fiery Chariot and be prepared to operate by its nimble and vigorous Organs which till the Soul is rendered more sprightly and active by long and continual exercise will be perhaps two swift for it to keep pace withal It is true the Apostle tells us of some Souls that in an instant shall be fitted for and with these heavenly bodies 1 Cor. 15.51 52. Behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment i. e. those good men who are living just before the Resurrection shall suffer no separation of their Souls from their Bodies but the beggarly vestment of their flesh while it is upon them shall in an instant be transformed into a glorious and immortal Robe which to be sure it would not be unless in the same instant also their Souls were made fit to wear it But then it is to be considered that both will be miraculous And for ought I know it will be as great a Miracle immediately to fit an imperfect Soul for a glorified body as immediately to change a gross and corruptible body into a glorious and immortal one And therefore though some Souls shall be immediately qualified to operate by glorified bodies without any intermediate space of separation yet this being extraordinary and miraculous is only an exception from the general rule of Providence which is to leave things to proceed and act according to the regular course of their Natures and if Souls are so left as ordinarily to be sure they are it is highly requisite that they should be allowed some space of separation from their mortal bodies before they are cloathed with their immortal ones and consequently that this mortal body should be corrupted and dissolved before it is quickened and glorified III. So is the Resurrection of the Dead that is so is this dead corrupted body to be raised and quickned by the power of God so Ver. 37 38. That which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain perhaps of Wheat or of some other grain but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him in which he plainly intimates that as a grain of Wheat sown in the ground is only the Seed or material Principle of the Stalk and Ear that spring up from it but God is the principal efficient cause that forms the matter and enlivens it and causes it to spring up and ripen so though these mortal bodies which we sow in the Grave are the Seed and matter out of which our immortal one shall spring yet it is God that must recollect this matter reduce it into a body again and reunite it to its ancient Soul. For this is such a performance as doth require an Almighty Agent it is he alone can trace our scattered Atoms through all those Generations and Corruptions wherein they have wandered and retrieve them out of all those other bodies whereinto they have been finally resolved It is he alone can separate them into the several Masses whereunto they originally appertained and order distinguish and distribute those rude Masses into their various parts and connect and joyn one part to another It is he alone that can reorganize those undistinguished heaps into humane bodies and reunite them to their Primitive Souls And accordingly we find that this great Article of the Resurrection is in Scripture resolved into the power of God for so our Saviour attributes the Sadduces denial of the Resurrection to their not knowing the Scripture and the power of God Mat. 22.29 which plainly implies that the power of God must be the cause of the Resurrection So 2 Cor. 1.9 S. Paul tells us that he was brought into a great extremity that so he might not trust in himself but in God that raiseth up the dead and 1 Tim. 6.13 I charge thee saith he before God that quickeneth all things And indeed to quicken our bodies when they are dead requires the same power as it did at first to create and form them For as at their first Creation they were formed out of the pre-existing matter of the Earth so at the Resurrection they must be reproduced out of the same matter again and as at the Creation all those distinct kinds of Beings we behold lay shuffled together in one common Mass till the fruitful voice of God separated this united Multitude into their distinct Species so at the Resurrection after these mortal bodies are crumbled into dust and that dust is scattered through all that confused Mass again it is God alone whose powerful voice can command them back again in their proper shapes and call them out again by their single individuals so that as our first existence was only a real Eccho to Gods omnipotent Fiat so will our return into existence be to his Almighty Surge The Scripture indeed seems to affirm that the holy Angels will be imployed in this great transaction though what they are to do in it is not expresly related only 1 Thes. 4.16 the Apostle seems to intimate that their Office will be to collect the scattered relicks of our mortality for there he tells us that the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God upon which the dead in Christ shall rise first Which popular description seems to import that as by a loud voice or a Trumpet it was anciently the custom of the Jews and other Nations to summon Assemblies and particularly by a Trumpet to collect and rally their Armies so at the Resurrection our Saviour by the Ministry of his Angels under the conduct of their Archangel will assemble and rally our scattered Atoms and then by his divine power Organize them into humane bodies again and reunite them to their proper Souls For so Mat. 24.31 Christ tells us that his Angels shall with the sound of the Trumpet gather together his Elect from the four Winds Which if you compare with the above-cited Text you will find that this sound of the Trumpet by which the Elect are to be gathered is to precede their Resurrection and consequently that it is not to gather them when they are raised but to gather them to be raised that is to collect their dispersed dust which hath been blown about upon the Wings of the Wind in order to their being redintegrated into humane bodies and reinformed with their Primitive Souls IV. So is the Resurrection of the dead i. e. so are our dead bodies to be raised again into the proper form and kind of humane bodies and this is implied in ver 38. but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him and unto every Seed his own body i. e. as to the seed of Wheat which dies in the Winter God gives in the Spring the Body or Stalk and Ear of Wheat so to this mortal body which we sow in the Grave God will give at the Resurrection it s own proper and specifick form For the
20.28 not that the Divine Essence can suffer or bleed but being united into one Person with the Humane Nature the Properties of this Nature and also the Actions and Passions thence proceeding may be truly attributed to it and therefore since in the Person of Christ God was united to Man whatsoever his Humanity suffered may be truly called the suffering of God and being so it was a suffering every way equivalent to the Eternal damnation of the whole world of sinners Lastly As he was to appear as our Advocate at the right hand of God it was very fit he should be Man that so as the Apostle discourses having an High Priest that was in all points tempted like as we are as having been placed in our Nature and Circumstances he might be the more affectionately touched with the feeling of our infirmities Heb. 4.15 i. e. that so our nature being a part of himself and that himself having experienced its weakness and infirmity he might be the more nearly concerned for it and be touched with a more tender compassion towards it consequently solicite its cause and interest at the right hand of God with greater zeal and importunity For so the same Author reasons Heb. 3.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted And that he should be God as well as Man is no less requisite to create in us the greater confidence of the success of his Advocation For what Reason or Argument could be great enough to satisfie our guilty and therefore anxious minds that ever a meer man who had nothing beyond our selves to recommend him to God but only his Innocence and Vertue should be able to obtain such a prevailing interest in Heaven as not only to reconcile the Almighty Father of all things to a world of sinful men against whom he was so justly and so highly incensed but also to obtain of him to imbrace them with infinite Love and crown them with eternal Favours which is such a stupendous success as we could scarce have modestly hoped for from the most importunate intercession not only of the best man that ever was upon earth but of the highest Angel in Heaven For unless we could reasonably suppose God to be more pleased with one innocent man or Angel than he is displeased with a world of guilty sinners which is hardly supposable we could have no just ground to hope that the cries of the ones intercessions should be more prevalent with him than the cries of the others guilts But when we consider that he who hath undertaken our cause is the Son of God the Son of his natural Generation that from all Eternity was begotten of his Essence God of God Light of Light very God of very God what may we not expect from the Prayers of one so near and dear to the Eternal Father that is fit either for him to ask or for the Eternal Father to bestow For this we may be confident of that he can never be so highly displeased with us as he is pleased with his own Son who is the stamp of his very Essence and express Character of his Person and that therefore his pleasure in him will be far more prevalent than all his displeasure against us and while it is so we have all the security in the world that he will succeed in his Advocation and prevail in our behalf Thus that Christ should be God-man was in it self highly expedient to qualifie him for all the Parts and Offices of his Mediation and accordingly the holy Scripture expresly declares him to be so For first That he is God is as plainly asserted as any Proposition in the Bible For thus not to instance in the Old Testament where he is frequently stiled Iehovah the incommunicable name of God and the Mighty or Almighty God and Immanuel that is God with us In the New Testament he is not only called God Acts 20.28 where the Pastors are exhorted to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own bloud which can be applied to none but Christ and Iohn 20.28 where Thomas calls him my Lord and my God which Confession of his our Saviour himself approves Verse 29. but moreover he is called the true God 1 John 5.20 And we are in him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ he is the true God and eternal life and God over all blessed for ever Rom. 9.5 and accordingly the Father himself is brought in thus bespeaking him Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever Heb. 1.8 where his design is to shew the excellency of Christ above the Angels for saith he in Verse 7. Of the Angels he saith who maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God c. which stile O God here must necessarily import something greater than was ever attributed to Angels and consequently something greater than a Nominal or Titular Deity which our Adversaries in this Article allow was frequently given to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament If therefore that Angel of the Lord were a meer created Angel as they affirm he had as much attributed to him as our Saviour unless we suppose this stile O God to import real and essential Deity and not meerly nominal So also Iohn 1.1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. For the clearing of which noble Text which our Adversaries with a world of Art have indeavoured to perplex and intangle it is to be considered that this Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word was a term of Art by which in that very Age when this Gospel was written and long before and after it both the Iewish and Heathen Writers were wont to express and signifie a divine Person by whom the Ancient Jews understood the Messias who is that very Person the Apostle here treats of Since therefore by this Phrase the Word both Jews and Gentiles when S. Iohn wrote this Gospel understood a divine Person and since by this divine Person the Jews understood the Messias there is no reason to imagine that S. Iohn here meant it in any other signification since in so doing he could not but foresee he should impose upon the World and take an effectual course to make us believe he meant what he never intended For he is so far from explaining this Phrase into any different sence from that of the Jewish and Gentile Writers that he all along explains himself in the very same Now it is hardly to be imagined by any one whose mind is not deeply tinctured with Heretical Pravity but that had the Apostle
for our sakes or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son and confining his Son to dispence it to us only upon the conditions of the New Covenant to flatter our selves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent is to presume both against reason and possibility IV. This way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the mediation of Christ is also most apt in it self to encourage us to approach him with Chearfulness and freedom For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to mens minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God and whilst we are under such thoughts of him how is it possible for us to approach him immediately and without any Friend or Advocate to introduce and speak for us with any chearfulness or freedom For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God purely upon my own fund or interest when I am conscious of a thousand times more evil in me to provoke him against me than of good to recommend me to his favour Unless therefore I am secured of some powerful friend in Heaven that is infinitely more acceptable to God than I can modestly hope to be and that will agitate for me and solicite my cause with all his power and interest my sense of the innumerable provocations I have given him to turn his back upon me must either render me quite desperate of success at the Throne of his grace or cause me to approach it with unspeakable horrour and confusion So that my intercourse with God must either be wholly interrupted or rendred very difficult and uneasie to me because my slavish dread of him must either chase me from his Altars or drag we to them with violence and reluctancy And hence it is that under the sense of our guilt we naturally fly to the Intercessions of others whom we believe to have more interest with God than our selves because we cannot modestly promise our selves a free admittance and access to him upon our own account Which probably was the Reason of the first institution of Demon-worship among the Heathens whose minds being stung with the sense of their own guilts they were not able to approach God without fearful despondence and anxiety whereupon they began to cast about as it is natural for guilty minds to do how they might procure some other Beings that were in great favour with God to interpose with him in their behalf and having learned by an universal Tradition that there was a sort of middle Beings called Angels or Demons between the Sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with Sacrifices and sacred honours to intercede with God in their behalf And hence Apuleius de Daemon Soc. calls these Demons Mediae potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeant inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrumque interpretes salutigeri i. e. They are middle powers by whom our desires and merits are presented to the Gods they go between Heaven and Earth and carry from hence the Prayers of men and from thence the Gifts of God from Earth they go with Petitions and from Heaven they return with Supplies or they are the Interpreters of both Worlds that do continually carry and report the mutual salutations of both to each other By which it is evident that they thought it very necessary in order to God's accepting their addresses that they should be presented and recommended to him by some better Beings than themselves their guilty minds it seems suggesting to them that it would be high presumption for such great offenders as themselves to approach the divine Majesty without being introduced and Patronized by some more pure and holy Beings And I am very apt to think that the great cause of that Spirit of bondage which possessed the ancient Iews and rendred them so diffident and tremulous in all their approaches to God was their want of an explicite knowledge of the Mediator For what dismal and melancholy expostulations do we frequently meet with in their addresses to God such as Wilt thou be angry for ever Hast thou forgotten to be gracious Wilt thou remember thy loving kindness no more Which plainly shews that their guilt suggested to them such frightful apprehensions of God as did very much cramp their hope and confidence in him And hence the Apostle opposes this Spirit of bondage in them to that Christian Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father i. e. by which we approach God with great freedom and assurance and go to him as Children to a kind and merciful Father Rom. 8.15 Now if you would know from whence this Christian freedom and assurance proceeds the Author to the Hebrews will inform you Heb. 10.21 22. Having therefore an High-Priest over the houshold of God i. e. to mediate and intercede for us let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and Heb. 4.14 15 16 the Apostle urges our having a compassionate High-Priest in Heaven to intercede for us as an argument to encourage us to come boldly to the Throne of grace And indeed what greater encouragement can we have to draw nigh unto God with an humble confidence than this consideration that the highest Favourite he hath in Heaven or Earth is our Advocate and that he is not only infinitely concerned for us as being akin to us by nature and having a compassionate sense of our infirmities that he doth not only imploy in our behalf all the favour and interest he hath with God as he is the Son of his Essence and the Object of his delight but that he ever intercedes for us in the right and vertue of that Meritorious Sacrifice with which he bought and purchased all those heavenly blessings he intercedes for So that now all we have to do is to return to God by an unfeigned repentance which if we do he stands engaged to undertake our cause and what may we not expect from the Patronage of so great and powerful a Mediator For how great soever our past sins are his interest in Heaven is far greater how loud and clamorous soever our past Provocations are his Bloud and Wounds are far louder and how importunately soever our past guilts may imprecate the divine Vengeance upon us his Intercessions do far more importunately and prevalently deprecate it So that now we cannot reasonably doubt of a free admission to God in any case whatsoever wherein our Saviour will make use of his interest for us with God and therefore since in all cases he doth continually imploy his interest for us but only in that of our impenitence every Penitent
some terrible assault from these Infernal Powers so he tells his Disciples just before he went thither Hereafter I will not talk much with you for the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me i. e. give me leave now to discourse freely with you because within a very little while I shall be so engaged that I shall not be at leisure to discharge my mind to you for the Prince of Devils is just now mustering up all his Legions against me and is coming to make his last effort upon me but this is my comfort he will find nothing in me no sinful inclination to take part with him no guilty reflection to expose me to his Tyranny Iohn 14.30 and accordingly Luke 22.53 when the Jews had apprehended him he expostulates the case with them why they did not lay hands on him before when he was daily with them in the Temple and then answers himself But now is your hour and the power of darkness as much as if he should have said I need not wonder you did not seize me sooner for this alas is the appointed time wherein my Father had decreed to let loose the Devils and you upon me Which plainly shews that in that dismal hour he was assaulted by the Devils as well as by the Iews for in all probability those crafty and sagacious spirits had smelt out the merciful design of his approaching death viz. that it was to be a ransom for the sins of the World and therefore though they were desirous enough of his death as is apparent by their animating Iudas and the Jews against him yet dreading the end and intention of it they resolve to imploy all their Art and Power to tempt and deter him from undergoing it and either to prevail with him to avoid it by a shameful Recantation or at least not to consent to it that so being forced and involuntary it might be void and ineffectual In which black design of theirs God himself thought meet so far to favour them as to give them his free permission to try him to the utmost that so having experienced in himself the utmost force of Temptation that Humane Nature is liable to he might thereby be touched with a more tender sympathy with it or as the Author to the Hebrews expresses it That having suffered himself being tempted he might be able to succour them that are tempted Chap. 17.18 But then secondly if we consider the woful Circumstances of his Agony it is evident that it was the effect of some far more powerful cause than meerly a natural fear of his ensuing Death and bodily Torment for no sooner was he entered on that Tragick Stage but he began to be sorrowful saith S. Matthew Chap. 26.37 or to be sore amazed as S. Mark Chap. 14.33 or to be very heavy as both which words according to their native signification declare him to have been all on a sudden oppressed with some mighty damp which arising from some fearful spectacle or imagination overwhelmed his Soul with an unknown and inexpressible anguish an Anguish that sunk and depressed him into as deep a dejection as it was possible for an innocent mind to endure causing him to groan out that sad complaint My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. My Soul is encompassed with grief and like a desolate Island surrounded on every side with an Ocean of sorrows and that even unto death as if it had been strugling under some mortal Pang and the pains of Hell had got hold upon it And so intolerable was his Passion that though he liberally vented it both at his Eyes and Lips in Tears and Sighs and sorrowful complaints yet that was not a sufficient discharge for it but through all the innumerable Pores of his body it poured out it self as it were in great drops of bloud Luke 22.44 All which considered I can by no means think that that which occasioned this bitter Agony was meerly the prospect of what he was going to suffer from the hands of men since not only some Martyrs but some Malefactors have suffered much more with less dejection and if you consult the History you will find that he bore his death far better than his Agony from whence we have just reason to believe that the later was more grievous to him than the former and that the Crucifixion of his body on the Cross was nothing near so painful to him as the crucifixion of his mind in the Garden And since his sufferings in his Agony are described with more Tragical Circumstances than his sufferings on the Cross we have just reason to conclude they were inflicted on him by more spiteful and powerful executioners and consequently that he endured the Tortures of men only on the Cross but of Devils in the Garden where being left all alone naked and abandoned of the ordinary supports of his Godhead and having only an Angel to stand by and comfort him i. e. to represent such considerations to him of the benefits and advantages of his Death as were most proper to fortifie him against the Temptations which the Devils were then urging to deter him from it he was in all probability surrounded with a mighty Host of Devils who exercised all their power and malice to persecute his innocent soul to distract and fright it with horrid Phantasms to afflict it with dismal suggestions and vex and cruciate it with dire imaginations and dreadful spectacles Thirdly If we consider that strange unaccountable drowsiness which seized his Disciples whilst he was in his Agony it seems to have been the effect of a Diabolical power for before he entered into the Garden he had expresly told them that the Hour was come wherein he was to be taken from them by an untimely death so that one would have thought the dear love which they bore him together with the infinite Concern they had in him might have been sufficient to have kept them awake for a few hours yet notwithstanding he desired them to watch with him being loth it seems to be left alone in a dark night among a company of horrid and frightful Spectres upon his return to them he found them fast asleep and though he gently upbraided them with their unkindness What could ye not watch with me one hour Yet he no sooner left them but they fell asleep again for as the Text tells us their eyes were heavy Heavy indeed that could not hold up for a few hours upon such an awakening occasion It is true indeed S. Luke attributes this prodigious drowsiness of theirs to their sorrow and so it is usual in Scripture to put the apparent cause for the real when the real cause is secret and invisible But how can we imagine that meer sorrow should necessitate three men to fall asleep together under the most awakening Circumstances all things considered that ever hapned to Mortals Why did it not as well force them
by an Angel requiring him to send to Ioppa for St. Peter to instruct him in the Christian Religion in Acts 10.3 4 5. But since that Christ hath revealed his whole Will to his Church and transmitted it down by a standing Scripture this Ministration of the holy Angels is in a great measure ceased and to this written Word of his we are intirely referred as to the perpetual Rule of our Faith and Manners insomuch that if thenceforth even an Angel from heaven should preach any other Gospel to us than what we have there received he is pronounced accursed Gal. 1.8 Not but that sometimes and upon great Emergencies they may be still sent from heaven with new Messages to us to discover some useful secret or to inspire our minds with the notices of some future contingencies that are of great moment to us though this very rarely it being no part of their ordinary Ministry But since the Revelation of the Gospel was compleated to be sure they never reveal any new Doctrine to us they may be assisting Geniuses to our understandings to excite in them a true apprehension of what is already revealed by impressing our imaginations with clear and distinct Idea's and Representations of things that are revealed more obscurely But to suppose that they still reveal new Doctrinal truths to us is not only to deny the perfection of written Revelation but to open a wide door to all manner of Enthusiasm II. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their guarding and defending his Subjects against outward dangers for thus the Angels are said to encamp round about those that fear God to deliver them Psal. 34.7 And though I see not sufficient reason to be fully persuaded that every faithful Subject of the Kingdom of Christ hath an appropriate Guardian Angel appointed to him yet from that Caution of our Saviour Matt. 18.10 it is evident that he imploys his Angels to attend as an invisible Lifeguard upon the persons of all good Christians for saith he Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven i. e. those blessed spirits which are appointed by God to be their Guardians upon Earth have yet their continual returns and recourse to God's glorious Presence in Heaven and having always access to him to offer up requests or complaints in their behalf it must needs be a very dangerous thing for any to presume to despise or offend them lest he thereby provoke those mighty spirits to sue out and execute some Commission of vengeance upon him From whence it is evident that the blessed Angels are greatly concerned in the vindication and protection of the faithful and that that promise Psal. 91.10 11 12. is still in force viz. There shall no evil befal thee for he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways they shall bear thee up in their hands left thou dash thy foot against a stone And this they do sometimes by removing such evil accidents from us as in the course of necessary causes must have befaln us for there is no doubt but these powerful Spirits have a mighty influence upon necessary causes at least upon a great many of them and can retard or precipitate or vary or divert their motions as they see occasion and thereby prevent a great many accidents which must otherwise have befaln had they permitted them to proceed in their natural courses Other times again they divert the mischievous intentions of our Enemies by injecting sudden fears into them and brandishing horrid Phantâ—sms before their imaginations as the Angel did the flaming Sword before Balaam when they are just upon executing their Malice Sometimes again they warn us of dangers approaching either by some external sign or unaccountable impression on our fancies by which we are vehemently solicited without any visible Cause or Reason either to proceed very cautiously in the ways where our danger lies or to stop and forbear a while or steer some other course Of all which there are innumerable instances to be found in History III. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their supporting and comforting his faithful Subjects upon difficult undertakings and under great and pressing Calamities for thus not only our Saviour himself was comforted in his last Agony by an Angel from Heaven Luk. 22.43 but St. Paul also tells us that being in imminent danger of being shipwreck'd in a storm in his voyage to Rome there stood by him in the night an Angel of God whose he was and whom he served saying fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God hath given thee all them that sail with thee Acts 27.23 24. So also when the Apostles by an Order from the High Priest were cast into the common Prison the Text tells us That an Angel of the Lord by night opened the Prison doors and brought them forth and said go stand and speak in the Temple to the People all the words of this life Acts 5.19 20. So also in the ancient Martyrologies of the Church we meet with sundry relations of the appearances of Angels to the suffering Martyrs and of the wonderful Comforts they administred to them to support their Faith and Patience under their Agonies and Torments And although since the Cessation of Miracles they do not Ordinarily perform this Ministry to us in visible appearances yet there is no doubt but as they are Spirits they have spiritual and invisible ways of conversing with our Spirits and of administring Comforts to us in our needs and extremities for though they can have no immediate access to our mind which is a dark Mysterious Chamber into which no other Eye can penetrate but his who is the searcher of all hearts yet that they can vehemently impress our Fancies with joyous Representations and thereby exhilarate our drooping spirits to that degree as to transport us into Raptures of bodily passion is not to be doubted there being so many sensible experiments of it in the ancient Prophets whose imaginations were sometimes so vehemently impressed with frightful Idea's by the Angels which conversed with them as that they immediately fell into an Agony and were seized with unaccountable horrors and tremblings and not only the Prophets themselves that saw the Angel were thus affected but sometimes their Companions too that saw him not of which you have an instance in Dan. 10.7 where Daniel tells us that he alone saw the vision of the Angel and that the men that were with him saw not the Vision but a great quaking fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves which is a plain evidence of the great power which the Angels have over our bodily passions even when they are invisible to us so as to strike what note soever they please upon
judgment seat whence every Eye shall see him shine in his own his Fathers and his Angels glory who in a bright Corona shall sit round about him like so many Stars about a Sun and where as the Prophet Daniel describes him Chap. 7. ver 9 10. he shall exhibit himself to publick view cloathed in garments as white as snow with the hair of his head like the pure wooll sitting on a Throne like the fiery flame and its Wheels as burning fire with a fiery stream issuing out from before him and a thousand thousands ministring unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him whilst the Iudgment is set and the Books are opened And thus I have given a brief account from Scripture of the manner and circumstances of his coming from whence I proceed to the IV. And last general I proposed to treat of viz. to explain the whole Process of this Iudgment And that we may proceed herein the more distinctly we will consider it with respect to those twofold objects viz. the Righteous and the Wicked about which it is to be exercised for it is plain from Scripture that they are not to be judged promiscuously one among another as they come but the Sheep are to be separated from the Goats the Good from the Bad and to be tried and sentenced apart from one another Mat. 25.32 33. And he i. e. the Son of Man shall separate them from one another as a Shepherd divideth his Sheep from the Goats and he shall set the Sheep on his Right hand and the Goats on the left in which separation the precedency will be given to the Sheep or Righteous who are to be judged first for so the Scripture assures us that the dead in Christ are to rise first and that after they have undergone their Iudgment they are immediately to be wasted up into the Air there to meet the Lord and to sit as Assessors with him in that Judgment which he shall afterwards pass upon the wicked vid. 1 Thes. 4.15 16 17. compared with 1 Cor. 6.2 In explaining therefore the Process of this Iudgment we will treat of it in the same order wherein it will be transacted beginning first with the Iudgment of the Righteous in which according to the Scripture-account of it there are these five things implied 1. Their Citation or Summons 2. Their personal Appearance before the Judgment Seat. 3. Their Trial. 4. Their Sentence 5. Their Assumption into the clouds of heaven I. This Judgment of the Righteous includes their Citation or Summons which as was observed before is to be performed by the Voice or Trump of the Archangel i. e. by an Audible shout or noise made by the Prince of Angels and sounding throughout the Universe like the mighty blast of a Trumpet For as it was anciently the manner of Nations to gather their Assemblies by the sound of a Trumpet so by the same sound the Scripture tells us God will assemble the world of men to judgment and that this shall be a real Audible sound like that of a Trumpet though proceeding from no other instrument than that of the Archangels mouth I see no reason to doubt because with such a noise we read God did descend upon Mount Sinai Exod. 19.16 and why may we not as well understand the one in a literal sense as the other it being no more improper in the nature of the thing for God to proclaim by such a sound his coming to judge the World than it was his coming to give Laws to Israel But then together with this mighty Voice or Trump of the Archangel there shall proceed from Christ a divine power even his holy Spirit by which he raised himself from the dead by whose omnipotent Agency all those holy Reliques of the bodies of his Saints which are now scattered about the world shall be gathered up reunited and reorganized into glorious bodies for so the Apostle attributes the Resurrection of our bodies to the Holy Ghost Rom. 8.11 For if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in us he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in us and the old materials of their bodies being thus reunited and reformed by the powerful energy of the Holy Ghost accompanying the sound of the Archangels Trump those Saintly Spirits which anciently inhabited them and which are now come down from heaven with their Saviour shall every one re-enter its own proper body and animate it with immortal vigour and activity and whilst the dead Saints are thus arising those who shall then be living and have not tasted death shall by the same Almighty Power be changed transformed and glorified in the twinkling of an eye 1 Cor. 15.51 52. which being transacted they shall all be gathered together by the Ministry of the holy Angels from all parts of the Earth before the judgment Seat of Christ Mat. 13.27 For II. This Iudgment of the Righteous doth also include their personal Appearance before the Judgment Seat. What this Iudgment Seat will be hath been briefly hinted before viz. a vast body of luminous aether condensed into the form of a bright and radiant Cloud and placed in the Region of the Air at a convenient distance from the Earth streaming with light from every part and casting forth an unspeakable glory for which cause it is called the Throne of his glory and is described by S Iohn to be a great white or refulgent Throne Rev. 20.11 out of which Lightnings and Thunders are said to proceed Rev. 4.5 which implies that it will be a Cloud it being from Clouds that Thunders and Lightnings do proceed And before this glorious Tribunal or bright Iudgment-Seat shall all the Assembly of the Righteous appear to undergo a merciful Trial and receive a happy Doom Here shall the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs the holy Church throughout all the World both Militant and Triumphant meet and in one entire body present themselves before their blessed Redeemer who looking down from his exalted Throne shall at one view see all the Congregation of his Saints before him and with infinite complacency surveigh the fruit of the travel of his Soul and the mighty purchase of his precious bloud for so the Apostle tells us that we must all stand before his Iudgment Seat. Rom. 14.10 III. This Iudgment of the Righteous doth also include their Trial for so the Apostle assures us We must all appear i. e. we Righteous as well as others before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body 2 Cor. 5.10 which plainly implies that even the Righteous shall undergo an impartial trial of their deeds that so they may receive a reward proportionable to them and more expresly Rom. 14.12 he tells us that we must every one of us give an account