from which they come, into which they all run again.

Grace is the name of Love in its Freedom, Sweetness, and Fulness. Every thing is in its Glory, in its Fountain. For there it is fairest, freshest, sweetest, and fullest. Love is in its Fountain in the Person of the Father. For there Love is in its Glory. There is a Three-fold Crown; the Marriage-Crown; the Crown of a King; the Crown of a Conqueror. There is accordingly a Three-fold Glory. 1. There is the Glory of Beauty. This is that of the Sun which sendeth forth his Beams thorough all things, and outshineth all things among the Earthly, and Heavenly Bodies. 2. There is the Glory of Sovereignty, which ruleth over all. 3. There is the Glory of Victory, which subdueth all things to itself, and maketh everything an Ornament to its Triumph.

This Three-fold Crown doth Love wear, this Three-fold Glory is it clothed with in the Person of the Father. It is the Eternal Sun, which enlighteneth, enliveneth, sweeteneth, cheereth all things by its Beams sent forth thorough all from the heights of the Heavens above to the depths of the Sea, and the center of the Earth below. It also infinitely surmounteth all things in Beauty, and Sweetness; as it shineth Eternally. It is the great King, that swayeth, and ruleth all everywhere by its Golden Scepter. It is the Glorious Conqueror, which pierceth deep into the hearts of all, which subdueth all to itself by its flaming Sword of Paradise turning every way. By this Sword it cutteth off, and consumeth all Flesh, and Earth, to keep that out of Paradise, and from the Tree of Life. By this Sword it refineth, and converteth all into a pure, and Heavenly Flame, into Spirit. So it bringeth them into Paradise, to the Tree of Life in the midst of it. Every thing everywhere doth Victorious Love make the Subject of its Conquests, and the Ornament of its Triumphs.

This is Divine Love in its Glory, in its Fountain. This is the Divine Nature in the Person of the Father. This is the Glory of Free-Grace.

2. Inlet into the Fountain of Divine Love. All the Riches of Love are seated in the Person of the Father. The Apostle applieth the Riches of Grace to the Father, Ephes. 1. 7. According to the Riches of his Grace. Three things meet in Riches, Preciousness, Plenty, Power. Every thing is purest, and so most precious; everything is most united, and so most plentiful, and so most powerful; everything thus is richest in its Fountain. The first Person is the Fountain of Divine Love. For in him are the riches of Grace. Love is Richest in the Father. The heart of the Father is the Treasury of Love. No where is Love so pure, so unal • ayed, so precious, as in the heart of the Father. Traffick, O Man, for the Treasure of this Love with all thy faculties, with all that thou hast, and art. This Merchandise is beyond that of Gold, and Rubies: Traffick to this Coast of Spices, to this Land of rich, and precious Cordials, the Land of the purest Love, the heart of the Father. No where is Love so plentiful, in such abundance, as in the heart of the Father: The heart of the Father is infinitely larger than the Sea: yet doth Love cover it, as waters do the Sea, where it is deepest, when it is fullest. Cast thy world of Sins, O guilty Soul, with all thy Mountains of guilt into this Sea of Love. Love shall cover them, that they shall never appear more. If thou seek for them, thou shalt not find them. Come, drink thy fill of Loves, O dry, and thirsty Soul, from this rich, and full Spring in the heart of the Father. Come, thou most insatiate Soul, cast thy self into this full Sea of Loves in the Bosom of the Father, hath thyself, roll thyself in the midst of its rich Billows, which rise as high as Heaven. No where is Love so powerful, so irresistible, so full of virtue, as in the heart of the Father. Wash thy heart in this Fountain, and it shall be healed of the Leprosy of every Lust. Lay thy heart down in this Spring in the Bosom of the Father, and all its hardnesses shall be dissolved. Drink in these waters of Love fresh from the heart of the Father, and it shall be a powerful Cordial in thine heart. It shall restore thy Life, thy Strength, the complexion of thy Soul, thy Beauty, thy Spirits, thy Joys as at first, as in Paradise, as in Heaven, as in thine Eternal Original.

3. Inlet. The Father in the Trinity is the Fountain of all Relations, and so the Fountain of Love. Father is the sweetest of all Names, the Name of the highest, tenderest, purest, and most perfect sweetness. A Father is the first Relation, and the Fountain of all Relations. Adam was first a Father, then a Husband. So the Human Nature from him streamed forth into Husband, and Wives, Sons, and Daughters, Brethren, and Sisters, into all Degrees of Kindred, Allyances, and Friendships.

Ephes. 3. 15. St. Paul saith, that from the Father the whole Family in Heaven, and Earth is named. Some render that word Family, the Fatherhood, or Paternity, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . All Fathers in that Relation, all the Fatherhoods, and Paternities of every Father in Heaven, and Earth lieth first in that first Father, the first Person in the Trinity, as in their Fountain.

What comfort is this to every tender, careful grieved Father of every sick, sinful, or lost Child. The true Father to thy Child, which acteth the part of the Father behind the veil of the shadowy Father in thee, is the Father in the Trinity. He is the strength, sweetness, and truth of the Relation every where. The Paternity, the Fatherhood everywhere is named from him.

But if we take the word according to our Translation, it affordeth us the same sweet sense more fully. The whole Family in Heaven, and Earth is named from him, from the Father of our Lord Jesus. A Family is a chain of Relations, which are as so many Links in the chain fastened one to another, Father, Mother, Husband, Wife, Brother, Sister, Children, Friends. All these are named from the Eternal Father. All these sweet, dear names of Union, of Love, agree first, most properly, most truly to him, who is the Supreme Unity, the Original, and Fountain of all Unions, of all Love. All these are named from him. He is the true Parent in the Parents, the true Child, Husband, Wife, Brother, Sister, Friend in thy Child, thy Husband, thy Wife, thy Brother, thy Sister, thy Friends. He is descended into all these, shadoweth himself under them, subsisteth, as the truth, and substance in them. It is this descent of his in them, this Presence, and Appearance of his, which giveth these names to them. Love is either the Relation itself, or the Blood, which runneth along in the vein of every Relation. Every Relation is a Union. Every Union is Love in its proper kind, and degree. The Original, the Fountain of all Unions, of all Loves, of all Relations is the Supreme Unity, which is the Father, the first Person in the Trinity. All Relations in Heaven, and Earth, all Unions are broken pieces of the great Diamond of Divine Love. The Father is this great Diamond of Divine Love, Entire, Eternal, the first, and highest Unity, in which all Unions lie together undivided, complete, making up one Sweetness, which hath the names, and rellishes of all sweetnesses, which giveth name, and relish to every sweetness, which is above all names, and rellishes, inexpressible, incomprehensible. This is the Love-spring in the Trinity of Divine Love. This is the Father in the Trinity of the Divine Nature.

Use. 1. Give all Glory to Free-Grace. Ascribe all Riches to it. Set your Love upon it. This is the Fountain of Divine Love in the Bosom of the Father. This is the Fountain of Israel. This is the Fountain of the God Head. This is your own, your only Fountain, O Saints! All your streams of Life, Grace, Comfort, Glory arise out of this Love-spring in Eternity, which is the heart of the Father. This is the Fountain, this is the Father of Jesus Christ, your Fountain, and Father in him.

He that hath drunk the Waters of Life, and Love from this Well, will never thirst more after any other Waters, or drink of any other Spring. We read in Numbers of a Well in the Wilderness, which the Princes digged with their Staves, and sung to it; Spring O Well. O wandering Souls, behold your Well, which is before you in every Wilderness. The Prince of Life, your Jesus hath digged, and opened it for you from the depths of the God-Head with the Staff, the Scepter of his Spirit. Look to no other Fountain. But sing continually to this; Spring O Well; Spring O thou heart of the Father; Spring in mine heart; Spring with streams of Divine Truth; Spring with streams of Divine Strength; Spring with streams of Divine Joy; Send forth thy streams over all my Soul, and Body; Make all my powers, and parts to sing like the Garden of Eden! O thou Fountain of Gardens, My Prince hath digged, and opened thee in my heart, O thou heart of the Father, with the Staff of his Spirit. Open mine Eyes, O Blessed Spirit, that by thee I may see this Fountain, which by thee is opened in me!

It was at the Fountain, that Jacob, and his beloved Rachel first met. The Daughters of Laban came thither to water their Flocks. But the Well had a great stone upon it, which they could not move. Jacob rolled away the Stone, and watered their Flocks for them: From thence they brought Jacob to their Fathers House, knew him for their near Kinsman, and were married to him. It is at this Fountain of Free-Grace, that the Lord Jesus, and the elect Soul first meet. Sin, Death, and Wrath make the Stone, which cover this Spring. The Lord Jesus rolleth away this Stone, that thou, and all thy Fathers Flocks with thee, all the Principles, and Powers of Life in thee may drink of this Well. Here the Lord Jesus looketh upon thee, and loveth thee. Here he maketh himself known to thee, to be thy Brother, and taketh thee to be his Bride: From this Well he goeth home with thee unto thy Fathers House, into thine heart, into thy natural Spirit, and thine Earthly Image, in these to marry thee to himself, to make the fruitful to Eternal Glory, to enclose this door of thy natural Spirit with Boards of Cedar, a Divine Beauty, Sweetness, and Incorruptibility, to build upon the wall of thine Earthly Image, a Palace of Silver, into which he will invite his Father, the Holy Angels, all glorified Spirits to feast, and inhabit with himself, and thee.

There was often contention for Wells between the Servants of Abimelech, and the Servants of Isaac. These digged them, and the others stopped them up. Contend, O Believers, for this your Well of Free-Grace: Suffer no Egyptians, or Philistines, to stop it up by casting in the Earth, or Stones, and Rubbish of Free-Will, of any Wisdom, Work, or Worth in the Creature. As Earth cast into a Spring defileth it: so by everything of the Creature mingled with the Waters of this Fountain, they lose their clearness, their sweetness, their virtue.

Keep this Spring of the Fathers heart, of Free-Grace pure. So shalt thou see a clear, shining deep of Divine Sweetnesses without any Bottom, the Glorious Deep of Eternity itself. In the clearness of this Spring shalt thou see thine own Face. From the freshness of this Spring thou shalt drink in perpetually new Floods of all living Sweetnesses. With the pure Waters of this Spring thou shalt preserve thine heart ever new, ever soft, ever flourishing with all Joys, ever fruitful in all Graces. O Saints! Keep this Love-Spring, the Fountain of Free-Grace open, keep it pure in your Spirits.

Use. 2. Learn this Divine skill, O Christians, which comprehendeth all the rich mysteries of the Gospel in it. Rise up new every moment with all things round about you out of this Fountain of Love in Eternity, the Bosom of the Father. Return again every moment with all your troop into this Fountain of Love, the Bosom of the Father. Lay yourselves down forever here Here alone is Jesus Christ in his naked Beauties, nakedly embraced.

Seek, see, and enjoy all your pleasant Relations, all pleasant Unions in this Unity of Divine Love, the heart of the Father, as in their proper Fountain. Here is the Truth, here is the Life of them all, in their Original. Here they are unchangeable. Here they are, as Sun-beams, before they come forth, descend, divide, grow shadowy, and fading.

As we keep Flowers fresh by setting their stalks in Water: So say of all your Relations in their shadows on Earth, of all your sweet things with their Sweetnesses; Who is their Father? Answer thyself; The Fountain of Love. Then keep them with their stalks in this Fountain. So shall they be ever fresh, ever sweet to thee.

2. Person. The Love-Birth. God is Love. The three Persons in the Trinity are Love in a three-fold Form, and Property, or in a threefold Distinct, and opposite Relation to itself, within itself, for the enjoyment of itself in the secret of Eternity, abstracted from all Creatures, infinitely before them, and above them. I have spoken of the first Person in this Trinity of Divine Love, the Father, the Fountain of Love in Eternity. I come now to speak of the second Person.

The God-Head in the second Person is Divine Love in its Eternal Birth, and Image, The Fountain of Divine Love, which is the Father, bringeth forth from itself, within itself an Eternal Birth, the complete Image of itself, the Supreme Loveliness, and Beauty. This is our Jesus in the Bosom of the Father.

I shall endeavor to draw the Curtain from before this Blessed, and Glorious Birth of Divine Love, the Beloved, the only one of all Holy, and Heavenly Spirits. I shall endeavor to set this most desired, and most pleasant Person our Lord Jesus before the Eyes of your mind by five Characters, or Marks. The second Person in the Trinity is. 1. The Birth, or Image of Divine Love. 2. The First. 3. The Fairest. 4. The Freshest. 5. The Fullest Birth, and Image of Divine Love.

1. Character. The Lord Jesus is the Birth, or Image of Divine Love. The Heathen in their Divinity tell us of two Twin-Loves in Heaven, which exactly answer one the other. Thus Love, which is the Divine Nature, subsisteth in two Forms, two Persons, the Father, and the Son, which are two Loves, and the same, equally complete, equally loving, equally lovely, equally beloved. Adam in Paradise brought forth Eve to be ever before him, a meet help for him. So the Father, and Fountain of Love bringeth forth in its own Bosom this Son of Love, this Divine Image of Love, to be ever before it, a meet help to it, that Love in this entire Image of itself may perfectly behold, possess, enjoy, and multiply itself to Eternity.

Mat. 3. 17. The Father speaketh to Jesus Christ from Heaven: This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus Christ is the Supreme object of Divine Love, the Supreme Loveliness, and so the Birth, or Image of Divine Love, the Son of Loves. In Divine things every faculty, or power brinketh forth its proper object, which is its perfection from itself, within itself, that it may be independent, and undivided in all its Joys, in all its Glories. The Divine understanding is the Sun, and Spring of Divine Truth, which is the light of its Life, its Object, and its Beauty. The Divine Will is the center of all Divine goodness, which is its proper Object, and Crown. There it Eternally riseth up. There it Eternally resteth. So Divine Love in the Person of the Father is the Parent, and the Bridegroom of the Divine Loveliness in the Person of the Son. This is my Beloved Son, saith the Father from Heaven, in whom I am well pleased. All the Joys of the Father are full; all his pleasures complete here. All Seeds of Love in the heart of the Father are here sprung up into the fair Flowers of all Beauty, into the ripe Fruit of all delights within his own Bosom in the Person of Christ. This is the only Birth, Image, and Object of the Father, the Love-Spring; its Birth, and its Bride within itself. The Father, the Love-Spring bringeth forth this Love-Birth, and lovely Image, the Son of Love; that Love may be both, a Bridegroom, and a Bride to itself.

The Persian Prince called Alcibiades his Garden of Pleasure. The Father in the Trinity is the Fountain of Love: The Son is the Garden of Love rising up within this Fountain. Here the Father of Love soweth all the precious Seeds of Divine Love. Here so soon, as they are sown, they spring up into ripe Fruits, of which the Father eateth, and with which he delighteth himself in his Garden. This is the Circle of Eternity; Love Eternally sowing the rich Seeds, Eternally feasting upon the ripe Fruits of Divine Love in his Garden of Love.

Use. 1. Christians, seek yourselves, your Love-Birth in this Eternal Love-Birth of the Son. Seek the Original, and true Image of yourselves in this Eternal Image of Divine Love. See yourselves, seeds of Love sown in this Garden of Love from Eternity; ripe Fruits of Love flourishing in it Eternally. This is the dearest Jewel of a Saint; that Jewel, which the Saints wear in their Bosom, next their heart, with the sight of which they renew their vigor, and their beauty, recreate all their spiritual senses; I mean the rich Jewel of Electing Love, the Love of Election. In this Jewel a Believer seeth with the Eye of his Faith God the Father, the Fountain of Love in Eternity, God the Son an Eternal Birth of Divine Love from this Fountain, an Eternal Image, an Eternal Garden of Divine Love in this Fountain; himself born in this birth of Love, himself a lovely Image in this Image of Love, himself a Tree of Love in this Garden of Love. Blessed is he, who hath this Testimony in his heart, and from Heaven, that he was born here; that here he rose up first out of the heart of the Father; that here he first appeared to the Eye of the Father; that here the Father set his Love upon him, and took pleasure in him. He hath saved us, saith St. Paul of the Father, Not according to works which we have done, but according to his own purpose, and Grace given to us in Jesus Christ before the World was, 2 Tim. 1. 9. Grace given to us in Christ before the World was. See your Love-birth in the Eternal Love-birth of the Lord Jesus, O Believers. His purpose, and Grace given to us in Jesus Christ before the World was. See the Fountain of Divine Love in the heart of the Father his purpose, and all the Births, all the Images, all the Gardens of Divine Love rising up from the sweet, and blessed depths of that Fountain, all comprehended in that only Birth, that only Image, that only Garden of Divine Love, the Lord Jesus.

Use. 2. Seek this Love-Birth in yourselves. When it pleased the Father to reveal his Son in me; saith St. Paul speaking of the new Birth in himself. When the Father openeth himself, as a Fountain of Divine Love in your Spirits; when the Lord Jesus ariseth up, and appeareth to you, as the Birth, and Image of Divine Love within this Fountain; when yourselves appear in him one Love-Birth in this Fountain of Love together with him; then may you rejoice, and say; now I live; now I am new-born from the Love-spring on high, in the highest Glory. You that have the mystery of this Divine Birth revealed in you, who see the Garden of Love flourishing in the midst of the Fountain of Love within you; retire into this Fountain, into the Garden in the Fountain, the Lord Jesus in the Bosom of the Father. Walk there, solace yourselves there, hide yourselves among the Trees of Divine Loveliness, and Love from the strife of Spirits. Here you shall be fed with the Fruit from these Trees, until the storm of Wrath be over past.

2. Character. The Son of God is the first Birth of Divine Love. It is said of him, Mic. 5. 3. His goings forth are from everlasting. The goings forth of the Lord Jesus the first Birth, and Image of Divine Love from the Bosom of the Father, the Fountain of Love are Eternal, without Beginning. The goings forth of the Light, which is the first, the beautiful Birth, and Image of the Sun, were from the beginning of the Creation. So soon, as the Sun had a being, it had Beams. There was no moment, in which the Sun was without its circle of Beams, no more, than the Beams were without the Sun. In like manner the Lord Jesus, who is the Light, the Brightness, the Beautiful Image of Divine Love had his Birth from Eternity together with the Being of the Father. This Fountain in Eternity was no more without this Image the circle of all its Beauties shining in the midst of it, than this living, and lovely Image of all Glories was without its Fountain, from the unsearchable depth of whose Divine sweetnesses it riseth up continually. The Father is no more without the Son, than the Son without the Father. Both are from Eternity, both equally Eternal in this sacred Mystery, and Trinity of the Divine Nature, of Divine Love.

Prov. 8. This Son of Love is brought in speaking of himself, and his Father: Before the Mountains were formed, ere yet the foundations of the Earth were laid, I was before him, as one brought up with him, his delight day by day. Before all the Creatures in Eternity, the Lord Jesus alone was with the Father, and none other besides him. He was bred up together with him, the Lamb, the lovely, the beloved Birth, and Object of all his Loves, the delight of his Eyes, that fed at his Table, and lay in his Bosom. If you ask now▪ what the Father did, before he made the World; the answer is full, and sweet▪ the Father in the infiniteness of Eternity brought forth Jesus Christ, delighted himself in Jesus Christ, the only Birth of all his Love, and Desires, the entir • Image of all his Loves, and Joys.

Use. If you would be Holy, Heavenly, and Happy, if you would be perfect in all Graces, Joys, and Glories, as your Heavenly Father is perfect: 〈◊〉 like him in this. He is taken up with his Son Jesus alone before, above a Creatures in Eternity. Let this Jesus as he is the Birth, and Image of all D •• vine Loves in the Father the Fountain of Love be your only one, the 〈◊〉 Birth, and beautiful Image of your Spirits, continually before you, bred 〈◊〉 with you into every Age, Form, and State, your only delight day by da▪. This is the first Bir •• of Love, the Birth of Love in Eternity. All those Birth of Love, and lovely Images, which are in the Creature Shadowy, Finite, F •• ding are here Substantial, a Spiritual, and Heavenly Substance, Infinite, Endles • Ever-flourishing.

3. Character. The Lord Jesus, as he is the second Person in the Trinity is the fair •• Birth of Divine Love. We read, 1 Cor. 13. 5. Love behaveth not itself unseem • doth nothing uncomely. The word uncomely, signifieth a want of Proportion. Ha •• money, Order, Figure, which make all Beauty, and Music everywhere. Lo •• can conceive, can form nothing within itself, can bring forth nothing fro • itself, but its proper Object, its proper effect, which is suitable to it. 〈◊〉 is Loveliness, and Beauty. As the Trees of Paradise had their Seed in them so every Birth of Love is in every part full of the Seeds of Love, by which begetteth Love again; full of the Beams of Love, which kindle the swe • heat, and fire of Love. This is loveliness, which soweth the Seeds of Lo •• and sendeth forth the Beams of Love into Spirits round about it. As the 〈◊〉 the Supreme Eye of the visible World is to the Light: so is Love, the Ey •• and heart of Eternity to loveliness. Loveliness is the proper Emanation, 〈◊〉 Image of Love, by which it planteth itself in all Eyes, and Hearts, attract •• all things into the Golden Circle, and Center, into the Glorious Palace of 〈◊〉 Blessed, and Eternal Unity in itself, which is itself.

Love then bringeth forth Loveliness, and Beauty; the Divine Love, all • vine Loveliness, and Beauty; the Supreme Love, the Supreme Loveliness, and Beauty. So the Lord Jesus is Beauty itself, a Divine • Beauty, the Supreme Beauty, the fairest Birth of Love, being the first, the only Birth of the Father, the Fountain of Divine Love, Love at the highest, Love in its first Sweetness.

John 1. 14. We, saith the Holy Apostle speaking of Jesus Christ, saw his Glory, the Glory, as of the Only-begotten Son of God. The Son of God is the only Birth of Love from the Father the Fountain of Love, in two respects; Comparatively; Comprehensively. First, The Lord Jesus is the only Birth, and Image of Divine Love Comparatively for his excelling loveliness. We saw his Glory, as the Glory of the Only-begotten of the Father. So great a Glory shineth in his Person, as darkeneth all other Beauties, all other Births, and Images of Love, maketh them quite to disappear, and seem none at all. Secondly, Our Beloved Jesus is the only Birth, and Image of Divine Love Comprehensively. All his Saints are in thine hand. All Holy Births, and Images of the Father, the Spring of Love in Eternity; all Divine Lovelinesses the works of this curious Workman; all the Jewels of Beauty framed by the skill of the first, and Supreme Love in the heart of the Father, all are comprehended in this Birth, and Image, all adorn the Person of Jesus Christ, are there in their highest luster, and take their Beauty from him. Thus is the Son of God the fairest Birth, and Image of Divine Love.

Use. 1. O Sinners! This is that Jesus, who wooeth you, the fairest of all things, Beauty itself, the Divine, the Supreme Beauty. Object no more against him, and your union with him. Obj. 1. Say not, you are unworthy of him, it cannot be, that he should love Creatures so unlovely as you are. Ans. He, who would be your Bridegroom, will be your Beauty. What Bosom of the Highest, and Divinest Love are you not fit for, when he, who is the Highest, and Divinest Beauty is your Loveliness? What stains can appear in you, when the fairest Image from the Fountain of Love comprehending in itself innumerable Glories, all Divine, all Supreme, descendeth upon you, and wrappeth you up entirely in itself? Obj, 2. Say not, you are unfit, you cannot believe his Love, you cannot love him again, you shall never be pure, and lovely like him, to please him, to honor him. Ans. He, who offereth himself to be your Beauty, and Loveliness, will be your Lover, your Bridegroom. This Glorious Spirit the Life of all Divine Loveliness will be the Husband of your Spirits. All your Fruit shall be from him. He, who is the fairest Birth, and Image from the Fountain of Love, will be the Birth of all Spiritual, and Heavenly Beauties in you, of all Graces, Comforts, and Glories. He will be the lovely Image springing up, the root of Love, the heart of the Father into your whole Spirit, Soul, and Body. Object then no more. Make plain his way. Lay open your hearts to this Jesus, who cometh to be a Divine Beauty to thy Person, a Divine Bridegroom to thy Spirit, the Divine Birth of Faith, of Love, of all Graces, Glories, Joys, and Immortality in thee. He will be better to thee than all thy Righteousness; sweeter to thee than all thy Lusts; Lovelier than all the Idol • of thine Eyes, and Heart; Fruitfuller than all thine hopes.

Use. 2. O Saints! Behold another of your rich Jewels. See here that Jewel, which when you wear, filleth Heaven, and Earth with the brightness, and sweetness of its light round about you; dazleth, blindeth, and confoundeth the Devils, that they cannot come near you to hurt you; attracteth, and draweth down the Angels from Heaven to gaze upon you, to admire you, to attend round about you, to encompass you, whithersoever you go; yea, allureth, ravisheth the heart of the Father himself, to come, and inhabit in you, saying in his Songs of Love: This is my Beloved Birth, my Beloved Bride, in whom my Soul is well pleased. What is this Jewel of the Saints? It is the Righteousness of thy Justification. What is the Righteousness of a Saints Justification? It is this Jesus the fairest Birth of Divine Love, the fairest Image of all Loveliness in the Eternal Fountain of Love, the Bosom of the Father uniting himself to thee, and making himself thy Loveliness, making thee one fair Image of Divine Love, one Divine, and Supreme Beauty with himself. By virtue of this union thorough Faith; where ever he is seen, thy Person is seen together with that fairest Image of Divine Love in the Fountain of Love. Wherever thou art seen rightly, there together with thee, and in thy Person is seen this fairest Image of Divine Love in the open Fountain of Love, the Fathers Bosom. Thou art the Righteousness of God in Jesus Christ; Thou art the Birth, and Image of Divine Love in the fairest Birth, and Image of Divine Love in the midst of the Fountain of Love.

This is thy Beauty, thy Beloved, thy Jesus, O Believer. Trust thyself to the perfection, and covering Glory of his Loveliness. Lie down in the Bosom of his Beauties. Seek all Births, and Images of Love, which ever have been, are, or can be dear to thy Soul in his Face the immortal Seat, and Eternal Spring-season of thyself, and them.

4. Character. The Lord Jesus is the freshest Birth, and Image of Divine Love, that is, of the Divine Nature. The Father, the Love-Spring in Eternity speaketh to the Son, his Love-Birth thus: To day have I begotten thee, Psal. 2. The principal, and terminating sense of these words is the Eternal Generation of the Son in the Trinity. Eternity is one continued day, ever present, never past, never to come, above all Succession. So is the Generation of this Love-Birth ever perfect, ever present, never past. This is true from one end of Eternity to the other, if we may so speak of that, which hath neither Beginning, nor End, today hath the Father begotten the Son. Eternity is Indivisible. All Acts, all Joys, all Things of Eternity are together at once, in one.

There are three Rules, which our Divines lay down concerning this Act of the Generation of the Son by the Father in the Trinity.

1. Rule. This Birth of Divine Love is perfect from Eternity, perfectly sprung up, perfectly brought forth from the Fountain of Love, the Bosom of the Father. The reason of this is the Unity of the Divine Essence. The Divine Nature, the Essence of Love, the God-head is one, equally Eternal in the Father, and the Son▪

2. Rule. The Lord Jesus the lovely Image of D • vine Love is ever in the Birth, ever newly rising up out of the Fountain of Love to Eternity. For the Act of Divine Generation, of the Divine Birth in the Mystery, and Trinity of Divine Love is Eternal, one continued Act from Eternity to Eternity.

3. Rule. This Birth, and Image of Divine Love, the Son ever lieth in its Fountain, the Bosom of the Father. This ariseth from the Unity of the Essence, and the Union of the Persons in this glorious secret of Eternal Love. These Love-Persons in the same Love-Substance are ever distinct, never divided.

Hose. 6. 3. The coming forth of Christ, as the anointed, and anointing of Divine Love, is said to be, as the Morning. The Love-Birth of our Jesus is in this sense, as the Morning. It is ever new, ever fresh, ever pleasant, as the lovely Summer-Morning in its first Sweetnesses, and Light, in its Virgin-Purities, and Pleasures. It was a Divine Sentence of a Holy, and learned Bishop in the primitive times: All that God doth from Eternity to Eternity, is the bringing forth of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is at once a lovely morning for new, and fresh Sweetnesses; ever a glorious noon for the height of his Beauties, and the brightness of his light. He is a lovely Rose ever in the Bud, ever full-blown.

Use. 1. Choose Christ: Refuse the Creature. Take into your Bosom this Love-Birth of the Father. Cast out of your Bosom your own Love-Births in the Creature. All these are Flowers, which wither, and die away, either upon their stalk, or in your hand. Every thing of the Creature declineth so soon, as it cometh to its height. The Lord Jesus is ever the same, ever full, ever fresh, a fruitful Autumn, and a floury Spring both in one continually. This is your Inheritance Incorruptible, Undefiled, that passeth not away, 1 Pet. 1.

Use. 2. Ever believe, as freshly, as freely, as at the first moment of your Conversion, as in the first Act of Believing. The Lord Jesus the ground and object of your Faith is ever fresh, ever new. All thy Sins against the Spiritual Marriage-Bed of thine Heavenly Bridegroom in thine heart can make no impression upon him. He is New-born to thee from the unsearchable depths of Divine sweetness in the heart of the Father every moment. He springeth up a new Love-Birth in the Fountain of Love every moment with all his lovelinesses fresh, fair, and full, like a Rose new-blown; as if now alone they had first appeared.

5. Character. Jesus Christ in the sacred Trinity is the fullest Birth, and Image of Divine Love from the Father, the Fountain of Love. Our Savior is called The Power of God, 1 Corin. 1. Whatever the Father hath brought forth from the Eternal spring of Love, of the God-Head; whatever he doth, wh •• ever he shall, or can bring forth to Eternity, all is comprehended in this Love-Birth, in this Glorious, and full Image of Love, of God, Jesus Christ.

The Father, the Fountain of Love, the Supreme Unity bringeth forth itself into all variety in this full Image of himself, his Son, that he may rest in his Son, that his Joy may be full in him.

As the Father is the first Unity: so the Son is the first distinction, or variety. The first is the highest distinction, and variety, the fullest distinction, and variety; the Fountain of all distinctions and varieties. As the Father is the Unity of Love, the Love-spring; so the Son is the variety of Love, the entire Image of all Loves, and Lovelinesses. All things in Heaven, in Earth, and under the Earth lie together here in this Image, in the perfect Harmony of the Supreme Love, and Beauty, according to their proper distinctions, as Branches of the first, the fairest, and the fullest variety.

Use. 1. With all thy stock of Life, and abilities, Traffick for this great, and rich Pearl the Lord Jesus. His price is beyond that of Rubies. All thy desires cannot equal him. All Prices are comprehended in his Price. All precious things are in this Pearl. O that we understood with Spiritual Hearts, that we saw with Spiritual Eyes, that we relished with a Spiritual taste this Love-Birth, this Image of Love, this variety of Love, the first, the full distinction, and variety, the Fountain of all distinctions, and varieties in the Person of Christ, we should then rejoice to see each dear, or displeasing object, each state, and circumstance of Life in its proper, and distinct Form, a distinct Form, a distinct Spirit of Divine Love, and Beauty, immortal shining in this Eternal Spirit; in this Heavenly Image; Love, and Loveliness itself; the first, the fullest variety, all variety in one entire, and All-glorious Form, the Fountain of variety, which is our Jesus. Ignatius being to die, said: Let Sword, Fire, wild Beasts, the Cross, breakings of all my bones, tortures thorough all my body▪ so I may find Christ, so I may gain Christ. If thou hast Jesus Christ, he is thy Garland; and all these are sweet-smelling, Immortal Flowers in thy Garland; he is thy Crown, all these are precious Stones, and Jewels in thy Crown. A Sword in Christ is a living Form, and penetrating power of Divine Love, dividing between Flesh, and Spirit, the Bone, and the Marrow in thee; piercing to the Bottom of thine heart, to open the Fountain of Eternal Life, and Joy • in thee. The fire springing up in this Love-Birth is a flame of Love working thee into one Heavenly flame with itself, and to this end embracing thee, winding itself into all the secrets of thy Body, and Soul. The Teeth of wild Beasts appearing in this Image of Divine Love are the Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of Love feasting upon thee, and then feasting thee upon itself. The Cross in this Garden of Love is a Tree of Eternal Love, thou art the fair, and sweet Fruit upon this Tree. The breakings of Bones looked upon in this mysterious Glass of all varieties, the Eternal Word, the Eternal Image of Love are no Wounds, but Divine Anointings. The tortures of the whole Body are the costly perfume of Love poured forth upon the head of the Sacrificer, and running down all along to the hem of his Garments.

Use. 2. Hast thou Jesus Christ? Care for nothing more in him are all things given thee richly to enjoy. If he be come to thee, look for no other thing. There is nothing can come after h • m. He is the full Birth, and Image of Divine Love. The vanity, and emptiness of the Creature is expressed by Solomon after this manner: What is that, which hath been? It is that, which is; and what is that, which is to come? It is that, which hath been, It is named already It is man.

So do thou express the variety, and fullness of Jesus Christ. So quench all other Loves in thee. What is that, which hath been? It is that, which is. What is that, which shall be? It is that, which hath been. It is all named in Jesus Christ. If thou hast Jesus Christ, thou art rich to God, thou hast all his Treasure. Now sing thy Soul to a Divine sleep, and rest in the Bosom of Divine Love with these words: go to rest, O my Soul. Thou hast all good things laid up for thee in the Person of thy Jesus to Eternity. The Bosom of the Father, the Fountain of Love is opened in thee. The Lord J • sus, the full Birth, the full Image, the full variety of Love springeth forth from this Fountain for thee.

Poets say, that every Spring hath at the bottom of it a palace of Pearl, in which the Divinity, the God of this Spring dwelleth. God the Father is the Fountain of Love. The Lord Jesus riseth up in the rich depths of this Fountain, as the Palace of Eternity, composed of all variety in most precious Forms, and Figures; furnished with, inhabited by all variety in all Beautiful, and Heavenly Images; in the dress of all Divine entertainments; in the form of all Glorious, and Eternal Spirits flowing continually with all manner of Sweetnesses. O Saint! O Believer! Thou hast this Fountain, this Palace continually open in thee. Open thou the Eye of thy Faith. Look upon the Treasures of it; if thou canst number them, if thou canst comprehend them. Separate thyself through desire kindled in thee by the strength of thy Faith, and thy Love. Descend into this Fountain. Dwell forever in this Palace, and intermeddle with, enjoy all substance.

I have spoken of the two first Persons in the Trinity, I come now to the third.

3. Person. The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Trinity is the Love-union between the Love-Spring, and the Love-Birth; the Father, and the Son. The Holy Ghost h • th his name from Breathing. Eternal Love distinguishing itself into two Persons, the Father, and the Son, from both these by a conspiration of Love doth breath forth itself into one third person, the Holy Spirit, in which they both stand two distinct Persons in one third Person, which is the Love-union, the golden Marriage knot of them both. The Holy Spirit is frequently expressed in Scriptures by an Ointment. Several rich Spices breath forth themselves into one costly ointment. Th • Spices all meet in one precious Form, in which they still retain their own distinct forms; the sweetnesses, and virtues of the several Spices breath forth themselves into one pleasant perfume, in wh • ch all the several sweetnesses remain distinct, mutual penetrating, and infusing each the other in that one sweetness distinct from them all. So the Father, and the Son by the force, and mystery of Divine Love, breath forth themselves into one distinct Person, the Holy Ghost, in which they also remain distinct, distinctly, and mutually, penetrating, possessing, enjoying the Persons of each other, with their Properties, Powers, Sweetnesses, and Beauties in that one. Thi • one is distinct from both, because it comprehendeth both distinctly in one. This is the Love-union between the Fountain, and the Birth, or Image o • Divine Love.

It is a saying, which Thomas Aquinas citeth from St. Austin: Whatever there is of Sweetness, of Pleasantness, of Complacency, of Delight, of Joy, of Love, of Loveliness, of Agreeableness, of Suitableness, of Harmony anywhere; it is the Holy Ghost. The reason is this: All Colours with their several Beauties are the mixtures of shade, and light. Children are the Parents united. So everything of Love, or Beauty; every Divine Work, and Operation thorough Heaven, and Earth is the Love-union between the Father, the Fountain of Love, and this lovely Image, which is both the Birth, and the Bride of Love, of the Father. All Pleasa • tness, all Divine Acts of Creation, and Providence with their several Lights, Lives, Loves, and Virtues are this Love-union in its lovely extent, and vast variety. The Psalmist saith of God: Thou hast stretched out the Heavens by thy Breath, by thy Spirit. The Heavens are the Beauty, the Pleasantness, and Joy of the Divine Appearance, and the Divine Operation, which is the Love-Image, and the Love-Birth everywhere.

Use. 1. Pray, O Christians, for the Heavenly Eye-salve of the Holy Ghos • to anoint the Eyes of your minds. What Blessed sights shall you then see every where? What Heavenly Visions of Divine Love, and Beauty upon the Spiritual Bed of Eternal Love shall you meet with in every object? In even work of God, in every act of Providence you will see the high, and gloriou • Trinity; the adored, and amiable mystery of Eternal Love; the three Beau • tiful, and Blessed Persons of this Trinity, of this mystery; the Father, 〈◊〉 Fountain of Love, the Son the Fathers Lovely Birth, Bride, in their Love-union, on their Heavenly Marriage-Bed figuring themselves, and shining will • the naked, substantial Glory thorough the Figure. You will say to the sweetne • of every Flower, to the Beauty of every prospect in your walks: this is th • Love-union between the Father, and the Son; this is the fruit of the Marriage-Bede, on which the Father of Loves, and his Lovely Image his Son, a •• his Bride lie eternally embracing each other. This is th • perfume, this is th • luster of the holy Spirit. You will say of every Sickness, Sorrow, and Death▪ Here also is the Love-union. These also are Love-Births, Love-Images fro • the Marriage-Bed of Love in Eternity. These also are Doves with Wings 〈◊〉 Silver, and Feathers of Gold from that Mother-Dove, the Holy Spirit, 〈◊〉 Love-Marriage between the Father, and the Son in the most holy Trini •• ▪

Use. 2. Give Glory to the Persons of this blessed Trinity, to this myste • y of Divine Love continually. Dost thou perceive any good principle in Grace, or nature putting forth itself in thee. Give thanks, and say: This is the Father, the Fountain of Divi • e Love opening himself, and springing in 〈◊〉 Dost thou feel any sweet Appearance of Truth, or Goodness, Light or Love in thy Spirit? Rejoice, and say, this is the Son, the Love-Birth, the Love-Image, the Lord Jesus rising up from his Fountain, the Bosom of the Father in me. If there be any Virtue, any Power, any Pleasantness, any Joy, any Life of Love: lift up thine heart, and hands on high, say: This is the Love-union, the Love-knot in the most high, and Holy Trinity; this is the Holy Spirit, the Marriage Bed of the Eternal Bridegroom, and Bride, the Father of all Loves, the Image of all Lovelinesses. This is thy high, and Heavenly Marriage-Bed, which is now Green, flourishing, and fruitful in me.

Use. 3. Let this be the mark, at which thou aimest, O Believer, to be taken up into this Love union, into this Eternal Marriage-Bed; to be one with the Father, and the Son, as they are one in the Unity of the Spirit.

I have now finished the last Argument for the confirmation of that proposition, God is Love. The Argument was this; The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of Divine Love. Let me conclude this Argument with one general Use.

Use. Hold fast the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Study it with humble, pure, Spiritual understandings, with the Scriptures in your Eye, as your mark to guide you in your way, with the Holy Ghost in your heart, as your Light of Life, to discern your mark, your way, and your end.

It is a deep, and Divine contemplation, that of a Learned, Acute, and Hea • enly Person: God hath two Boxes, in which he hath laid up his Jewels; the • ncarnation, and the Trinity. God hath opened one Box, the Incarnation. There we have seen rich, and sparkling Jewels in the union between the Di • ine and Human Nature here below, God manifested in 〈◊〉 . But O! What • ewels shall we see, what Loves, what Glories, what Unions, when God, shall open his other Box of the Trinity, when we shall see God justified in the • pirit?

The Trinity is the Supreme, the Sovereign mystery of the Gospel; the • undation of fair Colours, upon which all evangelical mysteries are built; • e Fountain in Eternity, from which they slow. Then shall we understand 〈◊〉 mysteries, when God shall take the veil from before this, which is the entire, 〈◊〉 clear-shining Face of the God-Head. Here is the Supreme Unity▪ the Foun •• in of all Love, Life, and Light. Here is the variety of Love, and of Life, 〈◊〉 its fairest Light, in its first, and fullest Image. Here is the Love-union, the 〈◊〉 Treasury, the curious Spring, the golden Band of all Unions, Motions, • easures, and Joys. Blessed is he, who with Eyes washed in this Fountain looketh into it, seeth himself, and all Divine Mysteries there Unvailed. So▪ Austin wished to have seen Christ in the Flesh. O how much more Divine, and Blessed a Spectacle is it to see Christ in the Spirit, that is, in the Glory of the

Trinity, the Three Persons in One with all their Eternal Beauty, fully, and freely displayed. Pray for, Wait for, Look up continually into the Heights, and Lights o • the Spirit for this sight.

I have now brought to an End my last Description of Divine Love, which is the Divine Nature. God is Love. I will seal up this Sweet, and Sovereign Truth of the Gospel with One Use.

Use. If you will be Children of God, be Children of Love. God is Love. Love is the Divine Nature in God, and in all His Holy Ones. 1. Beware of Lust, the Corruption of Love. 2. Beware of Passion the Contrariety to Love.

1. Beware of Lust the Corruption of Love. The Corruption of the best Thing is the Worst. All Lust is Love degenerated, Love Corrupted. Love is the Best of all things. Love in its purity, at its Height, is the Godhead in God. Lust is the Formality, and Essence of the Devil, as he is a Devil. St. Jude teacheth us; that fleshly Lusts are the similitude of that First sin of the Faln Spirits, which made them of Angels Devils.

Ixion in the Poets loved a Goddess, in the place of whom he embraced a Cloud formed into the Shape of a Divine Beauty. Thus he became the Father of the Centaures, half Men, half Beasts. Then he was cast into hell where he is fastened to a Wheel turning continually round, on which he is tormented day, and night. This P • rab • e is meant of thee, O Lustful Spirit: Thou wert made for Divine Love, f • r the Love of the Divine Beauty. Thus hast changed, this Love into various Lusts. Thou defi • est thyself with Shadows, Clouds of Darkness formed into the Empty Snapes of Beauty. Instead of the Divine, and Human Nature in the Blessed Harmony of an Immortal Union, all thy Births, all thy Production are Horrid hateful monsters; Man, Beast, and Devil all in One Spirit, in One Person. Thy end is the Endless Circle of thy Lusts, and of the Divine wrath, as the Wheel of Eternity, a Wheel of Fire, holding thee fast tied to it, and torturing thee without any Rest, or Period.

2 Beware of Passion the Contrariety to Love. Sampson tied Foxes together by their Tails with Firebrands between them. So he sent them forth to burn up the standing Corn of the Philistines in the Fields. O men! when ye fall from the Wisdom of God into the Subtlety of the Serpent, you become Foxes, not Men. Your Lusts, your Carnal Interests are your Tayls, by which you are tied together in all your Unions, and Commerce; your Passions are Fire-brands fastened to your Tayls. Thus the Devil sendeth you forth to deface, and consume the Beauties, the Peace, the Comforts each of other, of the whole Creation round about you. Behold the true Figure of Passionate Persons, whose Wrath, Envy, Hatred, Malice are Fire-brands Kindled from Hell, and fastened to their Lusts, as to their ta • ls, in which they carry them burning about thorough all things.

In the Holy of Holies was placed a Mercy-Seat all of Beaten Gold, the Throne of Grace, the Throne of Love. Out of this Throne of one piece with it, rose up two Cherubims of Beaten Gold. They stretched forth their Wings they set their faces one to the other. They together looked down to the Mercy-Seat. This is the Heavenly Figure of your Christ, and you, O ye Children of Love, in your Love-Union, and Spiritual Communion. God in Christ, Christ in the Glory of the Father is the Golden Mercy-Seat, the Throne of Love. The Saints are the Cherubims, the Children of Love rising up from the Throne of Love, of one piece of Gold, of one Love-Spirit with it. With their Faces, their Divine part they look one to another, and maintain a mutual society. They spread their Hearts, their Spiritual understandings, their Spiritual affections to each other, and so meet, so embrace. With united Spirits they look down to the Throne of Love in the midst of them, out of which they grow up together, from which they continually draw fresh Beams, fresh Love, life, and Joy.

O Saints, O Holy Souls be rooted in Love, grow up out of this Throne of Love, Shine forth with Faces of Love, spread forth wings of Love. Be in all things one piece, one pure Gold of Divine Love with the Throne of Love, the Divine Nature. For God is Love.

I am now come to the period of my discourse upon the first part of my Doctrine; The Love of God.

The second part is the Effusion, or pouring forth of Divine Love.

I shall express this to you by six Properties. The Love of God is poured forth in Jesus Christ. 1. Freely. 2. Purely. 3. Plentifully. 4. Powerfully. 5. Essentially. 6. Eternally.

1. Property The Love of God is poured forth in Jesus Christ freely. 2. Sam. 7. 21. David is brought in, as a Type of Jesus Christ. He sitteth in the Temple be • ore the Lord, when he was settled in his Kingdom, and at the height of his Kingly Glory. Thus Jesus Christ sitteth upon his Throne in the highest Heavens before his Father. He discourseth to his Father of the wonders of his Fathers Love, and his own Glory. What is my Fathers House, that thou hast brought me hitherto? v. 18. I was a Man, a poor Creature, a Worm of the Earth, Earthy, as the Dust of the Earth, as low, as the neathermost parts of the Earth, as low, and naked, as the first principle of the first Creation, when the Earth was empty, and void, when darkness covered the face of it: This was my Fathers House. Yet thou hast brought me hitherto, thou hast brought me to thy right Hand, far above all Principalities, and Powers, all Heavens to thy Throne. Thou hast given me a new Name above every Name, a Name, that eminently comprehendeth all Names in it; a Name, that infinitely transcendeth all Names. Thus Love is poured forth in Christ.

Jesus Christ goeth on in the Person of David. And this was yet a small thing in thy sight; O Lord God; thou hast spoken of thy Servants House for a great while to come, v. 19. This, O my Father, which thou hast wrought so wonderfully; these mighty Works, these Miracles of Divine Love, and Glory in my Person seem a small thing to thee. Thou hast spoken of my House, my Church, my Members, my Seed to reign with me in the same Kingdom of Glory to Eternity.

Then Jesus Christ raiseth this Love to the highest point of Admiration, to a state of transcendency above the capacity, and comprehension of all Human Hearts, of all Created understandings. Is this the manner of Man, O Lord God! Is there anything among Men, in the compass of the Creation, to which this Love can be likened, or with which it can be compared? Is there anywhere any Image, Figure, or Resemblance of such a design, such a work of Love, and Glory?

Thus Love is poured forth in the Person of the Lord Jesus, See now, how freely it is poured forth. According to thine own heart hast thou done all this, v. 21. Indeed he bringeth in first; For thy Words sake; for thy Promise; for thy Sons sake, thine Eternal Word, thine Essential Image, the Ground of thy Promise; the Subject of thy Love, and Design; the Pattern, and Model of thy Work. But this word springeth from that Root, to which all is ultimately referred; the Heart of God; According to thin • own Heart hast thou done all this.

The Heart of God is the Fountain of living Loves, which springeth up freely of its own accord to Eternal Joys, and Glories in the Person of Christ.

The Love of God in Christ receiveth its Beginning, Force, Form, Fashion, and Finishing from the Heart of the Father. All the Works of God are said in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to have been Finished from the Beginning of the World. All the Loves of God, all the Works of Divine Love manifested, and wrought in the Blessed Person of our Lord Jesus were finished from Eternity in the heart of his Father.

All Tides are from the Aestuation of the Sea. The Sea boiling up from its Bottom, as it riseth, and dilateth itself, poureth forth floods of Waters into all Rivers which run along in the Bosom of the Earth. The Heart of God is the great Sea of Love. This from its own Divine Heart, Height, and Fulness filleth all Spirits with its Heavenly Floods in the Bosom of Jesus Christ.

The Will in the Soul is said by a learned Man to be Amplitudo Intellectûs, the understanding in its full ext • nt.

The Love of God poured forth upon the Person of Christ, and upon all the Saints, upon all things • n him, is Amplitudo Cordis Divin • , the largeness of God's Heart, the Heart of God in its full extent, and latitude. So David addeth in the same place, that God doth all this to show his Greatness, the Greatness of his Heart; for he faith; This is to make thy Servant know; v. 21. To display thyself, to draw a perfect draught of thyself in the Person of Christ. In what? The next verse expresseth it. Wherefore thou art Great. v. 22.

James 1. 5. God is said to give to all men liberally, and to upbraid none. Love is implied in the gift; Freedom in the liberality, and gentleness without reproach. The Person of Christ is signified in the universality; All Men. Christ is one among the rest of Men, Christ is the Fulness of Mankind. He took not upon him the Person, but the nature of man, unrestrained to any particular Person. His Human Nature was not a Branch, or an Apple, but the Apple-Tree.

There are two expressions, which St. James maketh use of here to set forth the Freedom of Divine Love in the effusions of it.

1. He giveth Liberally. The Word in Greek is Simply, without any Reserve; without any Division of the Heart. Simplicity is Unity; The Intentness of the Mind upon One Thing. The heart of God, All the Thoughts of his heart, All the Powers of the Godhead, All the Divine Attributes are united, and intended upon This One Thing alone; Love poured forth on the Person of the Lord Jesus.

Simplicity is without Alteration, or Composition. The heart of God is single in this, Natural, unchangeable. This is the One Thing, the Only Thing of God's heart. This is the S • mplicity of the Divine Operations from E • ernity to Eternity; The Effusion of Love in the Person of Christ▪ There may be many Shadows, many Vails; many Windings: But this is the Simplicity, the naked Face of the Divine Design, of the Divine Work from the Beginning to the End; as it lieth in the heart of God.

2. Upbraiding none To upbraid, is to object some Evil, as an Argument of withholding some Act of Love, or exercising some Act of Wrath. John. 1. 2. 9. Jesus Christ is called the Lamb, which taketh away ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , tollit, taketh up, beareth) the Sins of the World. When the Father was to pour forth his Love upon Christ he did not reproach him saying; Thou hast the Sins of all the World upon thee. Thou hast upon thee Millions of Whoredomes, Adulteries, Incests, Treasons, Witchcrafts, Murthers, Idolatries, Rebellious Blaspemies, Horrid Profanenesses, Apostasies, Spiritual wickednesses in Heavenly, Angelical, Divine Forms, the proper Sins of Devils. Thou hast many David's, Amnons, Absalom's, Manasseh's, Mary Magdalens, many Peters, many Judas's in thee; and comest thou to me for Love? How can I give thee my Love? Instead of this, when he is Baptized into that public Ministry, in which he professedly beareth the Sins of all the World before Men and Angels, in which he beareth the Person of the greatest Sinners, that ever were in the open Eye of Heaven; Heaven openeth upon him, the God-Head descendeth upon him visibly in a living Form of Love, in the Form of a Dove; a voice cometh to him from the Father: This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

St. Paul saith; Love thinketh no Evil. Solomon saith; Love covereth All Sin. When the Father should express Love to Christ in the Person of a Sinner; he doth not object thy Unloveliness, thy Filth, thy want of Love, thy enmity; neither to deny Love, nor to make the manner of expressing love l • ss sweet, less lovely▪ No. As the Se • , when it floweth covereth all the Sand on the Shore round about, with Multitudes of deep Waters, so God, when he poureth forth his love in Jesus Christ drowneth Eternally the innumerable multitudes of thy Sins with mighty, and unfathomable Seas of Love, which never return to leave them naked, or bare to any Eye anymore forever.

God poureth forth his Love in Jesus Christ freely; that is. 1. Naturally. 2 Nakedly. 3. Indifferently.

1. God poureth forth his Love in Christ Naturally, Mat. 3. 17. This is my Beloved Son; in whom I am well pleased. Every Faculty, or Power is carried forth naturally to its proper object. Jesus Christ is the proper object of the Fathers Love.

The most perfect work of Nature in everything is to bring forth its like. Then nothing so Naturally, so Powerfully attracteth love, so delighteth, a • this similitude doth. The most perfect, and perpetual Act of the Divine Nature in the Father is to bring forth the most perfect Image of himself in the Person of Christ; then to pour forth himself in all Divine Loves, and Pleasures into his Bosom.

Pleasure accompanieth all natural operations. Pleasure naturally drawet • every Spirit. Jesus Christ draweth the Heart of the Father, all his love entirely to himself; because the Father is pleased in him. He is the Rest, and Joy of his Father.

Three Things follow upon This • aturalness of the Father's Love in Christ, 1. Sweetness; 2. Force; 3. Duration.

1. Sweetness. That is ever Sweetest, which is most Natural. Live Honey is most esteemed; because it droppeth Naturally of its own accord from the Honey-Comb. Thou, who hungrest after the Love of God, lie down in the arms of thy Jesus. There Love will drop and fall from the Heart of the Father into the Mouth of thy Spirit, as Freely, as Naturally, as Sweetly, as 〈◊〉 Live Honey from the H • ny-Comb.

2. Force. That, which is Natural, hath the Greatest Force in it. Every Natural Agent worketh to the utmost of its Power. Thou, who wantest Love be found in Jesus Christ. As the Sun every moment poureth forth All h •• Beams from every part of him because he shineth Naturally: so will the Father pour forth himself in Millions of Loves from every Point of his Hear • of his Godhead; he will pour forth himself in All his Loves; he will po •• forth himself All in Loves upon Thee in Jesus Christ. For the Father, as Naturally loveth in Jesus Christ; as the Sun-shineth.

3. Duration. Nothing violent, unnatural continueth. Psal. 30. 5. His ang •• endureth but a moment. In his favor there is Life. Clouds, and Storms 〈◊〉 not long. They are a violence upon the Air, and Praeternatural to it. Calm •• Serenities and Clear Sunshines, are its Natural State. Clouds, and Storms of wrath are a Force upon the Divine Nature, Strange to it, a Disguise upon it. The Blessed Calms, Serenities, and Sun shines of Loves of Love are its proper State. Comfort thyself then, O afflicted Soul! The rain will be over; the storm will be passit away. The sweet, and clear, the Golden, the Glorious smiles of Love will return after the Storm, and Rain. These will rest the Last in the Face of God, and upon thy Spirit. Wrath is but for a moment; at longest the moment of this Life, this Shadow, this short Dream of Lifes. The Truth of Life, the Perpetuity of Life, Eternity is for Love.

2. God poureth forth his Love in Christ Nakedly. John. 3. 34 God giveth him his Spirit without Measure. The Spirit is Love in a Living Person, in its Eternal Substance, in its Native Seat, in its Unlimited Freedom; as Light in the Sun. God saith to the Lord Jesus; I will not stand to measure out my Love to thee. Take it All. I will not give thee a Jewel out of my Cabinet; but my Cabinet of Jewels. I will not give thee an Apple of Love off from the Tree; but the Tree of Love, with all ripe, and pleasant Fruits of Love, hanging upon it. I will not give thee some Spice from the Island; but the Island of Spices, the Land of Loves, where they grow, and increase eternally. I will give thee the Infinite, Eternal Spirit of Love himself, where all the Treasures of Love • re without number, measure, or End.

The Face of Divine Love in Jesus Christ hath no Vail upon it, though • ever so thin; no Cloud upon it though never so fine: No. Its Love shineth • orth in Jesus Christ with a na • ed face; in its Strength, with all its Beauties, • ll its Sweetnesses.

Thou, who art weary, who art heavy laden with any Debt, any Burthen 〈◊〉 Guilt, Sin, or Sorrow; come lay thy head upon this Pillow, the Naked • eart of God in the Naked Bosom of Jesus Christ. Here thou wilt sleep, and thy • eep will be sweet to thee; thou wilt forget thy Debts, and Cares; thou wilt 〈◊〉 no weight, no burden upon thee anymore.

3. The Love of God poureth forth itself in Christ Indifferently, that is, 1. Without Distinction; 2. • ithout Condition.

1. The Love of God poureth forth itself in Christ without Distinction. John. 〈◊〉 16. God so loved the World, that he gave his only-begotten Son; that whoso • ver believeth in him, should not perish; but should have everlasting Life. Let 〈◊〉 Sinners, let all the Souls of all Mankind hear this. All Persons, all States, 〈◊〉 D • grees; the Persons of all Sinners, All States, and Degrees of Sin are A •• e to the Love of God in Jesus Christ. It findeth no Distinctions. It maketh • ll Distinctions by its own Election, Descent, and Operation. It taketh away 〈◊〉 Distinctions by putting the greatest Comeliness upon the most uncomely • rts; by pouring forth itself in the greatest Loveliness upon the unloveliest • arts; by being Infinite in the Effusion of itself upon Every Part of Christ's 〈◊〉 . The First Matter is said by learned men to be a Deep of Emptiness, and Darkness, a mere Possibility, a Pure Passiveness to all Forms of Things. Such Matter, such a Subject is every Soul to the Divine Love in Christ. Every Soul is in itself a great Deep covered with the Blackness of a Darkness. But it is to This Love a mere Possibility, a Pure Passiveness. It cannot actuate itself to a Complyance, or a Resistance. Love cometh to it, as its Form, infuseth itself into it, penetrateth thorough the whole Substance of it, filleth it in every Part. Love reigneth Powerfully over it, reigneth gloriously in it; maketh it a Kingdom of Love; maketh it a Lovely Queen to itself standing at its own right hand, reigning, and ruling together with itself in this New Kingdom of Love.

Rom. 5. 20. Where Sin abounded, there Grace hath abounded much more Seas, and rivers have their High-Water Marks. Thus far their Waters come, when they are highest, but no further. The Sea of Divine Love in the Bosom of Christ hath no High-Water Mark, no Bound; Thus far Love shall flow, thus high its pure and sweet Waves shall rise, to wash, to make white, to make new, to overflow, Sinners of such Circumstances; But beyond this no Love shall pass, to Sins of such aggravations, of so deep, and foul a Dye; to Sins against so much Light, so much Love; to Sins so often repeated after so many new Repentances, new Resolutions; to Sins so black, so bloody, No; The Love of God is without Distinction; to all Sins, and over all Sinners in Jesus Christ. If It maketh any Difference; It floweth first, It riseth highest there, where Sin hath most abounded; that there It may be most Glorified. The Love of God in Jesus Christ maketh the greatest Sinners its Patterns to all the World of Men, and Angels; Its Master-pieces to Eternity.

1 Tim. 1. 15. God had mercy on me the Chiefest of Sinners; that I might be an Ensample to all that shall believe in ages to come; saith St. Paul. The holy Apostle doth not speak vainly, when he calleth himself The Chief of Sinners he speaketh the truth in the Holy Ghost, and lieth not. He setteth himself, as a Light on a high Watch-Tower, to all thorough all ages, that shall fa •• upon Seas of Lust, in a dark Night of Ignorance, and Unbelief, exposed to Storms of Wrath. He inviteth them to make thither, there they shall be safe, they shall find rest, they shall find a Heven of Divine Love in the Bosom of Jesus Christ defended by the Rocks of Eternity, the Divine Attributes from every wind.

No Vessel will fear want of water there, where it seeth the greatest Ship of the greatest burden, deepest loaden which draweth the greatest depth of waters, to sail safely. St. Paul being dead yet speaketh to the greatest Sinners in every age after this manner. Behold a Sea of Love, a Channel of Love the Love of God poured forth in the Bosom of Jesus Christ. My self the greatest Sinner deepest loaden with Sin, and Guilt, who draw the greatest depth of Love, have here found Love enough, unfathomable Love, on which I have been carried safely, triumphantly unto that Flourishing Land of Glory, where now I feast continually with all Blessed Spirits in the midst of all Incorruptible Beauties, and Joyes. Let no sinner ever after me doubt to trust himself to this Channel, to put himself upon this Sea of Love in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus. Thus the Love of God poureth forth itself without Distinction in the Glorified Person of our Blessed Savior.

2. The Father poureth forth his Love in Christ Indifferently, that is, Without Condition.

1. The Love of the Father dependeth upon no Conditions between himself, and his Son; the Father doth not say to Christ; I will pour forth my Love in thee for Sinners; but upon this Condition, that thou make thy Soul an offering for Sin; that thou satisfy my Justice and my Wrath; that thou take upon thee to make them capable of my Love, suitable to me in Holiness, and Spirituality. All, that the Lord Jesus hath done, or suffered is no Condition, but Consequent of the Father's Love. Love is the Sea: These are the many Springs, by which it variously boileth up, the many Streams, and Windings, in which it playeth with itself, as it runneth along in this Earthly Image, until it return into the Sea, itself again, from whence it came.

The Lord Jesus testifieth; The Words, which I speak, are not mine, but the Father's. He doth the Works.

It is the First, the Supreme Love itself, which shut up itself in Flesh, which was made Flesh; It is That Love, which weepeth bleedeth, dieth; which hangeth upon the Cross, lieth in the Grave. It is that Love, which riseth again, maketh itself a Spirit, ascendeth up on high, taketh to itself Its First, and great Glory. It is that Love, which, as a Spirit, cometh to thee Invisibly, by day, and by Night; which is now with thee Invisibly, wooing thee in all Forms, in Its Blood, in Its Beauties, by all means working itself into thine heart. It is The Love of the Father, That Love, which is the Only Father, which doth all the Works, which speaketh all the Words in the Person of the Lord Jesus.

It is the same Gold which is stamped in several pieces, with several Images, to make Crowns Angels, Twenty shilling Pieces. Coin, and Currant Money for Traffick. The Incarnation, Active Obedience, Sufferings, Resurrection, Intercession of the Lord Jesus; his Presence, his Powers, his Operations in the Spirit are All The same Gold, The same Divine Love in several Forms bearing several Figures, for Traffick, and Commerce between God, and the Creature. When thou presentest to God the Blood, the Glory, the Intercession, the Spiritual Operations▪ the Graces of the Lord Jesus; thou settest before him, his Love himself in various Manners, in various Mysteries. The Only Coin, the Only Currant Money, the Only Means of Commerce in the Kingdom of Heaven, is Love, the First Supreme, Eternal Love, the Gold of Eternity, the most high, and most Glorious Unity in all varieties, stamped with all Figures.

2. The Father in giving his Love maketh no Condition with Sinners. He doth not say; I give thee my Love for that Sinner upon Condition that he be humbled, that he accept of my Love, that he believe in thee. The Gospel is a Covenant of Grace. The Covenant is All Love. The Covenant is Compleat in the Person of Christ, who is The Divine Love, Eternal Love in a Divine, Infinite, Eternal Person. I have given him, saith the Lord by the Prophet Esa • ah, for a Covenant to the Nati • ns.

All Preparations, Qualifications, Acceptations are not Conditions of This Love, but Infallible Consequents; not Causes, without which the Covenant hath no Force; but Irresistible, Immutable Effects of it.

By Grace ye are saved: Ephes. 2. The whole Work of our Salvation from the Begining to the End, from the first Design in Eternity to the last Act in Eternity is Pure Love.

Divine Love shineth in upon a Dark Spirit, Enlightneth, Awakneth, Convinceth it by Its own Heavenly Brightness. Divine Love burneth up, flameth in a Defiled, Dead heart, raiseth a Divine Life, and Sense in it, melteth it, consumeth its Dross, maketh it new.

The Love of the Father in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus is the Golden Mine, out of which a Saint is first taken: the Flaming Mint, where he is Melted, refined, made pure Gold, and stampit with the Divine Image.

Rev. 1. 5. 6. He, saith St John of our Lord Jesus, hath loved us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us Kings, and Priests to God his Father. The Love of the Father in the heart of Christ is our only Fountain. All the Blood, which streameth from the Wounds of Christ to wash us, runneth down from this Fountain. This Love is the Costly Ointment running down upon all our Persons, anointing us for Priests, and Kings.

Poor Soul, which liest in thy Sins, which liest a Slave in Chains, at the bottom of a Dark, Deep, and Miry Dungeon. The Love of the Father in the Person of the Lord Jesus cometh to thee; It taketh thee into itself, as a Bath of most precious Blood, in which It cleanseth thee from all thy filth, cherisheth all thy parts bringeth thee to thyself, to a Divine Beauty, to a Divine Warmth sense, and Life. This Love setteth itself, as a Priestly, and Kingly Crown upo • thy Head. It infuseth itself, as a Priestly, and Kingly Spirit, into thee. 〈◊〉 changeth itself in thine Iron Chains into Bracelets of Gold upon thee; in th • Dungeon into a Temple, and Palace: It filleth thee, this Temple, this Palace round about thee with Its own clear, and Proper Appearance in the Glory 〈◊〉 God. Thus it dwelleth with thee Eternally. Thus the Love of the Fathe • in the heart of Christ, softeneth, enliveneth, washeth thee with Its own Blood maketh thee by itself, a Priest, and King to itself Eternally.

I have done with the first Property in the Effusion of Divine Love; Freedo •

Use. 1. The Gospel is compared to a Marriage-Feast for a King's Son. Go • the Father is The King: His Son is the Bridegroom: Eternal Love attend • with all The Lovelinesses, and Joys of That Love are The Feast. Thou, 〈◊〉 Man, O Sinner, Thy Soul is invited to this Feast of Love, not only to 〈◊〉 Guest, but The Beautiful, Blessed Bride.

The Ministers, the Angels, The Spirit of Love himself are sent forth, as E • bassadours, to bring thee to This Marriage.

1. Obj. Say not, I am Unworthy, Unlovely, in my Sins, and shame.

Answ. This Love is free. It seeketh not, but bringeth Loveliness along with it. This Love is itself The Wedding-Garment, and the Marriage-Crown. This Feast, as thou eatest, giveth thee strength, Beauty, and a Right to it. This Feast of Love maketh Its Guest. This Marriage of Love maketh a Bride.

Obj. 2. How can I leave my precious, and pleasant Things for This Love?

Answ. Canst thou not part with a single, dying Flower in thy hand for a Root of Flowers to set in thine heart, in thy Garden? The Love of God is The Root of all Precious and Pleasant Things in Eternity.

Canst thou not part with a Shadow for the Substance, a Picture for the Life, a Counterfeit for the Truth, a glass Diamond, or Pearl, for a right Diamond, the true Pearl? All thy Pleasant Things here are Shadows, Pictures, counterfeits; This Love is All Pleasantnesses, all Preciousnesses in their Substance, Life, Truth.

Obj. 3. I am weak. I shall dishonor This Love; I shall be disloyal to It. I shall return to my Lusts.

Ans. This Love requireth no Qualifications, but worketh all. Give up thy self to be the Creature of This Love. This Love will make Thee a Heavenly Bride to itself out of Nothing, out of Contrariety, Enmity, This Love will be both a new, a Divine Creation of Thee; and a Continual Preservation. This Preservation shall be a Continued Creation of Love. Resign thyself to This Love, which is the only Fountain of Life, and of all Loveliness.

Use. 2. Love again. Who planteth a Vine, and drinketh not of the Wine? The Father planteth Jesus Christ, his Love, his Vine in thy Soul. Let him drink of the Wine of thy Loves. Love thy God with the same Freedom, Simplicity, and Sweetness, with the Same Naturalness, Nakedness, and Force, with which he loveth Thee.

Use. 3. Love one another, as God loveth you. Pour forth all your Love into the Bosom of Christ. There let it run into the Bosom of every Saint, of every Creature. There love one another without Distinction, without Condition, Freely receive one another into, embrace one another in the Riches of the Grace, and Glory of Jesus Christ, as the Father receiveth, and embraceth you.

Use 4. Abide in the Love of the Father.

1. Abide in the Father's Love by Faith in the Lord Jesus. The Glorified Person of Christ is the Land of Life, the Land of Love; the Love of the Father is the Sweetness, and Fatness of this Land. Faith is the root of thy Soul in this Pleasant Land. By Faith thy Soul is vitally fixed in this Divine Soil, in the midst of all the Sweetnesses, and Pretious Sap of Divine Love. By Faith thou drawest the rich heart of this Glorious Earth the Love of The Father to thyself. Thou feedest upon It, nourishest thyself by It, and growest up to an Entire Tree of Love.

2. Abide in this Love by holiness. Holiness is the lovely Fruit, which springeth up out of the Love of the Father, and is Its Food. Holiness, is the Purity of the Spirit, by which the flame of heavenly Love liveth, and spreaded itself there. Holiness is the Spiritual Chastity of the Soul to her heavenly Bridegroom.

3. Abide in the Father's Love by keeping his Commandments. The Commands of the Father are Beams of Love, which he shooteth into our Bosoms. Obedience to them is the Reception of these Beams, and the Reflection of them back again into the Bosom of God.

Obedience is the Activity of Divine Love enlarging itself freely in our Souls. If it be contracted, or shut up, it goeth out.

4. Abide in the Father's Love by the Peace of your Spirits. Peace of Spirit is a Heavenly Calms, and Serenity, which freely receiveth, and preserveth entire the Beams, and Sunshine of Divine Love. Passions are Clouds and Storms, which cut off, and darken the Beams of Love. The Spirit of Love resteth not upon an Angry, or Melancholy Man.

5. Abide in the Father's Love by Spiritual Joy. Joy is Love flaming. One saith; that Laughter is the Dance of the Spirits, their freest Motion in Harmony; and that the Light of the Heavens, is the Laughter of Angels. Spiritual Joy is the Laughter of Divine Love, of the Eternal Spirit, which is Love, in our Spirits. True Joy is Eternal Love, the Eternal Spirit in Its Freest Motions, in Its fullest Harmony, and Complacency in our Spirits.

6. Abide in the Love of the Father by Heavenliness. The Presence of God in his Wrath is hell. The Presence of God in his Love is Heaven. Love is the Sunshine of the Godhead sweetening, and gilding all things round about it after a Divine Manner; as this Sun doth these Skies. So far, as thou abidest in a Heavenly Image of Things, where every Object is covered with an Immortal Pleasantness, and Glory; thou abidest in the Love of God.

7. Abide in the Father's Love by Spirituality. Love is an Union. The highest Love is the highest Unity, the Unity of the highest Spirit. In the Unity of this Spirit all things are Spirit of this Spirit. All Varieties in this Unity of the Spirit are Spirits, Divine, Eternal Spirits of this Supreme Spirit, in this Supreme Spirit; Supreme, Eternal Loves from the womb, in the Bosom of this Supreme Love. Abide in This Palace of Love, The Unity of the Spirit. Let this be thine Eternal habitation. Be continually here in the Sweet, and Blessed Society of Beautiful, Pure, Eternal Spirits; Living, Immortal Loves. Behold, Converse with all things within Thee, without Thee in these Forms. So shalt thou abide in the Love of the Father, as It is poured forth in the Glorified Person of the Lord Jesus. So This Love shall guide Thee, as thou walkest, into Fields of Light, and Divine Pleasures, into the Gardens of the Divine Nature. This Love shall talk with Thee, when Thou wakest, as Moses, and Elias talked with Jesus Christ, in the Transfiguration, of the Departure out of every other Image of things, into this Paradise of Love flowing with all the Joyes of Life, and Love in the heavenly Form of Christ. So This Love shall keep thee, when thou sleepest, as a Rich Canopy of Divine Substance over thy head; as a Guard of Immortal Sweetnesses round about Thee, as a heavenly Consort of Divine Spirit, Divine Loves, by their Musical Harmony continuing, and crowning thy sleep. I have done with the First Property of Divine Love, as It is poured forth in Christ, Freedom. I come to the Second, which is Purity.

2. Property in the Effusion of Divine Love, Purity. The Love of God is poured forth in Jesus Christ Purely. The Lord Jesus is said to be, the Brightness of the Glory of God; Hebr. 1. v. 2. Brightness is the Purest Light of Glory. The Prime Glory in God is his Grace, his Love. He doth all for the Praise of the Glory of his Grace, Ephes. 1. Jesus Christ in heaven, in thine heart, O Believer, is the purest Stream, the richest Flood of Divine Love; the Love of the Divine Nature in the Brightness of Its Glory.

We are taught; that this Light of the Sun, which we enjoy here below, is only a Shadow of that Light, which shineth in the Body of the Sun itself. The Sun in its highest Luster is the Shadow of an Angel. The Highest, and Brightest Angel in his Purest Glories is no more, than a Shadow of our Glorified Jesus. He alone is the Brightness of Divine Glory without any Shade; the Purity of Divine Love without any Allay.

Love is Loveliness in Motion. As fine Gold melted into a Pure, and shining Stream: so is the Person of our Lord Jesus in Glory; the Godhead in the Purity & Perfection of all Its Lovelinesses melting itself into a most Pure & Precious Stream of Love, in which it runneth along, winding, turning, meeting, & sporting with itself from Bosom to Bosom, in the Father, the Son, and all the Saints.

O Broken-hearted Sinner, who • ittest in the Shadow of Death, who wanderest in a Wilderness, where there is no water, ready to die for thirst; open thine Eyes, see this Pure Light of Divine Love, which shineth round about Thee, in the midst of Thee; see this Pure Stream of Divine Love, which runneth along before Thee, in that Wilderness thine heart; the Blessed Person of thy Savior, which is this Pure Light, this Pure Stream of Divine Love which filleth All. Take in the Waters of this Stream; drink freely of it. Cast thy self into this Stream; let it cover Thee; let it roll Thee along with it; sport thyself in it.

There are Two Arguments of the Pure Effusion of Divine Love in Christ;

• 1 The heighth of Its Sweetness.
• 2 The Greatness of Its Virtue.

1 The Love of God in Christ showeth Its Purity by The heighth of Its Sweetness. The Purest things are Sweetest. The Love of God in Christ is the Rose upon its Stalk, New-blown, in its Virgin-Freshness, and Sweetness. To be Carnally-minded is Death; to be Spiritually-minded is Life; saith St. Paul; Rom. 8. Impurity, Carnality is the Death of Love; dulleth, embaseth, embittereth it by Corrupting it. Purity, Spirituality is the Life of Love, heighteneth, and immortaliseth all its Sweetnesses, all its Pleasures.

The Sweetness of the Love of God in Christ is made up of Three Parts; 1. The Nearness of the Union; 2 The Firmness of the Union, 3 The Efficacy of the Union.

1 The Nearness of the Union is the First Part of the Sweetness in the Love of God poured forth in the Glorified Person of our Savior. Love is an Union. Where Love is Sweetest; the Love-Union is Nearest. The Love of God in Christ bindeth up God, Christ, all the Saints immediately in the most naked, most warm Embraces of each other. It maketh them All up into One Beautiful Body; It melteth them All into One Blessed-Spirit of Divine Love.

The Bridegroom in the last of the Canticles expresseth his Love to his Bride after this manner: If she be a Door, we will inclose her with Cedar. Cedar Wood is Eminent for three Things: It is sweet, Beautiful, Incorruptible. Blessed art Thou, O Believer, the meanest of all Believers; who art a Door only in this heavenly Temple, Christ risen from the Dead; a Door, by which the Glories of the Godhead go in, and out between the Visible, and Invisible World. Thy Jesus by the Immediate Embraces of Divine Love incloseth, comprehendeth thy Person entirely with the Sweetness, Beauty, Immortality of his own Glorified Person.

The Soul in the Bosom of Christ lieth, as a Pleasant Island in a Sea of Love. The Sea bringeth to an Island Pleasure by its prospect, and by sailing upon it; Safety by inclosing it; Riches by Traffick unto all parts. Thus thou, O Saint, art seated in the midst of a vast Ocean of heavenly Love. This Oc • an of Love is thy Prospect on every side. Which way soever thou lockest, thou seest Waves of Love rolling, and tumbling one upon the neck of another; sometimes rising up, as high, as heaven, sometimes again falling, as low as He • l. All Storms are The Workings of this Lovely Sea of Love, and Delightful Entertainments to Thee, thou lanchest forth and sailest round about thy Island, which is thyself, upon this Sea of Love. These are thy Pleasures.

How safe art thou? How great, and impregnable is thy Strength? Nothing can come to thee but by a Sea of Love, Divine, Almighty, Eternal Love. Thou art inaccessible, but this way, by the Sea of Love. No vessels can pass upon this Sea, nothing can pass thorough it, but Divine Forms of Love; heavenly Angels, and Ministers of Love. Whatever other Form of things attempteth, This Blessed Ocean of the Father's Love poureth forth in Jesus Christ, is swallowed up by it, and never seen more.

Thou hast Tra •• ick, and Commerce by this Sea of Love with all things holy, heavenly, Beautiful, and B • essed everywhere; with all Lands of Life, and Joy. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, thoughts and Affections into all Parts. Thou bringest home all the Precious, and Pleasant things of Heaven, and Earth; of Time, and Eternity: of God, and the Creature. Thou hast a Love-Union, and by this Love-Union, a Communion of Love with all the Treasures of the Godhead in the Sun, and in the Moon; in the Heavens above, and the Deep, which lieth below.

This is the Purity, the Sweetness of the Father's Love in Christ; the nearness of the Love-Union.

2. The Sweetness of the Love of God in Christ showeth itself in the Firmness of the Union. What the Spouse of Christ saith of herself in the Canticles, that is the Language of this Love to the Soul in Jesus Christ; I took hold of him, I will not let him go. The Love of the Father hath taken hold of Thee, & will never let Thee go. St. Paul; Rom. 8. v. 35. maketh a Challenge; What shall separate us from the Love of Christ? Affliction? Danger? Sword? the Love-Union between God, and the Soul in Jesus Christ is so close, so fast; that the Point of the sharpest Sword cannot pierce between them; the subtilest Flame cannot divide between them. If it wound, or burn one, it must wound, and burn the other also. There is no Vein of Blood in the Body of Man, which hath not running along beneath it an Artery, a Vein of Spirits to preserve the Warmth, Motion, and Life of the Blood. There is no Vein of Divine Providence in the whole Life of a Saint; there is no Vein of Life or Death in the whole Person of a Saint, which hath not a Vein of Divine Love running along inseparably with it, to sweeten it, to give a Spiritual, a heavenly Tincture, of Life, Joy, and Glory to it.

To me to live is Christ, to die is Gain; saith St. Paul; Philip 1. v. 21. There is nothing so Dividing, as Death. The Life of a Man is the Union between Soul, and Body. Death dissolveth this Union. The Life of a Saint is the Love. Union between his God, and Spirit in Christ, who is the Glorious head, and the Golden knot of this Union. Death maketh this Love-Union faster, and sweeter; more close, more clear, more complete. D • ath is a Gain here.

The Death of a Saint is like the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. Without was a course Tent of Badgers Skin, exposed to the Injuries of all Weathers. This was seen by the Common Eye. But this was not the Tabernacle. This was only the Tent, the Covering upon the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle within, as it appeared to the Priest's Eye, which entered into it, was Silk, Silver, Gold, and Precious Stone; Fine Linnen, Scarlet, Crimson, Sky-Colour; Cherubims richly wrought. Be not deceived. That is not the Death of a Saint, That is not a Saint in Death, which appeareth outwardly to the Eye of Sense, so affrightful, so mournful, so dark, so deformed, so Dividing from all the Joyes of Life: No. This is the Covering only upon Death, to hide the sacred Mystery from common Eyes.

That, which is within, which presenteth itself all along to the Eye of a Saint, that entereth into this Death is indeed a Tabernacle of Immortal, of Divine Love with all rich, and pleasant Appearances wonderfully heightened; The Love-Union between God, and the Soul in Christ opening itself, taking the Soul entirely into itself, as into the true Heavens, where all things, which are seen are the highest Forms of Beauty in the highest Lights of Divine Glory; all things, that are heard, tasted or felt, the highest Joyes of the Divine Life with the most heightened Sweetnesses of Divine Love.

3 The Sweetness of Divine Love is manifested in its Efficacy, in its Sweetning Operations, as it is poured forth in the Lord Jesus. St. Paul saith; Philip: 3. l. We have our Conversation in Heaven, from whence we look for the Lord Jesus, who shall change these Vile Bodies (these Bodies of our humiliation, and make them like his own Glorious Body, according to that Power, by which he is able to subdue all things to himself. As the Flowers put forth, unfold all their Beau • ies send forth their several Sweetnesses to the Sun: so do all the Excellencies, Joyes and Glories of the Godhead display themselves to the Divine Love. God in the Presence of his Love is the highest, the Truest H •• ven. This is the Heaven, which containeth, and hideth Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ cometh forth from this Heaven, as a Bridegroom from his Chamber he cometh forth in this Heaven, with this Heaven round about him; he maketh this Heaven, everywhere, as he cometh forth; as the Sun maketh a Glorious Sky. He boweth this Heaven, and cometh down upon It into the broken heart. To this broken heart he changeth the vilest, the Bitterest Image of things, the Body of its humiliation, the Body of this Darkness, and Death, in which it dwelleth here into the Likeness of his own most Glorious Body, the Body of the highest Heaven in its Brightness; the Pure, and clear Body of Divine Love. This Love of the Father is that Power, by which our Jesus subdueth all things to himself, that is, to the Brightness, and Sweetness of the Glory of this Love; to the Express, to the Naked Image of this Love in its own Divine Substance, in 〈◊〉 own most Lovely Person. This is the transfiguring Efficacy of the Love of the God-Head poured forth in the Glorious Person of Christ, and making for him a Body of Divine Loves above all Heavens.

Rom. 8. 28, 29. St. Paul triumpheth after this manner: I am persuaded, th •• neither Death, nor Life; neither Angels, Principalities, Powers, nor things present, no • things to come; nor heighth, nor Depth; nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Love of God in Jesus Christ lineth, covereth all things transubstantiateth all things into the same Divine Love. St. Paul mentioneth the nearest things to us, the most intimate, the most Potent, the most Penetrating, the most Universal, the most comprehending, the most Transforming; Death, Life, Angels, things Present, to come, Depth, Heigh • h. What cometh nearer, what toucheth every Point of our whole Substance, and Being, than Death, Life, Angels? What more intimate to our hearts, and Spirits? If none of these can come between the Love of God in Jesus Christ, and our Persons: then all these by the Touch of this Love must be Tinctured, and changed into new Forms, into Essences of Love.

As Sugar is dissolved in a Glass of Wine; so Death Life, Angels, things Pres • nt, things to come, heighths, Depths, every other Creature in this Golden Cup of Divine Love, the Glorified Person of Christ, is dissolved into Love, becometh a Rich Love-Cordial to a fainting Spirit, making it to dance, and sing for Joy, when it was intended a deadly Poison to it. The holy Apostle had said upon this Ground a little before: In all these things, Sword, Famine, Persecution, we are more, than Conquerors. It is plain, how we are Conquerors. Captivity is carried Cuptive. Those Forms, and Powers of Darkness, of Death, which thought to captivate us, are themselves Captives to Eternal Life, and Love in the Lord Jesus. As Saul among the Prophets: so the Bitterest, the Blackest things, which assault the Spirit of a Saint, encompassed with this Love of the Father poured forth in Christ, uncloath themselves, and put on Amiable Shapes of Love, sing songs of Love, breath forth from every part of them the most Delightful Sweetness of Divine Love.

Thus this Love maketh us Conquerors. But what meaneth this; to be more, than Conquerors? Is there a Joy, or Glory above this of a Conqueror? Grace coming into Glory; Love Reigning after Suffering?

Is there anything sweeter, anything greater, than this Victory of Love?

Yes. St. Paul saith; when he was caught up into the Third heavens, into the Paradise there, he heard Words, which it is impossible to utter. This is The Paradise in the Third Heavens, the Love of God in the Glorified Person of Christ. This Love transformeth everything, every Creature to this heavenly Paradise. Those blessed Souls, which by believing enter into this Paradise, hear Words of Love, Words of Joy, Words of Pleasure, of Glory from this Love, which it is impossible to utter, which are too sweet, too high, too ravishing to be expressed.

A holy Soul in This Paradise of Love feeleth a Joy far beyond that of Marriage, of Conquest, of Reigning, of Children, of anything named in this World, or in that, which is to come.

Thus the Sweetness of Divine Love expresseth itself in its Sweet Efficacy.

Thus the Purity of Divine Love in Christ is manifest in its Sweetness.

2. The Love of God in Christ is most Pure, because it hath the greatest Virtue. Our Divines express hell after this manner. All Diseases, Pains, Griefs here are Evils by a Tincture only of Divine Wrath, a little Drop of Divine Wrath mingling itself with them. H • ll is Pure Wrath. Hell is the Abstract of Wrath; the Evil of all Diseases, Pains, and Griefs abstracted from them, and heightened to the utmost. So Jesus Christ bare all our Infirmities, and took our Griefs; though he was never sick.

On the Contrary, all the Good, all the Joyes in the Creature are a Weak Tincture of Divine Love. The Shadow of St. Peter as h • passed along, healed the sick. All the Sweetness and Pleasure in things here, is the Shadow only of Divine Love falling upon them. All the Joy in any heart here, is the Shadow only of Divine Love cast over it.

The Love of God is poured forth Purely in the Person of Christ. There Love is a Substance, no Accident. There Love is Infinite, being allayed, or limited by no mixture. Our Savior in Glory is Divine Love in the Abstract.

It is a Weak Glance of Divine Love, like the Sunshine here below cast upon the Water, or a Looking-Glass, which maketh the Beauty, the Sweetness of all Colours, Figures, Motions in the Creature.

It is a remote Touch of Divine Love, like the Ends of the Sun-beams, reflected in a Burning-Glass, which maketh the Pleasantness, and Pleasant Properties of all Plants; the Luster, Gracefulness, Virtue of all Precious Stones, and Pearls; the Joy of all Relations.

The Beauty, the Sweetness of all Colours, Features, Motions; the Pleasantness, the Pleasant Properties of all Plants; the Luster, Gracefulness, Virtue, Life of all Precious Stones, Pearls, heavenly Bodies, heavenly Spirits; the Joyes of all Relations are contained Eminently, with an Infinite Enlargement, an Infinite heightening in this Divine Face, This Tree, Pearl, this Union, the Unity, the Purity of Eternal Love in our Glorified Jesus.

O Sinner; come, cast thyself freely into the Bosom of thy Savior. Here thou fallest immediately into a Sea of Pure Love. Open thy Mouth wide, enlarge all thy Faculties to drink in the Sweetness of Pure Love pouring itself by Floods and Seas into thee. Feel the Transcendent virtue of Pure Love transforming thee, thy heart, thy Person into a rich, clear, and heavenly Pearl in this Sea,

O Saints! swim continually in this Sea of Pure Love, the Bosom of your Glorified Savior. Feel the Transcendent Virtue of Pure Love dissolving you also into a Sea of pure Love, a Sea of Glass, and Fire; a Sea of Pure Crystal, Divine Beauty without any Spot of Flesh, or Earth, Darkness, or Death; a Sea of Pure Crystal shining, and burning with a Pure Flame of heavenly Joyes without any Smoak of Lusts, or Passions.

Obj. how is the Love of God Pure in Christ? Is there not in the Lord Jesus a mixture of Love, and Wrath? He saith of himself in one place; All Judgment is given to the Son of Man. He adjudgeth to Hell, and to Torments, as well as to Heaven, and to Joys.

Matt. 25. Jesus Christ is represented, as a King, upon the Throne, in Glory, in the Judgment of the last day, v 31. He maketh Separation between the Sheep, and Goats; v. 32. He setteth the Sheep at his Right hand, in the Place of Power, Honor, and Love. He setteth the Goats at his Left hand, on his Wrath-side, v. 33. He passeth the Sentence of Love upon One, inviting them, as Blessed Ones, to the Kingdom of Love prepared for them of the Father in Eternity; v. 34. He passeth a Sentence of Wrath upon the other, sending, them away with a Curse into the Hell fire with the Devils v. 40.

How is the Love of God poured forth Purely without mixture in Christ?

I shall give 3 Answers to this Objection; 1. A Concession; 2. A Distinction; 3. An Application.

1. Answ. A Concession. It is true Contrary things are spoken of Jesus Christ in this point.

We read; I judge no man; Moses, in whom you trust, he judgeth you;

The Son of Man came not to d • stroy Men's Lives. but to save them.

The Work, for which Christ came, is a Work of Love, of Light, of Life; not a Work of Wrath, and Death. Jesus Christ came to destroy the Works of the Devil. The Devil Is a Lyar, and a Murderer from the Beginning. He is the Serpent, the Seed of Enmity. The Deceit of Sin, Death, Wrath are the Devil's Work. Jesus cometh full of Grace, and Truth; like the Sun full of sweet Light, and influences of Life to destroy the Deceits, to scatter into Nothing the Clouds, and black Shades of Sin, of Death, of Wrath; to make all a clear, and Lovely Sky over our heads, a Green, and Flowry Earth under out Feet. O the Delightfulness of Christ's Person, and of his Appearance!

We read again; I came not to send Peace, but a Sword, I came to Kindle a Fire. The Lord Jesus shall come in a Flame of Fire to render vengeance to all those, who know not God, and who have not believed our Gospel, 2 Thessal. v. 8. O the Dreadfulness of the Lord Jesus, and of his Appearance.

2. Answ. A Distinction. 2 Corin. 3. 13. You have Moses brought in with a Vail upon his Face You have the Effect of this Vail. There is a Blindness upon the Minds, upon the Notions, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) of the Jews. The Children of Israel cannot see to the End of that, which is to be done away. They cannot see thorough; beyond the Shadowy Glory of the Vail to be taken off, to the Naked Glory of the Heavenly Face, which liveth, and is the same forever. v. 13. 14.

There is the Interpetation of the Vail. The Vail upon the Face of Moses is a Vail upon the Hearts of the Israelites, v. 15.

The Vail is removed by the Turning of the heart to the Person of Christ, v. 16. The Person of Christ, and the Removal of the Vail are Both described, v. 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty. The Lord Jesus • in Glory is a Spirit, the Eternal Spirit. The Person of Christ was ever a Spirit, the Spirit, the same Yesterday, to Day, and forever; even in that Day, when he was made Flesh in his human Nature, this Spirit carrieth Liberty along with It; as the Sun doth the Light of the Day.

This Liberty of the Spirit answereth to that Removal of the Vail in the verse before. The Vail shall be taken away. It is significant Word, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , shall be taken away quite, all round about, on every side; from off the Whole Image of things, from off the Whole Person of Christ, from off the Whole Heart; the Compleat Person of the Lord Jesus in his Supreme Glory, as the Supreme Spirit shall shine entirely in the whole Image of things, in the whole heart, in every Part, in every Point of Both.

The Close of all is the Blessed Effect of the Removal of the Vail, of the Free, and full Appearance of this Spirit, the Lord Jesus; A Liberty of Sight; A Liberty of Growth; a Liberty of Union, and Divine Communion. A Saint looketh forth with Op • n Face with an Open Eye in the Naked Glory of the Spiritual Man, having cast the Vail entirely off. He seeth the Glory of the Lord in the Naked Beauties of the Spirit himself completely unveiled. He seeth this Glory in the Unity of the same Spirit, as in a Looking-Glass; where Face answereth Face, where one is seen, as the Dear Image, and Reflection of the other. A Saint in the same moment seeth, and is changed into the Image which he seeth, as by one Spirit at once working Both. The Lord, the same Spirit in its Unity is the Root, the Eye, the Life, the Light, the Looking-Glass, the Glorious Face in the Looking-Glass to a Saint. Where this Spirit is, there is Liberty in that Heart. The Vail is taken off from it, when the Spirit existeth, and appeareth in it. There the Lord Jesus, and a Saint see each other; grow up together, in one Glory. We all, with open face, as in a Glass, beholding the Glory of the Lord, are changed into the same Image, from Glory to Glory; even as by the Spirit of the Lord, or, by the Lord, the Spirit. By this time, I believe, you see the Distinction, which I aim at. Jesus Christ with the Vail upon his Face is M • ses. M • ses unveiled is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ to the Vailed heart is Moses still. Moses to the Naked heart is the same Jesus from the Beginning. The Appearance of Jesus Christ according to the Letter, after the Flesh, is Christ with a Vail upon his Face, casting a Vail upon the heart. The Appearance of Jesus Christ, as the Spirit, the Lord of Glory, is Christ with his Vail cast off, taking the Vail off from the Heart; that Both may meet, see, embrace each other Nakedly, Immediately, at Liberty; in the Open Light of their Eternal Loves, and Beauties.

3. Answ. Applications.

1. Application Fear the Wrath of the Lamb. There is a Day, in which the Kings of the Earth, Great Men, Captains of Thousands shall cry to the Rocks, and to the Mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the Wrath of the Lamb. When the Great Day of his Wrath cometh, who is able to stand? Rev. 6. v. 16, 17, 18.

Revel. 5. 6. 8. You read of a Lamb, who had been slain, standing in the midst of the Throne of God, of the Four Living Creatures, of the 24. Elders, having seven Eyes, and seven Horns, which were the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth. Behold the Lord Jesus risen from the Dead. He standeth in the m • dst of the Throne of God, of the Four Living Creatures, of the four, and Twenty Elders. He is the Center of All Glories; He filleth All; He uniteth All, and Compleateth All in his own Person; the Uncreated Glories of the God-Head; the Four-fold Fountain Glories of the Uncreated, and Created Natures in Union; The Manifold, and Multiplyed Glories of Those Fountains in the Person of every Saint from the Beginning to the End of things, having his Crown upon his Head; the Universal Kingdom of all Glories in himself; with which Kingdom he standeth out of the Person, and in the Person of the Lord Jesus, which Mysteriously, and Divinely involveth, and unfoldeth all in itself. For this reason they cast down their Crowns at his Fe • t.

This Jesus uniteth all States in himself, from the highest, the Sweetest Light of Life, to the Darkest, most Dismal Deep of Death. For he standeth in the midst of these Glories; as having been slain, showing all the Bloody, Baleful Forms of Death in the Triumph of Eternal Life.

This Lamb hath seven Eyes, and seven Horns, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth. Seven is a Perfect Number, the Power of all Numbers, which multiply themselves endlessly by the Marriage of the Two First Numbers, Three, and Four, the Numbers of the Trinity upon the Throne, and the Four Living Creatures, most immediately to the Throne, and from thence spreading themselves thorough all things; being in the midst of the Throne, and round about the Throne on every side, Revel. 4. 6.

The seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth, are the Holy Ghost, that one, Manifold, Infinite Spirit, which divideth Itself into Innumerable, flaming Tongues, Eyes, Horns; into all Forms of things according to its own Good Pleasure; ever Containing all within itself; ever filling all with itself.

See now the Lamb with seven Eyes, and seven Horns, seven Spirits sent forth into all the Earth. The Lamb is Jesus risen from the Dead; The Lord, the Spirit, who hath Innumerable, Living Lights of Glory in himself; Innumerable Living Springs of Light, and Glory; with which as with so many ever-waking Eyes he shineth, and seeth thorough all things; who hath innumerable Powers, Almighty Powers, Fountains of Power, as so many Horns, with which he ruleth, and reigneth in the midst of all things.

A Poet in a bright Night taken in a Wood by Robbers, which would kill him, said to them: As many stars, as shine in the Sky; so many Eyes now look upon you, and will be witnesses of this Murder.

O Sinner, who art hatching, who art practicing any lust in the most secret corner of thine heart, or Closer; be awake, be aware. See the Lord Jesus with ten thousand, with a Numberless Number of Eyes; Shining, Flaming Eyes of Pure Glory looking forth full upon thee, from every point of the Walls, the Roof, the Floor, all things round about thee; from every point of thine own Heart, and all, that is within Thee. See the Lord Jesus with as many Horns of Divine Power from every Point of things running upon thee, to break Thee off from thy Lusts, or to break Thee in pieces.

O Saint, who mournest sitting in Darkness, Lying in Prison, encompassed with black thoughts, with Enemies Invisible, or Visible; be awake, be aware▪ See thy Jesus, thy King, thy Beloved with ten thousand, a Numberless Number of Eyes; sweetly-shining, sweetly-Flaming, Eyes of Pure Love, from every Point of the blackest Darkness, of the darkest Prison, of thy Darkest thoughts themselves looking forth upon Thee.

See him with as many Golden Horns of Divine Power from every part, from every side running upon thine Enemies, to ruin them to cast them down to the Ground, down to the bottom of the Pit, until they rise no more, whether they be things Visible, or Invisible.

See him with the same Innumerable Golden Horns from every part of things, from the thickest Darkness, round about thee running to Thee to raise Thee up, to set Thee on high upon the Rock of Eternity in the midst of the Throne of God.

Revel. 1. 14, The Eyes of the Lord Jesus are compared to a Flame of Fire.

A Spirit is all one Entire Eye, and full of Eyes. The Lord Jesus is the Supreme Spirit spreading himself thorough all things from the height of Heaven above to the Depth of Death, and Hell beneath.

The Firmament is not set so thick with Stars; as the Whole Earth, the whole-Creation, all things are set with the Eyes of the Lord Jesus. These Eyes are so many Suns of Love to the Flowers, the Wheat, the Gold, the Diamonds, to increase their Beauty, draw forth their Sweetness, ripen their Fruit, make them sparkle, and shine more pleasantly. But to Stubble, and Thorns; to Vanity, or Enmity, they are a flame of Fire, burning upon it, until it be consumed. O Fear the Wrath of the Lamb.

2. Application. Fear to look with a Vailed Heart upon the Vailed Face of the Lord Jesus. If thou seest the Shadow, the Letter of the Gospel; if thou seest the Vail, the Flesh of Christ; if thou seest not to the End of these, as things to be done away, if thou seest not thorough these, beyond these, the Lord, the Spirit, which is the Heavenly Body, and Substance to the Shadow; the Naked Face, the Naked, Unchangeable, Eternal Person of Christ, hid under the Vail: it is not Jesus Christ, but Moses, in whom thou trustest. Thou art not in the Arms of a Lovely, pleasant Bridegroom; but at the feet of a severe Judge.

This is the Law from Mount Sinai, which engendereth bondage, which trembleth, and shaketh for fear, where Thunders roar, and Lightnings fly abroad from the midst of a thick Darkness. This is not the Lord Jesus full of Grace, that Perfect Love, which casteth out fear; the Perfection of Beauty, on Mount Zion; which standeth firm forever; which may be touched, kissed, and embraced. Take heed to thyself, O Temporary Believer; Thou Jew, thou Christian outwardly, in the Letter only. This is not the Sun of Righteousness, on which thou lookest; but the Cloud, which covereth the Sun. If the Eye of thy Spirit stay here, and pierce no further: out of this Cloud will come down upon thy head, a tempest, a Whirlwind, and Flames of Fire. The Vail is upon your Hearts, while the Gospel is read, even to this day.

3 Application Blessed art thou, who lookest with a Naked Heart upon the Naked Person of Christ. He who is fixed in the Letter, the Outward Form, the Flesh of the Eternal Word, is One of the People of the Jews, who stood below at the Foot of the Mountain, having in their Eye the Outside only of things. These saw nothing, but the Blackness of Darkness, and the Flashes of Lightning; these heard nothing, but the dreadful claps of Thunder.

He, who ascendeth, and entereth into the Truth the Spirit, is with Moses, within, upon the Top of the Mount. He talketh with God face to face, as a man talketh with his Friend. He seeth the Divine Light, and Calm of Eternity in the naked Person of the Lord Jesus. He receiveth the Language of Divine Love, the Music of Eternity, with kisses of Love, immediately, from the Lips of the Lord Jesus. He feeleth the Fountain of Life, & all Joys flowing from the Heart of the Lord Jesus, running nakedly thorough his whole Body, and Spirit; being a better Feast, than that of all meats, and Drinks; filling him with Spirit, and pleasantness; clothing him with a fresh Luster, Beauty in a more excellent way.

The Lord Jesus saith of himself in the Gospel; I have a Baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened, till it be over. The Loves, the Lovelinesses, the Divine Life, the Delights, the Glories, the Lord Jesus, all the Treasures of the Eternal Word are straightened in the flesh of Christ; as the Beauties, and Sweetnesses of a Flower; the Fruits of a Tree are shut up, and imprisoned in the Seed. When the Lord Jesus by Death is baptized into a Divine Form and Glory, when he cometh forth, as A Spirit, as the Eternal Spirit having married the Human Nature into One Heavenly Form, and Spirit, with itself: Now all the Treasures of Righteousness, Life, Immortality, Love, Joy; all the Treasures of the God-Head display themselves over the whole Person of Christ, entirely, nakedly, richly, to the Height of all their Beauties, and Sweetnesses, as Flowers full-blown in Spring; as Fruit-trees laden with ripe fruit in Autumn.

Who now can express the Joys, when a Naked Heart meeteth with its Naked Jesus? when both have cast off their Vails; One from his Face; The other from his Heart. It is the same Blessed hand of the Eternal Spirit, which taketh off the Vails, from Both, dropping Myrrh, a heavenly Sweetness, Purity, and Immortality, as It taketh them off.

The Reflection of the Face of God upon the Face of Moses on the Mount cast a Divine Luster, and Beauty, which remained upon it.

He came down into the midst of the People, bringing a Heaven in his Face along with him. But they could not bear the Brightness of this Naked Beauty. He therefore casteth a Vail upon his Face. So they remain in Darkness, their Minds are blinded; until Wrath cometh upon them to the uttermost.

This is an Example unto us; upon whom the Ends of all Fore-going Times, and Actions are come. Behold the Lord Jesus is gone up to the top of the Mount. He is ascended. He is Glorified with the Father, with that Glory, which he had with the Father before the World was. As a Spirit he cometh down again to us in the Shining Form of this Spiritual, Uncreated, Eternal Glory.

Woe to you, who cannot bear the Brightness of this Appearance, who cannot look steadfastly upon the Naked Face, the Naked Form of the Lord Jesus, this Spirit. To you he casteth a Vail over his Face; and as he casteth a Vail over his own Face; he casteth a Vail over your Hearts. To you now he cometh, as a Thief in the Night, bringing Darkness, and Doubt; Trouble, and Terrors; Confusion, Desolation, and Despair; spoiling you of all your Counterfeit Jewels, false hopes, false Joys, false Graces, false Christ.

But you, who love, and wait for this Appearan • e of your Lord, and Savior, like Lightning shining from Heaven into your Hearts; you who with the single Eye of a Chast Spouse look to the Beloved Person of your Jesus in the simplicity of his Spiritual, and Divine Form; Blessed are you of the Lord Jesus. To you he cometh, as a Sun of Righteousness with healing in his Wings; Overspreading you with his warm, and Naked Beauties; Covering your Deformities; Curing your Maladies; Infusing new Cordials of Immortal Life, and Joy into your Hearts; Hatching you to Spirituality; raising you upon Silver Wings, and Golden Feathers to Heavenly Flights with himself.

To you he cometh Enlightning, enlivening, Transforming, Glorifying, Gathering you up into One Spirit, One Glory with himself.

Where this Spirit, the Lord Jesus is, there is Liberty of beholding, of enjoying the Lord Jesus nakedly, immediately, entirely, eternally; without any chain, clog, cloud, interposal, or interruption. There is Liberty of growing up into a Spirit out of All the Vails of Flesh: into One Spirit with him. O the Joys of a Naked Heart, when it meeteth with its Naked Savior.

But, as it was with the Painter, who called to remove the Vail, that he might see the Picture; when their was a Vail only painted there. The Vail was all the Picture: so is it with the hypocrite, with the Temporary Believer. His Jesus, his Heaven is a Vail only; a Vail, like that of the Tabernacle, finely wrought with Pictures of Angels, of Heaven, of Jesus; but Keeping him forever from the Face, the Bosom of Jesus the society of Angels, the Joys of Heaven, in the Outermost Darkness. His hope is a Spiders Web. The Poison of Death, and Hell are bred there.

I hear a Voice frequently in my Spirit saying to me; Cry. What shall I cry?

1. Cry; There was an Ark in which Noah, and his Family were safe from the Flood, which drowned the World. The only Ark in which Noah, the Believer, the Child of Rest shall be safe from the Flames, which are now ready to devour the World, is the Naked Person of Christ in the Invisibility, and Spirituality of his Divine, Eternal Form.

2. Cry; The Sound, and noise of the Hammers framing the Ark for Noah, preached the Righteousness of God, the Ruin of the World, very near. The Sound, and noise of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Love, in his Naked Person, in his Naked Loves, and Lovelinesses growing up, forming himself in the Spirits of his Saints preaches now a Deluge of Destruction, Death, and Hell at the Door, ready to enter in; The Rest, and Righteousness of God in his Bosom alone, the Rest of God in his Loves; the Righteousness of God in his Loveliness.

3. Cry; As it was in the Days of Noah; so it will be now. The whole World will go on to eat, and Drink, to marry, and give in Marriage; to mock at this Preparation of an Ark; at these Discourses of, these Endeavors for the Spiritual Person of Christ in the Heavenly Image: for the Revelation of him in our Spirits; for the Retirement of our Persons into him. The whole World will go on in Sensuality, and Carnality, mocking at the Lord, this Spirit, the Ark; till the day that God open the Windows of Heaven from above, and break up the great Deep of Hell from below to cover them with, and swallow them up in Unquenchable Flames.

They say; that Seth foreseeing Two Destructions of the World prepared Two Pillars, upon which he engraved all Mysteries of Human, and Divine Knowledge; One of Marble▪ to endure the Flood; the other of Brick, to continue in the Flames.

St Peter speaking of the Flood and the Ark addeth; The Like Figure, whereunto now saveth us, Baptism; not the washing away of the filth of the Flesh, but the Answer of a Good Conscience by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead.

The Lord Jesus counselleth the last Church, Laodicea, to buy of him Gold tried in the Fire. Gold tried in the Fire no more loseth anything, or receiveth any harm in the Fire; but shineth more gloriously.

The Lord Jesus risen from the Dead, and become a Spirit, the Fountain of Life, is the Gold tried in the Fire of Death, and the Divine Wrath. An Ark of Wood saved Noah from the Waters.

Behold an Ark of pure Gold, a Spirit of Immortality, and Glory, which shineth with greatest Glory in the midst of the Everlasting Burnings. This is our Jesus, who saveth us from the Fire, which is already Kindled, and burneth upon the World, which will immediately raise itself to a Mighty, Irresistible Flame. Blessed are you, who enter into this Ark of Gold, and shut yourselves up into It. Here you shall lie upon beds of Love, as in the Marriage-Chamber, in the Bosom of your Bridegroom, encompassed with Songs of Joy; while the Fire dreadfully devoureth all without, round about you. Then shall Worldly Christians, Hypocrites, Temporary Believers, all who have lived in the Lusts of the Flesh, or the Letter only of the Gospel take hold of, climb up upon the outside of the Ark, the outward Fleshly Form, and Appearances of the Eternal Word, the Lord Jesus. Then shall they too late cry to be taken into the Spirit, which alone is Truth, which alone hath Immortality. But they shall be rejected. They shall lose their hold, drop off into the flames, and perish there. I will conclude all with that Scripture; John, 14. v. 30. 31. When Jesus Christ perceived, that the hour, and Power of Darkness were now come upon him, he saith; The Prince of this World cometh; Arise, let us go hence. Thus saith the same Jesus now in the Hearts of his Beloved Ones, to his Spouse: The Prince of Darkness; The hour, and Power of Darkness, of dread, of Destruction, of the Devouring Fire cometh; Arise, let us go hence; out of the visible things of the Flesh, into the Invisibility of the Spirit; The Ark of Pure Gold, Paved with Loves.

3 Property; Plenty. This is the Third Property in the Effusion of Divine Love upon the Glorified Person of Christ. It is poured forth plentifully.

I will divide this Head by Streams flowing from it.

1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Jesus Christ.

2. The Person of Christ is all Full of Love.

1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Jesus Christ. We read; Colos. 1. 19. It pleased the Father, that all Fulness should dwell in him; that is, in Jesus Christ. All Fulness and so the Fulness of All Love had its Seat, its Bed in the Bosom of our Savior. But the Pleasure, the Will of the Father, which is the Highest Pleasure, Pleasure in one, Substantial, most Perfect, Eternal Act, is the Well Spring which sendeth forth this Plenitude of Divine Love into Christ.

The Words lie so in Greek, that they may be properly rendered according to the rules of Grammar after this manner: All Fulness was well pleased to dwell in him. God is the Fulness, which filleth all in all. He alone is in any Place, in any Spirit, in any Creature Repletive, so as to fill it. God is Love. God then is the Fulness of all Love.

Nothing attracteth, and draweth so powerfully, as Pleasure doth. God, who is that Love, which is all Fulness, the Fulness of all; God, who is the Fulness of all Love poureth forth himself to the Full, to the last drop, if we may so speak of that Love, which hath neither First, nor last; Beginning, nor End; in the Lord Jesus. For in Christ he poureth forth himself with Pleasure, which is the highest of all Pleasures. The Effusion of Love is itself a Pleasure. Then the Beautiful and Blessed Person of the Lord Jesus is the most pleasant Channel, the most pleasant Seat, and Palace of Divine Love.

This Fulness of Divine Love in Christ shooteth forth itself into Three Branches;

1. Love in all States. 2. Love of all Kinds. 3. Love in all Degrees.

1. There is in Jesus Christ flowing forth from the Father a Fulness of Love in all States. There are Three States of Divine Love in our Blessed Savior. There is 1. Preventing Love; 2. Assisting Love; 3. Finishing Love. Divine Love in Jesus Christ hath these Three States, and a glorious, transcendent, triumphant Fulness in every State.

1. There is in the Lord Jesus poured forth from the Father A Fulness of all Preventing Love. 2. Tim. 1. 9. St. Paul teacheth us that God hath saved us, not according to works, which we have done, but according to his own Purpose, and Grace given us in Christ, before the World was. Before thou hadst any thoughts of Love to Jesus Christ, before thou hadst any Being in This World, before the World was; there was a Love from the Father in Jesus Christ to Thee; to Thee, whoever thou art, that liftest up the Eye of thy Spirit, the Eye of Faith, to see thy true Self, thine own Person in this Dwelling-Place, this Palace of Divine Love, where thou hast been hid. where thou hast had thine abode thorough all generations, from Eternity: Christ in the Glory of the Father, the heart of the Father in Christ.

This Preventing Love well understood, removeth Two Objections out of the way of many hearts to the Bosom of their Jesus.

Object. 1. Broken-hearted Sinners, distressed Souls frequently plead thus against themselves: We cannot think, that Jesus Christ hath any Love for us: because we cannot believe his Love.

Answ. Hear, O broken-hearted Sinners, O Distressed Souls, Hear, and believe. Jesus Christ hath in himself from his Father the Fulness of all Preventing Love. He beginneth to you in Love. He beginneth with you. He giveth you Faith to believe his Love. To you it is given to believe.

The Son of Man cometh, and giveth you an understanding to know the True God by his Proper Name of Love; 1. John. 5. 20. The Preventing Love of God in the Bosom of Christ cometh to Thee, poureth forth itself in thy Bosom, giveth Thee a new Eye to see the Divine Beauty; a new Ear to hear the heavenly Melody; a new heart to take in, relish, and understand the Spiritual Sweetnesses, Fulnesses, Joys of this First Love, Love in its Fountain, in the Fountain of Eternity.

This New Wine of the Everlasting Kingdom giveth itself to Thee with a New Bottle, a New Spirit, which will take in, and hold this precious Liquour. Not one drop, of it shall ever fall besides this Bottle, or be spilled out of it.

Object. 2. But still thou poor, troubled, trembling Soul thinkest the glad Tydings of the Gospel, of Pure, Preventing Love too good to be true. Thus thou arguest against thyself, If I were but moderately evil, or morally good; if I could in any degree comply or close with Jesus Christ, when he offereth his Love, and himself to me: then might I have some hope, that I had some place in his heart. But, if the Lord Jesus himself should shine forth with the Sweetest Vision of Preventing Love in the midst of my Fleshlinesses, Filthinesses, hardnesses, Enmities; and should say to me, as the Angel to Mary; hail thou, that are greatly Beloved▪ Hail thou, that are freely Beloved: I should not only wonder at this Salutation; but believe it all to be a vain Dream of my deluded Fancy.

Answ. Let me tell Thee a Story. A beautiful Egyptian Youth, when his Friends desired to take his Picture, desired them to take him up seven days after his death, and then to take his Picture. Thou, the most defiled; the most deformed Sinner, wert once beautiful, once in the freshness, and flower of thy Youth, in Paradise. It is true; thou art now dead, dead of the most loathsome disease, dead by the most killing, and corrupting Death, dead in sin; Yet now, after that thou hast been many years dead, Jesus Christ in his Glorified Person cometh like a Bridegroom from heaven, not only to take thy Picture but to take thy Person into the Arms of his Preventing Loves, to breath bis Preventing Loves into Thee, as a New Life, the Spring of a New Beauty, excelling that, which was lost by Thee in Paradise, incorruptible, that never fadeth, not passeth away.

Ladies and Queens have sometimes hatched Eggs in their Bosoms. Thy dead, deformed Person will thy Savior hatch in the warm and naked Bosom of his Preventing Loves unto a Divine Life, that shall answer Love with Love, and flourish in the Loveliness of every Grace, every Glory, through thy New-born Soul, and body, according to their proper seasons.

Having known the Love of the Lord my Spirit laboreth, yet not my Spirit, but the Love of the Lord Jesus in my Spirit laboreth by all means to bring forth itself in the fresh, and full Sense of its First, its Free, its Preventing Sweetnesses, in your hearts; as a Spring of Living Waters in a dry, and barren Wilderness. But, as a tender Mother taketh a beloved Child, weak, and peevish; layeth it in her lap; poureth a Cordial down into its stomach: so will your Jesus do with you, O Grieved Spirits, who are weak, without strength; froward, & will not take in his Love. He will take you, lay you upon his knees, and pour this precious Cordial of his Preventing Loves into your Mouths. Then will it go right, and sweet down to the bottom of your heart; There it will become a Well springing up with pure, sweet, and plentiful Streams of every Spiritual Truth, Grace, Comfort, or Joy unto Eternal Life. This is The First State of Love in the Lord Jesus; Preventing Love.

2. There is in the Lord Jesus poured forth from the Father a Fulness of all Assisting Love. 2. Cor. 14. v. 7. 8. 9. St. Paul had a thorn in his Flesh, messengers of Satan sent to buffet him. He prayed thrice, that he might be delivered from them. He had this answer from the Lord: My Grace is sufficient for Thee. Many tender-hearted Saints, who feel their Lusts, as Thorns in their Flesh; who feel their Passions, as the Messengers of Satan, the Angels of the Dragon buffe • ing them; cry out frequently in the Agonies of Fear, and Grief; O this Lust! O this Thorn in my Flesh! Sure at last it will wound me so deeply to the heart, that it will let out the Life-blood of all faith, hope, grace, and comfort. O this Passion! O this Messenger of Satan! It will one day carry me back again into those Chains of Darkness, and that Bottomless Pit, out of which I seem to myself sometimes to have escaped. But, O Believer! tossed with the Tempests, be comforted. Fear none of these things. Look up continually to the Blessed Person of your dear Savior lifted up into Glory in the midst of your Spirits. See the Father pouring forth himself into the Fulness, the Glorious Fulness of all Assisting Loves in his Bosom. Pray continually; and hear this Blessed voice from the Mouth of your Savior continually sounding in your ears; My Assisting Loves are sufficient for Thee.

Obj. But some Soul, that wanteth Comfort, will say, When the Lord Jesus hath once by his Preventing Love planted a New Principle, and Habits of Grace in me, he now expecteth; that I should improve this Principle, and act these Graces. If I do this, and make use of that, which I have: I may comfortably look for his Assisting Love, and that more Grace should be still given me. But what New Loves can I promise myself to accompany me, and carry me on in my way; while I so ill requite the Lord Jesus for his First Loves, that I suffer his Gifts to lie unimproved, his Graces to lie unactive in me, hid in the Earth by my Sloth, or Sensuality?

Answ. I shall proceed in my answer to this Objection by Three Steps.

1 St • p. This Objection wrappeth up together in it something True, something False.

1. This is False; That the Assisting Love of the Lord Jesus dependeth upon our Emprovement of Grace already received from him. This is not True; No; by no means. Assisting Love is as free, as full, as absolute, as much all, as much alone in Carrying on the Work of Grace in us: as Preventing Love is in Beginning it. God hath poured forth in Christ the Fulness of all Assisting Love.

I am the Truth, the way, and the Life; saith our Savior. Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the Life of all Grace in the way, as much, as in the Beginning, or End. Without me ye can do Nothing. Every Act of Grace, everything in every Act of Grace, which distinguisheth it from a mere Non-Entity, from an Absolute Nothing; Every Degree of Spiritual Being in the whole Life of Grace with all the Exercises of it through the whole way from the Beginning to the End; is all alike, Immediately from Jesus Christ.

That, which is True in the Objection is this; the Emprovement of Spiritual Principles, the Exercise of our Graces are attended with Clearer Illuminations. Sweeter Enlargements, more Divine heighthnings of all heavenly Truths, Graces, and Consolations in us. On the other siide, when Faith is not acted, when holiness is neglected: Darkness, Decay, Distress, and Death dwell upon us. But these things are all entirely Consequences, and Effects; not Causes, or Attractives of Assisting Love The Assisting Love of our Lord Jesus is as the Sun, which by its Presence bringeth Light, Warmth, Fruitfulness, Life, Beauty, Pleasurealong with it. When it withdraweth itself, leaveth the Cold, hardness, Storms, Desolation of Winter behind it.

The Bridegroom chargeth the Virgins of Jerusalem, by the Roes, and Hinds of the Field, that they stir not up, nor awake his Love, until She please. Cant. 2. 7. The Angels of heaven, which are the Invisible Ministers, by whom all things move in the whole Order of Second Causes; are here understood according to the sense of some learned Divines, By the Virgins of Jerusalem. The Roes, and hinds of the Field are the Pleasant Loves, and Lovelinesses of the Eternal Spirit in the heavenly Person of Christ. The Law of the Eternal Beauties, and Loves of the Divine Nature lieth upon all things, upon all the Ministers, and Armies of God; that the Spouse of Christ be never laid to sleep, or awakened; but according to its own good pleasure, as it is One Spirit with the Lord Jesus by a knot of Everlasting Love, as a Queen at the Right hand of her King, set down in Heavenly Places with him, in him, upon the same Throne. When the Divine Principle, which is the Bride, and the Spiritual Man in a Saint retireth itself, and goeth to its rest: in this Night the Wild Beasts, Bruitish Lusts, Raging Passions come forth to prey upon the Natural Man covering it with filth, & wounds. But, when the Day spring ariseth from on high when the season cometh for this Man, this Heavenly Seed, & Bride to awake, to stir up herself, and come forth again; in this New Morning the Beasts return to their Den; Lusts, and Passions sink down into their own Principle, the Bottomless Pit, out of which they arose. But the Music, to which the Spiritual Spouse moveth in these Retirements, and Returns, is the Love of the Spiritual Bridegroom, like the Silver Trumpets of the Sanctuary in the Wilderness to the Children of Israel, sounding a Retreat, and a Rest, or a March, and a Progress.

Obj. But you will say; If there be nothing to be done by us, to what purpose are all Duties, Prayers, Attendances on the Word? If nothing can be done by us in the Acting, and Improvement of Spiritual Principles, to what end are all Admonitions, Exhortations, Instructions, Promises, in the Holy Scriptures?

Ans. These are all Assisting Love descending from the Bosom of the Bridegroom above, into the Lap of his Bride below in various forms, like the Sunshine, & Showers from Heaven falling upon the Bosom of the Earth. They are the same Assisting Love ascending again by various degrees, in various Shapes, or Growths, like the Flowers, & the Corn shooting up out of the Ground. Hos. 2. 22. It is promised; that God will hear the Heavens, the Heavens shall hear the Earth, the Earth shall hear the Corn and Wine; and the Corn and Wine shall hear Jezreel. Jezreel is the Seed of God. All the Ordinances, all Forms, all Motions not of Grace alone but of Nature also, are the Commerce, and Traffick of the Divine Nature with itself, as it is the head of Fine Gold above all; and the Hidden Pearl, the Precious Seed at the bottom of all. In every Step of things, in every Form, in every Language of Heaven, and Earth, of Grace, and Nature, in every Ordinance, God seeth the face, heareth the Voice, answereth the Cry of Jezreel, his own Seed, his own Son; Jezreel seeth the Face, heareth the Voice, answereth the Call of God, of its Father. Jezreel is the Dove whose Face is Lovely, whose Voice is Sweet to the Heavenly Bridegroom, although it be from the Holes of the Rock, and the Hollow places of the Stairs; from the lowest, the darkest Dispensations, from the nethermost parts of the Earth; from the meanest Ordinances; from an Inward, an Outward Prison, or Grave. The Heaven, the Earth, the Corn, the Wine, Duties performed, Ordinances enjoyed, Graces Acted, the Word published; All are the Green Flourishing, Fruitful Bed of Preventing, or Assisting Loves, on which the Lord Jesus, and his Spouse embrace each other.

In Ordinances the heavenly Bridegroom pipeth, or mourneth to Jezreel, the Divine Seed, his Sister-Spouse. In Duties, or Graces Jezreel danceth, or mourneth to him again. Thorow all these Assisting Love sweetly shineth, or soundeth from above; sweetly again reflecteth and Ecchoeth back from the Spirit of a Saint below. This is the Answer in its First Step.

2. Step. The Reason given by the Philosopher, why the Heavens, which we see over our heads move so regularly, so harmoniously, so constantly, from the beginning of the world hitherto, is this; They have Assisting Forms, Intelligences, Angels, which move them, which turn them round. Many Souls sweetly touched with the Allurements of Divine Love in Christ, fear to come to him, to cast themselves into His Bosom by Believing. They distrust their own strength, and constancy for their continuance in a holy temper. They doubt they shall fall back with greater guilt and shame to themselves; with greater reproach to the name of the Lord Jesus. Many weak Christians are day and night tormented with like fears, and doubts; that they shall fall away at last by the force of some Corruption, or the Difficulties in the ways of Holiness. Dear Souls! be not discouraged from believing, or in believing; be not kept off from the Bosom of Christ, be not disquieted in His Bosom by any fears or doubts. You have a Good Angel for an Assisting Form, you have an Assisting Form brighter and more glorious, than the highest and brightest Angel; more powerful, than all the Angels in Heaven. You have the Assisting Love of the Lord Jesus present with you, in your Spirits, by day, and by night. This doth move, this will move, and turn about your Hearts, your lives regularly, harmoniously, constantly, in all the Circles of Divine Graces, Truths, Joys, Glories, according to the Laws, and Patterns in the Supreme Mind, in the Heart of God, thorough all times Eternally.

Preventing Love is the Golden Chain, which draweth thee to the Embraces of Christ. O run when thou feelest thyself so drawn. Assisting Love is the Golden Chain, that tieth thee fast, and close, immediately, inseparably, for ever in these embraces. Rest with Confidence, and full Assurance in these embraces; feed with desire and delight among the Lilies here; lie down to sleep in these embraces. Thy sleep will be sweet to thee.

3. Step. Learned men and Divines teach us; that the Preservation of the world is continuata Creatio, a continued Creation. In every moment of Time from the Begi • ning of the world to the end, the Divine Act of Preserving, and Governing the world according to the Present form proper to it for that Season is entirely the same with the Act of Creation. In every moment from the Begining of the world to the end, the whole world with all things in it rise up into the form designed for that moment in the Eternal Law of the Divine Wisdom, out of the nothingness of the Creature out of the Omnipotency of the Creator, as freely, as freshly, as fully, as Absolutely, as in the first Moment of Its Being.

So is it, and much more clearly, sweetly gloriously so in this Creation of God, the Creation of Grace. Assisting Love is no other than Preventing Love Continued: A continuation of Preventing Love. They say; A line is One Individual Point in motion. This is most true; All Assisting Love; the whole Life of Grace, and Glory in a Saint is One, Individual, Unchangeable Point of Preventing Love Eternal Love in Motion, spreading itself, within Itself to an Infinite Circle.

In every moment of a Saint's spiritual Being from his first Conversion to Eternity the Act of Assisting Love in Preserving, in Governing thee is the same with that first Act of Preventing Love in Regenerating thee.

In every moment of thy Spiritual Being from thy first Conversion to thy Glorification in Eternity, thy Spiritual Man the Divine Nature in thee riseth up into the form of that Moment answering Its Pattern in the Heavenly Image, the Glorified Person of Christ, out of thine own Nothingness; out of the glorious fullness of the God-head in Christ, as freely, as • reshly, as sweetly, as absolutely, as entirely; as in the first moment of the New-Birth in thee.

I will conclude this Second State of Divine Love in Christ, Assisting Love with that of the Greek Epigram thus translated: fer Fatum; sin ferre recuses; non minus te feret Fatum. Bear thy Destiny. If thou refuse to bear it; thy Destiny will nevertheless bear thee, and carry thee along. Cast thyself, O believer into the Bosom of the Assisting Love of thy God in Christ, to be born up, and carried along in it. But if thou refuse, and murmur; nevertheless this Assisting Love will take thee into Its Bosom, and bear thee and carry thee along with It in Its own Way laid out and lifted up in Heaven in the Spirit into Eternal Joys.

If we believe not; yet is He faithful, and cannot deny Himself. God is Love He cannot deny Himself in the unchangeablness of His Divine Essence which is Love. He is True and faithful to the unity and simplicity of his own naked Being which is Love in the midst of all our changes, unbeliefs, unfaithnesses.

3. There is poured forth from the Heart of the Father in the Bosom of our Glorified Savior The fullness of all finishing Love. I know no Scripture, which displayeth the finishing Love of God in Christ with more sweetness, riches and fullness; than that; Ephes. 2. v. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. You have here Love under several names in five verses repeated six times; Mercy; Love; Grace; Grace; Kindness; Grace. You have it brought in with Magnifying Titles, Rich in Mercy; Great Love; Exceeding Riches of Grace. The Salvation of a Saint is here presented to us, as a rich Piece of fine Enamelling. First the Ground on which the Enamelling lieth, is Gold. Then you have the rich Enamel upon the Gold. Lastly some beautiful Picture is formed in the Enamel. Such a piece of Divine Work is a Saint. 1. The Ground of the Work is Pure Gold, Pure Love, Preventing Love, God doth all from Rich Mercy, for the Great Love wherewith he hath loved us, v. 2. 2. The rich Enamelling upon this rich Ground of Love is Love too. All the Work is a curious, close, and fine Enamelling of Divine Love upon a glorious Ground of Love. You have this brought in and doubled, v. 3, 8. By Grace ye are saved. 3. The Beautiful Picture formed in this Enamel of Love upon a Ground of Love is, the Heavenly Face of Divine Love, naked, entire in all its Lovelinesses and Glories, to ravish all Spirits into a delightful Admiration: That to the Ages to come might be shown the Exceeding Riches of his Grace, v. 7. This is the End of God in Christ. He draweth upon the whole Person of a Saint, the Heavenly Form, the Divine Figure of Love, as Love is God; of Himself, as God is Love. He draweth this Divine Figure of Love in all its Riches, in those Riches of Sweetness, Loveliness, Glory, which exceed, which transcend all Degrees, all Capacities, all Understandings in the Creature. He doth it to this end, that the Father, the Lord Jesus, all Angels, and Spirits, all Creatures, in Ages to come, that is, in Eternity may see with Extasies of Joy and Wonder, the Entire Form of Divine Love in its most naked, most lively, richest Beauties, figured upon, and shining in the whole Person of a Saint from one end of his Story unto the Other. Do you not discern the Finishing Love of God in Christ making All perfect in Eternity?

The Ground of the Work of God in a Saint is Love. It is all inlaid in every point of it with Love. It is All Overlaid with Love. When St. Paul had gone through the Particulars, and several times declared All to be Grace, Pure Love: after all that he wrappeth up all over again in Grace, in Pure Love. By Grace ye are saved; v. 8. A Saint is like a Gold-Watch in a Gold-Case; A Work of Love in a Covering of Love, as rich, as the Work. If you go never so low all thorough a Saint to the Nethermost parts of the Earth to his lowest Foundations; All is Love. If you search into the Heights of Eternity above him, round about him; All is Love, Comprehending, Crowning Love.

You will see the Fulness of the Finishing Love of God in Christ yet, more clearly: if you consider Three Things set before you in this Scripture.

1. It is Love, which is the Supreme Sun of Eternity, which generateth us to a Divine Birth, which infuseth a Divine Principle of Life into us, and awakeneth it in us. For his greatest Love, wherewith he hath loved us, he hath quickened us, v. 4. 5. This is Pre-venting Love.

It is Love, which maintaineth, carrieth on, floweth forth into the Stream of Divine Life in us from the Beginning to the End. By Grace ye are saved; He hath raised you. v. 5. 6. The Way of a Saint is a Continued Resurrection Every Moment is a New Resurrection, every Resurrection supposeth a Death.

The whole Way o a Saint from the First Incarnation of Christ in him is a Contexture of Deaths and Resurrections, Divine Lights of Life and Shades. This whole Way of a Saint; the Deaths, as well, as the Resurrections the Shades, as well, as the Lights, are Divine Grace, Pure Love. Love putteth on the form of Death, and shineth thorough it. Death putteth on the Form of Love, and shineth in it. This is Assisting Love.

It is Love, which setteth us down in Heavenly places. Love maketh itself a Heaven of glory and bliss; a Kingdom of Joy, a Throne of pure Gold; a Crown of Immortality. This is Finishing Love. They are the same Riches of Mercy, the same Greatnesses of Love, which shine forth in our hearts at our Regeneration, at every Resurrection; and in Heaven at our Glorification. God rich in Mercy, for his great Love hath quickened us, raised us, set us down in Heavenly Places. All is the Same Love, the Seed, the Tree, the Blossom, the Fruit.

2 All the Steps in the whole Way of a Saint from the Beginning to the End are so many Love-Unions. He hath quickened us together with Christ; v. 5. He hath raised us together with him; He hath set us down together; v. 6 Every new Step in Grace, or Glory is a New Love-Union.

Every Act of Divine Life is composed of a Blessed, and Beautiful Trinity of Divine Loves. 1. There is the Lord Jesus, That Spirit, which is the Supreme Love, the Essential Image, the Eternal Son of That God which is Love; the Bridegroom, and Beloved of a Holy Soul. 2. There is the Spirit of a Saint, the Sister, the Spouse, the Love of this Love, this Bridegroom; Spirit of the same Spirit; Love of the same Love; sprung from the same Root, formed into the same Image, and Tree, bearing the same Fruits of Divine Love. 3. There is the Holy Spirit, the Marriage-Dove, the Marriage-knot, the Love-Union between these Two Divine Loves. Thus every Act, every Moment of a Saint's Life is a Divine Trinity of Heavenly, Eternal Loves coming forth in a New Dress suitable to each New Moment.

3. All the Parts of a Gracious, or Glorious Life are acted; all the Forms, and Moments of the State of a Saint; His Beginning, Progress, End are acted, and comprehended in the Pure Element of Heavenly Love; in the Divine World of Spiritual Love; in that Great, and Glorious Deep, into which all the Fountains of Love in the whole God-Head, in the Heart of the Father are broken up, and pour forth themselves, in the Glorified Person of the Lord Jesus. He hath quickened us together in Christ; v. 5. He hath raised, us together, made us to sit together in Heavenly Places in him; v. 6. Thus you see the Absoluteness, the Compleatness of Finishing Love, as well, as of Preventing, and Assisting Love. You see the Finishing Love of the Father poured forth with all Fulness in our Blessed Savior: You see Divine Love in the Bosom of your Beloved, Alone Beginning Alone Continuing the Work of Grace, Alone in the Purity, Power, Simplicity of Free Grace Finishing, Perfecting All in Glory.

I will make this clear to you by One Scripture more; 2 Tim. 1. 9. he hath saved us not according to works, which we have done, but according to his own Purpose, and Grace given to us in Christ, before the World was; Who hath abolished Death, and brought Life, and Immortality to Light by his Appearance in the Gospel Behold this Heavenly Sight! Believe, rejoice, and wonder. A Saint is a Spiritual Building of all Heavenly Graces, and Glories. It is entirely composed throughout of Free Grace, of Pure Love. The Foundation of it is laid in the Fair Colours of Divine Love, all the Rooms, the several Stories, the Furniture, the Riches, the Entertainment is of Pure Love. The Roof is laid with the Precious stones of Pure Love. The whole Work of a Saint's Salvation, the Materials, the Form the Proportions. the Measures of the Whole, and of every Part are Free Grace, Pure Love He hath saved us according to his Purpose, and Grace given us in Christ before the World was.

That Word Purpose signifieth properly the Fore-laying of a thing.

This Divine B • ilding of Love, this Heavenly Frame of Life, and Immortality, which is the True Form of a Saint, was set up in the Glorious Person of our Jesus from Eternity. All, that is done in time is the unvailing, and Discovery of this Heavenly, and Eternal Building by Degrees, according to the Measure of the Appearance of the Lord Jesus in us, in whose Person, and Spirit this Frame standeth, as a Living, Precious Corner-stone, out of which it is grown up; as a most pleasant Situation, which encompasseth it on every pa • t.

This Palace, this Temple of Divine Love, of Light, of Life, of Immortality is Eternal in the Heavens, in Christ. Time, Flesh, Sin, the whole Work of this Creation are a Vail of Darkness, and Death cast upon It. As Jesus Christ shineth forth upon the Soul in the Gospel, he casteth off this Vail, he abolisheth this Death, he discovereth, and bringeth forth into the Clearness, and Sweetness of Its own Divine Light this Divine Frame of Life, and Immortality, which is the True Saint, the New Jerusalem, the Bride, the Lamb's wife coming down out of Heaven with her Beloved ready trimmed.

How manifest, how full is the Finishing Love of God in Christ? The whole Being of a Saint is a Building, where all the Materials, the Work, the Finishing is Pure Love. Pure Love finished all its Works in this Building, before it began the World, from Eternity; and set it up in the Person of Christ. Pure Love cleanseth it from the Dust of Time, the Filth of Flesh, and bringeth it forth into the clear Lights of Grace, of Glory, which are the Brightness of its own Spiritual Beauties, in the Evangelical Appearances, and Out-Shinings of Jesus Christ.

Use 1. Receive the Love of God in Christ. 2. Resign yourselves to the Love of God in Christ.

1. Receive the Love of God in Christ. It is a sweet, and easy work. For this Love giveth reception to itself in the Soul. When the Sugar taketh in the Wine; In truth the Wine into which the Sugar is cast, or which is poured upon it, worketh itself into the Sugar, then melteth, and dissolveth it into One Body with itself; until you can no more distinguish between the Sugar, and the Wine. So the Soul lieth in the midst of Divine Love. Love in its own way, by its own force worketh and melteth itself into the Soul, until it have melted and wrought the Soul into One Spirit, One Love with itself.

Divine Love is received into thy Soul, as thy Soul is received into thy Body; by Bringing it forth New out of its own Bosom; by Comprehending it in itself; by Forming it unto a Divine Image of Itself; by Inhabiting, Filling, Acting it; by Delighting in it, as its Daughter, Sister, Spouse, as its self multiplied. Receive this Love, which thus receiveth you, giveth reception to itself in you.

2. Resign yourselves to Divine Love. This Love worketh all your works, all its own works in you, and for you; all Works of Love and of Loveliness. Philosophy teacheth us, that all Colours are Light mingled with Shade in various degrees, and manners; until it break up thorough the Shades, and drink up the Shades into One Pure Brightness. The Gospel teacheth us; that all Graces are Divine Love shining variously, and gradually forth, thorough the Darknesses of our Spirits; until by a sweet and Heavenly Force, as the Fire of the Divine Life kindled from the Throne of God, it burn out, and burn up all those Darknesses, Distances, De • ilements, Enmities, into One Eternal Flame of Pure Love, of Perfect Joy.

St. James teach • th us; c. 1. 4. If Patience have its perfect work, it shall make us perfect, wanting nothing. This is the same thing, as if he had said; Let Divine Love, Preventing, Assisting Finishing Love have their Perfect work. These will make you Perfect, wanting nothing. This is the Grace of Patience; the Love of God in Christ by its own force insinuating itself into our Souls; by its own Charms alluring our Souls, tempering them to a harmonious Repose in it, a sweet, entire Resignation to it; until it have wrought out, and finished its own Glories upon it.

Patience hath its Perfect Work; when Love hath its Perfect work. Love hath its Perfect Work in us; when we oppose nothing of the Devil to it; when we mingle nothing of our own with it.

O that I were indeed a Minister of the Gospel! Then I should minister the Spirit to you, which is Love; The Fountain, and the Sea of Love. Then while I speak of Love, you would feel the Holy Ghost in his own proper Form, in the Form, and Fulness of Divine Love coming down upon you, entering into you, forming himself in you unto a Free Reception of himself, a Full Resignation to himself, until he had Finished his own most Lovely Form of Heavenly Love in you.

Use 3. Be aware, that you must receive the Love of God in Christ thorough Death. St Paul admonisheth us, that as many, as are baptized into Christ, are baptized into the Similitude of his Death. Rom. 6. 3. If we will be baptized into the Love, we must be baptized into the Death of the Lord Jesus. When Moses son was circumcised, Zipporah his wife said to him; A bloody husband hast thou been to me. Some interpret the Words, as they run in the Hebrew; Thou hast been to me a Husband in Blood. So they are the Solemn words of that Sacrament pointing out the Truth figured in that Type. The Lord Jesus is a Husband to Thee in his own Blood. Thou must also be a Spouse to him in thine own Blood,

St Paul saith; Ye are dead to your first Husband by the Dead Body of Christ, that ye may be married to another, to him, who is risen from the Dead. Rom. 7. 4. You must come thorough the Death of Christ into his Marriage-Bed. You cannot lie down in the Embraces of his Love in Glory; except ye be first married to his Crucified Body, and united to that in the Embraces of Death. Flesh, and Blood saith St Paul cannot enter into the Kingdom of God; into the Kingdom of Spiritual Love.

If a Fleshly, a Natural Spirit striveth to enter into the Love of God in the Glorified Person of our Lord Jesus: it • alleth short of the Truth, the Life; it attaineth to a Similitude only. The Love and Glory of the Father, of Christ, of Heaven to the most raised Spirit of this Creation is an Enchantment, Delusion, a Dream. This G • ace of God in the Figure, this Divine Love in a Dream is for the most part turned into Wantonness, & Lust. So men become in the heighth of the Purest Notions, of the Sweetest Images no more than Filthy Dreamers.

The Death of Christ in the New Birth, in Purity, and Power of the holy Ghost is the Angel with a Flaming Sword turning every way, which keepeth the Entrance into the True Paradise, the Way to the Tree of Divine Love, as well, as of Divine Life. The Eternal Spirit is the Flaming Sword. Death here in its outward form is an Angel ministering to this Spirit. He, that dieth by this Sword, and Flame in the hand of this Angel, cutteth off, burneth up all Fleshly Forms, and Lives; is in the same moment new-born into a Divine, Immortal Spirit. In this Spirit he entereth into the Paradise of Love in the Third Heavens, above the Heaven of Sense, or all things Visible, above the Heaven of Reason, Angels, all things Invisible, Intellectual, of the First Creation; in the Glorified Person of Christ. Here nothing entereth, which hurteth, or defil • th.

But be not discouraged, when ye hear of a Baptism in Death, before the Heavens open and the Dove, Divine Love descend to rest upon you, to give you rest in itself. It is Love itself, which is the Baptiser, which leadeth you, and goeth down with you into Death. It is a River of Love, which is the Jordan, the Death, into which you go down, and are baptized.

We are baptized, St. Paul saith in the forementioned place, into the Similitude of Christ's Death. The Death of Christ was Death in Truth; a Substantial, Real Death. The Death of Christ in a Saint is Eternal Love, Eternal Life in the Likeness, and Form of Death; a Similitude only of Death in a Substance of Immortal Love, and Glory, in the Person of our Jesus ascended.

Use. 4. Take heed of mingling the Lusts of the Flesh with Spiritual Loves. Jealousy is the Rage of God, as well, as of Man. It burneth to the Foundations of the Earth. A Fly bred out of Dung so infested the Eagle, that it forced him to lay his Eggs for safety in the Lap of Jupiter, the Heathen-God. The Fly mounteth up aloft, carrieth up some Dung with it, letteth it fall into Jupiter's lap. He arising, and shaking the Dung out of his Lap, shaketh ou • the Eagle's Eggs with it, which fall broken to pieces upon the ground.

This is a Fable. The Moral is good. Thou art a Saint. Thou layest the Births of the Divine Spirit in Thee, thy Graces, Hopes, Joyes with thyself in the Bosom of Divine Love. O take heed, that thy Flesh, that Dung-Fly, mingle nothing of its Filth with these Births of the Spirit in the Pure Bosom of Heavenly Love. If it do; assure thyself, that Love will cast all the Filth, all Flesh out of its Chast, and Spiritual Embraces, As that falleth to the Ground, thou also wilt fall with it, and have many a broken bone, many a broken heart.

We read in the Revelation of the Dragon, and his Angels in Heaven together with Michael, and his Angels. But they fought there, till the Dragon, and his Angels were cast out. Thou, O Believer, art a Heaven in which God dwelleth as Love, where all the Angels, as Angels of Love; where all Forms of things are, as Heavenly Angels of Pure Love round about him ministering to him. Shall there be now seen in this Heaven, in thy Person, O Believer, filthy Lusts, furious Passions; the Dragon, and his Angels together with the Lord Jesus, Divine Love, and its holy Angels. How hateful, how horrid a Wonder! What a Prodigy is this?

If it be so, let there be no rest in the Heaven of thy Spirit; let there be a continual Fight, until the Dragon with his Angels, the Fleshly Spirit with its Lusts, and Passions be cast out. When the Unclean Dog, and the fiery Dragon are no more; Thy Lamb will feed, and lie down to rest; thy Turtle will make its Nest, and enjoy its Mate, its Beloved in quiet. Nothing shall disturb, or make them afraid in all the Paradise of Divine Love.

Use. 5. Comfort yourselves, O Believers. You travel thorough the Valley of Baca: Baca signifieth a Mulberry Tree, and Weeping. You travel thorough a Valley of Tears, a Mournful Valley; where all the Trees, that grow, are Mulberry Trees, Emblems of Grief, and Woe.

You are frequently overspread with the black Shades of Fear, Unbelief, Doubt, Distrust, Despair. You often fall into the hands of violent Robbers, Evil Spirits in the forms of various Temptations, Corruptions, Passions. These spoil you, leave you naked, wounded, desolate. You dig up pits in Duties, Ordinances. But many times no Rain, no Descent of the Spirit from Heaven filleth these Pits.

Yet be not discouraged, all you, who believe the Love of God in Jesus Christ. Strengthen the feeble Knees. You shall go on from Strength to Strength, from Light to Light; so you shall come everyone of you at last to a Clear Sight, to a Compleat Fruition of the God of God's on Mount Zion, of God in his Supreme Glory, in the Nakedness, Purity, Simplicity, Unity of the Eternal Spirit. Lift up the feeble hands. These weak Graces of yours mixed, interrupted with so much Corruption; These weak Persons; Bodies, and Spirits wearied, wounded, stained with so many Sufferings, Sins, and Sorrows shall be crowned with perfect Glory.

For why? Pure Love, Almighty Love, That Love, which is itself God over all Blessed forever; This Love comes forth casting off all vails, pouring forth itself from all its Eternal Springs, in all its Infinite Fulnesses in the Glorified Person of Christ; This Love hath begun, and shall it not make an End?

As Certainly, as it hath laid the Foundation, and you have cried to it; Grace, Grace; Pure Love; Preventing Love; as Certainly, as it hath gone on to build you up thus far; and still you have cried to it; Grace, Grace; Pure Love; Assisting Love: so certainly will it lay the Top-stone. Your Eyes shall see it. You shall in like manner cry to it, with a Shout of Angels, and Blessed Spirits all round about you; Grace, Grace; Pure Love; Finishing Love.

There are Three Sorts of Comforts, which the Finishing Love of God in Christ ministereth to us; 1. Against the Difficulties of Life;

2. Against the Darkness of Death; 3. Against the Dreadfulness of the Great and Last Day.

1. Comfort; against the Difficulties of Life. St. Paul had prayed thrice against the Thorn in his Flesh, and the Buffetings of Satan. He receiveth this Answer; My Grace is suffici • nt for thee: My Strength is perfected in Weakness; I rejoice therefore gladly in my Infirmities. For, when I am weak, the Power of Christ resteth upon me. My Grace. You have there the Father, the Fountain of Love, the Fountain of Free Grace. You have at the end of the verse, the Lord Jesus Glorified, into whom this Fountain floweth continually, covering his Person all over without, filling it all within with the G • ories, Immortalities and Joys of Divine Love. This Jesus resteth upon St Paul in the Power, in the Perfection of All his Loves; He maketh Perfect, he finisheth his Loves, the Pure, and heavenly Work of his Loves upon him; when he is weakest.

The Holy Ghost discovereth a Mystery here. A Mystery is a Divine Secret: A Divine Glory with a Divine Vail cast over it; a Divine Light surrounded with a Divine Darkness; The Head of Christ all Pure, Fine Gold covered with Locks, and Curles black, as a Raven. The Mystery, which the Holy Ghost here unvaileth to us is, One of the richest, and sweetest among all the Mysteries of the Gospel. It is the Mystery of Love, of Finishing Love. Blessed are those Eyes, that see the Glory; Blessed are those Hearts, that understand, and relish the Sweetness of This Mystery. It is This: When Divine Love would put forth itself in Greatest Power, and Glory; when it would finish, make Perfect the general, or any Particular Work of Love in us: it chooseth that Season, when we are weakest, lowest, have least of Loveliness, Life, Love, or Suitableness to Love; when we are in the greatest unlikelihood for it; when we seem to be at the greatest Distance from it.

Cant. 6. v. 12. The Spouse is brought in speaking thus: Ere I was aware, my Soul made me, as the Chariots of Amminadib. I have not Learning enough to understand, why Amminadib is set here, as One Proper name, whenas in the Hebrew there are Two distinct Words, which have their common signification, and are rendered in the Margint of the Bible; My Willing People. Moreover that word As is put in by the Translatours; and where we read Made me, the Original properly is expressed by Set me.

The words th • n run thus in the Hebrew Text; Ere I was aware, (or, I knew not, I knew not how, I knew nothing of it) my Soul set me the Chariots of my Willing People; or by the Addition of One Preposition understood; My Soul set me in the Chariots of my willing people. It will be worth our time, and pains; if we stay a little upon the opening of this verse. We shall find a Spiritual, a heavenly Treasure in it; and bring the Application home to our hearts more Clearly, more Comfortably.

There are Four Questions, which may be made here: 1. Qu. Who this People are, which the heavenly Bride calleth; My People. 2 Qu. What the Willing People are. 3 Qu. What the Chariots are. 4. How the Soul of the Bride setteth her In these Chariots or maketh her As these Chariots.

1. Qu. Who the heavenly Bride's own People are.

Answ. These whom the Spiritual Bride calleth Her own P • ople are Heavenly Spirits in Glory. It was said of Jacob, when he died; He was gathered to his People. While a holy Soul is in this World, she is, as an unknown Princess under a Disguise, in a strange land, the language whereof she understandeth not. In Death this Princess-Bride returneth home to her own People, to her own Kindred, her own Relations, and Acquaintances. There all understand the languages, Faces, and hearts of Each other. There they mutually drink in the Spirits of Each Other, and in the Spirits of Each other all Pure, Immortal Loves, Beauties, Joys.

There is another Scripture, which commenteth upon this, and confirmeth our Explication of it: It is Eccles. 12. 7. The Dust returneth to the Earth, as it was: The Spirit to God, who gave it. That which is translated God, is in the Plural Number God's, often applied to the Angels. The Jews say it signifieth God cum Indumentis suis: as he clotheth himself with the Forms of Angels, and appeareth in them. The Soul of a Saint cometh forth from the Land of Angels, and Glorious Spirits, in the midst of which God reigneth, into this World, as into an Exile or Banishment. When it dieth, then it goeth home to its own Country, and People; to its own City, and Fellow-Citizens; The Inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem, the Mother of us all.

I shall add one Text more, which will make all the rest Clear; Hebr. 11. 14, 15, 16. The Saints there are said to seek a Country. The Word is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; Their Native Country. Then to prevent a mistake you are told; that this Native Country was not that, from which they came on Earth. It is distinguished from that, and plainly called; A heavenly Country; Their Native Land, which is a heavenly Country. Behold those whom the Spouse of Christ calleth My People; The Inhabitants of the City of the Living God; her heavenly Country, her Native Land above the Heavens, as the word beareth. These are described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, The Assembly of the First-born. all Forms of things, all the Saints, in Spiritual Beings, and Beauties, in the Likeness of Christ, as he is the first-born of every Creature, before they descend from their Thrones of Pure Glory, from their Virgin-Luster, and Sweetness in the Bosom of Christ, into Flesh, upon the Earth; The Innumerable Company of Angels the Glorious Attendants of the Saints in their higher, and First-born Glory; The Spirits of just men made Perfect; either in the Body, or out of the Body, come to this heavenly Land; Living, walking, and conversing there among the Inhabitants of this Land, in the Spirit: These are Thy People, Thine own People, O Believer, O thou Blessed Bride of thy Glorified Jesus. You have the Answer to the First Question.

2 Qu. What are the Willing People?

Answ. Again I am ignorant, why the same word is rendered in the Margin of this Scripture; Willing; when as immediately after, Cant. 7. 1. The same word Nadib is translated Prince; O Prince's Daughter; or O Princely Daughter. If I mistake not, the Church is spoken of in that Chapter, as being now in Glory, upon the Throne. You have this word Nadib used to the same sense, of the same Subject; Psal. 110. 3. Thy People shall be Willing in the day of thy Power, in the Beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning; thou hast the dew of thy Birth. The words lie thus in Hebrew: Thy willing People in the Day of thy Power, o • , thy Armies, in the Beauti • s, or Excellencies or Majesty's of holiness, or in thy holy, Pure Beauties, from the Womb of the Morning, to thee the Dew of thy Youth.

You have here the Lord Jesus in Glory, in his Kingdom; in the Day of his Power with his Armies of Angels round about him; in the Beauties of holiness, in his Fr • shest Beauties, in the heighth of Excellency, and Majesty in the Glory of his God-Head filling, shining thorough, overspreading his human Nature. You have him here in the Brightness Sweetness, and Newness of his Eternal Sonship, as he cometh • orth Immediately from the Womb of the Morning, the Bosom of the Father, who is the Morning, the Day-Spring of the God-Head. Thus is Jesus Christ with the Dew of his Youth upon him as Fair, as Fresh, as unfading as a New-blown Rose in the Morning, while the Pearly Dew lieth yet upon it. Jesus Christ is now, as a Bridegroom upon his Coronation Day, or as a King upon his Marriage-Day. Now his People are a Princely People, all Fellow-Kings together with him. Now the holy Soul is That Princess, and Daughter which is his Queen all in Beaten Gold at his right hand.

The Willing People are Princes, heavenly Spirits in Glory. This is the Answer to the Second Question.

3. Qu. What are the Chariots of the Princely People?

Answ. 1. The Chariots are the holy Angels. Psal. 68. 17. The Chariots of the Lord are Thousands; Ten Thousands of Angels. God is in the midst of them, as on Sinai, in the holy Place You may observe in your Bibles that word Place not to be printed with the same letter, as holy, to signify, that it is not in the Hebrew but added by the Translatours.

The Holy may be here any of these, or rather all of these in their Subordinations; the Sanctuary, or Temple, the Holy Plac • , the Figure; the Lord Jesus, the Substance, & Life to this Figure, the holy One the Saints, the holy Ones, the members of Christ, Christ Mystical, the Spiritual Temples; Heaven, the Everlasting Glory of the God-Head, in which Christ resideth.

Sinai was a Type to all these. These in their several degrees are Sinai heightened to Zion, to the Perfection of the Divine Presence in the Beauty of Holiness, and Love. You may see too, that As before Sinai is added. The Hebrew lieth thus; Sinai in the holy.

The Thousands, and Ten thousands of holy Angels make all One Chariot in which God rideth. Each Angel is also a Distinct Chariot The Chariots of the Lord are according to the number of the Angels. But Each Angel comprehendeth in himself the whole Millions, of Angels. They are distinguished in their Essential Forms; but undivided. As the same Colours, and Lines varied make all Beauties: So all Angelical Forms in distinct Relations make up the Essence, and Glory of Every Particular Angel. God with the Thousands of his Chariots rested on Mount Sinai. Sinai, or Zion rather is in the Lord Jesus; in the Assemblies of the Saints; in the Person, and Spirit of every Saint; in Heaven; in the Spirit thorough all the Heavens, and the Earth, in the Lord Jesus, and every Saint.

The Chariot of Solomon is the Chariot of his Queen also. The Bridegroom, and the Bride ride together in the same Chariot; Jesus Christ and his Spouse; Jesus Christ, and his Brethren, his Fellow Kings.

Behold then the Chariots of the Princely People of the Immortal Kings, of Saints in Glory, in the Glory of Christ, and of the Spirit, whether in the Body, or out of the Body. They are the Chariots of God; The Thousands, and • Ten Thousands of the holy Angels.

These are in a double sense the Chariots of these Divine Princes; 1. These Princes ride in them; 2. God rideth, upon them in these Princes, as on Sinai, as on Zion, as in Heaven.

Answ. 2. The Chariot is the Divine Presence in the Light, and Evidence of its own Appearance, with all its Train of Glories, and Angels, as in Heaven with the Universal Form of things comprehended in it, enlivened, and enlightened by it; as in the Glorious Person of Christ, at the last day. This Divine Presence descending and ascending; resting upon, and shining forth in the Prophets and Holy men of old in their Visions; is described Mystically; Ezek. c. 1. and called by the Jews, The Chariot.

There are Wheels, Living, High, Dreadful, Glorious, Shining, as a Pretious Stone, full of Eyes, that is, of Angels, of heavenly Spirits. I humbly offer it to be considered; whether these Wheels be not the Elements, these Globes of the Visible Earth, and Heavens, made New, made Spiritual, filled with Angelical Lives, clothed with Angelical Forms, and Glories in the Kingdom of the Spirit, and Mystical Person of Christ.

Then the Horses, which draw these Wheels are the Living Creatures, full of Eyes. If the Wheels may be understood to be the visible Part; these Living Creatures may present the Invisible Part of the Creation in its Renovation, by a Spiritual Glory flowing forth from the Fountain of The God-Head in the Glorified Person of the Lord Jesus.

These Wheels, and Horses together may perhaps not improbably be thought to be the New Earth.

Above the Wheels, and the Living Creatures is the Chariot itself, a Firmament. If I may pursue my former Apprehension with Submission to the Spirit of Truth in every Spirit; I shall call this the New Heaven; The heavenly Image, the God-Head unvailing itself, appearing in a New Glory. This is the Firmament, the Heaven, born up, and carried along by the Innumerable Company of Angels; while Jesus Christ sitteth in it, as in his Chariot.

Above this Firmament is the Similitude of a Man; as Fire, from his Loins upward, and as Fire from his Loins downward. This is our Blessed Savior in the Union of his Divine, and Human Nature. The Glory of the Divinity, of the Eternal Spirit clotheth both with the same Similitude of Fire, which shineth with the Sweetest Light burneth with the greatest force of Love, transformeth all things with an Almighty Power into One Pure, Immortal, Divine Flame with itself.

The Lord Jesus himself speaketh of his own Coming, and Appearance in his Kingdom after this manner; The Son of Man shall come in his own Glory, in the Glory of his Father, and in the Glory of all His holy Angels.

Our Savior seemeth to have had the same Vision in the Eye of his Spirit which Ezekiel had. The Jews distinguish the Angels into Angels of the Throne, nearer to the Divine Majesty; Angels of Service, at a greater Distance.

The Glory of the holy Angels make the New Earth; the Horses, and the Wheels in the Chariot of the great King. The Wheels, the Visible Part of the Creation, the Wheels are made of Angelical Glory: But they are the Angels of Service in a New, Spiritual Glory. The Invisible Things of the Creation, the Living Creatures in the Chariot are the Angels of the Throne • in the Glory of the Kingdom; of the Coronation,, and Marriage-Day.

The Firmament, the New Heaven is the Glory of the Father; The Chariot itself which containeth him, in which he descendeth, bowing down the Heavens, as he descendeth. The Lord Jesus himself in his own Glory is Distinct from all these Glories, compre • endeth them; and rideth forth in them.

This is that Image, in which he shall appear at the last Day, as a New Creator and a New Creation, making all things New; as the most Entire, most Naked Image of the Invisible God, in all his most Pure, and most Invisible Glories; as the First-born of the whole Creation in general, and of every Creature in Particular; as the Whole Creation in its Virgin-State, in its Ideal Glory, while yet it sprung up out of the Bosom of God, and stood only in the Bosom of God, and was a Sister-Spouse to the uncreated Beauty.

This is that Testimony of Jesus, which is the Spirit of Prophesy; That Divine Presence, that Word of God, which came to all the Holy Men of old, in the Light of which, as in the Glass of Eternity, the First, and Supreme Truth, they saw Visions, dreamed dreams, and spake of him. This is the Chariot of the Princes; of the Saints in the Glory of the Spirit.

4 Qu. How doth the Soul of the Spouse make her, as this Chariot of her Princely People, or set her in it?

Answ. The Soul of the heavenly Bride is her Lord, her Life, her Love, her heart, her True Self, her Beloved, her Jesus. He descendeth in his Chariot, and taketh her up into it. He appearing in his heavenly Image composed of the Glory of his Father, his own Glory, the Glory of all his holy Angels, which is his Chariot, as he appeareth in her, translateth and transfigureth her into the same heavenly Image. She also is now become a Chariot made up all of the same Glories, with the same Jesus, the same Queen, the same Company of Princes riding together in it. The Soul of the Bride is also Faith, the 〈◊〉 of God, the Divine Nature, the Spirit in a Saint.

This Divine Life in a Saint by a Descent of the Lord Jesus upon it, in a moment, ere a Saint is aware, he knoweth not how, both taketh him up to set him in this Chariot, and Transformeth him into it.

I have only prepared you by all this for the Application of the Scripture opened by us to our present purpose; that we may take in with a greater Sense, with a Deeper Impression the Comfort, and Joys of Finishing Love making Perfect its most Beautiful Works, and Displaying its most pleasant Strengths in our Weaknesses.

Ere I was aware, my Soul made me, as the Chariots of my Princely People; or set me in them.

Hearken to me, my Brethren. Is there not among you a Poor Believer, a Mournful Saint, which hath long prayed, long sighed for a Clear Sight of Jesus Christ, a Sense, and Seal of his Love, Sweet, and Constant Communion with him? To this Soul I now speak. Perhaps after all this thou art embracing the Dunghil of Distrust, and Despair. Perhaps thou art sitting upon the Dunghil of some Fleshly Lust, or Earthly Care; of Covetousness, or Lasciviousness; Vanity, or vexation. Now, in a moment, which thou thinkest not of, ere thou art aware, Jesus Christ in the Divine Brightness of some heavenly Truth flashing, like Lightning, in upon thy Spirit, may descend, may discover himself in his Heavenly Image, with his naked Glories, naked Loves to thee. Now, are thou art aware, he may make this heavenly Image, at once a Laver of Precious Blood, in which he washeth Thee white, as the Light itself, from every Spot; a Chariot of heavenly Princes, in which he cometh down to Thee upon thy Dunghil, taketh Thee off from thy Dunghil to ride with him in the Fellowship of all Immortal Spirits, while all the holy Angels bear Thee up, and carry Thee on upon the Firmament of the Father's Glory at the side of thy Beloved, whither the Mind of the Spirit is for Thee to go.

Ere thou art aware, the Lord Jesus can change thy Dunghil, can change Thee, into a Divine Chariot of Eternal Spirits, in which he will ride forth with Thee; thou shalt ride forth together with him having his Loveliness in thine Eye, his Love in thine heart, thorough all Forms of things, Light, and Darkness, Life, and Death, as thorough various Fields, differing Regions of Spiritual Beauties, and Delights in the Vast Continent, the Vast World of the Divine Nature.