condition either of felicity or misery The souls of all those who die in the Lord in a believing and regenerate estate are by the mercy of God absolved and made perfect in holiness and are carried by good Angels into heaven there to live in a happy estate of joy and rest with their ever blessed God and Saviour and with all the holy Angels and with all those perfect and blessed souls who went to heaven before them waiting for the full redemption of their bodies which even in death and after they are returned to dust continue still united to Christ and rest in their graves as in their beds till at the last day they be again united to their souls Rom. 8. 23. Ps. 16. 9. Isai 57. 2. Job 19. 25 26. But the souls of all People who die out of Christ in an unbelieving and unregenerate condition are by the justice of God condemned to infernal misery and are haled away by evil Angels into hell there to remain in torments and utter darkness with the devil and his angels and with all those sad and miserabie souls who were before doomed to that place of torment and their bodies which return to dust and see corruption are kept in their graves as in their prisons till the resurrection and judgement of the great day Gen. 3. 19. 2 Pet. 2. 9. A Philosopher being asked by Alexander the great Whether there were more men alive then dead Answered That there were more alive because said he there are none dead in respect of their souls We are taught more plainly by Divinity then ever any where by Philosophy That the souls of all people are immortal and consequently that they who are dead in their bodies are alive in their souls either in heaven or hell besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies the Scripture acknowledgeth none Fourthly That the bodies of all mankind who have dyed from the beginning to the end of the world shall all be raised again at the last day and reunited to their ownsouls all the dead shall be raised again with the self-same bodies and none other yet so altered in quality as that then they shall be able to abide for ever The words of our Saviour are express and full The hour is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation And the words of the Apostle are clear and plain There shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust Acts 24. 15. And again The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality 1 Cor. 15 52 53. Let not incredulous nature shrink at the possibility of Resurrection when the God of nature undertakes it 〈◊〉 Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead Is it not as possible for God Almighty with whom nothing is impossible to raise the dead out of their dust which is something as to make the world of nothing is it not as easie with the Lord for whom nothing is too hard to raise man out of his dust in the earth as to form man of the dust of the ground It is sufficient to me that the Lord Jesus Christ hath promised me that if I believe in him he will raise me up at the last day John 6. 40. Fifthly That all those of mankind who shall be raised from the dead together with the rest of mankind who shall be found alive at the second coming of Christ being changed in a moment they shall all personally appear before the judgement seat of Christ to give a publick account of their thoughts words and deeds whether they were good or evil and they shall all be judged by Jesus Christ to go in their bodies and souls into an everlasting condition either of happiness or misery Enoch the seventh from Adam Prophesied of the day of judgement Our Saviour in his Sermons often made mention of it and the Apostle Paul solemnly warnes us of it for saith he We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad so then every one shall give an account of himself to God who will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to the Gospel and will reward them according to their works as their works or deeds were fruits and effects either of their faith or of their unbeliefe Mat. 16. 27. Rom. 2. 6 16. Again Saint Matthew tells us That Jesus Christ the Judge of quick and dead shall give this comfortable sentence of everlasting life and salvation to all the elect among Mankind who were righteous and such as had a part in him Come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world Math. 25. 34. And again that Christ himself shall give this dreadfull sentence of eternall death and damnation to all the Reprobate of mankind who were wicked and such as had no interest in him Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Mat. 25. 41. It seems that the proceedings of the general and last judgement shall be so ordered by the peculiar favour of God as that the Saints who were in Christ shall first be judged and acquitted and then with Christ they shall judge Reprobate men and angels not in an equal authority with Christ but as approvers of his righteous judgement Sixtly That all mankind shall certainly go into that everlasting condition that the Lord Jesus Christ shall doom them unto those whom Christ shall absolve and sentence to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven shall assuredly go into it to live eternally happy in it and those whom Christ shall condemn to go into everlasting fire shall certainly go into it to be everlastingly punished in it after the act of eternal judgement is past the execution of it will immediately follow this is proved and insisted upon in the next Chapter CHAP. II. Shews by many infallible proofs That all mankind in the end of this world shall go in their bodies and souls into an everlasting condition either of happiness or misery I Have now brought you within the sight of mans future Eternity unto that great Doctrine of Eternity chiefly aimed at which is this That all mankind at the end of this world shall go in their bodies and souls into an everlasting condition either of happiness or misery The wicked of all mankind who had no part in Christ shall go into hell to endure everlasting punishment and the righteous among all mankind who were interessed in Christ shall go into heaven
otherwise sith they shall be cast into the Bottomless pit of hell where their worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched where they have no rest day nor night but are tormented continually continually Rev. 14. 10 11. I have somtimes thought in my sickness What if the Lord should alwaies afflict me with such a pain as this is and should continue me to endure it to all eternity how miserable then wouâ—d my life be and yet saith a learned Author after a long sickness what is a sick-bed to hell What is a Fever to those everlasting burnings where the fit never goeth off the fire never goeth out the worm never dieth Mark 9. 44. 4. They shal be punished remedilâ—sly without ever having any remedy or any help or hope of remedie The Author to the Hebrews tels us That if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineâ—h no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and â—iery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Hebrews 10. 26 27. The Sacrifice of Christ is the onely true Sacrifice if that be quite rejected it can be no more reiterated neither can there be any other found elsewhere and so nothing but remediless misery is to be expected they who shal finally refuse Jesus Christ our ever dear redeemer shal be condemned to hell without all possibility of being redeemed out of it and without all hope of having any comfort in it and so they will be left to utter desperation without either help or hope of remedy but here is not all for Thirdly The misery of that dâ—plorable punishment and fulness of all cursedness called The second death which impenitent unbelievers and ill-livers must endure in Hell at the end of the world consists in the everlastingness of it their punishment of loss and pain of sence will last throughout all-Eternity Hearken what the Scripture saith about the miserable Eternity of such as shal be damned They shall go away into everlasting punishment they shal suffer the vengeance of eternal fire the blackness of darkness is reserved for them for ever they shall be tormented for ever and ever Mat. 25. 46. Jude v. 7. 13. Rev. 20. 10. Oh these words Everlasting eternal ever ever ever how plainly and fully do they prove the everlastingness and the perpetuity of the punishment of the damned in Hell After they have been punished with the loss of the happiness of heaven and with the sense of the horrour of Hell as many years as there are grass piles upon the earth as there are drops of water in the sea as there are sands by the sea shoar as there are motes in the Sun as there have been leaves on all the trees that ever grew as there have been hairs upon the heads of all mankind from the first till the last born I say after they have been punished so many years â—ay more after they have been punished so many millions of years as it is possible for the mind of man to conceive their most fearful punishment will be no nearer an end for it will ever last and never end never never Their souls are immortal already and their bodies shal be raised everlasting the judgement that shal be passed upon them is eternal Hell that place of torment they shal be turned into continues for ever their worm of conscience is ever-living and the wrath of God which shal abide on them is everlasting therefore their punishment shal be everlasting everlasting Though we may look forward and forward towards their miserable eternity yet we shal never see the end of it and they will never find an end of it for after it is once begun it is like a circle that hath no end at all or like that Prison that whosoever were cast into it could never get out again In all the miseries mankind meet withall in this world they have this poor comfort they hope their misery will have an end but the wicked in Hell can have no such hope and therefore no such comfort for they wil know after Christ hath condemned them to go into everlasting fire that their punishment wil be everlasting and endless If any say unto me What is the Eternity of the Damned in Hell my reply is this It is the Everlastingness of their hellish pain and misery whereby it will ever last and never end never never O all ye careless sinners see here in this miserable eternity eternity eternity the great and abominable evil of sin and the sad fruit of it See here what that wrath to come is you ought to flee from and how much it concerns you to fear God who can cast both soul and body into hell See here where the broad way of affected ignorance unbelief and wickedness will end even within the wide gate of the dreadful prison of Hell from whence there is no return Behold here what your sins will bring you unto at last unless you truly repent of them and apply Christ by Faith for pardon of them and power against them And flatter not your selvs in hope of a tolerable hell as thinking that if you be damned that you may endure the torments of hell as well as others For verely verely no finite heart can conceive how great the pain and misery of the damned will be who shal be punished by an infinite God for an infinite guilt throughout the infinite space of Eternity One says wel We can go no further in comprehending that which is incomprehensible then to know it to be incomprehensible It is not for nothing that God hath ordained Tophet of old and that Christ hath so often threatned hell and everlasting punishment against impenitent and unbelieving sinners For for as sure as the promises of heaven and life eternal are true so sure the threatnings of hell and everlasting punishment are true and they shall be fulfilled in God's appointed time and way Mat. 5. 18. ch 25 46. Though Reprobate sinners are but finite Creatures and did sin but for a time yet because they sinned against an infinite good God and against the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God and did never repent of their sins but would have sinned eternally if they had lived eternally therefore these offence is infinite and it will be just with God to punish them wiâ—h an everlasting punishment and so with an infinite punishment in respect of duration Rom. 3. 8 Rom. 6. 23. Although all the damned shal be everlastingly punished with the loss of the felicity of heaven and with the sence of the misery of Hell yet by how much any of them have been greater sinners then others of them by so much their degrees of punishment will be the greater according to the opinion of most expositors upon these Texts of Scripture Mat. 11. 22
to provide for this life which is but temporal how prudent and provident should they be for the life to come which is eternal If any say unto me What shall we do that we may escape everlasting punishment and inherit life eternal at the end of this life which is one of the best questions that ever was asked and my Answer unto it is this that you may be delivered from everlasting misery and that you may be provided for life eternal against the time your temporal life shall end and be no more take these three general directions 1. Learn necessary principles 2. Practise necessary duties 3. Use necessary means First if you would be saved from eternal damnation and with everlasting salvation after this life is ended then learn the fundamentall principles of the christian Religion that are most needfull to be known unto salvation as suppose those Articles of Faith contained in that famous Creed commonly called the Apostles Creed But more particularly labour rightly to understand these four principles which are the first things in the Christian Religion that every one ought to learn and believe First that there is one onely living and true God who is a spirit infinite in being and all perfection distinguished into three persons the Father the Son and the holy Ghost the Maker and Governour of all things who made man after his own Image in knowledge righteousnesse and holinesse and so in a happy condition Gen. 1. 27. with Col. 3. 10. and Eph. 4. 24. Secondly that our first parents Adam and Eve sinned in eating the forbidden fruit and thereby fell from their original righteousnesse and became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body and they being the root of all mankinde the guilt of their sin was imputed and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation so as that our first parents by their fall brought themselves and all mankind into a sinfull and damnable condition Rom. 5. 12. to 20. 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. Thirdly that Mankind thus fallen being unable to deliver themselves out of the estate of sin and misery God so loved the world that he sent forth his onely begotten son Jesus Christ who was conceived by the holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary of her substance and borne of her yet without sin and so became man and was and continueth to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever who was made under the Law and was obedient to it and endured the misery which was due to man for breaking of it who died for our sins and suffered for our salvation and was buried and rose again the third day who ascended up into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God from whence he will come to judge both quick and dead Acts 10. 42. Fourthly that the Lord requires all people who would be saved through his mercy in Christ to repent of their sins to believe in his Sonne Jesus Christ to live a holy life and to wait upon him in his own Ordinances as the word prayer and Sacraments And they who by the grace of God sincerely obey these precepts shall be saved and they who wilfully and finally disobey them shall be damned in their souls after death and particular judgement and in their bodies also after their resurrection and at the general and last judgement Mark 16. 16. Rom. 8. 13. Matth. 25. 46. Though these are the main principles that are most needful to be known unto salvation yet I shall mind you not to rest here but to read and search the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation and perfect unto all good works Jo. 5. 39. 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. Secondly if you would escape everlasting punishment and inherit life eternal at the end of this life then practise the fundamental duties of the christian Religion that are most necessary to be done unto salvation which are chiefly these four in respect of the acts and exercise of saving grace 1. Repent of all your sins 2. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your hearts 3. Live a holy life according to the rule of all Gods commandements 4. Renew your repentance and faith all the dayes of your life as your sins are renewed First repent of all your sins both original and actual Repent saith our Saviour for the kingdome of God is at hand and again I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance and except ye repent ye shall perish Matth. 4. 17. Matth. 9. 13. Luke 13. 3. Now then that you may truly repent of all your sins observe these three rules 1. Search and try your wayes whereby you may find out your sinnes of all all sorts be not too hasty in this duty but ransack every corner of your heart and think of your sinnes till you find them out so farre as that you can remember no more and consider how you have deserved the wrath of God and the damnation of hell for your sins that so you may be truly affected and humbled with the sense of your sinfull and miserable condition Acts 2. 37. 2. Having found out your sins and considered the wrath and curse of God due to you for them fall down upon your knees and humbly confesse your sinnes to the Lord and be sorry for them chiefly as they are contrary to the holy nature and the righteous law of God and the gracious Gospel of Jesus Christ judging your selves for them and praying to God in the name of Christ for pardon of them and power against them Luke 11. 4. 3. Forsake your wicked waies and turn from all your sins unto God purposing and endeavouring for time to come to walk with him in all the waies of his commandments Ezek. 18. 21 22 30 31. 1 Thess. 1. 9. Next to impenitency take heed of late repentance If I had ten thousand souls saith an able Divine I would not adventure one of them upon a death-bed-repentance therefore repent betimes and lest your repentance should be too late let this be the day of your sincere conversion Deut. 29. 18 19 20. Hebr. 3. 7 8. Secondly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart and you shall be saved For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Bucholcerus did so descant upon this Text in his last Sermon before his death that he ravished the hearts of his hearers with the greatness of Gods love to believers Surely it cannot but be a taking thing with all people that Christ ever was and ever will be the Common salvation of all Believers Jude v. 3. Therefore that you may believe to life
the happiness of their life eternal and as it were the highest pitch of their heavenly felicity All the Elect people of God by whatsoever names and Religions they were called and distinguished here on earth they shal all have in heaven Communion one with another fellowship with the holy angels and a full fruition of the ever-blessed Godhead in Trinity of Persons and that in these three respects which I shal the rather express in Scripture-Language for the help of our weak understanding herein 1. They shall enjoy God in Christ in being present with him in the same Empyrean heaven and ever-blessed Eternity where he enjoys himself and where his glorious angels and the blessed souls of his people enjoy him Christ hath promised his people that he will receive them to himself that where he is there they may be also and therefore there they shall be in his appointed time Again the Apostle Paul plainly tells us that we shall be ever with the Lord so we shall partake of that fulness of joy that is in his presence and of those pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore Psal. 16. 11. This this is that which the Saints here on earth do so earnestly and ardently desire as that their souls are restless and unsatisfied until they come to the full fruition of God in the highest heaven which he hath prepared for their everlasting home and entertainment in the world to come 2. They shall enjoy God in seeing of him as he is For then saith Saint Paul we shall see face to face and know even as we are known 1 Cor. 13. 12. Again the Apostle John saith that then we shall see the Lord as he is and so we shal enjoy him by our immediate and blessed Vision of him 1 Joh. 3. 2. All the Saints shall behold the glory of their blessed Saviour in his heavenly kingdom with the eies of their glorified bodies and they shall see the blessed Deâ—ty in three glorious Persons with the eies of their understanding fully enlightened with the light of glory They shal all know the Lord apprehensively in all his admirable excellencies and perfections and they shall see him whom their soul loveth as it were face to face clearly and perfectly and so they shal have a full satisfactory knowledge of God who is the first Truth and of all Truths else which may conduce to their complete happiness Zuingerus was so fully perswaded of this as that he said at the point of death I am glad that the time is now come when the Lord will shew himself unto me face to face 3. They shall enjoy God in Christ in being perfectly one with the Father and Him as they are one after such a real manner as that they shal never be parted from him but shal be indissolubly joined unto him to their unspeakable comfort and happiness Jesus Christ who cannot but be heard hath prayed both for the beginning and the accomplishment of this blessed union His prayer is That all his people may be one with the Father and him as they are one They cannot therefore but be partakers of this blisful one-ness with the blessed Trinity and being partakers of it they will enjoy God by their happy conjunction and immediate communion with him All believers through the Holy Ghost are now inseperably united to the glorious Person of the Son of God as members to their Head and by Christ they are united to God the Father the Fountain of Grace and Glory whereby they are now made partakers of the Divine Light and Life of Grace 2 Pet. 1. 4. And this spiritual and mystical union begun here shall be perfected for ever hereafter whereby they shall partake of the everlasting Light and Life of glory immediately from the Lord of Glory in such a heavenly all-satisfying sort as that they shall be as fully happy as possibly they can wish or desire to be As all the Elect shall be beatifically united to God in Christ so they shall be perfectly united one to another in judgement wil and affection how much soever they differed on earth they shall all accord in Heaven in one scope and act of giving glory and praise to God and in one perpetual adoration and fruition of one infinite Deity in Trinity of Persons and so they wil be mutually happy in God in themselves and in each other Although it is the Soul which doth enjoy God or that doth partake of the good which is in God yet the body also shall have a share in the happiness of the souls enjoyment of God in the Kingdom of glory 1 Thes. 4. 16 17. Sith God is an infinite self-existing Spirit from Eternity in Eternity to Eternity and is his own happiness and the author and object of All happiness therefore the full enjoyment of God blessed for ever who is self-sufficient in his Being and all-sufficient in his Communications will be a satisfying felicity and as high an happiness as either Saints or Angels can desire to enjoy Ps. 73. 25 26. I could not but be affectionately taken with the judgement of a pious writer about this particular Enquire saith he of such as are yet militant upon earth wherein their happiness consists the answer will be In their having fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ Let those who are triumphant be asked What it is that renders their heaven so glorious their glory so incomprehensible ye shal have no other account but this it is because they have now attained a compleat fruition of that all-sufficient all-satissying ever-blessed and ever-blessing Object God in Christ. It is the Doctrinal Observation of a worthy Preacher That God alone is more desirable then any thing then all things in heaven and earth and no wonder if we consider That the Lord is such a depth of Divine perfections as that he possesseth in one onely perfection the excellencie of all perfections in so excellent sort as that none is able to comprehend it but himself Therefore the everlasting enjoyment of him can be no other then perfect blessedness We may piously think according to the Scriptures that when the Saints shal partake of this heavenly fruition of God in Christ they wil have such a full sence and real experience of the everlasting love of God unto them as that they will be for ever affected with it and constrained by it perfectly to love the Lord their God perpetually to rejoyce in him and everlastingly to land him and praise him for their blessed enjoyment of him and so their Love to God joy in him thankfulness to him shal never cease because it is a part of that heavenly happiness which wil redound from their beatifical fruition of God in Christ. A day in thy Courts saith Sacred King David unto God is better then a thousand I had rather be a door-keeper in