was an Asylum a place of refuge and protection 1 Kings 2.28 The souls of these Martyrs were seen under the Altar to intimate their security their safety no evill might touch them As to that saying of our Lord to the penitent theefe upon the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise I give these two answers First That Paradise is not so limited to the highest Heaven where the Throne of God is but that it may comprehend some other place adjacent to it where he might be in joy and felicity with Christ who as to his Divine Nature is every where the word signifieth A place of pleasure and such are the places assigned to be the receptacles of the souls of the just when they are separated from their bodies I answer secondly That for the souls of Enoch before the Law and of Elijah under the Law and of this penitent theefe under the Gospel I doe not deny but they might have speciall priviledge in the translation of them that the Lord in their examples might give good assurance to all beleevers and to all the just that ever have or shall live in any Age of the World whether before the Law under the Law or since the Law as well of their ascension and glorification as of their resurrection As to this penitent theefe in particular dying with him upon the Crosse that he might shew a specimen of the power of his death in saving justifying and glorifying penitent sinners though never so great offenders but then we must remember withall that these were peculiar priviledges of singular persons And Privilegia sunt paucorum the Civill Law will tell us That Priviledges are the portion but of few This doth not weaken the truth of my ascertion That the souls of just men dying doe not immediately upon the separation of them from the body pass into the highest Heaven nor to the highest glory nor to that fulness of joy which they shall enter into at the Resurrection when they shall be re-united to their bodies and so both together shall be taken into the everlasting habitations and shall stand in the presence of God and enjoy the beatificall Vision in whose light they shall see light when they shall see God face to face in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore This the Royall Prophet by his spirit of Prophesie foresaw long agoe and rejoyced under the hope of it Psal 17.15 I shall behold thy face in righteousness and when I awake I shall be satisfied with thy Image When I awake that is in the morning of the Resurrection then I shall be satisfied with thine Image then and not till then shall I be fully satisfied with thine Image But then here ariseth another Question as there did of the souls of wicked men Where are the souls of the just in the mean while between the time of their separation from the body by death and the re-union of them with the body at the Resurrection Where are they What becomes of them In what state and condition have they their being What is their imployment What is their enjoyments To all these foure Quaeries I shall endeavour to give you some satisfaction as touching the Place the State the imployment and the enjoyments of souls separated And as to the first of these The place of the souls separation I shall not send you to the Elysan fields of the antient Poëts to seek them Nor to the Gardens nor Orchards of the Hesperides Nor to the Mahometan Paradises all these conceived and beleeved That the souls of vertuous and just men as soon as they were separated from the body did pass into some place of rest and joy wherein they were not deceived but for want of a more distinct knowledge of the Place where they had their being and their state in it they set it forth by comparing it to the being in those places which they conceived to be most happy pleasant and joyous But certainly that which is most agreeable to reason in this case and is no way repugnant to any Article of Faith nor to any discovery in Scripture made to the contrary is this That the souls of the just being separated from the bodies doe pass into those high Heavens which are above the Starry Firmament as the souls of wicked men doe pass into the Regions of the Aire below it For that there are Heavens above the Starry Firmament it cannot be denyed two we reade of before we come to the Empyrean Heavens where the Throne of God is and where the Lord of Hosts with all his holy Angells keeps his Court in Majesty and Glory The lower-most of these is called Caelum aqueum The watery Heaven from the clearness and the transparancy of it The other above that is called Caelum Crystallinum The Crystall Heaven from the purity and the pellucidity of it for still the higher the Heavens are and the neerer they approach to the Empyrean Heaven where the Throne of God is the more glorious are they and the more noble the Inhabitants of them Now between every of these Heavens there is a vast space of infinite capacity and it must needs be so by reason of the greatness of their circumference the least and lowest of them is of greater capacity and comprehension then all this space that is between the Earth and the Starry Firmament and the rest greater then it proportionably Now I would ask Of what use these vast and comprehensive Heavens are if this be not one to be the receptacle of the souls of the just when they are taken out of their bodies Natura nihil facit frustrà The God of Nature the Creator of all things hath made nothing in vain There is no part of the world which he hath made but he hath stor'd and stock't it with Inhabitants suitable to it The Earth he hath stor'd and stock't with Beasts and Cattell the Sea with Fishes the Ayre with Fowle and with Aeriall Inhabitants every of the Spheres above it with Starrs and Planets which by their light heare influence and motion divide the times and Governe this inferiour world The Starry Firmament that is spread out as a vaile between this inferiour and the superiour world between these lower and the higher Heavens it is peopled as it were with innumerable Golden Starrs of severall magnitudes specious to behold and pretious for their use and influence The Empyrean Heavens the highest of all the rest is stor'd and Inhabited with Angells and Arch-Angells Cherubims and Seraphims and the other Orders of those Heavenly Courtiers that stand in the presence of God waiting his pleasure and ready to execute his will and to fulfill his Word Thus the whole Universe is replenished with Inhabitants suitable to the places which the Great Creator and high disposer of all things hath appointed for them And doe these beautifull Heavens the Aqueall and Chrystalline Heavens so
sweet is theâ—r membrance of thee to the soule that lives in bitterness I doe not think the Lord did impute it for sin to Job or Jeremy that they were so weary of their bitter Lives and did so often wish That their change might come Or that King Edward the sixth did sin when in his death bedsickness he prayd so earnestly Lord take me out of this wretched World Nor Dr. Hamond who under the tortures of the Stone whereof he dyed was so often heard to say Lord make hast though I doubt not but in all these there was implyed a tacit submission to the will of God Thirdly That a man may be taken away frâ—m the evill to come This was a mercy promised to Josiah upon his humiliation 2 Kings 22.19.20 as it was the misery of his surviving Sonne Zedekiah to see the evill which his Father was taken from and to suffer in it Wise men fore-see evill to come in the causes of it and in the â—ore-runners of it And the Lord mentions it as a mercy That he will take them away from those evills and they may without sin Pray for that mercy Isay 57.1 Fourthly That they may be freed from the burden of the flesh and the bondage of corruption inherint in it that Ground Ivie in the Wall which will never be pluckt out root and branch till the Wall be thrown down It was under the sense of this that St. Paul cryes out Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death this will never be done but by the death of this body Fifthly In extremity of old age when a man becomes a burden to himselfe and others when he is fallen into those years of which David saith His life is nothing but labour and sorrow and the years of which he shall say I have no pleasure in them when not onely his body grows weak but his mind also and his intellectuall faculties faile his understanding weak his apprehension dull his memory unfaithfull his affections Childish and he becomes unserviceable not able to doe that good which he hath done and should doe when a man becomes thus superannuate he may doubtless without sin make it his suite to Almighty God To take away his soule Vse This Meditation is usefull to comfort and to confirme us against the feare of death either of our selves or our friends why should we make that the object of our feare which others have made the object of their hope and desire Holy men wise men good men men that have had a great interest in the world have been willing to lay down all and to leave all and made it their suite that they might dye in assurance of a change for a better life To help us to pass through this Gulfe with comfort and courage weigh well but these two things 1. What a world we leave behind us the Terminus à quo 2. What a world we have before us the Terminus ad quem And these two considerations will make the passage through that medium easie First For the Terminus à quo the world we leave behind us a very sink of sin a duâ—ghill of uncleanness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The whole World lyes in wickedness as St. John speaks nothing in it but sinne and sorrow and travaile and trouble and malice and mischief and that which may well make any wise man out of love with it and even weary of it The best things in it which men make most account of have been weighed to our hands by the wisest of the Sonnes of Men and upon the tryall found To be lighter then vanity it selfe not onely vanity but vexation of spirit For first They are all transitory Secondly They are not all satisfactory Thirdly All imbitter'd with so many cross Ingredients that there is no true contentment in them nor true comfort to be taken out of them We could shew you examples of the greatest of men Kings Emperours Lords of the world such as have had as much of the glory of it and all other worldly good in it as the world could give or lend yet have seen so farr into the vanity and emptiness of it as to despise it to lay down all and take themselves unto a private and monasticall life which is a death to the world and the shaddow of death it selfe Secondly For the Terminus ad quem Consider what a world in dying we are going to it would require a world of time and words to describe it the best description of it is to describe it to be such for the transcendency of the glory of it as that it cannot be described For neither hath the eye seen nor the eare heard nor can the heart of Man comprehend the great things that God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 St. Paul shaddows it out in part Heb. 12.22 where he shows the happiness of the Church militant in their communion with the Church triumphant thus But you are come to Mount Sion and to the City of the living God the Caelestiall Jerusalem and to the company of inâ—numerable Angels And to the Assembly and Congregation of the first borne whose names are Written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just Men made perfect And to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Testament and to the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things then the blood of Abel Here 's a description in part of the Place and Society which we shall goe to when we shall come to be joyned with the Church triumphant in glory now be you well assured that all things els there are suitable to these which must needs render it transcendently joyous and glorious O! if we could but draw the Curtaine of Heaven and look in the Sanctum Sanctorum to see the joy and glory that is there we would never care for this world more the most pretious things in it would be despised in our eyes our whole life would be nothing but a Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and we would long for the time when the Lord would take away our soul that we might be translated thither I reade of one Cleombrotus that hearing Plato discoursing of the immortality of the soul and the happines of the other life to come Threw himself headlong off from a high Rock to quit himself of this life that so he might enter into that other life that Plato so much commended And if a Heathen man could be so sensible of advantaging himself by his change into the other life upon those weak grounds which Plato's Philosophy could give as to hasten his own death upon the hope of it Surely we that are Christians and have better grounds to build our faith and hope upon then any Plato's Philosophy could give may with much more Comfort think on Death with much more hope and
specious and so spacious between the Starry Firmament and the Empyrean Heaven stand voyd and empty without Inhabitants No it cannot be but they have their Inhabitants too and they are the souls of the Just when they are separated from their bodies by death and dissolution who being next unto the Angells in holiness are placed in receptacles next unto them in glory The Chrystalline Heaven next and immediately under the Empyrean Heaven and the Aqueall or Watry Heaven next immediately under it and as they have atteined to the degrees of purity here in this life so are they disposed of into the one or into the other of them neerer or farther off from the Throne of glory for as after the Resurrection there shall be severall and different degrees of glory so in this state of separation the souls separated shall be in severall and different degrees of joy and happiness according as they are prepared for it and have atteined to severall degrees of holiness and purity in this life while they were in the body Secondly If you enquire into the state of those souls separated it must needs be blessed and glorious suitable to the glory of those Heavens wherein they are Where first They are delivered from the burden of the Flesh the body the very prison wherein they were deteined and sole impediment of their perfection Secondly They are freed from all sin and sorrow concupiscence and corruption from all temptations and sollicitations from the world the devill and the flesh and from all the evill of this lower world which they have left behind them and which now As that glorious Woman Rev. 12.1 they trample under their feet all tears are wipt from their eyes all sorrow and grief and pain are flowne away they dyed in the Lord they are blessed they rest from their labours and so they are in Abraham's bosome They are in the hand of God as Solomon speaks Wisedom 3.1 so that no evill shall touch them they are got above the reach of the malice of men or Devills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Proverbe hath it out of the danger of the dart And so their state agrees with that which St. John sayes of them Rev. 6. That he saw them under the Altar yet all this is but their privative happiness consisting in their freedom from all evill and their security from all danger but they are in present possession of a positive blessedness too in a great measure and high degree of present joy and glory Their very imployment is a part of their blessedness which is no less then Angelicall to laud and prayse and magnifie the living Lord to sing Hosanna to Hosannah's in the highest and Hallelujahs to him that sitteth upon the Threne to admire the glory and the greatness and the goodness and the power and the holiness of the mighty Lord God of which they have now a clearer sight and apprehension then before and in particular his singular and unspeakable grace and goodness unto them which hath done such great things for them as to bring them thither to triumph in the apprehension of it and to rejoyce and glory in the sence of it I know not whether I should rather ranke these things under their imployments or their enjoyments they are blessed duties which are both With what sweet contentation and selfe satisfaction doe they converse together in pure love and light With what joy and comfort can they now remember the difficulties and the dangers which they have past through in their comming thither What temptations what afflictions they have met withall What strong corruptions they have wrestled with What importunate lusts they have denied and subdued What sollicitations from the World from the Flesh and from the Devill they have resisted and rejected and how now they bless themselves that they have done so and God that gave them grace and strength to doe it With what joy and prayse doe they congratulate one another in their happy victories over sin and Satan Death and Hell and all the enemies of their salvation and in their safe passage through all the dangers and difficulties that stood between them and Heaven and that having escaped all the corruption that is in the world through Lust they are at length arrived to the Place where they would even to the top of Mount Syon the Place of their rest and joy where now they are taken into neerer Communion with God then they could be before they have more clear manifestation of him sweet influences from him and union with him they converse with Angels congratulating them in their happiness and with Euges of joy and prayse well-coming them into those Heavens the habitations of their happiness the Paradise of their joy and glory And now their Charity invites them to Pray for the whole estate of Christs Church militant here on Earth That the Lord would guide them and keep them in the way of Truth that he would bring them safe through all the dangers and difficulties that stand in the way between them and Heaven that the Gospel may have free passage through the world that it may runne prosper and be glorious that by it he would call in all that are yet uncalled that he would shortly accomplish the number of his elect and hasten his Kingdom that they with them and all others that shall depart out of this life in the faith and feare of his holy Name may have their perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soule in his eternall and everlasting glory Which is the third estate in which immortall souls doe pass their immortality which begins from the day of the generall Judgement and lasts from thence to all eternity Of which though we had the Tongue of Men or Angells it is impossible to speak to the full and as the subject requires O Aeternity Aeternity How is the Heart astonish't and the Mind swallowed up that enters into the thoughts of it with the state of the just and the unjust in it the joy and glory of the one and the misery and torment of the other both which being unexpressible I shall forbeare to enter into the description of them and in stead thereof onely referr you to the words of the sentences at the great day to be given upon them both the sentence of absolution to the just on the right hand and of condemnation to the wicked on the left both which the Judge himselfe that shall pronounce them hath told us before hand and left us in terminis upon record Mat. 25. And first The sentence of absolution because that shall be first pronounc'c that the wicked on the left hand may see Heaven opened and have a sight of the joy and glory of the Celestiall Paradise and see the just taken into it and set down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven and themselves cast out that they may see what happiness they have lost by wilfully forsaking
New Habitation farr more glorious then this that we now have in this lower world that as now the Earth under us and the Heavens over us are the place of our Habitation so after these shall be destroyed that we may not fear we shall want a habitation he tells us We shall have another and a better Habitation farr more excellent and glorious then this is which in allusion to these he calls New Heavens and New Earth to make us know we shall be no losers by the change And for this exposition I might quote you Authors enough Ireneus Hilary Hypolitus and others but I will cite you a whole Library of Fathers and Schoolemen and all in one who was himselfe a living Library I meane the late Learned and Reverend Lord Bishop of Worcester Doctor Prideaux Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Rector of Exeter Colledge in which I lived under his Government some years He Preach't at the Court upon this very Text 1 Peter 3.13 his Sermon is in Print and intitled The Christians expectation where all along he proves The New Heavens here mentioned to be no other but the highest Heavens appointed for the Habitations of the Saints in glory But what need we trouble our selves to search the Libraries of the Fathers and Schoolemen to ask their Judgement and Consent in this matter St. Peter himselfe has cleered the Point in question to our hands That the Heavens in the Text though here called New can be no other but those glorious Heavens above now in being For thus he further commendeth them to us That they are Heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness he doth not say wherein shall dwell righteousness in the future but wherein now dwelleth righteousness in the present Tense We cannot say of Heavens hereafter to be Created That righteousness now dwelleth in them before they are in being But the Apostle saith expressly of the Heavens which we look for That righteousness now dwelleth in them therefore they are now in being long since Created from the beginning That which is in expectation and the newness here mentioned is not to be understood in respect of the making of them or the future being of them as if they were not yet in being but in respect of our entrance into them our taking Possession of them and Habitation in them so they shall be new to us I know there are of the other Opinion not a few for the new Creation of a new World new Heavens and a new Earth in the roome of this present World when it shall be abolisht and dissolved But see how weakly they prosecute that fancy when they would confirme themselves and others in it They tell us of what excellent use it shall be As first For a Monument of what hath been Secondly For a receptacle of such as had deserved neither Heaven nor Hell such as they thought were not capable of the one and they thought it pitty they should be condemned to the other such as Infants dying without Baptisme Idiots and ignorant people that wanted capacity to understand the truth honest morall men which never had the way of Gospel-salvation made known unto them such as Plato Aristotle Plutarch Cato c. Thirdly That it might be an out-let or as it were a Country House for the Saints and Angells to come down into where to solace themselves for their recreation and the like all but Rabbinicall fancies and Jesuiticall surmises without any ground any where but in their own imaginations As if the Lord had not roome enough wherein to dispose of his Saints and Angells and all his respectively except he should make another new World to entertein them in Whereas our Saviour tells us Their receptacles were prepared for them from the beginning of the world Mat. 25. Known to the Lord are all his works from the beginning and he will not have so many supernumeraries in the end of the World as that the Fabrick made in the beginning for the reception of them should not serve the turne But to satisfie the doubtfull in this scruple let it be well minded what St. Peter saith further here in this Text We look for new Heavens not for a new Heaven in the singular but for new Heavens in the Plurall number By which it appears there are more Heavens then one in the World above for the Lord to dispose of his Saints and Angells in a justification to what I have said in the former Part of this Treatise wherein I affirmed That there are more Heavens then one above the Starry Firmament I named two between it and the Empyrean or fiery Heaven where the Throne of God is and who knows how many more there may be Let no man object against this what St. Paul sayes of his Rapture into the third Heaven and therefore there are no more that doth not follow A man is taken up into a third place therefore there is not a fourth nor a fifth It would follow rather the contrary that there were For Non dicitur primus nisi in ordine ad secundum A first is not said to be so but in order to a second and so forward In numeris ordinalibus in numbers of order till you come to the last I say farther that in such accounts a respect is to be had where you begin to number according to which the same place may fall in account to be first or second or third or fourth Thirdly The Heavens are said to be more or less as they are distinguished and divided So Aristotle numbers but eight Ptolomie nine Purbacchius ten Maginus eleven and this distinction they make from the distinct motions they have observed in the wandring and fixed Starrs Our Christian Divines generally number but three and that from Saint Pauls rapture mentioned before Yet a Reverend and Learned Bishop of ours I mean Bishop Bilson in his Survey of Christs sufferings numbers foure and that fourth to be that which is called The Heaven of Heavens For That Christ is said to have ascended farr above all Heavens Ephes 4.10 Thus you see here are great varieties of Opinions touching the number of the Heavens and the Celestiall Orbs And yet in the midst of all this variety the difference is not so great but it may be fairly reconciled so as there shall be found no contradiction at all betwixt them as thus Be they as many as they will they may all conveniently be divided or sorted into these three Heavens or compages of Heavens if you will The Aëriall the Sydereall and the Etheriall Heavens Under the first of these is comprehended all that space which from the Earth upwards reacheth unto the Moone the lowest of the Luminaries of Heaven Foules flying in it are called Foules of Heaven Mat. 6.26 Under the second is comprehended all those Orbes and Sphears wherein the Starrs are placed whether the fixed or the wandering Starrs The Starrs are called Starrs of Heaven And under the third is comprehended
all that infinite space which is above the Starry Firmament and the Sydereall Heavens be it never so great or the Heavens in it never so many and so in this three-fold division of the Heavens into Aëriall Sydereall and Etheriall we shall easily reconcile Astronomy and Divinity together the Mathematicall Account with the Theologicall In it St. Paul may finde his third Heaven Bishop Bilson his fourth Aristotle may finde his eight Ptolomy his nines Purbacchius his tenn and Maginus his eleven and neither of them wrong other in the reckoning so they seek them while they are there in being but that must be before the Conflagration here in this Text Prophesied of by St. Peter For in the great burning here spoken of the two former the Aëriall and the Sydereall Heavens with the whole compages of them will be destroyed burnt up dissolved they all fall under the fury of the Conflagration St. Peter hath exprest the manner of it in tragicall expressions filling the heart with terror and astonishment to think on The burning of a House a Towne a City is a lamentable sight At the burning of Jerusalem and the Temple Titus himself which was the executioner of it lamented greatly and was sore grieved and troubled at so lamentable a spectacleâ— But what was that in comparison to this not so much as the burning of a Cottage in comparison of it selfe The burning of Sodom and Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim foure Cities in the Plaine with fire and brimstone from Heaven was a Type of this burning but slenderly representing it as so many bonfires to a mighty burning The Prophet Isaiah fore-telling the horrible destruction of the King of Assyria shadows it forth under the type and title of Tophet or Hell Isay 30.33 in terrible termes as before remembred For Tophet 〈◊〉 prepared of old yea even for the King it is prepared meaning the King of Assyria which in his close siege against Jerusalem lay there with his Army and went off with the loss of one hundred fourescore and five thousand men he hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord as a streame of brunstone doth kindle it This Tophet was a Valley on the South side of Jerusalem Josh 18.16 in which the Idolatrous Jews did burn their Children in the fire to offer them up in sacrifice unto Moloch contrary to the express command of God Levit. 20.1 It was called Tophet from Toph which in the Hebrew signifieth a Drumme from whence Tophet the diminutive of it signifying a little Drumme or Tabret because while these Children were burning the Idolatrous Priests beate upon these Drumms and playd on these Tabrets partly for the solemnity of the service and partly to drowne the crying and shreeking of the poor Innocents in the flames It was the Land of one Hinnom therefore called The Valley of Hinnom and in the New Testament Gehenna and taken for Hell Matth. 5.21 Matth. 8.9 Josiah had such indignation against this Idolatrous place that in his great Reformation 2 Kings 23.10 He defiled it he made it the very sinke and dunghill of the City a place for the execution of Malefactors and where those which were denyed buriall were cast out and lay unburied a place where to carry and cast all the noysom Carrion of the City where the Foules of the Ayre and the beasts might Prey upon them yet for feare they should corrupt the Ayre and cause infectious diseases there were continuall fires kept all-wayes burning to consume the bones and putrified Carkasses whether of men or beasts which were cast out there And for the loathsomness of the place and the continuall burnings in it it was called Gehenna Hell and Hell fire Unto which it is probable our Saviour alludes when describing Hell he saith The Worme never dyes nor the Fire never goeth out The Worme that is bred out of those putrefactions which farther gnawing causeth farther putrefaction never ceaseth to administer matter of burning to the fire nor the fire ever goeth out or ceaseth to feed it selfe upon it Yet as there are divers degrees of heate in the fire and the fiery furnace into which the three Children were cast was heat seven times hotter then at other times So it is cleere by the Scriptures That the torments of the damned are not all equall We reade of the Servant That knew his Masters wilt and did it not And of another That knew it not and did it not The former was to be beaten with many stripes The latter was to be beaten too but with fewer stripes The Stoicks were â—â—rr out in their Moralls when they taught Peccata esse aequalia That all sinns were equall Our Saviour his exposition of the sixth Commandement hath taught us otherwise Matth. 5.22 when he saith That whosoever is angry with his brother unadvisedly shall be in danger of the judgement and whosoever saith unto his brother Racha shall be worthy to be punished by the Councell but whosoever shall say unto his brother Thou foole shall be in danger of Hell fire Where under the forme of these three Courts among the Jews First The Court of three or the Triumviri here called The Judgement which had the hearing and punishing of smaller matters Secondly The Court of three and twenty here called The Councell which had the hearing and punishing of crimes of a higher nature And thirdly Of the highest Court of all consisting of threescore and eleven which they called their Sane drim which Judged the highest matters and punished by death it selfe whether by hanging beheading stoning or burning in Gehenna before mentioned he cleerly sheweth that there are great differences of sin and sinners and so there shall be also of punishments proportionably under which the damned shall be held and tormented in Hell for evermore Unto which the enlargement of Tophet by the destruction of this world in the great Conflagration shall be much conducing in giving convenient roome for it And as the punishment and torment of the damned in Hell shall be of divers and different measures and degrees Potentes potentèr cruciabuntur Mighty men shall be mightily tormented so that the joy and glory of the Caelestiall Inhabitants shall be as different in measure and degree is clearly revealed in Scripture They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turne many to righteousness shall shine as the Starrs for ever and ever Daniel 12.3 Which Saint Paul in 1 Cor. 15. further confirmes and more cleerly explicates this There is one glory of the Sunne another of the Moone and another glory of the Starrs for one Starr differeth from another Starr in glory ver 41. And then to prevent all mistakes and disputes about it he applyes it to this very purpose verse 42. Even so is the Resurrection from the dead And to this doth this Text of Saint Peter well agree where it sayes We look for new Heavens in the Plurall Number who knows how many Ethereall Heavens but he that made them but Heavens they are therefore more then one and this necessary for two Reasons First for the vast spaces that are required to dispose of the Caelestiall Inhabitants in spaces which no man can measure for multitudes which no man can number Secondly For the orderly disposing of them in those Heavens according to the dignity and glory the purity and holiness of those that shall be placed in them For as one Starr so one Heaven differeth from another in glory In my Fathers House are many Mansions those Mansions not of equall beauty and magnificence variety of Mansions for variety of Inhabitants to some are reserved Crowns to other Laurells some are clothed in White the immediate pedissequae of the Lambe which follows him whethersoever he goeth others attend at a farther distance In the second and third Chapters of the Revelation there are seven severall rewards assigned to them that overcome In the nineteenth of Saint Luke we see upon the Account given by the servants of the improvement of the Talents committed to their trust One is made Ruler over ten Cities another over five every one hath his reward according to his care and faithfulness proportioned unto him But what need we multiply words in a case so cleer consider but the present state of the Caelestiall Inhabitants the holy Angels now in glory and from thence you will easily collect what the state of the Saints shall be after the Resurrection you will finde them distributed into severall Classes or Orders of Angels in dignity and glory one above another For we reade of Angells and Arch-Angells of Cherubims and Seraphims of Thrones Dominions Principalities Powers c. all which are so many Orders and severall Degrees of Angells excelling one another in dignity and glory And if there be such graduall distinctions now of the Angells divided and distributed into so many Orders one above another in the Caelestiall Hierarchy certainly much more must it needs be so after the Resurrection when the number of the Caelestiall Inhabitants shall be so infinitely augmented by the access of all the Saints and elect people of God which have been from the beginning of the world and shall be to the last man that shall stand upon the Earth at that day And it were strange That all these should be limited to one Heaven to be disposed in which is all that some of you seem to allow but that Saint Peter hath better inform'd us in the Text when he sayes We look for new Heavens Heavens in the Plurall Heavens enough for the Creator to dispose of all his people in and to sort them so as that they shall all be in those Heavens which are most convenient for them and suitable to them and for them to be Inhabitants in and all these new too not because then newly Created but because we shall then newly take Possession of them and so they shall be new to us not in themselves For they were Created of old from the beginning from the foundation of the World Let our Saviours own words giving possession of them satisfie and silence all further dispute or questionings in this matter Mat. 25.34 with which I shut up this Discourse Come ye blessed Children of my Father enter into the Inheritance of the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World FINIS