EPISTOLA AD ANGLOS. BEING AN INTRODUCTION OUT OF A Larger Treatise INTO THE MYSTERIES OF TRUE Christian Religion.  
By OLIVER HILL, Exile for the LAW and the GOSPEL at Lisbon in Portugal.  JEREM. 51.50. ISAI. 62.6. 
Ye that have escaped the Sword do not stand still; remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind: And ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence.  
LONDON, Printed for T. B. 1689.   

EPISTOLA AD ANGLOS. BEING AN INTRODUCTION OUT OF A Larger Treatise INTO THE MYSTERIES OF TRUE Christian Religion.  
BEcause Adam fell out of both Pride and Covetousness, or desire of the World; and because all his Children, who bore his earthly Image, Gen. 5.3.1 Cor. 15.49. fall after the same manner, Rom. 3.23. from Christ's Heavenly Image, in Love and Humility, Matth. 11.29. These Two Vices are become the hereditary original Sin of Man; whence all Men naturally covet Greatness and Richesse as their greatest Happiness. So that Greatness and Riches being what they most covet, and set the greatest value and estimation upon, it is no wonder at all if they make them the chief end of their Studies and Labours; and therefore regard not the end of the Sciences which they Study and Profess, and consequently neglect (if what Christ saith, Matth. 6.24. That the Man who serves two Masters at once, despiseth one when he waits upon the other, be true) the means conducing to it. From whence it comes to pass that both Masters and Scholars performing their Exercises very perfunctorily, and but Pro forma only; not only fall short at first of the end of that Science, which they are pretenders to, but also by little and little come to forget what are its end and its proper means, and to mistake those they do make use of for the true ones; so that by degrees the end and the means became unknown; true Knowledge is lost at last; and new Fancies are set up and continue in their room.  
This, as upon a serious and due Consideration it will be found true enough of all real Sciences, so it proves but too true of Divinity itself. For I say and affirm, That because its Professors apply themselves to the same, out of the Love of Greatness and Riches, or Preferment, and so regard not its end, and therefore neglect the means requisite to compass it; they know neither what its end (which is the knowledge of God or Salvation) consists in; nor what are the means proper and conducing to that end; and so know not Religion or Divinity, which are the known means of the knowledge of God and of Salvation. I say here Religion or Divinity, because as the knowledge of God and Salvation is one thing, The knowledge of God being, saith Christ, John 17.3. Salvation itself. So Divinity, which is the means of the said knowledge, and Religion, which is the means of Man's Salvation, being means of but one thing, are but one and the same thing, and so shall be hereafter used promiscuously.  
This their Ignorance of what God's Knowledge or Salvation, and of what Divinity or Religion consists in, appears from the words of Christ, John 17.25. who affirms, That worldly man, such as these are, know not God: And from the variety of Opinions which they have at this time concerning this: For if all the Men that know a thing agree about it, or have but one and the same Conceit or Notion of it, as Plato hath said and showed, their different Opinions and Dissent about these Two (Salvation and Religion) is a certain Evidence of their Ignorance of them: Besides the word Opinion alone implies Ignorance: He that knows, being no more carried away by Conceits and Fancies, or Opinions, but apprehending all things just as they are in themselves, he believes them to be so, not because he conceives so, or hath heard that it is so; but because he sees plainly and understands perfectly per causas, or good Reasons, that the things are really such, John 4.42. Prov. 21.28. Now what Professed Divines have such an understanding and knowledge of Salvation, and of Religion as this is, I know not: though many, chief amongst the Quakers, have so good an Opinion of their Light, and of themselves, as to be persuaded that they alone are the people that have engrossed Wisdom, or all the Knowledge of God, and of the pure Religion, Job 12.2. If they have, let them show it, by making out the hidden Mysteries of God's Knowledge; for both their Faith and Knowledge is to be showed by their Fruits, Matth. 7.20 Jam. 2.18 But if the Scripture be true, they know not what these things are; for the Scripture teacheth us, That Salvation is to know God, and him whom he hath sent, and consisteth in Knowledge: and that the means to know God, is to sear him, by doing his Will, and dying therefore so much to our own Will, as to abstain from all Pride, Covetousness, and Envy, and all other evil Lusts and Desires of the Flesh, and as to seek the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness, that we may have his Knowledge, and all other things with it, Matth. 6 33. Whereas these Preach and Writ as though Salvation were but to be in a glorious Place, and as though a Soul, even without knowledge, were happy by admittance thereinto: that is to say, as though Heaven and Hell were local; And as they make God's Knowledge different from Salvation, so they make the means of God's Knowledge quite another thing than the means of Salvation, and then the Scriptures make them, to wit, good Natural Parts, and going to School to earn of the Doctors and their Books; which things the Scripture disowns, as we shall see hereafter.  
But if it be so, that is, If the means of Salvation be quite other things than these; and if they and Salvation itself be an unknown thing; and it concerns us to learn the way to Life Eternal, it is well worth our while to hear and to inquire what the Scriptures say of them, and what both Salvation and its means, Religion, are.  
Salvation, Eternal Life, or the Kingdom of God, or of Heaven, for these are all one thing, as it appears from Matth. 11. 11-13. 11. conferred with Mark 4.11. and Luke 7. 28-8.10. is to know, saith Christ, John 17.3. God, and him whom he hath sent; or consisteth in the true Knowledge of God, or Wisdom, according to the Scriptures, 1 Tim. 2.4. Matth. 23.13. conferred with Luke 11.52. And as even the Heathen Philosophers acknowledge, who unanimously make Wisdom the Summum Bonum; and the way to it Silence; Abstractio ab externis, or inward Recollection with a Purification from all that defiles the Soul. And it must be so indeed, that is, Knowledge or Wisdom must be Man's Summum Bonum, if the end for which Mankind was created be Wisdom; and if Wisdom be his Rest, or the Nonplus ultra of his state of Perfection. 1. That Wisdom is the end for which Man was created, is confessed on all hands, by owning (what all Sects do) That he was created that he might know the Wonders of the great Wisdom of God (which he cannot do without being filled with all Wisdom) thereby to be ravished with Joy and Admiration, like the Queen of Sheba, 1 King 10.5. at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of them: there being nothing so sweet as the New Discoveries, and the taste of true knowledge; and thus become partakers of God's own Summum Bonum: Divisum Imperium cum Jove Caesar habet: All those that Christ hath made Kings and Priests to God his Father, Revel. 1.6. both partake of God's Nature, 2 Pet. 1.4. and share the Kingdom with God, Revel. 2.26, 27. with 3.21.  
And Secondly, Wisdom is the Nonplus ultra, or rest, or perfect state of Mankind; for in that state (of Wisdom) God himself who cannot err, pronounced him very Good, Gen. 1.31. in Latin, Sum Bonus; which word, as it excludes all defect and imperfection, it implies his perfect State, and that he had attained by thus being very good to his greatest Perfection, or highest degree of Bliss he could ever pretend to. And that Wisdom was the state in which he was pronounced and declared very Good, I prove thus: The state in which God declares him very Good, is the very same state as God created him in; but he was created after the Image of God, v. 27. Which Image consists, saith Paul, in Knowledge, Colos. 3. 10. and Righteousness, Ephes 4.24. both which make up together one thing, which is true Wisdom; Wisdom being not a bare Theory, as shall be showed: Therefore he was created in Wisdom, and so Wisdom is the state in which he was said very Good or Perfect, or his state of Perfection. But this was said of Adam, and what is it to the rest of Mankind? Some will argue. It is full as much to them as to him, I answer. Because the purpose of God is still, that Man should be such: for God being for ever both all Wise and Almighty, his Purpose stands, saith St. Paul; though Man did not stand himself; and his Gifts and his Calling being without Repentance, Rom. 11.29. his Will is that his Good Gift, whereof see Matth. 7.4. Luke 11.13. or Donative, which he made to Man should continue still; that Mankind by being Wise, or as Gods, Gen. 3.5. should be saved, 1 Tim. 2.4. or made again very good and perfect, as Adam was, and even as his Father, which is in Heaven, saith Christ, Matth. 5.48. Therefore in the Ephesians 4.13. and in the Hebrews 11.40. St. Paul taking this thing for granted, saith, That the Saints he speaks of, v. 12. who are to be perfected or saved, will all of them come unto a Perfect Man, and even to the measure of the full stature of Christ, who is yet far more perfect than the first Man ever was; Whence he became the Author of Eternal Salvation or Perfection in others, Heb. 5.9 Having been substituted in the place of the first Man, that he might mend and redress all that he had done amiss; and restore all things again to that state of Perfection which both he (the first Adam) and the World with him fell from, Rom. 8.20, 21. and so be himself Adam, that is, the right man who is the true Father of Mankind; begetting Mankind a new by his Spirit of Wisdom, 1 Cor. 15.45. Therefore it is that he is called the second Adam, and that St Paul saith, that all the Saints shall bear his Image, v. 49. and not that of the first man. Christ adds to this in Matthew 5.48. saying, be therefore perfect even as your heavenly Father himself is perfect, Hence, seeing the Perfection or the full Stature of Christ is the same (and greater to) as the first man Adam was at first created in, and consisteth in Wisdom; and seeing that we must come to it in being saved; it follows that we must come to Wisdom to be saved, and that Wisdom is the rest or Perfection of Mankind, beyond which he cannot go, or be further exalted. And by a consequence drawn a contrario from this it follows that Ignorance is the summum málum, Hell, o● the most imperfect sad and dismal State of Mankind: M●… people are destroyed for lack of Knowledge, say the Prophets Isa. 5.13. Hos. 4.6. Of which Ignorance of his, because puts him in mind of the Despicableness, Nakedness, and Misery his fall hath reduced him to Rev. 3.17. he cannot abide to hear without some shame and horror; and therefore no Man can bear to be called ignorant, or a Fool without Anger. But of this Summum Malum, we are cured or healed by Understanding, saith Christ, Matth. 13.15. for he brings along with him such healing in his Wings, Malipiero 4.2. as a good Understanding, 1 John 5.20. to cure us of our gross brutish Ignorance of God. Salvation being nothing but a Cure, and a rising from the deadly Lethargy which Man is fallen into, Gen. 2. 21-5.3. 1 Cor. 15.49. Rom. 3.23. Job 11.12. To the light of Life, that is eternal Life, proceeding from the Sun of Righteousness, which Light is the Life of Man, John 1.4. And by that Light or Knowledge which he brings we are saved or made Just, Isai 53. 11-11.9. That is to say, Righteous and Good, or Perfect; Salvation or Perfection; being Righteousness itself, Rom. 14.17. And by Knowledge, Grace, and Peace, or the Righteousness and Peace which the Kingdom of Heaven and Salvation consists in, are multiplied within us, 2 Pet. 1.2. Luke 17.11. Whence we have some Promises of being fed with Knowledge, Jer. 3.15. And that Christ should be a Light, who by giving that Knowledge which Luke 1.77. calls on this account, The Knowledge Salvation, or by opening the blind Eyes, and bringing out of Prison them that sit there in darkness and in the shadow of of Death, would save the Jews and Gentiles, Isa. 49. 6-42.6. Acts 26.18. Luke 1.79. Wherefore St. Paul calls the Light the Inheritance of Saints, Coloss. 1.12. being what God promised Abraham's Seed should inherit, Acts 1.4, 5. Luke 24.49. And St. John 1.4. saith, that their Life is the Light they have in them. For which Reason the Scriptures call them the Children of Light; and Eternal Death or Hell they entitle outward Darkness, as being opposed to the Light of the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man, Luke 17.21. Though Hell be something besides Darkness, to wit, the gnashing of Teeth, by reason of the gnawing and corroding of the Worm, or of a sharp, austere, grim and dark Fire for ever. O house of Jacob come ye and let us walk in the Light, or True Knowledge of the Lord, saith the Prophet Isaiah 2.5.42.6. 
Note, by the by: All the Sects which have no more Knowledge of God than the Papists have, are as like the Church of Christ, as the Kingdom of Darkness is like the Kingdom of God. Woe be to thee Chorazin; Woe be to thee Bethsaida! For if the Papists could hear, and were permitted to read what you may both read and hear, to wit, what Salvation and Religion consist in, they would give over mumbling of their Beads, and casting off their Friar's Hoods, Surplices, etc. embrace and follow the means of Wisdom and Salvation at another rate than you do.   
Now this Light or this Knowledge, which Salvation consists in, is not a Knowledge in part; nor that great heap of Notions, fine Fancies, Precepts and Rules which many Ingenious Men gather from other men's Books, or bring forth of their own Heads; but it is Wisdom itself, or the knowledge of all Truth: Wisdom being properly an Universal Knowledge, or a Light that shows all things, Guides a man into all truth, John 16.13. and makes all things manifest. It is not a bare Nosce te ipsum, or the Knowledge of thyself, nay of the World, that constitutes the Wisdom which makes our Salvation, but the true Knowledge of God and of Jesus whom he sends, Acts 3.19, 20. Because God being in all, and through all, and beyond all the Heaven's Circumference, Eph. 4.6. 1 Kings 8.27. and all having its being in, and out of God himself, Acts 17.28. Nature being as it were a Nascitura Dei, or God bringing forth a part of himself out of himself, God comprehends all Being's, Exod. 3.15. And so his Knowledge also includes all other Knowledge, not only that of himself, and of all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but much more that of the World, since it is but as it were an Epitome of God; which besides is felt and seen, John. 3.12.  
Christ adds, John 17.3. unto the Knowledge of God, that of Jesus Christ, as being sent to refresh or comfort, and perfect Men, Acts 3.19, 20. John 14.18. Because Christ being the Light both of God and of the World, which, like the Sun in the World, both enlighteneth and strengtheneth, and brings Life to Perfection, so tempering, allaying, and mitigating the force and fierceness of the Fire (which is the Father of Life, giving Life its beginning or a principle of Motion) that it turns the Wrathful Ardour of God the Father (for the Father by himself, without the Light of the Son, is a consuming Fire, from whence he calls himself so, and an Angry Jealous God, viz. in the Creatures only, and by no means in himself; for God is Quatenus God, that is, Three Persons in One, nothing but Light, Love, Meekness, Joy, and the Summum Bonum) into a pleasant Being or Refrigeratory; thus bringing to Perfection the anxious Fiery Soul, or the Life of the Soul which the Father had begun; it behoves us to know him for such Saviour, that is, for him that enlighteneth, comforteth, and perfecteth and brings to a pleasant rest, the anxious Fiery Souls, by introducing his Light into their Fire, which is the Life and Father thereof.  
Now this Knowledge of the Truth which saves Man, 1 Tim. 2.4. saves him, saith Christ, John 8.32, 34. Revel. 2.26. by freeing him from his Lusts, and the Slavery of Sin. But to be freed he must sight against them, and overcome, that by his overcoming he might Reign Victorious, Revel. 3.21. (that is an absolute King, who hath all at his command that his Kingdom can afford) in God, who is the fullness of all things, in all places soever, where such Man is, or finds himself when he dies, Psal. 73.25. so that he hath where he is, without changing his old place to come into a new one, all Pleasures for evermore. It being nonsense to think that the Kingdom of God is in a particular place: For this World shall pass away, and when this Body dies, the World disappeareth, or dies also to the Souls (understand the Blessed Souls) leaving nothing about them but God, the infinite Space, who therefore, as infinite, admit neither quantity, nor time, nor ubiquity. I say, that Man must fight and overcome to be freed: For, as I said, Wisdom, or the Knowledge that makes Free, is not a mere passive Theory, or bare Notion, but altogether active: For, as one hath defined it, Wisdom is Lumen mentis (if not rather Mens ipsa, which Christ restores to the Soul, 1 John 520.) Clarè praelucens tribus ill is facultatibus quae simul constituunt humanam creaturam: Which Three are, Intellect us, Voluntas, & Animus. That is, A Light shining first to the Intellect, to see, or perceive, and understand in seeing and in hearing, Matth. 13.14. every thing perfectly: next to the Will; directing and inducing him to choose or determinate itself, to desire and appete only what the Intellect shows him to be very good: And lastly, to the Courage, that is to the power, force and virtue of the Soul, strengthening or enabling it to reduce into Practice, and to follow and perform those things the Understanding hath showed to be very good, and which the Will desires, appetes, and chooseth for such. As all things are matured, or ripened and perfected by the strength of the Light of the Sun acting in them: So Wisdom is completed, and the Soul is perfected by the power and the strength of its Light, to act and do what it knows fit to be done. A Man's Wisdom is known in the World by his Actions: Whence, saith St. James, I will show thee my Faith by my Works: That is, I will show thee by them my Knowledge of God; because Intelligere being ipsum credere, as Trisinegistus affirms, Faith is an Understanding, or an Evidence, saith Paul, Heb 11.1. of things not seen with the Eye, which therefore are evident or as manifest to us as if we saw and felt them: So that being convinced of their Truth, we believe them, and live according to that Conviction, doing all that is fit to make us capable of the enjoyment of them. Like the Man in the Gospel, who understanding full well, that there was a great Treasure hidden in a Neighbour's Field, sold all things, parted with all that he had to purchase it. Therefore, the Just, saith St. Paul, lives by Faith, like Abraham, who would not take any thing, because he knew that it is God's Blessing makes a Man Rich, Gen. 14. 23. and relied on him for it: And like Enoch, who walked as having God in his sight, Chap. 5.24. and the Prophet Elijah, who said, As the Lord liveth, whom I have still present, or before whom I stand, 1 Kings 17. 1-18. 15. and endeavour to please to, like a Courtier before him whom he looks for Favour, and expects his Fortune from. The Faith that saves Man, is not an historical Belief of Christ being the Saviour of the World, and of his Death, Passion, and Resurrection; but a doing and acting the things that he bids us do, viz. to deny ourselves, and die with him ourselves to all the Lusts of the Flesh. For he believes not in One, who acts point blank contrary to what he saith and prescribes, and takes quite another way than that he showeth and teacheth. Not the bare Notion of God, but Righteousness and Power makes the Salvation of Man, or constitute God's Kingdom, Rom. 4.17. 1 Cor. 4.20. And Righteousness and Knowledge reform us to God's Image, and are that Knowledge of God which makes our Salvation, and constitutes true Wisdom. To do Judgement and Justice, is to know me, saith the Lord, Jerem. 22. 15, 16. And contrary wise to do evil, and forbear to do good Works, is not to know God, Chap. 9.3, 1 Sam. 2 12.  
Having seen that the Kingdom of God, or the Salvation of Man consists in Wisdom; and also the Quid, or what Wisdom or God's Knowledge is: It is time to inquire the Per quid, or by what means it comes and is obtained. The Scriptures say, That Wisdom is God's Gift; that he send it, and that out of his Mouth comes Knowledge and Understanding, Prov. 2.6. Job 32.8. James 1.5, 17. For indeed no other thing but the Inspiration or Breath of the Almighty, the Spiraculum Vitae, which he breathed at first into the first Man's Nostrils, Gen. 2.7. and is the Lamp of the Lord, Prov. 20. 27. can reform Mankind again to God's Image in Knowledge; or give him that Breath of Life which his Fall bereft him of. The Text saith, Nischmah Chajim; that is to say, Breath of Lives, because when Man is born again of the Holy Ghost, he lives of a threefold Life, to wit, Divine, Natural, and that which he hath common with the Beasts, from the Spirit of the World, and from the Stars. Now, what can that Breath of God be but his Holy Spirit, who is the good Gift of God, Luke 11.13. with Matth. 7 11. which he bestows on Mankind. To guide him into all Truth, John 16.13. And to teach him all things, Chap. 14.26. both Natural and Divine; the word all comprehending Omnia Scibilia, and chief natural things, as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, standing more open and exposed to our Senses and Contemplation, John. 3.12. Rom. 1.20. than the Divine Mysteries. For in this Spirit consists the Kingdom of God itself, Chap. 14.7. or Salvation or Wisdom; and without him, Man remains still in his outward Darkness, is still a natural Man, Job 11.12. Whose Reason cannot fathom either the things of Nature or of the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 2.14. till, by being born again of Water, he becomes fit for the Birth of this Spirit; which makes him again, of that brutish Man he was become, an Angelical Creature, Luke 20.36. or as Wise as the Angels, and Adam before he fell. Therefore when Christ (the express Image of God, Heb. 1.3.) came to save, or to reform Man again, he breathed on his Disciples (they that learn of him) saying, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, Joh. 20.22. to show us that he saves Man, by Inspiring into him the same former Breath which God breathed into his Nostrils; this Inspiration being the only means of Wisdom, which he really gives to him; and not as the Priests of Rome do when they Baptise Children, or rather when they Ape Christ (by repeating of his words, and acting this part of his History) in the Baptism.  
There is a Spirit in Man which is, like a smoking Flax, fit to catch at this new Flame: and the Inspiration of the Almighty, saith one of Job's Friends, Job 32.8. is that which gives Man Light or Understanding. And because it is God's Gift, therefore all the True Christians are said to be Taught of God, John 6.45. and to be made by Christ Priests, 1 Pet. 2.5. Revel. 1.6. that is, able to teach themselves: For Teaching under the Law was the Office of the Priests, Ezek. 44.23. Mal. 2.7. Whence Christ saith, Matth. 23.10. That they have but one Master, to wit, himself. Then when they have received this Spirit, and not before, they are the Anointed one's, that is, True Christians indeed; for it is the true Unction, or the true Oil of Gladness, whereof that which Kings and Priests were of old Anointed with, was a Sign or Sacrament; because Oil is all Spirit, or the most Spiritual part of all Concretes in the World. And are said to know all things, 1 John 2.20. and not to need to be taught any thing of any Man, verse 27. So that they need not Travel from home into far Countries, nor to the Academies to confer with the learned; for God finds Fault with such means, Jer. 23.30. Isa. 29.13. and shows we must pass from them, Cant. 3.4. to find what the Soul loves best, its Summum Bonum, Wisdom: no Doctors, though never so Learned, being capable to give it, or procure it for any besides themselves. Because seeing God gives it, they have it not in their gift: nay, because they seek for Fame and Applause, John 5.44. and for Riches and Greatness, or Preferment, instead of Tribulation, (which the Disciples of christ should look after in the world, chap. 16.33.) and thus, as saith Jeremy 5.5. break the yoke, and burst the bonds, they have it not for themselves, Isa. 29.14. Matth. 11.25. and therefore rather abuse the poor Soul, smite it, wound it, take from it its smoking flax, Cant. 5.7. than give it any new light, it is but in vain for us to hope for any from them; and very absurd to look for our Felicity, Wisdom, from their Predicables. Non est qui sustentet & qui conducat eam inter omnes filios quos genuit & nutrit: There is not one capable to feed, guide and hold her up in all the Armies of Sons (whereof see Luke 21.20, with Matth. 24.15.) which she hath bred and brought forth, saith the Prophet Isaiah, 51.18, 20: when he saw in the spirit the state of the present Church. And yet they all say we see, John 9.41. so much its desolation is become abominable. The word of wisdom alone which is nigh in our hearts, Luke 17.21. Rom. 10.8. springing up there like the seed left to itself in the ground, and growing we know not how, Mark 4.27. and which word is Christ himself, Joh. 1.1. 1 Cor. 1.24. being that which gives knowledge; Blando sno susurro, by his still small voice in us, 1 Kings 19.12. even the Learned themselves of the world being Judges, Deut. 32.31. for their own experience may, if they please to think on't, abundantly convince them that they never come to know, or to have any knowledge, whilst they go to hear others, and till passing from, that is, ceasing from all School Learning, and all things without themselves, they retire in themselves, and meditate by themselves, like Isaac, Gen. 24.63. and all wise men: thus stirring up, or making good use of the smoking flax, or spirit which is in them, 2 Tim. 1.6. and of which all Mankind hath enough to profit withal, 1 Cor. 12.7. Matth. 25 15.  
Having fully proved that this Spirit must be had of all those who desire to have or obtain Wisdom, that is to say, Salvation: I must here demonstrate, to prevent an Objection, that all Men may obtain it, if they will but improve their Talon or Trade with it: what I must do likewise by the means of the Scriptures. The Scripture declares that God gives this spirit of wisdom to all that ask it of him, Luke 11.13. Jam. 1.5. and that will, saith St. Peter, Acts 2. 38-3. 19, 20. enter into Repentance. And this, as much as it was given to the Apostles, that is, if they overcome, and in case they follow Christ in the Regeneration, Matth. 19. 28-20.23. Revel. 3.21. as much as the Apostles and primitive Christians did; for it being the blessing promised to Abraham, and to Adam before him, Acts 1.4, 5. Luke 24.49. it belongs to as many of their Children, as the Lord shall ever call, saith Peter, Acts 2.38, 39 that is, to as many as prepare themselves for it, or set themselves in order, the Text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Acts 13.48. with such preparation as I shall speak of, and show in its time and place: and this, not only, adds he, chap. 10. 47-11.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, even as; but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, after the manner that we have it ourselves (he means all the Apostles) the Lord, (going on further in confirmation of this, ver. 9) putting no such difference (viz. of an ordinary and extraordinary gift) between us (the Apostles) and the other Believers, as the Lip-Christian's device: but giving the Holy Ghost to all indifferently: yet in proportion to what degree of true Faith he knows every Believer hath, ver. 8 that is as much as to Paul and Peter if he believes in Christ as much as they did: as it is evident from Cornelius his household, chap. 10.44. and from the rest of them that believed in the Word, chap. 19.6. And because it is the thing promised to Abraham, and to his Seed for ever, Gen. 13. 15-17.7, 19 (for neither the Jews nor we can name any other thing that doth answer this Promise:) St, Paul calls it the Spirit of Promise, Ephes. 1.13. Gal. 3.14. And speaks always as taking it for granted, that all the Christian Churches of Antioch, Acts 13.52. of Ephesus, Chap, 2.17, 18-3. 6-5.18. of Galatia, 3.2, 3, 5, 14-5. 5, 16, 25. Corinth. 1 Cor. 6.11, 19 2 Cor. 11.14. Rome 5.5. 8.11, 23. Philipi 3.3. Colossus 1. 8-3.10. And of Thessabonica, 1 Thess 1. 5-5.19. 2 Thess. 2 13. received, or might receive after wards, the Holy Ghost.  
So that seeing that all Men may obtain the Gift of it, and seeing that Salvation cannot be had without it, it being, as I said, the Perquid of Salvation; we are bound, that is to say, as many of us as will, or intent to be Saved, to endeavour to get it; and therefore to inquire after the Quomodo. or right way to procure it; that is, trade with, and improve our Talon so well, as to gain many more with it. Which Enquiry must be made, like the rest, in the Scriptures.  
I have said already, That as Men make Salvation different from God's Knowledge, so they make the means of God's Knowledge, or of true Wisdom, different from this Spirit; to wit, good Natural Parts, and their own Reason and Wit; and consequently they know of no other way to it, but hard study in the Schools, and Consulting their Masters and their Learned Doctor's Books: As if the Wisdom of God could be had out of those things, and could be confined to the narrow pale of their Rules! Whereas on the contrary, the Scriptures teach, that the Man who will be Learned and Wise, must become a Fool, 1 Cor. 3.18. a Child, Matth. 18.3. That is, despond, like a Child, of his Wit, Parts, and Learning. Except you become as simple, Chap. 6.22. and humble as little Children, who are not self-conceited, and have no prejudice against what their Teachers say, and Argue not against it, but only amongst themselves, striving who shall learn it best; you shall remain in Darkness, or never see God's Kingdom, Chap. 18.4. Luke 18.17. Because God keeps from the Wise and Prudent, who say we see, John 9 41. all true Wisdom and Knowledge, and reveals the same only to humble, single-eyed Babes, Mat. 11. 25. And it will ever be so, because Witness Truth himself, v. 26. John 14.6. it is God's Will and Pleasure that it should always be so; whatever the great Doctors, who would be wiser than Christ, therefore blow their Nose at him, Luke 16.4. in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, may say to the contrary. The meek will he guide in judgement, and the meek and lewly in heart will he teach his ways, Psal. 25.9. Wherefore blessed are the meek, and they that rule their Spirit, Prov. 16.32. For they shall inherit the Earth, Matth. 5.5. And Wisdom itself. v. 3. Take my yoke upon you, saith Christ, Chap. 11.29. That is, learn of me that I am lowly in heart, and you shall come to the Rest or Persection of your Souls. O how happy is the Man that bears Christ's Yoke from his Youth!  
The Scriptures teach us further, That God's Fear is not only the beginning, but the end, or a Treasure of Wisdom, Prov. 1.7. Isa. 33.6. That all they that keep God's Word have such an Understanding, Psal. 111.10. That they know a great deal more than all their Wisest Teachers, Psal. 119.99, 100, 104. And that God layeth up Wisdom for them that are Righteous, Prov. 2. 7. Meeting, saith Isaiah 64.5. them that work Righteousness, and that do delight in it: For if any Man will do God's Will, John 7.17. Keep the words of Christ, Chap. 14.23. God will love him, and meet him, or come by the Holy Ghost, and make his abode with him, as he met Cornelius, Acts 10.44. because he feared God, and wrought Righteousness, verse 35. So that the Fear of God is the way wherein what gives Wisdom is to be met with; and so is the Quomodo of Wisdom or Salvation. Now to Fear God is the same as to do the Will of God; and to do the Will of God implies a ceasing from Man, that is to say, a ceasing from doing the will of Man, or being born of the Flesh, John 1.13. as being against God's Will, and at Enmity with him, Rom. 8 7. and consequently implies a dying to ourselves, that we may be born of, and live to, the Will of God, Rom. 6.11. that is, implies such Self-denial, or abstinence from all the things which our natural Life desires, as makes us as dead to it, as they that are no more living, or have lost their Life. Except the corn of Wheat, saith Christ, John 12.24, 25. fall into the ground and die, it brings forth no fruit; so the way for Man to keep his Life to Eternal Life, is to hate it, or cease from the Life he hath of this World: or, as he saith in Matthew 16.25. to lose it; that is, to die. And in John 3.3. He saith further, Except a man be born again, and that, of Water, V 5. he cannot see God's Kingdom; that is, receive the Spirit which constitutes God's Kingdom, Rom. 14.17. Now to be born again, is to begin to have a second or a new Life: A second Life implies a dying to the former Therefore we must die before we be born again and live, to wit, of the Life that saves: and we must be born again to live, and that of Water. So that two things, a dying, and a new birth of Water, are necessary to Life, and the only way through which we must unavoidably pass to come to Happiness, or to the perfect new Birth of the Spirit of Wisdom; in which latter Birth chief consists our Salvation. Which things, 
See Dr. Wall●s his Sermons of Regeneration. Printed for Mr. Rogers at the Sun near Temple Bar.  because very few Divines do know what they are, and therefore pass them over, and teach with Dr. Wallis, That we are not bound to know, and to trouble ourselves with such nice Inquiries, as if we were not to be saved by coming, saith Paul, 1 Tim. 2.4. to the knowledge of the Truth. I think fit to declare: and for this end, to begin by the new Birth of Water.  
To be born of Water then, is, not to be Baptised, as we are now with Water, but to take the beginning of our Life from Water; To do which, man must become Water; be Water himself: if not in his Flesh and Bones (as Nicodemus took it) however within the Heart, that is, in the inward Man, by making his Heart tender, 2 Chron. 34.27. and as humble, as resigned; and in a word as passive or unactive as Water. That is to say, as Water hath no motion of itself but stands still; or, if moved, falls downwards continually; or flows this way or that way as the Wind agitates it; so our Hearts should no more have any will of their own, but lay still as a dead thing, or as being resolved even to die at God's Feet: That as out of the shapeless. passive, unactive Water, all the Concretes in the World are form and produced, 2 Pet. 3 5. by the only working of God's Spirit upon it, Gen. 1.2. Psal. 33.6. so we may, out of that state wherein we have no more any motion, desire, lust, or will of out own, but only that to yield all, and enter into God's Will, receive a new form and shaper, or be reform, or born again of the first Spirit that gave Adam a true Life, Gen. 2.7. after the Image of God; put off the earthly Image we have from Father Adam, 1 Cor 15.49. And thus by Humility rise again to that state which he and Eve fell from by Pride.  
And this is what is showed us by the Water, and the Way of using it in Baptism. We are, saith Paul, Rom. 6.4. by Baptism buried with Christ into death; that is, as they which were Baptised in St. Paul's time, being covered all over when they were dipped in Water, were by this means as it were dead and buried to the World: So we by this 〈◊〉 Baptism or birth or state of Water, become as dead men, buried to all the Lusts of the Flesh, and to all Self-will, as Pride, Covetousness, and Envy, and to all the reliance and hope we have on this World; that as Christ, adds he, rose up from grave through God's Spirit; so we should out of this state rise into a new Creature that hath got a Divine Form, which is rising from the Dead, and the first Resurrection.  
All is made out of Spirit (or, as Hypocrates saith, in primo de Diaeta, out of Fire) and Water. Spiritus est organum in manu summi Dei, quo agitantur omnes in hoc mundo species, saith Trismegistus of it. Which Spirit coming down first from the Stars into the Air, and thence into the Water, works on it continually: whence an Oil is produced; and this Oil, by a longer digestion, becomes a Salt; which Salt is the first Matter and true Body of Concretes. This is demonstrable from the juices of Vegetables, if they be distilled before their Fermentation; but better by distilling some May- dew, or Rain-water; because being thin and light, and a transparent Liquor, by reason of their being circulated in the Air, they are not thought by many to have and contain an Oil, yet in their distillation they yield an Oil and a Salt, which must have been form there by the Spirit from the Stars it was impregnated with, working upon its Vehicle, the said Dew or Rain-water.  
So likewise Man being made of Water, and of Spirit, must be born again of them to become a new Creature; and must first become water, make his heart soft and tender; break that Rock, as Moses did, Exod. 17.6. and melt the Ice or hardness of his heart into water, or the tears of Repentance, that by the Holy Spirit, which is the Dew, the Manna, or the true Bread from Heaven that gives life unto the world, John 6.32, 33. an Oil first, and then a Salt, which is the true Flesh and Blood, or the true Body of Christ, ver. 51. and also the new Body the blessed Souls shall rise with, or our house from above, may be form, produced, and perfected within him. Therefore Christ exhorts all Men to have some Salt in themselves, Mark 9.50. that is to say, as the Salt, understand essential Salt, is the first matter of things, and results from the Spirit's action upon the water; so all Men should always have some of that same first substance which the Spirit of God forms in Souls bathed in tears, and so should give leave to his Spirit to work it in them, and produce by its working a Salt to salt them withal, ver. 49. or preserve both their Body and Soul to Eternal Life, from all sort of Corruption: such as Leprosy, which makes the whole Body insensible; and as that, thorough hardness of heart, which turns Man into such Salt as Lot's Wife was, that is, a Salt Alkali, which is gone through the Fire, and therefore can by no means be further wrought upon; for thereby losing its Oil, or its Radical Moisture, the Vehicle of the Spirit, is no more susceptible (as the moist essential Salt, or Nitre of the Earth, is) of any sweet influence of Heaven working on it: but becomes a mere dead Coal, a Limestone, an Alkali, made by Incineration; and that melts no more like Ice, and other essential Salts, by the warmth of the Spirit, but by a strong fierce Fire into a hard stone like Glass, which is passed for evermore all hope of recovery, or of regeneration, and so makes Man incapable of such Vegetation as the dry Rod of Aaron, by its budding forth again, typified the Souls must have. Therefore remember Lot's Wife, flee from the Land of the North, this hard frosty, dark, lowering, dismal, or Northerly state, saith the Lord by Zachary 2.6. whoever will inhabit or live in Jerusalem, ver. 4.  
This birth of Water therefore is what makes Man susceptible of the sweet influence and working of God's Spirit on his Soul to renew it, and make it grow green and bud, and bear Fruits, or be fruitful; for thereby we do (like John by his Baptism of water) prepare the way of the Lord, that is, for the Lord's coming by his comforting Spirit: this birth of water being the true preparation or ordering of the Soul, which in the 15th Page I promised to speak of. For as good ground is made fit to receive, and to retain the influence of Heaven, or the Spirit that comes down from Heaven into the Air, and the Water and the Earth, (the Scriptures call it the Dew, and the Blessing from above, Gen. 27. 40-49.15.) by its being frequently moistened with Rain or Water; so our Souls become fit for the Blessing promised, Joel 2.28. by being throughly watered; for the Water being void and empty, (as the Earth was, Gen. 1.2.) the Chemists call this nature of the Water, and the Earth an Alkalick quality, it is the sitter to draw and to impregnate itself with the Spirit from the Stars, and so to nourish the Earth which is well watered with it, by introducing this same starry Spirit into it. So the Soul, by reducing itself to water, becomes void and empty like water, that is void of all the cares and desires of this world, and thereby is the sitter to be impregnated with the Spirit, or the Seed of heavenly Bridegroom. And woe be to them, saith Christ, Mat. 24.19. that are not so. prepared, but are already with Child, and give suck about the time that the Bridegroom comes to them! because they cannot go in with him to the Marriage Room, and because the door is shut, and can no more be opened, chap. 25.10. that is, they are so hardened, that they become like Lot's Wise, or (to continue here the foregoing Metaphor) become like some sort of ground (which for lack of competent moisture, turns to Sand and Dust, and bears nothing but Briers, whose end is therefore to be burned, as St. Paul affirms, Hebr. 6.8.) dry, and bound like clods of earth, or hard for want of moisture; a desolate Wilderness, Joel 2.3. yielding nothing but Briers, and even Dust and Ashes, or such lixiviate Salt as is made out of Ashes, or by Incineration, that is a Salt Alkali. So that Water, or the Birth, or the Baptism of Water, is always, like the Baptist, the Forerunner of the Lord, who comes in the cloudy, sad, mourning, dark, ignorant Souls, by the light of his Spirit, to revive and comfort them. Whence, according to St. John 5.6. he comes by Water and Blood, that is, Water and Spirit; Blood being but a Compound of Water and of Spirit: and so do all the Children of Adam when they are born, to show them that they must be born again of those two things.  
I say, that the Lord comes by his comforting Spirit; because when that Spirit comes, it is the coming of Christ promised, John 14.18, 28-16. 22. or the Lord that comes himself. Seeing that Jesus himself is he that's sent, saith Peter, Acts 3.19, 20-2. 38. from the presence of the Lord; to refresh or comfort Men; or to be, as St. John saith, 14. 16. their Comforter for ever. And therefore Christ is the same as the comforting Spirit; and so the coming of this, viz. of the Holy Spirit, is the same as the second coming, or coming again; or, the manifestation of Christ himself promised, John 14.18, 21. Concerning which, see Math. 16.28. with Mark 9.1. and Luke 9. 27-24.49. Gal. 1. 15, 16.  
And, I say, that he comes into the sad cloudy Souls: for as the Lightning, saith he, Math. 24.27, 30. appeareth out of tho East, and shineth even unto the West; so shall the coming of the Son of Man happen in the clouds of Heaven, with power and great glory. For these two Verses may be applied to the said coming of Christ by the Holy Ghost; Christ having respect therein to the Disciples question proposed in the 3d Verse, concerning his coming again in his day, Luke 17.24. that is, when he should be revealed, ver. 30. or should come in his Kingdom, Matth. 16.28. though perhaps they might not then understand it in this sense, but took it, as Men now do, as though it were meant only of his third and last coming, viz. at the end of the world. Which Answer of Christ sets forth the manner of his Coming, and the qualification of the thing which he comes to; to wit, the cloudy, or sad and dark, or ignorant Souls, which are the Clouds of Heaven, hiding Heaven within them, Luke 17.21. from the sight of other People. For as the Lightning breaks out of the dark, thick, gloomy Clouds, shining through them for a time, than the Cloud closeth again; so doth his Coming appear in the dark, sorrowful Souls, John 16.20, 22. like a flash of Lightning, or sudden Coruscation, breaking out of their darkness, 2 Cor. 4.6. and opening, as it were, the Cloud that envelops them, than shuts itself up again; and so continueth to do with many Men for sometime, till at last dissipating the darkness altogether, it comes to shine through and through the Sphere, or the whole Body, Mat. 6.22. thus shining from East to West all the Hemisphere over: as it happened unto Christ as his Transfiguration, and as it is, and will be with all the Saints in Glory: who are represented therefore with beams about them, because they shine like the Stars, and dart out, like the Sun, their beams on every side, Dan. 12.3. Matth. 13.43. For a remembrance of which slashing or coruscation, and of the manner of it, the Bishops wear a Mitre, bearing the shape of a Flame; or else of those cloven Tongues which were like as of Fire, Acts 2.30. to signify the opening of the dark clouds in man's head, and the cleaving (as it were) of the sutures in the Scull, and man's communication through this cloven part with Heaven: which Mitre they assumed first, when this flashing or lightning began to cease in the Church, lest the remembrance itself of it should be lost also. But that it closeth not up as the Crown of a King doth, signified, that their flashing did not shine through on all sides; that it was but beginning or just breaking out in them; and that it continued not with them, as with crowned Heads: and therefore that they ought not to pretend to, and ascribe to themselves so much honour in the Church as Kings may do; and consequently much less than they in temporal things, especially seeing that the Kingdom of Christ, witness himself, John 18.36. is not of this world. And hence it may be gathered, that the Church was yet modest when they begun to wear it: But now the Mitre is got higher than the Crown itself, and lords it over Princes and Kings both in Church and State. Which is not well done, my Sons, my incorrigible Sons, would old Eli say to them, 1 Sam. 2.24. if he were alive again; you ought not thus to break Christ's Yoke, and to burst his Bonds, if you will be his Disciples, or his true Church in England: and you may chance to pay for it, if you harken not to the voice of your Father, ver. 25. For he that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy, Prov. 3 34-29. 1. of which you have a very fresh Instance in the late King.  
To return to the manner of the second Coming of Christ by the Holy Ghost; observe, that as the lightning comes at first out of the East, and then shines even unto the West, that is, enlighteneth the Hemisphere all over; so his Coming (which is not with any observation, Luke 17.20.) appears first like the Dayspring, chap. 1.78. or the dawning of the day; or is like the morning Star arising in our hearts, 2 Pet. 1.19. for there all our thoughts, or first glimpses of Light rise: then increasing more and more to the perfect light or day, Prov. 4.18. it comes to be like the Sun at Noon, and at the Solstice: in reference to both which distinct states, Christ is called the Morning Star, by St. John, Rev. 22.16, 20. and the Sun of Righteousness, by the Prophet Malachy, 4.2. because he both dissipates the Morning Clouds by his light, and strengtheneth by the power of it a Believer so that he brings him to ripeness, or to his full perfection: the flash at his appearance shining nothing near so bright and comfortable as the Sun, and as itself would do if it lasted for ever, or endured a great while without vanishing again. For after the same manner Christ, the Word, or the Wisdom, and Light, and Power of God, 1 Cor. 1.24. within us, in our hearts, Rom. 10 8. springing out of the centre, out of a man's own darkness, 2 Cor. 4.6. first appears to the sad mind like glimmering sparks of light, which are a great refreshing to the Soul; light or knowledge bringing still along with it great joy, as I have said. Then increasing, and sending its sweet beams by little and little towards the Circumserence, till it shines through the whole Sphere, it enligthneth all over, and at the same time comforts and strengtheneth sick sainting Man, in such sort that he may rise from the shadow of death, (wherein he lay as benumbed) and walk, and run, and not faint, and mount up with wings as Eagles, Isa. 40.31. Joel 2.7. and going from strength to strength, Psal. 84.7. both take God's Kingdom by force, and rise to the very top or crown, or zenith thereof, which is God's holy mountain, or the highest state of bliss, and of glory, and of light, which Mankind is capable of, Dan 12.3. Mat. 13, 43. 19.28. Rev. 3.21. continuing all the while springing, shining, enlightening, and refreshing the fiery dark Soul to eternal life, with the water of that Well, that is, Wisdom and Knowledge flowing out of a Man's self, whereof Christ spoke in St. John 4. 14-7.38. As an ever flowing spring of living water streaming through a hot and desert place, would revive the weary Traveller dying for Thirst; so this new Spring of Wisdom revives the dry, sainting Soul of Samson, and Ishmael, that is of Christ's stout Champions, Gen. 21.20. (the Church Militant on Earth) as soon as they begin to thirst after Righteousness, Mat. 5.6 as it was typified by the water gushing out of the Asses dry Jawbone, which Samson, after a great Victory, being ready to die, met with in his thirst, Judg. 15.18, 19 and by the Wells of water which Israel found at last in the dry and desert Land, Exod. 15.27. But before he, I mean the said sick Man, comes to this, he must die the second death, according to God's threatening, Gen. 2.17. which, because God's Word is true, shall not pass away from him before it be fulfilled, Mat. 24.35. and this is not so easy a matter for him to do, as our learned Divines, who pass it over sicco pede, teach in their Sermons.  
For (to speak of this dying, which is the other thing needful for the obtaining the said birth of the Spirit) it is really a dying; and dying, you will grant, is a hard thing to Mankind: Neither is it only such dying as is that of this body of the flesh, which Men easily go through: But such as is proper and peculiar to the Soul, which is so intolerable, that none but the Son of Man, or at least the Soul of Man, enabled by the virtue and strength of the Son of Man, can sustain or bear with it, Prov. 18.14. For no man, he saith himself, John. 3.13. doth ascend up to Heaven, but he that comes down from thence, to give us power and strength, and thus by enabling us to die, lifts us up thither: and there go along with it the terrors of Hell itself. Which thing, because it seems new and very strange to the world, is what I do here take upon me to demonstrate.  
And first, to show what it is. This dying, is the same death as that Adam died of after he had transgressed, which must be some other thing than the death of his Body; for he was surely to die the day that he transgressed, Gen. 2.17. whereas his Body did live 900 years after. And that was a rising, or an exasperation of the Fire of his Soul, after he tasted the Apple, (for he had lost long before, viz. before he fell asleep, the Light of Life, which his Soul enjoyed at his Creation) to a very intense or high degree of sierceness; raging in him till the time he catcht hold of the promise made to him of the Woman's Seed, Christ, the Light of the world: For Life without Light, is but a dark and obscure Fire, kindled either here or there in some individual place, and burning without shining, as do all Acids, the Frost, and those Corrosives, called Ignes Potentiales by Chemical Writers; whereby the Life just subsists in a very anxious, fretful state or condition, as being always feeding upon the thing it is in, that is, upon the Body which it had form itself, till that Body be consumed, or till this hungry Fire be fully satiated. And this Fire thus burning, was represented to us by the fiery Serpent of God's People in the Desert, and by a Worm or Serpent, which Christ saith doth never die, because it is always renascens, reproducing or kindling itself anew; viz. in the eternal Souls, for there it can as well do it always as for once, by reason that its Body or Subject doth not decay, and when exasperated, it is the Death of the Soul, or its Hell, burning, gnawing, and making it for ever anxious, and full of pain; except it reacheth the Light that makes all things comfortable. Here consider the grimness of a dark and frosty Night, which chills, benumbs, and destroys, and burns all things on the ground; and what state things would lay in, if the Light of the Sun were taken out of the world. Would not all the living things lay still like Worms in Winter, and be frozen up as hard and stiff as Ice in their place? Sure the world itself would be nothing but Death all over! And thence conceive, if you can, how sharp, severe, and bitter are to the despairing Soul, whose dark Fire corroding and biting it, like sharp Frost, or a fretting Humour, or some tart, acid Liquor, makes it ache and shoot, and prick, and rave, like an angry Sore, beyond imagination; the horrors of that grim Night which the terrible Day of the Lord is said to have, Joel 2.3. But when the Light appeareth, and breaks out in this darkness, and runs through and over spreads this dark, yet burning, Fire: How pleasant and comfortable it looks! Things grow green again, and look, as the Prophets say, like the Garden of the Lord; Before them the Land is like the Garden of Eden, and behind a Flame burneth, and makes all, as it were, a desolate Wilderness: where the Heat and the Cold kills, burneth, and parcheth all up. For the Light bringing with it the clear and lovely Sunshine, doth not only mitigate and allay this fierce Ardour, but turns the Ardour of Heat, and the great sharpness of Cold into a Refrigery, and makes the Soul a pleasant and delightful Paradise. Ho, ho, come forth, saith the Lord, Zach. 2.6, 7. flee from the Land of the North; Zion, deliver thyself out of such Northerly state, and walk in the light of God. Fire exasperated, and deprived of all Light, is Eternal Death or Hell, or the wrath of God, or god burning in the Soul: And the same Fire fully satiated, tinctured, and impregnated with Light, is the Eternal Life, Rest, and Paradise of the Soul, and God appeased, pleased, become pleasant, delightful, gentle and merciful in us, and the love of God itself shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit of Christ which he gives to us, Rom. 5.5. Note well here what Matthew saith, 3.17. that it is in Jesus Christ, who is the Light of the world; that God the Father, who is a Fire, is well pleased; and that this was said of him after he was baptised, at the same time that he was coming out of the water, ver. 16.  
Now because Man in this world is not altogether bereft of the Light of Life, all Men being enlightened, not only with the outward, but the inward Light, Christ, John 1.9. And therefore his Life is not a Fire without some Light, he hath some good of his Life, and enjoys, whilst he lives here, the pleasures this world affords, without any sensible torment or anxiety. Except the Father, who draws always all Men to himself, awakes the Worm, and stir up and acuate the Fire, which was kept within its bound both by the Light of this world, and by the Sensualities which the Soul is diverted, and which the Worm of the Soul is always lulled asleep with: For then when the Worm awakes, and the Fire is moved, the Soul gins to feel the gnawing Syndereses that by't, rack, and torture it, than Man is in a sad pickle, his Light goes out, he despairs, he cries Vror, Absumor; he looks up, and behold trouble; down, and on every side, and behold nothing but pain, anguish, darkness, and horror. Then his Moon is eclipsed, his Sun, saith Christ, is darkened, and the Powers of Heaven, or of the Kingdom of God, or of Heaven, within him, are shaken, Matth. 24.28. as it happened to Christ in his Agony, when he sweated Blood for it, Luke 22.44. and was sorrowful to death; and prayed very fervently, that this Cup (this very death, and not the death of his flesh, for that's not worth praying for, and it was unavoidable) might pass from him if possible, Matth. 26.38, 39 And then the sorrows of Hell compass him, Psal. 18.5. and then he bears with Christ the wrath of God, seels that great tribulation foretold, Matth. 24.21, 22. which none was ever ever like to, and, note well, never shall be; and which no man in the flesh could ever go thorough with, except the days of this same Tribulation were shortened; by the God of Jesurun, who comes riding in the clouds of the heaven in his help, and in the great might of his excellency on the sky: For the eternal God is his refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, to thrust out the enemies that spoiled him from before him, Deut. 33.26, 27. How sweet is the Name Jesus to a Soul that would come out of its Gall of bitterness! Acts 8.23. In a word, he dies the death, Gen. 2.17. and bears the wrath of God; for all men must be judged, Hebr. 9.27. or undergo the trial of, 1 Pet. 4.12. and these be the days, saith Luke 21.22. of vengeance, or of wrath; wherein, as saith Isaiah 66.16. the Lord shall plead by Fire and by his Sword with all flesh in this or the other world, for falling away from him. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of that God, Hebr. 10.31. who is a Fire living and devouring for ever! Isa. 33.14 Hebr. 12 29.  
Secondly, It is all Men in the world whom God pleads with, by Fire and by his Sword: for every Man, saith Mark, 9.49. shall be salted with Fire: and Christ baptizeth as well with Fire, saith the Baptist, Matth. 3.11. as with the holy Spirit those that are to be saved. Now the word every one, includes all, and excepts none: therefore they that are saved, must all go through this Fire: this being the Cherubin who keeps with a flaming Sword the way of the Tree of Life, and of Paradise itself; so that there is no coming at them but only through it, that it, through his flaming Sword: at least if the Word of God, Gen. 3. 23, 24. is not a mere History, and was not written in vain, Matth. 24.25. but for Instruction, 2 Tim. 3.16. Besides this, Peter speaking of this trial by Fire, saith 1 Pet. 4.12. that it is no strange thing happing to the Believers, or those he calls Beloved; and adds in the 13th verse, that they who undergo it partake of Christ's sufferings; which is another proof of the necessity of their undergoing it. First he saith, 'tis no strange thing: therefore it is an usual and known thing to the Faithful. Secondly, it did begin at the Apostles, and must begin at the House of God, ver. 17. And Thirdly, they partake, by undergoing of it, of Christ's sufferings and death; which is as much as to say, that they must undergo it; because it is a chief part of the sufferings of Christ, and they are bound, as appears from Matth. 16.24. and 2 Cor. 4.10 to bear the said sufferings: being to take up his Cross, and follow him under it, step by step, through every stage or slation which he made: (what the several stations, or pitching of Israel, Numb. 21. were a Type and Figure of) and to bear in their body the dying of Jesus Christ: which dying extends so far as to the loss of their life, Matth. 16.25: so long as they have no hopes to find any other way their life, and the life of Christ; to the perfection of which they may attain, as was said, Ephes. 4.13. if they do imitate him in this part of his passion. For as by his Agony, bloody Sweat, Sorrow to Death, he descended into Hell, or bore the wrath of God: and by the resignation of his will to that of God, Matth. 6.39, 42. all the while he was sighting and bearing this chastisement, Isa. 53.5. that is, by his becoming like the Child in Isaiah, 9.6. Matth. 18.3. He overcame, and became the wonderful mighty Prince and Champion in our Battles: so we, to imitate him in this part of his Passion, and of his Resignation, must sight like him, and go through the Red Sea of our Blood, that bearing through this great Gulf of God's vengeance and wrath, we may become with him, and with Jacob, Gen. 33.28. Kings, Princes, and mighty Champions in God, Rev. 1.6. Without blood, our High Priest went not into the second, or most Holy Tabernacle, Hebr. 9.7, 8. Without Bloodshed a Virgin cannot be impregnated: so likewise a Virgin Soul, that is, which is not with Child, Matth. 24.19. but is become Christ's chaste Dove, Cant. 5.2. or as void of any form (Imagery, or Idols of the heart) as the water, cannot be impregnated with the spirit from on high, without first spilling her blood; or (which is all one, Gen. 9.4.) losing her own life which is therein: nor enter into the most holy Mansions this Spirit doth make in the Father's house, John 14.2. (according as he allays and satiates the Father's Fire in the Souls of Men) but by her own blood, like Christ, Hebr. 9.12. and by offering herself wholly, as that Sacrifice which was to be wholly burned, or consumed by Fire, Levit. 1.9. Judgement saith, 1 Pet. 4.17. gins at the House of God, that is, at the Believers. By Fire, and by his Sword, the Lord will plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord, who are the chosen of God, shall not be few, but many, Isa. 66.16.  
To conclude, as in Nature Life gins in the Fire, and is fully perfected in the Light, as I said; all taking the beginning of its Life, or of Motion, from Heat by Fermentation; the Light itself (which is Life, or the perfection of Life) coming out of the Fire, and subsisting no where one moment without Fire; so in Divine Things also; For Deus est ubique semper sibi similis; God acts in all things alike: Our Divine or New Life must begin at the Fire, and we must return unto the Rock from which we were hewed, and whence all things take their Birth and Motion, and Duration. Our Life must take from thence its first Principle of Motion, (which Motion is to be quelled again, by pouring water abundantly upon it) that being kindled anew by some extraordinary spark of Grace, which (like Leaven added to Meal or Liquors, sets them in Fermentation, Matth. 13.31, 33.) it may ferment, or be set in a hot burning Fever, till it hath purged itself of its filth; or of its Dross, as doth refined Silver or Gold upon the Cupel; and does thereby become pure and capable to abide with the devouring Fire, or live for ever with God, Isa. 33.14. For, as a Cordial given to a Patient, who labours under some great Infection that hath invaded his Life, sets him first in a great heat, or hot Fit, till Life helped by the strength of the Physic, and by some drink given him at that time that comforts him, overcomes its Enemy, and drives it away by sweat: So this Spark setting the Soul on Fire for a good while, brings a hot Fit upon it, and burns it so, that it longs after nothing but Moisture, Luke 16.24. which, as soon as it is sent to it by the Refresher, it draws so vehemently, that it falls into that state, which in a Chemical sense may be properly called Deliquium animae, that is, the Soul giving or melting into water: or else drinking in the way, Psal. 110 7. of the same Brook as Christ did, Matth. 20.23. that is, of an absolute Resignation to God's Will, Matth. 26.39, 42. and receiving from this Cup some comfort and refreshment; it is enabled to swear, or to master and expel the strange Fire of those Lusts, which by infecting of it, had been the occasion of this preternatural Burning or Fermentation; and to dip itself at last into a Flood of water, whereof the Flood of Noah (saith Peter, 1 Epist. 3.21.) was a Figure; and thus to be baptised with the same Baptism as Christ was Hence, Physicians, learn to give your Patients Drink, when they are in a hot burning Fever. And you, Physicians of Souls, help to set yours in this Life into a hot burning Fit; and for Drink, leave them to Christ, for you cannot give it them, till you have got some yourselves.  
The Jews have a Tradition, that the Messiah's days will be a time of Weeping, Fasting, and Tribulation: yet, like our Lip-Christians, who crack of the Law of Grace, and understand it no more than the Wife of Zebedee, Mat. 20.20. they look for Ease in those days: whereas Ease is not the way leading to Eternal Life, Matth. 7.13. In this world, saith Christ to them, who do really learn of him, you shall have Tribulation, John 16.33. And verily you shall weep and lament, saith he, ver. 20, 21, 22. to all, Mark 13.22. But the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful as a woman in travail: but I'll see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, because you are, by this Birth, delivered as a travailing Woman of a new Creature. For by much Tribulation we get into God's Kingdom, Acts 14.22. the entrance into Life being through this narrow gate: which, as it is known but to very few, but few go through, Matth. 7.14. Yet God would have us to be saved, by going through it out of the House of Bondage, the feverish and oppressive Infection of our Sins: as did the old Israel, our Type, out of Egypt, called the Iron Furnace, Deut. 4.20. which burns the fiercest of all: and passing through the Red Sea; and then living, as he did, in the Desert 40 years; that is, as having no hope of any thing in the world all the time of our Life, (40 Years being the time of most men's Life in this world) and being for 40 days tempted with Moses and Christ in the Desert of this world, with Hunger, Thirst, Want, Contempt, and Sickness, and Misery, to answer the 40 days of Plenty, Glory, Pleasures, wherein Adam was tempted in the Garden of Eden: For so long he was tempted, by the desire he had to have the world at his Will, and to dispose of it independently from God: and so long he was courted by the world (which would have him for its own) before he fell. For though he was in the world, yet he was not of the world, and he lived out of it in quite another principle or state, viz. in that Heaven wherein the Son of Man was, though he was come down from thence, John 3.33. as yet the love of the world had not captivated him. And woe be to him, that dies, with Adam, in those pleasures, 1 Tim. 5.6. or in the Wilderness (the dry place which Christ speaks of, Matth. 12.43.) with the People of Israel, before the 40 days of Temptation are ended, chap. 24.48. Therefore all Christians should be made acquainted with these things, and their Watchmen, saith Joel 2.1. should blow the Trumpet aloud, and sound an Alarm to them (for note, this is to be done in the Lord's holy Mountain, the Church; amongst the Faithful, and not amongst the Heathen) to warn them of that Fire and Sword which the Lord pleads with, Ezek. 33. and which is the terrible and gloomy day of the Lord. But, I doubt, I am Vox clamantis in deserto: that is, where no body hears: For, O Lord, who is the man that believes our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? John 12.38. There is none that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, Isa. 64.7. However God is over all things; and when we water and plant, he may give increase; and he hath not lighted my Candle for me to hid or keep it under my Bed, but to make it shine as far as I can to others: which is, I hope, warrant enough for me to write; without any further Licence, or Ordination.  
See what Thomas à Kempis, and many other wise Men have left us in writing, of the way to Happiness, and of the necessity of entering into the Life, Death, and Sufferings of Christ: For because these things be true, (I mean, what I said of the Baptism of Fire, and of the Birth of Water) all wise Men, who always know and justify Truth, Luke 7.35. own them; and have often declared and taught them: But as there is a variety of Gifts, and of Administrations, 1 Cor. 12.4, 5. they have differently also expressed the same. Jamblichus of Mysteries: Haec utique sit tibi ad foelicitatem via. Consider are decet quà praecipue ratione solvi possis à vinculis quibus anima circa formas at que species mundi contemperatur. Est autem solutio nulla praeter ipsam Dei cognitionem. Idea namque foelicitatis est ipsum cognoscere Bonum: quemadmodum est & Idea malorum ipsa quidem bonorum oblivio, quae est deceptio inseparabilis à caduco; à principiis enim cadens at que repulsa se ipsam projicit ad corporalem ideam dimetiendam: à qua corporali Idea solvi debes, ut contemplationi & cognitioni Dei rursus jungaris. Plato calls this (I me an this state of Water, whereby we become void of the Forms (Ideas) of outward things) Conversio animae humanae in seipsam; the Soul converting from things without it into itself. Great Hermes, with Solomon, Cant. 5.2. Ob dormitio mentis à corporis sensibus: A sleeping of the Body, whilst our Soul is waking. I sleep, but my heart is awake, (like Balaam's eyes, that were open all the while his Body was in a trance, Numb. 24.4.) and burning besides, like that of the two Disciples of Christ in their way to Emmaus, Luke 24.32. The Popish Saints call the same the internal way to God, and inward Recollection: of which Molina at Rome hath lately said enough to set the Priests against him, who cannot abide to hear of dying and suffering: but only of that which makes their heart glad, (Judg. 18.20.) a Fat Living. The whole Sum of Religion is for man to keep himself unspotted from worldly things, or from the Love of the World, Jam. 1.27. for in this consists the Love of God, Matth. 6.24. and the Love of God, with that of our Neighbour, is the great Commandment, and the Law, and the Prophets. A great Protestant Divine, Famous both for Piety and Learning, Bishop Usher, in answer to a Question about Sanctification which one made, expresseth thus this Abstraction from the World, and this dying by Fire. I must tell you, saith he, we do not well understand what is Sanctification, or the New Creature, which God formeth by his own Spirit in every Soul which be regenerates of water: For it is no less than for a Man to be brought to an entire resignation of his will to the Will of God, and to live in the offering up of his Soul as a whole Burnt-offering, like Christ, to God the Father. And how little are many of those who profess Christianity, experimentally acquainted with this work in their Souls? Nay, and Notionally too, I add; the Protestants knowing little more of this, I mean of the way to become a new Creature, than what they call Repentance.  
Which Word yet, being taken in its right and genuine sense, siguifies more than what they seem to understand by it; that is, more than any sorrow for Sin, and setting upon mending, amounts to: For what is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? Is it either Protestant or Catholic Repentance? No surely, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is neither lashing your backs, nor grieving two or three hours: But it is the amendment itself duly performed: it is a Resipiscence, which is no less in English, than a Fool and a Knave, becoming, at the same time, both a wise and a good Man; and a change, or conversion from one state or quality, viz. the Nature of a Beast, to the most opposite state, to wit, the Divine Nature, 2 Pet. 1.4. or at least that of Angels, Luke 20.36. Which Christians flatter themselves in vain to attain unto by their common Repentance: for there needs a hard striving; a man must be violent to take God's Kingdom by Force: And it can never be done, without passing the great Gulf of God's Vengeance and Wrath threatened, Gen. 2.17. Luke 16.26.- 21.22. And though Peter in the Acts, 2. 38-3.19. mentions only the Baptism of Water and Repentance, as the things necessary to obtain the Holy Ghost, that makes Man a New Creature: yet in his First Epistle, speaking of another thing not strange to the Believers, to wit, the Fiery Trial, he shows thereby, that they go through some other thing than that which he calls there Repentance: or that the word Repentance, with the word, Be Converted added to it in that place, includes the Fiery Trial; which he would not mention there, because he spoke before a mixed Assembly of People; and it being one of those many things Christ (who forbids to cast Pearls before Swine) would not yet say to the World (John 16.12.) (that cannot favour the things of God, 1 Cor. 2.14. or more than Peter, endure to hear of dying, Matth. 16.22, 23.) he would not declare it them, but left to the Holy Ghost the Revelation thereof to them that were not without God's Kingdom, as the World is, Mat. 4.11. But because it is God's Will that all men should be saved, by opening of their blind eyes, and by coming at the last to the knowledge of the Truth, and the harvest is grown ripe, as it appears from the French Prophets and their Prophecies; I think it is high time for them that make mention of the Lord, not to keep silence, but to tell it publicly, and found an Alarm of it. But whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comprehends this thing or no, sure it is, that we must die, before we live again, or come to another life; and the death of the Body doth bring no life to the Soul: therefore the Soul is to die: and as the eternal Soul cannot corrupt or decay, it is not obnoxious to such dissolution or death as the Body is; and so the death of the Soul can be no corruption or dissolution of it, but a continual dying, agony, struggling with death, or such an anguishing pain as we may conceive a Man feels when he is a dying. And this Fight, or Agony must be, as I have said, with Burning, or with Fire: For every battle of men is with a confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning, and with fuel of fire, Isa. 9.5. To which he adds, ver. 6. to show us that this precedes the Baptism, or the New Birth of Water; the Water-like Child is born, the Son of Man is form in the Virgin Soul of Man, and grows there, till he becomes the wonderful mighty God, and the Prince of Peace to him. Under the Law, all those things that could abide the Fire, were purified by Fire; and those that could not bear it, were purified with Water; to show us what was to be the true cleansing of the Soul; whilst as yet, in this Body of Flesh, under the Gospel. And many of the Fathers, to show that this is no new Doctrine, speak at the same rate: Amongst whom Ambrose, and Origen, on the first Chapter of Leviticus, and Psal. 36. have left us these Passages: Christus, faith Ambrose, baptizat in Spiritu sancto & igne, qui Spiritus sancti typus & imago est, & qui, ignis instar, cor & animam fidelium inflammat, ut probet eos, secundum Apostolum, 1 Cor. 3. Nam necesse est at hoc examen perficiatur apud omnes qui redibunt in Paradisum. Oportet nos omnes, faith Origen, at que Paulum & Petrum, (who saith, I Pet. 4.17. that the time was come, (since the Agony of Christ) that the Saints were to be tried, and that this fiery Trial (which he calleth their judgement) must begin first at them, and at the whole house of God) intrare in talem purgatorium ignem: sed omnes non eodem modo ac illi transibunt: nam non omnes purgantur per ignem qui exit de Altari, qui est ignis Domini: nam ignis qui est extra Altar (Altar autem est Christus qui mittit nobis ignem Spiritus Sancti) non est ignis Domini; sed ignis peregrinus in peccatorum cruciatum destinatus, qui nunquam extinguitur, & ut vermis qui rodit eos nunquam moritur: Nam postquam anima per multitudinem malefactorum in se cumulavit abundantiam peccatorum; ista congregatio malorum cum tempore fermentat, & à poena & supplicio interno flammam concipit; sicuti corpus febrem ab excessu gulae, aut aliarum superfluitatum; cum in memorian revocare, & malefactorum historiam retexere incipiet: quae ipsi perpetuus stimulus erunt ad torquendum: sui ipsius accusatrix erit, & testimonium dabit contra semet ipsam, ut Apostolus, inquit ad Rom 2. inter se invicem accusantibus, aut etiam defendentibus cogitationibus, in die quâ judicabit Dominus occulta hominum. Sed Jeremias, cap. 25. Loquitur depotione irae Dei quae effundetur, & quicunque de illa bibere non volet, non purificabitur. Vnde discimus, inquit, quod irae Dei effusio in corda (quam, amoris Dei effusio sequitur, Rom. 5.5.) facit ad purgationem animarum. Haec ille. Whence we learn, that the Fire of God's wrath in the Soul, is both the Death of the Soul, or the Hell of the Wicked; and the Purgatory of the Souls of the Faithful; of which he that will not drink, shall never be purified, and so shall never enter into the Kingdom of God, Hebr. 12. 14-13.11: and that this Fiery Trial is not so violent in some, to wit, that have led a holy Life before it, as in others that have led an ungodly, sinful Life, whose multitude of sins kindle a greater Fermentation. Out of this the Church of Rome, that knows but the dead Letter of the Christian Mysteries; and hath depraved them, to make a sordid gain of them, hath drawn her Purgatory. And these things suffice, to prove that this dying by Fire, and this new Birth of Water, are the true and only way, or quomodo of Wisdom; that is, how to obtain the Spirit that gives Wisdom: without which, all the study for Knowledge is but in vain: as they that see in seeing may find to be true in most of the learned at the Schools: who never find any thing besides the Opinion they have at first received, though it be never so False; whereas a true Learned man, brings forth daily out of his ever-springing Well or Stock of Wisdom, things new and old, Matth. 13.52: and who, not only know not that these things are the true and direct way to Wisdom, but preferring their Darkness to Light, will not justify or own this truth when told them; and will keep for all this sucking the dry, empty Breasts of their old Alma Mater, (so they call Academies) and filling thus more and more, as Eliphaz saith in Job 15.2. their Bellies with the East wind.  
But here I would not be understood, as if I meant that there is no Knowledge at all of Natural Things, without this Death and this Birth: For surely there is a place for Gold, a vein for Silver, Iron and Brass, by Knowledge got without such means as these, are melted out of their Oar, Job 28.1, 2. That is, an implicit Knowledge, in part, may be had from others in many things; But where shall Wisdom be found? It is not to be found in the Land of the Living. ver. 12, 13. Now Wisdom, as I said, is not a Knowledge in part, and of one part of the World, Enthusiastically inspired in our minds; For in the case of Knowledge, which is a sight of all the true Causes concurring in the production of such Effect or Phoenomenon, as is become the Object of a Man's Meditation, there can be no such thing: But it is a Light shining or breaking out in the Mind, which, like a slash of Lightning, makes all those things manifest that we could not see before, though we were just upon them, by reason of our standing in the dark with them: so that we can thereby see and perceive what things they are; nay, read in them, and through them, by their outward signature, per quid & quomodo, that is, in what manner and by what, they become such; provided we set upon the Contemplation of them. For, as the Flash makes not Men see what is out of their sight, or what they look not upon, though it shines through, and giveth light over the whole Hemisphere: So, though the light of Wisdom doth make all things manifest, and expose to our View the hidden Causes of Things, yet it will not in this Life make us understand a Thing which we do not think upon; and prompt us, on a sudden, with the full Knowledge of that which, perhaps, we never heard and considered of before; without we take it into serious consideration, and meditate upon it, like Isaac, by ourselves, Gen. 24.63. Albeit, after this Life, when Things shall be delivered from their Opacous Body, (the Bondage of Corruption, which, by the Fall of Adam, they have been subjected to, Rom. 8.20) into the glorious liberty of God's Children, ver. 21. (a through shining, transparent Body, which Men may see through, and that stops the sight no more) we shall see all at one sight, and know every thing at first sight, as we know one whom we are acquainted with, when we meet him Face to Face, 1 Cor. 13.12. So that a brown study, searching, and examining, rising early, and watching at the Posts of Wisdom's doors, Prov. 8.17, 34. is also necessary in this Life to get Wisdom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It will lead you in the way, John 16.13. implies, that a Man must walk to come to his Journeys end, to wit, the Knowledge of Truth. But, though he should walk never so long, and hit the right way, and light upon Truth by Chance; yet so long as he is blind, and besides stands in the dark, he can by no means see it, and discern, when he sees it, that it is what he looks for: and as he found it by chance, he goes from it, loseth it as easy as he found it, and keeps still seeking after, and yet never coming to any knowledge of it, 2 Tim. 3.7. For until it pleaseth God to reveal his light in man, Gal. 1.15, 16. or to give him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Joh. 5.20. a discerning Faculty, no Body can justify, or discern Truth, from Error and Falsehood, and Opinion. Witness Paul, who though he was brought up in all the Learning of the Jews with Gamaliel, and was doubtless acquainted with that which the Christians taught, at least wherein they differed from the Doctrine of the Jews, yet he understood it not, (for he persecuted them, and that out of Ignorance, 1 Tim. 1.13.) till he received the Truth by the Revelation of Christ, as he owns himself, Gal. 1.12. And no more do the Christians of this Age understand it: whence every Sect of them sticks no less than the Turks and the Jews to their own way; (though all but one, must be false;) and have a strong prejudice against all other Parties: Or, if their Eye is so single as to listen to others, they are tossed to and fro by every wind of Doctrine, which some cunning Sophister, who is reputed Learned amongst those of his Party, maketh seemingly plausible: being as much uncertain what to believe of either this new or their old Doctrine, as the Samaritan Woman was, when she said, Sir, Our Fathers worshipped in this place, but you say that Jerusalem is the place, Joh 4.19. that is as much as to say, Which must I now believe, yours, or our Opinion? For Believing depends upon the Understanding: Intelligere, saith one, being Ipsum credere: the understanding of Things being the Belief itself; and the Belief or the Faith being an Understanding enlightened, an evidence of things to the Intellect, which are not seen by the Eye, Hebr. 11.1. And this believing of Things without any sight of them, because we understand them; as it constitutes a Man's blessed state or happiness: For blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet believeth, John 20.29. So it makes up the first part of Wisdom or Salvation, as is seen in the 10th Page, by Wisdom's Definition: Nay, such Faith as this is, is called Wisdom itself: For this shall be your Wisdom in the sight of the Nations, Deut. 4.6. meaning to do and perform those Precepts we understand to be good for us to keep; Faith, like Wisdom, being not perfected, but in the Act. Therefore a Man must be made seeing and understanding; his Eyes must be enlightened; and the Light must shine into the thick Darkness he stands in, before he can discern Truth from Opinion, and believe. And (to come to the Thing I here chief aim at) as the Further he goes on, when he is in the right way, the Nearer also he draws towards his said Journeys end; so the more a Man goes on in the right way to Wisdom, that is, in the said dying and Regeneration, the more he is made seeing, and the nearer he comes to the bright Crown of Wisdom: And if he can go thorough the whole course of this dying and Regeneration, he may obtain the whole Prize; even the closed Crown of Wisdom, laid up for such, 2 Tim. 4.8. For as there be several Mansions in the Father's house, Joh. 14.2. that is, several degrees of Wisdom, and of that which gives Wisdom (the Holy Ghost) in the state of Salvation: So there be several steps and degrees of the said Death and Regeneration: all which if a Man go through, and overcomes to the last of them, or the seventh time, he shall even sit on Thrones, Matth. 19.28. Rev. 3.2. and shine forth as the Sun doth, Dan. 12.3. Matth. 13.43. or be filled, like St. Stephen, Acts 6. 15-7.55. with the full Light of Wisdom. But if he stops any where at any of those degrees, he shall reach to no higher proportion of Light than what doth answer to that degree or step which he did stop at, and shall have but a degree of Knowledge accordingly: nay, and no new Light at all, if he go up none of them. And in case he overcome but the first step, and stop there, he shall get but such glimpse of Light, as will prove to him but an Ignis Fatuus, to lead him out of the way: For it will only make him capable to try others: Rev. 2.2. And therefore to despise them, when he finds their Ignorance. And thereby make him the Man meant by the proud Pharisee, who falls upon the Shoulders and Vices of other People; or else upon nothing but Disputes about Opinions, instead of weeping over himself like the Publican. Which is the Case of our Half-Enlightned Reform. Whom Princes cannot suffer; because, as they see clearer than downright ignorant People, such as the Church of Rome is, they are more apt, than She is, to find Fault with the Conduct and Government of their Prince; and being never a whit the better, or the meeker for this new increase of Light, they become his Censurers, and so very uneasy, if not dangerous to him, that he is always striving to remove and suppress them, or to bring them again to their former Ignorance: which occasions Disquiet and Discontent on both sides. But against this great Evil, there is a sure Remedy, which because it is the best and the chiefest in its kind, none of the State Physicians know more of it, than our ordinary Physicians do of the Great Elixir, or Arcanum in Physic. Therefore learn of me, Princes, the best Rule of Politics. If you will Reign quietly with Content and Happiness, you must help the Blind to see, and the Purblind, and Blear-eyed, to true Illumination: And (seeking the Kingdom of God, which is in the Light, Coloss. 1.12.) make your Subjects Priests to God, bring them from their half-witted state of Illumination, to the perfect Noonday, or the full Light of Wisdom: by discountenancing all that which may keep them back from the Light and Knowledge which constitutes their Priesthood, Mal. 2.7. And by encouraging the said Mortification, and the New Birth of Water, Righteousness, and Holiness, For then, as the first degree of them doth procure no more but that mean degree of Light which serves but to make Men proud; so the highest degree of this Regeneration will procure so much of Light, as will make them all, like Christ, lowly, meek, and pacisick: and so will secure the Peace of your Kingdom for ever. For than they will be subject to you for the Oath of God, Eccles. 8.2. Rom. 13.2. And because the Kingdom of God, which they will then seek, and not meddle or make with yours therefore, is not of this world. Foelices Regiones ubi sapientes regnant, & ubi Populi ipsi philosophantur! But unlucky Politics, to go about (as those do, who promote the ignorant, blind way of the Church of Rome, and so oppose God's Kingdom) to save and keep your Kingdom, by thwarting his Interest, and disobliging of him, by the Graco of whom alone you own to have received it, and hope to be maintained and continued therein! The way to keep your Kingdom, is the same as to keep Life; that is, by losing of it, Matth. 16.25. or by sacrificing it daily to the Will of God; seeking the Will, the Kingdom, and the Interest of God, and striving to promote it above all your Interest throughout all your Dominions. When David sought the Kingdom of God, and not his own Ends, 2 Sam. 6.22. his Kingdom was for ever established unto him, chap. 7.16. Whereas Saul lost his Kingdom by seeking his own Honour, and striving to preserve it without regard to God's Will, 1 Sam 13.13, 14- 15.28, 30. And at last his great Head piece, instead of the Majesty and Honour he sought after, got him but an Ass' head, chap. 16.14. remembering his men no more, chap. 17.58. though before he loved them, and was by them diverted, chap. 16.21. Whereas when he went to work without any policy, sought after Asses only, he got a Kingdom besides, and Honour, and Majesty: and he might have secured it to him, and his for ever, by using the same method as he did when he got it; that is, by seeking still after his Father's Asses, or using an Asinine, and a Dovelike Industry and Prudence, Math 10.16. without cunning: or (as one that is employed by another in seeking) by being always ready to give him what he hath found; and so to yield up to God, who is the Father of Kings, and by whom they are set up in this World to do his Work, all their Kingdom, Power, Glory, and their Life itself. But the contrany way, which is called in Scripture the way of Jeroboam, is so natural to Kings, that of the 40 Kings who Reigned after David over the two Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, we find but One in Seven avoided falling in it. And, in tempore suo dicetur Israeli, in its time it shall be told the true Israel of God, how many such Kings are found in the Chronicles of England, Numb. 23.23. For we are not without hope that His present Majesty will make one of that Number; which God, who turneth the Hearts of Princes as He pleaseth, grant Him in his great Mercy: or else there is but one Law, Esth. 4.11. the Fate of Jeroboam follows Jeroboam's way, for surely his History was not written in vain. But in vain is salvation hoped for from hills of Gold, and from numerous Armies, see Jer. 3.23. and my Dedicatory Epistle to the late King, and Sir Walter Raleighs Preface to his History; where I have read these words: una dies, hora, momentum, evertendis dominationibus sufficit, quae adamantinis videbantur radicibus esse firmatae. What he that doth not see now to be true, is more than blind, or hath been in a deep Sleep ever since October last.  
But, to conclude this Discourse; as by a thorough dying comes the full light of Wisdom, so without dying in part, or some such degree of true Mortification, as is the pricking of heart, or contrition, in the Acts 2.37. (which the modern French Prophets are gone through, as it appears by their printed Relation) there is not any part of Wisdom to be looked for; though a Man should be taught of all the Learned in the World: but scraps of Learning enough; and the vain deceit, whereof Coloss. 2.8. to wit, Logical Sophisms. Which is all I hereby understood, and nothing else.  
The Application of this to England, is not so hard to do as the thing itself. That which I make of it is this, to wit, this Doctrine must be either true or false. If false, than God's Word is false; for these things are verbatim, or almost verbatim contained in the Scriptures; this being but a kind of Paraphrasis upon it: And Nature itself is false; that is, not such as it is; for it works no other way in the Regeneration and Generation of Things than what I have described: Only, as natural Things, such as Herbs and Minerals, never fell from their Principle, that is, the same kind of Life they originally had, to another worse Principle, or kind of Life and Being than their own, as Adam did, though they sell with him under the bondage of corruption, Rom. 8.21. (for neither the Corruption nor Exaltation of things, changeth their Kind or Genus) but live still of the same Life, and keep in the same Principle as they lived in from the first; that is, in the Principle and Life of this outward World: so, they go not out of it into another new kind of Life, when they are by Art purified and exalted) it may be abusively called Regenerated) and begin not a new Life, but only have the old one made better and reform; and therefore they need not go again through the sierce Fire (where all things generally begin their Life, and from whence they take the first rise of their Life, or their Original) as the Soul of Man must do, (by reason that, as it fell from a whole Principle, or kind of Being, to another, that is, from the Divine Life in the Principle of the Light, to this present beastly Life in the Principle of this World; it is not enough for it to have the old one mended; it must begin a new one, and pass from that it fell to, to that kind which it fell from: whence Repentance implies more than a bare Reformation, and mending of the old Life; for, to tell the truth of it, it is a new Creation, Psal. 51.10. Ephes. 4.24.) But they may be more fitly purified and exalted by frequent Inhumations and Dipping in the water; without perceptible heat; which in the birth of Water cannot but be offensive. For though the Chemists calcine or burn their things with Fire, yet the Wisemen ever did burn or calcine with Water: and they cry, tere, tere; & imbibe, imbibe. But when this outward Principle, the World, shall be totally delivered from the Bondage and Curse of its Corruption, (the density, compactness, and hardness of its Body) into the glorious liberty of God's Children, (a thin transparent Body) and so shall pass from this kind of Being to a new one, than it shall again go through the fierceness of the Fire; then the Elements shall melt with fervent heat, saith Peter, 2.3, 10. and the Earth shall be burnt up, and shall be, with the waters, reduced again into a glorious Quintessence, on which the ransomed of the Lord shall stand with songs, and with joy upon their heads, Rev. 15.2. Isa. 35.10. Matth. 5.5.  [As there are three distinct kinds of Lives (as, I have said already in the Twelfth Page) all created things live of, and are, as by so many Classes, distinguished by, and comprehended under, as so many Species under their Genus or Kind; so there be three several Principles, according to some; which give all created things their specisick Form of Life, and determinate all those which are within their Classis, after their own Property. And they may well be called Principles, so long as all things have their Life in and from them; and so long as these three Lives are the Original Being or State, things fell in, or betook themselves unto from their first Original. The first is the Fire Life, or the Principle of Fire; common to all living things, for as much as they all take from them the Original and the first Rise of their Life; but proper to the Devils, and the damned Souls only: The second is the Divine Life, or Principle of the Light, wherein the Angels, and Men were perfected, and made good, Gen. 1.31. but, from which both of them fell, Jud. ver. 6. and is proper only to the confirmed Angels, and the Souls of the Faithful. The third is this outward Life, or the Principle of this World, where all things live in the Air of the Spirit which comes down from the Heavens into it: and is proper to the Beasts, and to the present Body of Man, and to all those things which live in it and from it; but became accidental to Man, by reason that he fell into it, as was said. And the first is ascribed to God the Father of Life, as being but a burning, sharp, fierce, and obscure Fire, without the Light of the Son: The second to God the Son, as being the Light of Life, that sweeteneth and perfects it: and the third and last of them to God the Holy Spirit, as being the Conveyer and the Refresher of Life, that brings Life, and preserves it; and that proceeds, like the Air, from the Fire, and the Light of the Father and the Son.] 
For, to enlarge upon this, when God created the world, or (to make the word Create somewhat more intelligible) did make himself manifest, he manifested himself such as he is in himself; that is, by a Trinity in Unity, Fire, Light, and Spirit, in one Being. Therefore he make three Spring Heads, or Prineiples of all Things, three Throne-Angels with their Worlds. Michael, the mighty strong Prince, after the fierce Nature and Property of Fire: Lucifer, the lovely, the bright, and most glorious Prince, after the pleasant nature and property of the Light: and Vriel, the Well-doer, or the Introducer and Conveyer of the Light, or of all the pleasantness and good that comes from the Light, after the beneficent Nature of the Holy Ghost: each one a distinct Principle, and all the three together making up one Unity, or total Being, like God; to wit, the invisible and intelligible World; and comprehending in them the whole Creation of God; and each of them consisting of Fire, Light, and Spirit. For, as the end of Nature, alias of the Nasciture (Manifestation) of God, was to communicate his Summum Bonum (Himself) to all created Being's, his Will and Purpose was not that the Principle of Fire, Evil, should predominate, and subsist in any thing by itself without the Light, but that the Light should take place, and the Angels with their Worlds should become such as God is, a most joyful Being, and a pleasant Paradise. Therefore, though God created each in a distinct Principle, yet he made each of them; that is Michael, as well as Vriel and Lucifer, to consist of those three things; and to pass immediately from the Fire to the Light; and to send forth or exhale (like the Sun) out of himself a Spirit into his Sphere, to vivify, and to seed and sustent it all over. Upon which, saith Trismegist, Omnia lux fuerunt, vel in lumen conversa, jucundum & suave nimium Spectaculum! For God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all, 1 John 1.5. And all things had for ever continued in this same state, if Lucifer, who being the most glorious of the three, had not admired himself, and instead of loving and admiring God for it, and of seeking God's Kingdom and Glory more than his own, fallen in love with his own self; whence he (as a Man in love doth, by his longing, attract what he loves into himself, and his Soul, saith the Scripture, 2 Sam. 13.39. doth, as it were, issue out, or go forth to join with it) drew himself into himself; and by the astringency of his Lust or Desire, (for Lust or Desire is astringent and attractive) filling, or impregnating, and offuscating himself; as one that dotes upon that which he loves, whether it be Man, Woman, Gold or Silver, cannot receive in his mind any other thing but that; his mind runs upon nothing but his beloved treasure; and is wholly taken up with it; Matth. 6.21. he becomes pensive, and as it were overcast with a thick Cloud or dark Mist; so he was offuscated, and became cloudy and dark; and as the more he lusted and drew, the more and thicker the Clouds did gather and grow, whereby a Heat and Burning was excitated in him, and he was reinflamed; as it doth happen to those who having kept their Lusts a good while under Hatches, break out into the more violent heat and passion; and to a wet heap of Hay, Fruits, Flowers, and other things, which are apt to ferment, and to grow hot of themselves, by reason that the Vapour or the Cloud that comes from them, during their Fermentation, being kept within the heap (by the Contiguity and Coherence of its parts, which affords no passage or way for Transpiration) grows there thicker and thicker. And withal he set his Sphere (which being a thin Matter, was as apt as any Smoke is, to take Flame) on Fire: whereby the Matter thereof (which was very thin and subtle) was concocted and hardened, its lose parts were compacted into a closer texture and Consistence than before; and some of them were hardened and coagulated into Earth, Stones, etc. by the strong astringency of his sharp austere Fire: as you see that, of Water (which is an Air, or rather a thin Vapour condensed) is made an Ice, and an Oil: the Ice, for want of a heat able to melt or thaw it, is hardened into Crystal; the Oil, by due concoction, becomes a Salt and an Earth; and this Earth, by a strong heat, is hardened into a Brick: and that thus out of the Clouds, by the Fire that breaks out of them, and compacts the thin and most earthy parts of them, into a hard Lump or Stone, Thunderbolts are produced. By which means Lucifer's Sphere, (which is this visible World, for he is still Prince of it, John 12.31.) and with it all the Concretes, became palpable or tangible: Thus this world was created; a third Principle produced; thus the Principle of Fire came to be creaturely; and thus Evil begun and subsists now in the world; And ex invisibili, this world was thus made visible: that is, after the Light was made to shine in it again. For until it pleased God to reveal his Light therein, Gal. 1.16. there was nothing but a sharp, dark, grim, austere Face over, and through the whole Deep or Sphere; Vmbra horrenda mortis; and, an inflamed Devil, burning very terribly, and furiously storming and casting his fiery darts or flames into all its parts, and as far as God himself. But then God (whose Nature, Will, Power, and Act, is but one and the same thing at all times) resisting by his Nature, which is the Summum Bonum, the opposite Will, Nature, and Power of Lucifer, made the Light (which is the end of Nature) to overcome; to thaw this stiff frozen World; and to spring a second time, even through this Death and Hell, into a new Paradise; and glorified it again, by casting out the Prince of this world, John 12. 28, 31. into his darkness, or dark Fire for ever, 2 Pet. 2 4. because he was the Author of such Fire in Nature, and had changed the Pulchrum and the Bonum of the Light, the good and the delightsom, into darkness and evil; and by destroying the Light, had killed God in himself. For God is the Light, that is, the good and the bliss of Life, who, by living in Angels and Men, makes them live happy; and therefore when they kill him, as do all those that put out their Light, that is, fall again when they have been enlightened Hebr. 6.6. he never more lives in them; and they live no more, but die, laying in a continual horror, darkness and anguish. Thus, as Lucifer had been, by rekindling his Fire, the Originator, or the occasional cause of this 3d Principle, the World; so, God, by opening again the Principle of Light therein, created and perfected the same into a Principle; which was mixed as it is now, that is, did partake of both Principles of good and evil: whereof the Tree of Knowledge in the midst of the Garden was a Sacrament or, Sign: what no other Tree that grew in the same Garden could be, because they sprung like Adam, from the Principle of the Light, which made the Garden to be Eden, or a Paradise.  
It would not be amiss to show here, 

(1) that Adam was created in that Principle, and made a second. Angel in the stead of Lucifer:  
(2) That he fell from it by lusting and attracting, filling, darkening, enflaming of himself, like Lucifer, till his own Light grew so weak and saint that he fell asleep:  
(3) That it was this mixed World which he thus lusted after, imagining into, and looking back into that out of which he was taken, Gen. 2.7. like Lot's Wife into Sodom, instead of looking Eastward, or forwards, towards the light, all the time he was tempted; upon which he fell asleep.  
(4) That upon the biting and swallowing of the Apple, he was seized upon, invaded and infected by the Four Elements, which stamped, per contactum, their mark and badge upon him, as doth the longing Mother upon the Fruit in her womb, clothing him over with this rough, hairy, beastly, or elementary Body; what they could not have done else, having no power at all over him before eating: whereby he became of Isoh (the Divine Man, in the Light) Adam, (the dark, cloudy Man) from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mist, or a Cloud; not from Adamah, the Earth, as our Wisemen make it; for Adamah itself is derived from Adam, as being his Adamah, or the thing Adam dwelled on. And which elementary Body is cut off from him, never to return, or rise again, as the Divines teach; because the Elements themselves, from whence it proceeds, shall pass away for ever, 2 Pet. 3.10: and as it is what kills him, Rom. 7.24. and makes him a fallen Man, a Man of Sorrows and Grief; wretched, dark, and cloudy; he must be delivered from it, and from its bondage, into the glorious Liberty of God's Children, to be happy, or saved. 1 Cor. 6.13.  
(5) That in the cool of the day, that it, after the fierceness of his burning was over, Gen. 3.8. when he was come to the state, or the new birth of water, he heard God speak, and promise to him and to his Children, (to the end God's Will might stand and prevail against the Gates of Hell, and the Devil's Will) the Light, Christ, the third Angel. Who should bring again to him Lise and Immortality, 2 Tim. 1.10. and restore this corrupted hard bound World to its former liberty, the clear brightness it enjoyed before the Fall, or kindling of Lucifer. What he might have some hopes of; whereas Lucifer hath none; because though he had killed God in him, like Lucifer, that is, put out his own Light, yet he was not the Author of the Evil in Nature; had not infected the world, and brought corruption in it; but, on the contrary, the world had infected him, when he tasted of the Apple, and received into him the Sacrament of the Tree, or Fruit of Good and Evil, as being a mixture of both these, and out of which his Body was extracted, Gen. 2.7. whereby he had that in him which drew him, and made him apt to lust and long after it. But these things are too prolix; and therefore to make at once an end of this Digression, and reassume the Discourse of our Application, I say, thus:    
But if what I did speak of be true, how many are mistaken, who, doubtless, think otherwise? And is it not the Duty of them that are in power, both to believe it themselves, and to use the means proper to make others believe it; and to prepare themselves, and become capable and fit for the Birth of the Spirit? To which end, Is not reading the Bible to be promoted; and therefore learning to read to be by Law enjoined? And so should not an Act be made to oblige all People, both Men, Women, and Children in the Land, to learn to read; and to read the Bible at home every Sunday at least: and to appoint some godly discreet Men in each Parish, to go from House to House Catechising, and seeing whether every one reads, and understands what he reads? For why should not England become a Kingdom of Priests? Why should they not hear themselves God speak to them by that Voice which inspired the Penmen of Scripture, 1 Pet. 1.21. out of Scripture, the Voice that Christ's Sheep hear best, John 10.27. what they cannot hope to do, whilst they run from Church to Church, stealing every one God's words from his Neighbour's mouth, Jer. 23.30. and follow after strangers, John 10.5. such as are those that know Christ no better than their Shepherds. I am very confident, that as the Neglect of this is Prima Mali Labes; or the Original Cause of the Smoke of Popery, Fumus ab aquilone, the North is overspread, Isa. 14.31. and of the present darkness and ignorance of God in England and in Ireland; so it is the only means to prevent all Popery, and to make of England a holy Royal Priesthood, 1 Pet. 2.5, 9 And what if it should follow from hence, that the top of the Shepherd's Carmel doth whither, and their Habitations mourn, Amos 1.2. and are lest them desolate. 'Tis but what must come to pass, if the words of Christ be true, Matth. 23.38. and it will also follow that Zion, or the true Church, shall blossom, and bud again, and take root, and fill with fruit the face of the English world, Isa. 27.6. and then their Habitations may become that which they were at the first intended for; Houses for pious Uses, for Charity, and good Works; to entertain the poor, lame, and decrepit Seamen in: who stand more in need of it, and deserve it far better than the dumb, lazy Shepherds; as keeping the Flock safer in its Folds, than those Armies that make the Folds desolate, Luke 21.20.  
But what would become of us? What would at last become of a Flock without Shepherds? To this I reply, First, When Men are all taught of God, they need no other Teacher: and they may be taught of him, by reading of the Scriptures, as well as I have been, who read no other Book of Divinity but that, and was never taught any Divinity in my Life. Secondly, As I grant that all are not taught of God, so you grant, I suppose, that however there will be some that shall be taught of him; who would be able to teach others, and very ready, because they had it freely, to give it again freely, or to teach without reward, Mat. 10 7. What, as the Times go now, the Shepherds cannot well do: for they buy it, pay for it, nay, they give great Rates for it: the Church of Samariae paid dear for an Ass' head, 2 King 6.25. Thirdly, No Kingdom is like a Flock without Shepherd: for it hath always Rulers able to keep good Orders, to encourage. Virtue, to punish and repress Vice, and to compel Men to live within the Bounds of Justice, and o●… common Honesty. And this comes nearer to true Right teousness, and to the true Worship of God in Spirit, tha● when they are permitted to walk after their own Lusts provided they go to Church to mumble, and to hear other mumbling over their Prayers, Mat. 15.8. For when Me● live Righteously, they are fitted thereby for the birth o● the Spirit, Acts 10.35. and to be met with by it, Isa. 64.5▪ and by that knowledge of God, as brings them eternal, an● also temporal Life, and Health, and Felicity, Josh. 1.8. Deu● 28. Matth. 19.29. Whereas when they are suffered t● give way to all their Lusts, as they are now in England God meets them with nothing else than the Smoke that ariseth out of the bottomless Pit, and, with the Locusts, i●… breeds, whose Faces or Appearance are like the Faces o● Men, and whose shapes are like unto Horses prepared t● Battle, Rom. 1.21. Rev. 9.2, 3, 7. that is, with the darkness and abominable Armies of old and new Popery, and tith Divisions and Wars. The Huguenots, Waldenses, and all the Easter Churches have vanished in their time, and made room so other Sects. And so will, I am afraid, the Protestants i● England, except they mend, and return to the ancient Christian way; which is their only sure ground for a last in Settlement and Union amongst themselves. For the Ax● is already laid to the Root of their Tree: God hath begun it in France: and continues in Ireland: and he will finish his work in England, and other parts of the North, except they do prevent him by Repentance. Which God grant is the Prayer, and the main Design of the Author in thi● Writing.  
FINIS.