Mal. 3.17 The world is the shrine or Cabinet where God locks up these jewels for a time The world is yours it was made for you The creation is but a theatre to act the great work of Redemption upon The world is the field the Saints are the corn the ordinances are the showers the mercies of God are the Sunshine that ripens this corn death is the sickle that cuts it down the Angels are the harvesters that carry it into the barn The world is yours God would never have made this field were it not for the corn growing in it What use then is there of the wicked They are as an hedge to keep the corn from forrain invasions though oft-times they are a thorn-hedge Quest. But alas a childe of God hath oft the least share in the world how then is the world his Answ. If thou art a believer that little thou hast though it be but an handfull of the world it is blest to thee If there be any consecrated ground in the world that is a believers The world is yours Esau had the venison but Iacob got the blessing a little blest is sweet A little of the world with a great deal of peace is better then the revenues of unrighteousnesse Every mercy a childe of God hath swims to him in Christs blood and this sauce makes it relish the sweeter Whatever he tastes is seasoned with Gods love he hath not only the mercy but the blessing So that the World is a Believers An Unbeliever that hath the World at will yet the World is not his he doth not taste the quintessence of it Thornes and thistles doth the ground bring forth to him He feeds upon the fruit of the curse I will curse your blessings he eats with bitter herbs So that properly the World is a Believers He only hath a Scripture-tenure and that little he hath turnes to creame Every mercy is a present sent him from heaven 2. All things that fall out in the World are for your good 1. The want of the World all is for your good 2. The hatred of the World all is for your good 1. The want of the World is for your good By wanting the honours and revenues of the World you want the temptations that others have Physicians observe that men die sooner by the abundance of blood then the scarcity 't is hard to say which kills most the sword or surfet A glutton with his teeth digs his own grave The world is a silken net the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Him whom I shall kisse saith Judas take him so whom the world kisseth it often betrayes The want of the world is a mercy 2. The Hatred of the world is for your good Wicked men are instruments in Gods hand for good albeit they mean not so they are flails to thresh off our husks files to brighten our graces leeches to suck out the noxious blood Out of the most poisonful drug God distils his glory and our salvation A childe of God is beholding even to his enemies The ploughers ploughed upon my back if they did not plough and harrow us we should bear but a very thin crop After a man hath planted a tree he prunes and dresseth it Persecutors are Gods pruning-hook to cut off the excrescencies of sin and evermore the bleeding vine is most fruitful the envy and malice of the wicked shall do us good God stirred up the people of Egypt to hate the Israelites and that was a meanes to usher in their deliverance The frownes of the wicked make us the more ambitious of Gods smile their incensed rage as it shall carry on Gods decree for while they sit backward to his command they shall row forward to his decree so it shall have a subserviency to our good Every crosse winde of providence shal blow a believer neerer to the port of glory What a blessed condition is a child of God in kill him or save him alive it is all one The opposition of the world is for his good The world is yours §. 3. Shewing That life is a believers 3. The next thing is Life is yours Hierome understands it of the life of Christ. It is true Christs life is ours the life which he lived on earth and the life which he now lives in heaven his satisfaction and his intercession both are ours and they are of unspeakable comfort to us But I conceive by life in the text is meant Natural life that which is contradistinguished to death So Ambrose But how is life a Beleevers Two wayes 1. The priviledge of life is his 2 The comfort of life is his 1. The priviledge of life is a believers that is life to a childe of God is an advantage for heaven this life is given him to make provision for a better life Life is the porch of Eternity here the Believer dresseth himself that he may be fit to enter in with the Bridegroome We cannot say of a wicked man unlesse catachrestically that life is his Though he lives yet life is not his he is dead while he lives He doth not improve the life of nature to get the life of grace he is like a man that takes the lease of a farm and makes no benefit of it Diu fuit in mundo non vixit he hath been so long in the world as Seneca speaks but he hath not lived He was borne in the Reigne of such a King his father left him such an estate he was of such an age and then he died there 's an end of him his life was not worth a prayer nor his death worth a tear But life is yours 't is a priviledge to a Believer while he hath natural life he layes hold upon eternal life how doth he work out his salvation what a do is there to get his evidences sealed what weeping what wrastling how doth he even take heaven by storme So that life is yours It is to a childe of God a season of grace the seed-time for eternity the longer he lives the riper he grows for heaven The life of a believer spends as a lamp he doth good to himselfe and others the life of a sinner runs out as the sand it doth little good The life of the one is as a figure ingraven in marble the life of the other as letters written in dust 2. The â—â—â—fort of life is a beleevers rejoycingâ—ake â—ake a childe of God at the 〈◊〉 disadvantage let his life be â—ver-cast with clouds yet if there be any comfort in life the believer hath it Our life is oft imbecill and weake but the spiritual life doth administer comfort to the natural Homo componitur ex mortali rationali Man saith Augustine is compounded of the mortal part and the rational part the rational serves to comfort the mortal So I may say a Christian consists of a natural life and a
nor Barzillai of his lamenesse There are five Properties of the glorified bodies 1. They shall be agil and nimble the bodies of the Saints on earth are heavy in their motion and subject to wearinesse but in Heaven there shal be no elementary gravity hindering but our bodies being refined shall be swift and facile in their motion and made fit to ascend as the body of Elias In this life the body is a great hindrance to the soule in its operation The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The soul may bring its action against the body when the soul would flie up to Christ the body as a leaden lump keeps it down 't is vivum sepulchrum but there is a time coming when it shall be otherwise the bodies of the Saints shall be agil and lively they shall be made fully subject to the soul and so no way impede or hinder the soul in its motion 2. The bodies of the Saints shall be transparent full of clarity and brightnesse as Christs body when it was transfigured Matth. 17.2 our bodies shall have a divine lustre put upon them here they are as iron when it is rusty there they shall be as iron when it is filed and made bright they shall shine tanquam Sol in fulgore saith Augustine as the Sun in its splendour nay seven times brighter saith Chrysostome here our bodies are as the gold in the oar drossy and impure in heaven they shall be as gold when it spangles and glisters so cleare shall they be that the soule may sally out at every part and sparkle through the body as the wine through the glasse 3. They shall be amiable beauty consists in two things 1. Symmetry and proportion when all the parts are drawn out in their exact lineaments 2. Complexion when there is a mixture and variety in the colours white and sanguine thus the bodies of the Saints shall have a transcendency of beauty put upon them Here the body is call'd a vile body Vile ortu in its birth and production de limo terrae of the dust of the earth The earth is the most ignoble element And vile officio in the use that it is put to the soul oft useth the body as a weapon to fight against God but this vile body shall be ennobled and beautified with glory it shall be made like Christs body How beautiful was Christs body upon earth in it there was the Purple and the Lily it was a mirrour beauty For all deformities of body issue immediately from sinne but Christ being conceived by the holy Ghost and so refined and clarified from all lees and dregs of sin he must needs have a beautiful body and in this sence he was fairer then the children of men Christs body as some Writers aver was so fair by reason of the beauty and grace which did shine in it that no limner could ever draw it exactly and if it was so glorious a body on earth how great is the lustre of it now in heaven That light which shone upon Saint Paul surpassing the glory of the sunne was no other then the beauty of Christs body in heaven O then what beauty and replendency will be put upon the bodies of the Saints they shall be made like Christs glorious body 4. The bodies of the Saints shall be impassible free from suffering We read that Iob's body was smitten with biles and Paul did beare in his body the marks of the Lord Iesus but ere long our bodies shall be impassible not but that the body when it is glorified shall have such a passion as is delightful for the body is capable of joy but no passion that is hurtful as cold or famine it shall not be capable of any noxious impression 5. They shall be immortall here our bodies are still dying quotidiè en im dempta est aliqua pars vitae cúm crescit vita tum decrescit It is improper to ask when we shall die but rather when we shall make an end of dying first the infancy dies then the childhood then youth then old age and then we make an end of dying it is not only the running out of the last sand in the glass that spends it but all the sands that run out before Death is a worm that is ever feeding at the root of our gourds but in Heaven our mortal shall put on immortality As it was with Adam in innocency if he had not sinned such was the excellent temperature and harmony in all the qualities of his body that it is probable he had not died but had been translated from Paradise to Heaven Indeed Bellarmine saith that Adam had died though he had not sinned but I know no ground for that assertion for sinne is made the formal cause of death however there 's no such thing disputable in Heaven the bodies there are immortal Luke 20.36 Neither can they die any more If God made Manna which is in it selfe corruptible to last many hundred years in the golden pot much more is he able by a divine power so to consolidate the bodies of the Saints that they shall be preserved to eternity Rev. 21.4 And there shall be no more death our bodies shall run parallel with eternity CHAP. XIV The Ninth Prerogative Royal. THE next Priviledge is we shall be as the Angels in Heaven Matth. 22.30 Christ doth not say we shall be Angels but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels Qu. How is that R. Not only that we shall not die but in regard of our manner of worship The Angels fulfill the will of God 1. Swiftly 2. Perfectly 3. Chearfully 1. Swiftly When God sends the Angels upon a Commission they do not hesitate or dispute the case with God but presently obey The Angels are set out by the Cherubims which had wings this was not to represent their Persons for spirits have no wings but their Office to shew how swift they are in their obedience it is as if they had wings Dan. 9.21 The man Gabriel this was an Angel was caused to flie swiftly as soone as ever God speaks the word the Angels are ambitious to obey now in Heaven we shall be as the Angels This is a singular comfort to a weak Christian alas we are not as the Angels in this life when God commands us upon service to mourne for sinne to take up the Crosse O what a dispute is there how long is it sometimes ere we can get leave of our hearts to go to prayer Jesus Christ went more willingly to suffer then we do often to pray how hardly do we come off in duty God had as good almost be without it Oh but if this be our grief be of good comfort in Heaven we shall serve God swiftly we shall be winged in our obedience we shall be even as the Angels 2. The Angels serve God perfectly they fulfill God's whole will they leave nothing undone
Beleever he is to be valued according to that which is in reversion Things to come are his If you were to take an estimate of a man's Estate would you value it by that which hee hath in his House or by his Land Perhaps he hath little in his house little money or plate but he is a landed man There lies his Estate While we are in this House of Clay we have but little Many a Christian can hardly keepe life and soule together but hee is a landed man things to come are his then be content with the lesse of things present If wee have but a small fore-crop we shall have a great after-crop it is sufficient if we have but enough to beare our charges till we come to Heaven An Heire that hath a great Estate beyond Sea though hee hath but a little money for his voyage thither he will bee content If a Christian hath but enough to pay for his passage till he comes at Heaven it is sufficient as Seneca said to his friend Polibius Never complaine of thy hard fortune as long as Caesar is thy friend So I say to a Beleever Never complaine as long as Christ is thy friend hee is preparing the Heavenly Mansions for thee If thou complainest of any thing let it be of thy complaining Should not Hagar have been content though the water were spent in her Bottle when there was a Well so neare God hath made a Deed of gift he hath given Christ to a Believer and in him all things things present and to come Grace and Glory is not here enough to make him content But saith the Christian I want present comforts Consider the Angels in Heaven are rich yet they have no money thou hast things to come Angels riches such as cannot stand with reprobation bee content then with the lesse of things present The Philosophers who never understood one syllable of this Charter did contemne riches and preferr'd a contemplative life what poore contemplations were those certainly a man that lives by faith may have more sweet content in his soule by the meditation of things to come then a worldly man by the enjoying things present 4. Labour for such an high degree of faith as to make these things to come present Faith and Hope are two Sisters and are very like they differ thus Hope looks at the excellency of the Promise faith at the certainty of it now faith looking at the infallible truth of him that promiseth thus it makes things to come present Faith doth antedate glory it doth substantiate things not seen Faith alters the Tenses it puts the Future into the Present Tense Psalm 60.6 Gilead is mine Manasseh is mine Ephraim is the strength of my head c. Those places were not yet subdued but God had spoken in his holinesse he had made David a promise and he beleeved it therefore hee looked upon them as already subdued Gilead is mine c. So saith faith God hath spoken in his holinesse hee hath made me a promise of things to come therefore Heaven is mine already When one hath the reversion of an house saith hee This house is mine Oh that wee had this Art of Faith thus to anticipate Heaven and make things to come present Thou who art a Beleever Heaven is thine now thy head is already glorified nay heaven is begun in thee thou hast some of those joyes which are the primitiae the first-fruits of it A Christian by the eye of faith through the Perspective-glass of the promise may see into Heaven Faith sees the Promise fulfilled before it be fulfilled Faith sets to its hand Item Received so much before it be paid Had we a vigorous faith we might be in Heaven before our time That which a weake beleever hopes for a strong beleever doth in some kinde possesse Oh that wee could often take a prospect of the Heavenly Paradise Walke about Sihon and go round about her tell the towers thereof mark ye well her bulwarks consider her Palaces So Walke into the Heavenly Mount see what a glorious situation it is go tell her Towers see what an inheritance you have see your beauty and Nobility behold your Scutchion Oh that wee could thus breath our faith up this Mount of Heaven every day Do not say All this shall be mine but It is mine already my Head is there my faith is there my heart is there could we thus living up to the height of our faith reallize and antedate things to come how would all present thing vanish if a man could live in the Sunne the earth would not appear when Saint Paul had been wrapped up into the third Heaven the earth did hardly appeare ever after see how he scornes it I am crucified to the world it was a dead thing to him hee had begun Heaven already thus it is with a man that is Heavenlized You Saints that are earthly the eye of your faith is blood-shot it is the character of a sinner he cannot see afarre off 2 Pet. 1.9 like a man who hath bad eyes that can see but just before him Faith carries the heart up to Heaven and brings Heaven downe into the heart 5. If all things to come are yours then walke chearfully with God put on your white robes hath a Beleever a title to Heaven what and sad Wee rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 It is but a while 't is but putting off the earthly clothes of our body and wee shall bee clothed with the bright robes of glory and can a Beleever bee sad See how Christ doth secretly check his Disciples for this Luke 24.17 What manner of communications are these while you walke and are sad What sad and Christ risen So I say to beleevers Things to come are yours why walke ye and are sad let them bee out of heart who are out of hope Oh rejoyce in God when the lead of the flesh begins to sink let the cork of faith swim above How doth the heir rejoyce in hope of the Inheritance How doth the Apprentice rejoyce to think of coming out of his time Here we are kept under by sinne and a childe of God is forced sometimes to do the devils work but shortly death will make us free there is an eternall Jubile coming therefore rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God Can wicked men rejoyce that have their portion in this life and cannot hee rejoyce that hath a reversion of Heaven Are the waters of Abanah and Pharpar like to the waters of Iordan O ye Saints think into what a blessed condition you are now brought is it not a sweet thing to have God appeas'd is it not a matter of joy to be an heire of the promise Adam in Paradise had choice of all the trees one only excepted The Promises are the trees of life thou may'st walk in the garden of the Bible and pluck from all these trees Who should