hath made them sc by vertue of their Union with Jesus Christ Doth Christ call God his Father and his God behold He Heb. 2.11 being not ashamed to call them Brethren lets them know that he is their God and Father God to my Brethren and say to them John 20.17 I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God Once more Hath the Father appointed him a Kingdom so doth he appoint unto them a Kingdom Luk. 22.29 Hath the Father assigned him a Throne so doth Christ assigne unto his Saints a Throne also To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me Rev. 3.21 in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne My Brethren what a Soul-enriching beatifical Union is this There be Unions in nature which convey nothing communicate nothing but empty and insignificant titles which make the person admitted into them not a whit the richer the better not a jot the more noble or happy but this Union as that divine essential Union between the Father and the Son doth invest Christ into all divine properties and prerogatives with the Father so this between Christ and the Believer invests the Believer into the whole Christ and all his riches and all his glory in so much as the Spouse gives in the whole accompt in this vast and invaluable sum Cant. 2.16 My Beloved is mine and I am his he is mine the whole Christ is mine in his natures offices excellencies prerogatives and inheritance In all he is and in all he hath it is all mine for my good and for my glory This is the voice of her Faith and then I am his this is the voice of her love I am his in all I am in all I have in all I can make by my interest in the world and if it were a thousand times more he should have it all and all too little for him who hath loved me and washed one in his own Blood and hath taken me into so rich and glorious an Vnion with his own self To him be glory for ever Amen This is the fourth Property I proceed to a fifth property of the Union Fifth Property an intimous Vnion and it is a near inward intimous Union To hint the intimateness of this Union the Holy Ghost in Scripture carries us through the climax of all Unions under Heaven and compares it with them of what nature and kind soever Whether Artificial Whether Political Whether Natural Wherein although you may find different degrees one exceeding another yet all falling short of this blessed Vnion in respect of closeness and intimacy It tells you that look how the house and foundation are one so are Christ and Believers 1 Pet. 2.4 5 6. yea higher It tells you that look how Husband and Wife are one so is Christ and his Saints Hos 2.19 Eph. 5.30 only with this incomparable difference Husband and Wife make but one flesh 1 Cor 6.16 17. but Christ and the Believer make one Spirit ut supra It tells us yet higher that look how the Head and Members are one so is Christ and his Church 1 Cor. 12.12 how root and branches are one John 15.1.6 so Christ and Believers and closer yer the Scripture tells us that look how Food and the body are one so also is Christ and the Believer one hence we hear of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood John 6.51 53 54 55 56. and nearer yet if nearer can be It 〈◊〉 that look how the Soul and Body are one how Life and the subject wherein it resides are one so is Christ and the Believer Colos 3.4 when Christ who is our life shall appear c. Behold here Christians is an Union which amounts tantum non to an identity say only with Cyprian it is not such an Union as is between the two natures in Christ Non miscet personas nec unit substantias Cypr. It is indeed an Union of persons but not a personal Union Mystici Theologi A Believer trans-essentiated into God and Bread and Wine transsubstantiated into Christ are much of a Language So they call the Holy Ghost auram zephyri caelestis and pardon of sin Deos superos manesque pacare Card. de Bemb which makes them but one person not such an Union as is between the three glorious Persons in the blessed Trinity who notwithstanding the distinction of their personality are but one nature and essence and you cannot say or think too highly of this Vnion yea whatsoever you can say or think will be short of the intimacy and excellency of this Union Onely we must tell the world that those mystical divines amongst the Papists as they call themselves who talk of the Saints being trans essentiated into God and those Seraphicks amongst us as they would be called but Phanatiques more truly and properly who rant at the same rate Christed with Christ and Godded with God these speak as men so ambitious of being accounted sublime and Angelical in comparison of all other men whom they scorn as illiterate Literatists that they think it a lessening to them to speak in a common and sober Dialect and rather then not speak bigger words then other men they fear not to speak Blasphemy The Lord convince them Notwithstanding I must add this to what I have said that because no Union under Heaven was close enough to express the oneness which is betwixt Christ and the Believer therefore our Lord Jesus himself carries us up to Heaven there to contemplate the essential Union which is between the Father and the Son Jo. 17. and puts them into the same parallel As thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us yet still we must be careful to understand the words of Christ in a sober sense lest whil'st our Lord doth honour our Union with himself by comparing it to divine Union in the Trinity we do in the least dishonour that Union by levelling it with ours we must duly remember that this comparative particle as doth not here intend equality but likeness oâ—â—y the truth of the intimacy and not the nature or the degree of it to lift up this mystical Union above all other Unions in nature but we must still keep the divine Union in its own place This is the fifth property The sixth property Sixth property total It is a total Union The whole Christ is United to the whole Christian as the whole humane nature in Christ is joyned to the whole divine nature so the whole person of a Believer is joyned to the whole person of Christ yet not so as to make Christ and the Believer but one person but as in the conjugal Union between Man and Wife making up one mystical body or as in the body natural every Member is joyned to the head and the head to every member so is Christ and the Believer Yea once
three glorious persons in Trinity and that other like unto it between the two natures in Christ profound and ineffable 1 Cor. 2.14 Quia nihil animal animali superius cogitare potest the heart of man is not able to conceive it nor the tongue of an Angel to express it the natural man knows it not at all no more of it than a Swine knows what the Union is between the Soul and body in man it is above his principle 1 Cor. 2.14 The spiritual man understandeth it very imperfectly all we know is rather that it is than what it is the full and perfect knowledg of it is reserved for the future state so our Lord hath told us John 14.20 At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you then and not till then we shall never perfectly understand this Union until we come fully to enjoy it In the mean time if a short improvement of such a rich point might not be judged too much improper in such a contemplative discourse as this is a few things might be hinted from hence by way of Use Use First Here we may discover the main Foundation 1 Perseverance stands not in the nature of Grace and Reason of the Saints perseverance surely it consists not in the nature of Grace infused in their Regeneration this differs not specifically from the Grace which Adam received in his first Creation that was the Image of God Gen. 1.26 27. and so is this Colos 3.10 and therefore of it self cannot produce any higher or more noble effects under the one Covenant then it did under the other Secondly 2. Nor in freedom of will Nor doth it consist in the liberty and rectitude of their own Wills though Regenerate for if Adams free will did him so little service in his perfect state when it was entire free without any mixture of servility how little security think you can the liberty Ex nolentibus facit volentes Aug. wherewith Christ maketh the will free in the new Creation afford the Saints wherein the state of Grace is yet imperfect and the freedom of their wills mixt with so much bondage that it made the holy Apostle look upon it little different for the present from a captivity Rom. 7.24 and to cry out to astonishment for a Redeemer to come in and make a rescue O Wretch that I am who shall deliver me c. He found by experience that if it were not more for a Christ than for the freedom of his own will that body of death which he carried about him would infallibly prove his total and final ruine but I thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord there was his security But 1. In the Covenant of Grace Where then shall we bottom the stability and fixedness of the Saints surely upon a two-fold Foundation First Divine Compact Grace in the Saints is under a Covenant God the Father hath Astipulated with the Mediator for his spiritual believing seed not only to repair the Ruines of the first Creation his Image in them but to uphold and secure it from ever dissolving decaying again totally or finally partial temporary decays and recidivations there may be but saith the word of the Covenant to the Redeemer in Reference to his divine off-spring my Spirit which is upon thee Isa 59.21 and my words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Adams grace was under no such Covenant and therefore left to it self it was exposed to the power of Temptation and perished This is one account of the Saints perseverance But Secondly Secondly Union with Christ The next and immediate Foundation of it is this blessed Vnion whereof we are now speaking by vertue whereof the true Believer is so made one with Christ as Christ is one with his Father ut supr As we are one as that is as it hath been expounded spiritually really operatively enrichingly intimously indissolubly in a word infallibly and availeably to all saving intents and purposes Here is the ground and foundation of the Saints perseverance Rev. 3.1 They are not only fixt Stars in Christs right hand if no more it would be hard pulling them thence But their lives are bound up in the same bundle with Christs own life Jo. 14.19 our life is hid with Christ in God Christ and his Saints have as it were but one life between them and that life is Christs whence Christ himself makes the inference because I live Col. 3.3 you shall live also Upon such an instance it may be questioned and possibly without breach of charity whether they who deny the infallible perseverance of the Saints did ever truly study or believe the notion and nature of the happy and glorious Vnion which is betwixt Christ and them * The inseparableness of the Union is given as the account of the Saints perseverance Nothing can separate us Rom. 8 39. If we should form what hath been said unto such a Syllogism as this namely They that are United to Christ by a spiritual real operative enriching intimate inseparable Union can never totally or finally fall away But all true Believers are so United Therefore they can never so fall away I say cast all into such a form and we find that both the Premisses and the Conclusion are of Christ's own making Because I live ye shall live also And therefore until I hear that Christ is dead the second time which I am sure I shall never do for Christ being raised dieth no more Rom. 6.9 death hath no more dominion over him c. I dare not believe this doctrine The possibility of the Saints total and final Apostacy Only because Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light and the heart is deceitful above all things Caution and desperately wicked my earnest advice and obsecration to all such as do pretend to this blessed Vnion as to mine own Soul is To give all diligence upon solid Scripture-evidence that is to say by the precious and powerful influences of this Vnion upon their Souls and by the gracious Reciprocations of Faith and Love and sweet holy communion with the Father and the Son c. by these I say and the like to secure the Assumption But I am thus Vnited to Christ And the Conclusion need not fear the gates of Rome or Hell but the Believer may boldly send forth St. Pauls challenge Who shall condemn What shall separate 1 Cor. 15.57 Thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ In the second place Second Use Hence we may take notice of the honour and dignity of the Saints how meanly and basely so ever reputed in The Dignity of the Saints 1 Cor. 4.13
divine essence is an arbitrary and voluntary glass manifesting all mysteries not by necessity but according to the freedom of his own will there the Saints may read to the full the Mystery of the blessed Trinity how three in one and one in three Father Son and Holy Ghost God blessed for ever That thrice glorious and till we come to Heaven not to be fathomed Mystery the wonder and adoration of the believing world that immense ocean over which so many daring Spirits having essayed to fly have fallen in and been drowned that burning light unto which so many presuming to approach too near have scorcht their wings and lost both their eyes and themselves together that sacred Ark into which too many presumptuous Bethshemites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having dared over boldly to look have been smitten What is essence And what is person And how they differ How the Father begets and the Son is begotten and how the Holy Ghost proceeds from both how they are distinguished by their order their personal properties and manner of working upon the Creature how the Father worketh from himself the Son worketh from the Father and the Holy Ghost worketh both from the Father and the Son How there should be alius alius and not aliud aliud c. These will be Lectures which shall be read in the Trinity it self in glory and that in a most clear and intelligible notion then shall the Saints be able to understand the mystery of the incarnation of the second Person the Son of God that Mystery of Godliness of Godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 because it transforms sinners into Saints and mystery because it containeth so many deep and mysterious wonders in it The blessed blessed-making Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God our Lord Jesus Christ scil Why the second Person in Trinity rather than the first or third should be incarnate Why he should take the nature of man rather than the nature of Angels and that when it was at the worst how he could take the nature of sinful man and yet not take the sinfulness of his nature the Hypostatical union between the divine and humane natures in the Lord Jesus in one person how there should be there aliud aliud and yet not alius alius That mysterious union between the Lord Christ the Head and all Believers the true Members of his body what it is and how they are made one with Christ as the Father and the Son are one this precious Mystery I say shall then be made manifest Jehn 14.20 at that day you shall know both what it is and how it is that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you c. then and not till then How he that is every where filling Heaven and Earth with his presence should yet be included in the narrow limits of a Virgins womb How he that made the Law should be made under the Law How the Ancient of dayes should become an Infant of moments How he that was begot before all time should be born in the fulness of time Ephes 3.10 How a Virgin and yet a Mother These and a thousand difficulties more wherein doth meet that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multiform multivarious wisdom of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 1.12 Ephes 3.10 as lines in a center where into the very Angels desire to peep and for some imperfect discoveries whereof they are glad to be beholding to the Lectures read in the Churches by their * Hoc vâ—rd nostra altior no titis praedicatur quam Anclorum tan 〈◊〉 intelligit Petrus ea nobu promitti quorum complementum videre cupiunt Cal. in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alludit ad propuiatorii formam c. Jam tum indicante figurâ fore ut in Christo cujus typur erat arca omnes sapientiae intelligentiae insiderent thesauri per Evangelii praedicationâ—m patesaciendi avidâ— ipsis Angelâ— beatâ— totum hoc mysterium cognoscare cujus etiam exhibitionem jam inde ab ipâ—is Christi noscentu incunabilu ecclesiae enarrâ—rant Beza in loc earthly Angels the Ministers of the Gospel these I say shall be clearly read and understood in that original wisdom wherein they were first conceived That profound and dark Mystery of Election and Reprobation why God should chuse one and leave another Why God should love Jacob and hate Esau Why the one should become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why first the Jews should be a Church and the Gentiles Aliens should afterward be adopted into the Covenant and the Jews broken off and cast out That God should break open the heart of a rebellious sinner by efficacious Grace and deny sufficient aid to one that hath improved his present strength far better With all other the dark profound Mysteries of Gods Decrees shall then be made glasses And lastly That mystery of wickedness and abominations and why God hath suffered him so long to reign and to usurp so great a part of Christs purchased and promised possessions with all his witchcrafts and sorceries whereby he hath deceived the Nations they shall all be discovered and brought to light to his eternal shame and confusion That God should shine out only upon some few spots of ground with the light of the Gospel and shut up the rest in palpable darkness The Creation of the World shall then be more clearly understood in the cause than now it is in the effect how all things were made out of the first matter and that out of nothing Rev. 13 10 14.12 Those hard mysteries of providence which do now try and exercise the faith and patience of the Saints scil Why they that are best should speed worst That there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked and again That there be wicked men Eccl 8.14 unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous In so much that now we call the proud happy Mal. 3.15 and they that work wickedness are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered Why the worse cause should many times have the better success Why God should suffer his dearest Children to be abused and insulted over when wickedness in the mean while triuÌ„mphs securely Why wickedness should be set up in high places and innocence should be trod under foot Somewhat of these Riddles the Word doth now interpret unto the Saints blessed be God to command their silence and submission to God but then shall they return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not all this will be then seen in God to infinite satisfaction The grand Article of the Faith The Resurrection of the dead being then already past shall be fully understood how the body after thousands of years in some through unutterable varieties of mutations and vast
Eph. 3.10 Lectures read in the Assemblies of the Saints for some insight into the mystery of Christ in the Gospel Oh how ready and able will they be to pay their debts with an abundant interest out of the immense volumes of knowledge which they have treasured up The Communications of their love their holiness their zeal their heavenliness c. what united flames will they make when they be joyned in communion and converse with the graces and perfections of the Saints Object If it be objected Is there not enough in God to fill the Saints to the vastest capacity What need then of Star-light when the Sun shines Yea may not the Saints conversing with Angels and one another be thought to be a diversion from the supreme object of light and love Sol. To this I answer No and the reason is because all the perfections and excellencies which are in the Creature are as so many beams and emanations leading the eye of the beholder to the Sun it self the body and fountain from which they do spring August saith we shall see God in his Saints and their glorious actings as well and as manifestly as now we see mens bodies in the vital actions of their bodies De Civit. Dei l. 22. c. 29. or as learned and holy mens Commentaries and Expositions are to the holy Scripture which do neither detract from nor add to that immense volume of truth but serve only to illustrate it and to render it more intelligible to the dark and imperfect understanding of the Creature Surely such an infinite full Text as God is will stand in need of some marginal notes as it were To see God in his Saints and the Saints in God this will be no diminution of the bentifical Vision All the excellencieâ— in the Creature are but drops from God the Fountain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The glorious Angels and Saints are alwayes sunning themselves in the presence of â—od and will keep company together to all Eternity A fourth Object The glorified body of the Son of God to help the Reader as Christ is said in the dayes of his flesh to be the Exegesis or Interpreter of the Father unto us John 1.18 So may the Angels be to the Saints in Heaven and such is all the glory of Heaven yea so is the humane nature of Christ himself now in glory the great Expositor of the Divine Essence a Mirrour or Glass wherein we come to see God more clearly and fully Which brings me to A fourth Object of the beatifical Vision and that is Christ himself or the glorified humane nature of the Lord Jesus Christ in his humane nature exalted to the right hand of his Father the highest seat in glory far above all principality and power Eph. 1.21 and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but in that which is to come This is the highest beatifical object in Heaven next to the divine Essence the sight of Christ as man it was the great design which the Lord Jesus had in redeeming them with his blood â—â—â—n 17.24 Father I will that they whom thou host given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me And sâ—rely this will be a glorious sight indeed behold of the glory of Christ in his transfiguration it is said That his face did shine as the Sun and his rayment was white as the light If the glory of his transfiguration was so excellent what will the glory be of his exaltation If the glory of his foot-stoul was so excellent how will the glory of his throne excel in glory If he appeared so bright upon an carthly Mountain how transplendent will he appear upon Mount Sion the Mountain of God that heavenly Mountain If such were his lustre in his state of humiliation before passion what beams of Majesty will shine from his face in his state of glorification when he is to receive the reward of his passion Behold there appeared then with him only Moses and Elias what will his glory be when all the Patriarchs and Prophets all the Apostles and Martyrs the whole Society of the Saints with the whole host of the mighty Angels that begirt his Throne with their hallelujahs and joyful acclamations Mark 9.6 That vision of Christ on earth did fill Peter and the Disciples with wonder and astonishment even to an extasie so that the Text tells us He knew not what he said Oh with what joy and ravishment shall the sight of Christ in glory fill the glorified Saints when their faculties shall be so raised that they shall understand what they see and profess what they unstand Surely Peter and all his fellow Saints will then say and know what they say Lord it is good for us to be here What a beautiful beatifying Object this will be Considerations evidencing the glory of Christs humane nature 1 Considerat The reward of his Passion we may guess for more we cannot by these three Considerations The first Consideration is this The glory of the humane nature of Jesus Christ in Heaven is the reward of his Passion here on earth In respect of the divine nature and as Jesus Christ was the second Person in Trinity the glory which the Lord Jesus now possesseth at his Fathers right hand was the glory which he had with the Father from before the foundation of the world John 17.24 but as to the assumption of the humane nature it was glory given him by the Father Christ had a twofold right to the Kingnom of glory sc natural and constitutive natural as he was the only begotten Son of God and so of the same nature and essence with the Father from all eternity and so whatever power and glory was essentially the Fathers was essentially the Sons also But then besides that Heb. 1.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tuit Jesus Christ had also a constitutive right or a right by donation as he was appointed and made heir of all things now this constitutive glory as I say was the fruit and reward of his sufferings Phil. 2.7 8 9 Because he humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross Therefore hath God highly exalted him and given him a name above all names c. Because and Therefore the exaltation of his humane nature was the merit and compensation of his humiliation and abasement Now then if we would make an estimate of the glory of Christ now at his Fathers right hand we cannot find out a more proper medium than to make a serious and if it were possible a thorow search and enquiry into his abasement and humiliation And certainly if there had been nothing else in it but his incarnation or the assumption of our flesh it had been an infinite abasement to the Son of God so deep an abasement as it had been blasphemy for men or Angels to
have sought for or so much as to have thought of Such a wish in the standing Angels Oh that God would give his own essential eternaly begotten Son to take the humane nature upon him and therein to recover lost man would have been a presumption without doubt which no less than the first ambition of the Apostate Angels probably conceived only in thought might have justly merited their ejection also out of Heaven Oh for the second Person in the glorious Trinity to take upon him the nature of man and that too when it was at the worst when it was fallen and stript of all its original beauty and excellency was more than for all the Angels of light to have been degraded if I may so say into so many Chimney-sweepers or Kennel-rakers or to have been condemn'd to have been made hewers of wood and drawers of wtaer for the service of the reprobate world had it been to have stood for ever This this is the great stupendious mystery which may fill the understanding of men and Angels with wonder and delight to all eternity * Tim. 3.16 God manifested in the flesh the Son of God incarnate Justly then may it swallow up our thoughts with horror and astonishment to descend step by step to the bottom of the Lord Christ his mediatory humiliation and abasement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ex omni Scipsum ad nihilum redegit exhausit Tertul. lib. 5. adversus Maâ—cion v. 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he debased or vilified himself to find him emptying of himself as it were to the last drop of his glory meekly submitting himself to all the affronts and insolencies of a reprobate world all the temptations and harassing of infernal Spirits and at length to death it self even the death of the cross that shameful cruel cursed death of the cross that death which was proper only to accursed slaves and therein drinking up the bitterest cup that ever was put into the hand of a sinner the cup of his Fathers wrath the venom whereof filled his soul with unconceivable anguish and made him cry out to the astonishment of Heaven and Earth My God my God why bast thou forsaken me In a word if you would come to the bottom of our Lords abasement you must dig to the very bottom of hell it self if there be a bottom there for though Christ did not suffer poenas inferni he did suffer poenas infirnales hellish pains though not the pains of hell Why now then if you would make any discovery of that glory wherewith the humane nature of our blessed Lord is invested at the right hand of God you must skrew up your thoughts to a glory every way adequate and commensurate to his inanition and abasement for less than that not only the love but the justice of his Father could not proportion to him It were good sometimes in our thoughts to compare the abasement of Christ and his exaltation together to set them as it were in columes one over against another He was born in a Stable but now he reigns in his Royal Palace then he had a Manger for his Cradle but now he sets in a Chair of state then Oxen and Asses were his Companions now thousands of Saints and ten thousand thousands of Angels minister round about his Throne then in contempt they called him the Carpenters Son now he obtains by inheritance a more excellent name than the Angels for to which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Then he was led away into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil now it is proclaimed before him let all the Angels of God worship him then he had not a place to lay his head on now he is exalted to be the heir of all things in his state of humiliation he endured the contradiction of sinners in his state of exaltation he is adored and admired of Saints and Angels then he had no form or comeliness when we saw him there was no beauty that we should desire him now the beauty of his countenance shall send forth such glorious beams that shall dazle the eyes of all the celestial Inhabitants round about him once he was the shame of the world now the glory of heaven the delight of his Father the joy of all the Saints and Angels once he was the obiect of the Reprobates scorn and the Devils malice now they shall be the objects of his most righteous vengeance he shall speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure Crucifiges will then be turn'd into Hallelujahs he that was called the Deceiver shall now be adored as the Amen of the Father the faithful and true witness a man of sorrows then but now the mirror of glory Prince of peace then accounted a servant of servants now he shall be called the Lord of Lords King of Kings then they put upon him a mock-robe a fools-coat but now he shall be cloathed with a royal garment down to the foot girt about the paps with a golden girdle the feeble reed shall now be turned into a massie Scepter of gold his Cross of wood into a Throne of glory and the Crown of Thorns into a Crown of Stars In the day of his abasement he was the foot-ball of his enemies kickt up and down the world by every prophane fool but now in the day of his exaltation his enemies shall be made his footstool yea Thrones and principalities being made subject unto him Surely the very prints of his hands and feet and the holes that were bored in his sides shall be so many signal marks and trophies of victory and Thomas 〈◊〉 set now above all doubting may sing in triumph My Lord and my God And lastly the Lord Jesus himself instead of his desertion the lowest step of all his abasement shall solace himself for ever in the vision and fruition of his Father and of the blessed Spirit and instead of my God my God why hast thou forsaken me shall be that triumph I and my Father are one thou Father in me and I in thee These be some crevices through which we may have a glimpse of the glory of our Lords once crucified body the full discovery of it you will never be able to make until you come eye to eye to see and enjoy it in the Kingdom of Heaven witness a second Consideration A second consideration evidencing what a glorious beatifying object the glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus will be in Heaven is 2. Consider The personal and hypostatical union which the humane nature hath with the divine nature of the Son of God Col. 2.9 the sulness of the Godhead dwelleth in Christ bodily i. e. in his body the fulness of the divine essence dwells in the humane nature and is as it were transparent through his flesh and this makes it to be the most beatifying vision next to the vision of God
of us all Jesus Christ was the Center in whom the sins of all the Elect of God did meet and unite together to make Him as it were the common sinner For God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him and under the insupportable burthen of our sin he swet and wept and bled and groaned and gave up the Ghost Behold Rom. 8.31 So God the Father Loved us that he spared not his own Son but delivered him up to the death for us all and shall we think much to give up the dearest Treasures of our blood in death to Him So much did God the Son love us that He died for love of us he died the first death that we might not die the second death he died for us that we might live with him And shall we count our lives or the lives of our dearest Relations too dear for him especially when no such advantage can accrue to the Lord Jesus by our death as did accrue to us by his death also in as much as neither we nor ours are in any capacity to reap the fruit and advantage of his death until we dye also and the sooner we dye the sooner shall we reap those fruits Behold God's First-borne was laid in the Sepulchre and shall we think God deals hardly with us if we follow our first-born to the Grave and leave them there till our Lord himself come to awaken them Especially since therefore Jesus died and was buried that he might sanctifie death to us by his death and by his being buried might perfume the Grave and make it a sweet Dormitory or bed of spices for his members to rest in until the Morning of the Resurrection Oh Christians Let us comfort our selves and one another with these words also Jesus dyed The fourth word is yet more Cordial A fourth word of Comfort and that is although Jesus dyed yet He rose again He died indeed but he rose again from the dead God suffered his dear Son to be laid in the Sepulchre but he did not leave him there nor suffer any taint of Corruption to seize upon his precious Body And to that end Christ made hast to rise again out of the Grave he rose the third day and that very early in the Morning saith the Text as soon as ever it could be called day The Alarm no sooner went off as it were but the Lord Jesus did lift up his Royal head and put on his Glorious Apparel and came forth out of his Grave as a Bridegroom out of his Chamber in State and Triumph And this was the Cordial which our Lord himself took before his passion Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell Psal 16.10 neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see Corruption Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth c. This was his Triumphant Song And it may be ours as well as his yea therefore ours because his whether in reference to our selves or to our gratious Relations For therefore was not Christ left in Hell i. e. in the state of the dead that he might lift up us also out of the pit and therefore his body saw i. e. sustained no corruption or putrefaction no not for the least particle of time that our mortal bodies might not inherit Rottenness and Oblivion in the dust for ever And indeed in this phrase in the Text Jesus arose again there be three things implied which interest every believer in this Triumph of Christs Resurrection c. Jesus rose again implieth three things First Power Secondly Right Thirdly Office First 1st Power 〈◊〉 Jesus Rose again it implieth Christs power Viz. That Jesus Christ rose by his own power It is not said Jesus was raised which might have spoken Him passive onely in his Resurrection but Jesus rose which speaketh Him active namely that he rose as a Conquerour by his own strength as Himself professeth I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again Joh 10.18 What power that was Rom. 1.4 will tell us declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the Resurrection from the dead It is true it is elsewhere said that Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father Rom. 6.4 And likewise that he was quickned by the Spirit Pet. 3.18 To shew that neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost were excluded from a joynt share and concurrence in his Resurrection but here as elsewhere it is said also that Christ rose to shew that he was not merely passive in his Resurrection as the Children of the Resurrection are but that he rose also by the mighty power that was seated in his own Royal person The divine Nature in Christ to which the humane nature was personally united Alteram Christi naturam intelligamus nempe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verbi incarnati potentiâ was that Spirit of Holiness by which the Lord Jesus did rise Triumphantly from the dead In the same language speaks another Apostle he was put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit i.e. by the Divine essence which was in Christ Death and the Grave had swallowed a morsel which they could not keep but as the Whale when it had swallowed Jonas in this the Type of Christ was forced to vomit him up again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being impossible Christ should be holden by death The power of the word incarnate loosed or dissolved the bonds of Death as a thread of Tow is broken when it is touched with the fire Yea Sampson-like herein also another type of his Jesus Christ did break in sunder the bars of the Grave and carried away the Gates of death upon his shoulders making a shew of them openly Thus Jesus rose again as a Conquerour by his own power and this is our Triumph and Rejoycing For surely He that thus raised up himself can raise up us also and will indeed raise us up by the same power Phil 3 21. whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself Secondly Jesus rose again it implieth his Office Second Office he rose as a Jesus a Saviour the Mediator of our peace who having finished the work he came about namely to satisfie divine Justice and to bring in everlasting Rightcousness so making peace by the blood of his Cross God the Father sent a publique Officer from Heaven to open the Prison doores Math. 28.2 an Angel to rool away the stone from the mouth of the Sepulchre thereby proclaiming to all the world that the debt was paid and that God had received full satisfaction for the sins of the Elect saying as it were Deliver him for I have received a Ransom This is another ground of our Triumph that Jesus rose that is he rose as our Jesus our Saviour and so by dying hath
cast forth her dead The dead shall arise by vertue of this dew the warm animating influence of Christs Resurrection Hence it is as I have hinted before that our Lord calls himself the Resurrection and the Life namely to intimate to us that by the same spirit of holiness whereby he raised himself from the dead he will also quicken their mortal bodies This is a second Connexion which inseparably links in the Resurrection of the Saints with the Resurrection of Christ For surely were it not so the Resurrection of Jesus Christ would signifie no more than the Resurrection of Lazarus or any other of the Saints mentioned Math. 27.52 53. Yea the Resurrection of Christ would not be of so great vertue and influence as the dry bones of the Prophet the very touch whereof raised the dead man 2 King 12.21 which was cast into his Grave Thirdly There is between the Resurrection of Christ Third Connexion of Design and the Resurrection of the Saints at the last day a Connexion of Design The Lord Jesus had a design upon the Saints in his rising again from the Dead and what that was he tells us in the last passionate prayer before his passion John 17.24 Father I will that all those whom thou hast given me be with me that where I am they might be also Therefore Christ arose and ascended that he might come again and awake them out of their Graves and take them home to himself into Mansions of Glory So he comforted his Disciples before his departure Joh. 14.3 If I go and prepare a place for you I will come and receive you unto my self that where I am there you may be also Christ counts not himself full Eph. 1.23 The Head is not compleat without the Members Although I thus sence the words yet I would not be thought to exclude every other meaning as knowing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as well quod impletur as quod implet till he hath all his Members with him therefore is the Church called the fullness of him that filleth all things marke it Christ is the fulness of all things and yet the Church is called the fulness of Christ how so Christ is the fulness of the Church as the Head is the fulness of the Members supplying them with Life and Influence and the Church is the fulness of Christ as the Members are the fulness of the Head making of it a compleat and perfect man Christ is the fulness of the Church for internal animation and the Church is the fulness of Christ for external consummation The Church is Christs outward not inward fulness see Jeans on Colos 1.19 page 19. This is then a third inseparable Connexion between Jesus rising again from the Dead and the Saints rising again because without this Christ should loose the very plot and project of his own Resurrection and be defective even in his state of Glory as an Head without his Members This must not be it cannot be And this casts us upon the fourth Connexion Fourth Connexion of Vnion before we are aware of it sc A Connexion of Vnion The Connexion which is between Christ his Resurrection and the Saints Resurrection is that very Connexion which is between him and them namely the Union which is between the Head and Members The wicked rise not by vertue of Christs Resurrection there being no such Vnion between Christ them they are raised by a general power of Christ as a Judge Christ is the Head Eph. 1.22 and the Saints are the Members of his body v. 23. his Mystical body It would not be proper here to discourse largely concerning the nature of this Vnion especially in as much as I shall have occasion to meet with it again in the process of this discourse sufficient to my design it is to shew you how this spiritual Vnion that is between Christ and Believers is one of the * In Nature we see that the Winter Trees which seem to be dead revive again in the Spring because the Body Armes and Graines of the Tree are joyned to the Root where the Sap lies all the Winter and by means of its Conjunction it conveys vegetation to all parts of the Tree Even so our life is hid with Christ in God And in the day of the Resurrection by reason of this mystical Conjunction Divine and quickening Vertue shall stream from Christ to his Elect and cause them to rise again c. Foundations whence the Resurrection of the Saints is necessarily inferr'd upon the Resurrection of Christ himself For if the Head be risen the Members cannot be long behind witness the Word of Christ to his Disciples and in them to all Believers a word more precious than the whole Creation Because I live ye shall live also The Resurrection of the Saints is bound up in the Resurrection of Christ as the effect is bound up in the cause because I live you shall live because Jesus rose again Saints shall rise again Christ is our life and therefore when Christ shall appear we shall appear with him in Glory Can the cause be without the effect can the Head live and the Members remain dead Yea can the Saints life live and they themselves continue in a state of death This is an happy contradiction a blessed impossibility Oh write this comfortable word upon your hearts Christians Christ is our life Christ is your Life and the Life of your Christian Relations and as sure as Christ as risen they shall rise and because he lives those Members of his for whom you weep and bleed as dead shall live also with him Surely if the Devil and all the powers of darkness were not able to keep Christ in the Grave neither shall they be able to hold one of his Members there for ever Hence you shall find the holy Apostle disputing from the Resurrection of Christ to the Resurrection of Christians If Christ rose from the Dead 1 Cor. 15.12 how say some that there is no Resurrection of the Dead and back again from the Resurrection of Christians ver 13. to the Resurrection of Christ if there be no Resurrection of the Dead then Christ is not risen Indeed the form of words is Negative but the sense is Affirmative and for the greater assurance it is repeated over and over in the following verses backward and forward as Convertibles grant one and ye grant the other deny one and ye deny the other And the result is this But now is Christ risen from the Dead ver 20. and become the first Fruits of them that sleep Christ is risen Christ rose as the first fruits in which the whole Harvest is considered and risen as our first Fruits as a pledge and part of the whole Harvest for if the first Fruits be holy the Lump is also holy if the first Fruits be laid up safe in Gods Barns the whole Harvest shall in due time be
indeed Believers to be so far one with Christ Idem velle Idem nolle vera est amicitia and that is a very sweet and precious union to will and nill the same things is an high degree of love and oneness but to say no more of the Union betwixt Christ and his Saints is to say too little Sixthly Neither is this Union barely a Sacramental Vnion whereby Christians in either of the Sacraments or any other Evangelical institution are in an Elemental professional way joyned to Christ and Christ to them Thus all good and bad Elect and Reprobate Simon Magus as well as any of the Believing Samaritans Acts 8.12 13. Judas as well as Peter all I say are made one with Christ in an external professional use of those Gospel-institutions while in the mean time a real Believer in a true living spiritual saving way is made partaker of Christ and of all his benefits in all Gospel-Ordinances Seaventhly In contradistinction to the Union which we have with Christ by vertue of his assuming our humane nature Christ was incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin and thereby was personally united to our flesh which is the highest advancement of the humane nature that can be conceived Heb. 2.16 For verily he took not upon him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham Christ assumed mans nature being God from all Eternity he took on him the one to the other and so made of those two natures one person by this we have a kind of Union with Jesus Christ ver 11. He which Sanctifieth and they which are Sanctified are both of one i.e. of one God say some the Son of God and Saints are all of one God the Father others understand it of Adam Christ as concerning the flesh and all the sanctified are of one common root and Father though by a different generation But of one here is to be referred principally to the nature whereof both the sanctifier and sanctified are partakers i.e. Acts 17.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are of the same blood and kindred of the same mould constitution of the same humane nature This is a near and an honourable Conjunction for by this means Jesus Christ is become our Immanuel God with us bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh but yet this Conjunction is common to all sanctified and unsanctified prophane and holy and verily it will be found an high aggravation of sin in the great day that sinners should dare to profane and prostitute that nature to sinful purposes Heb. 2.11 which the Son of God hath sanctified by so wonderful an assumption of it into one and the same personality with the divine nature Thus the sanctified are one with him that sanctifieth but that 's not all Eighthly It is real in contradistinction to that contemplative Vnion which the Saints have with Christ in their holy Meditations Meditation doth bring the object and the faculty together and makes them one And thus the Saints are often united to Jesus Christ in holy contemplation whereby they let in Christ into their Souls and their Souls into Christ and become as it were One Spirit or one in Spirit with him but neither is this all for even common gifts and parts may produce this Conjunction as well as Grace Art may thus Unite Christ and the understanding as well as Faith One may be thus United to Christ for a time and yet be separated from Christ for ever Again Ninethly It is a real Union in contradistinction to Reconciliatory Vnion Falling out separates between person and person Reconciliation makes them one again Reconciliation is the Attonement of Enemies and thus indeed God and Sinners are Reconciled by Christ by him we have received the Attonement those whom sin made two Rom. 5.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reconciliation Christ makes one This is a choyce fruit of Christ's death a concomitant of our Union with Christ yet not the very Vnion it self or not the whole of this Union there is between Christ and Believers the Union of Friendship 2 Cor. 5.18 19. But neither is that all Tenthly and lastly This Vnion is real in contradistinction to affectionate Vnion Crederes unam animam in duobus esse divisam Min. Fel. Oct. Love is as an uniting affection it makes the lover and the beloved one as if two persons had but one Soul between them thus Christ loves the Saints Rev. 1.5 and the Saints love Christ again 1 Pet. 1.8 Christ's love to them is the cause their love to Christ is the effect 1 Jo. 4.19 Yet this Union is rather a fruit of that Union we are now speaking of than the Vnion it self as in Marriage the conjugal bond and conjugal love are distinct things Indeed Love doth Unite Christ and the Saints but Love is rather the fruit of this Union than the Union it self there is somewhat more real in this Union than the Love it self None of all these reach the nature of this Union The Scripture describes it to be a real and a solid Union as real as that beween Head and Members Root and Branches for although it be a Spiritual Union yet doth it not therefore cease to be real things are not therefore less real because Spiritual yea therefore more God who is the most absolute and real Being a Being which gives Being to every thing which hath a being is most spiritual John 4.24 God is a Spirit and the nearer any being or excellency approximates unto God the more real it is the more it self as we see in Angels and the Souls of men Our Saviour his giving of us his Flesh to eat is not as the Papists believe or rather as they would make us believe they do believe literal and carnal the truth it self bearing witness John 6.63 The Flesh profiteth nothing q. d. If you could literally tear my Flesh with your teeth and pour my Blood down your throats this would not profit you at all in point of Salvation What then will Why the words which I speak are Spirit and Life i. e. they are to be understood in a Sacramental and spiritual sense c. And yet although Christs Body be not food in a fleshly but in a spiritual sense Jo. ◠55 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Truly or Verily it is not therefore less real no my flesh is meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed it is neither painted nor Enchanted meat but real and substantial yet not corporal but spiritual yea it is so real that in comparison of that all other corporal food is but imaginary and metaphorical it is but like bread it is but like wine painted bread Quasi food and painted wine not so indeed and in truth compared with Christ in the holy Supper Such is this Union although yea because it is not a corporal but a spiritual Union therefore it is so true and real that in comparison of it all Unions and
the Sheavs into his Barn I will say to the Reapers but gather the Wheat into my Barn Behold this is the Angels Office their work is not done till the good Corn be Inn'd This in the Metaphor of the Marriage of the Lamb is nothing else but the Angels attendance on the Saints the Lambs Wife while She is making ready Revel 19.7 8. that when She is arayed in fine Linnen clean and white they may then take her up in their winged Arms and conduct her in state to the place where her Royal Bridegroom is staying for her Thirdly Third Medium The Spirituality of the Saints bodies The Spirituality and Power wherewith the bodies of the Saints are endowed in the Resurrection may well concurr also to this Ascention By vertue of that marvellous Spirituality and Agility wherewith the Resurrection shall if I may so say inform the Saints bodies they shall be able to mount upward ut sup and move with admirable celerity up and down to and fro in the Air as Swallows in a Sun-shine day dart themselves through the skie or as the Angels themselves who with equal facility Descend and Ascend with a motion as swift as their Wills In the Resurrection indeed the Saints were purely passive as passive as when their bodies were first formed out of the dust and had the breath of Life breathed into them But now in their Ascention they shall be active and agil Mooved indeed they shall be by an extrinsick power why else are they said to be caught up into the Air But yet not so but that they may move themselves by an intrinsick Principle Else 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. God and Nature do nothing in Vain those supernatural affections of their re-divine bodies might seem to be superfluous and insignificant Sutably to this it is storied of Elijah his Ascention a Prophesie and figure of this universal Translation of the Saints that although a Charet of fire parted Him and Elisha yet He went up by a whirlwind into Heaven He was carryed and yet he went up so the Saints c. Thus I have shewed the probability at least of a threefold Medium in the Saints Ascention 1. Christs Power 2. The Angels Ministry Object 3. The Agility of the Saints bodies But it may be Objected What meaneth this Concurrence of Mediums For if any one of these be sufficient What use of them all For Answer Ans Twofold I shall offer two things to your consideration First This Concurrence of Mediums is no other than we meet with in the Ascention of our Lord in his own Person For First Act. 1.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the Lord Jesus Himself after his Resurrection it is said He was taken up or lifted up the phrase may import the Power of the Father as formerly in raising him up from the dead So now also in lifting him up into Glory according to that Act. 5.31 Him hath God the Father exalted with his right-hand Here is the power of the Father in the Sons Ascention And then you have the subserviency of second Causes added first a Cloud is prepared as a Royal Charet to carry up this King of Glory to his Princely Pavilion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luk. 24.51 He was carryed up into Heaven A Cloud received him out of their sight And then a Royal Guard of mighty Angels surround the Charet if not for support yet for the greater state and solemnity of their Lords Ascention He was carried up into Heaven Luk. 24.51 Yet notwithstanding all this it is said of the Lord Jesus He went up Act. 1.10 while the Disciples looked stedfastly towards Heaven He went onward or he went upward as implying that his motion was not only passive but active he mounted up into Heaven by his own divine power He Ascended Behold here we have a perfect Pattern of the Saints Ascension in all the Mediums of it they hold exact proportion with their Lord. The Father lifted up the Lord Jesus the Lord Jesus He lifts up his Saints A Cloud received Him the Saints also are caught up in the Clouds Angels attend upon their Lord in his Ascension nor do they refuse their attendance on the Saints in their Ascension Jesus Christ notwithstanding Ascended by the Power of his own glorified Person The Saints likewise Ascend by vertue of those supernatural properties wherewith their bodies were adorned in the Resurrection I Answer Secondly Second Answ That in both Christ's and the Saints Ascention this variety of Mediums is neither superfluous nor inconsistent but signal instances of that sweet harmonious subordination of Causes which the only wise God hath established in his own Counsel for the managing of his works and wonders of providence viz. Second Causes working together in their several Sphere and Orb. The supream cause ordering influencing and actuating the second causes to his own ends and designs And lastly See a notable instance of this subordination Hos 2.21 22. Rev. 11 12. Particular Beings and Persons lest to act according to the mpressions of their own individual natures notwithstanding their subordination All these Mediums we may observe once more concurring in the Resurrection of the Witnesses mentioned in the Revelations There you have 1. A great voyce from Heaven calling them Come up hither There 's th Power of Christ It was a great voyce a voyce of Power a voyce which did what it commanded Second The subserviency of the Clouds the Witnesses rode upon a Cloud into Heaven in Triumph Thirdly And to shew their motion was not violent but free also and voluntary it is said they Ascended Fourthly And there is yet one Circumstance more of special remark and that is This was in the sight of their Enemies Their Enemies beheld them beheld them with great fear verse 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Horrour and Astonishment took hold of their Persecutors Envying their Advancement and vexing themselves that they should have no more power to Persecute the Witnesses and add to all this confounded in the expectation of their own succeeding judgment This one Scripture is a perfect prediction and model of the general Resurrection of the Saints in the last day The Lord Jesus from his Throne shall call them up by a powerful voyce Come up hither Clouds shall be their Chariots and Horses to carry them And yet they shall Ascend upwards by a supernatural principle spontaneously and of their own proper motion While in the mean time the whole world of reprobate Men and Angel shall be left below upon the Earth looking upward and gnashing their Teeth to see such a sudden and tremendous Turn of things the Saints whom they despised and persecuted snatcht out of their reach and ascending in so much pomp and royalty to meet their glorious Redeemer they themselves being left behind with a certain looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation which shall devour the adversaries Then shall begin their weeping and
all things to be known the knowing whereof may any way make us happy in Heaven we shall know as much of all the mysteries of Grace and Nature as we would know Etiam curiositas satiabitur Anselm John 14.20 Curiosity it self shall be satisfied we shall know whatsoever it is we desire to know with this our Lord satisfieth his Disciples concerning those two great mysterious unions the essential union union between the Father and the Son that I am in my Father and the mystical union that is between him and all believers you in me and I in you q. d. although now ye are ignorant of these high transcendent mysteries yet let this stay and comfort your hearts when I shall come again in glory to take you unto my self that where I am there you may be also then these shall be no mysteries unto you but so many evidential Revelations At that day ye shall know then and not till then And so it may abundantly satisfie the insatiable desires of inquisitous spirits into the deep mysteries both of Creation and Redemption That when Christ shall appear we shall also appear with him in glory and then shall the veil be taken away and they shall see God and all things in Gods face which their souls desire to see the soul shall be filled and inebriated with variety of all desirable knowledge that may any way tend to its perfection This may satisfie save that it may set their souls a longing for that day and cause them to cry out with the Bride Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly The third Priviledge contained in Cohabitation is Fruition A third Priviledge implyed in the Saints being with the Lord 3. Priviledge Fruition is Fruition Vision in Glory is accompanied with fruition and this is that which makes it truly beatifical whatever glorified Saints see they do enjoy else this Vision would not differ much from Report nor that state of glory from an Heaven in a well-drawn Launskip The very Reprobate it seemeth have a prospect of Heaven Luke 13.28 but to their torment they themselves being thrust out Now Fruition consists of a ten-fold Ingredient or Property Viz. 1. Propriety 2. Possession 3. Intimacy 4. Suitableness 5. Satiety or fulness 6. Freshness 7. Present 8. Fixedness 9. Reflection 10. Complacency The first Ingredient into Fruition is Propriety 1. Ingredient Propriety Whatsoever the Saints see in Heaven is their own God saith to Abraham Gen. 13.14 now in the heavenly Canaan what he once said to him of the earthly Lift up thine eyes and look from the place where thou art Northward Southward Eastward and Westward for all the land which thou seest 〈◊〉 thee do I give it whatever is within that vast circumference of Heaven it is Abraham's and all his spiritual seeds for ever Now David may tune his Michtam a key higher and instead of Gilead is mine Psal 60.7 8 and Manasseh is mine Ephraim and Judah c. he may now sing God is mine and Christ is mine and the Spirit is mine all the elect Angels are mine and all the whole Congregation of the first-born mine all the glory of Heaven is mine And so may the best of the Saints in heaven triumph all is mine and what pleasures or riches or honours or glory or joyes are in the presence of God they are all mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 1.13 They did sing so while yet in the valley of tears or they might have sung so Faith gave them a title their Jus adrem a right to Heaven but the blessed vision giveth them now real interest Jus in re right in Heaven and they need not now fear to call it theirs they might have said my God my Christ and my Comforter here below but one thing was to be done first sound Scripture evidence was to be cleared out and sealed up to their souls but some or other defect therein did not seldom check their confidence and damp their joy for a time But now in glory Propriety is beyond all dispute their evidences were seen and allowed at their first admission into Heaven and now mine mine is their song and triumph to all eternity and God is not ashamed to be called their God truly he was not ashamed to be called so even when they had but too much cause to be ashamed of themselves and gave God too much cause to be ashamed of them But now God is so far from being ashamed of owning them that he rejoyceth in them and glorieth over them This people I have formed for my self Isai 43.21 they shall shew forth my praise And again Fear not for I have redeemed thee verse 1 I have called thee by thy name thou art mine Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee The Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren to own them for Subjects Friends Rev. 15.3 chap. 14.1 Coheirs with himself in glory his Bride And they claim their Propriety in him as such The King of Saints chap. 1.6 verse 5 9 with their Fathers name written in their foreheads they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth chap. 21.9 Mat. 18.10 owning themselves as his beloved his redeemed Kings and Priests unto God and his Father yea as the Lambs Wife They have a propriety in all the elect Angels of God they be still their Angels as ready to do them brotherly offices as ever and take more complacency in their company and in them than ever by how much more purified and Angelified they are then when they lay among the pots of the earth now made like themselves fellow Angels as it were as well as fellow Saints They have propriety in one another although they may know some of the Saints under the notion of natural relations yet do these all cease there as now being retired into the first and chief root and Spring-head of divine Relation Children of one heavenly Father in whose House they are all together embracing and courting one another in purest communion and communications of love each Saint not more himself than his fellow Saints In a word the place where the Saints are met together never to part it is their own not a strange Country where they see one another as Strangers and Pilgrims do sometimes visit and comfort one another Heaven is not a borrowed Palace where they are admitted by curtesie to celebrate a Festival for a few dayes or years but the Saints in Heaven are at home now 2 Cor. 5.2 in their own house and Kingdom Their own 1. By Inheritance Col. 1.13 An Inheritance prepared for them from before the world had any foundation but what it had in Gods Decree Matth. 25.24 2. By purchase Therefore is Heaven called the Purchased possession Ephes 1.14 Their dear Lord and Bridegroom purchased them and their Inheritance together with his own blood 1
〈◊〉 all of one heart and of one soul Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possesseth are their own but the joy of one is the joy of all I cannot say the sorrow of one is the sorrow of all for this is their prerogative which was not on earth there is no sorrow in heaven The Saints and Angels mutually open their hearts one to another and communicate their notions and mysteries and loves and desires one to another as having as much share in and right to one another as to themselves Neither are those celestial Inhabitants e're a whit the more remote from God when they thus go into one another There is no diversion in Heaven from the summum bonuoâ— for where ever it is they meet with God he fills Saints and Angels not only as he doth the world with the fulness of his being and power but with the fulness of his glorious and beatifying presence they are still in God and God in them In a word whatever beatitude there is in heaven the Saints and Angels are in it hence it is said they enter into joy here below joy entred into them but there they enter into joy Heaven is all inside yea God himself is the inside of heaven This is fruition indeed A fourth Ingredient into Fruition is Fulness A fourth In grediâ—â— Falneâ— There is in Heaven good and there is enough of it Fulness to satisfaction They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house Psal â—8 and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures The joyes of heaven are compared to a Feast Venachal gâ—ada necha consisting of all imaginable rarities both of meats and drinks fatness expressing the delicacy of food and the River of Eden for so the word signifieth of the River of thy Eden the ravishing sweetness of their drink infinitely beyond all that is fancied by the Poets of the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Gods which indeed was but an imperfect notion of the joys of Heaven filched out of some fragments of Scripture by those blind Naturalists But of such deliciousness doth this marriage Supper consist of and there is plenty of them plenty even to satiety they shall be satisfied with the fatness and inebriated with those wines upon the lees well refined The Master of the feast will say to his Guest then in the feast what he said here below in the figure Eat O friends drink yea drink abundatlny Cant. 5.1 Heb. Or be drunken with love my beloved And it must needs be so for every one of the glorified Inhabitants do enjoy an whole God even the whole glorious and thrice blessed Trinity an whole Christ in his glorified humane nature every one doth enjoy an whole Heaven with all the felicities of it as much as if Heaven had been made but for one individual person For although the Church of the first-born in heaven consists of ten thousand times ten thousands and thousands of thousands yet hath no one the less for what others do enjoy As in Nature every beholder hath an whole Sun and the whole Heavens to himself with all their splendour and influence as much as if there were but one man in the world In terrestrials indeed it is not so there what one man hath another hath not and where many share every single mans portion is the less whence it is that Meum and Tuum fills all the world with quarrels and confusions But there is no such thing in heaven the multitude of heirs do not divide or lessen the Inheritance the Reason is because there are no particles in Essentials every one hath all and none the less for what another enjoyeth Yea the more because the joy of one is the joy of all every heir of Glory enjoyeth not only what himself hath but what his Co-heir hath too so that upon the point each Saint enjoys as many heavens as there be Angels and Saints in heaven A blessed Mystery of Multiplication With thee is the fountain of life Psal 36.9 how can they chuse but be full who are alwayes at the fountain-head Yea are alwayes drencht and immerst in the immence Ocean of Beatitudes God himself the Latitude of all Being Truth and Good God is infinitely full of himself and infinitely happy in his own happiness and infinitely satisfied in his own happiness And this is the augment of the Saints joy that they are not able to contain that infinite Object of Glory apprehend it they may comprehend it they cannot And this the blessed Angels and Saints rejoyce in that God only dwelleth in himself and they in him and are as full of God as a finite Creature can be of an infinite Creator brim-full and running over yet so as that in all this reduncancy not one drop shall be spilt or run wast for all the overflowings of sweetness and glory do run back again into the fountain in streams or rather in the flames of love and admiration they take in by fruition and give out again by praise and admiration And thus of all other the unconceiveable Beatitudes of glory there shall be satiety without nauseating so that they shall say they have enough without envying others or wishing more for themselves Now they may have some fits of joy but then they shall have their fill even the external sences of the glorified body shall now contain more glory 2 Cor. 4.17 than the spiritual sences of their Souls were capable of in this imperfect state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pressing or oppressing weight The Saints shall have as much glory as they are able to stand under hence we read of a weight of glory a weight that would utterly sink and crush them into nothing were there not an Arm of Omnipotence to sustain them and to make them bear it as their Crown not as a burden with ease and delight Suitableness is another Ingredient into Fruition 5 Ingredient Suitableness without which both the former scil both Intimacy and Fulness would be a burden and not a bliss suffering rather than fruition In the choice of our inferiour felicities in this life whether things or persons we have more respect to the suitableness of them than to their preciousness the just content of the married estate consists not in the rareness of beauty or largeness of portion or possessions no not alwayes in the eminency of grace but in the suitableness of disposition and so our experience will tell us of all other states and conditions in the world and this is the great infelicity of this present world that it affords it not such an absolute parity between the person and the possession from the King upon the Throne to the Hermit in the Cave as that a Person should be found that can say unless it be upon the account of gracious submission to the divine will I would not wish my condition other than it
an earthly inheritance to run from Lawyer to Lawyer to attend eary in the morning and late at night to give see upon fee to spend half a patrimony or an estate to secure the rest and as if heaven and the beatifical vision were the only trivial worthless thing a meer accident that might adesse or abesse sine subjecti interitu be present or absent without the least prejudice at all to a mans happiness I say to take up that upon trust and to leave this ever with the Lord upon a peradventure Oh unspeakable folly and madness Oh that the sons of the earth should thus shame the heirs of heaven Hab. 2.6 that an earthly inheritance should be more valuâ—d by sense than the heavenly is by faith more care taken to be sure of dirt and dung thick clay than of that which is infinitely more valuable than câ—ral or pearls whose price is above rubies 1 Pet. 1.18 19 as bought not with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot Were this errour the fruit only of incapacity as it is in little Infants that cannot judge what belongs to their present or future good verily it were a thousand pities an infelicity upon the humane nature to be lamented with tears of blood but that rational Creatures furnished with such noble faculties for such divine and heavenly purposes should through a mere brutish sensuality be so willingly content to remain at such uncertainties is the most dreadful prodigy that can possibly enter into the heart of man That adult persons grown up to maturity should despise their birth-rights and desperately neglect to look into their writings which relate to such an immortal estate argues not only the woful degeneracy of the humane nature how rife and pregnant the seeds both of ignorance and atheism are therein but even a judicial blast upon their understandings as if the God of Heaven had given them up to the God of the world 2 Thes 1.9 to blind the eyes of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God should shine unto them Oh that men would consider seriously what avail will it be at death and judgment to have had assurance of many large earthly possessions while they lived and then to have neither scrip nor scrol as we say to shew for heaven that blessed inheritance of the Saints in light when they come to dye to be able to say now my house and my land and my silver and my crown and my kindom but not then my Lord and my God my heaven and my inheritance I have bestowed all my time and strength to assure my earthly possessions but now I can keep these no longer and can call nothing mine own but the dungeon of darkness there to be staked down to easeless and endless torments or at best to cry out with that heathen Emperour Animula Adrianus Imp. blandula vagula quo vadis nescio I know not whither thou art going O my precious darling my never dying soul Confident and presumptuous supposals may quiet and satisfie the sleepy and slothful Conscience in fair weather but in the hour of temptation Mat. 7.27 when the rain shall descend and the floods come and the winds blow then these foolish confidences will fall because they were built upon the sand and great will be the fall thereof Then when in hell the miserable soul made now as sensible as formerly it was secure shall from thence lift up its eyes and see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and it self thrust out what furious and fiery reflexions will then rend and vex the Conscience and the sinner cry out with horrour O damned wretch that I am I might have had pardon and glory as well as others I had as many means and motives I had as much need as they it was as much my concern as any others but I trifled and took up all upon trust and would not give diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end oh now a thousand worlds if I had them for a may be which once I had oh for one of those dayes of grace which I then sinned away and idled out in the pursuit of vanity for one of those tenders and offers of salvation which then pursued me and I would not hearken but thought I might have had heaven time enough when I had done with the world but now I see how miserably I have mocked God and deceived my self the day of grace is now gone and the time of peace is at its full stop and period and instead of ever with the Lord here I must lye and boil and broil in these flames with the Devil and reprobate spirits for ever Oh that sinners would therefore in this their day be wise As I Inâ—ew a prophane wretch in Kent who lived in all kind of wickedness and debauchery against the most passionate and compassionate cautions and expostulations of his godly Minister and would not hearken to him when he came to dye he sent for his Minister who coming and asking him why he had sent for him replyed only this Oh Sir my time is done and my mork a not begun and so died and know the things which belong unto their peace before they be hid from their eyes Consider as Motives Motives to labour for Assurance 1. It may be attained First Heaven way be made sure assurance may be attained 1. God commands it Phil. 2.12 2 Pet. 1.10 Heb. 6.11 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope And God doth not command impossibility the Law indeed did but he giveth more grace Jam. 4.6 God in the Gospel giveth what he commandeth To which end 2. It is observable that what is a precept in one place is a promise in another that if the command find work the promise may find strength Hence His Commandments are not grievous 1 John 5.3 Phil. 4.13 and I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me So run the promises Mat. 7.7 Augustine desired no more of God but dâ— Domini quod jubes jube quod vis Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you A multiplied use of Gospel means will bring in a multiplied increase of Gospel grace and strength 3. Many of the Saints of God have attained assurance of their salvation holy Paul in the name of himself and his fellow Saints 2 Cor. 5.1 could say We know we have an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens not we hope only but we know So the Discâ—ple of love 1 John 3.14 We know we have
not as men without hope but comfort one another Obs There is a sorrow for departed friends which God condemns not We are forbid an hopeless sorrow v. 13. but simply to mourn for the loss of our gracious Relations we are no where forbidden He that hath wrapt up natural affections in our bowels doth not prohibit the due and moderate exercise of them Those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persons without natural affections are in the black Roll amongst the most ulcerous and excrescent part of mankind To be without natural affections is to do violence against Nature her self and to violate the law of humanity Covenant breakers without natural affection are monsters not men Christ himself who knew no sin yet being acquainted with all our griefs even had this kind of sorrow for the dead John 11.35 Jesus wept and his tears do here instruct us in our duty Holy Paul blots his Epistle to the Ephesians with his tears for Epaphroditus Lest saith he I should have sorrow upon sorrow he was sorrowful for his sickness had he dyed there would have been another flood of tears sorrow upon sorrow Where mention is made of the death of publick persons there publick lamentations for them is mentioned also The Spirit of God doth no where reprove those tears but rather puts a value upon them as so many pearls As in the mourning for Jacob Gen. 50.11 for Josias 2 Chron. 35.24 for Samuel 1 Sam. 25.1 for Stephen Acts 8.2 It s reckoned amongst Gods thunderbolts Psal 78.64 Their widows made no lamentation The removal of Gods peace from a people and prohibition to mourn for their dead are twin-judgments or one the birth of another Enter not into the house of mourning neither go to lament nor bemoan them for I have taken away my peace from this people Tears are like wine you may pour them out but take heed of excess Be not drunk with tears wherein is excess you may weep but as those that weep not you may mourn but not as others which have no hope 1 Cor. 7.30 these affections are natural but this hope will baptize and regenerate them Secondly Hence we learn 2. Branch of Information There is another work or duty incumbent on Christians under the loss of gracious Relations Then only to mourn for them namely to enquire yea 1 King 20.33 with Benhadad's servants diligently to observe what words of comfort do fall from the lips of Scripture and hastily to catch at them q. d. Comfort another with these words yea Lord with these words do thou comfort thy servant We are usually either sensless under or swallowed up with great losses either our bowels are made of iron or they melt like wax and we faint away Vehement sorrow is like raging fire that turns every thing into its own nature It 's thy work therefore to study recruits as well as to pore upon thy losses to ballast thy soul with divine comforts If I go not away the Comforter cannot come John 16.7 Many times the best of our earthly enjoyments stand between us and our heavenly consolations But if I go away I will send him unto you It is good to resolve with our selves be my loss in this world never so great it is capable of a reparation For certainly if the loss of Christ in his bodily presence were to be repaired there is nothing under the whole heaven the loss whereof we can sustain but may much easilier be made up with advantage to be sure the presence of the Comforter is able to do it with an infinite overplus It is thy wisdom therefore to ballance thy soul with divine comforts as afflictions abound run to thy Cordial these words that thy consolations may abound also if the affliction scale be heavier than the consolation scale thou wilt certainly sink in thy spirit and then thy burden will break thy back Prov. 18.14 The spirit of a man is able to sustein his infirmity Thou mayst mourn but that is not all thou hast to do 2 Cor. 4 14. it concerns thee to get a cordial to keep thy heart from fainting For this cause we faint not Mark the Apostle had alwayes his Cordial about him so do thou be equally just to thy self as to thy deceased friends Thou owest them a debt of tears hast thou paid it Now be just to thy self thou owest a care to thy soul that thou sin not to thy spirit that it sink not must thou needs dye because thy Husband thy Child thy Friend is dead Look after divine consolation let it not be a small thing to thee neither say thou by interpretation nay if God will have this comfort from me let him take all Take heed of weeping thy self blind as to the consolations of God as Hagar did there was a well spring of water close by her but she had cried out her eyes and could not see it Gen. 21.16 until God opened her eyes verse 19. There is too much of the pride and sullenness of the Babylonish Favourite in us who when he had made a large and boasting recital of his Court favours could throw away all in a pet for want of a complement Yet all this availeth me nothing Hest 5.12 13. so long as I see Mordieai the Jew sitting at the Kings gate In all things pray and give thanks Phil. 4.6 Oh labour for the quick eye of faith which can spy out a little mercy in a great deal of affliction and can fit down and give thanks A Christian is never in such an affliction but he hath as much cause to praise God as he hath to pray unto him Lum 3.2 yea many mercies for one affliction that it is not so bad but it might be worse to be sure it is not hell◠2. That when ever he takes away one comfort he leaves more 3. Psal 30.5 That heaviness may continue for a night but joy in the morning 4. And in the mean time he hath a God to go unto Oh love the Lord all ye his Saints Psal 31.23 3. 3. Branch of Information Observe further the goodness and condescentions of God who hath laid in comfort before hand against a time of sorrow and mourning Cordials ready prepared to keep the hearts of his people from fainting in the hour of temptation like a good Chirurgeon he hath in his Chest a Salve for every Wound a Cordial for every Qualm there is not a fear in Gods peoples hearts but there is a fear not in Gods Book to antidote it withall and yea here in this model of divine comfort you have ten fear nots for one fear ten words of comfort for one grief conceived for the loss of a dear Relation These words 2 Cor. 1.5 that if our sorrow should abound our consolations may much more abound by Christ God dealeth in this case with his people just as he dealt with our first Parents providing a plaister before-hand to
the wicked 2.73 Of great comfort to the godly 2.75 Judgment-day whether the Saints that are then alive must die literally or analogically only 2.65 Why concealed 2.68 Whether Christ will sit upon a visible throne 2.70 Christ will appear in the same humane nature which he assumed of the Virgin and why 2.71 Christ will appear personally for three reasons 1 The judgment must be personal 2.70 2 A recompence to his abasement 2.71 3 To perfect his mediatory office 2.72 Justification the Saints shall be fully and finally justified at the last day which consists 1 In their publick absolution 2.133 2 In the Judge his pronouncing them perfectly righteous 2.138 God justifieth a sinner in that way wherein he may justifie himself 2.141 It is not by any intrinsick merit in faith but extrinsick object that faith layeth hold on 2.148 It is variously denominated according to its causes 2.153 Legal and evangelical what it is 2.154 Law and Gospel reconciled in the mystery of justification 2.153 K Kindness all kindnesses done to Christ or his members will be owned at the day of judgment 2.129 Knowledge whether the Saints shall know one another with a distinguishing knowledge in heaven affirm 3.8 Knowledge of one another in heaven a great motive to converse one with another on earth 3.11 Whether the knowledge of our elect relations in heaven do not infer a distinct knowledge of our relations in hell and whether that may not be terrible Neg. 3.13 How many wayes we shall have knowledge of God set forth by several steps 3.31 L Law pardon is not the qualification that the Law requireth but perfection 2.139 That which God at first wrote in mans heart and afterwards in two tables of stone was a law of a most holy and absolute perfection 2.143 The law the image of Gods nature and will 2.143 It was given to be 1 A rule and pattern of an holy life 2.144 2 A condition of eternal life ibid. It is of perpetual necessity 2.144 It is not to be dispenced withall 2.144 Christ did not bring in another law but another medium to fulfil the former 2.144 Christ as Mediator was born under the law 2.145 Christ his fulfilling the law was performed in and by the humane nature 2.149 Law and Gospel reconciled in the great mystery of justification 2.153 Likeness we shall be like God in 1 Our understanding 3.78 2 Our will 3.80 3 Our affections 3.80 4 Our memories 5 the whole image 1 The soul 3.81 2 the body 3.82 Loss fear of loosing of heaven would make it worse than hell 3.96 Love of God a great assurance of the eternity of heaven 3.94 A superlative love to Christ an evidence of heaven 3.120 M Marriage of the Lamb consummated at the last day and the solemnity of it 2.162 Marriage its happiness consists in suitableness 3.67 Maityrdom like Elijah 's Charriot 3.139 Means God not tyed to them 3.48 Memory the Saints shall be like God in their memories 3.80 Of the Saints shall be like the ark of the covenant 3.80 Mercy the mercy of God an assurance of heavens eternity 3.92 Ministers must preach nothing but what is warranted by the word 2.67 They may preach with success and yet be cast out 2.171 They must see that the comforts they administer be Gods comforts 3.154 Miscarriage of the image of God in Adam not of improvidence but ordination 3.80 Mistake no mistake of one anothers condition in heaven 3.7 Mixture of Saints and sinners will be here 2.116 Mortification exercise the duties of it 3 130 Motives to assurance 3.111 Mourners are to open their ears and hearts to words of comfort 3.156 Mystery divers mysteries mentioned namely 1 Of the Trinity 2 Of the Incarnation 3 Of Election and Reprobation 4 Of the Creation of the World 5 Of the Resurrection 6 Of all the Arcana Naturae 3.51 We must not pry too much into them 3.55 N Nature the fulfilling of the Law was performed in and by the humane nature 2.149 Negatives cannot fill a dying man with comfort 3.160 O Omnipotence all things are alike to it 2.100 It supports the Saints under their happiness as well as the wicked under their misery 3.90 92 It is omnipotence in God that he cannot sin 3 90 Ordinances a dangerous notion of being above them 3.48 In what sense it is good to live above them ibid. Not to rest in or contented with them 3.49 P Pardon pardon of sin is the privative part of justification 2.133 How sins past present and to come are pardoned in conversion and how not 2.134 Sin fully pardoned at death ibid. It makes sin as if it had never been 2.135 It is not sufficient to capacitate the Saints for glory 2.139 It looks backward Righteousness forward 2.142 It is not the qualification which the Law requireth but perfection 2 139 If God should only pardon and not justifie it would seem to reflect upon 1 Gods Wisdom 2 142 2 Gods â—ll-sufficiency ibid. 3 Gods Veracity and Justice ibid. It maketh not a man righteous 2.148 No pardon at the Judgment-seat 2.169 Perseverance stands not in the nature of grace 1.39 It stands not in the liberty or rectitude of the will though regenerate 1.39 It stands upon 1 Divine compact 140 2 Vnion with Christ ibid. Pleasure sensitive pleasures have only their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 108 Praâ—se Saints shall be praised for their graces at the last day though wrought in them c. 2.132 Prayer get the faithful to pray for thee and pray for thy self 3.131 Words of prayer are to be joyned with words of comfort 3.165 Presence the Saints shall ever be in the presence of Christ 3.2 Precepts in one place are promises in another 3.112 Pride there is much of pride in refusing comfort 3.157 Promises ought to be studied 3.163 Learn to which of Christs Offices each promise relateth 3.164 Promises in one place are precepts in another 3.112 Refer them to their distinct heads 3.163 They then bring comfort when they are applied by the Spirit 3.164 Propriety to enjoy heaven and to know I do enjoy it is the happiness of happiness 3.71 Punishment shall not be mitigated at the judgment 2.170 Purchase and election are both perfected by the sanctification of the Spirit 2.123 R Recompence Christ his speaking honourably of the Saints in the last day will abundantly recompence the reproaches they have here 2.133 Reconciliation God is first in reconciliation though sinners first in the transgression 2.169 Redeemer he undertook two great works for the redeemed 1. One to make satisfaction for sin 2. The other to yield absolute conformity to the Law of God 2.140 Regeneration Conformity of the Saints to Christ in the Resurrection hath its beginning in it 2.101 111 Relations ours not alone in their death 1.9 When dead they are not lost but sowen 1.19 Though they cease in heaven yet the remembrance of them ceaseth not 3.12 Remembrance the book of Gods remembrance and book of conscience
more By vertue of this Union with Christ the Believer is likewise united to the whole divine nature and essence in the Deity though not essentially and he is likewise united to each person in the Trinity the Father and the Holy Ghost as well as to the Son John 17.21 Behold that thus it is done to the man whom God will honour Thanks be to God for this unspeakable Grace This is the sixth Property The Seaventh and last Property This Union is an indissoluble Vnion Seventh property Indissoluble This Union between Christ and the Believer is not capable of any separation They are so one that all the violence of the world or all the powers of darkness can never be able to make them two again Hence the Apostle's Triumph Challenge Rom. 8.35 who shall separate us from the love of Christ If the question did not imply a strong negation ver 38 39. the Apostle himself doth give us a negation in words at length neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us c. A long Catalogue consisting of a large induction of various particulars but in all these 't is observable he only instanceth in the creature nor any other creature he leaveth out God and why because God himself is the Author of this Union 1 Cor. 1.30 of him are ye in Christ Jesus It is of God and that Upon a three-fold Account 1. It is of God's Preordination This Union of Christ and his Saints was the design of God's everlasting Electing Love Ephes 14. He hath chosen us in him before the Foundation of the World As the Vnion so the very purpose of it was founded in * Tanquam in capite though not tanquam in causâ not as the cause of Election but as the cause of the good of Election for it is not said for him but in him Vid. Twiss vindic grattae lib. 1. part 2. Digres Prim. Secund. Tert. Christ He hath chosen us in him 2. It is of God the Fathers efficiency the Father tyeth this Marriage knot between his Son and his Spouse for we are his Workmanship Created in Christ Jesus c. The new Creation it is God's work and it is founded on Christ or in Christ created in Christ Jesus c. 3. It is of Gods support As in the first Creation when God had finished the world he took not his hand off but upholds it still by the word of his power Heb. 1.3 So in this second and new Creation when he hath wrought it he takes not off his hand if he should it would quickly collapse into its first nothing How comes it then to pass it doth not why saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 1.5 you are kept by the power of God through Faith to Salvation Faith keeps the Believer in this Union but the power of God keeps Faith Why now if after all this God should at any time suspend the influence of this power or by any malice or fraud of men or Devils suffer this Union to miscarry he should fail and cross his own project he should desert his own design this cannot be Here is the Foundation then upon which the Apostle erecteth this Triumph God who only can dissolve this Union will not the Creature which only would dissolve this Union cannot so it stands on a surer bottom then Heaven and Earth our life is hid with Christ in God The Believer is in Christ as Christ is in God hence the unseparableness of this Union John 10.28 29. There is no more pulling the Believer out of the bosome of Christ then there is of Christ out of the bosome of his Father And therefore once more upon this account it is that our Lord compareth this blessed Vnion to that substantial Vnion between the Father and the Son that they may be one as we are one namely to express as the reality and inwardness so also the indeficiency of this spiritual Vnion as thou Father art in me and I in thee As i.e. as fixedly as inseparably as immutably This is the transcendent excellency of this Union above all others it is Eternal Indeed it had a beginning but it shall never have an end All other Unions may suffer a dissolution a Whirl-wind may throw the house off from its foundation Job 1.18 19. as we see in the case of Job's Children a Bill of Divorce may dissolve the Union betwixt Man and Wife in case of the violation of the Marriage Bed Math. 5.31 32. An Axe may dissolve the Union between the Head and Members Death dissolves the Union between the Soul and body c. I but nothing can dissolve the Union between Christ and the Believers nothing shall be able to separate us c. My Text gives us a further instance of this the Saints sleep in Jesus The Union ceaseth not no not in the Grave The Saints sleep in Jesus Observe the progress of it it began in their Regeneration then they received their first Implantation into Christ Rom. 6.3 4 5. whence the Apostle makes Regeneration and being in Christ synonimous Rom. 6.3 4. Next they are said to live in Christ and Christ in them Gal. 2.20 Then to shew there is no in and out * In to day and out to morrow in this Union as some fondly dream we read of their abiding in Christ not only by way of precept which might possibly imply duty only as John 15.4 5. but by way of promise also as 1 John 2.27 Ye shall abide in me which certainly doth express assurance and establishment for ever Rom. 4.16 Therefore they are said in the next place to dye in Christ Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord so verse 16. after the Text makes mention of the dead in Christ so that that which dissolves all other Unions dissolves not this death it self when the Union between body and Soul is dissolved the Union between Christ and Believers dissolveth not Yea see one strain higher yet not only in death but even after death The Soul sleeps not Heb. 12.23 this Vnion holds the Saints are said to sleep in Jesus that part of the Saints which is capable of sleep is not capable of separation from Christ while their more noble part is united to Christ in Heaven amongst the Spirits of just men made perfect Christ is United to their Inferiours and more ignoble part in the Grave their very dust they sleep in Jesus Thus I have opened unto you the blessed and admirable Union which is between Christ and his Saints and it 's most excellent and transcendent properties scil as it is 1. Spiritual 2. Real 3. Operative 4. Enriching 5. Intimous 6. Total 7. Indissoluble Opened did I say Alas it is impossible This Union is a mystery a great mystery Ephes 5.32 next to that Union betwixt the
is This is only Heavens prerogative All the Beatitudes of that upper world both in their nature and degree shall be most agreeable to the constitution of the Saints in their nature they being sutable to the nature of the Saints to the heavenly Principles of purity and holiness communicated to them from the divine nature both the objects and subjects of glory are of one and the same constitution This must needs breed unconceiveable delight And as suitable are all the Joyes of Heaven in their degrees and proportions to the heavenly capacities The Objects of glory neither too much nor too little nor too heavy for the Saints to bear nor too light neither too vehement nor overflat The weight of that prepared glory shall not be heavier than those blessed Souls shall be well able to sustain with exceeding pleasure neither shall it be so light that they shall be able to say I could bear more The light of glory shall not hurt the organ by an over-vehement brightness neither yet shall there be the least dimness in it to abate the delight of the acutest sence The language of the new Jerusalem Isai 33.19 Gal. 4.26 shall be one and the same throughout all the streets thereof not a speech deeper than the meanest Saint can perceive nor a barbarous tongue that they cannot understand shall be heard there but the Mother-language intelligible and Isacile to be understood and spoken by the meanest Inhabitant shall be the language of the upper Canaan that all may hear and all may understand to their unspeakable satisfaction The musick of Heaven shall be sweetest melody to every ear and though it consists of the rarest strains and most delicate airs that ever ear heard yet it shall not transcend the skill of the lowest capacity but the meanest Chorister in the heavenly Temple shall bear his part with the most Seraphick Angel in the higher or lower praises of the most high God in most perfect Symphony The infinite variety of most luscious delicacies wherewith the Table shall be spread where Abraham and all his spiritual Seed shall be feasted shall consist of rellishes suitable to the pallate of every Guest there what is fancied of the Manna of the neather heavens shall be fully verified of the Manna of the third heaven it shall give that taste to every palat which every palat likes best yea all the Saints shall be but of one and the same guest the delight of one is the delight of all In a word all the Objects of glory do hit the faculty with a most perfect and commensural proportion there is nothing in heaven to offend or greive the least in the Kingdom of God yea which is not of the most absolute complacency Earth is a place of mixture and composition somewhat suitable and somewhat unsuitable some pleasure some vexation Hell and Heaven are the extremes Hell is a place of unmixed torment nothing there but what is renitency to the will of the damned nothing present but what the Reprobate would not nothing absent but what he wisheth for Heaven is a place of unmixed joy Nullum bonum abesset hominis quod recta voluntas opâ—arâ— possit Aug. De Ci. vit Dei nothing wanting of all that blessed Souls can rationally desire nothing absent the absence whereof can possibly give any check to their fullest delight And though possibly there may be several orbs of glory for as one Star differeth from another in glory so also is the Resurrection of the dead yet shall not the inferiour orbe envy the superiour nor think it self too low there shall be no such voices heard from the mouth of any the meanest Inhabitant Oh were I but in such a superiour orbe I should be happy such a Mansion would please me better This would destroy fruition and make heaven cease to be heaven but no such whisper is to be heard no such thought in that holy Mountain because the glory of one is the glory of all and every Saint is as happy in anothers fulness as in its own yea it enjoyeth its own and the others glory too the narrowest capacity is widened by the others fulness the joy of one is the joy of all In a word the Saints shall live in love and have all in him who is all not so much as wishing their fellow Saints less or themselves more nor any thing in that whole world of felicities otherwise than it is This is fruition Oh that all that have this bope in them would study to begin this life here below The next property of this fruition is Fixedness 6. Fixedness There be of those things in the world which men call felicities which if they be not mistaken in their nature to be sure they will find floating and unfixed There is scarce a comfort which we possess in this moveable world that we can find the same at the years end or at the months end which we fancy them to be at the beginning all our most beautiful objects how quickly they change colour and our very options grow stale upon our hands In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up in the evening it is cut down and withereth 1 Pet. 1.4 Psal 90 6. But blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us to an inheritance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isidore Semper vivens uncorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away the heavenly inheritance is compared to that precious stone that cannot be soiled as one of the Antients writes and to a choice flower that never withereth but is alwayes green 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 7.31 1 John 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mathematical figure Rev. 4.8 Mat. 18.10 Worldly pleasures engratiate themselves by intermission Voluptates commendst rarior usus Whereas heavenly pleasures heighten and advance themselves by fixed and constant emanations The world is compared to a Stage where the Scean is quickly changed and another face of things doth suddenly appear but Heaven is a place of fixed and immutable beatitudes Heaven is still of one fashion their work the same they rest not day and night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And their joy the same They do alwayes behold the face of their heavenly Father They are in God like God Yesterday and to day and the same for ever with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning The Saints in Heaven are so far from mutation that there is no shadow of it Here on earth our choicest delights meet with changes created beings shew their face a while then hide it again their colour goes and comes they are alwayes in motu fluxu Godly acquaintance is sweet but the farewell is bitter we call at the door and sip of the cup but we cannot stay by it The best of our time is but a seventh part of it