The Freedom of the Will, Part 2 (2 of 2)

The Freedom of the Will · Part 2 (2 of 2)

p. 164Here now ye have a three-fold Resurrection in one:

1. The Divine Image, which is eternal Love and life it self, as it had been vailed, as it had suffered and died in the Creature, riseth sweetly and gloriously from beneath all those shades into its own freshest and fullest Beauties: Thus it riseth in the midst of the created Image.

p. 1652. The created Image, was once a fair entire Picture, of the eternal Beauty, living a Divine Life, breathing a Divine Sweetness, being a Divine Paradise in it self, to it self, while it stood as a pure resemblance of its Divine Original. But by its fall into the inf…rnal Deep of Sin, it stained it self, it broke it self all to pieces, it buried its Life, Beauty, and Sweetness in a dreadful and hateful death. Now having put off that death, in the death of Christ, it riseth again in the bosom of the Original Glory, not only in its fullest Beauty and Sweetness, but a Beauty and Sweetness far more excelling. It was before its fall, a sweet shade, an earthly Paradise. The shade vanished into darkness, the Paradise faded and disappeared. But now it riseth as the …un-shine of the Godhead, as the sweetest Light, at once lying in the Bosom of the highest Glory embraced by it, and surrounding that Glory with its embraces, by a mutual, immediate, and eternal Union.

3. The fall, the disorders, the wounds and death of this shadowy Image, so dreadful and hateful as they stood in time, now also have their Resurrection, and put on a new appearance in eternity: Having now passed through the Death and Sufferings of Christ, where they put off all their evil, by putting off all their own proper reality; they stand in his Resurrection as figures of eternal Glories, which are themselves also Glories in the Bosom of their Glorious Original: They are seen now, as they eternally spring up and flourish in the Garden of the Divine Mind, as they bear their part, and shine in the universal Beauty of the Divine Image and Work. As the eternal Original with its Paradisical shadow lay hid in them, like a Flower in its Seed in the Earth, as both these Glories now are sprung forth through them, and bring forth them again, as eternal Lights, in the light and circle of their own Beauties: So is Christ in the circle of the Throne of God, as the Lamb that was slain, where his wounds appear in his glorified Person; not as Wounds, but as Beauties; not as Fractures or Stains, but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory. Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse, but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth, when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners, and of Sufferings to the Saints. There it seeth the end of all. There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece, and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight, Psal. 73. If I be not deceived, Jesus risen from the dead, in this order and manner is this Sanctuary, this Temple of Grace and Truth. He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh, and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit. He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory, into an universal eternal Light.

In this Spirit, which is this Light of Life, the whole course of his Work in the Creation, and in Providence, his Incarnation, Sufferings and Death, present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them, as one Di…ine piece, as full of Divinity every where. Here all in the whole, and in the parts, present themselves p. 166to the spiritual Eye, as beautiful and blessed Spirits, in numberless troops, by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades, hiding their Glories beneath these figures, breaking with their Glories out of these figures, as so many Suns out of their Clouds, shewing their figures themselves as Glories. Like the Palms, and Lilies, and Cherubims of the Temple, carved first in Cedar, and then covered with massy Gold. In the mean time all these numberless Spirits, in their whole play from the beginning to the end, are comprehended in this one Spirit, the universal Spirit of Harmony, Order, Beauty, and pleasantness in all. Jesus risen from the dead, the first, and the last, the same yesterday, to day, and for ever.

O the Wisdom! the Power! the Grace! the Glory! the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ! What a depth is this without any bottom? What an heighth without any bound? What a breadth? what a length without any measure? How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all, above all, through all, beyond all things, or thoughts? Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest, the fullest forms of words or conceptions, in conceiving or expressing this Mystery, this Jesus.

But I have now brought to an end, according to my weak manner, the reducing the disorder it self into order, in the Person of Christ, by these three sacred steps of Expiation, Compensation, Abolition, of the Disorder in the Order, or which is the same, the Renovation of the Order in all. I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of part…cular order and disorder, hath been made beautiful in its season, keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb, in the Musick of the eternal Word.

I have also attempted to open that mystery, how this Work of God, in every part of it, with its Beauty, is for eternity, the light of eternity, being the only light of Truth, with a golden Calm, an unstained Sun-shine, of purest perpetual Peace, Pleasantness and Glory. In this light of eternity alone, is the Work of God seen aright, in the entire piece, in the whole design, from the beginning to the end. As all times appear in this Light, less than a moment, a point, nothing, being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity; so are all the disorders of time, no more, not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past, but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony.

All this is true in the Person of Christ, to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony. All things are gathered together in one in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on Earth, Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross, God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him, whether they be things on Earth, or in Heaven, Col. 1. 20. These are true in us, as Christ springs up in us. Then only are we our selves baptized. Then only do we see all things unto us, together with us, baptized into the sweet, shining, boundless, bottomless Sea of this universal a…d eternal Harmony, when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ, p. 167are baptized into his Death, and into …is Resurrection from the dead. How then can we live any longer in sin, being now dead to it? How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven, being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God? Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh, for a licentiousness in sin, from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ, Rom. 6. 1, 2, 3, 4.

I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture, Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture; my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty, Wisdom and Power, through this whole Work, with the Divine Justice, Goodness and Glory, in the determination of the Will, by its essential Principles, by the uninterrupted order, and connexion of causes; by the first and universal Cause, which is most intimate to every effect, and worketh most of all; Secundum modum naturae, in a natural way, as being the n…tura naturans.

I promised two other Scriptures, for the making good of this design; I will lightly touch them, and so hasten to an end of my Discourse.

The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea even the Wicked for the day of evil, Prov. 16. 4.

There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture.

1. An efficient cause or beginning, The Lord Jehovah.

2. The final cause or end, For himself.

3. The universality of the effect, and influence of these Causes, The Lord hath made all things for himself.

4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect, by a particular and most eminent instance; Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil.

Three things are remarkable in this particular instance:

1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection, and with a two-fold Asseveration; Yea, even. Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence. What, say they, hath God made all things for himself? What the evils of Sin and of Suffering? Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand, not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain, in the Work of God, one within another. Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order. Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links, and maketh the Chain entire, that he may enclose the whole Work, as one compleat piece, within the same Divine beginning and Divine end, knit together by the same Divine influence, running equally through all parts, and making all one; The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the Wicked for the day of evil.

2. The effect in this particular instance is remarkable. This effect is, every wicked person under the formality of a wicked person. As a Creature, an Angel, or a Man, he cannot be the subject of any question or doubt. The evil of sin, by which he is constituted, and p. 168denominated wicked, is clearly designed by this emphatical instance. I have often already expressed the manner of the influence and operation of the Divine Power and Providence, upon the evil of sin, and so of a Sinner, under the formality of sin. All evil being a defect, depends upon the first Cause, together with all intermediate Causes, in their deficiency only, and in the ordination of circumstances.

3. This instance brings in this particular effect in its inseparable connexion with its subordinate end; The day of evil. The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked person, who becomes wicked by the evil of sin. He hath made the inseparable connexion between the evil of sin and the evil of sufferings. He hath made this evil person by an inviolable Order for the day of evil, the evil of Sufferings. He hath made this evil person, this evil of sufferings, the connexion between these two, as the effect and next subordinate end; For himself, the Ultimate and last end, the blessed, the glorious Crown of all. I will finish this Subject with two or three brief and clear Observations drawn from this Text.

1. The beginning and the end of all things, are the same. God in his most glorious Essence, the only, the supream, the universal, the essential Good, an infinite Good.

2. The end is the first and chief Cause, moving all other Causes, and directing their motions from the first, to the last motion.

3. All things are bounded by these two; The first beginning, and the last end. All things in every step of all effects, of all subordinate ends, are in motion, and in the way to the last end. They rest not, they attain not their mark, to which they are designed, from the beginning by the first and universal Mover, till they arrive at this their last end.

4. …he last end gives amiableness, beauty and perfection to all things, as the means of bringing forth this end. It gives this beauty and perfection to them three wayes:

1. It self runs along through all things, in their whole way to it, as the first universal Mover, as the first and universal virtue and force which moves in all, and moves all throughout from the beginning to the end.

2. It comprehends all in it, as the bosom, or nest, in which the whole is designed and formed.

3. It rests upon all things in every part of the work, and step of the way, as the life and light of the universal Order and Harmony; which attracts, directs and conducts all to it self.

4. It gathers up all things at last into its self, as the term and mark to which all things move, in which alone all motions cease, and are changed into rest. Every thing in its Ultimate end gaineth its perfection, its true and proper self. Every thing is so far it self, as it is perfect; so far as it is imperfect, it falls short of it self; every imperfection being a privation of being, and so to each self a privation of it self, according to its degree. This is the sweet and musical close. This is the bright and beautiful crown of all things, the beginning and the end meeting in one.

p. 1695. The end it self, as it is the first Mover, so doth it last of all cease from its motions, and terminate them in its own beatifical Rest. This is the end perfectly accomplished, when all things tending to this end, meet in the perfection of the end. The end therefore never returns to its rest, till it rests with its full perfection in every part of the Work, in every particular form directed to it self. Our Divines teach us, That the Glory of God is the Ultimate end of all things, not the essential, but the manifestative Glory; so the Glory of God, then only finds rests, when it rests with a full revelation of it self, unvailing all its Beauties, unfolding all its Sweetnesses in the bosom and face of each part of the whole Work of God. So the Divine operation and motion ceaseth not in any part of this Divine Work, until all rest in the bosom of this Glory, perfectly displaying all its Pleasures and Delicacies upon it: For this manifestative Glory is the end of all. The end mutually gives to, and takes from all the means to the end, rest and perfection. Thus God hath made all things, all effects, with all their subordinate ends, yea, even the wicked also, for the day of evil, his subordinate end; for this Great and Ultimate end, himself, in the brightness and full out-shinings of his Glory.

I pass now to the third Scripture, Rom. 11.

If I deceive not my self, I seem to my self to discern in this Scripture a rich Mine of Divinity, of Divine Truth and Glory, in which no Workman hath yet laboured. But it is not agreeable to my present time, or purpose to open, or point out this Mine, if I were furnished with an heavenly strength and skill sufficient for it. I shall now only touch at some verses in this Chapter, which contibute to my present Design, verse 23. God hath shut up, or as it is in the Greek, God hath locked up together all in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon all. St. Paul in this Chapter sets before us, God as the most skillful Painter, sweetning and beautifying his Work in the whole, and in the parts of it, by the mixtures and interchanges of Light and Shades, Grace and Severity, still terminating all in the sweetness and light of the Divine Grace, as the end of all.

From this Contemplation he raiseth himself into, and loseth himself in the pleasant heighths of a Divine Extasy, verse 33. O the depth of the Riches, and the Wisdom, and the Knowledg of God: How unsearchable are his Judgments, and his wayes past finding out? Every Work of God hath a three-fold Depth of Riches.

1. A Depth of Riches, the riches of Power, Purity, Beauty, Love, Goodness, Grace and Glory.

2. A Depth of Wisdom, of Divine Contrivance, of perfect Harmony.

3. A Depth of Knowledge, comprehending all endless and infinite Varieties in a clear view at once.

In every part of the Work of God do all these Depths meet, which swallow up the most capacious Spirits of Saints and Angels into themselves, but can be fathomed by no Spirit. The distinct judgment in which any one, the least piece of this Work is wrought, hath so boundless a depth, heighth and compass in it, that it is p. 170altogether unsearchable. The way of God in it is a Divine secret, and mystery of Grace and Glory, which hath such recesses, such endless Varieties in it, that it cannot be traced by the Foot, or discovered by the eye of any Creature.

St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God, upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind. He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God, upon the absoluteness & freedom of the Divine Nature, ver. 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? and who hath been his Counsellor? or who hath given first to him, that it may be given again to him, by way of return or exchange. As are the Riches of the Divine Mind, which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work, and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work, as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax; such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work. As is the absoluteness & unlimitedness of the Divine Nature, which consulteth with nothing, considereth nothing in the Creature, but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns, in his most glorious Essence, and is put on, and taketh the rise of all his Works, from the ever-ful, ever flowing, over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead; such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature. Thus St. Paul concludeth, and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches, Wisdom, Knowledge: The Divine Wonders of an absolute, unconfined freedom in all the Works of God, by the cause of all, verse 36. Because of him, and by him, or through him, and to him, are all things.

Plato maketh three Causes alone, the

Efficient,

Formal, or Exemplar, and

Final.

St. Paul wraps up all these in one, in God alone. He is the beginning, the way, the end of all. He is the Fountain, out of which they all arise in their several streams: He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along; He is the Sea, into which they all flow; where they lose not their Distinctions, but rise up to the perfection of them, in this Marriage, with the first, the full and unbounded Glory.

To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches, surmounting all expectations in every Creature, may we now raise our thoughts, when the beginning, the way, the end of every thing, thus lies in the Godhead? when this Bosom, the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses, is to every thing its Fountain, in which it riseth; its Chanel, in which it runs along; its Sea, in which it ends. How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works, To him is glory in the Generations, so may we most properly read the words. How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith, Understanding, Love, in sweetest Rest, and fullest Joy, with this Glory, Amen. Of him, through him, and to him, are all things; To him be Glory for ever, Amen.

p. 171Thus, this last Scripture in a clear Harmony, with the other two, seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth, and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits.

1. God, the only Good, is equally absolute, entire, universal, in shutting, or locking up all men in Unbelief, the Prison, the Dungeon of deepest darkness; as in shewing mercy, which is the opening to them, the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light, the Light of Life, the Light of Love, the Light of Glory. He shuts, and none can open; he opens, and none can shut. These are the two Cardinal Acts, the shutting up under belief, and the shewing mercy. Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth, through Hell and Heaven, through Time and Eternity.

2. Shewing mercy is the end, shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end. Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love, the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love: For all motions to the end, are in the virtue of the end; the end is the light, the life, the loveliness of the means. All means and ways to the end, are first comprehended in the end. The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent: The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them, as so many tendencies to it self, as so many gradual, orderly springings forth of its self. The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self, as making up the perfection of the end, and having their perfection in the end. Thus the severity and wrath of God, in its severest Act, the shutting up men under unbelief, is Love, and divinely-lovely.

3. God, and Love, in this Work of his, appear to be both one. For Love is the end of Wrath; By being the end, it is also the beginning, and the way. So also is God, For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom is the glory through all Generations. The highest expression of God, unto our capacity, as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence, is Love. This is his Glory, as he is unvailed, unclouded. This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud. This is a sweetning, a gilding upon every Vail, every Cloud. God, as he is Love, is the beginning, the way, the end of every Work, through every Generation; and so the Glory in every Work, to all generations.

4. God in his Work is absolute, and absolutely free; He taketh no counsel, he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself. The reason and rule of all his Works, is alone from himself from within: All within is the Unity, the simplicity of the Divine Essence, uncapable of any mixture or composition; all meer, clear, pure Love.

5. The Work of God, in shutting up in unbelief, and shewing mercy, is an unfathomable Depth: But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light. For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom, it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches. It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love, the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely, and most loving Sweets and Joys. The work p. 172of God is unsearchable, incomprehensible, infinite; but an unsearchable …ncomprehensible, infinite Love and Glory. Let us therefore e…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding. Let us be content to say, Here is a Depth unfathomable, not to my Spirit alone, but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel. Then let us add from our knowledge of whom, whose the design and the work is; It is a lovely, a delightful Depth; a Depth of purest Glories, and richest Loves: So let us gladly cast our selves into it, to be swallowed up by it; concluding all with these words, I cannot receive, nor comprehend thee. Do thou receive and comprehend me. O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me! O my self infinitely blessed, in being comprehended by thee!

I come now to the third Reason I am to answer.

Reason 3, The Language of the Scripture, in the whole current of it, seemeth generally to run along upon this ground, of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man. The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering. The Will of Man is charged with them. Agreeable to this, are the Divine Precepts, Prohibitions, Promises, Threatnings, Admonitions, Reproofs, Complaints, Expostulations, which compose a great part of the sacred Writings.

Answ. I answer by a distinction; This manner of Language, As I live, I desire not the death of a Sinner. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? with all expressions like to these, are either,

1. Proper and plain.

2. Figurative and mysterious.

1. If they be proper and plain, two great Difficulties arise.

1. The true and living God, thus represented, appears like Homers Gods, and the Gods of the Poets. Weak, querulous, passible, ever in contentions and combates.

2. While the Divine Will in that, on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention, is capable of being opposed and defeated, it appears destitute of Wisdom, Power and Blessedness.

2. If they be figurative and mysterious. The figures first are to be determined, and the mystery vailed, beneath the figure, to be discovered; before we can establish any certain, or clear sense upon them.

1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language, is, by the consent of Divines, complicated of an Anthropopathy, and a Metonymy.

2. The Anthropopathy is then, when passions proper to man are attributed to God.

2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect; and the things signified in the place of the sign.

So those changeable passions in created Spirits, which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil; the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God, when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work. So the Jews say, That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue, and in the Language of a Man; But all such figurative expressions concerning God, are to be p. 173understood with this Caution. Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure, which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature: But all imperfections attending the figure, are to be removed: All perfections in their utmost heights, and most absolute fulness, are to be attributed to the Original pattern, when by the shadowy figure in the Creature, you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God. So by these changeable and diverse passions in man, you are to represent to your selves in God, a Goodness, a Power, an unsearchable Riches of Variety, and manifoldly various Wisdom; and all these apart, and together, with the most absolute simplicity, and highest Unity in the Divine Essence, producing all diversities of accidents, all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design, which cometh forth at once, as one piece, divinely Rich, in all Varieties from him, and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him, who is unchangeable, and most perfectly one.

2. Having thus determined of the Figure; Let us try to lift up the Vail, and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure.

I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret, and hidden Glory, by several steps or degrees.

1. The letter of the Scripture, in the general …ream and current of it, is the Ministry of the Law. So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel, or the Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace, 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able (speaking of God) Ministers of the New Testament, or the New Covenant, not of the Letter, but of the Spirit; for the Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. In the following verse, the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone, and Moses are mentioned. Again, in prosecution of the same Discourse, Moses with his Vail is brought in; To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses, The Spirit of the Lord, the liberty of the Spirit, the sight of the Glory of the Lord, with an unvailed Face, the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image, from glory to glory, and all this by the Lord, the Spirit.

These things laid together, seem to make it clear, that in the sense of the holy Apostle; the letter, the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us, in a literal and moral way only, whether outward or inward, amounteth to no more then the old Covenant, the Ministery of the Law: on the other side the new Covenant, the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us, taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter, and upon our hearts, bringing us forth into the Liberty, the open Light, and the Divine Life of the Spirit, giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ, in his spiritual and heavenly Glory, and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory, springing up, and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity. Suitable to this, is that of St. Paul, Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law, That the man which doth these things shall live by them. Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us, as an antecedent condition to any consequent good, is the Law opposed to the Gospel. The p. 174Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises; He that doth these things shall live by them. But the Gospel maketh Promises, the sure, the sweet, the precious pleasant ground of Precepts. So St. Peter, 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us, That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self, most great and precious Promises are given us, that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature. So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises. Work out, saith he, your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do, Phil. 2.

2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect, is not Love, Righteousness, Life, and Blessedness; but Condemnation, Death, and Wrath, 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death. At the ninth verse, The ministry of Condemnation. St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly, That, if there had been a Law which could have given Life, Righteousness should have been by the Law. St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel. First, The Law by Descriptions, Commands, Allurements, Terrors, setteth Righteousness before us; but infuseth not a new Nature, a new Life into us, which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness, as Plants sp…ing up out of the ground, and out of their proper root. Secondly, the Law not giving Christ himself to us, to be a quickning Spirit in us, to be our Life, to be one Life with us, cannot give us Righteousness, either to the acceptation of our Persons, or to the Sanctification of our Natures.

3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath, is not the first or chief design of God: that in which he begins, or with which he ends. The Divine Love, the Beauties of Holiness, and the Divine Nature, Immortality, the Glory of God, founded and wrapt up in that one Seed, which is Christ, from whom, together with whom, for whose Joy and Glory sake, they spring freely, fruitfully, irresistably, subduing all things to themselves. These are the first and chief design of God, the good pleasure of his Will. So St. Paul teaches us, Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first, and the Law came after that; which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed.

There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us, Rom. 5. 20, 21. But the Law came in by the by, that Sin might abound; but where Sin abounded, Grace hath abounded much more: That as sin reigned unto death, so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Two things are remarkable here.

1. The way of the coming in of the Law.

2. The end of bringing in of the Law.

1. The way of bringing in of the Law, is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word (foreign.) The Law was not p. 175brought in first from the beginning, nor for its own sake; that it should be the end. Grace, the Divine Love, the everlasting Righteousness, eternal Life in the Seed, the eternal Son of God, the Image and fulness of the Godhead, the brightness of his Glory; Jesus Christ was the great design, for which all things are constituted, to which all things serve: In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works, all his Counsels, and in which he eternally resteth. In the stream and current of this Design, the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it. In Dramatick Poems, which have the design laid in some one entire, great, and glorious action; the continuance is set off, heightned by two eminent parts in it. foreign, and foreign, a knot tyed fast in the course of the action; then the uniting of this knot, which makes the action more full of Variety, more glorious, more delightful. Thus in this great action of time and eternity, the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory, by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ; the Law is brought in, in the course ofit, as a knot tyed fast, which no created Power is able to unty, or to understand how it should be loosed. This is the way of bringing in the Law.

2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts:

1. The proper and next ends.

2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends.

1. The proper and next ends of the Law, are Sin, Condemnation, Death, and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture, That the Law came in, that Sin might abound.

1. The Law let in Sin, so St. Paul teacheth us expresly, Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment, wrought in me all concupiscence. Again, as the 11. verse, Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me, and slew me.

2. The Law heightens Sin, so that expression testifieth, The Law came in, that Sin might abound.

3. The Law by bringing in Sin, bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin. St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind, in his own person, Rom. 7. 9, 10. I was alive once without the Law, (that is in Paradise) but the Law coming, sin revived or sprung up into life; but I died. These three ends of the Law flow from it, not by it self, nor from the nature of the Law; but by accident, from the weakness of the Flesh, and of the Creature. So you read, verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life, in its own nature, was found to me unto death, in the effects of it, verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law, Is then that which is good (namely the Law) made death to me. But sin, that sin might be made manifest, wrought death to me by the good, that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law.

God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest, the highest Glories of his Godhead, brings forth in the course of this design, a dark scene of all evils, Sin, Death, Wrath; The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth; Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design, and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory. God through his infinite Wisdom, p. 176so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil, that himself is perfectly pure, and good in the contrivance and conduct of it. He setteth up a Law, good, holy, and spiritual, but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh, and of the Creature, to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood, to display it self over all things in its fullest, foulest Forms and Births.

4. The Law hath for its proper end, the conviction, condemnation and death of all men.

1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold:

1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state, before the Fall. So saith the Psalmist, Man in his best state is altogether Vanity: He is the shadow, not the very Image, the true Glory. He hath a shadow of Righteousness, of Wisdom, of Power; a shadow only of Life, a shadow of Being: Christ only in his heavenly Image, and eternal State, is the Life it self, the truth of all these. Man in Paradise had no Being, Life, or Motion of himself, or in himself: As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends. If it be any thing in it self, it is no more a shadow, but the substance. The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth, That God turneth them, as the Wax to, or by the Seal. The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created, was the Seal to this Virgin Wax, which as it changed, changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form.

2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state, of the evil of this state, that there is no good, or power of good at all in him. That the whole person and nature of man is only evil, and altogether evil. Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally, Jews and Gentiles; There is none that doth good, no not one. The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue, they are altogether corrupt: They have not known the way of peace. He presseth this charge universally by these words; Now we know, That that which the Law saith, it saith to those that are under the Law. Now we know that all Mankind, according to the state of nature, and in the first Creation, is under the Law: if there be any difference found among men, it ariseth not from nature, or the principles of Creation; but from common Grace, supernaturally communicated by virtue of the heavenly Seed, all along sown and springing up in the nature of man.

Now to this conviction, as to their proper end, are directed; The precepts, the vehemency of exhortation, expostulations, comminations, and allurements which God maketh use of to man through the whole Scriptures: That man may be sensible (if he be capable of any sense) that he is dead in sin, that there is no principle, no power of good at all in him, which may be a ground to receive this good seed cast from without upon him; that it may take root in it, and bring forth fruit by it.

2. The Law is a ministry of condemnation, so St. Paul expresly stiles it. This conviction and condemnation both, the holy Apostle presenteth clearly to us, when he saith, That the end of this whole ministry is, That every mouth might be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God.

p. 1773. The last end of the Law is Death. Death upon all Mankind, upon the whole person of man, a spiritual and natural death; Death here, where man is truly dead, while he seem to live: Death in the departure out of this life, death after this life, in Hell, in torments: This death is without any Ransom or Redemption within the compass or power of the whole Creation.

These are the proper and next ends of the Law: Before I come to the remote and Ultimate ends, I shall make my way clearer, by answering an Objection, which may here set it self in our way.

Object. Is it not the proper and next end of the Law to be a rule of Holiness, and a guide to it?

Answ. Indeed not rarely, the form of each thing, being its perfection, is called the end of it. But if we distinguish the formal and the final cause, this is not the end, but the essential form of the Law. The true form and essence of the Law, is a proposal of good and evil to man, as the object of his choice. In the Law we have before us the good of Holiness, with its Divine Nature and Beauties, with its attendant joys and blessedness; The evil of sin, with its hateful form, and the monstrous disorders in the nature of which an Angel becomes a Devil, and which is the proper constitutive form of a Devil, together with the consequent horrors and torments extending themselves to the nethermost Hell. Thus is the Law (as now we speak) in its essential form, a convenant of works, presenting to man holiness and sin, with life and death accompanying them: that he may make his choice, by embracing holiness, taking life in it, and together with it. Or by entertaining sin, receiving death into his whole person, and all his solaces round about him.

From this essential form of the Law, see how the Law is directed to the fore-mentioned ends. Man is composed of the light of God, and his own proper darkness. These two, the Schools call the Act, and the potentiality; the form, and the matter; being, and not being, which constitute every Creature.

The darkness or nothingness, which is the Creatures own, is the proper ground of sin; which is its own form, and is a privation, or deficiency, a falling to nothing. While the Divine Glory shines upon man, tempering, forming and confining this darkness, by its own light to an harmonious Union with it, it becomes the Daughter, and Image, and Spouse of this Light. Now sin lies dead in us, but the man lives. This Divine Life shining in the darkness, and through the darkness, is to him a Divine shadow of the Divine Light.

While these two stand undivided and undistinguished to man in the Unity of the Divine Image, and in the simplicity of this Divine Unity; sin finds no way, can take no occasion to bring forth it self into life. The Law comes, this distinguisheth between the Light of God, and the darkness of the Creature in man. This is the temptation, and the state of tryal. Abide, saith the Lord to man, with thy darkness in the Divine Light, as a shadow of the Divine Glory, in the simplicity of the Divine Unity; so shall this Unity, this Glory be a Tree of Life to thee; thou shalt eat of it, and live for ever: Thou p. 178thy self shall be as the fruit upon this Tree, which shall never fail, nor fall. But if thou choose to thy self thine own darkness, if in this darkness thou distinguish and divide thy self from the Divine Light, seeking to captivate this Light in thy darkness, and to turn it to a glory to thy self, as if thou hadst in thy self, and in thine own darkness, the root upon which this Divine Light, with all its beauty, force and sweetness grew. This division in thy self will prove to thee the forbidden, and that cursed Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, in eating of it, thou shalt immediately die.

God thus in the Law presenteth this trial to man; That he may discover man in the earthly Image of the first Creation, with all his Strengths and Beauties to be altogether shadowy: That he may make way for the dissolution of this shadowy Image, (in order to the springing up of the heavenly Image, as its proper seed, through it, into its ripe fruit and perfect form,) God with-holds his Divine presence, appearances and influences from man, during this trial: Now the darkness which alone is mans own, discovereth it self in its own proper deformities and confusions; it predominateth in man, captivateth man entirely to it self, becomes his choice, and his Lord.

Thus now sin springs up, thus it takes life to it self, bringing forth death together with it, which is the perfection of sin, and of the Original Darkness, dividing it self from the Divine Light, heightning it self to an enmity against the Divine Light, making it self by this means as a Mark and a Butt of opposition to the Divine Light, against which it shooteth all the fiery Arrows of the Divine Displeasure and Wrath.

This seemeth to be the proper meaning of St. Paul's words, before cited; I had not known concupiscence, if the Law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. I was alive once without the Law, and sin in me was dead: But when the Law came, sin lived, and I died. Sin taking an occasion by the Law, deceived me, and so slew me. That of mans own, the darkness, was the Womb, out of which sin, the delusion of sin, and death by sin, spring forth into life.

There is one note upon this Scripture, which is very necessary for the enlightning of the whole sense. Some Copies read in the 9. vers. foreign, Sin revived; this supposeth a former life of sin, this seemeth uncapable of any sense agreeable to the Text, the Context, the Design of the Apostle in this place: But other Copies as that interlineary Greek Testament of Arias Montanus readeth it, foreign, sin lived, now first took life. This reading alone furnisheth us with a sense, in which all the expressions of the holy Apostle, scattered throughout this place, fall into a most beautiful Harmony.

St. Paul here setteth himself in the place of all Mankind, in Paradise. He describeth to us, as in a figure, the nativity of sin, its esssential form or life, (if we may have leave so to speak of a privation) the occasion and manner of its first appearance, and taking life.

I have now finished my Discourse upon the ends of the Law, which are of the first sort, proper and immediate: which are called by Logicians, the ends of the work. I pass now to the remote and Ultimate p. 179ends, which are stiled the ends of the Workman. I shall make my transition by this consideration.

A Poetical History, or work framed by an excellent Spirit, for a pattern of Wisdom, and Worth, and Happiness, hath this, as a chief rule, for the contrivance of it, upon which all its Graces and Beauties depend. That persons and things be carried to the utmost extremity, into a state where they seem altogether uncapable of any return to Beauty or Bliss: That then by just degrees of harmonious proportions, they be raised again to a state of highest loy and Glory. You have examples of this in the Divine pieces of those Divine Spirits, (as they are esteemed and stiled) Homer, Virgil, Tass…, our English Spencer, with some few others like to these; The Works of these persons are called Poems. So is the Work of God in Creation, and contrivance from the beginning to the end, named foreign, God's Poem. It is an elegant and judicious Observation of a learned and holy Divine, That the Works of Poets, in the excellencies of their imaginations and contrivances, were imitations drawn from those Original Poems, the Divine works and contrivances of the eternal Spirit. We may by the fairest Lights of Reason and Religion thus judge; That excellent Poets in the heighths of their fancies and spirits, were touched and warmed with a Divine Ray, through which the supream Wisdom formed upon them, and so upon their work, some weak impression and obscure Image of it self. Thus it seemeth to be altogether Divine, That that work shineth in our eyes with the greatest Beauties, infuseth into our Spirits the sweetest delights, transporteth us most out of our selves unto the kindest and most ravishing touches and senses of the Divinity, which diffusing it self through the amplest Variety, and so to the remotest Distances, and most opposed Contrarieties, bindeth up all with an harmonious Order into an exact Unity; which conveyeth things down by a gradual descent to the lowest Depths, and deepest Darknesses; then bringeth them up again to the highest point of all most flourishing Felicities, opening the beginning in the end, espousing the end to the beginning. This is that which Aristotle in his Discourse of Poetry, commendeth to us as the most artful and surprising untying of the knot, foreign, or by a discovery. This is that which Jesus Christ pointeth at in himself, who is the Wisdom of God; The manifold Wisdom of God, in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge lie hid, in whom all the Divine contrivances are formed and perfected. What will you say, when you shall see the Son of Man return there, where he was at first.

In this God himself seemeth to place the highest Beauties, the sweetest Graces, the richest Glories of his whole contrivance and work, in bringing things down by the Ministry of the Law, to the last point, to the lowest state, to the most lost condition, to the nethermost part of the Earth, to the nethermost Hell; And in ways unexpected by, uncomprehensible to Men & Angels, to raise things again by the Gospel to that first supreamGlory, which was their Original Patern in eternity. The Law was brought in, that sin might abound; That where sin had abounded, grace p. 180might superabound. So the Wisdom of the Heathen, and of the Scripture, both instructeth us, That God entertaineth himself universally, and divinely, with this great and pleasant Work of making high things low, great things little; of making little things great, and low things high. He sendeth the rich empty away, and filleth the hungry with good things. He grindeth man through pain to d…st, and then he saith return again ye Sons of Men.

But I have made a long transition. I come now from these proper ends of the Law, which were the deepest descents, which comprehended the reign of sin by the Law unto Death, an Universal Death, the most killing death, a spiritual, never-dying death of immortal Spirits, as well the natural death of Bodies, separate from their Spirits, to the Ultimate ends of the Law, in which some glimmering lights begin to dawn of the most desired and delightful day shining from this black and hellish night.

All these Ultimate ends of the Law are generally comprehended in Christ, the Ultimate end of the Law. The end of the Artificer, and of the Agent, of the eternal Spirit in the Law, is Christ. So saith the Spirit in the Scriptures, The end of the Law is Christ, Rom. 10. 4. He may well be the end of the Law, who is the end of all things; for whom all things are made. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth were by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came full of Grace and Truth, saith St. John in the same Chapter, Joh. 1. 14, 17. Grace is the Divine Love opposed to the ministry of wrath by the Law: Truth is the naked Face and Beauty of the Godhead, the Light, the brightness of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ, as he is opposed to the Vails and shadows of the Law. Thus Christ, that is, God in the nakedness and simplicity of the Divine Essence, as he is Love, as he is Light, the Light of Immortality and Glory, in which there is no darkness, is the end of all the darknings, dividings, and destructions, of all the shadows and severities of the Law.

But this general end is to be subdivided into its several steps or degrees.

1. The end of the Law is to be a prison for faln man, till Christ comes. This is the language of St. Paul, Gal. 3. 28. But before the Faith came, we were kept in custody under the Law, being shut up unto the Faith, to be revealed. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for. The Divine Faith, is a Divine evidence of Divine things, divinely invisible from an excess of Divine Light and Glory, too great for every natural eye, or understanding. The Divine Faith is the Divine substance of Divine things, the objects of a Divine hope. Christ is said by St. Paul to be the hope of Glory, and the end of the Faith of all the Saints. He also is the Light and the Life. This then is the Faith, and the Revelation of the Faith of the Gospel in the Saints; Christ the Light of the Glory of God, eternal Life, the quickning Spirit, the fountain of Life, the heavenly eternal truth and substance of all Good, our Hope, our End, comprehending all the Objects of our Hope, all our blessedness in himself. This Christ thus coming to us, forming a Divine Nature, a Divine p. 181Light, a Divine Eye, a Divine Understanding in us, shining forth in the midst of us, setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory, in their heavenly truth and substance before us, open and manifest in the midst of us, with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed, to be enjoyed by us, to become one Spirit with us, to form themselves upon us, to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves, in the fore-tasts and first-fruits, as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition; This is our most holy, and most precious Faith, the Faith of the Gospel, opposed to the Works of the Law. This coming of the Faith in this verse, is expressed before, verse 9. by the coming of the seed, why then was the Law? It was added, because of Transgressions, until the Seed came. The Law then is a Prison. In this P…ison all men are kept bound in Chains, shut up with Locks, and Bolts, and Bars, which no force can break, until the Seed, which is Christ, come. This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature, a new Creature, a new Person, into an heavenly Image, and a Son of God in him, alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God. Now, before this Jesus thus springing up, and shining forth in him, the Prison of the Law is dissolved, and vanisheth like an enchantment. The place in which it stood is known no more, for all is covered and filled, with the Light, Liberty, and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God, this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy, 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death, and bringeth life and immortality to light.

2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ, and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read, That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come, not the very Image, Chap. 10. vers. 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God, is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit, and in eternity. The Law had a shadow of this Jesus, with these good things contained in him: The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus, who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses, lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law, as beneath a Vail. You may see this, 2 Cor. 3. 15, 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews, While Moses is read, the Vail lieth upon their hearts. But when there is a turning to the Lord, the Vail is taken away. He goeth on, But the Lord is that Spirit; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; that is, freedom from the Vail: There is a beholding with open face, the Glory of the Lord Jesus; a transforming of the Soul into the same Image, with an encreasing Glory, by the Lord, this Spirit. Thus Jesus, with all his Glories, was vailed in the Law; By the removal of the Vail, the Law becometh Gospel: The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us, and form us into one Glory with themselves. St. Paul teacheth us, 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud, and in the same Sea, eat of the same spiritual Bread, drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account p. 182that Bread, that Sea, that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these, and vailed beneath all these. The Clouds, Thunders, Fires, Tremblings, and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ, and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person, suffering and dying. The top of Mount Sinai, where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another, being mutual Feasts one to another, was a shadow of Christ, and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension.

Divines teach us, That the Law is the Gospel vailed, and the Gospel the Law unvailed. The Jews say, That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God. The Name is the Image of the thing; Christ who is the very Image, is the true Name of God, and of all true things comprehended in God. The Moral Law, with all the Precepts and Duties of it, is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us, but vailed with the Letter, with the darkness of the Letter, yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self, making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory.

How rich, and how sweet is our Jesus, and the mystery of God in him, through all his works? The Law it self hath no Darkness, no Death, no Fire; so full of Dread, Horror, and Destruction, which looked upon with a right eye, is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this, that Jesus Christ, with all the treasures of eternal Love, Beauty, and Joy, is shadowed upon it, and vailed beneath it. The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery, conversed with Christ, saw his day, grew up into him through this shadow, beneath this Vail, seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons, and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins, in their Flesh and Spirit.

3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist, who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity, in the Ministry of the Law, is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord, to prepare his way. The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ.

1. By Conviction, Condemnation, and Death; which all discover a necessity of Christ, make him precious, make him the desire of all Nations, make all wait for him, as the only blessed One, and their only Blessedness, Crying, Blessed is he, blessed is the Messias, the Christ, blessed is Jesus, who alone comes in the Name of the Lord, in the Form, Power, and Glory of the Godhead.

2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality, and of the Letter.

3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow, and under a Vail. So the Law fills up the Vallies, and makes the Mountains plain. It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing, it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit. It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength, in our own Reason or Will, into shame. It takes away our distrust and despair, turning that into hope, and a joyous expectation. It first burieth all the beauty, strength, excellency, and life of the Creature, in a grave of Sin, Death and Wrath, as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth, as p. 183the nethermost Hell; Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave, and sheweth him hidden beneath it, as under a Vail, and as a Seed of eternal life sown in it.

4. The Law is an heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ. The Law came in, that sin might abound: That where sin had abounded, Grace might super abound. The Law is a three-fold heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ in the Gospel.

1. The Law heightens the Glory of Christ, by an Antiperistasis. As in hard Frosts, the Lights of Heaven shine brightest, and look with sweetest Glories upon us: As in the coldest season, the Fire burns brightest, and refeshes our Spirits with the liveliest warmth and heat: So Darkness, Death and Wrath, in the Ministry of the Law, by their opposition being carried to the greatest extremity, excite and stir up the Godhead to pour forth it self from all its richest and unconfined Depths, in the most full, the overflowing Seas of all his sweetest, richest, most exalted Loves and Glories.

2. The Law heightens the sweetness and beauty of Christ, by being a soil to it. There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth, than over ten righteous persons continuing in their Righteousness. The Father of the Prodigal in the Parable giveth this reason for the excess of Joy, the unwonted Triumphs, with all the heightnings of Feasts, and of Musick; This our Son, which was lost, is found; which was dead, is alive. The Violets and Roses of the Spring are the sweeter, and more beautiful for the Winter going before them. How sweet and amiable is the light of life arising upon those who sit in darkness, and under the shadow of death? As a foil beneath a Diamond, so do the darknesses and deformities of Sin, the hateful stains and insupportable guilt of Sin; the terrors, the horrors, the torments of Death, and the Divine Wrath under the Law, make the freedom and fulness of the Divine Grace, the Righteousness, the Life and Glory of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus appearing to a lost forelorn Soul, in the midst of these black shades, unvaluably precious, infinitely amiable, pleasant, far surpassing all the sweetness and beauties of the loveliest Morning, all the Lights and Glories of the purest Sun arising out of the darknesses of the most melancholy and tempestuous night.

3. The Law heightens the brightness and delightfulness of Christ in the Day of the Gospel, as fewel to that heavenly and blessed flame of Divine Love. As Sin hath reigned unto Death, (saith St. Paul) so Grace reigns through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin exalted its black and fiery Throne, by subduing to it self the first man in all his Primitive powers and purities; The first Paradise with its sweet peace and pleasantness, the first Creation in the whole Compass of its Divine Glories, sprung forth from, and resembling the Divine World in eternity. How great and deep is that darkness, bottomless as Hell it self? How bitter is that death, as the poyson of Asps, as the poyson of the old Serpent, the Dragon himself, which hath extinguished the light of so much Beauty, which hath corrupted so much Sweetness, which hath devoured and p. 184swallowed up into the black and bottomless Abyss of a first and second death, an unsearchable depth of confusion and woe, such a world of so Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties, with all their amiable light and life?

But now what Tongue can express, what Heart can conceive the unmeasurable heightnings of that Divine Grace and Love, the unparalleled unbounded Beauties and Glories of that Righteousness, the infinite purities, pleasures, powers, perpetuities of that life, the inestimable, incomprehensible Sweetnesses, Beauties, Virtues, and force of that Person our Jesus, in whom all these united, who by all these uniteth in his own Person, reigneth over these devouring Powers of darkness and death, subduing them all unto himself, and carrying this whole captivity, captive, into the Kingdom of Light and Love, unto which he himself returneth as he ascends.

The fire at once encreaseth its own force and flame by the great quantity of fewel on which it feeds, and converts the dead fewel into one glorious spreading ascending flame with it self. Shadows seen alone, have little grace in them, but skilfully mixt with the bright colours in a Picture, and presenting themselves to the eye in one view together with them, encrease the beauty of the Picture, are themselves a sweet part of the Beauty, and a rich Variety in it. Discordant touches upon a Lute offend the Ear, but in a Lesson of Musick, they are themselves harmonious, and enrich the Harmony of the whole Lesson.

Thus the first Adam (who was only an earthly Image, a shadowy similitude of the Divinity, and made under the Law,) the Fall, the whole reign of sin unto death, by the Ministry of the Law, with all its Clouds and Storms of shame, terror and torment, are in themselves a melancholy Image, filling us with the afflicting Forms of deformity, confusion, desolation and woe: But when these in the Gospel become fewel to that pure, potent and pleasant fire of the Divine Love, the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of Grace and Glory; now they enlarge and heighten this beautiful and blessed flame, now themselves are become spiritual, immortal flames of highest sweetness and beauty in this Divine flame. Now these discordant notes, these dark lines and stroaks in the Evangelical melody of the eternal Word, in the unvailed Face of the heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, in the Musick of the eternal Love, in the beauty of the Righteousness, the unvailed Glory of the Godhead, in the Person of Christ, become themselves most rich heightnings, most pleasant and beautiful parts, most dear and delightful Varieties in the eternal Melody, and unfading Beauty of the Divine Loveliness and Love.

I have now finished my Reply to this Reason, for Free-will in man, taken from the Language of the Scripture. In which Reply, I have endeavoured to set before you in their clear distinctions, the difference between the vail of the Letter, and the mystery of the Spirit, hid beneath this Vail. I shall now conclude this Discourse, by offering humbly to you three Rules, for the right understanding of those p. 185expressions in the Scripture, which are most of all pressed, and pressing in this Point.

1. God planteth and establisheth man upon natural Principles of rectitude in the Divine Image; he leaveth him to the force, and to the trial of these Principles; he ministreth to him outwardly, inwardly all moral assistances, for the strengthning, actuating and heightning of these Principles to their utmost perfections. Thus God who properly hath no Will, nor any thing common to the Creature, or proportionable to the Creature; But as a Will with other faculties and forms, proper to the Creature are given to him, by a fit figure, and according to the manner of the Creature, saith of himself, I will not the death of a Sinner, but rather that he return and live.

2. When God appeareth unvailed in the Face of Christ, who is the brightness of his Glory, Righteousness, Love, Life, Immortality, Joy and Glory, attend upon, and flow from his unvailed Person, his naked presence and appearance; As the Sun carrieth along with him in his Circuit, a sweet flourishing Spring and Summer. When God withdraws himself behind clouds of darkness, and of night, when he withholds the sweet beams and pleasant influences of his own face and person behind thick coverings, strange forms and disguises. Now man withers and dyes away in all the beauties and sweetnesses of the Divine Image: in the place of these, Deformity and Death spring up from that deficiency which is inseparable, to the natural principles of the Creature, which then discovers it self and overspreads the whole man with the shadow of Death and Hell, when those principles are no more fed and supplyed from their eternal springs in the bosom of Christ. In this sense these words are most properly true, Thy destruction is of thy self, but thy Salvation is of me, O Israel, saith the Lord.

3. God in himself, and in the person of the Lord Jesus, as he is the essential Image of God, is a most simple Unity, comprehending all Varieties within himself. In this Unity, he is Love it self, the first, the supream, the most pure, the most potent unconfined love. All pleasantnesses are in his Face and Presence, he is the Bridegroom, entirely fair and pleasant, altogether delightful, the Object of all Loves, Desires, the Seat of all Delights and Glories, the Spring of Immortality and Eternity. As himself is, such in the highest affinity and resemblance is his work, as it springs immediately from him, his principal design and contrivance, with which he begins, in which he ends, and rests eternally, which he carrieth along as his first and Ultimate design throughout all things.

This then is one entire universal piece, comprehending all Variety in it self; this is one entire piece of sweetest Loves, of riches Lights, of purest Glories; All scenes, all forms of darkness and death are subordinate and subservient to this, are parts of this, are comprehended in this, drawn forth from it, terminated in it, by a Divine and delightful skill set with a shining amiableness in their proper places, overspread with a sweetness and lustre in the Unity of the grand design, and finally in a manner most pure, most harmonious, most p. 186ravishing, swallowed up into the eternal Lights, in which the whole piece terminateth. Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, who is blessed for ever. How true is it? how exceeding large now is this truth in all senses, in all languages, Humane or Divine, That God willeth not the death of a Sinner? That Destruction is not of him? As the Understanding of God is Truth it self, the highest and most universal Truth, the measure of all Truth; so is the Will of God, which is himself, the first, the highest, the most comprehensive, the unconsined Good, the only reason and measure of all good.

We have passed through those Reasons which seem of greatest moment, and to have greatest difficulty in them. We hope that we draw near to our Haven, and that with easie and gentle stroaks, we shall now soon arrive at it. The Reasons on this part, which now remain, seem to be rather mistakes, arising from vulgar or general conceptions unexamined, undistinguished, than from the exercised judgments of wise and learned Spirits. They are derived from the nature of things, Moral, Physical, or Metaphysical; I shall continue them in the same order with the precedent Reasons.

4. Reason. If the Will of Man be not free, all Laws seem useless.

Answ. The force of this Reason seemeth to be entire and powerful on the contrary part. If the Will of Man be free, undeterminated by the dictates of the Understanding, Laws have no more any signification or efficacy. For the intent of these, is clearly to work upon the Understanding. Precepts and Prohibitions are Rules propounded, Lights set up to the Understanding, to inform what road or course is to be followed, what to be carefully avoided in our Navigation through the Sea of this World, that we may pass safely, free from the danger of Rocks and Shelves to our desired Port. Rewards and Penalties are to be weighed and judged by the Understanding, according to whose standard and estimate they have all their value. Vexatio dat intellectum. The proper end of Punishments and Rewards, is to excite the Understanding. The proper end of Precepts and Prohibitions, is to enlighten the Understanding.

The excellency and efficacy of every Law, is to impress upon us the sense of Good and Evil. So Moses the Law-Giver among the Jews, saith to them, I have set before you this day, Good and Evil, Life and Death. What effect hath the sense of Good and Evil seated in the Understanding, if the Will be guided by an absolute ungoverned arbitrariness within it self, without Order, without Harmony, without Connexion, without respect to the dictates of the Understanding? How useless, how fruitless are all impressions of Good or Evil, if the Will be not by the Law of its own Essence, by its own essential Principles determined to good, sub ratione boni, under the formal appearance of good?

5. Reason. Who meeteth not with this frequent experiment in himself, which the Poet expresseth in the person of Medea, (as I remember) Video meliora probo que , deterior a sequor.

p. 187Better things I see, approve;

The evil yet I choose and love.

Answ. This thin mist is easily scattered and cleared into a pure Air, by the beam of one distinction between good, propounded in the Thesis, in its abstracted and general nature, or in the Hypothesis, cloathed with all its practical and individuating circumstances. In the first, it is the subject of the Dictamen practicum intellectus, of the Understanding in its proposal of general Rules of practice to the Will; In the other, the good is the subject of the Dictamen practice practicum, of the Understanding in its dictates and directions to the Will in arenâ, upon the place, in the singular and individual action, now this moment lying before it, with all its circumstances. The Schools well distinguish between Act us signatus, and Act us exercitus. An Act marked out and described by the Understanding, or an Act now immediately presenting it self unto a real existency out of all its Causes.

Whoever vieweth and distinguisheth exactly the sentiments of his Understanding, the commerce between those and the motions of his Will, maketh this clear discovery, if I be not very much deceived; That in the general conception and rule in the practical dictate and direction, in the exactest contemplation and description of a moral Act, one thing seemeth good to us, when after this, when we come upon the place to exercise the Act it self, our sense is altogether changed. The practically practical dictate of the Understanding, its sentiments now in the moment of action, in the presence and immediate impressions of all Circumstances, differeth from the precedent Rules, and passeth quite to a contrary Point, to present that, as the present good, the good of the present moment to the embraces of the Will, which was condemned in the general Rules, as a most dangerous evil, a most certain ruine.

Two circumstances upon the place, and in the moment of action, are cast into the ballance upon the place, or in the moment of an action or temptation, which weigheth it down with a great force.

1. One is the difficulty and pain in resisting the alluring evil.

2. The other is a flattering hope of enjoying the false sweetness of the present Action, and being delivered from the unhappy consequences threatned; while they are looked up, either as uncertain or contingent, or capable of being diverted by the Divine Goodness, or by a succeeding repentance and change especially for this one adventure.

We may seal up this Answer with the impression of this golden Truth mentioned formerly; Good under the form of good, is the Object of the Will. This alone attracteth the Will, this alone moveth it. The connexion then is inviolable and immediate between the Ultimate proposals of the Understanding, presenting any Object to p. 188the Will under the formality or appearance of good, and the motions of the Will towards that Object, to receive it with mutual embraces.

6. Reason. What do most persons upon this Subject say? Can I not walk, sit, or stand, when I will, at my pleasure? Can I not choose or refuse? Can I not Will as I will? Is not my Will then free?

Answ. This Argument indeed is formed Crassâ Minervâ, from a very gross conceit, from the want of distinguishing between a spontaneity in the Acts themselves; and an vndeterminedness in the essential Principles, from which the Acts flow. The question is not concerning the power or pleasure of the Will in Actibus imperatis, in governing the Loco-motive faculty, and the Instruments of motion, the members of our Body: Neither is it about the Elicit Acts of the Will, its own immediate motions of loving or hating, whether these be in the power and pleasure of the Will. That which is the subject of the Controversie, is the root of this power and pleasure in the Will, which it putteth forth in its immediate or more remo…e Acts, the Essence, the essential form and principles of the Will it self. However the Will in its essential form and principle be determined by superior and universal Causes, which as essential Principles, and as nature it self are complicated in the essence and nature of the Will, yet doth the Will move in all its Acts with no less power and agreeableness. Yea, rather the sweet and harmonious concurrence of the superior and universal Cause, in the Essence and Operations of the Will, by the combinations of all Coelestial, Angelical, Divine Virtues, make the motions of the Will more potent and more pleasant. In truth, the Will of man in a temptation, may be like a Ship in a storm. The Ultimate dictates of the Understanding, the appearances of good and evil, in the moment of Action, cloathed with all its circumstances, may suddenly and violently vary; They may be like contrary Winds and Waves, carrying the Ship in several moments unto contrary motions. As the last gust of Wind, and the last motion of the Waves, so the last dictates, the last appearances of good, carry the Will away, whether it be upon a Rock, or in a safe course to its Haven. Yet still this is true which Aristotle saith, foreign, foreign, Election or choice is a desirous Understanding, or an Intellectual Desire, or foreign, A desire from deliberation.

7. Reason. I have met with this Argument for the freedom of the Will from a learned pen. The chief ground on which the predetermination of the Will is built hath been this Principle, That sin is a privation, and no positive Being. Thus God is believed to be cleared from the evil of Sin, in the Acts and Motions of the Will, while evil being a deficiency, is capable of no efficient Cause. An instance is brought to overthrow this Principle, from a Spirit hating God. Here this Act of the Will, the hatred, as it is formally drawn forth by, and terminated in this Object, the Person and Nature of God, is formally, in its positive Being a sin.

p. 189Answ. 1. If sin in any Subject or Act, be a positive thing; I know not how by any skill or understanding, Humane or Angelical, God can be acquitted from being the Author of sin. For this is without controversie the sense of all Divines of all sorts, except the Manichees, and those who with them establish two co-ordinate Godheads of Good and Evil, that he who is the only true God, is the first, the universal Being, the Fountain of all Being, the Being of every Being.

2. Here seemeth to be a plain mistake, for want of distinguishing this individual Act of hating God, as it is considered in genere moris, and ingenereentis; In its moral, and in its natural capacity.

1. While we look upon this Act of hatred in a complex proposition, as it is determined upon this Object the Divine Essence; we consider it not naturally, but morally, we rightly pronounce it to be morally evil: But this moral evil ariseth from a moral circumstance, which is the undue determination of the Act upon an undue Object. The evil here lies in the irregularity and obliquity of this Act morally considered in the determination to its Object. This irregularity and obliquity is a privation of the due rectitude in which principally consisteth a right determination of the Act, upon a right Object. Thus is the evil of sin, no more any thing positive here, but altogether privative.

2. If you consider this Act, ingenereentis, in its natural capacity, you abstract it from all its moral circumstances: you take a naked view of it, as it is a natural motion in the will of aversion or opposition. Thus it is clearly good. It hath a natural, or physical goodness, as it answereth the proper and immediate Principles of the Form or Essence from which it flows, and those formal essential Principles by which it is constituted. It hath also a metaphysical goodness, as every thing; that is, is good in its conformity to the Divine Will, which, as the Seal, setteth the impression of being upon every thing that hath Being.

3. There is also in this case before us, a deception of our Intellectual sense, by a mist cast before our eyes, in which appearances are taken for realities. I humbly conceive, that there is no greater contradiction to all Principles of Truth and Knowledge, than this assertion; That any Spirit hateth God as God, as he appeareth in his own proper Form. God is that, which all things desire. God alone is Good, saith Jesus Christ. If God alone be good, he is the first, the supream, the universal Good; The general Good of the whole, the proper good of each particular; All Good in one, the only Good in all; the only Suitableness, the only Agreeableness to every Spirit, Person, and Nature; the Truth, the Perfection of each Being; That which all things desire, that which equalleth and transcendeth all desires. As St. Paul saith to the Athenians, That God whom ye ignorantly worship, I preach unto you. So by these unquestioned Principles, it seemeth unquestionable, That God, as he is in his own proper Form, is alone that Object which all things in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth, love, seek, and adore. If he p. 190shall please to lift up his Vail, and discover his Face to be seen by all eyes of mortal or immortal Creatures, all casting away their several Idols, would run swiftly and unanimously into his Bosom alone; crying out with an universal shoot, This is he, whom our Souls love, This is our Beloved. This alone is the Good which we have pursued in all things, through all things: Here is our Rest for ever. If any Spirit then hate God, it directeth its hatred not against God, but a false Image, which it hath set up to it self of God, as an hater of him, as a cruel one, as extending himself to a larger compass in severities and wrath, than sweetnesses and loves; as an hard Task-Master requiring Brick, when he affordeth no Straw; as an enemy or a neglecter of the joy and felicity of his Creatures, as raising a pleasure and glory to himself in the shame and ruine of his own Work; or at least from a want of natural goodness and kindly affection, leaving his own Work, his own Birth to shame and ruine, when it is every way in his Power to make it good and great in Blessedness and Glory. So now it is no more God, which this Spirit hateth; but an Idol set up within it self, in the place of God. So sin deceiveth it first, and then killeth it, by a misplaced hatred upon a mistaken Object. So this Spirit sinneth, by falling short of the Glory of God; and manifesteth its sin by this to be nothing positive, but a privation only.

8. Reason. This predetermination of the Will placeth Man in the same rank with Automata, the self-moving Works of Art, as Clocks and Watches. These are determined by the Workman to a certain motion, which they cannot vary, and being put into motion by the hand of the Workman, they continue it without any power over it unto its designed period. Such a piece of work Man seemeth to be, if the motions of his Will upon which all other Humane motions depend, be not in his own power.

Answ. What if Man be not allowed that Prerogative, in respect to the superior and universal Movers, which these works of Art have in respect to the Artificer? He frameth his pieces for their motion, he putteth them into motion; they now continue their motions without any assistance from the Workman, the Author of their frame and motion. Man lives, and moves, and hath his Being in God: Every distinct moment of his Being, Life, and Motions, are new and distinct emanations from God, as in their first Beginning, as at their first Creation; yet are the preheminencies of this self-mover, the Soul of Man, many, great, and glorious, above the self-moving works of Art.

1. The motions of the Will are Intellectual. The Soul in the actings of the VVill understandeth, reflecteth upon its own motions: It comprehendeth the beginning, the end of them, their causes out of which they arise, their nature and differences, their course and stream in which they run along, their effects and consequents in which they determine.

2. The motions of the VVill are with a relish and agreeableness. They all flow from Love, the love of Good, the love of Beauty, p. 191which is good in its proper Image or appearance. This is the first and great wheel in the VVill, which puts all the wheels of the other affections or passion sinto motion. The motions of the VVill tend all to delight and joy as their mark, to the delightful and joyous fruition of the beloved Beauty, the beloved Good, in the which the VVill, together with the whole Soul, and the whole Man, hath its rest and its end.

3. The Soul of Man in the motions of the Will is acted by superior and universal Causes, not as an external hand or power, but as internal Principles, as the springs of Being and Beauty, of Life and Light, of Activity and Motion, of all power, sense and relish, which are essentially comprehended in the Essence of the Soul and Will, which continually feed it.

Give me leave here again to cite those uncontroverted Maxims, in the Metaphysicks; the universal cause is most truly, is most of all the Cause in every kind of casuality: So is it most truly, most of all the essential, the formal cause of the Soul and of its Will. The universal Cause is most intimate to every effect. It is then most intimate to the Will, and to the operations of the Will.

VVe read in Proclus, That the Soul containeth all things in it self, foreign, that is after the manner of a Soul. The subordinate and supream kinds of things are comprehended in the inferior kind, entring into the definition and essence of each specifical nature together with it. Thus man comprehendeth in his Essence the superior forms of a living Creature, of a corporeal substance, of substance it self in its abstracted eminency of Being, the Fountain and Head of all these. After the same manner, the Divine Ideas their eminencies and virtues, the Angelical forms in their powers and properties descending and forming themselves into an inferior Image, in which they are all united, constitute the Essence of the Soul, and are complicated in it.

But to conclude my Answer to this Reason. Doth this darken the glory of the VVill of Man? Doth this confine it, destroying its freedom and its Joy? that it acteth and moveth in conformity to, in communion and fellow ship with the Divine VVill, from the same Principle, in the same amplitude, to the same end, by the same necessity of good alone, of the supream, the universal Good, comprehending all things in it self, unchangeable in all. This is the proper nature of Man, and of his VVill, that Divine Similitude and Image in which he was first created.

9. Reason. But the Variety of things, that it may be entire, requires it, that there should be in nature a free agent, undetermined to motion, or a cessation from motion; to this or a contrary motion, having the disposal of it self, of its own acts independantly, entirely in it self.

Answ. 1. I do not remember, that I have hitherto read or heard this pleaded, That the VVill is equally undetermined and free to Good, or to Evil, presenting themselves in the formalities or appearances of Good, or of Evil. This were to affirm that evil equally p. 192with good is the Object of the VVill: That all things desire evil in its own proper form, as much as good. Yet this Variety here asserted, clearly asserteth this.

2. A full Variety is directed to the most perfect Harmony, as its end. It is the Unity preserved entire in the Variety, which composeth the Harmony, and is the Soul of Harmony. Variety it self being a singular name, is an Unity. Things absolutely divided and separate one from another, make not a Variety: This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree, in which they are bound up together, like Flowers in a Posie, and presented in one Form, in one view to the eye, or to the mind. A part of the Variety then, which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity, dividing it self from it, destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety, which are the Harmony and the Unity.

3. Nature is the Law of Being. Variety is Being varied. Is not this a contradiction in the terms? that the Law of Being, that Being varied, should call for as its Perfection, a Being independant upon Being it self, the first, the universal Being; that is, should call for a Non-ens, a not Being. Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence, motions, and actions, which in these, in any moment and point of these, in any circumstance, is absolute in it self, independant upon the first and Universal Cause, the Fountain of Being.

Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety, in which Nature and Grace, the Fall and the Exaltation of things, things visible and invisible, of the Creature and the Creator, lie and spring together, as in their Garden-Bed: Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse, and in this Bosom take up our rest. Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus, representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude, Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. St. John saith, 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers. He that hateth his Brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not whither he goes. O that all the Lord's people, O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love, anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren; that is, to every other Person or Spirit, as St. Paul explains it, Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law. That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour, a Brother, is here Another, every other person. This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind, giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us, in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice, but see whence we came, whither we go, where we are, the truth of all this, and the way. By the practice of this Divine Command, To love one another, we should, as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits, be lead to the reason and the root of this Love, which is the Divine Variety now mentioned, the Jerusalem above, the Mother of us all, free, and unconfined. This is to love another, according to the p. 193heavenly Command, and to love another as my Neighbour, my Brother, to love every other person and thing, as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety.

But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love, we must not take the Variety alone, but joyn to it the Unity, and the Union of both these, which are integral, essential and primary parts of the Variety, which are every way equal to the Variety, and distinctly, essentially comprehend it in themselves. Thrice happy is that Spirit, which by the Initiations, Sanctisications, and Anointings of the eternal Spirit, hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery; To behold this Trinity, the Variety in its first, highest, and unbounded form; The Unity, most absolute, entire, and undivided; The Union of both these, every way mutual, and perfect. O what Joys? what Glories? how pure? how high? how universal? filling all in all, transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit, who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory, in these joys and glories, who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory, with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity? What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy; while at once by the bond of this Divine Union, it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories, equally distinct from him, and one from another, with the first, the highest, the most full distinction, which is the perfection, the compleatness, the life of the Variety; and yet in the same Scene, in the same appearance and person, one with them all, as they all are one in the first and highest Unity.

This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness, which we have toucht in our former discourse, as the Divine ground, on which the determination of the Will is built, from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law, together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness, Life and Death, Nature, Sin, Grace, and Glory comprehended in them.

The Seed of God, which is the Seed of the Divine Unity, and by St. Paul called one Spirit, 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father, in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father, Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image, as a sleep, and a dream in a sleep. It still descends lower by the Fall, not only to the remotest distance from the Purity, Pleasantness, and Glory of its Original, but to the greatest estrangedness from it, and opposition to it, as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep. God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications, as a Sacred and Divine mystery, That he calleth his Son out of Egypt. It is his own Seed, his own Son which first descended into Egypt, the House of Bondage, a Land of darkness; and of Devils, where almost every Creature was an Idol-god, and so a Devil. By an heavenly and Divine Call, as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants; This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown, and p. 194sunk so low, by degrees comes up, and returns again through all the beautiful, the various, the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ, in the Bosom of the Father. It now flourisheth in the prime, in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first, which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God, the Life of eternity.

Thus is the Variety compleat, thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed, being carried along through all distinctions, diversities, contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through its whole Pilgrimage. Thus is the eternal Spirit and the Divine VVisdom unstained, conducting this heavenly Seed through all these diversities and contrarieties, while they keep their spiritual, their Divine Beauties entire, by keeping the entire Unity, and so the Order, the Harmony of the Divine Variety.

VVe read, Rom. 8. That the Saints which are in the heavenly Seed, are predestinated to be conformed to the Image of the Son of God. Of this Son, we read Eph. 4. That he who ascended, is the same who descended first. That he descended into the nethermost parts of the Earth, and ascended far above all Heavens, that he might fill all. That the Variety might be full in his Person, and that he might fill each part of the Variety from the nethermost parts of the Earth, to an heighth above the highest Heavens, by carrying the Unity, and so the full Variety, and so the Universal Harmony into each step and form of this Variety, whether it were as a shade or a light, as a crooked or streight line in this Divine Face, whether it were a Discord or Concord in this Universal Musick.

In this Divine Glass we see the Law, in the midst of the love, contrivance, and glory of the Gospel rising up as a tragical scene, with all the black and fiery shapes of sin and wrath, acting their parts to the uttermost in this shaded scene, spring up from the womb of darkness, opening it self in the Bosom of the eternal Light, as it was now opening it self in the Gospel to an heavenly Marriage-day between the ever glorious Bridegroom, and this spotless Bride. All this was done that the Variety might be full, That he who cometh after this King, might find nothing to add to his Work.

Yet through this whole scene of the Law, with all its mournful and affrighting Apparitions, the purity, the sweetness, the life of the Gospel runs along sowing it self in it, vailing it self beneath it, casting it self into this shade, and sleep, and dream, springing up through it, making it all a shadow, a Divine, though obscure Figure of it self; by which also it heightens it self, while the Unity in this part of the Variety also preserveth it self entire, tuning it, and composing it, binding it up into one Universal Harmony of the Divine Beauty and Melody in the whole Variety, in which it is set, according to the Order, which is the Divine Unity, diffusing it self through all in its proper place and time.

p. 195Here the Author concludes the last part of his Discourse of the Freedom of the Will, but the Reader will in the following Pages find the the enlargement which was before promised, upon the Argument taken from Christ's Mediation, which is here continued under the same Title, because it aims at the same design with the rest of the whole Book.