Gods Wisdom Providence Justice and Goodness not to be obedient to God in bearing of adversities which he hath inflicted upon us but through grief to fret against him or do something against his commands not craving deliverance or help from him nor moderating grief by the acknowledging and resting on his Divine Will but to yield to grief so far as to be broken and overcome thereby and so driven to dispair So did Saul and Judas Iscariot To this impatience belongeth that complaining and crying out as if God afflicted us beyond our deserts and we had merited no such thing There is also a Hypocritical Patience as in those who vainly excruciate and torment themselves as those worshippers of Baal who cut and 1 Kings 18. 28 gashed themselves with knives till the bloud gushed out And of the same sort are also the Popish whippings c. There is also a Stoical Apathy or insensibility which we may call stupidity her rejected because a sense of our grief and some complaint or lamentation is not contrary to Patience so that we charge not God foolishly but justify God in his dispensations and utter nothing against him and complain not so much for the affliction as for our sins and acknowledge that he hath punished us less than our Ezra 9. 15. iniquities have deserved Why cryest Jer. 30. 15. thou for thine afflictions thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquities because thy sins were increased God hath done thus unto thee Thus we may glory in tribulation knowing tribulation worketh patience Rom. 5. 3 4 5. and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us That is we rejoyce in our present afflictions which are an assured proof unto us of everlasting 2 Cor. 4. 17. glory These light and momentany afflictions work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Here is a Hyperbole beyond an Hyperbole It is an evident token unto us of Salvation Phil. 1. 28. and that of God The Holy Ghost doth through tribulation fashion and frame us to Patience in which God doth from time to time give us assured proofs of His Grace and Protection whereby we conceive a firm hope in Him grounded upon the love which He bears unto us which He hath given us large cause of feeling and hath lively sealed it to our hearts by His Spirit of Adoption The more Gods servants suffer tribulation and adversity with patience The more they feel in themselves and have experience of His aid and assistance and this makes them more to hope in God as knowing they shall never be ashamed of their faith and hope Rom. 10. 11 and considence in Him Through patience and comfort of the Rom. 15. 4. Luke 8. 15. Scriptures we have hope Let us bring forth fruit with patience such fruits as God by His dispensations calls for and requires of us and that with patience that is persevering to the last in the middest of and notwithstanding all our tryals and afflictions God will render Rom. 2. 7. to them eternal life who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality So we have need of patience that after Heb. 10. 36. we have done the will of God we may receive the promise In all things approving our selves to be the servants of God who is stiled the God of patience in much patience in afflictions Rom. 15. 4. in distresses in necessities c. which 2 Cor. â— 4. we endure Being strengthned with all might accerding to His glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness So that the Ministers of Col. 1. 11. Christ may glory in us in the Churches of God for our patience and faith in all 2 Theâ— 1. 4. our persecutions and tribulations which we endure Let us follow after righteousness godliness 1 Tim. 6. 11. faith love patience meekness 2 Cor. 8. 7. And as to grow in grace so also in this of patience Adding to our faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to 2 Pet. 1. 5. 6 7. knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity That God may know and approve our works and our labour and our patience that we have born and have had patience and have not fainted Rev. 2. 2 3. That it may be said of us among others Here is the patience of the Saints here Rev. 14. 12. are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus That Christ may say to us Because ye have kept the Rev. 3. 10. word of my patience I also will keep you from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth It is not anothers patience that will avail us unless for our example and imitation but in our patience we must possess and that our own souls Consider the work of God In the Eccl. 7. 14. day of prosperity rejoyce In the day of adversity consider God hath set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him That is be wise in discerning the various ways of Gods Providence for to second them with thine affections either of joy or sorrow Since Gods Will cannot be altered wisdom should make a man quietly submit unto it for there are variable things in this world to which we must conform our affections both of joy and grief Here we may expect nothing but changes and alterations for in the middest of life we are in death Here is no perpetuity of any condition Adversity is a considering time when God writeth bitter things against Job 13. 2â— us therefore in the day of adveâ—â—â—ty consider Endeavour to have such a feeling as God calleth the unto by His visitation or dispensation for He hath set adversity against prosperity He hath mixed evil with good to direct man by these different means of mildness and severity unto a happy death for after death there are no more vicissitudes nor varieties all things and conditions are then perpetual neither is there any place for repentance or amendment Q. What is the true nature of this vertue of Patience A. I answer This Christian Patience looks on a Three fold Object 1. On God By whose Good-will and pleasure all adversities are appointed and from thence come This Job in his afflictions did see and acknowledge when he said shall we Job 2. 10. receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil In this regard murmuring against God is opposed 1 Cor. 10. 10. to patience Neither murmur ye as some of them murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer This murmuring against God is the ready way to our
he that hath it It is better felt than expressed 3. We may know if we be in Covenant with God by our own knowledg After God had rehearsed the Covenant Jer. 31. 34. there He adds And they shall all know Me from the least to the greatest c. True knowledg of God in Christ first makes us to put off the old man with his deeds and to be renewed in the Spirit of our mind and to put on the Newman Eph. 4. 22 23 24. which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness and which is renewed in knowledg after the image of Him that created Him And 2. It worketh in us a readiness and Col. 3. 10. willingness to obey God and to serve Him when we are brought out of the slavery of Satan and from the bondage of sin and corruption that sin doth not reign over us then will we run the Rom. 6. 12. ways of God's Commandments and that with alacrity and chearfulness not thinking it a burden run and not be Psal 119. 32. Isai 40. 31. weary walk and not faint They who are thus in Covenant with God have a special interest in Him and have access with boldness to the throne of Grace through our great High-Priest Jesus the Son of God that they may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time Heb. 4. 14 16. of need Therefore Abraham after God had so entred into Covenant with him refused the King of sodom and his gifts wholly relying on God's Covenant for His blessing and said I have lifted up my hand Gen. 14. 22 23. unto the Lord the most high God the possessor of heaven and earth that I will not take from a thred even to a shoo-latchet and that I will take any thing that is the King of Sodoms lest thou shouldst say I have made Abraham rich This also upheld David when he had 1 Sam. 30. 6. lost wives and children and goods the City burnt all lost and the people spake of stoning him then he encouraged himself in the Lord HIS God He glories in his Covenant-interest with God that God yet had made an everlasting Covenant with him ordered in all things and sure For this said he 2 Sam. 23. 5. is all my salvation and all my desire c. God saith to His Covenant-people The mountains shall depart and the hills Isai 54. 10. be removed but My kindness shall not depart from thee neither the Cavenant of My peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee Read all the Chapter For the Lord hath avouched thee to Deut. 26. 16 17 18. be His peculiar servant that thou mayst be holy to the Lord thy God and thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy God to walk in His ways and to keep His Statutes Numb 14. 24. and His Commandments and His Judgments and to hearken to His voice And thou hast chosen thee the Lord to Josh 24. 22. serve Him O my soul thou hast said to the Lord thou art My Lord thou hast chosen and appropriated the Lord Jehovah Psal 16. 2. 140. 6. to be thy Lord. Let not therefore other Lords have â—saâ— 26. 13. dominion over thee as Satan sin thy foolish noysom lusts the profits or pleasures or vanities of this world ever bewitch thee or steal away thy heart from following this thy Lord and that fully As thou hast yielded thy members servants Numb 14. 24 to uncleanness and to iniquity unto Rom. 6. 19. iniquity Even so now yield thy members servants to righteousness unto holiness Let holiness to the Lord be written Zecâ— 14. 20. on thy heart and forehead on all the inward faculties of thy Soul and on all the members of thy body and on all thy whole conversation and commerce with men That all may take notice of Acts 4. 13. thee that thou hast been with Jesus that thou walkest the way to Zion with thy face thitherward and that thou hast joyned thy self to the Lord in a perpetual Jer. 50. 5. Covenant which shall not be forgotten that thy light may so shine before men that seeing thy good works they may glorifie thy Father which is Matt. 5. 16. in Heaven That thou mayest declare plainly that thou dost seek a countrey and Heb. 11. 14 16. that thou desirest a better countrey that is an heavenly that God may not be ashamed to be called thy God for He hath prepared for thee a City Even a City wherein is no Temple For in the Temple were the outward signs of God's presence but God in this heavenly City shall manifest Himself face to face to His elect in Christ And this City hath no need of the Sun Rev. 21. 22 23. neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof In that heavenly glory my husband Jesus Christ shall be the only means of of all the communication that I and all the Elect shall have in the glory and light of God in whose presence is fulness Psal 16. 11. of joy and at Whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore This God is my God and in Covenant Isai 25. 1. with me I will praise Him and bless His Name for ever and ever As the Lord hath entred into Covenant with me and married me unto Himself so He gives me always to be arrayed in sine linnen clean and white which Rev. 19. 8. sine linnen is the righteousness of the Saints that I may watch and keep my garments lest I walk naked and men see Rev. 16. 15. my shame That I hating even the garment Jude 23. Rev. 3. 4. spotted by the flesh may walk with God in white and may be esteemed worthy through the worthiness and righteousness of Christ imputed unto me In whom alone I desire to be found not Phil. 3. 9. having on mine own righteousness which is as menstruous rags but that Isai 30. 22. which is of God by faith I can never sufficiently magnifie and admire the eternal love of God to me in Christ that He hath chosen me in Him before the foundation of the world that I should be holy and unblameable before Him in love having predestinated me Eph. 1. 4 5. unto the adoption of a Child by Jesus Christ unto Himself according to the good pleasure of His will and hath entered into Covenant with me and so Ezek. 16. 8. hath made me to become His own And that not for any foreseen faith or works in me but according to the election of Grace He loved me because he loved Rom. 11. 5. me and He had compassion upon me because He had compassion upon me Oh Rom. 9. 15. the good Will of Him that dwelt in the Deut. 33. 16. Bush There is a mutual promise and obligation between God and me and all
that occasioned my conversion who taught me c. And this may clearly be gathered out of Scripture 1. For if Adam before the fall had that measure of Illumination That he knew Eve and from whence she came Gen. 2. 23. at the first sight much more we who then shall be filled with the Holy Ghost and with wisdom shall know each other and all the Saints whom we never saw before in the flesh Now we see as through a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13. 12 but then face to face now we know in part but then shall we know even as also we are known 2. If Peter James and John who accompanied Christ in His Transfiguration had then a tast and glimps of glorification and were able thereby to know Moses and Elias whom they had never seen who lived many hundred of years before neither could they know their visage by statues or pictures which was a thing utterly forbidden to the Jews but by the alone grace and favour of God which put into their hearts this immediate light of wisdom and knowledg How much more shall we being fully enlightned and perfectly glorified in heaven know exactly all the blessed ones though never acquainted with them here upon the earth 3. Samuel being inspired by God â— Sam. 9. 17. knew Saul whom he had never seen before 4. John Baptist in his Mother Elizabeth's womb leap'd for joy to Luk. 1. 41. hear the voice of the blessed Virgin the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ If the minds of these were so enlightned with the beams of the Spirit and did so shall not we much more know each other in heaven when all clouds and mists of darkness shall be wholly taken away and we shall be fully illuminated and glorified 5. Christ tells the Jews That they Luk. 13. 28. shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets c. in the kingdom of heaven therefore they must know them 6. And it is clearly gathered out of the Parable in Luke 16. 23 24 25 that the Saints do know the Saints in the Kingdom of heaven and the Reprobates in torments do know each other In this knowledg each of other the heap of reward encreaseth For as the Elect do more and more rejoyce when they see those whom they have loved on earth to rejoyce with them so the wicked in Hell when they see whom they dearly loved in this world to be tormented with them not only their own punishment but the punishment of those whom they so much loved in this life adds unto their misery Where-hence we conclude that the glorified Saints then plentifully endu'd with all knowledg and supernaturally enlightned by the Holy Ghost shall know each other and those Saints also whom they never knew in the flesh There all men shall be known of every several man of what Nation Country or stock soever he came and every several man shall be known of all We shall know the spiritual substances offices orders and excellencies of the holy Angels And the nature immortality operations and originals of our own souls yea and all things knowable But above all we shall be beatifically enlightned with a clear and glorious sight of God Himself which Divines call the Beatifical Vision which alone makes us blessed and happy for evermore Beholding the inexpressible glory of God issuing from His glorious Face whereby we shall be wonderfully taken with His Beauty and our souls inwardly ravished with the things that we shall behold with a delight of them and nothing shall be able to make our joys either to faint or to fail Immediately after that Christ hath crowned all the Elect with crowns of glory then every one taking the crown from his head shall lay it down at the feet of Christ prostrating themselves and with one heart and voice in a heavenly harmony shall say Praise and honour glory and power be unto Thee O blessed Lamb who settest upon the Throne Who hast Redeemed us to God by Thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and Rev. 4. 10. 5. 9. people and nation and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests to reign with Thee in thy Kingdom for evermore O now let us look and long for this blessed estate and this heavenly City whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11. 10. This was it which St. Paul longed for to be dissolved and to be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. which was best of all Every one would desire this blessed estate Therefore live the life of Grace here else thou 2 Cor. 4. 17 shalt never live the life of Glory hereafter Grace is glory begun and glory is grace consummate Without holiness Heb. 12. 14 none shall see God Into that holy place no unclean thing shall enter Rev. 21. 27. Therefore let us now strive to cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit endeavoring to perfect holiness in the fear of God In Rome heretofore they must first pass through the Temple of Vertue before they came to the Temple of Honour This honour have all Gods Saints Psal 149. 9. Josh 23 14. And as not one good thing hath failed of all that the Lord promised concerning His Israel So we shall have cause then Psal 37. 24. to say As the Lord hath guided us by His counsel now He hath received us into His glory Therefore blessed be the Psal 72. 18 19 Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things And blessed be His glorious Name for ever and let the whole world be filled with His glory Amen and Amen Lo this is our God we have waited Isa 25. 9. for Him and He hath saved us this is the Lord we have waited for Him He hath brought us to His glory we will rejoyce and be glad in this His eternal salvation Amen FINIS