Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A27038
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A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing B1408; ESTC R13294
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85,241
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312
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thee thy naked Heart and the course of thy former life which shall convince thee of the contrary The second Excuse I lived not in any Gross sin but only in small Infirmities I was no Murderer or Adulterer or Fornicator or Thief nor did I deceive or wrong any or take any thing by violence Answ. Was it not a Gross sin to love the world above God and to neglect Christ that dyed for thee and never do him one hours hearty service but meerly to seek thy carnal self and live to thy flesh God will open thine eyes then and shew thee a thousand Gross sins which thou now forgettest or makest light of And it is not only Gross sins but All sin great or small that deserveth the wrath of God and will certainly bring thee under it for ever if thou have not part in Christ to relieve thee wo to the man that ever he was born that must answer in his own name for his smallest offences The third Excuse I did it Ignorantly I knew not that there was so much required to my salvation I thought less ado might have served the turn and that if I lookt to my body God would take care of my soul and that it was better to trust him what should become of me hereafter then to trouble my mind so much about it Had I known better I would have done better Answ. If you knew not better who was it long of but your self Did God hide these things from you Did he not tell them you in his word as plainly as the tongue of man can speak That except you were Regenerate and born again you should not enter into the Kingdom of God John 3.3 5. That without holyness none should see God Heb. 12.14 That you must strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many shall seek to enter and shall not be able Luke 13.24 That if you lived after the flesh you should dye and if by the Spirit you mortified the deeds of the body you should live Rom. 8.13 That if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8.9 And to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Rom. 8.9 That you must not lay up for your selves a treasure on earth where rust and moths do corrupt and thieves break through and steal but must lay up for your selves a rreasure in heaven where rust and moths do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal Mat. 6.19 20. That you must seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof Mat 6.23 and not Labour for the food that perisheth but for the food that endureth to everlasting life which Christ would have given you John 6.27 That if you be risen with Christ you must seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God and not the things that are on earth Col. 3.1 2 3. Yea your very Conversation should be in Heaven Phil. 3.19.20 21. What say you Did not God tell you all this and much more and plainly tell it you Turn to your Bibles and see the words and let them witness against you 2. And could you think with any Reason that your souls being so much more precious then your bodies you should yet do so much more for your bodies then your souls Could you think all the labour of your lives little enough for a frail body that must he shortly in the dirt and that your Immortal souls should be no more regarded Could you think with any Reason that you should do so much for a life of a few years continuance and do no more for a life that shall have no end 3. And whereas you talk of trusting God with your souls you did not trust him You did but on that pretence carelessly disregard them If you trust God shew any word of Promise that ever he gave you to trust upon that ever an Impenitent Carnal Careless person shall be saved No he hath told you enough to the contrary And could you think that it was the will of God that you should mind your bodies more then your souls and this life more then that to come Why he hath bid you strive and run and fight and labour and care and seek and use violence and all diligence for the safety of your souls and for the life to come But where hath he bid you do so for your bodies No he knew that you were prone to do too much for them and therefore he hath bid you Care not and Labour not that is Do it as if you did it not and let your Care and Labour for earthly things be none in comparison of that for heavenly things You know God can as well maintain your lives without your care and labour as save your souls without it And yet you see he will not he doth not You must plough and sow and reap and thresh for all Gods Love and Care of you and not say I will let all alone and trust God And must you not much more use diligence in much greater things If you will â—rust God you must trust him in his own way and in the use of his own means The fourth Excuse I was never brought up to learning I cannot so much as read Nor did my Parents ever teach me any of these things but only set me about my worldly business and provide food and rayment for me but never once told me that I had a soul to save or lose and an everlasting life to provide and prepare for And therefore I could not come to the knowledge of them Answ. The greater is their sin who thus neglected you But this is no sufficient Excuse for you Heaven is not prepared for the Learned only nor will Christ ask you at Judgement whether you were good Scholars or not no nor so much as whether you could write or read But consider well was not Gods word so plainly written that the unlearned might understand it Did he not put it into the most familiar stile though he knew it would be offensive to the proud Schollars of the world of purpose that he might fit it to the capacities of the ignorant And if you could not read yet tell me Could not you have learned to read at 20 or 30 years of age if you had been but willing to bestow now and then an hour to that end Or at least did you not live neer some that could Read and could you not have procured them to read to you or to help you And did you not hear these things read to you in the Congregation by the Minister or might have done if you would And if your Parents did neglect you in your youth yet when you came to a fuller use of Reason and heard of the matters of salvation from Gods Word did it not concern you to have looked to your selves and to have redeemed that time which you lost in
as King of the world shall sit in Judgement on all men at the last and shall separate them one from another as a Shepherd divideth the Sheep from the Goats and so shall pass the final Sentence This Sentence is twofold according to the different Condition of them that are Judged To them on the right hand there is a Sentence of Justification and Adjudication to everlasting glory To them on the left hand here is a Sentence of Condemnation to everlasting Punishment The Sentence on each of these containeth both the state which they are Judged to and the reason or cause of the Judgement to that state For as God will not Judge any to Life or Death without just cause so he will publish this cause in his sentence as it is the manner of Judges to do If you say Christ will not use a voice Let it satisfie that though we know not the manner yet if he do it but by mental discovery as he shews men what shall everlastingly befall them so he will shew them why it shall so befall them 1. The Sentence on them on the Right hand will contain 1. Their Justification and Adjudication to Blessedness and that both as generally denominated as particularly determined and described 2. And the cause of this Judgement 1. In general they shall be pronounced Blessed Satan would have had them cursed and miserable the Law did curse them to misery Many a fearful thought hath possessed their own brests lest they should prove at last accursed and miserable But now they hear the contrary from their Judge All the Promises in the Gospel could not perfectly overcome those their fears all the comfortable words of the Ministers of the Gospel could not perfectly subdue them all the tender mercies of God in Christ did not perfectly subdue them But now they are vanquished all for ever He that once hath heard his Redeemer in Judgement call him Blessed will never fear being Cursed more For he that Christ Blesseth shall be Blessed indeed The Description of their Blessedness followeth Come inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world And also they are called Blessed Of the Father Here is the fountain of their Blessedness The Father and the state of their blessedness in Being the Fathers For I suppose they are called the Blessed of the Father both because the Father Blesseth them that is makes them Happy and because these blessed ones are the Fathers own And so Christ will publish it to the world in Judgement that he came to glorifie the Father and will proclaim him the Principal Efficient and Ultimate end of his work of Redemption and the blessedness of his Saints and that himself is as Mediator but the way to the Father It is the Father that prepared the Kingdom for them and from the foundation of the world prepared it Both for them as chosen ones and for them as future Believers and Righteous ones It is called a Kingdom partly in respect to God the King in whose glory we shall partake in our places and partly Metaphorically from the Dignity of our Condition For so it is that our selves are said to be made Kings Rev. 1.6 and 5.1 1 Pet. 2.9 and not that we are properly Kings for then we must have subjects who must be Governed by us Thus we see their Blessedness in the Fountain end and state of Dignity As to the Receptive Act on their part it is expressed by two words one signifying their first entrance on it Come the other their Possession Inheritance that is possess it as given by the Father and Redeemed by the Son and hold it in this Tenure for ever The true Believer was convinced in this life that indeed there was no true Blessedness but this enjoyment of God in the Kingdom of heaven The Lord revealed this to his heart by his Word and Spirit And therefore he contemned the seeming Happiness on earth and laid up for himself a Treasure in heaven and made him friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness and ventured all his hopes in this Vessel And now he findeth the wisdom of that choice in a rich return God made him so wise a Merchant as to sell All for this Pearl of greatest price and therefore now he shall find the gain As there Is no other true Happiness but God in glory so is there nothing more suitable and welcome to the true Believer O how welcome will the face of that God be whom he loved whom he sought whom he longed and waited for How welcome will that Kingdom be which he lived in Hope of which he parted with All for and suffered for in the flesh How glad will he be to see the Blessed face of his Redeemer who by his manifold Grace hath brought hâ—m unto this I leave the believing soul to think of it and to make it the daily matter of his Delightful Meditation What an unconceivable Joy in one moment this Sentence of Christ will fill his soul with Undoubtedly it is now quite past our comprehension though our imperfect fore-thoughts of it may well make our lives a continual Feast Were it but our Justification from the Accusations of Satan who would have us Condemned either as sinners in general or as Impenitent Unbelieving Rebels against him that Redeemed us in special it would lift up the heads of the Saints in that day After all the fears of our own hearts and the slanderous Accusations of Satan and the world That we were either Impenitent Infidels or Hypocrites Christ will then Justifie us and pronounce us Righteous So much for the Condition to which they are Judged 2. The Reason or Cause of this Justification of the Saints is given us both 1. In a general denomination and 2. In a particular Description 1. In General it is because they were Righteous as is evident Mat. 25.46 The righteous shall go into life Everlasting And indeed it is the business of every just Judge to justifie the righteous and condemn the unrighteous And shall not the Judge of all the earth judge righteously Gen. 18.25 God makes men Righteous before he Judges them so and Judgeth them Righteous Because they are so He that abominateth that man who saith to the Righteous thou art wicked or to the wicked thou art Righteous who Justifieth the wicked and Condemneth the Righteous will certainly never do so himself Indeed he will Justifie them that are sinners but not against the Accusation they that are sinners but against the Accusation that they are guilty of Punishment for sin but that is because he first made them just and so Justifiable by pardoning their sin through the blood of Christ And its true also that he will Justifie those that were wicked but not those that are wicked But Judgement findeth them as Death leaveth them and he will not take them for wicked that are sanctified and cleansed of their former wickedness So that Christ will first pardon them