peace Balaam 's wish strongly confirmeth it Numb 23.10 Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his And to add no more quotations in so plain a case Paul in my Text appropriateth this priviledge to himself and such as he was real Christians true Saints and unfeigned believers I am in a straight betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ and to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain Therefore look what we are living such we are dying Death is but the term of life and changeth not the state of the person but the degree of that state Grace must be wrought here but perfected hereafter in glory which is grace consummate and if no grace here no glory hereafter for as the tree falleth so it lieth But if I should draw the curtaines that are about these dying Saints and consider how they die that come to Christ by death I would propose it unto you briefly in two or three expressions for the discovery of it and your information in it according to the Scripture The Godly die in the faith of Christ believing in him and all the promises of God which in him are yea and amen Heb. 11.13 These all died in faith not having received the promises they die in the interest of Christ and they are Christs in death as well as life Rom. 14.8 Whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we dye we dye to the Lord whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords Yea they die in union with Christ Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord Rev. 14.13 This is that death and the death of such as these are is that departure whereof Paul speaketh in my Text and how desirable it is beyond this present life it self will further appear by the several and sutable acceptations of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the original which we translate to depart in which word as an alablaster box the Apostle hath inclosed precious spikenard to annoint the Saints against their funeral by which we shall understand the gainful advantage of death to the godly as it looketh back to this present life as the terminus a quo or the bounds from which they depart First the word is used to loosen the cables of a ship solvere rudentes a metaphor taken from mariners who sail from one Banke or Port unto another it importeth a flitting or sailing from the state of this present life to our heavenly country Afflictions in the Scriptures are compared to waters and the world is a troublesome sea to the Saints over which they sail through many stormes till they come to shore For through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God Acts 14.22 Many are the afflictions of the righteous and in the world ye shall have tribulation saith Christ to his Disciples John 16. last And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus saith Paul shall suffer persecution 2 Tim. 3.12 But the death of the Saints is the end of their sorrowes and if we suffer with Christ we shall be glorified together Rom. 8.18 Then all tears shall be wiped from their eyes and sorrow and mourning shall flee away when they shall arrive at the land of promise the Cape of good hope Heaven is the Saints fair haven it is called the bosome of Abraham Luk. 16.23 Which Gregory Nyssen expounds to be like a bay or bosome of the Sea into which a godly man sayling from hence putteth in his soul as a haven free from danger and tempest where it shall receive the fulness of all good things Secondly The word is translated reverti to return Believers are sent forth to labour in this world and they are Christs factors upon earth for the advancement of his glory and kingdom and the heavenly gain of their own eternal happiness They trade for heaven by which their conversations are said to be in heaven Phil. 3.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our City life or commerce or our conversation is in heaven whence we look for the Lord Jesus Christ to come They are citizens of heaven but they trade from home in a far countrey as merchants seeking the pearl of great price Mat. 13.44 Which having found they returned home richly laden with the treasure of the Gospel Death is the souls return to God Eccles 12.7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it Job saith he shall return thither Job 1.21 Naked came I out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greek Scholies expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto God How joyful is the return of the Saints to their heavenly home and their happy rest after their laborious travail and restless pains in the works of their salvation attended with all the fruits of holiness and righteousness as an evidence of their faith and testimony of their obedience Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord even so saith the spirit for they rest from their labours and their workes follow them Rev. 14.13 As the wagons which Joseph sent for his Father Jacob and his houshold brought them to the land of Goshen and to the full plenty of Joseph's provision so death bringeth the Saints to their joyful rest and to Christ their heavenly Joseph Death is the unharnessing of the Saints at their final return to their full peace and everlasting inheritance * Solvunti◠sarcina vincula Thirdly the word is applyed sometimes to the loosing of the cords of a tent * Solvere sunos tobernaculorum Beleivers in this life and while they are in the body dwell as in tents and tabernacles in an unsetled and changeable estate as pilgrims and strangers having no continuing City and therefore often remove their tents like the Patriarchs of old Heb 11.9 10. Where the Apostle speaking of Abraham saith that by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange countrey dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise for he looked for a City which had foundations whose builder and maker is God Al the faithful are heirs of eternal promises how mean and contemptible soever they seem in the eyes of the world as a gazing-stock unto them among whom they sojourn for a time As they are not of the world so they have little favour and respect from it for therefore the world hateth them John 15.19 No wonder therefore the people of God have alwayes accounted themselves strangers here Psal 119.19 I am a stranger in the earth saith David hide not thy commandements from me And Peter writing to the Jews 1 Pet. 2.11 I beseech you saith he as pilgrims and strangers abstain from fleshly lusts which warre against the Soul How welcome then is that dissolution that looseneth the cords of those tents and pulleth
them they could not mourne Mat. 9.5 But when he told them that he should be taken from them their hearts were filled with sorrow It was one of Luthers three wishes that he might have seen Christ in the flesh Paul preaching and primitive Rome in its flourishing condition Content thy self a while thou precious soul that lovest him and his appearance thou shalt shortly see him with his Father and thy Father and abide with him for ever and thou that hast been ravished with-the sweetness and powerful influence of his spiritual presence in his Ordinances wherein thou shalt in the end of thy dayes drink with him of the wine of the Kindom of God pressed from the clusters of the heavenly Canaan Secondly to be with Christ is to be glorified with Christ and to possess the same glory which Christ hath with the Father Christ chargeth Mary who had the honour first to see him after his Resurrection to forbear his bodily presence saying touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto my Father John 20.17 But goe and tell my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God And being ascended he is set down at the right hand of the Majestie on High Heb. 1.3 Or on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens Chap. 8.1 Now Christs throne shall be the Saints throne as he hath promised Rev. 3.21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne Christ hath prayed his Father and declared this as his Will to his Father John 17.24 Father I will that these whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me And shall they only be spectators of it shall not the beholding of the glory of Christ in Heaven be as powerful to change the Saints into the same glory as seeing his glorious Image 2 Cor. 4.18 For we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord or as it may be rendred even as by the Lord the Spirit for the Lord is that spirit v. 17. And this is no less then what Christ hath assured us of by his own grant and promise unto us Joh. 17.22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one as we are one To shew you therefore what this glory of Christ is whereof every belâ—iver shall be a partaker with him It is a spiritual and full possession and enjoyment of God himself in perfect union and immediate communion with him For so far as we can discern and understand things so far above us and remote from us in their nature and excellency and as they are revealed unto our capacity in the Heavenly records of Divine writ the glory of Heaven seemeth to be the highest degree of spirituality God is presented unto us to be a spirit John 4.24 And if we cloth the nature of a spirit with the Attributes of God as they are made known unto us by himself it is the highest conception we can have of him For God is a Spirit or a spiritual substance most Holy most Wise Eternal Infinite as that holy and famous writer of ours hath described or defined him The Angels are Spirits or ministring Spirits Heb. 1.14 The Souls of the Saints in Heaven are Spirits the Spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 And if we may judge as we say the body by the foot ex pede Herculem or of the glory of Heaven and of the Soul by the glory of the body as it is already glorified in Christ and others with him or as it shall be glorified after the Resurrection even the body of all beleivers it will appear still that the spirituality of the Heavenly state is the glory of it The Apostle Paul speaking of Christs coming from hence to raise the body and to glorifie it saith Phil 3.21 That he shall change our vile body and make it like unto his glorious body by the power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself So that look what manner of body for glory Christs body now is in Heaven such shall our bodieds be and what the glory of his body is appeareth by the spirituality of it after his Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.44 It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body if not in substance yet in quality And if the nature of grace in the Saints on earth be spiritual and the fruits of the spirit in them constituting them a spiritual people Gal 6.1 Whereby they are blessed with spiritual blessings in heavenly places or things it will follow that the state of glory must be a spiritual state for the soul in a higher degreee of spirituality glory being grace consummate as grace is glory inchoate Now the soul is raised unto the glorious degree of perfection and spirituality in the heavenly presence of Christ by being fill'd with the fulness of God and that by comprehending the highth and length and depth and breadth of the love of God which here passeth knowledge but is fully made known in Heaven by the beatifical vision of God himself letting out his love without measure into the soul whereby it is sublimated and transformed into the likeness of God 1 John 3.2 For now are we the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is We shall not see him only in his name his word and works but in his nature not his back parts but his face Now we see through a glass darkely but then face to face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now we know but in part but then I shall know as I am known 1 Cor. 13.12 This is the blessed rewards of the pure in heart that they shall see God and without holiness no man shall see him Thirdly to be with Christ is to be with them that are with Christ and to have fellowship with the heavenly society of Angels and Saints in the presence of Christ Heb. 12.22 23. Ye are come unto Mount Zion and to the City of the living God the heavenly Hierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven and to the spirits of just men made perfect First to be with Christ is to have society with all the blessed Angels of God who worship Christ in heaven Heb. 1.6 He saith let all the Angels worship him The sight of Angels on earth did sometimes strike fear into the hearts of Saints and an apprehension of death into them as when Gideon saw the Angel Judges
up their tabernacles for 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if the carthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens when the Sons of God the heires of promise shall no more have moveable dwellings but abiding mansions and that in their Fathers house John 14.2 3. In my Fathers house saith Christ to his Disciples comforting of them are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many mansions I goe to prepare a place for you that where I am there ye may be also Lastly the word is also expounded to be delivered Liberari So Beza maketh it the same in signification with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death or from this mortal body Or as Diodate paraphraseth upon that Text O that I were but out of this animal and terrestrial life during which sin doth dwell in me and through it I am yet under the necessity of dying and that I were transported into the liberty of the glory of Gods children in the life of happiness St. Paul saw a law in his members warring against the law of his mind and leading him captive unto the law of sin and death in the foregoing verse under which bondage he groaned for deliverance and for the obtaining of it looked upon death as the only means conducible The Saints are subject to sin while they are in he body because sin receiveth its power from the corruption of nature not wholly mortified in this life therefore called the law in the members and the deeds of the body Rom. 8.13 Our members that are upon earth Col. 3.5 And the lusts of the flesh Gal 5.24 But the death of the Saints is the death of their sins whereby they put off the whole body of sin O happy death that brings the old man of sin to his grave and the new man in grace to his glory and perfection when the Soul shall be no more tempted unto sin no more troubled with sin but perfectly freed from all motions lusts and inclinations to that which is evil by departing hence unto Christ Secondly What is it to be with Christ unto whom the Saints are brought by their departing hence by death That none of the Fathers and Saints of the Old Testament were in heaven before Christs Ascension is but a Popish fiction and delusion contrary to the plain sence and express doctrine of the Scriptures as may appear to name no more in those two remarkable instances of Enoch and Elijah Gen. 5.24 And Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him And of Elijah 2 Kings 2.11 And Elijah went up into heaven by a whirlwind But the question may be made which I shall briefly answer how these Patriarchs and Saints could be with Christ when Christ was not yet incarnate neither ascended into heaven For the Solution of this question I shall only assert and briefly prove that though Christ was not in heaven before his incarnation in his humane nature yet he was there with the Godly departed and they with him in his Divine nature For the Divine nature of Christ being one with the Godhead of the Father and the Spirit as it was coessential so it was coeternal In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God John 1.1 And when Christ was on earch he speaketh of himself as being at the same time also in Heaven which must be understood of his Divine nature John 1.18 No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of the Father hath declared him So also John 3.13 No man hath of cended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man which is in Heaven And when he was to leave the world in his prayer for himself his Disciples and all believers he thus petitioneth his Father John 17.5 And now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was But in what manner the Divine nature of Christ did put off its glory during the time of his exinanition and humiliation upon earth I shall not take upon me to inquire much less to clear so great a Mystery when being equal with God he took upon him the form of a servant having laid by his glory as to the use of it in the mystery of our salvation as learned Beza noteth * Hâ autem gloriâ quod ad usum illius ottinet in salutis no strae mysterio quodam modo sese abdicaverat filius in servi formâ durante suae illius exinonitionis spatio Beza in Johan 17. verse 5. But being out of all question that Christ is now in Heaven in his divine and humane nature and in both glorified I return to shew you the Saints priviledge of being with Christ and what it is to be with him at the terminus ad quem of the Souls motion in the state of Separation First to be with Christ is to be in the place where Christ is or to be locally present with Christ And that Christ is personally and locally in Heaven I will not seem to suspect your faith by being numerous in Scripture quotations Acts. 1.11 The Angels say to the Disciples Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into Heaven this same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him goe up into Heaven And Peter telleth the Jews Acts 3. 21. That the Heavens must receive him until the time of the restitution of all things Stephen saw him in Heaven when he was suffering for him Acts 7.56 Behold I see the Heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God And the Apostle Paul layeth it down as an infallible truth to all beleivers Col. 3.1 If ye be risen with Christ seek the things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Now Christ hath told us that where he is there we shall be also John 14.2 And if any man will serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be John 12.26 Now is it not a desirable as well as a peculiar priviledge to be with Christ Christian wast thou ne're affected in reading the Evangelical story of Christ with the singular priviledge which the Disciples of our Lord had in their immediate attendance upon him and continuance with him to hear and see what they saw and heard and to be his bosom friends and familiar companions and didst thou not wish in thy heart that it might have been thy happy lot to have been one of them How much more comfortable and glorious will it be to be with him in Heaven The presence of Christ on earth was a joyful presence to the Disciples for while the Bridegroome was with
the drop is swallowed up in the ocean and the small dust in the huge mountaine so shall the short moment of this present life be forgotten when the bright morning of eternal joy shall break upon your souls and the righteous shall shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father This is that life and immortality which is brought to light through the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 Wherfore gird up the loynes of your mind be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ unto whom ye are hastening waiting for the day of your departing hence that ye may be with Christ which is far better Thirdly How doth the death of the Saints bring them immediatly to Christ a their departure in what manner doth the soul depart The Apostle joyneth his departing and being with Christ together by a small copulative particle as if the soul were as soon with Christ after dissolution as we can speak so short a word even in the next moment which is the third general head to be handled In the explaining whereof I shall take it for granted that the soul is immortal and dyeth not with the body but immediately appeareth before God according to the apprehension of St. Paul in my text who therefore desired to depart that he might be with Christ For were not the soul immortal and that in Pauls perfect judgement it had been far better for him to have lived then dyed for to him to live was Christ but in case he had dyed he could not have been with Christ according to his desire had not his soul survived his body Therefore subscribing to the judgement of so great an Apostle I shall wave the needless controversie and proceed to the explication of this last question in hand the truth and manner whereof will appear in these following demonstrations I. Demonst First the Souls of the Saints are spiritually and inseparably united unto Christ He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 The spirit of Christ dwelleth in beleivers and though the body be dead or mortall because of sin yet the spirit is life because of righteousness Rom. 8.10 11. The spirit of Christ in the soul is a principle of eternal life by conjunction of the soul with Christ whereby we are quickned together with him through which both our spiritual and eternal life is secured the union of the soul with Christ being inviolable Therefore our life is said to be hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 * Cum Christ in Deo est exira periculum esse Calv. and is out of all danger of ever being separated for who or what shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. latter end I am perswaded saith Paul neither life nor death c. As the hypostatical union of the Godhead and humanity of Christ could not be separated by his death so neither the mystical and spiritual union between Christ and the soul by the death of the Saints For he is the head of his body the Church whereof every true believer is a living member unto whom they are so really spiritually and immediately united that no state condition or power whatsoever can sever or dis-joyn them And though every unfruitful branch may and shall be taken away and cut off from Christ the true vine by final Apostasie Ecclesiastical censure or the judicial sentence that shall pass upon every hypocrite when God shall require and take away his soul every true and living branch shall abide in him for ever through the skill and care of the Father the great husbandman And if we consider the relation which Christ standeth in to all the Saints of a husband to his spouse contracted together by an everlasting covenant betrothed in loving kindness and faithfulness and joyned together by the eternal spirit of grace through which they enjoy the sweet embraces and mutual expressions of their conjugal union and affections how can it be imagined that the Spouse of Christ or any particular Christians should by their dissolution be deprived of so near a relation and firm union for the soul being a spirit and uncapable of suffering the least alteration in its essence by the death of the body from which it is only separated as the life thereof it must of necessity retaine and still possess its spiritual beauty and all supernatural and heavenly priviledges in and with Christ whereof it is far more capable and that more fully and perfectly to receive being separate then in the present body II. Demonstr Secondly the souls of believers are by a natural force and necessity detained from their desired presence with Christ while they are present in the body and thus the death of the Saints bringeth them to Christ by releasing their souls from the tyes and bonds of an absented estate Therefore are we alwayes confident saith the Apostle knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 8. The body is the Saints natural home wherein by a natural necessity they are kept absent from Christ and yet a forced absence in regard of their desires to be with him and to change their bodily home for an eternal house The Philosophers called the body animae carcerem pistrinum the prison and gaol of the soul if so how welcome should death be to the righteous that setteth this prisoner free and enlargeth the souls confinement But how the soul being set at liberty and delivered from the natural bond and relation to the body is immediately present with Christ I shall explain with what clearness and brevity I can for the making good of this second Demonstration First the soul and body in the Godly as in all other men are joyned together by the God of nature in the creation of them as essential parts of one person the humane nature consisting of body and soul which God himself breathed into the humane and organical body and whereby man became a living soul Gen. 2.7 It is also a received maxime in natural science that in the propagation of the humane nature the soul of man is immediately created and that not out of the body but in the body into which it is infused in the very creation of it and so one man is said to beget another not that he doth generate the soul but the body and the union of both God concurring as the first and universal cause with the secondary and particular causes in their natural acts and motions Which union of the soul and body being natural as of two essential parts of the whole though the soul being a spirit hath a subsistence being separate from the body by dissolution yet it is but a separate part and remaineth as a part during the time and
fully know and understand the hidden things of eternity and hear such words with Paul in the third heaven which are unutterable and therefore could not tell whither he was in the body or out of the body 2 Cor. 12.2 3 4. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years agoe whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth Such a man one caught up to the third heaven and I knew such a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth how that he was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter Hence it appeareth that there is an incapacity in humane nature in the present state thereof to apprehend and express the glory of heaven in the presence of Christ and therefore it is probable Paul was out of the body during this revelation unto him for he repeateth those words twice whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell But which of the two it was at that time it mattereth not so much in that he is so clear in the Text that for the attaining of such a condition he absolutely declareth his desire to depart and to be with Christ which all Christians conclude with him to be far better Thirdly the souls and spirits of the Saints loosed and separated from the body are swift and instantaneous in their motion to their appointed and desired place of bliss and happiness For the motion of Spirits they being without material and corporeal parts cannot be successive and so measured by time and therefore it is in an instant As the motions of Angels from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven are in an instant so the motion of the soul from the natural body to the presence of Christ in heaven is also in an instant But to speak also to every ordinary capacity and to the unlearned as well as learned in such natural principles I shall illustrate this truth by Scripture instances and similitudes The Angel Gabriel was caused to flye swiftly unto Daniel when he was speaking in prayer Dan. 9.21 Where the motion of an Angel is set forth by the notion of the fowles of the air that flye and move exceeding swiftly And because such motions of spirits are not discernable by sense but are only to be conceived by the mind for the help of such a conception I shall propose the motion of body and soul together in some that did visibly ascend into heaven As that of Elijah who ascended up to heaven in the sight of Elisha 2 Kin. 2.11 12. And it came to pass as they still went on and talked that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and parted them both asunder and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven And Elisha saw it and he cryed my Father my Father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof and he saw him no more We must conceive here that Elijah was in an instant or in the twinckling of an eye transformed out of the natural qualities of his earthly body and changed into spiritual in which condition he was suddenly carried up into heaven And the swiftness of his motion in ascending appeareth in this Scripture in that it is compared to the motion of fire there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire Now fiery motions or the motions of fire are exceeding swift as the motion of light or of lightnings from East to West in a moment He is said likewise to go up to heaven by a whirl-wind The wind is exceeding swift as well as strong in its motion therefore God is said to flye upon the wings of the wind Psal 18.10 And of all winds none so swift as the whirlwind Neither is it to be neglected that Elijah cryed after him my Father my Father as if he were presently taken out of his sight The like instance we have of our Saviour when he ascended up into heaven in the view and presence of his Disciples Acts 1.9 While they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight In both these instances we cannot but imagine that both Christ and Elijah were quickly or in a moment at the end of their heavenly journey And if the motion of a spiritual or glorified body be so swift how much more the motion of a separate soul which is a pure Spirit Finally we may in some degree apprehend the motion of the soul in its essence by the motion of its faculties and how soon the soul can be in heaven and with God and Christ in its thoughts we may judge by the spiritual and sudden ejaculations of the heart whereby heavenly Christians are often and secretly ascending and descending between heaven and earth and God and their worldly imployments Lastly Christ in heaven is the center of all sanctified and gracious souls unto whose presence they tend in their separate motion Though the Divine nature or God-head be the center of all things as the cause and fountaine of all beings yet because the glory of God is not every where alike manifested but in heaven where Christ is personally present even at the right hand of God therefore the terme and center of the souls motion after separation is immediately unto him As Christ is the immediate object and term of our spiritual approaches unto the throne of Grace by whom we have access unto the Father and that by a new and living way conservated through the vail of his flesh So the humanity of Christ being finite upon which our thoughts are first placed doth more easily stay and fix the soul then the infinite essence of the Divine nature which being incomprehensible doth rather swallow up and overwhelm our weak faculties Therefore Bernard opening that Text of Solomon Prov. 25.27 according to the Hebrew from which our translation too much varieth exhorteth Christians not to gaze too long upon the Divine Majestie least they be overcome of the glory as to eat much honey is clogging to the stomack And as the Saints before Christ's incarnation prayed towards the temple the type of Christ where the presence of God visibly manifested did in some measure contract and limit the omnipresence of God to their hearts and apprehensions in worshipping of him In like manner Christ in heaven is the fixed period term and center of the Souls motion and approach to its glorious and heavenly state through whom and with whom we are glorified together as coheirs of God with him Therefore Paul desired to depart and to be with Christ that is to depart unto Christ as the terminus ad quem or center of his soul in departing As Stephen when he was stoned called upon God saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit Acts 7.59 As the stone moveth naturally down-ward to the earth so a gracious soul moveth upward to Christ who is the center of the Saints