Imaginary Heaven is not sufficient for to entertain the Lambs wife to refresh the suffering Martyrs to reward God's People God hath provided for those who are as the Apple of his eye who are the Signet on his right hand his Portion his pleasant Portion his Inheritance his Jewels his Royal Diadem other manner of things then these another manner of felicity then the world affords which is but Bracteata saelicitas a felicity but tin'd over which when it is at death worn off the greatest admirers thereof will find that all their life they have been as it were but in a dream they have dreamed of an happy condition they thought themselves to be in but no such-matter The enemies of the Church that had in their hopes and expectations devoured Zion in Isay 29. 1. v. are compared to an Hungry man that dreameth he eateth but when he is awakened his soul is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint and his soul hath appetite And saith that Text So shall the multitude of all Nations be that fight against Mount Zion In a dream a man being hungry and thirsty he dreameth perhaps that he eateth and drinketh and while he sleepeth he hath some imaginary refreshing and satisfaction but â—hen the man awaketh all his eating and drinking proves nothing and his refreshing and satisfaction proves to be a meer delusion and just nothing Thus it is with many men in these Temporal enjoyments their life is but a dream all the while they live they are as men in a dream and are never awaked till they come within the borders of Eternity And what do they dream of what are the thoughts of these dreamers heart They dream that they are some great Ones as Simon Magus thought of himself They dream that therefore God loves them because he hath enriched them They dream that they are happy because they are wealthy Though not all interested in Eternal good things yet they dream of future happiness in Heaven but have no thoughts of future torments in Hell like Joseph who dreamed once and again of his preferment but never of his imprisonment They dream as to their Eternal estate that they are rich and encreased in goods and lack nothing as did the Laodicean Church lying in a deluding dream upon mistake of her Spiritual estate but they are wretched and miserable poor and blind and naked Rev. 3. 17. v. And by these deluding dreams they are taken off looking after the real and Eternal happiness of Heaven As those filthy dreamers Jud. 8 â— despise dominion and speak evil of dignities so these foolish dreamers because they enjoy an Imaginary happiness here in this World set light by the happiness of Heaven These dreams make them to pursue Earthly good things hotly the which without Eternal good things will leave them in Hell certainly And it is to be admired how much these men hugg these shadows and empty shews bow down to these Images and Fictions embrace these Imaginations please themselves with these sigments and fond conceits delight themselves with these vain thinkings and phantasmes It is real truth that the Scriptures those Oracles of truth call the splendid braveries of this world but lucid phantasies the pomp and state of the great ones but a vain shew their glâ—ttering glory but a vanishing appearance Agrippa after a Princely manner and in great state comes to have the hearing of Saint Paul Act. 25. 23. v. but Saint Luke calls all his pompe but a fancy he came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great fantasie or vain-shew And it is as certain a truth that those men who because they possess no small store of Temporal good things apprehend themselves happy will find their apprehensions meer apprehensions their felicity but an Imaginary fancy they will hereafter see that they have been deceived like men in a dream who when they do awake miss of those great things they dreamed of and their raised expectations do sink with disappointment It will be with them as it was with certain Witches I have read of to whom in the night time the Devil did bring to their thinking good pieces of Gold but in the day time when they were awake and they went to make use thereof all proved but withered leaves So now these men please their thoughts with golden matters but at death when they shall pass away as men in a dream and shall not be found Job 20. 8. v. then they will not find that made good and realâ—zed when they awake in the morning of the resurrection which they dreamed concerning Temporal good things in this life then their dreamâ— of happiness will be dashed then they will know what they laboured so much for in the world was but an Imaginary no real good and that Eternal good things were the only good things This very consideration should make all men to set an high rate and price upon Eternal good things this should attract their hearts and draw them to labour after them chiefly and above all things whatsoever and to overlook all the greatest and best things of this life as empty and void of what men expect to be in them and that should make the soul Eternally happy O how should the thoughts hereof make Christians labor and take pains for Heaven and the things of Heaven which are really what the Scripture reports them to be 5. Motive Because Eternal good things only are they that will be for a Christians life How glad are many men when they are got into such a way of liveing as will serve them for their whole life if they have gotten but a Service an Office any preferment or what else they know will be for their life Or if they have but made a good Bargain about a Farm or the like that will help them to live comfortably all the time of the life this much contents them and sets their hearts at rest Christians we are all of us made to abide for ever to live in Eternity What are a few years here unto Eternity What are fourty fifty threescore or an hundred years here if compared to Eternity Old Parr lived an hundred and fifty years but what is that to Eternity The old man of Bengala in the East Indies was three hundred thirty and five years old when he came to the Portugals from whom for his miraculous Age he received a yearly stipend but what is that to Eternity Johannes de temporibus lived three hundred sixty and one years but what is that to Eternity Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years Noah lived nine hundred and fifty years Methusalah lived longest of any even nine hundred sixty and nine years he wanted but thirty one years of a thousand but what is the longest life to Eternity what are a thousand years to spend here we must abide for forever our life hereafter will be Eternal Eternal how long is that nay that
upon it unless when thou hast read it or heard it thou call to mind what thou hast read or heard Thus Davids Godly-man had his delight in the Law of the Lord and therein would meditate day and night Psal 1. 2. What Law this is Davids Godly-man delights so much to meditate in is worth our observing it is not the Canon Law nor the Civil Law nor the Law of the Twelve Tables it is not the Law of the Medes and Persians nor the Law of Nations but it is the Law of the Lord a Law that gives rule to all other Lawes and is it self ruled by no other Law a Law leading to perfect happiness and a Law whereby they must live and be ruled that will be happy David pronounceth his Godly-man to be a blessed man that doth this and the man that doth it after a godly manner does iâ— that he may be blessed he is in some measure a blessed man already but he meditates in the Law of God as one that would be perfectly blessed hereafter 4. Another means he makes use of are both the Sacraments of the Gospel those Seales of the Covenant of Grace and all things therein contained Viz. Baptisme and the Lords Supper I have sometimes wondred at the too usual practise of some that though they will not let their children want the Sacrament of Baptisme yet can themselves be content to be without the Sacrament of the Lords Supper as if that were some unnecessary Ordinance whereas Christ and all spiritual good things are Sacramentally held out as well in the one as in the other as well in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as in the Sacrament of Baptisme But then a Christian labours for Eternal good things when he improves both these Sacraments 1. When he dares not neglect to improve the Sacrament of Baptisme that initiatory Sacrament of the Gospel and first visible act of God's grace whereby he is received into his favour and family and the first visible means whereby God doth apply to him by word sign and Seal the blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins He hath learned in his Catechisme that Baptisme in its general notion is an outward and visible sign or means holding out and giveing some inward and invisible grace and favour conveyed and made over thereby unto him and that thereby he is received into the injoyment of some priviledges and benefits that otherwise are not ordinarily to be had and enjoyed Viz. That by that door God hath let him into the Church opened a gate for him to enter into Christ's fold and assured him that Christ in his life and death is his and that he shall be saved by Christ through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost that he is thereby put into a new state for being before only a child of Adam he is now taken to be a child oâ— God and so stands upon better terms then meer Nature did instate him in That he shall enjoy pardon grace and Salvation and be priviledged from wrath to come he forsaking the Divel the world with all the Lusts oâ— the flesh having no fellowship with the unfruitfulâ— works of darkness and being in every other respect faithful in God's Covenant sealed by Baptisme and following the conduct of the Holy Ghost which in Baptisme seals his Vocation his Justification Adoption Sanctification and all other spiritual priviledges one as well as the other he shall at last be made a possessor of that immortality unto which in Baptisme he had a title given him Now when the hopes of such things and the remembrance of that treble Vow and Covenant which was by others made for him in his Baptisme and by himself at Confirmation or laying on of hands resumed and ratified in every part causes him to cleanse himself from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God to cleave to God faithfully against all the persuasions of the Divel the world and the flesh not to live as if he had been Baptized into the Divels name but as Baptized into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as one that hath put on Christ and entred into Christ's death being buried with Christ in Baptisme and therefore reckons himself to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ Rom. 6. from 3. v. to 8. v. When the thoughts of God's putting his Seal in the way of an Ordinance to ratifie and confirm the Covenant of Grace and all things therein contained do encourage him to wait upon every other ordinance for the gaining all inward prerogatives of Saints by them that at last he may be brought to Mount Zion Heb. 12. 25. to the Souls of just men and to the assemblies of glorified Saints with them to be made a partaker of that life and glory which will be Eternal 2. When he frequently is a guest at the Lord's Table to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper where are opened floods of Honey and Butter for each believer where is food in abundance for the Saints nourishment and growth in Grace Manna that will continue for ever and make believers continue for ever All other food the sweetness of it is gone in a quarter of an hour and the strength of it gone in a few hours But here the believing Soul is fed to everlasting life the sweetness the strength and the comfort of this food endures for ever when the fullest cups shall be emptied and the largest and plentifullest Tables shall be bared then the food to be had at the Lord's Table shall last for ever and be Eternally advantagious to the worthy receiver Then therefore is a Christian at this kind of labour when he comes hungring and thirsting after Christ and all the benefits of his death and passion even as a hungry man comes to his meat or a thirsty man to drink i. e. with an earnest desire desiring this Sacrament and the good things there held as David desired and panted after God Psal 42. 1. 2. As the hart panâ—eth after the water brooks so panâ—eth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God As Jesus Christ did after the Passover Luke 22. 15. With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you also he speaks to his Disciples single desires would not serve his turn his desires are desiring desires beleeving ouâ— Saviour's words of himself John 6. 48 49 50 51. v. I am that bread of Life your fathers did eat Manna in the Wilderness and are dead This is the bread that came down from Heaven that a man may eat thereof and not dy I am the living bread that came down from Heaven If any man eate of this bread he shall live for ever and putting his seal to the words of holy Bernard In hoc sacramento speaking of the Supper non solum quaelibet gratia sed ille in quo
believer assured of such an house read 2 Cor. 5. 1. v. For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens The Soul now dwells in the body which is but as a dark mean decaying old Cottage which is compassed about with bad neighbors The Soul finds the body but a dark habitation dark in comparison of Heaven As that Dutch Divine Bugenhagius said of Luther after he had read his book De Captivitate Babylonica That Luther was in the light but all the world besides in darkness So only those souls by death removed out of the body and now in Heaven They only are in the light but the best of those that yet are in the body are in darkness The body is but a mean habitation for the soul which is of a spiritual and immortal substance to dwell in Eliphaz in Job calls it an house of clay St. Paul in the place last named calls it an Earthly house Solomon calls it nothing but Dust Eccles 12. 7. v it is but a vile body Phil. 3. 21. v. T is but as one says a clay wall encompassing a treasure or a course case of a rich Instrument And that which is yet worse a decaying and ruinous habitation that will shortly moulder to Dust those parcels of dust making up the body that were bound together by the bond of innocency are by sin shaken loose and subject to a continual flux and decay But yet worst of all the Soul finds its dwelling compassed about with bad Neighbors how oft is the Soul whilst living in the body like Lot living in Sodomie even vexed with the filthy conversations of the Sodomites 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. How oft are gracious souls forâ—ed to cry out with David Psal 120. 5. Wo is me â—hat I remain in Mesech and dwell in the Tents of Kedar As bad Neighbors are always wrangling and quarrelling and stirring up discord with those they â—ive near so are wickd men always contesting with â—hese That the soul may truly say as Lamenting Jeâ—emy of the Church of the Jews she dwelleth among the Heathen she findeth no rest all her perâ—ecutors overtake her Lam. 1. 3. v. Much might have been said of the Souls present haâ—itation to make the soul at death willing to remove â—ut of it but what shall I say of that house not made â—ith hands Eternal in the Heavens Is the body a dark house Heaven is a light som house hence it is set forth by the name of Light Col. 1. 12. Saints in Light that is in the glorious Kingdom of heaven And 1 Tim. 6. 16. God is there said to dwell in an unapproachable light there is a perpetual Day without Night there is no night there says St. John Rev. 21 25. v. Though some regions that lye immediately under the Pole have light for several Months together yet when the Sun withdraws from their Horizon they have as long a night and darkness as before they had a day but says St. John There shall be no night there no darkness there Is the body but a mean habitation for the Soul to dwell in Heaven is a most glorious habitation Lactantius beholding the magnificency of Rome said Quomodo caelestis Jerusalem si sic fulget terrestris Roma What an habitation hath God prepared for a Nation that love holyness and truth if he have such things as these for them that love Vanity What was the Temple built by Solomon for the Lord to this coelestial Paradise prepared by the Lord What are the Courts of the greatest Emperors to the Court of the great God what are the stateliest Fabricks in the world if compared with this Eternal house in Heaven Is the body a ruinous house that will shortly moulder into dust Heaven is an everlasting habitation It is called so Luk. 16. 9. v. They may receive you into everlasting habitations so is Heaven called in opposition to Earthly dwellings which though many of them are beautiful and glorious yet shall be laid in the dust Many houses here below may be lasting but not everlasting but this runs parallel with Eeternity The first seat of the first Adam in the first Paradise was without doubt very glorious but not permanent not Eternal this is far better more glorious and Eternal Does the Soul find its present dwelling compassed about with bad Neighbors In Heaven there is good very good neighborhood It is related of Cato an old Roman that he advised in the purchase of a Farme or House that a man should consider of the vicinity or neighborhood there Ne malum vicinum haberet And to that purpose is related the proclamation of Themistocles a famous Athonian Captain in the sale of his Lands that if any man would deal with him he should be sure of a good neighbor There is if I may have leave to say so good neighborhood in Heaven There is God our Father he that begot us again lives in Heaven There is Christ our Elder brother sitting at the right hand of God in Heaven All the Saints departed are now inhabitants of the new Jerusalem which is Heaven And now Christians will it not do a man good that hath a good title to this house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens when he comes to dye and his soul must be removed out of his clay Cottage Death to him will be but a bridg from Wo to Glory a passage out of a Wilderness to Canaan the end of his misery and the beginning of his felicity the conclusion of his labor and the settling himself to rest though death may be a wicked man's fear yet it will be his wish though it be the others shipwrack yet it will be his entering into harbor though it be the others remove from Earth to Hell yet will it be his remove from Earth to Heaven To him death will be gain to the other death will be a loss Death to the wicked man will be a dark and dreadful passage unto the second death and utter Darkness but to him an entrance into Eternal life and an heavenly light Death to the wicked man will put an end to his short joys and begin his everlasting sorrows but to him it will put an end to all sorrows and begin â—his everlasting joys When Valentinian the Emperor was upon his dying bed among all his victories only one comforted him and did him good and that was victory over his worst enemy viz. his own naughty heart So this one thing is enough to comfort a believer and do him good upon his dying bed That having faithfully all his days labored for Eternal good things now that he must dye yet his eyes will be no sooner off these temporal things but they shall behold Eternal objects and the same minute that shuts his eyes shall again open them to behold God and as it determines his misery so it shall