The Freedom of the Will, Part 1 · Subpart 2 · Section 2

The Freedom of the Will · Part 1 · Subpart 2 · Section 2

p. 98The second Authority.

I pass now to the Divine Authority, which is the testimony of the Holy Scriptures. I shall cite only two Scriptures, one from the first of Genesis; the other from the first of the Romans. I being with the last, which seems clearest and fullest.

1. Scripture. The first Testimony from the Scriptures, is Rom. 1. 19, 20. From this Text to the end of the third Chapter, you have the Soul, with a profound Depth; Like a River rouling along, p. 99with all her various serpentine windings, from the Sea of Love, the Divine Bosome, till she return thither. This Divine Philosopher, after a Divine manner, sets the humane Soul before us, in the whole compass of her Essence, in all her circlings, through all forms of things, as he saw her by a Light of Revelation, in the eternal Design, in her Idea, in the heart of the Father, the Fountain; in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus, the first seat of all Divine Designs and Ideas.

This Design is divided into three parts,

1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature, presented to us, Chap. 1. vers. 19. & 20.

2. The Soul in her fall, as she passeth through the shades beneath, of Sin, Suffering, Death, and Wrath, from the 21. verse of the first Chapter, to the 20. verse of the third Chapter.

3. The Soul in its return, and re-ascent to a greater Glory, from the 22. verse of the third Chapter to the end of that Chapter.

I shall very briefly, with all the perspicuity that I can, point out the Heads of things in these three parts of the Souls course and design in the Divine Mind.

1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature is presented to us, Rom. 1. 19, 20. That which may be known of God, is manifest in them, for God hath manifested it to them. For the unseen things of him from the Creation of the world are seen, being understood by the things that are made, both his eternal Power and Godhead. I shall make two Notes upon the Grammar of the words,

1. That which may be known of God, is manifest in them. This relates to the pure state of Nature, not to the Corrupt. For of that it is said, vers. 21. Their foolish heart was darkned. Things are manifest only in the Light. The expression runs in the present time, after the manner of the Divine and Prophetick stile, which sets before our eyes all forms of things, as they appear in the Divine Light, where all things are ever present, and appear at once in one. Besides this, as Paradise, so the pure Image of God in the Soul, seems to some not to be lost or destroyed, but hid beneath the ruines of the fall. Thus Knowledge springing in the Soul, seems to be a remembrance, the Life of all good, an awakening by reason of the primitive Image of pure Nature raising it self by degrees, and sparkling through the Rubbish, the confusions of the present state. Thus also hath the Sou…n her self the measure of all Truth and Good in this pure …age, which hidden in the Center of the Soul, containeth all Forms of Truth and Good in it self.

2. That Clause in the 20. vers. From the Creation of the World, relates not to the sight, but to the invisibility of God, as appears by the place, the point, the sense. For otherwise there were a Tautology in the Creation of the World, and the things that are made. There is a Scripture like to this, Ephes. 3. The mystery of Christ is there mentioned, which is the unvailing of God, that he may be seen in the Light of his own essential and eternal Glories, in his own proper, naked, and sweet form of Love, unmixt, unlimited. Thus he appears in the Face and Person of Christ, who as he is the p. 100Godhead, in its essential and eternal Image, comes in the Spirit of the Gospel, full of Grace, or Love, and Truth; the Light, the Life of the Godhead in its unvailed Sweetnesses and Glories.

This mystery is said to be hid in God from the foundation of the World. The Creation of the World was a Vail cast upon the Face of God, with a figure of the Godhead wrought upon this Vail, and God himself seen through it by a dim transparency; as the Sun in a morning, or Mist, is seen by a refracted Light through the thick medium of earthly Vapours.

But I shall now attempt from the Life, in this Scripture, to draw the Picture of the Humane Soul in its natural Perfections, and paradisical Beauties. In order to this, I shall present to you three Propositions, into which this Text seems naturally to resolve it self.

1. 1. Proposition. God is present, and shines forth in the Soul of Man, in the highest and fullest appearance, in which any created Understanding is capable of receiving him, in which he is capable of being manifested, or communicated by any Image beneath or without himself. This is the plain sense of those words, That which may be known of God, is manifested in them. Every Being, in every kind and degree, is a Beam or Emanation, and manifestation of the first, the supream Being, which is God.

The whole Creation then, all the Creatures in it, with all their Essences, Substances, Accidents, in all their Orders, Places, Postures, Motions, with every Circumstance of Being, are as real, in their full proportion, as much according to the life in the Humane Soul, as in themselves. They all, as so many lines and features, drawn from the Face of God, form the Essence of the Soul, by forming it into a living Image of God.

God himself, as he is the Author of Nature, is as a Sun with all the Creatures, as a Ring of Beams round about him, which at once hide him and discover him. So the Sun, the Figure, with a Vail of Beams, hides from every eye the too bright Glories of that naked Body of Light: But by the same Beams is himself seen in a most beautiful, though shadowy Image.

Thus this eternal Sun, surrounded with this Ring of Beams, forms a Pare…s, t… similitude of himself by himself in the Soul of Man. In the mean time God himself, as he is before this similitude of himself, shining upon it, is also within it, the vital Centre in the midst of it, the Root, the Truth, the Life of it. Thus are these two Suns, two Eyes, full set each with other, as they look forth through this Image, this Vail of Beams.

The Soul by its senses takes in only the accidental forms of each Creature, the shadow of the shadow. The Understanding takes hold of, takes the essential Form, the Substance. The whole visible World is the World of sense, the Object of sense. The Invisible, the Angelical World is the Intellectual World, the proper Object of the Understanding.

p. 101If that, which may be known of God, be manifested in the Soul, if every distinct degree of Being be a distinct manifestation of God, a distinct mode or form of the Divine appearance, then doth the Humane Soul contain the whole World, visible, invisible with it self, in its full greatness and glory, in all its most exact Distinctions and Varieties. It penetrates it, it fills it all within and without with its Intellectual Light; In its Unity, as the Divine Centre, it sits, and unites all. In its Variety, as in the full majesty of its Divine Essence, it spreads it self into all Forms, and so many Divine Figures, in a most beautiful and Divine Order.

All Being in its whole compass, is Intelligible, the adoequate Object of the Understanding. The Understanding is all in potentiality in its natural capacity, tendency, and desire. These are the Doctrines of the Schools. The Understanding then in Act, in the perfection of its primitive state, is actually, perfectly all. It is married by an Angelical marriage, as in the Marriage of Spirits into a most intimate Union of Essences, into a most essential Unity with the whole Creation, as it is one Divine Figure of the Divine Beauty; and so through this figure, with Jesus Christ, with God, who lives and appears in it.

2. Proposition. All these forms of things spring up to the Soul, from within it self, from its own Fountain, from God the Fountain of the Soul, in the Centre of it, the Fountain of all in the Soul to the Soul. That which may be known of God, is manifest in them, for God hath manifested it to them, vers. 19. The last Clause, well observed, in the force of the words, and the Connexion, will appear to every judicious eye, as I humbly conceive, to have no common or vulgar sense. They seem to contain in them this two-fold mystery,

1. God, the proper Idea of the Humane Soul, that is, its most inward inseparable Principle, which hath in it self the Pattern, the exemplar form of the Soul, sends it forth from it self, forms it, furnisheth, filleth it with all forms of things.

He also comprehends, and conserves it, in himself, as its own proper place and habitation, as a Light sprung from him, and abiding in him, the Father of Lights. He fashioneth it into an Understanding, as an Intellectual, Angelical, Divine Sun. This is the greatest Light in the Soul, its utmost Centre, and outmost Circle, encompassing the whole Essence of the Soul, the whole nature of things, in all their Forms, Operations, and Motions. This shines in the day of the invisible World. This, as the Region of Angels, contains the Essences and Intellectual Forms of all things in it self, as so many Angels, or Angelical Spirits, each of which is a distinct Sun, a distinct world of Angels, of all Angelical Spirits, and Intellectual Forms.

In the next place, God figures this Light, which is the substance of the Soul, into the inward, the common sense, the phansy or imagination; Now it is as a full Moon in the night of this visible and Corporeal World. It is replenished with all the shady Forms of this night, which shine in the face of it, as in a Glass, where they all meet and make one pleasant Night-piece.

p. 100Last of all, The eternal Spirit, the inward former and workman of the Soul, contracts it, and divides it into the outward senses, into innumerable particular Forms. These are as so many living Stars, or Star-like eyes, sparkling and dancing round about the Queen of this Night, the Moon, the common sense or imagination.

Through these Stars, and this Moon, in the Night-piece of these shady and Corporeal Forms is seen, as in a Perspective, as at a great distance, the Intellectual and the Ideal Land of Angelical, of Divine Glory, which seem to cast forth these less and contracted Lights, as faint-glimpses of themselves, or like small sparks, the seeds of the great flames.

As the Soul accompanied with her Original Pattern and Principle, by its force thus descends: so doth it, by the same force, in like manner ascend. All the particular Forms of the outward senses, the Beauties of the Eye, the Musick of the Ear, all Perfumes and delightful Odours, the various Delicacies of the Tast; the softnesses, firmnesses, the agreeable rests, motions, aequalities, inaequalities in the Touch. All meet more pure and heightned in the common sense, in the inward senses, as in that Moon, which is described to be an heavenly Earth, or an earthly Heaven. From thence they raise themselves, resining themselves, as they rise, to the Intellectual Region. As some believe the Sun, to be the Habitation of the Blessed, and to have the Blessed Fields Paradise in it: So here in this Intellectual Sun, all shady forms break up out of the mists of matter, and corporeity, into clear Suns, into Angelical Essences and Spirits.

From hence the Soul, as a bright Skie, set with innumerable Suns of sweetest Light, and most temperate, pleasant, vital warmth, or as an Heaven replenished with Angels, entertaining each other in a Divine Consort, with Dances and Songs, returns into its first Nest, and its final Rest; the Bosome of its Idea, the Bosome of Christ in God. In this Bosome, of a truth, hath it ever abode, hath it circled round, descending and ascending without going forth from it. Thus hath God manifested himself in all possible Forms, to the Soul, according to the first part of the Apostles sense.

2. God, as the Souls proper Idea, or exemplar Form, every where present with it, in every Form, sets himself as a seal upon each form, and upon the Soúl in that form. So he is to the Soul the Impression, the Evidence of the truth of each appearance by himself, and of himself, in each appearance. Thus it is said of the Lord Jesus, as he is the eternal word, the Idea of all Ideas, the proper Idea of man, In him was life, and that life was the light of men, Joh. 1. The first life, as it is in its Ideal Spring, in the Person of the Lord Jesus, the first, the essential Image of God, (and so the Fountain of all Images) shines forth into a Light, of which is framed the Substance and Essence of the Soul. Then it figureth this Light with its own Glories, in their Divine Harmony and Order.

This Light, these Figures, are in themselves empty without force or efficacy. All fullness dwells in Christ, the Ideal Life in him forms and fills them. This is the face of Beauty, that looks forth through p. 103these Lattices. This is the never-fading Flower in the heavenly Paradise, which springs and puts forth it self through these Windows. This rides forth upon every form into the bosome of the Soul, and gives it self reception in the Soul.

As this first life in Christ is the Divine Seal upon every Form, upon the Soul, through every Form, so is it the Divine ground in the Soul, which receives and sustains this Seal, which dissuseth in its Divine force and impression through the Soul, by virtue of its Ideal Unity and Omnipresence.

The Original and Exemplar Life in Christ is the light of man, objectively and formally; It is the light in the Object which sheds it self on the Humane Spirit. It is the light in man, the form of his form, the eye in his eye, the power in his powers, which taketh it in. All sense is founded in a suitableness between the Object and the Faculty, all suitableness in an Unity.

3. Proposition. God cloaths every created form, in the eye of the Soul, with an Intellectual or Angelical Image of himself. By the things that are made, are seen, (being understood) the invisible things of God, his eternal Power and Godhead, saith our Evangelical Philosopher, that word [understood] is carefully chosen, and emphatically brought in.

The word is foreign, derived from foreign, the peculiar and proper word, by which the most Divine among the Philosophers in St. Pauls time expressed the Angels or Angelical Minds.

These Spirits were the chief Springs, Powers, Glories of the whole World, in the number of the Creatures. They were the Gods of this Creation, and had the name of Gods given to them in the Holy Scriptures. The Presence, the Power, the Authority, the Glory of the Godhead, next to Jesus Christ, resided in them. Jesus Christ, the Lord and King of all, reigned, acted, and appeared in these Angels of Might and Glory, as the highest Representation of himself in his Divine Form and Majesty. All this was not for their own sakes, but for man, as they were Guardians and Tutors to this Heir, the Lord of all.

Each Angel was a diverse Figure of a distinct Variety in the eternal Glory, in that diversity the full Glory in its Universal Image rested upon every Angel, as a ministring Spirit, to minister to man, the full Glory. He was the Heir of God, the perfect Harmony, the Unity, in the which the whole Variety was most perfectly one, married together, with the Unity, into the most perfect Beauty and Melody of the Universal Image of the whole Creation, most exactly, with the most charming agreeableness, answering the Beauty, the Melody of the Divine Nature, as the Face in the Glass, the living Face, the liveliest Eccho, the living Voice.

Each Creature hath (as its Ideal Glory, in the Divine World, so) its Angel in the World of Angels. In the pure state of things, every inferior Creature had its Angel visibly, sensibly present with it. Its Angel formed it a Figure of it self in the diversity of its own proper Essence. Its Angel cloathed it with an Intellectual, Angelical p. 104Image of the Supream, the Universal, the Divine Beauty. Its Angel dwelt constantly within this Image, and shined through it.

After the same manner the Ideal Life and Glory in Christ made the Angel its Tabernacle in the Heavens, and through the Angel each Creature below on Earth. Every Angel, every Creature, was a Garment of Light, sweetly shaded in different degrees and manners of diverse Fashions, but all Divine, in which Jesus Christ, the essential full Image of the Godhead, walked in the midst of Paradise. Thus in all the Creatures, as in diverse Figures of his distinct Glories, he walked forth, conversing with himself, and entertaining himself in the compleatness of his Divine Person through all.

Thus as all things were made by Christ and for him, so nothing was made without him, apart from him, until Sin made the wound, which let out the Divine Life of all Beauty, Love and Joy, to let in Death with its deformity and horrors. The Divine Unity was entire every where. All things stood together in Christ.

Christ with all his Glories in every Angel, with all the Angels in every Creature, rode forth as in his Chariot. The whole Creation was as a Contexture of Angels; As the Chariots of the Lord, thousands and ten thousands. All were every where composed into one Chariot. All were as wings of pure Light, and perfumed Air, on which God flies through all, spreading and scattering abroad the ravishing Glances, the Divine Impressions of his Beauties and Sweetnesses, as he flies.

What a Paradise, transcending all Description, by any words, the richest Image in any fancy, was the whole World now in its primitive state? What a Paradise was the Humane Soul, when it comprehended, when it enjoyed this Paradise with its full and distinct Glories within it self? Now the Soul within it self saw within it self the eternal Power and Godhead, with all their invisible Glories in an Angelical Light and Form, together with all the Angels in every thing that was made.

4. Proposition. The Soul, seeth within her self, God in his own distinct and Divine Form shining forth through the Intellectual, Angelical Image, in the universal Composure, in the full Harmony of all created Forms, and through the particlar Angel, or Intellectual Image in every diverse Form. Those are the words of the Apostle, By the things that are made, are seen, (being understood) the invisible things of God, his eternal Power and Godhead. This is brought in as an Argument, to illustrate and confirm the foregoing assertion; That which may be known of God is manifest in them.

Those two words have an aspect of deep Wisdome, of a lively sweetness upon each other, foreign. Things not seen, or uncapable of being seen, are seen. The word (seen) importeth a two-fold sense,

1. A distinct discerning sight.

2. The sight of an Object, through a diverse intervening form. God is seen through the form of the Creature in his own Form, infinitely distinct from it, and transcendent to it.

p. 105In that Character of the Fall, [They glorisied him not as God.] It is clearly implyed, that man in the pure state of nature glorified him as God, which could …ot be, if he saw not his Glory, as the Glory of God, in its distinction from all the Creatures, from all Similitudes, and Representations in his supream Unity and Infiniteness. This is that which is clearly presented to us in those full expressions, His eternal Power and Godhead. Power, saith Proclus, is an Unity, which like a spring comprehendeth in it self variety of Forms, sendeth them forth from it self, appeareth in them, without, as it pleaseth. An eternal Power, which is not lessened by any Acts or exertions of its self, is an infinite Power, never to be exhausted, ever fresh, full, and flourishing. This is an absolute, unlimited Unity, spreading it self within it self, after a Divine manner, distinctly, without any Division or Diversity, into the glorious and majestick amplitude of an unbounded, equally-beautiful, ravishingly-harmonious-variety. This is the eternity, as it is the infiniteness of the Divine Nature. These two, Eternity and Infiniteness, being the measures of the Essence, and the Existence or Duration of the Godhead; are both one in this Unity, inasmuch as the Essence, and the Existence, or Duration, are here the same. This Unity, in which both these meet, is also the Godhead it self, which describeth it self to us by no Character like to that; The Lord thy God is one God. These expressions [His eternal Power and Godhead. Eternity, Power, (in its absoluteness and infiniteness) the Godhead] are exegetical explications of each other. All these are names of one thing, the supream and soveraign Unity. God in the High and Holy Place of his own proper Form, set infinitely above the Head and Eye of every Creature, in its most exalted Glories.

Object. How is the Soul capable of the sight of God, or any Intellectual Image of transmitting his Divine Form. All Sense, Understanding, Commerce is founded in suitableness and similitude. The ground of this, is an Unity, a meeting in some one thing. God is infinite, every Creature is finite. Between infinite and finite there can be no proportion?

This Objection lies so plain before every common Eye, that it is not easie to miss it. I wish the Answer were as near, or capable of being made as clear, to the Understanding of every Reader. I hope, and shall use my best skill, that every Understanding may see some light breaking through this obscurity, which may be at once sweet, and in some degree satisfactory.

Answ. 1. I shall first give a general Answer, which I shall afterwards make more plain in two particular Answers.

We are taught by our Masters in Divinity, That God is the subject, of no Relation to the Creature: For then he were compounded, and not a simple, unmixt Unity; yet doth he terminate in himself Relations to the Creature. Upon the same ground it is unsafe and unsound to say, That God is like to man. It is very sound, and very safe to say, That man was made in the Image and Similitude of God. A finite Creature may bear a similitude, and so a proportion to the p. 106infinite God, although there be no mutual proportion or likeness between them.

God in himself converseth with nothing without himself. All things to him are himself, a pure, undivided Unity. God in the Creature cloaths himself, as the Scriptures and the Jewish Rabbins speak, with Garments of Light and Darkness, Similitude and Dissimilitude, Unity and Contrariety. He turns the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Sea. He first himself putteth on every form, so he formeth every Creature, as the reflection, or shadow of himself, upon himself.

The sight of the eternal Power and Godhead in the Soul, is the work of that eternal Power and Godhead. God in the Creature beareth a proportion to himself, and hath an Unity with himself, as he is above the Creature. By the same absolute Unity and Infiniteness, by which he is present with each single dust in the fulness of his undivided Glories and Godhead, doth he also appear in the Soul. His presence is suitable, and suitably virtual to each degree of Being, whither it be essential, in meer Being, Vital, Intellectual, or Superintellectual, more then Intellectual. All things according to their several Natures, have their Being, their Life, their Motions, or Operations in him, as their proper Element, their Root, their Exemplar Form, their terminating Object and End. As he is the term from which all their motions flow: So is he both the medium or way, and the term, the bound, to which they tend, in which they end. By him, their radical principle, in the power and virtue of which Act the exemplar form of their Essence and Actions are they suited, and proportioned to him, as the Object, End, Fruit, and Perfection of their Operations. God in every Form is like Adam in Paradise, the Father, the Brother, and the Bridegroom. Each Creature is like Eve, the Daughter, Sister, and Bride, from her Bridegroom. This Bride flows, to him she turns in all her motions, in him alone she terminates, in her production, progress, end; all along this Bridegroom and Bride are joyned by an inseparable Marriage-Union, their Faces ever turned to each other.

As God by his absolute Unity and Infiniteness comprehends all forms of things within himself, in a most simple and undivided Unity. So by the same transcendent Unity and Infiniteness, doth he in this undivided Unity accompany all forms of things in their procession from himself, turning them to himself, essentially, vitally, intellectually, or super-intellectually, in a manner more then Intellectual.

This Unity fills all, is all in all, the Eye, the Light, the Glass, the Object, or Image, the Union, the Light. This Unity is the power of sight in the eye, of shining, of uniting the Eye and the Object in the light, of receiving and transmitting Images in the Glass, of being and appearing in the Object. The Union of all these, and the Act, in the Act of vision or sight. This Unity is the first principle of seeing, and the last, the terminating bound of sight.

This is the general Answer. Now follow the two particular Answers, which are more distinct applications and explanations of this general one.

p. 107Answ. 2. The Humane Soul, according to Philosophers, they say, rouleth it self into a four-fold Orb, or Globe; The Sensitive, Rational, Intellectual, or Angelical, its Divine Unity.

1. The first, the lowest Orb of the Soul, is the Sensitive. The Soul in this part is all set and adorned with the sensitive and shadowy forms of things, as a Meadow with the Trees, and Flowers by a Riverside, are seen, by their shadowy Figures, playing in the water. So this visible World, with all its Parts and Ornaments in their Order, as the sh…dows of invisible and immortal Forms inhabit this obscurest and most shady Region of the Intellectual Spirit.

2. The rational Orb is the second, a more ample and more Lucid. Yet here the Angelical Forms and Essences of things are seen through the grosser and cloudy medium, through the material and corporeal shades of sensitive Images. This is as the Face of Heaven, or the Trees and Flowers of the Neighbouring fields seen from beneath the water of an adjoyning River.

3. The Intellectual part of the Soul, is the Orb or Sphere of Angels. This is the Souls Angelical part. Here the Soul's abstract, and separate from the Body, (which is called the Divine Death of the Soul) beholds the Intellectual Forms of things, the immortal Essences and Substances, the Angels in their own bright and universal Glories, in their own Intellectual Air and Light, which is the Air and Light of Paradise. As a man sees the pleasant Plants of a flourishing Land, walking upon the Land in the midst of them. At the same time, while the Soul thus walks in this paradisical Land, she enjoyeth the pleasure of seeing the River, as a shady lustre or water cast from her self, within her self, the shadowy figures of this Paradise, with her own reflection playing in these waters, and her self from beneath them, with the same Land of Gardens and of Angels, answering exactly, looking to her self above them.

Give me leave to interpose one word in this place, for the sake of the more learned Reader; This is the Intellectus Agens, or the Actual, and Active Understanding of the Schools. The Soul in its Intellectual part above the River. This is the Passive Understanding. The Soul in its Intellectual part beneath the River. As that above, like the living Face before the Glass, appears at the brink of the waters, upon the shore, with all its Angelical Glories round about it, in their Paradisical Region, which lies within the Soul it self. So the Soul beneath appears, looking up from its pearly Cave, at the bottom of the River, like the God of the River, answering and meeting it self above.

4. The last, and Divine Orb, the highest Point, and amplest Circuit of the Soul, is its Unity. In this it hath the most immediate resemblance to, and Conjunction with the supream Unity, the Divine Nature.

The Soul according to this its Divinest part, its Unity in birth, in similitude, in place, if I may so speak, in order of approximation is nearest, most immediately joyned to the Divine Essence in the absoluteness, the incomprehensibleness of its most secret, most sacred Unity.

p. 108Here the Soul, as by a Divine Contract or Touch, takes hold of God, takes in the sense of him, in his Divine Form, after a Divine manner, far transcending all Sense, Understanding, or Expression.

Here the Soul, in its Divine Unity, seeth, feeleth, enjoyeth God in his Unity, which is his proper Essence, in which he is most himself transcending all similitudes, all commerce, all bounds, by a Divine sympathy, the sweetness, the reality, the divinity of which no Humane, no Angelical Understanding can form to it self any Image of, or raise it self to any sense of.

This Unity of the Soul is the most immediate reflection of the Divine Unity without it self, and so at once a Divine Looking-Glass, in which it most immediately contemplates it self, and a Divine Eye, which it feasts with it self, setting it self fully in it.

All this while, this still is to be understood that there is a three-fold Immediateness, 1. Of Persons. 2. Of Power or Virtue. 3. Of Form or Appearance. St. Paul teacheth us, That the invisible things of God are seen, being understood by the things that are made.

God and the Soul in their Unities, which are their Essences, at their utmost heighth, in their highest Glories, meet immediately in a sight of each other, above all sight or understanding. This immediateness in the Perfection of Nature, is an immediateness, not of virtue only and power, but of person; yet is it mediate in respect to the Form or Appearance. These Unities which penetrate and fill all in all their several Orbs, with their immediate virtue, person, and essential presence, see not each other in the Air, and light of their own naked, eternal Beauties; But through that Garment of Light, the Intellectual, Angelical Image, which they put on, as they come forth into this Creation.

Some imperfect figure of this you have in two Swimmers, seeing and embracing each other beneath the waters; or in the Beams of the Sun, passing through a coloured Glass, and so uniting it self to the Eye: Or in a Royal Bridegroom, which, in the habit of a Shepheard, presents and marrieth himself to the beloved Maid in the midst of the Woods.

Answ. 3. The Soul acts, as it is, not in it self, nor by it self, nor according to it self; the Idea, the first eternal Pattern and Principle of the Soul in God, is the Root, all the force, the only measure of the Soul in its Being, and in its Operations.

St. Paul saith, I live not, but Christ liveth in me; This was spoken of the New-Creature, and so hath its peculiar sense. It is as true proportionably of every Creature, especially of the Soul in primitive and pure nature. I have said before, that Christ is the Idea of Ideas, and so the proper Idea of the Humane Soul or Person. Upon this ground, He affirmeth of himself, I am the Truth and the Life.

The Idea is the truth of each thing. Nothing is that, which it is, but in its Idea, by its Idea penetrating and filling it in every the least part. The Conformity to the Idea, is in the Schools, defined to be the first, the most proper truth of each thing. This Conformity is imperfect, where there is any Diversity. A perfect Unity alone makes a perfect Conformity.

p. 109The Idea is the only Unity of each Person, Essence, or Form. The Soul is one in all its parts, is one with it self, in all the parts of its duration, only by the Unity of its Idea. The Soul (as every Creature) is a perpetual Emanation, flowing fresh every moment from God, as a Beam from the Sun, as the stream of waters from its Fountain. If it subsisted one moment in it self, it might subsist eternally so, and have a Godhead in it self, by having in it self the first Principle and Fountain of Being. The Soul like a Beam, or Stream, flows forth from its Spring, in Diversity of parts. If it were a pure Unity, it had a Divinity in its own Nature.

The Soul then, as every Creature, is one in it self, one with it self, the same in each part of its Being and Duration, in all the parts of Life, in Death, in the Resurrection, only by the Unity of its Idea, which alone is absolutely indivisible, unchangeable.

Accordingly the Soul lives and moves in its Sensitive, Rational, Angelical, and Divine Life, by the force of its Idea, containing it in it self, and communicating it self to it.

The Idea, contains the Soul, communicates it self to the Soul, not mediately or partially. The Idea is the Truth, the Unity of the Soul; therefore are they most intimate, most immediate, most intimately, most immediately united to each other. The Idea is a simple Unity, indivisible, unchangeable, uncapable of being communicated in part.

The Idea is not received, or participated by any thing, as without it self, for then it were both divisible and changeable.

The Idea then communicateth it self to the Soul, immediately in its entire Unity, as by a Divine, unexpressible Generation or Propagation within it self.

Thus the Soul subsisteth and operateth in its Idea, by the force, and according to the measure of its Idea in it self. This is that seed of infiniteness in the Soul, and in all its Operations, from which they receive touches, glimpses of Infiniteness, Eternity; of infinite eternal Joys and Glories, which are altogether invisible to every Eye, uncapable of being represented by any Image sensible or Intellectual. This is that seed of Infiniteness and Eternity, which by an irresistable instinct inclines the Soul so evidently, so forceably in all its Desires, in all its Operations to immortality, and to an unbounded good, nor suffers it to rest in any the softest or dearest Bosom on this side these. This is that Seed, the Idea of the Soul in its entire Unity, which is in it self Infiniteness, Eternity, the purest unmixt good, every where full of it self, every way uncompounded, undivided, and so necessarily unconfined.

This Idea, as it is the root, the force, the measure of the Soul, so is it also its ripe fruit; When gathering up all the parts of the Soul into its Divine Part, unto its highest Point, its Unity, it at once heightneth that to the most perfect Image of it self, and bringeth forth it self into it, filleth it with it self, taketh it into its own embraces, in its purest Form, by a most perfect Union, as an heavenly Marriage, eternally established in its own unconfined Unity.

p. 110But I will now conclude this Point. Thus the Soul, by the force of its Idea, which hath an infiniteness in it, is capable of taking in that which transcends all Capacities, of seeing that which is invisible to every eye of Men or Angels, the eternal Power and Godhead.

Behold! What a Divine spectacle of Beauty and Delight in Paradise, in the primitive state of things? What an Universal Paradise Nature is? the Soul is? as it is in it self, the whole nature of things, from the head of Nature, crowned with Intellectual, Angelical Light in the invisible World, to its feet upon the ground of the lowest shades in corporeity and matter. Jesus, the first, the full, the essential Image of the Godhead, and so the Idea of Ideas; the Soul, the first, the fairest Reflection, and the dearest Off-spring of this Jesus, and so the Divine Image of Images. These two, as Bridegroom and Bride, by an Union transcending all Unions, Natural or Moral, among Angels or Men; Yet being of all most natural, the Fountain of Nature, lie inseparably shining and smiling in the embraces of each other; They perpetually seek and find, see and enjoy themselves in the Face and Bosom of each other; They perpetually seek and find, see and enjoy each other within themselves, in their own Face and Bosom: They spring up together in all forms of things, in an Angelical Image within themselves. The Angelical Image is as their Chariot, in which they ride forth together into all forms of things within themselves. They present themselves unitedly in the whole nature of things, in each distinct form of Nature, with continual changes, cloathing all, themselves in all, with the Angelical Image, in a new Light and Glory; That their Loves and Beauties may be ever fresh and full, ever a fresh and full entertainment to each other in new and varied shapes of Delight.

Judicious Reader, be pleased to Contemplate awhile the Unity and Harmony of the Soul in this its pure, its primitive state. See how the Idea of the Soul, and the Soul; See how all the Orbs, all the parts of the Soul, are knit together into a Divine Harmony, a Divine Unity, by which it becomes an Universal Beauty, an Universal Musick. See how the Idea and the Soul, the superior parts of the Soul answer one another, lie infolded each in other, the inferior in the superior, as the Copy in the Original, the Plant in the Spirit of the Plant, in its seminal power and form; The superior in the inferior, as the Original in the Copy, as the Spirit of a Flower, its seminal power and form in the Flower, where it appears, as a Flower from beneath the water of a pleasant stream.

Judicious Reader, can a place be found or imagined here for any Arbitrary Liberty, for any extravagant Liberty, for any Liberty, besides that only true, only desirable, only agreeable Liberty, the Liberty of the Harmony and Unity? Is there any Liberty besides this, the Liberty of the part, in the Harmony of the whole, keeping its proper place, order, course in the whole, with all most pl…asing, most charming agreeableness to it self, to the whole, to every part; and the Liberty of the whole in the part, freely, fully, pos…essed, p. 111enjoyed in each part, by the virtue of the Unity in the Harmony?

Object. But you will say if there were not in the primitive state of the Soul another Liberty, a Liberty of Discord, a Liberty of breaking the Unity and the Harmony. How was the Harmony ever changed into Enmity? How fell the Soul from the Heaven of this Harmony, from the heavenly Throne of this Divine Unity, in which it reigned over all, through all, with such a full Joy and Glory to it self to all?

Answ. I shall attempt the removal of this Difficulty, in my Discourse upon the Soul in her second state. I hope there to represent the Fall springing from the Divine Harmony and Unity in the Essence of the Soul, contained in it, and a part of it.

2. The second state, into which the Soul passeth, is the Fall. This is the second Scene, which openeth it self in the Soul, a Scene of Trouble and Tumult, of Darkness and Storms, of Witch-crafts, Devils, Death, and Wrath; of Privations and Contrarieties, which make the Variety more full, which heighten, set off, enlarge the Harmony and the Unity. In this Scene all this World riseth up, and appears.

This the Holy Spirit, with Divine skill, clearly and fully openeth to us, in this Scripture, which is the ground of this part of my Discourse, Rom. 1. 21. Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkned, &c.

I will only touch the Heads of things, lightly passing over them. I shall comprise that which I have to say of the Fall in these four Propositions,

1. Proposition. The first change at the Fall of Man, was in his Understanding. All the expressions in this, and the two following verses, plainly and alone describe the Disorders in the Understanding, as we shall clearly see.

The first Instance in the Fall, is the not glorifying God as God. T…lly affirmeth, Glory to be, as it were, the Eccho of Virtue. Glory is the Image of some excellent Object, shining forth from it, reflecting upon it, and upon all things round about it. Thus Christ is the Glory of God, a Saint is the Glory of Christ. Man glorifieth God as God, when the true and proper Image of God, in the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Nature, shineth in his Understanding, from thence reflecteth and multiplieth it self in its be…ms, in its continual shinings upon God himself, upon all Understandings, all Spirits round about it. Contraries are seated in the same subject. The glorifying of God, is the Act of the Understanding. Accordingly the not glorifying of God, is a defect in the Understanding, the want of the Divine Image, and its reflections there.

The holy Apostle, in the following words, sets forth the Fall, by fuller expressions of that Defect, which is opposite to the glorifying of God; But they became vain in their imaginations, foreign, properly reasonings, their foolish heart was darkned.

p. 112Every word here points to the Understanding, as the seat of the first, the principal, the leading change in the Fall of Man.

They became vain in their reasonings. Vanity is an emptiness. It is the same with falshood, in the Language of the Scripture, an empty, false shew, without the substance, the truth. Reason is the Divine Image, which is the only Light of all Truth springing and shining in the Understanding, or the Understanding it self.

The reasonings of man in his primitive state, were the several Parts, the several Truths in this Image, calling to, answering one another by virtue of the Sympathy and Unity, comparing themselves in that Unity with each other. This Image in the Fall vanisheth into a counterfeit Image, breaking it self into innumerable false Images full of disorder, confusion, and contradictions, ever fighting with each other.

The foolish heart in the Text, as the Greek word imports, is the Heart without Understanding, deprived of the Divine Image, which is the Light. Upon this immediately follows Darkness, which is the privation or absence of Light. Thus their foolish hearts were darkned.

The Concomitant and formal effect of this Darkness, or rather the proper Form of this Darkness, is further amplified by a two-fold Illustration, if we may attribute forms or effects to privations.

When they professed themselves to be wise, they became Fools, vers. 22. How manifestly is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil here figured with man eating of it. The Divine Image withdrawn, the false Image, composed of darkness, is embraced in the Soul, as the true Light, the true Image, the true Wisdome, in which Man now seems to himself, to have the power and the perfection of his own Being in himself. Now the false shew of a counterfeit Liberty in the Will, springs up through this Darkness. Thus is the Wisdome of Man become Foolishness, verse 22. They turned the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of the Image of a corruptible Man, of Birds, &c. verse 25. They turned the truth of God into a lye. Man was made a total, but a shadowy Image of God. The rest of the Creatures were as several parts of this Image, partial Representations of that Glory, each a differing Figure from the other, in which something of the Glory was seen, which appeared not in the other. The Divine presence in its own proper and eternal Image, stood in this shadowy Image, filled it, shined through it, was the Light and Truth of it; As a Sun-beam penetrates, fills, enlightens, appears through a shady coloured Glass, so was the Divine Form in the Form of Man. The Truth in its shadow.

When the Divine presence in its own Divine Form withdrew it self into it self, the ensuing Darkness fills the shadowy Image. As he, that looks through the clear glass in a Window, sees the face of Heaven. When he, who casts his eye upon a Looking-Glass, beholds only his own face, the shadow on the back-side of the Glass, terminating the beams and the sight upon the Glass. So the Darkness, in the Fall, terminates the eye of the Soul upon the shadowy p. 113Image, the shadowy Figures of the Divine Glory, as the true Glory, the true God.

Yet these Forms, which now appeared, were not the true shadows, the true Figures of the Divine Glory, nor the true Forms of Man, or of any Creature. These disappeared, together with the Divine presence, and the Glory. The darkness, now in the place of these, formed it self into false, deformed, monstrous Images in man, in every Creature, which had indeed some resemblance of the true and primitive Images, which were in Paradise. As a Monkey hath the similitude of man, but in proportion, height, beauty, life, greatness, power, majesty, differed from them, as a lye from the truth. The expressions of the Holy Ghost seem skilfully chosen, to declare this change to us, verse 23. He saith, They turned the Glory of God, not into the Image, but the similitude of the Image of Man; verse 25. They turned the truth, not into the Image or shadow, but into a lye.

These false Images of the Night, and the blackness of Darkness, were inhabited and acted by so many Devils, so many dark Spirits, the first Springs and Seats of this Darkness. As an Angel filled each Form in Paradise, figuring it self upon it, so were all forms in the Fall filled ahd figured by Devils. Thus they became Idols, of which St. Paul saith, They that worship Idols, worship Devils. Angels in Paradise were pure and sweet Lights springing freshly forth from the Divine Glory, rendring every Creature pure and transparent, with a Light of Glory shining in it, as clear Christal, all over replenished, enriched, and heightned with the Sun-beams. This Light every where transmitted the eye, and the glory through each Creature, to each other, married them one to another, in each Creature. This was a Paradise indeed of Divine Plants, full of Divine Beauties, Fragrances, Virtues, and Fruits.

The Devils, as Clouds of Night and Darkness, resting on each Creature, suffer not the Light from above, nor the sight from below, to pass through them. They at once exclude the brightness of the Divine Glory, and draw the eye to themselves in each Form, to rest in themselves. This is the Head, the Well-spring, the Mystery of all Idolatry, whether it be of the grosser or finer sort.

But I pass now from the first, to the second Proposition.

2. Proposition. The immediate cause of the first change made in the Understanding at the Fall, was the Divine Glory with-drawing or with-holding it self. The immediate, the proper cause of the deformity and disorder in the change, was the defectibility, the nothingness of the Creature, of it self, sinking down to nothing, as the Glory removes it self from it, or the Variety of the Divine fulness, the Order in the Divine Wisdome, the Harmony of the Divine Beauties, by the power of which the Unity descending to its lowest state, to a shadow of it self in Paradise, and having there acted all the parts proper to that shadowy scene or state, having carried it to the utmost, now passeth from that shadowy Unity into a new Scene, or state properly arising out of the darkness of the shadow, and the lowest degree of Unity, which is that of Contrariety. As p. 114the Unity is the scene of Light, Life, Love, Harmony, Beauty, Joy, all Good; So is this of Darkness, Enmit, Death, Deformity, Disorder, all Evil.

But I touch this transiently here, and return.

The Perfection of the Understanding is Light or Truth. The Corruption of the Understanding is darkness or falshood. That which makes manifest, is Light, saith St. Paul. Every Image then, so far as it is an Image, is Light. Each Image is a composure of Beams, sent forth from every part of the Object, represented by the Image. The first Light, is the first Image, the Image of God, the brightness of the Glory of God. As colours, which are shaded Lights, are constituted by this Light, and actuated in their appearance to the eye; so is every other Light, Light only by, and in this Light, as a shadow of it.

Darknese is the absence or privation of Light. Privations have no proper, but accidental causes only. Thus the Divine Glory, retiring from the Understanding, or ceasing to shine in it, is by accident the cause of the Darkness there; As the setting or departing of the Sun is the cause of Night, which is not a blemish to the Sun, but its Glory; that in its presence are all the Beauties and Joys of Light, in its abscence all the Disagreeablenesses and Melancholies of night and darkness.

But, if at the ebbing of the Tyde, when the Sea sucks into it self again the streams of water; which at the Floud it powred forth from it self in the River Tagus, or Pactolus, a beautiful Form of golden sand present it self to our eyes, in other Rivers a black ill-sented Mud offend our senses. The emptiness of the Chanel, the absence from the Waters is indeed from the Sea; But the pleasing or displeasing Forms appearing in the absence of the waters, are from the Rivers themselves. In like manner, all Defects have deficient Causes. The change in the Fall, is from the Divine Glory drawing into it self that stream and tyde of Beauties, which it powred forth upon the understanding of man. The Darkness, Deformity, Disorder in this change, proceeds from the nature of the Creature, from its natural tendency to that nothingness, which alone is its own, and its native Element, as it is in it self. This nothingness hath the same relation to the beautiful Essences, the essential Beauties of all Forms of things, of all Creatures, while they stand in the Divine Image, as the Contrariety hath to the Divine Unity.

A Cloud looseth all its lustre in a blackness and darkness; a cold of Earth hath no more any sweet light to entertain the eye, when the Sun takes his golden beams off from them. But the Stars and Diamonds sparkle and shine in the absence of the Sun, in the depth of night. The reason of the difference, is the opacity or shadiness in the nature of the Cloud and clod of Earth, the native light in the Diamond and the Stars. Thus the Creature being nothing in it self, tends to nothing, as the eternal Sun goeth down upon it. This tendency to nothing is the proper, the formal cause of all Deformities and Disorders, as the springing of the Light in the Morning is of all those lovely colours, which then adorn the Sky.

p. 115But thus much for this second Proposition.

3. Proposition. The change in the Will and Affections followeth the change in the Understanding, as its immediate and proper Cause. This lies plain in the Text, verse 22. They turned the Glory of God to the similitude of a man, &c. verse 24. Wherefore also God gave them up to their hearts lusts, to all uncleanness, &c. verse 25. Which turned the truth of God unto a lye: verse 26. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections. But you have this most fully asserted and amplified, verse 28, 29, 30, 31. As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, God also gave them up to a Reprobate mind, to do things not convenient; being filled with all Unrighteousness, Fornication, Wickedness. So he goes on enumerating in the three following verses, all the Evils of Sin in the Will of Man from thence breaking forth in his life.

As Nature is distinguished in Natura, Naturans, and Naturata; that is, Nature in the Fountain, God, the Divine Nature; Nature in the stream, the Copy to that Original: So the Scripture attributeth that to God, which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked, as in a Chain, for its proper cause. Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will, for the darkness in their Minds.

The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it, That God, as the first cause, is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present, and immediately operative in every effect. He is the Spirit, the Beauty of the Order in the whole. He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order, tying each Link to the other, each Effect to its Cause, each Cause to its effect. He is the sole force in every Cause, the sole Cause of every Effect in particular.

Thus God gave them up to vile affections, who had changed the truth unto a lye. All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind. All Images are formed there. The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding, as their formal Cause, from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause, to which they tend, in which they end.

The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self, which Images are the only Truth, the only Beauty of it. The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion, which the Soul hath with it self in these Images, infusing, and taking in a mutual Sweetness, Complacency, and Joy. They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will, raising and laying them, as the Winds do the Waters.

So God gave them over to vile Affections. This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity, so sweet, so sure, so deep. All good is from the presence of God, the shine, the smiles of his unvailed Face, the Reflections of him, as he appears in his own Likeness, in his proper Form. This makes all Light, Beauty, Joy. All Evil is from the absence of God, from his Back-parts, from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person, without the Vail.

p. 116I cannot well proceed any further, until I have cleared my way, by removing an Objection or two, which may be made against the Interpretations, which I have made of these Scriptures, and the Propositions drawn from them.

Object. 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins, that they knew God, yet sinned in the Face of that Light. Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will, rather then in the Understanding.

This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate. To the Heathen, as he seemeth clearly to do.

Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state, yet was that Perfection, in which we have described it only in Paradise.

Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin; the not glorifying him as God, for this was either the same, or Concomitant with, or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man, the want of Understanding, the darkning of his Heart.

Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states. A Light, which can never be extinguished by any storms. But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness, which arose upon it, within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall, and hath ever since dwelt. This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light, receiveth it not, rejecteth it, as a Reprobate, a false Light, so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul, and reigneth it self in the place of it.

This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed, with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated, in those words, As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a Reprobate mind, to do things not convenient. What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture?

1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind.

2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge.

3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind, in the Rejection of this Light of Glory.

4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness, in the end of this verse, particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses, flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind.

But we shall more evidently, more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall, this Mixture, this War of Darkness, with the Divine Light, its triumph over it; the presence of the Divine Light, in the midst of this Darkness, maintaining its Glory unshaken, unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man, if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words.

Those words, [They liked not to retain.] A Reprobate Mind,] are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence. They manifestly p. 117allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense.

The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing, as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone, or by the Fire.

God, in the presence of his Glory, resides in every Creature, beneath the form of that Creature, as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself. Thus he constantly resides in each Creature, as the Root, and Being of its Being; In the pure nature of man, he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image, as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn, or sweetest Light, sprung from his own Face.

In the Fall, God drawing in the Beams of his Glory, by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome, in the place of this pure and pleasant Light, thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man.

The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image, presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul, in the midst of this darkness.

The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium, through the darkness, takes in a dark and falfe Image of it. It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self, now darkned and depraved. It receives the Image as a true Image, but rejects the Glory, rejects God, as reprobate Gold, as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory.

God, in like manner, by the presence of his Glory, toucheth and tryeth the Understanding, rejecteth that, as a Reprobate Mind. This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self, and man to this Reprobate Mind; from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings.

Object. 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable, which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture?

Answ. An excuse is the removal of just blame, by the removal of the cause. As Praise and Glory are the Eccho or Reflection of Virtue, of some good; so Blame and Shame are the Eccho, the Reflection of some Fault or Evil.

The fault in man is the deficiency, which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness inseparable from the nature of the Creature in its shadowy state, in the purity of its first Creation.

This defectibility and deficiency, this nothingness and tendency to nothing in the Creature, is evidently discovered, past all denial or excuse. For when God hath cloathed the Creature with the Glory of his own Image, in all Knowledge, Righteousness, and Blessedness. The Creature hath no power in it self to retain or maintain this Glory, or the least glimpse, the least stricture of Light from it one moment. In the same moment that God with-holds his Beams and Influences, the Soul sinks into the depth of darkness, in which darkness it springs up the same moment into all the evils of Sin, Deformity, Death, Wrath, Torment. Thus man in his best state is Vanity, a p. 118shadow, which hath nothing of its own, but nothingness, a tendency to nothing. Thus being in Honour, he continueth not, but sinketh into his own nothingness, when once he is left to himself.

This nothingness, in the nature of the Creature, is not to be understood a meer simple nothing; for this hath no existence, no expression, no attribute, no effect, nothing can be said or thought of it.

This nothingness, of which we speak, or Not-Being, is a contrariety to Being; so to all the Beauty, the Blessedness of Being. This is the Contrariety it self, which is a part of the Variety of things in the Unity of the whole. This taken apart in it self, is the breach of the Unity and the Harmony, the first and blackest ground of all Discord, Division, Darkness, Enmity, Death, of all the evils of sin and sufferings.

Object. 3. How is God inexcusable, who frames a Creature with this defectibility, this Contrariety, this Necessity of all Evil in its nature, then leaves it to it self to fall inevetiably into all Sin; then condemns it, and casts it into all manner of Torments, into all the Evils of suffering for Sin?

Answ. Sufferings are the immediate, inseparable Companions of Sin. The Contrariety, when once it hath broken the Harmony of the shadowy Image of God in the Paradise of pure Nature, by the withdrawing of the Divine Unity, which by its presence tuned it to, and bound it up in a Divine Harmony, now breaks forth, overruns all with all manner of Evils of Sin, of Shame, of Sufferings of all kinds.

But that, which seemeth to me alone, to justifie God, is the design in the whole. My desire is here, with all humility and submission, to conceive and express so high mysteries, the way, and the Glory of God in so great and Divine deeps.

The design, which with all humility I conceive not to clear God, but to represent him through all his way most glorious in the Beauties of Holiness, in the most spotless, the exactest Justice, in the richest lustre, the highest sweetness, the most exalted Grace of all Goodness and Love, hath several steps or parts.

1. The first step is, the Discovery of man, and the Creature in its primitive nature, in all its good and glories to be shadowy, an earthly and shadowy Image, in an earthly, a shadowy Paradise.

2. The second step is, the Declaration of God to be the only fountain and fulness of all good, in whose Face and Presence alone are the Beauties and Pleasantnesses of all good, whose absence makes the Night of all trouble and evil.

3. The opening of new, fuller, higher Glories in God, then did shine forth in the first Creation, in the most exalted Natures of all the Creatures, of Men or Angels.

These new Glories of the Godhead open themselves in the last step, the full, harmonious, triumphant close of the whole design, after this manner.

1. The heighth of the Contrariety between the good in God, and the evil of Sin, between the purity, the beauty of Holiness in the p. 119Divine Nature, the filth, the deformity of sin, display the Beauties in the Face of God with a new heightning, a new lustre, infinitely more sweet and ravishing.

2. The Power of the Divine Wrath brings forth a new Scene, a new World, full of new Forms of things; New Wonders in Heaven, and eternity, in the Divine Nature, the Divine Wisdom and Work.

3. What is the Glory in the force and riches of the Divine Unity, spreading it self into so vast a Variety? unto so remote a distance from it self, to such Contrarieties, to such Extremities, comprehending them all in it self, gathering them up, tuning them all, and binding them up into a Divine, most agreeable, eternal Harmony of all most ravishing, most pure, most perfect Beauties and Sweetnesses in it self; discovering them all to be most melodious, musical parts of the Divine Variety and Harmony, eternal Varieties of Beauty and Sweetness in the Divine Unity?

4. Lastly, The shadowy happiness of the Creature is changed into a substantial one. There is wrought out by these changes a far more exceedingly exceeding weight of Glory in Man, a Glory infinitely transcending that of the first Paradise. Now open themselves all these newer, fuller, higher Glories of the Godhead to man in man: Now is man formed to a Divine Image, infinitely newer, fuller, higher, in the most immediate similitude and fruition of these highest Glories. Now is man brought from the shadowy Union with God, in the shadow of the Angelical Image, through the dissolution of that Union and Image, to the most intimate, immediate, inseparable Union, the most perfect Union with God, in the utmost Perfection of all his Excellencies, wholly unvailed, in the purest Essence of all his Glories, in the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of all the Divine Beauties, Loves, and Joys; in the most heightned Unity, in the most ample and unconfined Variety of the Divine Nature; in the highest and sweetest Union of both these.

Now man sees, enjoys God, as he is, in his own Likeness, perfectly without, transcendently above all Vails, all Clouds, all Shadows, all Mixtures, or Mutability. Now is man, as he is in the same Likeness together with him; without, above all Vails, Clouds, Shadows, Mixture, or Mutability▪ Now God and Man awakened together, as out of a sleep, and the dreams in the sleep, into the same Righteousness, are satisfied with the same likeness in each other, reflected from man as the Son, the Image of God, the Father of Lights, the Original Glory.

But I now am sliding into my last Proposition, and have indeed, in a great degree, prevented my self in it.

4. Proposition. The change in Man at the Fall, did fall from the Divine Harmony, in the Universal Design; was comprehended in it, and part of it. I shall add to that which I have already written above, only one Scripture, with a short gloss upon it, for the establishing of this Proposition.

St. Paul thus discourseth, Rom. 8. 19, 20, 21, 22. For the earnest expectation of the Creature, waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of p. 120God. For the Creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but for him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the Creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of Corruption, into the glorious liberty of the Children of God. For we know that the whole Creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together, until now.

Observe here, that Creature and Creation are both the same word in Greek. Where you read the Creature in the 19, 20, 21. verses, you may as well read it, the Creation, that which you read the whole Creation, verse 22. is as properly every Creature.

There are two Questions which here naturally arise, and are absolutely waved by me, as having no necessary Connexion with my present purpose.

Quest. 1. The first Question is this, In what sense the Creature or Creation is understood by the holy Apostle. Is the whole Creation one entire, living, sensible Image of the Divine Nature, in which every Creature, as a part of this Divine Image, partakes of the same life, according to the Doctrine of Campanella? Shall we say with Plato, Every thing that is, is an Act of Life, and so nothing of Being without life?

Or may it seem agreeable to the Scriptures, that all the Creatures stood together at first, before the breach, made by the Fall, in the Unity of the Spirit, in Christ, the Head of the Creation; without whom, or apart from whom, nothing was made that was made, as St. John teacheth us? Did every Creature stand now in Union, with its proper Angel, through its Angel with its proper Idea in Christ, the Divine Mind, and the Universal Idea? Was every Creature thus cloathed with the Angelical Image, partaker of the Angelical Life? Did it through these receive the Divine Image, the Divine Life of its own Idea? That the whole Creation might seem a Contexture of Angels, filled with Ideal Lights, all meeting together in one chief Angel, and one Universal Idea, which is the Lord Jesus? Had every Creature thus a sight and sense of the Divine Design in the Fall? was it thus capable of a willingness and an unwillingness in its submission to it, as it considered that particular state, or the general design with the Divine end of all; As it considered it self in this dark part, to be acted by it, or the eternal Spirit in its universa… …ontrivance, and the Mark, the heighth of Glory, to which it directed all? Do the Creatures still, though bound in Chains of Darkness, retain so much of this Angelical Ideal Light, and Life, as to hope, to groan for a return from their Captivity, into these Angelical, Ideal Forms, and so into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God, whom St. James saith, to be the First-fruits of the Creation?

Whether this be so, or all these terms of Will, of Hope, of Groans, be by a figure attributed to Subjects without life or sense; or some other sense be righter than either of these, I consider not now, as being unconcerned?

Quest. 2. The second Question is, whether the individual Creatures did all pre-exist, being together in Paradise, before the Fall, in their Angelical Spirits and Forms? Was among these Mankind, p. 121with all individual Persons, not only in a Representative, but a Collective Adam; unto whom Adam in his own distinct Person was the Head, and the first born? Did those thus, who now groan under the ruines of the Fall, then fore-see it, in the Divine Design, having an aversion to it in it self, yet subjecting themselvns to it for God? Are these, who now through all Generations groan and travel in pangs, for the delivery of the Divine seed in them, unto the Birth of a new Glory, the same who then had this Divine Seed of a sure Hope sown in them for their return? And not for their return only, but for their Resurrection, unto a sight of the Face of God with a new and fuller Glory, shining forth without any shadow or Vail, purely, and immediately upon them all, through them, taking them up into it self, as a new, Super-Coelestial eternal Paradise, as far excelling their first Paradise, as the Heavens are above the Earth, as Eternity transcends Time?

But these then, where have they been since the Fall? Were they thrust down to the nethermost parts of the Earth, imprisoned in the deep shades of the Earth below, and bound there in Chains of Darkness? Are they there reserved in the silence and sleep of that Death which came upon all by the Fall, until, as Seed buried in the ground, they, according to their several seasons, spring up into Corruptible Forms, and a wretched Life, for a moment upon the stage of this World to act new parts, in order to a refining, through a Baptism with Christ in the fire of his Sufferings, of his Death, and the making of all new by this refining, in the Glory of his Resurrection?

Dear Reader! these Questions may be thought by some curious and difficult, without use, fruit, or ground in the Word of God. To others, perhaps they may seem of great moment to open the mystery of God, to unvail his Glory in the wonder of his Works, which are sought out by all those who love him. Some may esteem them of great advantage, to enlighten the Daknesses, and make easie the Difficulties about Principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion, as that fundamental Truth of Original Sin, that most sweet and sacred Mystery, which is the Antitype to this Type. Our justification by Jesus Christ, the Return of all to life in the last Adam, as all died in the first. Others may believe, that as God sheds abroad richer Anointings of the Light of his Spirit, we shall see lying fair before us greater and stranger things than these, which now like fresh colours in a beautiful Object, appear not at all, for the want of light in the Air, in our Spirits. As the eternal Sun shineth, as the Heavens in the Scriptures, and the Spirit shall open themselves; they expect to see the Angels of Glory, and of God, the Divine Glories descending and ascending upon the Son of Man, the Person of the Lord Jesus, as a mystical Ladder, reaching through the whole Creation, from the top to the bottom, where each rank of Creatures is a step in this Ladder, a Divine Glory, in the Angelical Form, upon the Wings of its proper Angel, descending and ascending.

p. 122But I leave these things to the freedome of every Spirit, as bringing no weight to my present purpose, begging thy pardon, Christian Reader, for this mention of them, as being fairly led to by the present Scripture, and willing to take the occasion of diverting thy self and me, as I hope, not without some spiritual pleasure and profit, through the candour of thy Mind.

I shall take hold of that alone, which seems to lie clear in the words of the Text, and gives a full confirmation to my Proposition, which is this,

That the Fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal Design in the Divine Mind, being comprehended in it, as a part of it.

I shall proceed by a few short steps,

1. The Intellectual soul, in the first Man, is manifestly, eminently comprehended in this Scripture, by a Reason from the stronger. This not only is a principal part of the Creation, but contains in it self, according to its primitive state, the whole nature of things, together with the compleat Image of God in Nature. This is the Essence of the Intellectual Soul.

2. This Soul, in this Image, and so in its own Essence, as in a Glass, beholdeth the Harmony of the Divine Work, as it hath the Harmony of the Divine Nature figured upon it in its Perfection, from the beginning to the end. Through this Image, as a finely-shadowed Vail, it hath a view of God himself in the invisibility of his Power and Godhead. In the same view it taketh in the Universal Harmony of the Divine Work and Design, as it lieth in its first ground, in his invisible Power and Godhead; Invisible to the purest eye of Nature in their own naked Glories, but visible through the Divine Cloud or Sky of the Natural, the Angelical Image of God in Man.

3. In this Image, light and view of the Godhead. The Soul now seeth the Fall in the Divine Harmony, in the Harmony of the Divine Image, and its own Essence; it seeth this, as the next Scene, ready to open it self, as the next state into which it is immediately to pass, by the force of the Divine Harmony.

The Soul seeth this state, in this Glass, apart by it self, as a state of highest Contrariety to the Purity, the Light, the Peace, the Calm, the Incorruption, the Virtues, the Joys, the Harmony, the Life, the Love, the Divinity of its present state. It hath a Prospect of it, as a Scene of monstrous Defilements, Shames, Confusions, Troubles, Darknesses, Tempests, Horrors, Enmities, Deaths, where there is no Light, no Rest. Thus the Soul hath the highest aversion to this state.

But at the same time, the Soul hath a view of this Scene, as it stands in the Universal Harmony, so it sees shadowed out to it through the natural Image, in this shady light of Nature, a Glory of the Godhead springing up through it, by the Power of the Divine Harmony incomprehensible to the Soul in its purest Light, infinitely transcending p. 123all those Divine Glories which have hitherto appeared to it in the Godhead, and all those which it is by any means capable of figuring to it self.

It became him, (saith the Author to the Hebrews) being to bring many Sons to Glory, to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through Sufferings. Thus the Soul in Paradise beholding (in the Glass of its own Essence) this state of Sufferings to rise up out of the unsearchable depths of the incomprehensibly ravishing, and transcendently perfect Harmony in the Divine Essence, understanding also the Harmony to be made perfect, and the Glory of the Godhead raised to its utmost, its purest heighth, and beyond the reach of every Intellectual or Angelical Eye, by this Variety in its proper place, Now, for God, is subject to this bondage of Vanity and Corruption.

This Soul in like manner sees in that same Glass an Hope that cannot fail, set before it. The Seed of a Divine Hope, Jesus the Hope of Glory, the force and power of the Universal Harmony sown in it. A sure Hope that shall accompany it through this Wilderness of Wastness, Tempests, and Horrours, where no water is, no Light … Life, no Truth of any good, but empty and black shades in a dark and dreadful Night. In this Hope it sees the assurance of a passage out of this Wilderness into a good Land, a Land flowing with Milk and Honey, a Land flowing with Rivers of Waters, and full of Springs, A Land of Rest and Bliss.

4. The Soul thus, by this prospect in Paradise, is submitted and subjected to its change and fall, with an unwilling willingness. God now according to the Law of the Divine Harmony in his own Image, and in the Essence of the Soul, withdraws the Light of his Presence, within a dark Cloud from this Cloud, falls a deep sleep, the sleep of Death, a death to the only true, the Divine Life upon Man. The Soul now like Abraham falls into a terrible dream, a blackness of darkness, full of horrour passeth over. It seeth it self, the whole nature of things, visible, invisible, within it self, dead, divided, dissolved, all broken and scattered into pieces. A burning Lamp, the burning Torches of Lust, Rage, Divine Wrath, pass between these mangled pieces.

Thus the Soul lies in this sleep and dream, with hope only, as a gleame of heavenly Light, now and then breaking upon it, through these melancholy shades, until Christ, the Seed of Hope, revive in it. When he awakens himself in the Soul, he awakens the Soul by his Voice, sounding through it; Awake thou that sleepest, stand up from the dead, and Christ shall give thee Light. At the awakening of the Soul, the dream flies away, as if it never had been. The Soul now sees her lost Paradise, her lost Purity, her lost Peace, her lost Love and Joy, her lost self, with the whole nature of things in its Virgin-Image present with her, as if they had never departed from her. All past seems as the dream of a moment, while she slept upon a Bed of Spices in Paradise, in the Bosome of her Beloved.

But her Beauties and Paradise are not now as before. They are no more shadowy Images, shady Lights, and Mediums, or means, through which her God appears to her, which his Glories dim'd, p. 124and refracted by the Vails, through which they pass. No, being now awakened into the Resurrection of Christ, God himself in his naked Beauties, in the purest and sweetest Light of his Divine Essence, appears to her as to himself. He in the Light of his unvailed Glories, is both her beloved Object, and the blissful Medium or means through which she sees him. The Soul now is in the Light, as He is in the Light, his Face shining like the Sun of Eternity in the strength of all its Glories, the Glories of his supream loveliness, and Loves, is the Glass in which she sees her self, her lost Purity and Paradise, the whole nature of things within her self, as they all lie in the Harmony of the Divine Nature. In this Glass she sees and enjoys her Fall it self, as a part, and the perfecting of this heavenly Harmony. All the storms and darknesses in that Scene have now their Vizors taken off, and appear to be living Glories, glorious Spirits, glorious Varieties in the Unity of the eternal Spirit. Thus the Soul enjoys her self with all past, present, or to come, as eternally present with Christ in God.

Now this Bride repents not of her subjection to the Fall, by which she hath passed into this last state more excellent then the first, which indeed is the first. Now she seeth that all her changes were but circlings through the various parts of the Divine Harmony within her self, within the heavenly compass of her own Divine Essence. While all that while, she with her beautiful Essence and Form lies in the embraces of the Divine Essence it self. There compleating in her self the circle of the Universal and Eternal Harmony returning thither, as into the Bosome of her Beloved Bridegroom, from whence she first came forth, as from her everlasting Father, and first Cause.

Thus I have endeavoured to bring to the Eye, the Ear of our Understanding, the Beauty, the Musick of the Divine Harmony in the discords of Humane Nature, in the Fall of Man; which excludes all undetermined Liberty in the Will, as altogether inconsistent with this Harmony, and the Divine Unity, the band of this Harmony.

I pass now to the Essence of the Soul, in the third Scene, into which it opens it self, or that third state into which it rouls it self within it self. My design is the same here, to shew how the sacred and irresistible force of the Divine Harmony restores the Soul, without any thing of Free-Will in the sense, in which we have stated it, intermingling it self in this Work.

3. State. This third state of the Soul is its return or restitution. This is clearly and compleatly described by St. Paul, after the lively Picture which he hath given us, of the storm in the Fall; But now the Righteousness of God is made manifest without the Law, being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets, Rom. 3. 21. Even the Righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ on all that believe, verse 22. Being justified freely by his Grace, through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ, verse 24. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his own Righteousness for the remission of Sins, verse 25. To declare, I say, at this time his own Righteousness: p. 125that he (by his, his own Righteousness, or Justice,) might be just, and by the same his, his own Righteousness) the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus, vers. 26.

Take here four brief Notes upon the words,

1. The Righteousness of God is with great care and skill distinguished here, and specificated in its distinction from the Righteousness of Man under the Law, in the state of Innocency. You have this distinction emphatically set out and sealed with a deep impression four times over. The Right eousness of God without the Law, vers. 21. Even the Righteousness of God, vers. 22. God to declare his own Righteousness, vers. 25. To declare, I say, his own Righteousness, or Justice; That he may be just or righteous, and the Justifier, or the Maker righteous, by his own Righteousness. This is the Righteousness of the Gospel, by which we have the pardon of Sins, and are justified. This the Law, the Prophets, Nature in its Purity, in all its natural Improvements point out to us, in shadows and pictures; But cannot set before us, nor give to us no more than the Picture can give a sight or fruition of the Life, the living Beauty.

2. Grace, free Love alone, without the Conjunction of Free-will, discovers and brings in this Righteousness. This Righteousness is the Beauty of the Divine Harmony; Grace or Love is the sweetness, the sweet force of this Harmony, or the Unity in this Harmony, which alone carries it on through all things, and makes all things perfect in it.

3. Jesus Christ with his Blood, and Faith in him, are means to this end, the declaration of the Righteousness of God. This Divine Harmony, which is the Beauty and the Righteousness of the Divine Nature, as the last end, is the first Mover, carries on it self by its own sweet, most agreeable and irresistable force, which is the Grace and Love in the Godhead. This forms and fashions all its own means, brings forth Jesus Christ to die for us, to live in us by Faith, and it self in this Jesus, through the death and the life of this Jesus.

4. The essential Righteousness of God, as it brings forth it self through Jesus Christ, is that in which we have the pardon of Sin, and Justification. It is his own Righteousness, or Justice, by which God is just himself, and maketh us just. In Greek the words are all the same, his Righteousness, that he may be just, and the Justisier. You will understand this, and the elegant force of this Scripture, which is very much lost in English by the change of the word in the Translation from Righteousness, to Just and Justifier; When you know, that in Greek, Righteousness and Justice are both one word; as in the sense, and in nature, they are both one thing.

This essential Righteousness of God alone, hath an infiniteness of value and virtue in it, to be a satisfaction for the infinite Demerit and Guilt in Sin; to make a Saint infinitely amiable and lovely, that it may be proportioned to the Eye and infinite Love of an infinite Spirit.

We say, our Jesus was Man, that he might Suffer; God, that he might Merit by suffering. We are rightly taught, That it is the p. 126Person in Christ which gives the value to his Active and Passive Obedience; That gives the value and virtue to the whole work of his Mediation. The Person in Christ is God, the second Person in the Trinity, the essential Image of the Godhead, eternal, unchangeable, infinite. It is then the essential, eternal, infinite Beauty, Value, Virtue, Righteousness of this Person, which declares it self through the Humane Nature of Christ in the Humiliations, the Exaltations of that, unto the Remission of Sins, unto Justification, to make us infinitely amiable in the eye of an infinite God, the worthy Objects of an infinite Love, the worthy Subjects of an infinite Glory and Blessedness, in the eternal, unlimited, free, and full fruition of an infinite Object, infinite in Loveliness and Delights.

But let us endeavour, according to the meanness of our capacity, in taking in so great Glory, to give some Light to this so sweet, and so high a mystery.

Righteousness and Justice in Greek are the same.

Justice is defined, that which giveth every one its own. That is, to every thing its own, due, and proper to it, which makes up the Harmony and Unity of the whole in that part. The Harmony and Unity of the whole is the perfection of the whole, and of each part. Every part is in order to the whole, as its end. As it is perfection, which is due to each thing: So the end of each thing is its perfection. Thus Justice consists in the Harmony and Unity of things.

Righteousness is that by which we are right, and do right. Right is a conformity to its rule. The first in every kind is the measure and rule of all the rest. God is absolutely, universally the first of all things: so is He the absolute measure and rule of all.

The Righteousness of God then is the conformity of the Divine Nature to it self, in its Essence and Operations, in its self, and in all its works. Thus is Righteousness also as Justice, the Harmony and Unity of things. The Divine Righteousness is the Divine Harmony and Unity diffusing it self through all things, and knitting all things together, as Links in one Golden Chain.

The perfection of Harmony is the Unity in Variety. The Harmony is perfect, when the Unity is entire, and the Variety full. A full Variety is that, in which nothing of Variety is wanting. A principal part in the Variety, extending it to a greater amplitude, is the Contrariety. This then is the Divine pleasure and glory in the Harmony; when the Unity by its Divine fruitfulness and force brings forth it self through all degrees of Variety, into the remotest forms, the most opposite Contrarieties and Extreams: When it brings forth it self through these into it self again, and reigns triumphantly at once, as over the whole, so over each part of the Variety; residing on the whole, as one Throne, one Kingdom, and on each part, as a distinct Throne, a distinct Kingdom, equal with the whole.

The Divine Harmony is Three-fold.

1. The first Harmony is that of the Godhead, of the Divine Essence in it self. This is the essential Righteousness of God. As it is p. 127the Righteousness, so is it the Love, the Joy, the Loveliness, the Wisdome, Power, Glory of God. All the Excellencies of God in one, one and entire in every Excellency by the Unity. Yet in every Excellency most highly distinct by the Variety in the Harmony. The Harmony of the Divine Essence is that sacred and adorable mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of God.

2. The second Harmony is the Harmony of the Divine Nature, as the Original; And the Harmony in the Nature of the Creature, as the figure, married together into one Divine Harmony, by a mutual and mysterious Union. By this Union these two mutually subsist in each other, shine upon, shine in and through each other. The Original Harmony is the Principle, of subsisting and shining. This is the Head, the Person which gives Being, Beauty, Subsistency, Lustre to its own Figure in the created Harmony, shining upon it self in and through it.

This is the Mediatory Righteousness, or the Righteousness of God in Christ, the Righteousness of the Gospel, of our Justification, Sanctification, Glorification.

This Righteousness in Christ, as our Head, comprehending us in it self, by virtue of the mutual Union cloathing us, filling us, overflowing us, is our Justification, the Beauty of our Persons shining in the Glory of our Head, entire from the first moment, and unchangeable.

This Righteousness, by virtue of our mutual Union, with our Jesus in the Unity of the Spirit, as our Root, springs forth in us, transforms us into its own heavenly Image, carries us up into a Communion with it self, in its own Divine Life, Beauties and Joys. Thus by the gradual growths of this Righteousness in us, are we gradually sanctified; through all changes of life, doth this Plant grow in us, by Night and by Day; In Death it arrives at its perfect growth. Our Sanctification thus in Death made perfect, is the glorification of our Persons.

In one moment doth this Divine Righteousness, this heavenly Harmony take us up into it self, unto the justification of our Persons in its spotless, eternal, universal Beauties, to the filling of us with the unexpressible Peace and Joys of its most sweet, eternal, universal Musick, and in the same moment it springs up in us unto our Sanctification, to the framing of us by degrees unto the same Beauty, and the tuning of us to the same Musick in our selves. This is the moment of our New-Birth, our Marriage-Union with our Jesus, our believing.

This is the second Righteousness.

3. The third Righteousness, is that of the shadowy Image in the primitive state of the Creation. This is the Righteousness of Man, a shadowy Righteousness, the shadow of the eternal Harmony. This is the essential Form of Man in pure nature. This is the Reason of Man, the shadow of the eternal Reason, the Word, the essential Harmony in the Divine Mind.

p. 128The Lord Jesus being the first, the supream, the essential Image of God, is also the first, the supream, the essential Harmony, the Essence of Harmony in its eternal Spirit, the essential Harmony, the essential Righteousness of the Divine Nature.

The Lord Jesus is the Original, the Universal Image, the Image of Images, the Idea of Idea's, the Spring, the Seat, the Truth, the first of all Ideas. He is the Idea of the Godhead, of the whole Creation, of Man, of every Creature. Thus is he the Root, the Rule, the Harmony, the Righteousness of the whole Creation, of Man, of every Creature.

Having laid these grounds, for the illustrating of the Doctrine of St. Paul, I will now from St. Paul, and upon these grounds, sum up into a close, this part of my Discourse, concerning the nature of the Humane Soul, or Man.

The Essence of the Soul containeth the fulness of all thing in it, in one substantial, indivisible Act. The Soul opens it self into this fulness of things, by a three fold Revolution within it self, within the spacious Palace of its own glorious Essence.

1. From the Bosome or Womb of its own Ideal Glories, which are the Original, the Measure, the Bound of the Souls Essence and Perfection; the Soul descendeth into a shadowy Image. Thus it first appears upon the beautiful Stage of this World in its first Creation.

God himself in his invisible Glories with eternity, in his eternal Power and Godhead is now in the Soul, is seen by the Soul, but shadowed by this shadowy and vailing Image within which he resides. Thus hath the Soul within her self her Idea in Christ, in God, in Eternity, as her Fountain in Eden, which flowing forth all through the Soul in this shadowy Image, makes it all a sweetly-shadowed Paradise. This is the first Revolution.

2. As in the Harmony of this shadowy Image lies the Contrariety, a part of the Variety in the Harmony. So from the Divine force of this Harmony, acted by the Ideal Harmony lying hid in it, the Soul rouleth it self out of the lowest and remotest degree of the Unity into the Contrariety, as a Note in a Musical Lesson upon the Lute, struck and sounding in its proper time.

Now is the Beauty, the Integrity, the Sweetness of this shadowy Image, in Deformity, in Ruines, in Bitterness and Enmity, Sin and Death swallow up all.

The Soul stands in a Contrariety to the Divine Purity, Love, Light, Immortality. In the place of Purity, is Filth; of Light, Darkness; of Love, Enmity; of Immortality, Death.

God now being the Supream Unity and Harmony, opposeth himself, as most directly, most highly, most irreconcilably contrary to this Contrariety, to the breach of the Unity, to the discord in the Harmony, that he may subdue it, and reduce it unto an Unity, for the making up of the Harmony, and so making it more full by the Contrariety, more sweet by the Enmity.

p. 129Thus the Divine Love in the shadowy Image, having lost it self in the enmity at the Fall. The Divine Love it self in its eternal Image disguiseth it self in a form of wrath, flaming forth with unquenchable burnings, until it have devoured the Enmity, and the shadowy Image it self in the Enmity, unto the discovery of the eternal Love, vailed beneath its shadow, and buried in the Enmity. All thus consumed meet again in the triumphant and pure flame, in which the Divine Love meets with and embraceth it self.

But thus much of the second Revolution.

3. Now the Soul with the whole nature of things in the shadowy Image, the shadowy Harmony, the shadowy Righteousness of its first Creation is lost, by the dissolution of the Unity in discord and Deformity, Sin, Death, and the Divine Wrath.

Now G… in the essential Image, the essential Harmony, the essential Right…usness, which is Love it self, loveliness it self, Power, Wisdome, the Essence of God, declares himself our Jesus, our Saviour. He declares himself, without the Law or the Prophets, not from any Merit or Power in the Creature, but of meer Grace, from the sweet innate force of the Divine Harmony in himself, by the beauties of which he is powerfully attracted and acted, to the Musick of which he moves in all his actings with highest pleasure.

This essential Image and Harmony, from the beginning lies hid beneath the shadowy Image, at the bottom of it, as the substance to the shadow, which hath no possibility of subsisting in any point or degree of Being without it. St. Paul calls this, The mystery hid in God from the foundation of the World; that is, hid beneath the foundation of the World, which was a Vail cast over the eternal Glories, while they figured themselves in Divine shadows upon this Vail.

But now our Jesus, the second Person in the Trinity, the essential Image, the essential Harmony, the Righteousness of God, becomes a Creature, springs up from beneath the foundations of the Creation into an Humane Soul and Body in the midst of it ruines.

This Jesus is the Original Image of the Creation, of Man, of every Creature, the Root, the Rule, the Actor of all, who virtually, eminently comprehends all in their distinct Ideal Forms within himself, as so many eternal Beauties in his own eternal Beauty, who bringeth them forth from himself, beareth them in himself, as Flowers in their Garden-beds, who figureth himself in the riches of his glorious Varieties upon them, to make of the whole one beautiful Figure of his own Beauties, a Daughter, Sister, and Bride to himself.

He therefore now, the Seed of Hope, of Promise sown in the Soul, dying together with the Soul in the Fall, now comes up through this death in the form of a man, faln man, the Image of the whole, which contains the whole in it self.

Thus he reduceth the Contrariety to the Unity. He restores the Harmony, he atones and reconciles all, all manner of wayes,

p. 1301. He bringeth all the Contrariety into the Harmony, by bearing the Fall, Guilt, Shame, all Deformities, all Deaths, the Divine Wrath, the ruines of the Fall in himself, who is the eternal, universal Harmony and Righteousness. Thus eternal Life dies without Death, giving an eternal Life and Glory to Death in his Person. Thus the Righteousness of God is made Sin for us without Sin. He is altogether lovely; every thing of him is not only lovely, but loveliness it self. Yea more loveliness, a knot, a spring of loveliness. So sings the spiritual Bride of her Beloved in that Song of Loves, The bushes of his Hair black as a Raven, (the Bird of Death) in their order and place springing forth from his head of finest Gold (the purest light of Glory) encompassing it with their deep shade, and setting it off, are Divine Beauties.

2. This Person, the eternal, the universal Image and Harmony of the Godhead, of all Glories, of all things gives hims… in the extremities of all Sufferings unto Death, to be a Sacrifice to the Holiness, Justice, Wrath and Glory of God. He is a Sacrifice of infinite value and force, a Sin-Offering, expiating all Sin, with a transcendency of Merit. A Peace-Offering, which charms the most offended spirits, which changeth into a Golden Calm of Divine Love and Joy, the most raging tempests of wrath, raised through the whole nature of things, from the breast of the eternal Spirit.

3. He bears in his own Person the whole Contrariety, the Contrariety of evil in the enmity of Sin, to the Divine Good in its Love and Glory: The Contrariety of the Divine Good in its Love and Glory to the evil in the deformity and enmity of Sin. All the fiery darts of both these Contrarieties, in their utmost force and fury, meet in his Bosome, the Bosome of Div…e Beauty and Love, exposed nakedly to them both. Thus he fills up the design of his Father, to make known the power of his Wrath. Thus he draws forth to its largest compass, and heightens to its utmost point, this Scene of wrath, to make the Variety full, and the Harmony absolute.

4. Jesus, the supream Harmony, the everlasting Righteousness, by dying, carries the descent of things to the lowest point. He makes an end of Sin, Sufferings, Death and Wrath for ever, by the dissolution and end of the seat, the subject of all these, the shadowy Image, the Creation of Nature in his own person. The death of Jesus Christ is as the midnight of things. The Sun of the eternal Image and Glory, having by its course, in the shadowy Image, touched the utmost bound of distance from it self, now begins its return to it self again.

5. This Jesus by his Resurrection carries up with him, in his own Person, all things, the whole Creation, the shadowy Image, with its Primitive Purity and Paradise, the shadowy Image, with its fall, ruines, and deaths into the Glory of the eternal Image, unto an Union with it, immediate, naked, entire, eternal, in one Light, in one Spirit. Where there is now no more any vail or shadow. Now all appear Beauties and Glories, divinely-harmonious, being seen in their proper place and order in the Divine, the Eternal, the Universal Harmony.

p. 1316. Lastly, The Lord Jesus now, in an humane Soul and Body, being risen from the Dead, and ascended up on high, comprehends, reconciles, fills all things, shining through all, assimilating all to himself in the spiritual Glory of his own essential, eternal Image in his own Person, the most glorious, unbounded Head of all. Now according to the fulness, the fruitfulness, the Divine Order of the Ideas; the Original Images of all things, in the most ample and blissful Harmony in his Person; He comes up, he springs forth in his Spirit; in the Spirit of this Divine Image, this Harmony and Glory, with the fulness of his Person, of this Divine Image, Harmony and Glory in the Soul of Man.

As he springs up, he rends the Vail, behind which he ever resided, he reveals himself to the Soul in the Universal Harmony of his Person; and his whole work, from the beginning to the end. He presents himself to the Soul, as its Idea, its Original Image, its beginning; its way, and itsend; in whose bosome the Soul hath alwayes lien; there meeting with every change, every scene of things springing up within it in that bosome, while the same Jesus hath lien in its bosome, as the seed of its Being, and of every Change. This is the Souls Father, Brother, Bridegroom and Perfection.

As Jesus Christ thus appears and unvails himself within the Soul, he at once gathers up the Soul into the most intimate, the most entire Union with it self. He transforms it into the likeness of the same Image with himself, in the full Glory of the Divine, the Universal, the eternal Harmony, in the Unity of the same Spirit, the Spirit of this Harmony and Glory.

The Lord Jesus, as he is the universal, the eternal Image and Harmony of the Divine Nature, of all Variety in the Divine Nature, as he is the Idea of Ideas, thus is he the Original Image, the Idea of the Intellectual Soul, or of Man. As then he forms himself in this Soul; he also formeth all things in it, that man comes forth from the bosome of his Idea, replenished with the Ideas of all things. He is now the whole Creation, the universal Nature within himself.

This Jesus then, being risen, springs up into Man in the virtue of his Resurrection, and together becomes the Resurrection of all things in man to man. In like manner through man; as the head of all, he riseth again in all the particular Forms of things, as they stand without man in themselves in their own proper Existencies.

In the Lord Jesus, God, through Christ, the universal Image inhabiteth in the proper Ideas of each Creature, with the fulness of his Divine Glories, in the Unity of the blessed Spirit. According to this Original, Jesus Christ, the Universal Harmony through the humane Nature, his immediate, his full Image, his compleat Birth and Bride, rests entirely and distinctly upon each form of things; as the Divine Race of this heavenly Marriage-Bed in the Resurrection. As all together make up the Universal Harmony in the Soul, in Christ the end of them all: So each one enjoyeth the whole Harmony in it self, p. 132being upon its own proper Form, cloathed with the Universal Form, the Form of the heavenly Man, and of Christ in Glory. So all dwell together in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit, the Spirit of a Saint and of Christ. In the Unity of this Spirit, all mutually are Divine Palaces each to other, clearly, compleatly comprehending, and comprehended by each other, eternally feasting upon the heavenly Beauties and Virtues, drinking in the Sweetnesses, the Lives, the Spirits of each other; And of Jesus Christ, of God, the Unity, and the Variety in all.

This is the Kingdom of God, which is Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ, the essential Image of God, the Divine and eternal Harmony, is the Righteousness, the mutual Peace and Joy of this Kingdom.

In this Kingdom Jesus Christ cometh with his own Glory, the Glory of his Father, and of all his holy Angels united in one, in each form of things. The lowest form of things here is an Angel, an Angel made new in the Resurrection of Christ, where each Angel being only a distinct part of the Harmony, yet hath the Universal Harmony resting upon that part.

This is that new Jerusalem, where the street, the lowest form of things, is as Gold and Glass. The pure Glory of the eternal Spirit, as the finest Gold, shineth in each Creature, like the Cherubim, or the Angels standing up out of the Mercy-Seat, made of the same piece of massy Gold together with it. The lowest Creature here is an Angel of Glory, the street that sustains us is composed of Angels, Angelical Glories. In every Angel as a particular Glory, all the Angels with their several Varieties of Glory; the Glory of Christ, and all the Saints, which is the full, the Universal Glories of the Divine and Humane Nature, the Original, and its best beloved Image in Union. The Glory of God, as the Father, in its simplicity, in its paternity and transcendency over all; meet all in one. This Unity of the Spirit in each Creature renders it divinely transparent, like the finest glass. In the beauty of every Face, we have the prospect of Eternity. We see in each single Face fresh Beauties, all Beauties, with an endless Variety opening themselves one within another, one beyond another, all equally clear, present, and pleasant in every one.

Thus Jesus Christ becomes, according to St. Paul, the first-born from the dead, and the first-born among his Brethren the Saints. The Saints in the Language of St. James, are the first-fruits of the Creation, which is brought forth in its proper time and order, into the liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God.

Thus is our Jesus the great Jubilee, where all Debts are remitted, all Servants go free, all persons return to their Inheritances, to the free Possession, the full fruition of themselves and them. In the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, from him, as the Root springing up into the Body of the Saints, through them into the rest of the Creatures as Branches of the same Tree. All Sins are pardoned, the whole Creation is set free from its bondage to Vanity and Corruption. p. 133All things return to a free fruition of themselves, of all Beauties and Joys in their native Inheritance, their Original Images, their proper Ideas in Christ; first Christ, then the Saints through them, Heaven and Earth, and the Seas, with all things in them, are made new, by being married anew, by being newly reinvested with the Glories of their Original.

The Reader is again desired to take Notice, That neither the remainder of this Fourth Argument, nor any thing upon his Fifth could be found amongst the Authors Papers.