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
the Angel Oh then when the whole Assembly of Saints shall be all such how will they fill one another with unspeakable joy How might this vision as it were be an heaven alone If Paul exprest so much satisfaction to be filled with his precious Converts company at Rome what satisfaction will it be when the Romans shall be filled with Paul's company and all other the Saints of God they and he now made perfect in glory Finally It will be no small security to the mutual love and complacency of the Saints that in Heaven they shall be set beyond all possibility of being mistaken in one anothers condition Here below how easily and how often are we deceived Behold a Judas amongst the Disciples whom none of them could discover but only their Lord that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a Devil John 6.70 Oh dreadful a Judas follower of Christ and yet a devil a Disciple and yet a devil a Preacher and yet a devil fast and pray and yet a devil do miracles and yet a devil cast out devils and yet a Devil yea once more Judas who for some time carried it so fair that when their Lord prophesied of one of their company that should be guilty of so horrid a treason as to betray his Lord they every man began to suspect rather than Judus and cried Lord is it I Is it I Lord c Oh dreadful mistake And such mistakes when discovered oh what a shame what condolency what grief what perplexity of spirit do they occasion amongst Gods upright ones But now are the Saints in Heaven delivered from all danger and fear of such charitable errors There shall be no Hypocrite in Heaven upon whom the Saints can lose their love Hypocrites shall be all lock'd up in one infernal dungeon together that they may never deceive any more Matth. 24.21 What an access of joy will this be to the Communion of Saints in glory Quest Whether or no in this blessed Vision the Saints shall see one another with a distinguishing sight i. e. see them so as to know them under such relations and respects as once they stood in one to another in this imperfect state Whether Abraham shall know Isaak as once his son and Isaak know Abraham as sometime his father Whether the Husband shall know his Wife and the Wife her Husband as once such that have drawn together in the same conjugal yoke Whether Kinred shall know their gracious Kinred and friend his friend Whether the godly Minister shall know his gracious People that were of his particular flock and the flock know him as once standing in that ministerial relation to them Et sic in caet This I say is a Question which seems neither difficult nor fruitless to be resolved Probability without doubt falls upon the Affirmative and that whether we consult Reason or Scripture Reason saith It is very likely we shall know them Reason whether by the secret impressions of former converse one with another or by revelation as some conceive is disputed some think that we shall remember what relation we have had one to another by circumstances and emergent occasions by comparing notes as it were but that discursive syllogistical way of coming into the knowledge one of another seems to be too mean and slow for the heavenly state and the reason is because the senses of the body and the faculties of the soul shall be elevated and refined to a kind of Angelical perfection for we shall be like the Angels Luke 20.36 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What although many Ages and Generations have passed over the Saints in their state of separation of the soul from the body and one from another wherein all the species and figures of sensible objects may seem to be totally obliterated or abolished Why may not those vestigia those impressions of sensible things which are granted to remain in the understanding be thought sufficient to reduce the species of those sensible objects themselves whereby the Saints did once converse each with other into the memory again by the sole help of that supernatural vigor and activity which the state of Glory superinduceth upon the faculties of the soul and corporeal senses Behold here in this dark region what quick and admirable recoveries of things past There shall no knowledg be wanting which now we have but only that which implieth imperfection And what imperfection can this imply To know one another as well in the glorified estate as we did in the state of mortality and better The good of this blessed state consisteth in the knowledg one of another communion one with another and mutual content in that knowledge and communion Baxtor do the senses of the body and faculties of the soul make sometimes The eye can distinguish its wonted object after many years separation the memory can presently recall the face and voice and gestures of an intimate friend after sleep which is deaths image yea after twenty years absence or more At the Resurrection the soul I make no question will know its own body at the first sight proportionably in the state of glory must the mutual knowledge and remembrance of old relations be more quick vive and if I may so say intuitive according to the admirable and glorious capacity which they shall then be invested with make but a just allowance for the vast disproportion between the regenerate state on earth and the glorified state in heaven and you may rationally conclude the affirmative And if we consult Scripture Scripture it votes no less for the Affirmative than Reason doth Did Adam know Eve in innocency Mat. 17.4 Did Peter and James and John know Moses and Elias at our Lords transfiguration whom they had never seen Tertul. contra Marcion No not so much as in a picture as Tetullian observes the Jews being great enemies to the use of pictures And shall not the Saints know one another at the first view whom they knew and mutually conversed with while they were here on earth Surely the knowledge of the beatifical vision shall excel not only the knowledge of Peter and John 1 Cor. 13.12 but even the knowledge of Adam in innocency as far as the state of glory excels the state of grace Did Peter and John know Elias on the Mount whom they had not seen and shall not Peter know John and John Peter whom they had mutually seen Again the Scripture tells us that Dives in hell knew Abraham and Lazarus in heaven Luke 16.23 shall the reprobate have better eyes in hell than the elect of God have in Heaven Shall Dives know Lazarus and shall not Lazarus know Paul and Peter c And yet again the Scripture tells us the poor Saints on earth shall know their rich benefactors when they come to heaven how else can they receive them in what sense soever into everlasting habitations shall
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by a reprobate world even as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things the scraping of their Shooes or the common Town-Dung-cart into which every one cast's their soil and draught I say though the Saints of God are thus base and contemptible in the opinion of the ignorant World yet they have another rate and value set upon them in Heaven Heb. 11.6 Heb. 2.11 Cant. 4.8.11 Rev. 21.9 God is not ashamed to be called their God nor Christ ashamed to call them Brethren Yea he dignifies them with the stile of his Spouse the Bride the Lambs Wife and all this upon the account of that admirable and inconceivable Vnion which is between Christ and them that spiritual real operative inriching total intimous and indissoluble Vnion by vertue whereof 1 Cor. 6.17.15.19 they are in Christ and Christ in them as to their more divine part their Soul 's one spirit with the Lord and even as to their terrene and corruptive part their Bodies Members of Christ and Temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in yea saith my Text their very dust is United to Christ They sleep in Jesus Such Honour have all his Saints How should the sense of it engage them to Honour Christ Third Use who hath put so great honour upon them yea to honour themselves whom Christ hath so highly honoured to stand upon their advancement and not to prophane themselves by any thing that is common or unclean or upon the least account unsutable to their glorious Union with Jesus Christ but to possess their Vessels in Sanctification and Honour 1 Thes 4.4 as under an holy awe of that tremendous Sentence If any man defile the Temple of God 1 Cor. 3.17 him will God destroy Surely the thought of so near and intimate an Union with the Son of God should make sin become an impossibility Upon all the Adulterous solicitations of the Flesh World or Satan to make holy Joseph's quick reply How can I do this great Wickedness and sin against my Vnion with Jesus Christ Fourthly Fourth Use And oh that such as have for many years together Exhortation to such as are yet out of Christ sitten under the Ministry of the Gospel of Christ and to this day are altogether strangers to this blessed Union with Christ would now with all seriousness and holy contention apply themselves to know it and to know it experimentally that they would with holy Paul account all things loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledg of Jesus Christ Phil. 3.8 9 even this that they may be found in him to know him with interest to know him in this mysterious and beatifical Vnion Christ in them and they in Christ This only is the saving knowledg of Jesus Christ to be able to make out our Conjunction with him upon Scripture-evidence Alas this is the undoing Mistake of thousands that are called Christians they know somewhat of the History of Christ they have some notions of a Christ in their heads but this is the precipice upon which they ruine themselves They think to be saved by a Christ without them they hang upon the outside of the Ark they live upon bare notions The Son of God took our nature upon him died for sins rose again James 1.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is gon up into Heaven and sits at God's right hand and therefore conclude they shall be saved Oh but what a paralogism and fallacy do they put upon their own Souls They put more into the Conclusion then there is in the Premisses while they leave out this great and indispensible medium of Vnion and Conjunction with Jesus Christ without which a Christ and no Christ is all one Men and Women generally take Faith to be nothing else but a loose conjectural application of Christ and his Merits to themselves not considering that the great saving Office of Faith is To unite the Soul to Jesus Christ Eph. 3.17 It is true there is no Condemnation but it is only to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom 8.1 Christ is the hope of Salvation it is true I but it is not simply Christ in the Womb of the Virgin not simply Christ on the Cross not Christ in the Grave no not alone Christ on the Throne but saith the Apostle Christ in you the hope of Glory Colos 1.27 It were an easie thing to be saved if a Christ without us were all and I know no reason why reprobate men and Devils might not get to Heaven on such terms No but as there is no other name under Heaven Acts 4.12 given amongst men whereby we must be saved but the Name of Jesus Christ i. e. his merit and influence So there is no other medium whereby that merit and influence can be effectually applied to the Soul but only this spiritual real operative enriching intimous total and inseparable Union with Jesus Christ Christ must be in us by his Spirit and we must be in Christ by Faith or else our persons and our hope as to the present state are both reprobate 2 Cor. 13.15 Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 3.22 23. All is yours if you be Christ's as Christ is God's Appear before God's Tribunal in the great day Math. 7.21 22 23. Luk. 13.26.27 without this Vnion and plead what you will your answer will be I never knew you depart from me c. Believe this Oh all you carnal Christ-less Christians and tremble and swim no longer down the stream of Security lest it empty you forth into the Lake of Perdition but work out your Salvation with Fear and Trembling and give all diligence to make this conjunction with Christ sure to your own Souls Colos 3.3 4. that when He shall appear you may also appear with him in Glory Remember All your true and solid comfort and rejoycing in life in death and at the day of Judgment is all bound up in your Vnion with Jesus Christ Christ in you the hope of Glory Fifthly and Lastly Fourth and last Use Consolation The Doctrine of this glorious Union with Christ is not more for the honour of the living than for the comfort of the dying Saints and of their surviving mourners And for their sakes it is here specially calculated by the Holy Ghost behold this Vnion is not dissolved by death it self though it dissolve the Union between Body and Soul it cannot dissolv◠the Vnion which is between Christ and his Members Hence you find even death it self filling up the Apostle's Triumph What can separate neither life nor death c. Not life for Christ by vertue of this Union is their life Not death for as terrible as it is let death do its worst it cannot dissolve this blessed Vnion Neither life nor death can separate c. Why do ye tremble at the
shall bring them together Math. 24.31 The incineration dissipation of their dust shall have a Recollection in the Resurrection not so much as one dust wanting for he that numbers the Stars doth number also the dust and ashes of his Redeemed as not an hair of their heads so not a dust of their resolved flesh shall perish Thus gathered together Christ by his mighty power shall unite dust to dust every dust in its own proper place and form it up into the same numerical body it was when it was dissolved and laid down in the Grave And thus made up into a beautiful Structure more beautiful than ever it was in its first Creation as I shall shew hereafter Christ will put each Soul into its own body again and unite them together into the same sweet conjugal society and fellowship they possessed before their separation this friendly espoused Pair shall now be solemnly Married together before God and Men and Angels never to suffer Divorce any more and they shall become one entire person a totum compositum as they were in the days of their first contract And this excellent person will Christ animate and quicken with the influences of that blessed Union with himself which during all this long interval of their sleeping in the Grave was not dissolved but hidden only and suspended Now shall the Saints know and feel the meaning of that word which Christ spake to Martha I am the Resurrection and the Life Martha in the verse immediately before had professed her Faith of a Resurrection I know that my Brother shall rise again in the Resurrection at the last day Presently Christ replieth Jo. 11.25 I am the Resurrection and the Life discovering to her the Fountain and Cause of that Resurrection namely that Life and Vertue shall then go forth from himself to animate and quicken all his Members and shall cause them to stand upon their feet again as the Children of the Resurrection Thirdly Soul and body thus Vnited Christ God-man shall bring with him unto the place where the great Assizes of the quick and dead shall be solemnly kept which the 17th v. tells us will be in the Air of which more distinctly when we come to that verse Thither Christ will bring with him all his Elect whose bodies to that moment have slept in him Christ will carry the risen Saints with him to the Judgment when he hath awakened them And that upon a Twosold Accompt First For the greater Honour of that Day For the greater solemnity of that last and tremendous Judgment The Saints shall be brought out of their Graves to attend the Judge for his greater State and Grandeur to strike the greater Terrour into the hearts of Reprobate men and Angels who then shall be brought forth in Chains to the Tribunal of Christ to see and suffer the severity and impartiality of that last Tryal The Glory of a King consists in the multitude of his Nobles and Royal Attendants The Judge of Assize is brought in with the Posse Comitatus the power and gallantry of the Country for the striking of the greater terror and aw into the hearts of offenders Angels and Saints shall be Christ's Life-guard as it were Christi Satellitium or as his Troops and Legions which shall conduct him in State and Triumph to the Judgment Seat Secondly when Christ shall have raised his sleeping Saints out of their beds of dust he shall bring them with him from the Grave to the place of Judgment That they may accompany him and be with him throughout the whole carriage and conduct of the last judicial process to hear and applaud his righteous proceedings This is that which the Apostle calls The Saints judging of the World and judging of Angels yea 1 Cor. 6.2 3. it seems that is not all our Saviour tells his Apostles that in that day Math. 19.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nâ—mpe ut Christi vere propâ—è Judicis Assâ—ssâ—res Bern. in â—oe they shall sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes c. judging or condemning how certainly not as bare Spectators only but as Assessors to sit with Him on the Bench to justifie and consent to the judgment of Christ the great and Supream Judg giving in their full and free suffrages to the final sentence which he shall pass upon the Reprobate world of Jews and Gentiles of Men and Devils probably in some such language as we hear from the Saints upon the downfall of Antichrist Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty And by that Doctrine they shall be judged also in the general judgment Math. 13.18 Jo. 12.48 Heb. 117. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He condemned the world partly as the building of the Ark was a visible prediction of the Flood partly as it was a witness and conviction of their infidelity just and true are thy waies thou King of Saints for thy judgments are made manifest Here the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel judged the Wicked of the world by their Doctrine and both Ministers and others of Gods faithful Servants judged them by their Holy lives and patient bearing of the Cross as it is said of Noah that by his Faith in believing the warning and obeying the Command of God in preparing the Ark he judged or condemned the unbelieving World The holiness of the Saints is a tacit reproach and conviction upon the Consciences of Wicked men whereby they condemn them before hand yea whereby wicked men become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-condemned But now the Preachers of the Gospel with the rest of the Saints shall Judge the world judicially and probably by an audible Vote to and with the Judgment of Jesus Christ * Rev. 16.5 Thou art Righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus This honour shall all the Saints have at that Day Thus Christ shall bring the raised Saints with him to the place of Judgment But Fourthly Fourthly God shall bring them with him i. e. that last and solemn Judgment being finished Christ shall carry all his Saints back with him from the place of Judgment the neather Heavens into the upper the supreme Heavens where the Throne of God is and the seat of glorified Angels and Saints All the Saints of God shall follow the Judg in a Triumphant manner into the streets of the New Jerusalem the gates whereof shall be set wide open to receive them An abundant entrance shall be administred unto them into the everlasting Kingdome of the Lord and Saivour Jesus Christ where they shall be welcomed home with lowd Acclamations of joy Heaven will ring again with Triumphant shoutings Thus also God shall bring them with him that sleep in Jesus he will bring them into the Glory of his Father but of this I shall have occasion to speak more largely hereafter This is another Word of Comfort and there is great need
invariety or same-ness of body in the Resurrection to the same sense with the Apostle to every Seed his own body To this Obj. if it be Objected that in the 37. verse of that Chapter under the metaphor of Seed he tells the incredulous Fool that cannot believe this Article of Faith the Resurrection Thou sowest not that body which shall be Not that body which shall be It seems then the body shall be another thing from that which is now sown Ans Answ Yea and indeed so it shall be in respect of quality though not of kind There is diversity in one and the self same body as it is in the Metaphorical so it shall be with the natural the Grain's sown mean and bare but it springeth up after another manner beautiful and green yet the same Grain Meliorata substantia non numero multiplicata Tert. the body likewise is the same when it riseth as it was sowen for Substance Parts Members and Organs but not the same for beauty and excellent Properties The Infant shall rise a man of perfect Age the Lame shall rise Sound the Blind shall rise Seeing the Deaf shall Hearing the Dunth shall be able to Speak the Resurrection shall take away all Defects and Excesses of Nature the Deformities of the Saints shall not be raised together with their bodies yea Deformities shall be turned into Comelinesses and Beauties and yet all these Alterations do no more change or destroy the Individuality of Person than Youth doth make the Person numerically different from what it was in Infancy or Old Age from what it was in Youth or as it was in the Persons of all sorts which Christ healed in the day of his Flesh they were the same Individuals after Cure as they were before Cure makes not another Individual man of a Cripple nor Health of the Sick so shall it be in the Resurrection the bodies of the Saints for of them only I speak not at all of the wicked shall be the same for substance and matter but wonderfully changed for Form and supernatural Endowments and Qualities Second description in particular Which brings me to the particular description of the Resurrection sc in respect of admirable and transcendent Properties of which our Apostle hath instanced Four sc Four Properties of the risen bodies of Saints 1. Incorruption Propeâ—ies of the body in the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.42 43 44. 2. Glory 3. Power 4. Spirituality All these in opposition to the contrary Infirmities and Deformities of the state of Mortality Contraria â—uxta se pâ—sita â—â—â—g's â—lucescunt That so by Comparison the well-nigh infinite disproportion of both Estates may appear and the Super-excellencies which the Resurrection puts upon the Body may shine forth more conspicuously First it is sown in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption 1. Property Incorruptible It is sowen in Corruption Behold the body is Corruptible whiles it liveth a Nursery of such Seeds and Principles as will inevitably destroy it self a Spittal of all manner of Diseases but when it is dead it is Corruption it self Infirmity resolved into Rottenness and Deformity the fondest Relation who while living layed it in the Bosom cannot now endure it in the sight Give me a Burying place said Abraham of his beloved Sarah that I may Bury my dead out of my sight Gen. 23 4. It is now the picture of all ghastly Loathsomness But Oh how unlike it self shall it be in the Resurrection It is raised in Incorruption When Christ hath fetcht the body out of the Grave and set it upon its feet again there shall not be the least smell or savour of Mortality upon it as there was no smell of the fire upon the Raiment of the three Children when they came out of the fiery Furnace Dan. 3.27 All the Principles of Corruption and Mortality shall be put off and lest together with the Grave-Cloaths in the Sepulcher The body as some think shall give forth a sweet fragrant smell like the Flowers of Paradise it shall be an Angelified body Flesh Immortalized subject to no more Corruption than the Soul it self There shall be no more Death nor fear of Death nor possibility of Death for ever Secondly It is sown in dishonour As soon as the Soul is enlarged from its Imprisonment the body is presently stript naked of all its Robes and honourable Attire and wrapt up in a poor shroud of no other use than to hide Deformity and as a mean contemptible thing it is buried under ground Yea somtimes denied so much honour it is exposed naked above ground in the sight of the Sun without any other Funeral than what it may have in the bowels of the Fouls of the Heavens Psal 79.1 or the Ravenous Beasts of the Earth But be the Burial never so Ignoble the Resurrection of it shall be Glorious Second Property Gloricuâ— It is raised in Glory We may truly say Solomon in all his Glory was not arayed like one of these Children of the Resurrection there shall be a glory put upon the Body which shall out-shine the Sun in its brightest refulgency And that upon a double account 1. By vertue of a Principle within 2. The body shall be glorious in the Resurrection 1. By vertue of an Inward Principle By means of a Glorious Irradiation without 1. By vertue of an Internal Principle The Soul which is the Candle of the Lord is here for a time put into a dark Lanthorn of the Body But then the glorified Soul being now returned by the power of Christ into its antient habitation and become a Vessel replenished with Immortal and unmixed light will transmit such beams of glory into the refined body that it shall shine like an Angel of Light the body of the poorest Lazar that ever lay on the Dunghill shall be cloathed with such ravishing rayes of Beauty as will transcend the most absolute Beauty that ever mortal eye beheld 2 By vertue of External Irradiation from Christ 2 Thes 2.10 Heb 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly By vertue of an External Irradiation It is said of Jesus Christ at that day He shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe As Jesus Christ was the Brightness of his Fathers Glory it is spoken of him not as he was the second person in Trinity God blessed for ever but as he was Verbum Incarnatum The Word Incarnate all the beams of Divine Majesty and Glory did shine forth in him with such a refulgent brightness that thorow his Flesh the Godhead was as it were made visible we saw his Glory as the Glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth So shall the Saints at his Coming in their proportion be the brightness of Christ his glory the beams of that glory which shall shine forth from the glorified Person of their Redeemer shall reflect such a glittering Splendor upon
bondage come hither I say and set your feet upon the neck of this King of terrors and fear not to make that triumphant challenge of the Apostle Oh death 1 Cor. 15.55 where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Death is swallowed up in victory and being conquered serves to that high and honourable end scil to be the Saints Vsher of State to bring them into the presence of the King of glory to behold his face and to hear his wisdom from thenceforth for ever to be with the Lord Death serves the Saints now for no use but to kill mortality and to extinguish corruption This corruptible must put on incorruption ver 33. and this mortal must put on immortality i. e. We shall ever be with the Lord a in perfect incorruptible state of glory and this must be effected by means of death Oh what were ten thousand deaths ushering in the Soul into so much glory The glimmering presence of God with a believer here below may conquer the fear of death Psal 23.3 Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me How much more may the hope of a full fruition of God in glory deliver the Saints from the bondage of fear Ever with the Lord This puts Lillies and Roses into the ghastly face of Death and makes the King of terrors to out-shine Solomon in all his glory Ever with the Lord this makes death not only tolerable but amiable desirable For we know 2 Cor. 5.1 that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens and for this we groan carnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house ver 2. which is from heaven For in this we groan i. e. in this tabernacle for this is earthly earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven the reason is because that house is eternal in the heaven A Saint looks out of the windows of this earthly Tabernacle and cryeth out as the Mother of Sisera Why stay the wheels of his Chariot thus long When shall I be carried to those eternal Mansions where I shall ever be with my Lord and Bridegroom Is any thing sweeter than life Yes death to a believer That of Solomon holds best in this case the day of death is better than the day of birth It is transcendently so to a Child of God who is conveighed by death into his Fathers presence where he shall dwell for ever The passage is dark Psal 16.1 but it shall be quick and speedy Thou wilt shew me the path of life the path of life lieth through the grave but Christ hath gone it already and will take the believer by the hand and lead him through it into the Presence-chamber of the King of glory where he shall hear the Bridegrooms voice and his joy shall be fulfilled then tremble thou not believer at the approach of death but go forth and meet him with this friendly salutation Come in thou blessed of the Lord Art thou come to fetch me to my Father Welcome death thou art my best friend next to Jesus Christ Death is only my passage into a blessed eternity Death is Joseph's Chariot not to carry the Saints down into Egypt but up into Canaan and how quickly doth he carry a believer thither It is but winking and he is at home as soon as the eye of the body is closed here the eye of the soul is open there O blessed vision to behold at once all the glories of eternity Say then with Jacob Jesus my Lord and Redeemer is yet alive and seated on the Throne at the right hand of the Majesty on high there proclaiming in the cars of all his trembling followers Rev. 1.18 I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore Amen and have the keys of hell and death Fear not O thou believer to say with Jacob I will go and see him not before I dye but I will dye that I may go and see him Death is but the flames that must singe asunder the cords of thy mortality the hand that shall open the Cage that thy soul may get loose and take her flight for the Mountain of Spices the glorious immortality and liberty of the Sons of God Be of good chear Believers thou shalt dye but once and then ever be with the Lord with whom is the fountain of life life bubbling up unto all eternity The damned are alwayes dying repeating death every moment their flames only serve them to read over the black lines of death which have neither Full-point or Comma But death enters not into the borders of the heavenly Canaan they say there is no Spider in Ireland it is certain there is no putrid matter in heaven to breed the vermin of mortality in heaven only death cannot live when thou dyest thou shalt rise again and dye no more but death shall dye and shall rise no more thy grave shall be the eternal grave of death It is appointed for all men once to dye and for believers to dye but once Do but clear up thine interest in the death of Christ and thou mayest bid farewell to the fear of death for ever for the worst thing that death can do to thee is thee best thing that can be done for thee even to guide thy poor straying soul home to thy Fathers house and so shalt thou ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words Lastly It may teach us how to prize Christ Vse 6 that triumphant Grace a Grace that hath eternity stampt upon it it out-lives Faith for faith gives way to vision and it doth out-last hope for hope is swallowed up in fruition what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Whether there be prophesies they shall fail whether there be tongues they shall cease whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away but charity never fails but as long as God lives it lives for God is love and they that love dwell in God and God in them I have finished I cannot say perfected the main work intended seil the opening of the ten words or Arguments of Comfort here laid down in this model or platform by the Holy Ghost as so many soveraign Cordials to revive disconsolate and fainting Christians over the death of their hopeful Relations with the several improvements which each word by it self may afford unto us But before I do Manum de tabula tollere dismiss this discourse I do observe divers useful Corollaries and Instructions lye couched in the general improvement of these words Comforting one another which will serve as so many branches of information which without guilt I cannot omit and they are ten 1. Several branches of Information arising from this general exhortation Comfort one another 1. Branch of Information Sorrow
will agree exactly 2.167 Reproach Reproaches for Christ better than all the applause of the world 3.83 Reprobate the future estate of the reprobate set forth by eternity 3.89 Resurrection three things interest a believer in the triumph of Christ's resurrection 1 Power 1.12 2 Office 1.13 3 Right 1. ibid. Christ arose by his own strength 1.12 As a publick head 1.13 On which account 1 The Saints are said to be risen already 1.14 2 They are assured they shall arise 1.15 Resurrection of Christ why called his youth 1.16 An inseparable connexion between the resurrection of Christ and of the Saints 1 Of merit 1.15 2 Of power and influence 1.16 3 Of design 1.17 4 Of union ibid. Christ is risen as our first fruits 1.19 Resurrection of the Saints stands upon a surer foundation than our faith 1.20 How Christ shall bring the Saints with him at the resurrection 1 Their souls from heaven 1.47 2 Their bodies from the grave and how 1.47 3 Body and soul he shall take up into the clouds and why 1.48 49 4 He shall carry them back with him into heaven 1.50 It shall put believers that are dead into as good a capacity as those that are alive 2.64 Saints that shall then be found alive will be no otherwise capable of it than under the notion of the dead 2.65 The manner of it 2.86 The admirable properties of it 1 Incorruptible 2.89 2 Glorious 2.90 3 Powerful 2.93 4 Spiritual 2.94 Saints shall rise with the same bodies they lye down with 2.87 The body will depend wholly upon the soul 2.95 Our bodies at the resurrection shall he moved by an extrinsic power but shall move themselves by an intrinsic principle 2.107 Why called the Regeneration 2.101 Three consequents of the resurrection 1 The resurrection of the Saints that are dead 2.86 2 The Saints triumphant ascension 2.104 3 The Saints joyful meeting 1 One with another 2.112 2 All with Christ where 1 The persons meeting 2.120 2 The place where 2.124 3 The ends of their meeting 2.126 Christ will welcome the Saints at the resurrection under a threefold relation 1 As the Fathers election 2.121 2 As the purchase of his blood ibid. 3 As the depositum of the Holy Ghost 2.122 Reward is an encouragement to good works e contra 3.91 Riches have wings 3.105 Righteous to be righteous and not guilty are two different capacities 2.139 Righteousness a positive righteousness is required to the justification of a sinner as well as absolution from guilt and punishment which appears on the account 1 Of the justice of God 2.141 2. Of the perfection of the Law 2.143 3 Of the necessity of the sinner 2.154 4 Of the excellency of the Redeemen 2.157 It looks forward pardon backward 2.142 Righteousness imputed to the Saints the first moment of their conversion 2.160 The mediatory righteousness of Christ comes to be a believers as the first Adam 's disobedience came to be his posterities viz. by imputation 2.146 Imputed righteousness the same materially which the Law requireth 2.149 T Sacrament attend often upon the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 3.132 Saints the dignity of them 1.41 They that are alive at Christ his coming shall have no advantage above those that are dead 2.58 They that are dead shall be first remembred at the resurrection 2.60 Those that are alive will be no otherwise capable of the resurrection than under the notion of the dead 2.65 They shall be solemnly espoused to Christ 2.162 They shall be assessors with him at the judgment 2.164 Scripture inference is Scripture 2.67 It concerns us to search the Scriptures 3.163 In reading Scripture make a collection of the Promises 3.163 Secret whatever kindness was shewed to God in secret shall be openly rewarded 2.130 Self-denyal exercise it 3.130 Separation a perfect separation from the society of sinners at the last day 2.117 Sin why sometimes punished here sometimes not 2.78 The Saints sins not remembred at the last day 2.130 And why 2.134 This is no encouragement to sin 2.131 It is fully pardoned at death 2.134 They will appear as they are at the day of judgment 2.168 A vain thing to call any sin small 2.168 The smallest is dangerous 3.128 It sets us at a great distance from heaven 3.41 An universal hatred of it an evidence of heaven 3.120 It is the Devils image 3.120 Sinner the condition of a sinner doth necessarily require an imputed righteousness 1 To settle solid peace in the conscience 2.154 2 To secure his appearance in the day of judgment 2.157 Sinners are mixed with Saints here contra 2.116 They will dread the society of the godly at the last day as much as formerly they hated it 2.117 They were first in transgression but God first in reconciliation 2.169 Sleep Death but a sleep 1.2 Death resembled to sleep in two respects 1.3 Socinians deceived in saying we shall not have real but aerial bodies at the resurrection 2.96 Sorrow there is a sorrow for departed friends which God condemns not 3.144 Souls all of one size 2.94 Not everlasting a parte ante and why 3.86 Spirit the Spirit of Christ the fountain of efficacy but the blood of Christ the fountain of merit 2.122 Spirit of God hath a twofold office about attaining assurance 3.123 Be tender of it 3.127 None but friends can properly be said to grieve the Spirit 3.128 Sufferings of the Saints will be owned at the resurrection 2.129 T Tears of the Saints are bottled 2.128 Terror it will be horrible terror to the wicked to see the Saints sit in judgment with Christ 2.164 Time no farther time will be granted at the great Assize 2.171 Transgression Sinners were first in transgression but God first in reconciliation 2.169 Translate no translating of sin upon others at the great day 2.168 Tribunal there will be no appeal from the great Tribunal 2.169 Trinity the external works of it are undivided 1.46 The order of their work 1.46 Trumpet one end of the Feast of Trumpets might be to put them in mind of the last day 2.114 Last Trump will not be only audible but articulate 2.115 V Vision six things shall be the object of the Saints Vision 1 The seat of blessed souls 3.3 2 The glorified Saints 3.4 3 The elect Angels 3.15 4 The glorified body of Christ 3.26 5 God in the divine Essence 3.18 6 All things in God 3.42 Of glorified Saints will be wonderful glorious 3.4 We shall not have an intuitive Vision of the divine Essence 3.27 How far we shall have a Vision of the divine Essence 3.30 Of God in Scriture is twofold 1 In Grace 3.40 2 In Glory ibid. How these agree and how they differ 3.46 Unbelief the spring of all our misery 1.21 Understanding the glorified understanding shall have a sixfold perfection 1 Spirituality 3.36 2 Clarity 3.37 3 Capacity 3.38 4. Sanctity ibid. 5 Strength 3.39 6 Fixedness ibid. Our understandings will be like unto God in heaven 3.78 Union
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
thoughts of death O ye Saints of God! and why do you indeed what the Jews supposed Mary did John 11.31 go so oft to the Sepulcher to weep there behold your beloved Lazarus is not dead but sleepeth yea that which is of an infinitely higher consideration he sleeps in Jesus Did he live in Christ behold he died in Christ also Did he dye in Christ behold he sleeps in Christ Christ is nearly related to the Saints dust their ashes are not laid up in the Grave so much as in Christ yea though after death they should pass through never so many changes and revolutions and should be scattered at length into all quarters and corners of the world Dormire in Christo est conjunctionem retinere in morte quam habemus cum Christo Calv. in loc he that calls the Stars by their own names knows every dust of their precious bodies keeps them in his hand and is as really united to them as to his own humane nature in Heaven This may be as Jonathan's honey upon the top of the rod taste of it oh ye mourners of hope and your eyes will be enlightned look not on your pretious Relations so much as they lye rotting in the Grave or resolved into dust as upon their dust as it is laid up in a sacred Vrn in the hand and bosome as it were of Jesus Christ for which he himself will be responsible and bring it forth safely and entirely in the morning of the Resurrection there shall not be so much as a dust wanting for so it followeth Them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him which is a wider breach The sixth Word of Comfort Sixth word of Comfort God will bring his Sleeping Saints with him God will come and when he cometh He will bring them with him which sleep in Jesus God will or God shall c. Some understand it of God the Father others of God the Son I know not why they should be separated they that say God the Father include God the Son i. e. God the Father shall bring them with him in Christ of by Christ referring he shall bring unto the former clause in Jesus The Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Erasmus and Tertul. Or by Jesus so reading it God shall bring them by Jesus And they who understand here God the Son exclude not God the Father And verily the order of working which is between the three glorious Persons in Trinity will not allow us to seclude either in this place For as all the external works of the Trinity are common Opera Trinitatis ad extrà sunt indivisa and undivided so Divines observe this method or order in their working The Father worketh all things of himself in the Son by the Holy Ghost The Son worketh from the Father by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost worketh from the Father and from the Son by himself The Original of the action is ascribed to the Father The Wisdom and manner of working to the Son The Efficacy of the operation to the Holy Ghost All external operation begins in the Father is continued in the Son and terminated in the Holy Ghost This is a mystery rather to be adored Psal 139.6 than curiously to be pried into such knowledg is too wonderful for us it is high we cannot attain unto it But as to the words of the Text God will bring them with him I conceive they relate more properly and peculiarly to the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Lord. For so it follows The Lord himself shall descend c. And when he cometh he will bring them with him that sleep in him The propriety of the work is ascribed to Jesus Christ God-man the Mediator between God and man he shall bring them with him when he descendeth from Heaven And that in a four-fold respect 1. Their Spirit or Souls from Heaven 2. Their Bodies from the Grave 3. Body and Soul united he shall take up to himself into the Clouds 4. And then carry all his Saints back with him into Heaven First when the Lord shall descend he will bring the spirits of just men made perfect with him from Heaven The Souls of all his glorified Saints whose bodies to this moment have slept in the Grave shall follow Christ out of the gates of the New Jerusalem to attend that glorious solemnity so it is prophesied Behold Jude v. 14. the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints When Christ cometh to judg the world there shall not be a Saint left in Heaven saith Chrysostom * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven shall as it were be left empty to attend the King of Glory going forth out of his Royal Palace to finish the work of the great and last Judgment of the world he shall come attended with all his Saints they shall fill up his Train Secondly As Christ will bring their Souls with him from Heaven so he will bring their bodies from the Grave It is noted how that in the Transfiguration the body of Moses which was hid in the Valley of Moab appeared in the Mount of Tabor which assures us that the bodies of the Saints where-ever they be lodged are not lost but laid up to be raised to glory the same numerical body that was laid down in dust Christ at his coming to Judgment will first go to the Graves of the Saints and cry to them aloud in some such language as once he did to their Souls in the days of their unregeneracy when dead in sins and trespasses in the Gospel-call Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and I will give thee Life Or as somtimes in the days of his flesh he did to Lazarus John 11.41 when he had lien four days rotting in the Grave Veniet aliquando Christus cum potestate et majestate carnem illam quaerere illud corpus cadaverosum configurare corpors claritatis suae Bern. a lively Emblem and Type of the general Resurrection Lazarus come forth and they that are dead shall come forth It was the tenour of his own prediction while yet in the world The hour is coming in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear the voyce of the Son of man and shall come forth c. I shall not stay here to inquire into the nature and properties of the Saints bodies when Christ shall raise them up out of their Graves that inquiry will be more proper and seasonable in some of the following clauses of this context Concerning the manner of it for the help of our Infant-understandings briefly The manner of the Resurrection we may conceive it after this method First The holy Angels of God shall be sent abroad to gather together the scattered dust of the Saints though separated one from the other at never so great a distance into all the quarters and extremities of the earth Math. 24.31 and
of it Use upon a two-fold Account Comfort to living Saints First To the Saints yet living First In reference to the Saints of God yet living You are now scorned and persecuted the ungodly world doth now judge you and condemn you the Psalmist observed it in his time Psal 94.6 they gather themselves together against the Souls of the Righteous and condemn the Innocent blood Innocence is no security against cruelty and oppression yea it seems no wine so sweet to wicked men as Innocent blood Jam. 5.6 ye have condemned and killed the just and yet that open violence may not want a pretence of Justice they act in the form of a legal process before they kill they do condemn but alas those Fig-leaves will not cover their nakedness It is the just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom they do unjustly Condenm and Murder so it was in Davids time and so it was in St. James his time One saith I should suspect him to be no Abel who hath not a Cain to persecute him ver 7 8. and so it is now the Reprobate world holds on its course to this day and so it will be to the end of the World God's Righteous Abels must expect no better justice at the Tribunals of these unrighteous Cains But be patient my Brethren till the Coming of the Lord and stablish your hearts for that coming of the Lord draweth nigh and then the Scene shall be altered you shall have the Law as it were then in your own hands your turn shall be to sit upon the Bench and your Enemies shall stand at the Bar They Judg and Condemn you now but there is a day coming when you shall Judg and condemn them and they indeed Vnrighteously but you shall Condemn them Righteously because your Judgment shall be according to the Judgment of that Righteous Judg of Heaven and Earth the Searcher of the hearts who will judg men by those two impartial Books the Book of his own Remembrance and the Book of their Consciences Yea you shall judge them for their Vnrighteous judging of you So it was Prophesied of old Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to Execute Judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him not in his person only but in his Members also Loqâ—untur lapides all their ungodly deeds and all their hard speeches wherewith they have unjustly judged the Saints of God shall be judged over again And this honour shall all the Saints have they shall judg their Judges and not be guilty Psal 49.14 The Righteous shall have the Dominion over them in the morning Surely this is an advancement which the poor oppressed people of God could never have expected were they not assured of it from the mouth of him that shall be the Judg at that day Let this stay and stablish your hearts Secondly Secondly In reference to the Saints departed It is a word of comfort in reference to the Saints departed our precious Relations the sense of whose loss and absence we are not able to bear while we think of them as smothered and extinguisht in their own ashes silent in the land of forgetfulness in whose sweet converse we were wont to solace our selves with much delight their souls having left the habitation of their bodies and their bodies resolved into dust and that dust possibly mixt with the dust of wicked men or of the brute Creatures it may be dispersed into the remotest part of the world Ah these be some of the heart-dividing thoughts wherewith we do afflict our Souls But give check to your passions Oh ye mourners of hope and make use of the Cordials which your Heavenly Physitian hath prescribed to keep you from fainting Remember that although their bodies are in the Grave their Souls are with the Spirits of just men made perfect beholding the face of their Father which is in Heaven from whence Jesus Christ God-man when he shall come in the glory of his Father attended with all his mighty Angels will bring them with him And then shall he go to their Graves and as he formerly said unto them Come my people enter into thy Chambers shut the doors about thee go to bed in the Grave and take thy rest so now he will awaken them out of their sleep with a sweet voyce Awake and sing you that dwell in the dust Arise shine for thy light is come the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee c. yea he will kiss them awake with the kisses of his mouth and then as a Father and a Priest will give the Soul in Marriage to the Body again and unite them one to another and both to Himself in an indissoluble bond Oh Christians think with your selves what a joyful meeting that will be when two such ancient Friends that have been parted so long shall meet and embrace and kiss one another never to suffer any more Divorce or fear of Divorce to Eternity How will the Soul bless God when it shall receive its own body again it 's true Yoak-fellow and Fellow-labourer which laboured with it much in the Lord and which was wont to be its Oratory and Temple wherein the Soul performed all its Sacra its holy devotions in season and out of season And how will the Body rejoyce to see the Soul again to whom it was espoused which was the guide of its youth that in its capacity which Christ is to the Soul it 's King Priest and Prophet and by vertue of whose conjunction with it the very body as poor and mean as it was in its original extraction was preferr'd and admitted into Fellowship and Communion with the Son of God and upon that account not forgotten all the while it slept in the land of forgetfulness and thought not of it self I say Solace your selves with the praevision of that Triumph and Exultation that will fill this blessed new-Married couple especially when they shall receive one another so much more excellent than themselves at their last parting that the body shall seem to be Transessentiated into a Soul and the Soul transformed into an Angel of Light Rejoyce O Christian Soul to think how these two morning Stars will sing for joy in this their new and for ever blessed Conjunction Thirdly Thence follow them in your Contemplations following the Judg to the place where the Thrones shall be erected for judgment and there placed on Thrones not as Spectators only but as joynt-Commissioners Where the Saint of a day shall judg the Sinner of an hundred years old yea they shall judg the Old Serpent himself and all his infernal Angels And as that Sentence leaves them so shall they remain to all Eternity Fourthly and in the last place Christians think not so much on your precious Relations
priviledg of the Resurrection which was an Arcanum or Mysterie not formerly made known to the Church But this is but a conjecture which carrieth with it little probability The Apostle telling us in the same place that the words he heard in that Extatical Vision were Vnspeakable words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. things which were either not lawful to be uttered or not possible to be uttered ineffable words had this Mysterie been that Revelation or any part of it the Apostle had in reporting it to the world either exceeded his commission or done impossibilities Others therefore conceive that this was a mystery revealed to none but to the Apostle himself and that not unto him until he wrote this Epistle and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word of Lord signifies only the Apostle his delivering this by divine Authority from divine inspiration quasi eo ipso loquente Bern. Christi mandato Grot. Others there are that waving both these Conjectures are apt to think this mystery so called because it was not commonly understood in the Church to be none other than the Doctrine which our Lord himself delivered by word of month in the dayes of his flesh concerning the Resurrection for which Some would make us beholding to Tradition but others more rationally suppose the Apostle to entitle this Doctrine to the Lord not as if any where delivered in terminis in so many express letters and syllables but as a divine Truth deduceable from the general doctrine which the Lord Jesus did deliver in his Sermons and discourses touching the raising of the dead And to this judgment I do much incline as the more safe and warrantable Christ's own words being a much more solid foundation to build an Article of Faith upon than either Tradition or Revelations Witness the Holy Ghost in the mouth of the Apostle St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.19 We have also a more sure word of Prophesie more sure then what Why more sure than the Voyce which the Disciples heard from Heaven when they were with Christ in the Mount ver 18. An infallible Oracle attested by infallible Witnesses and yet behold the written Word is a surer bottom for our Faith to stand upon in taking up divine doctrine than that because though the voyce from Heaven was in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infallible yet the holy Scriptures being the standing * Psal 19.7 God's Amen Testimony and Expositor of Gods mind to the world it is a more authentick Touch-stone to try Truth by then a Voyce from Heaven which may be Counterfeited by Satan and Satanical Imposture We shall reckon then this mystery delivered here by holy Paul as the Doctrine which Christ himself Preach'd unto the world and testified by the Evangelists and other Secretaries of the Holy Ghost until Revelation be more clearly revealed unto us in this point Amongst the passages of our Lords Doctrine recorded by the Evangelists concerning the Resurrection from which this particular mystery may be collected we may with safety and modesty select these Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man Math. 24.30 and they shall see him coming in the Clouds of Heaven with power and great glory And he shall send forth his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet and they shall gather his Elect from the four Winds from the one end of Heaven to another When they shall rise from the dead Mark 12.25 they neither marry nor are given in marriage And again As touching the Dead that they rise have ye not read in the book of Moses c Behold by the way Jesus Christ that he might give testimony to Moses quotes the testimony of Moses for the Doctrine of the Resurrection But yet further take another testimony or prediction of his own The hour is coming Jo. 5.28 in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear the voyce of the Son of man And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life c. To these Scriptures and the like it is most probably conjectured our Apostle doth refer when he doth here quote the Authority of our Lord for the Doctrine here delivered For although it doth not run verbatim word for word with any of the recited Texts yet these things are evident First That in these Scriptures our Blessed Saviour doth positively and expresly assert the doctrine of the Resurrection at the last day The dead must rise Secondly That the main care which Christ will take at his coming will be To gather unto himself all his Elect which have been upon the earth from the Creation until that blessed hour Math. 24.31 He shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather his Elect c. not one of them shall be wanting Thirdly Christ comprehends all these his Elect whether quick or dead under one and the same notion namely the dead and those that are in the Graves not the least mention made or notice taken of them that shall survive and be found alive at his coming whence two things are clearly deducible First That the Resurrection which the Saints that sleep in Jesus shall be made partakers of shall put them into as full a capacity of the glory of Christs coming as if they had remained alive in the body until that blessed hour Yea Secondly That the Saints then surviving can upon no other account become capable of that glory than as they fall under the notion of the dead Christ takes notice in the prediction of his coming of no other but the dead for whom that glory is reserved Whence Some are of opinion that the surviving Saints must dye in a literal sense and a real separation must pass upon them between their bodies and their souls Mirâ celeritate of which opinion Austin himself was though he conceived it would be transacted in a wonderful swift and speedy way But others conceive that the Saints whom Christ his coming shall find in the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall suffer only some thing analogical to death and to this opinion our faith must needs subscribe the Holy Ghost bearing witness to it in the mouth of the Apostle in the 15th Chapter to the Corenthians 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep i. e. all shall not dye in a literal sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what then but we shall all dye or be changed i. e. they that dye not must be changed All must either dye or be changed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that do not sleep must suffer a mutation that shall bear some proportion to death Verse 50 whereby the corruption of their nature must be abolished for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption The body as it is corruptible much less as it is sinful is not capable of glory there must a refining change pass upon it they must put off their
Rags of mortality before they put on the Robes of Glory and this must be done Partly that the Statute of Heaven may not be broken Heb. 9.27 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decreed wherein it is appointed for all men once to dye It was a Statute Law past in the Parliament of Heaven Gen. 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely dye Heb. in dying thou shalt dye Christ himself as man submitted himself to this Statute and so must all the Sons and Daughters of Adam they must dye either literally or analogically Death makes a change in some and this change is a death in others a death to mortality and a death to corruption Partly that hereby they may also be made partakers of the Resurrection Our Saviour's prediction of the Resurrection comprehends all the Saints of God and the living Saints at that day can by no other means be counted the Children of the Resurrection than as they are begotten again as it were by this mysterious and ineffable change Math. 19.28 whence possibly it is called the Regeneration because all the Elect of God shall then begin to live their new perfect life all over in their bodies and Souls both the quick and the dead From these Premises we draw this Conclusion c. That our Apostle here doth not start any new doctrine of his own or as * 1 Cor. 7.12 somewhere he doth deliver his own judgment as an holy knowing man and not as one infallibly inspired from above but he doth expound Christ unto us and gives us the sense of His words who was both the Truth and the Resurrection So that the doctrine here laid down as it is a word of exceeding comfort to dying Saints and to their surviving Relations Non primi extitimus Resurrectionis testâ—s 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so here is a consideration which may adde great weight to it and make it so much the stronger consolation in as much as it hath the stamp and sanction of Christ's own Authority Christ himself hath made assidavit to it we have the word of him that cannot lye the Apostle being in this but Christs Interpreter From hence by the way we are informed of these two things Use of Inform. worth our notice First Vse 1 There is no sure and infallible foundation for our faith to stand upon but the word of God Thither therefore the Holy Ghost sends us Isa 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them The Apostle himself would not aver such a solemn truth as this is but from the mouth of Christ himself Uncertain Revelations dubitable Traditions Authority of the Church and all humane Testimony whatsoever is too weak a foundation to build our Faith upon in any Article of Religion Search the Scriptures for in them ye hope to have Eternal Life Jo. 5.39 Secondly We gather hence that Scripture-Inference Vse 2 is Scripture that is to say That which may be inferr'd from Scripture by natural and necessary consequence is to be received as the Scripture it self The word of God rightly interpreted is the word of God Thus our Lord himself Luk. 12.27 proves the Resurrection out of the old Testament by inference and deduition from the words which God spake to Moses I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob he thence inferrs God being not the God of the dead but of the living that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are alive in their better part sc their Souls and shall live again in their inferiour part sc their bodies So the holy Apostle here inferreth this comfortable truth that the dead Saints shall lose nothing by their not being found alive at Christs coming from Christ's own doctrine of the Resurrection in general And doubts not to honour it with this Title The Word of the Lord This I say unto you by the Word of the Lord. Let the Ministers of the Gospel take heed how they Preach any doctrine opinion or practise 1 Caution to Ministers which cannot either in terminis or at least by just and necessary consequence be justified to be the word of God lest they incurre the brand and censure of false Prophets Jer. 29.9 And let Christians take heed how they reject any doctrine which is so evidenced 2 Caution to private Christians lest they be found to reject the Word of the Lord Jer. 8.9 I have done with the second branch of the seventh word of Comfort sc the Authority quoted for it save only that there is one scruple yet to be removed and that is Quest Why the Apostle in delivering this truth doth use this phrase we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord and not rather they which are alive for Did the Apostle indeed think that he himself should live to see Christ coming in glory to judg the quick and the dead Ans Certainly No for 1. Grotius aliter opinatur quem vide in loc arque etiam Bez. The event shews that that had been a mistaken presumption in him that day is not yet come and the Apostle is long since fallen asleep 2. We hear him Prophesying of his own dissolution and that as a thing hard by 2 Tim. 4.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand Gr. it is instant upon me See the Apostle was far from flattering himself with any such conceit of being one of them that should live and remain unto the coming of the Lord. What means the expression then Ans The holy Apostle divides all the Elect of God into two ranks sc 1. Such as are fallen asleep from the fall of the first Adam to the coming of the second or 2. Such as should survive and remain unto that day not making himself of the number of either the one or of the other but one of the whole number of Gods Elect some of whom should sleep some should live till Christ's last coming and when he saith we that are alive and remain it signifies no more but this in general such of us as are then alive shall not prevent such of us as are then asleep this is all he intends in this expression Beza and others spy out a mystery in this manner of speech Doct. as if hereby the Apostle would hint unto us the uncertainty of Christ's Coming Vult omnes suspensos tenere ne sibi tempus aliquod promittant that for ought that was revealed of that day Christ might come while some of that generation were superstites living upon the face of the earth If that doctrine be in the Text Vse Christ himself hath made the use of it Lanet ultimus dies ut expectetuâ— singulis ut fideles emnibus horis parati essent Math. 24.36 of that day and hour knoweth no man no not
the Saints in the Resurrection that they shall be glorious even to admiration They shall be admired by the very Angels by one another and even by themselves also they shall wonder to behold this strange Change wrought upon themselves as a poor Captive-maid taken out of the Dungeon stript of her nasty stinking raggs and cloathed with Prince-like Robes adorned with rich and costly Jewels to be Married to a King would stand fill'd with wonder and delight to look round about upon her self and behold the beauty and lustre of every part So shall it be with the Saints in the Resurrection The reflexes of Christs glory shall shine forth in them even to wonder and astonishment Christ shall be glorified in his Saints and in all them which believe Christ shall not be glorious in Himself only but glorified in all his Saints Thirdly It is sowen in weakness weakness indeed What more impotent than Man while yet alive Vanity it self Psal 39.5 Yea hear that Text out and you will say he is vanity indeed for first it is every man Kings as well as Beggars Câ—l Adam Giants as well as Pygmies every man take where ye will And secondly as it is every man so it is Every vanity or * Col-Hebel Vniversa Vanitas altogether vanity Every man is the Center of every vanity he is not only mixt vanity partly somthing and partly nothing some solidity and some froth but vanity throughout vanity and nothing else And then again it is every man in his * Nitztzab best Estate or according to the Heb. * Nitztzab Standing Yee need not stay till he is down when he is languishing suppose in his sick bed but take him standing in his most erect posture when he is most himself in his bravery Heb. Chasde or as it is Isa 40.6 take him in his goodliness Gallantry in his freshest colours and excellencies and yet then even then he is vanity every man is every vanity Ach. Vtique and that you may not doubt of it the Holy Ghost hath set a double seal to it one in the front Verily and another in the heel of the Text Selah Verily every man in his best Estate is altogether Vanity Selah such a piece of vanity that he is not able at his best to free himself of or fence himself against the injuries of the most contemptible creature that ever God made Frogs and Flies Lice and Worms have courage enough to encounter and strength enough to conquer the proudest potentest Tyrant as we see in Pharaoh Herod c. Thus weak he is in his Strength what is he in his Weakness So feeble he is when he stands how feeble when he is fallen in sickness in his old decrepit age his second Infancy Read and ponder on that graphical description which the Holy Ghost hath drawn of him Eccles 12. Eccles 12. We will pick out but some of those lively Characters ver 3. The Keepers of the House tremble the Arms and Hands the principal instruments in repelling evil from the body they tremble with Palsies and shakings The Strong men bow themselves the leggs and thighs which were wont to carry the body upright with strength and vigour now faulter and shrink under their weight and buckle together for very debility the ligaments of nature being now untied The Grinders cease because they are few the Teeth that were wont to grinde the Food and prepare it for the Stomach they cease from their function because but few and having lost their keâ—nness Those that look out at the Windows are darkned the eyes those Spies and Intelligencers of this little world by reason of the driness and ineptitude of the Organs defluxion of humours c. do fail in the execution of their office The Doors are shut in the street All the Senses which are the Doors by which objects enter are so weakned that they are unusefull and of very little service They rise up at the voyce of the Bird Old men through difficulty and want of sleep rise at the crowing of the Cock or the chirping of a Sparrow the least noise disturbs their sleep See the more full and accurate exposition of this description of Old Age in the English Annot. upon Eccles by the Reverend and Learned Dr. Reynolds verse 5. They are afraid of that which is high they go slowly and timorously lest they should stumble at every stone or the least unevenness in the way The Grasshopper shall be a burden the lightest hop of the least creature is burthensome to Old Age. Desire fails all the sensual appetitions of Youth are now undesired and unsavory Behold here is weakness to perfection And yet all-this-while there is Life the Soul yet imbalms the body and keeps it from putrifying But Man returns to his long Home This same dry Seed is sown and it is sowen in weakness indeed not only meat for Worms but it turns into Worms and Vermin and hasteneth into its first feeble principle of dust to which it was sentenced by Divine Justice Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 and to dust thou shalt return But now behold this feeble thing shall be raised in power 3. Property Powerful The body even of the weakest Infant shall be invested with an Angelical power A Monument whereof the formidable Host of Sennacherib King of Assyria hath erected for all posterity wherein 2 King 19.35 one Angel went out and smote one hundred fourscore and five thousand who over-night like so many Goliahs defied the Armies of the Living God but in the morning lay upon the ground so many blasted life-less Corpses and all by the Ministry of one Angel Such Vessels of strength and Activity shall the bodies of the Saints be in the Resurrection they shall be indued with such power saith one that they shall be able to remove the Globe of the Earth with their foot as if it were but a foot ball they shall be cloathed with a kind of Omnipotence Gideon Sampson Jephtah David and all his famous Worthies are but as suoking Babes to the Children of the Resurrection He that is weak among them shall be as David and he that is as David shall be as the Angel of God Again It is sowen a natural body according to the Greek word for word an * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abnimal body i. e. such a body as is animated susteined and acted by the Soul The holy natural 1. Because acted by a natural Soul yet in so low a way that it is subject to Corruption and is no sooner deserted by the Soul but it resolves into dust ut supr à or Natural i. e. such a body as stands in need of natural helps of meat drink rest sleep 2. Because it stands in need of natural props 3. Because endued only with natural affections c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fourth Property Spiritual to shore up the feeble Tabernacle of dust for
a while and all will not do but down it will come Roof and Walls and Props and All. Or again Natural i. e. such as hath natural motions operations and affections such as are proper only to the fallen Nature of man feeble slow limited and temporary But now behold in opposition to all these acceptations it is raised a spiritual body not in regard of the substance of it as if it were turned into a Spirit but 1. Because animated and acted by the Soul now in its glorified capacity made perfect with all heavenly qualifications and so Spiritualized in all its faculties and operations Heb. 12.23 The Spirits of just men made perfect that it is called no more by the name of a Soul but of a Spirit To the conduct and motions whereof the body NOW shall yield absolute and immutable obedience and conformity Here the Soul depends as it were upon the body Anima sequitur temperamentum Corporis because though the body be acted by the Soul yet the Soul acts according to the temperament of the body and the disposition of the Organs The difference if we take notice of it between men and men in respect of Wisdome and judgment and other natural excellencies Omnes animae sunt ejusdem perfectionis ariseth not from any disparity that is between their Souls for all Souls are of a Size the Soul of a Fool is as perfect as the Soul of a Wise man But the difference ariseth from the Crasis and Complexion of the body which many times puts Yokes and Manacles upon the Soul so that at the best it is but as a close Prison or dark Lant-horn which obstructs and restrains the more noble and liberal operations of the Soul and penn's in those beams of light which if within more transparent Walls would send forth a greater luster to enlighten the world But now in the Resurrection it shall not be so the body then shall depend wholly upon the Soul and be acted properly and indistarbedly by the Soul Here the Soul seems to be flesh it self because acted by the flesh Every way subject to the motions and desires of the Soul Spiritui subdita and is oft subservient to the flesh but then the very body shall seem to be a Spirit because acted by the Spirit and shall be universally and uniformly serviceable to the Spirit The Soul shall immediatly be acted by God and the body shall immediatly be acted by the Soul thus it shall be a Spiritual body Secondly It is raised a spiritual body because it shall subsist as a Spirit it shall stand in no need of those gross material Aliments of meat and drink and sleep by which it is now underpropt but it shall be susteined meerly by vertue of its union with the Soul as the Soul by vertue of its union with Jesus Christ this is to be a spiritual body when the body shall subsist as a Spirit or as an Angel doth subsist Thirdly Spiritual because the motions operations Care Angelica Angelified flesh Tert. de Res and affections of the body shall then be all Spiritual it shall be in the Resurrection of so pure and refined a Complexion that it shall be diaphanous and transparent and move up and down with the agility and celerity of a Spirit Zanchius resembleth it to the motion of birds in the Aire Zanch. De Operibus Dei that the body being hatcht as it were in the Resurrection shall be able to mount up into the Heavens and as lightly flie through the skies as if it had wings David shall then need to wish no more for the wings of a Dove but be able to contend with fouls of the swiftest flight Augustin hath an higher streyn and saith that Miraceleritate The body shall move from place to place with what celerity it listeth and after him Luther expresseth it by the swiftness of a Thought as instantaneous as the Lightning which in the twinkling of an eye passeth from one end of Heaven to another Likewise the operations of the body shall then be all spiritual operations It shall then be abased no more to any of the servile drudgeries of this present state it shall work no more toyl no more sin no more the Offices of the body shall be as far above its present functions as the work of a King transcends the imployment of a Swine-herd or Scullion they shall for ever be freed from all those uses which do imply a state of infirmity and shall be taken up wholly in Heavenly and Angelical Services sc to stand before the Throne of God and of the Lamb and to praise him for ever and ever And lastly the body shall then be Spiritual because it shall be indued with Spiritual Affections it shall not be liable to weariness sickness pain or external injuries no more than a Spirit is It shall not indeed be an Aerial and Spiritual body as the Socinians and others do inconsequentially inferr from this and other Scriptures but it shall be no more capable of a stroke or wound or any other violence than the Air or Sun or the Heavens themselves It shall be a true real body but no more vulnerable or penetrable than if it were a Spectrum an imaginary body a meer Apparition It is true Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God but the meaning is not that in the Resurrection the bodies of the Saints shall cease to be flesh and blood Ver. 50 51. but that they shall be devested of all the defects and infirmities of flesh and blood This is the mystery of it The Fire of the last day the only Purgatory We shall be changed The fire of the last Judgment that only Purgatory of the Saints that we dull Protestants know shall not consume the bodies of the Saints but their corruption only it shall not destroy the substances but refine their qualities as the Goldsmith maketh a new Vessel of old Plate not by altering the mettal but by changing the form and fashion The furnace of the Resurrection shall purge out all the slime and dross and filth and imperfection out of the bodies of the Saints and refine them into a body that shall exceed the Celestial bodies of the Sun Moon and Stars in clarity and purity This is that Affection and Property which the Schools call Impassibility No more capable of a blow or wound than the Air or Heavens or the Sun it self they shall be put into a blessed incapacity or irreceptiveness of any even the least injury or prejudice incident to the humane nature in this state of mortality They shall be no more liable to suffering than the glorified Angels in Heaven or the Spirits of just men made perfect Behold these be now the beatifical properties wherewith the very bodies of the Saints shall be arayed and beautified in the Resurrection Of Corruptible Ignominous Weak Natural It shall be made Incorruptible
bodies shall be transfigured into the likeness of his own Glorious body How according or suitably to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself God can do what he will and that 's enough And thus I have opened the first Consequence of Christ his Last Coming sc The Resurrection of the Saints as formerly in respect of the 1. Author The Lord Jesus 2. The Precedency of it they that are alive shall not prevent them which are asleep they shall rise first So also now 3. In respect of the manner of it the bodies of the Saints shall be invested with four glorious qualities 1. Incorruptible 2. Glorious 3. Powerful 4. Spiritual By all which it shall be conformed to the Glorious Body of our Lord Jesus It may be of Use 1. For Counsel 2. For Comfort and but a word of either First It may serve by way of Counsel 1. Use Of Counsel and that unto all indefinitly You that would secure unto your selves an interest in the glory which shall be put upon the Saints bodies in the Resurrection labour to experience this beatifical transfiguration first in your Souls on this side of the Grave Labour to get your vile spirits to be made like to his glorious Spirit Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ put Him on by an holy and universal Imitation Labour to be meek as He was meek Holy as He was Holy Pure as He was Pure Merciful as He was Merciful Heavenly as He was Heavenly And Joh. 4.34 Let it be your meat and drink to do the will of him that sent you and to finish his work * A. Christ was the brightness of his Father's glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Insculpta forma the express Image of his Person So do ye study in your finite capacity to be the brightness of Christ his glory the express Image of his Person Oh labour to get his Image and similitude to be deeply engraven upon your hearts and to scatter the beams of it in your Conversations Philip. 2.15 for the enlightning of a dark world Behold this shall be the evidence and first-fruits of your future conformity to Him in the Resurrection of the just The ground and Reason is because that blessed Transfiguration which shall conform the Saints to Christ their Head and Husband in the Resurrection and from thenceforth to all Eternity hath its beginning here in Regeneration Ephes 4.23 24. or the New Birth wherein they are renewed in the Spirit of their minds Bâ—ta referts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Regeneration ye also shall sit upon twelve â—nâ—â—nes and do put on habitually the New man which after God is Created in Righteousness and true holiness Jesus Christ is formed in their hearts And upon this very account is the Resurrection styled also the Regeneration Math. 19.28 In the Regeneration ye also shall sit i. e. in the Resurrection ye also shall sit c. And it is therefore called the Regeneration because the Resurrection shall perfect in the Saints what the Regeneration begun sc Conformity to Christ their Head and Husband in Holiness Yea at the Resurrection the Image of Jesus Christ shall be compleated as on their Souls so on their bodies also because that Image was begun upon their Souls on this side the Grave in their New Birth accordingly as they were predestinated to both in the purpose of God Rom 8.29 from all Eternity The Resurrection to Grace here and to Glory hereafter is but one and the same Regeneration Whosoever therefore is a Stranger to this Transformation of Spirit in the Resurrection to Grace shall never partake of that Transfiguration of body in the Resurrection to Glory The bodies of the wicked shall be raked out of their Graves with all their defects and excesses all their mis-shapes and deformities which they carried with them to their Graves in their perfect ugliness which were the shame and curse of the fallen nature an abhorrency to God and Angels c. Yea to the very Devils themselves whom they shall have to be both their Companions and Executioners The Saints of God were the world 's derided persecuted Non-Conformists here but themselves shall be Christs and his Saints Non-Conformists hereafter when their Carcasses shall be cast out for a spectacle of shame and abhorrency unto all flesh for ever Isa 66. ult Christians as you love your Souls and would bear the Image of the Son of God in his Kingdom and glory Study this Soul-Conformity now and make it your business Labour to feel this blessed change wrought in your hearts and let the world behold it in your lives without which all your Confidences concerning that day will prove but so many delusions Rom. 5.5 to aggravate your shame and everlasting dispair Hear oh hear how the Disciple of Love doth argue When He shall appear we shall be like Him Glorious But why 1 Joh. 3.2 cum c. 4.17 Because As He is so are we in this world He disputes from Conformity to Christ in the Gospel-state to Conformity to Him at this Appearance We shall c. because we are c. By such Argumentations Christians Philip. 2.12 1 Tim. 6.18 19. 1 Joh. 4.17 Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling that ye may have boldness in the day of Judgment c. Secondly It may serve by way of Comfort Second Use Consolation and for that end it is written by the Comforter Himself in this model for Comfort I say in reference to our sweet Relations that sleep in Jesus over whom not seldom we spend our fruitless Tears take we heed lest sinful also while we compare their once lively sweet amiable Countenances which sparkled so much beauty and delight in our eyes with their pale ghastly Visages in the Grave where they say to Corruption Job 17.14 thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister We look upon them I say not without a kind of trembling and horrour as if their Ghosts appeared to us out of their Graves or that we our selves were buried with them alive in the same Coffin Ah Sirs why stand ye not with the men of Galilee Act. 1.11 gazing up into Heaven but with Peter stooping down and looking into the Sepulcher Behold I bring you glad tydings of great joy The day is coming when that Corruptible shall put on Incorruption and that Mortal shall put on Immortality when that poor dust over which thou now mournest that vile body shall put on its Angelical Robes and shall more surpass it self in its freshest and liveliest colours while yet in the land of the living than that beautiful pile of flesh and blood did exceed it self when it was resolved into rottenness and dust Look not then oh ye Children of God upon your Selves or your Relations as they lye in the Grave but contemplate them as
Seed of the Woman nor è contrà but there shall be a perfect separation The Sheep shall be separated from the Goats the Elect from the Reprobate there shall not be a Servant of the Lord amongst the Worshipers of Baal nor a Son of Beltal among the Sons of God Sinners and none but Sinners Saints and none but Saints shall make up these two distinct Congregations Nay so terrible will the glory which Christ will put upon his Saints be upon the faces of the Reprobates and so great the horrour of their own guilty Consciences that they shall now as much dread their Society as once they hated it and chuse rather to leap alive into the burning Lake then to mix themselves unto them or so much as to put their head within that holy Assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in praestituto tempâ—re Verse 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Christ assureth to his Mourners shall be effected in the appointed time if not in our time yet in Gods time in the time of Harvest But what shall we do in the mean time why saith our Lord Suffer them to grow together suffer them not by sinful toleration in Rulers nor by sinful compliance in people Expectardo non temeâ—è occupando If we cannot separate from Churches yet separate from their Corruptions and defilements 2 Use but suffer them by patient expectation in case of necessity having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reproving them If you cannot avoyd the Workers yet avoyding the Works of darkness and then in your patience do you possess your Souls 2. This Circumstance of the Saints separation from the Wicked is improved for comfort by our Lord Jesus Christ himself In case of undue exclusion from Church Ordinances of such as Christ would not have excluded Our Lord Jesus hath foretold that the power of the keys should fall sometimes into such hands as would so diametrically pervert the use of them as that oft-times none should be excluded but whom Christ would have admitted nor admitted but such as Christ would have shut out They shall put You out of their Synagogues 1 Joh. 16.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Excommunicate you You my Disciples you my Friends Hard measure I but here is comfort the time is coming wherein all the Elect shall be Congregated into one universal Assembly never to suffer exclusion or ejectment any more to all Eternity And then their unrighteous Excommunicators shall be righteously Excommunicated yea they shall be Excommunicated with the highest sort of Excommunication higher than any Church of Christ ever used Excommunicated for ever delivered unto Sathan not for the destruction of the flesh only but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thes 1.9.10 and from the glory of his Power when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints That 's a dreadful Excommunication indeed the Anathema Maranatha in the highest sense quum Dominus venit quia Domino quasi in manus citra veniae spem dedentur Jude 14. Now the Saints of God are glad to get into Corners by twoes and by threes and blessed be God not without a promise to seek the face of God so making the Harlot's Text Prov. 17.17 speak chast language Stollen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant But in that glorious Morning of the Resurrection they shall meet by millions and myriads of millions and there shall be none to disturb or offend them yea their Enemies shall look on and gnash their Teeth for anguish and vexation of Spirit to see them now got for ever out of their power 3. 3 Use And lastly for Comfort in case of the Saints separation one from another whether by the unrighteous hand of Violence or the righteous hand of Providence Now by means of Dispersions Imprisonments Exile c. the people of God are like Arms and Legs torn out of the body and lye bleeding in their separations Yea God Himself is pleased to make sad breaches between them and their sweetest Relations by Death Under which they are many times like Rachel not without sin weeping for her Children and refuse to be Comforted because they are not lifting up their voyces and crying Oh! my Father Abraham and Oh! my Son Isaac O Absolon my Son my Son Absolon would God I had dyed for thee I will go down to the Grave to my Son mourning c. But here is Comfort the time is coming when the Parent and Child Husband and Wife Friend and Friend with the whole Family of Heaven and Earth from all their dispersions from the uttermost part of the Earth to the uttermost part of Heaven shall meet together and embrace one another Everlasting Joy shall be upon their Heads and sorrow and mourning shall flee away In a word how may all the Saints of God in what state or condition so ever for the present solace themselves in the fore-contemplation of the Triumphant gathering together of the Elect of God What a joyful Sight will it be when all the Saints and Servants of the most high God which ever saw one anothers faces or heard of one anothers names yea and all they which never saw or heard each of other All of every Tongue Nation Kindred or Family of the Earth of what Age Sex Generation soever from the day wherein God made time to the day wherein time shall be no more shall meet together and stand on tip-toe ready to take their flight to meet their Lord and Bridegroom coming in the Clouds with his mighty Angels Yea what a glorious sight will it be to see all The glorious Company of the Apostles The goodly Fellowship of the Prophets The whole Army of Martyrs with The holy Church throughout all the World A Congregation of Kings and Priests in all their Royal Robes Yea as I may so say a Congregation or Constellation of Morning-Starrs yea of so many Noon-day Suns arising from the Earth co-Ascending through the several Regions of the Air to meet the Sun of Righteousness now descending from his own Orb of Supream Glory and Majesty in the highest Heavens to Judg both the quick and the dead Surely such an Assembly eye never saw ear never heard of nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive how immense how august how exceeding it will be in glory While in the mean time the Congregation of the Reprobate the Malignant Church that are left below upon the Earth on the left hand shall stand trembling looking upwards and gnashing their Teeth to see this sudden and tremendous turn of things the Saints whom they despised and persecuted before thus snatched out of their cursed power and fellowship Ascending in so much Pomp and Royalty to meet their glorious Redeemer They themselves left behind to curse themselves and one another for their Prejudices Envy and Rage which once they breath'd out against Gods people
Vision the glorified Saints They shall see the glorified Saints in their souls as well as in their bodies all the elect of God that ever were in the world * In their souls as well 〈◊〉 in their bodies from Adam until the second coming of Jesus Christ and it will be a glorious sight to see the King and all his Peers and Nobles in their Parliament Robes with Crowns and Embellishments of honour fitting in their state and order is a â—ight which every one covets and crowds to see What will it be to see the King of Saints with all the Redeemed ones of God in their Robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb and Crowns of gold upon their heads and palms of victory and triumph in their hands a Parliament all of Kings and Priests every one of them shining forth as the Sun Mat. 13.63 in the Kingdom of their heavenly Father The Sun when it breaks forth out of a cloud and displayes its refulgent beams in full lustre and brightness what a glorious Creature is it and with what a beauty doth it guild and adorn the world Oh my soul what a sight will that be when I shall see an Heaven full of Suns scattering their rayes of glory through all those celestial Regions There is another Scripture which makes the glory of this Vision yet more splendid and radiant every one of the glorified bodies of the Saints shall be made conform to Christs own glorious body Phil. 3.21 the glory of the Father shines forth in the Son and the glory of the Son shall shine forth in the Saints He in his Fathers glory is even in his humane nature and they in his Surely the Luminaries of the first magnitude in the visible heavens the Sun and Moon will be turned into darkness before the glory of this Vision they shall shine as so many Christs in the Kingdom of their Father that will be a glorious Vision indeed Not to speak any thing of the several degrees and orbs of Saints orbs of several degrees of Grace and orbs of several degrees of offices and services in the Church Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors c. of which the Apostle gives us not an obscure hint 1 Cor. 15.41 As one star differeth from another in glory so also is the resurrection of the dead q. d. as the Luminaries of these visible heavens are of a different magnitude and brightness each above the other in their orbs and sphears so also is the Kingdom of glory there be different forms of Saints one excelling another in brightness and glory I say to pass by this in silence which yet certainly hath somewhat in it for the heightning of the beauty of this vision as we see in the Luminaries of this inferiour world their different orbs and magnitudes contribute not a little to the beauty and ornament of these visible heavens We may add this before we go off viz. That the communion and converse with the Saints in heaven will be as sweet to the tast as the vision of them will be glittering to the eye there will be heaven in both Behold their fellowship and converse here was so sweet that David could say All my delight is in the Saints that are in the earth Psalm 16.3 and in the excellent ones David could take no pleasure in the company of any in the world but only in Gods holy Ones who were beautified with his Image Oh what will their communion and fellowship think you be in heaven when they shall be totally divested of all their sinful corruptions their ignorance their pride their passion their peevishniss their tenaciousness their impurity their envy their impatience their câ—nsoriousness their unseriousness their infincerity and their unsavouriness whereby they are apt to offend and hurt one another Yea when they shall have put off their natural infirmities as well as their sinful their impertinencies their mistakes their weaknesses their indispositions their hunger and thirst their drowsiness their vanity their mutability whereby they are not more unlike to other men than to themselves sometimes their diversions and reservedness c. whereby they are less able to do one another good What will their converse be when they shall put off all their defects and all their imperfections When there shall be no dissent amongst them much less dissention but when they shall all speak the same thing and there shall be no division but they shall be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment which the Apostle commends so passionately even to the Saints on this side Heaven 1 Cor. 1.10 When there shall be such a perfect harmony amongst the Saints as if there were but one soul to act that whole Assembly of the first-born When there will be nothing in them to converse with but pure grace grace without mixture grace and nothing else but grace Yea not pure grace only but perfect grace when every grace shall be in its perfect state and have its perfect works when every grace shall act to the highest degree yea when there will be â—o use of those inferiour graces which are but for the way as patience repentance simpathy pity fear hope yea none of the highest of all the graces hath faith it self now abideth faith hope now is in this imperfect state faith it self belongeth unto the imperfect state but when that which is perfect is come then that which is imperfect shall be done away when sight is come then faith shall cease and the Saints shall converse one with another only in their superiour graces their marriage-graces their glorious graces that are proper to their adult state love joy delight in God mutual complacency zeal obedience praising God thankfulness when they shall love God as much as they would love him yea as much as God would be beloved and obey God as much as God would be obeyed and praise God as much as God would be praised c. Oh when the Saints are cast into such an heavenly mold yea and we our selves are capable of such pure converse for here in this imperfect state the Saints of God are not alwayes in the same frame one with another or with themselves whâ—n one Saint is up the other is down like an Instrument out of tune jarring and disharmonious when one is alive the other dead when this is hot the other is cold when one is ready to give the other is not fit to receive the communications of grace But oh when now I say all the Instruments of Glory are alike strung and equally tuned in their several capacities what sweet ravishing harmony what heavenly musick will they make Oh might we but see such a Saint on earth as one of these are how would every one be ready to kiss his lips yea to kiss his very feet and hardly forbear even to worship him Acts 10.25 Rev. 22.9 as Cornelius would have worshipped Peter or as John
the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens Object But it will be objected What profit is there then of the beatifical Vision Or What advantage have they who see God in Heaven above the Saints who see him in the Evangelical vision Answ I answer Much every way Concerning which not to say any thing that exceeds sobriety and yet to say somewhat that may help our understandings I would ascend to the highest pitch of what my weak narrow apprehension can reach unto of this blessed Vision by these several steps and gradations First First Step. We shall see more of God than either we or any of the Worthies of God ever saw We shall know more of God than ever we understood of him in this life either by faith or by the highest revelation that ever God made of himself to our Souls more than ever the best of the Saints discovered by faith or divine manifestation yea we shall know more of God than ever the most holy of the Patriarchs the most illuminate Prophet the most seraphick Evangelist the most inspired Secretaries and Amanuenses of the Holy Ghost à secretioribus on this side Heaven did ever know yea what Abraham the freind of God Jacob who at one time had God in his arms Gen. 13.24 ver â—0 and at another time had his Peniel the facial vision of God Moses the savourite of Heaven Exod. 33.11 to whom God is said to talk as a man speaketh to his friend and to know face to face Elijah Deut. 34.10 James 5.17 who wore as it were the keys of Heaven at his girdle and could open and shut them as he pleased and at length ascended thither in a fiery Chariot Daniel who had the visions of God John the Evangelist whose Patmos was turned into a Paradise Dan. 10.6 7 8 where he had and writ the Revelations of Jesus Christ and finally holy Paul who was wrapt up into the third Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 12 4â— and heard things inessable what these I say or any of these knew of the most high God was but as the Primier learning of Children to the vast readings of the greatest Masters of learning in comparison of that of God which shall be known to blessed Souls the least of Gods elect Infants going from their Mothers womb to the grave shall know more of God the first moment it entreth into glory than the profoundest Divine in the Church of God could by study or revelation ever attain to in this world this is much Secondly Second Step. The glorified Saints shall know more of God and the divine nature than Adam did in Paradise he was prevailed upon by the Tempter to affect a greater and higher degree of knowledge than he had above what the Creator saw fit to bestow more than belonged to his nature and state he would have known as God knows that is to full satisfaction and complacency Thirdly Third Step. The glorified Saints know God affirmatively The greatest part of our knowledge of God in this life is either By 1. Dem cognoscitur per mo dum Negationâ— Eminentiae Causationis Denying or 2. Comparing or Ascending 3. By way of Causation First By denying we come to know God in this life by removing all imperfections and defects and limitations by taking away all things which are inconsistent with a Deity conceive a spiritual being and pare off whatsoever is imperfect or defective and that which remains is God we can go in our conceptions or descriptions of God very little farther Or Secondly We come to know or rather to ghess what God is by comparing God with the Creature take in all that is amiable or formidable in the Creature go over all imaginable perfections and excellencies in the Creatues Men Heavens Sun Moon Stars Angels and ascribe them all to God and there you lay a foundation of knowing God but infinitely short and narrow of what he is therefore we must ascend For when we have gone through all the ranks and gradations of perfections in the subordinations of created beings when we have searched out the utmost excellency of each classis we may say this is in God and more whether Man or Angels go higher and higher till we come to the top of Jacobs Ladder still all this is in God and infinitely more The Creature must be winnowed from all imperfection and the finest of them must be taken to give some weak resemblance of a Deity Thirdly Per modum Causationis Whatever is in the effect is more perfectly in the cause God is Causa fontana a fountain essence of all the perfections which sparkle in the Creature we know God by the Creature as the cause by the effect as the fountain of all power goodness and perfection whatever is lovely and illustrious we must needs say this is in God and infinitely more God is stronger than the mightiest Man or Angel wiser than the wisest holier than the holiest Saint or Angel he being the fountain and cause of all perfection This I say is all we can reach to in spelling out God for be it said we must add infinite to all these perfections and that is God this is also by denying for what is infinite but without bounds and limits That is to say God is strong without weakness wise without ignorance holy without impurity c. If we would conceive these excellencies which seem to us to be affirmative we are glad to be beholding to negation As for example if I would know what is Gods eternity the negative must help me it is his being without beginning and without end What his holiness I cannot tell affirmatively but must answer my self it is to be without the least sin defilement or shadow of impurity c. In all this there is little to satisfie the covetous inquiry implanted in the Soul Quid sit What is holiness And what wisdom But now in Heaven our knowledge of God shall be affirmative we shall be able to apprehend God though not to the utmost extent of his esse yet without being beholding meerly to his non esse we shall be able to say as well what God is as what God is not and when we have said what he is we shall not need to expound our meaning by what he is not Fourthly Fourth Step. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 22.30 We shall know God as much as the Angels in Heaven do They behold the face of God Matth. 18.10 Glorified Saints are with the Angels Rev. 4.8 and are said to be like Angels and equal to the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Angels Angels incarnate And what inconsistency is there to the analogy of faith to conceive that the Saints shall enjoy as full a prospect of God in Heaven as the Angels themselves do 5. Gradation for though their bodies be united to their souls yet shall not their bodies be any hindrance to their
souls vision of God since the soul dependeth not now upon any corporeal organ of the body inward or outward sence and i. e. the body shall be refined by the power of Christ in the resurrection to such a spiritual alloy that it is it self even of an Angelical nature Fifthly The Saints shall know God up to the height of that Principle which God imprest upon the Soul in the Creation For God intending to make a Creature perfectly happy implanted in its nature * Concupivit anima mea Psal 48.2 This Candle of the Lord doth aspire that without sin to be a Sun it being the just and modest desire of the end which God himself created it not that it would be the Sun butunited to the Sun and now that innoâ—ent ambition shall be satisfied Sixth Step. 1 Cor. 13. a disposition covetous and capable of knowing God wherein only the summum bonum of the soul consists now if God should not satisfie this holy concupiscence in the soul and fill its capacity to the utmost he should fail not the desire of the Creature only but his own project the soul will not be contented with such an imperfect knowledge of God as it hath here Sixthly They shall know him properly Junius tells us it is the Judgment of all Protestants and Willet upon Exodus expounds that notion by apprehensively though not comprehensively that is we shall understand clearly certainly and fully what God is Clearly in opposition to dark created mediums we shall see God by his own light Psal 36.9 Certainly in opposition to ghess opinion and imperfect knowledge And fully not objective in reference to God but subjective in reference to our selves the faculty shall be full of God as it can hold †nor all alike but according to the capacity of every vessels heat degrees of happiness do spring from that lumen gloriae being variously shed among these blessed Souls as a vessel in the Sea that is full of the Sea though it contains not all the Sea in it Seventhly The Saints shall know God fruitionally Seventh Step. that is they shall know him so as to possess God and to be possessed of God The soul doth as it were enter into God and God into the soul the joy of the Lord enters into the soul here there the soul enters into the Lords joy Eightly It shall be a transforming knowledge Eighth Step. we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is But these two latter my method propounded leads me to speak too distinctly by themselves Of these therefore in their own place In a word The Saints shall know God to perfection though not to infinitude they shall see him so as to repose themselves in him with full complacency and delight so that they shall say they have enough In this life some of the Saints at sometimes have had such manifestations of God as have made them weep as bitterly as ever any under desertion crying out Lord withdraw thy glory else the vessel will split and I shall dishonour God And it may justly be our wonder how it should be otherwise to the Saints in the other world a wonder that a created finite faculty should be able to bear the weight of glory which filleth the infinite Object and not be destroyed by the immensity of it especially since we read of the very Angels themselves Omne vehemons sensibilo destruit sensum who in a vision of somewhat an inferiour nature to that facial vision in glory for the exceeding brightness of it are said to veil their faces and their feet their faces as having their eyes dazeld with the exceeding brightness of his glorious appearance and their feet as abashed in the apprehension of their own meanness and imperfection in comparison of Gods incomparable and incomprehensible perfections But as to this difficulty First Our most learned English Annotator upon that place tells us that those expressions signifie rather the intenseness of the Angels reverence and fear in their approaches to the Supreme Majesty than their incapacity to take in what of his glory he is pleased to manifest The Angels being said alwayes to behold the face of God Matth. 18.10 For saith he this is certain that the nearer the Creature makes his approaches to God and in the more glorious manner he is pleased to manifest himself the more apprehensive the Creature is of its own meanness baseness vileness and nothingness in regard of Gods infinite greatness Secondly We are taught from the Scriptures that Divine manifestations in Heaven though they beget greatest veneration yet they cause pleasure not pain and do rather nourish and perfect the faculty than any wayes hurt or oppress it the vessel shall be made capacious enough to hold any liquor which the thice blessed Trinity shall see meet to put into it To this end we may take notice from Scripture it self that the glorified understanding shall be adorned with a six-fold perfection scil 1. Spirituality 2. Clarity 3. Capacity 4. Sanctity 5. Strength 6. Fixedness The first perfection of the understanding shall be spirituality 3. Perfection Spirituality it shall be spiritualized spiritual it is now as spiritual is opposed to corporeal though not as spiritual is opposed to natural The Soul is now forced to be a Caterer for a body of flesh to provide things that are necessary for the sustentation of the animal life it busieth it self to satisfie the appetites of hunger and thirst c. if it can redeem a few hours for actions more proper and peculiar to it it is so clogged so pressed down with the bodies infirmities as that it soon drops down to the earth and is drawn aside to attend the impertinencies of this present life But when it shall be joyned to an animate a spiritual body and it self in its glorified capacity then it shall be wholly taken up with objects spiritual and heavenly and made as it were connatural to them elevated by the light of glory to the vision of God This lumen gloriae is not so much for the discovery of the object as for the help and advancing of a created faculty which would else be much opprest with the weight of glory it is not so much the raising and screwing of nature higher but it is the adding of a new disposition that may close with the divine object so that though there be still an infinite disproportion between God and the Creature in esse naturali yet there is a just proportion in esse intelligibili Secondly 2. Perfection Clarity By vertue of this supernatural influx of the divine object the faculty shall be brightned and cleared There is now upon this mirror of the understanding many labes and stains whereby the vessel is defiled the breath of the world and the steam of corruptions from within do so fully this christal glass that it cannot receive into it the beams of light which shine upon it
the more impurity the dimmer the vision Blessed are the pure in heart Mat. 5.8 for they shall see God Why now in glory all these maculae and spots shall be perfectly wiped off and the vessel shall be made a clear burning glass to receive and contain the glorious rayes of divine excellency which do immit themselves into it Hence this vision of God is called by Divines a clear distinct and perfect sight of God not as if the blessed did see all whatever is in the divine essence but as opposed to our present dim glassy vision 1 Cor. 1â— so that it perfectly takes in what the divine will is pleased to reveal without any the least obstruction or diminution Thirdly 3. Perfection Capacity The faculty in glory shall be widened and extended to a vast capacity now the understanding is large there is no bounding or limitting of it it is higher than the Heavens and deeper than the Sea and wider than the World it is said of Solomon in respect of his understanding 1 Kings 4.25 that he had wisdom and understanding exceeding much and largeness of heart even as the sand that is upon the Sea-shore but all that was specially in order to the mysteries of nature as it follows there in his character from verse 30 to 34. But in glory the understanding shall be widened to a vaster capacity scil to take in not the little things of the Creature only Magnalia Dei but the infinite God I do not say infinitely but apprehensively though not comprehensively for then the vessel must be as large as the object yea larger since the thing containing must be somewhat bigger than the thing contained but the understanding shall apprehend God clearly certainly and fully the object it self shall extend the faculty and make it capacious for it self It is worth our notice to compare those two expressions of the beatifical vision the one Matth. 18.10 where it is said The Angels do alway behold the face of God the other where the Angels and Saints the number of whom is said to be Rev 5.11 ten thousand times ten thousands and thousands of thousands are described surrounding Gods Throne they are round about the Throne compare them together They alwayes behold the face of God and yet are round about and it hints us this blessed notion God hath no back parts in Heaven God to the blessed Inhabitants there is all face and they are alwayes beholding it how should not so transplendent an object confound the spiritual organ with the immense splendor and glory thereof but that the object it self doth sustain and nourish the faculty A fourth Perfection is Sanctity 4. Perfection Sanctity Heb. 12.23 the understanding shall be made perfect in holiness In the state of separation The spirits of just men are made perfect and surely the soul looseth nothing of its sanctity by being united to the body in glory Now of all divine qualities none doth more capacitate the Soul for the vision of God than holiness witness that holiness is called the divine nature 1 Pet. 1.4 Holiness assimilateth unto God and the perfection and delight of vision is founded in conformity it is so in the Evangelical vision Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God according to the purity of the heart is the vision of God What a glorious vision of God will that be which the perfection of holiness shall advance the soul unto when the glorious object shall both enlarge and purifie the faculty The fifth Perfection is Strength 5. Perfection Strength The vision of God doth fortifie the understanding In nature the more vehement and intense the object the more it hurts and crâ—sheth the sence the vision of God though but under a veil Câ—â—e vehement sensibile destruit sensum Dan. 10.7 8 Rev. 1.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lumen gloriae superaddita perfectio qua intellectus confortatur ad videndum Deum Tho. Aquin. did undo the Prophet Isaiah Holy Daniel's vision though but a vision did dispirit him and left him without strength Saint John his vision though but the darker side of the beatifical sight of God stayeth him outright for a time I fell at his feet as dead The souls of the blessed in Heaven are set beyond all fear of such a surprise of glory while God fills their faculty he doth also sustain and perfect it by means whereof the faculty shall never be weary of its object but still behold it with fresh vigour and delight So it follows A sixth and last Perfection is Fixednese 6. Perfection Fixedness In the state of grace the mind is exceeding slippery like that of little Children whom you cannot six we lye upon spiritual objects as upon a bank of ice where we slide and slide and never leave sliding till we be in the dirt and this comes to pass by reason of those mixtures of impurity which are in these natural minds of ours the objects are pure and simple James 1.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the faculty is wofully clogged with superfluity of naughtiness hence the lubricity and floating that is in the understanding like the Sea it self but now in glory all that mixture is abolished so that there is nothing remaining to divert or distract the faculty yea the object it self still shall unite the faculty to it self though not so as to make it its self yet so as to make it like its self to make it capable of its self in all the communicable dimensions of the divine nature In a word the faculty shall be made perfectly sutable to the object not only in the properties but in the very nature of it whereby it shall be enabled to know it and understand it to perfection Oh blessed and blessed-making vision Glorious things are spoken of thee oh thou vision of God! Truly beatifical for ever Eye truly hath not seen c. Before we leave this Vision let us make some use of it And the Use may be two-fold 1. Study holiness 2. Labour to see God before you come to Heaven First Study holiness there be two Visions of God mentioned in Scripture First The Vision of God in Grace Secondly The Vision of God in Glory The Evangelical Vision The Angelical Vision The Vision of God in Ordinances The Vision of God Without Above Ordinances In the Vision of Grace the Evangelical vision the Saints see Gods back parts but in the Vision of Glory the Angelical vision they see God face to face in the Evangelical vision they see God darkly and know him in part but in the Angelical vision they know him even as they are known by him the Saints shall have a full prospect of God in Heaven But of both these Visions holiness is the indispensable qualification without holiness there is no admission into Heaven Rev. 21.27 There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth And when entred
〈◊〉 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
glorified body of our Lord will be as transparent glass through which the glorious beams of Divinity will display themselves to the eye of the blessed beholders And in the beholding whereof there will go forth a transforming vertue which will change them into the same Image if it were so I say in the Gospel vision how much more will it be so in the beatifical The Soul by enjoying God cometh nearer to the pleasure of God himself The sight of God hath a conforming power in it to assimilate the beholder into the likeness of God he converts all into its own nature God as he is a consuming fire to the wicked so he is a purifying refining fire to the Saints by purifying out their dross to make them partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.10 It was the design of their correction in this world and the perfecting of that conformity is the ultimate and supreme design of the facial vision we shall be like him for we shall see him we shall be as he is when we shall see him as he is we shall be like him Like him in Our Souls Our Bodies Like him in our Souls like him in all the faculties of our Souls The Saints like God in their understanding our understandings shall be like the divine understanding we shall know all things past present and to come we shall know all things as God knows them for we shall know all things and see all things in God ut supra Then Adam for the promise of a Redeemer being first preacht to him Gen. 3.15 and that by God himself giveth us more than a probable ground to believe that he is in heaven Adam I say shall have his ambition satisfied in a better sence than he intended oâ— the Tempter suggested of being like unto God knowing good and evil Gen. 3.5 now he knows universal good to be filled and satisfied with it and evil in all the distinctions of it as it is now through the infinite grace of a Redeemer the Tempters portion and not his own The will is made like unto Gods will not a fountain indeed but a large vessel full of goodness and holiness the Saints shall be holy as God is holy pure as God is pure perfect as he is perfect they were so on earth truly now in Heaven they are so perfectly the will shall be as holy as it would be as holy as the holy God would have it be so holy that there will be mutual joy and delight between God and the Saints in the contemplation of their holiness the Saints shall rejoyce in the holiness of God that they have such an holy God it was their duty in the state of Grace Psal 30.4 Sing unto the Lord oh ye Saints of his give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness They rest not and yet they are not wâ—â—â—y Rom. 4.8 It is their work and wages their labour and their rest now in the state of glory They rest not day nor night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty c. See how the Saints are ravished with the contemplation of Gods holiness they double and treble the mention of this glorious attribute they cry Holy holy holy for once Almighty c. And it seems God if I may so say is as much taken with the beauty of their holiness they have their denomination from their holiness Saints in English Holy ones such as God accounts to be his Inheritance yea the glory of it they were so while they were below Eph. 1.18 The riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints What is it above where their holiness is consummate where the Saints are now presented by Christ a glorious Church even like their God glorious in holiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not having spot or wrinkle neither sin nor shadow of sin neither spot nor appearance of a spot but holy and without blemish immaculate holiness there is not so much as a stained thought not an inordinate motion in the whole Region of Heaven to defile that upper world this God delights in because in the holiness of the Saints he sees the reflection of his own face God pleaseth himself to see how like himself he could make a Creature such was the design in the first Creation Let us make man in our own image after our likeness Gen. 1.26 it was the counsel of the thrice blessed Trinity and now though once it suffered a miscarriage it is perfected with advantage by the second Adam They will what God willeth and nill what God nilleth An Argument that it was not a miscarriage of improvidence but of ordination In a word in Heaven there is but one will between God and the Saints and that will is Gods Moreover In their affections Love Hatred Joy His exaltation to the right hand of his Father Isai 62.5 the Saints are like God in their affections They love what God loveth and hate what God hateth their joy is Gods joy they rejoyce in God and in his glory they rejoyce in Jesus Christ their Bridegroom and he rejoyceth in them As the Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride so shall thy God rejoyce over thee that was but the word spoken to the Church at her Espousals what must the joy be think we upon her wedding-day All the affections which either were inordinate or suitable only to the imperfect state as envy malice fear hope desire c. they are all abolished as either inconsistent with or useless to the heavenly state and therein consists no small part of their conformity to God as being capable of nothing which denoteth infirmity or imperfection The Saints are like God in their memories they shall have holy memories their memories shall be like the Ark of the Covenant which was overlaid with gold wherein according to the Apostles Inventory were The golden Pot that had Manna And Aaron's Rod that budded And the Tables of the Covenant The Ark of the Memory now overlaid with glory likewise shall contain the Manna that Angelical food of Word Sacraments Promises Ordinances Providences Experiences wherewith God was wont to feed the Soul while in the wilderness of the world Aaron's Rod that budded Gods fatherly Rod of correction which though for the present seemed not joyous but grievous yet afterward it yielded the peaceable fruits of Righteousness Heb. 12.11 in them that were exercised thereby And the Tables of the Covenant The two Covenants which God made with man the one of Works the witness of Gods holiness and perfection the other of Grace the witness of Gods goodness and commiseration The Covenant of Works the standing evidence of mans guiltiness The Covenant of Grace the standing evidence of Gods righteousness The Covenant of works the lasting monument of mans impotency and changeableness The Covenant of Grace the everlasting monument of Gods omnipotence and immutability These with all the particulars included in either are the chief things
which shall fill the memory and the remembrance of them comparing the type with the antitype if I may so say things past with things present will fill the Soul with admiration and delight If any thing of evil do occur whether of sin affliction as soon as ever it enters within that glorious firmament it loseth the nature of evil and is naturalized into matter of rejoycing and thankfulness In a word the entire Image of God Eph. 5.1 It was their duty in the state of grace it shall be their infinite dignity in the state of glory which was imprinted upon the Soul in the first Creation and reprinted upon it though in an imperfect character in the new Creation shall now be perfected to the life in the Regeneration the Saints shall be as like God as ever they can look as like God as ever Children were like their Father so that there will be nothing but looking and liking the one upon the other Prevent that holy gaze now oh ye children of the most high God be often taken up in the beholding and contemplation of the face of your heavenly Father behold will it not Quicken you to duty Comfort you in your droopings Cause you to overlook the contempt of the world with an holy pride And even be the dawnings of glory upon your faces whereby some line and lineaments of beauty shall be added daily to that blessed draught begun already against that day Once more before we go off from this pleasing contemplation add we The very bodies of the Saints shall share in this blessed conformity as well as the soul It had its degree in the first Paradise man had a kind of resemblance to God in the very make of his body The bodies of the Saints Os homini sublims dâ—dit caelumque tueri jussit c. beautiful upright active no such visible picture of God in Heaven or Earth as man was not Sun Moon or Stars not Earth and Sea or the visible Heavens themselves have so much of their Maker in them as the body of man his very corporeal sences had much of God in them they were Vestigia Dei though not Imago one might easily have known who was their Father But now in glory saith the Apostle Our vile body shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body Phil. 3.21 The glorified body of Christ next to the divine essence to which it is hypostatically united shall be the glory and the wonder of Heaven and our body saith the Apostle shall be like his conformable unto his glorious body What a mirrour of glory will the Saints be in their souls conform'd to the divine nature and their body conform'd to the glory of the humane nature of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory Oh wonderful astonishing transfiguration Well said the Apostle It doth not yet appear what we shall be surely eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither can it enter into the heart of man c. This will be an infinite compensation to the Saints of God for all their holy endeavours of being like to God that as obedient Children they have been followers of their heavenly Father Eph. 5.1 and for all the reproaches and abasements they susteined from a reprobate world because of those endeavours The earth was not able to bear the hard speeches wherewith the enemies of God have reproached the footsteps of Gods anointed ones labouring to insist in the steps of their heavenly Father willing to be Nonconformists to the will and lusts of men and striving to be conformable to the will and pattern of their holy King and Law giver the Lord Jesus the King of Saints Now I say it shall be no shame nor grief of heart unto them when they shall reap the fruit of their weak and imperfect conformity on earth in the most full and perfect consummation of that conformity in heaven when behold whatsoever is glorious and wonderful in the person of their glorious Redeemer or in the thrice glorious and blessed Trinity the very print and Character of it shall be stampt upon the glorified Saints in their created capacities causing them to appear not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as so many Angels but even to resemble God himself and to shine as so many Christs in the Kingdom of their heavenly Father and they that laughed them to scorn shall see it and their faces being filled with shame their consciences with horrour and their hearts with envy they shall now revile and curse themselves howling out Wisd 5.4 We fools accounted their lives madness c. Oh how much better are the reproaches of Christ than all the grandieur and applause in the world Be of good chear all ye Servants of God the time is coming when you shall not repent of your conformity to God and Christ in holiness but shall ever sing I thank the Lord who gave me counsel and taught me to chuse the better part which shall never be taken away from me I come now to the Complement and perfection of this last fruit and consequent of Christ his coming the Saints cohabitation and fellowship with the Lord namely The extent and duration of it in this particle ever We shall ever be with the Lord. The extent and duration ever Ever a little word but of immense signification a Child may speak it It was a witty reply of a Grandchild of Doctor Reynolds now Bishop of Norwich He asking the Child How long Eternity is The Child answered If you will tell me how long half eternity is I will tell you how long whole eternity is but neither Man nor Angel can understand it Oh who can take the demensions of eternity Yea who can tell me how long half eternity is Behold I shew you a Mystery half eternity is eternity yea every part and particle of eternity is eternity for eternity is not made up of hours or dayes or years or lustrums or jubiles or ages or millions of Ages the whole space between the creation of the world and the dissolution of it would not make a day in eternity yea so many years as there be dayes in that space would not fill up an hour in eternity Eternity is one entire Circle beginning and ending in it self This present world which is measured out by such divisions and distinctions of times is therefore mortal and will have end 2 Cor. 4.18 If eternity did consist of finite times though never so large and vast it would not be eternity but a longer tract of time only that which is made up of finite is finite Eternity is but one immense indivisible point wherein there is neither first nor last Deus est octus simplicissimus ex quo omnia sâ—nt in â—uem omnio redeuâ— beginning nor ending succession or alteration but is like God himself one and the same for ever From hence we infer this Doctrine The blessedness of the Saints in Heaven is everlasting Their
like my God glorious in holiness this is not only an evidence of heaven but heaven it self Thirdly Evidence 3. Again an universal hatred of sin is a good token that heaven is designed for thee for hatred of sin is the negative part of holiness and heaven is a place provided by God on purpose that there the Saints may be as holy as they will without disturbance or reproach fear not to think much and often of heaven if sin be an offence to thee if sin be an hell on earth to thee heaven is designed for thee to be thy Paradise Learned men conceive the sin of the apostate Angels went no further than the first ambitious thought fear not to be often solacing thy self in the contemplation of that place where sin never entred or if it did it was cast out as soon as ever it was conceived Indeed it is but a fancy men have taken up that they love happiness while they continue to love sin a chast love of heaven can never consist with the love of impure lusts Sin is the Devils image holiness is Gods he loves not the beauty of holiness that would have the Devil advanced thither If men would not have it so why else do they give sin such free entertainment in their own bosomes and will by no means give it a bill of divorce Fourthly Evidence 4. A superlative love to him that hath purchased this state for us and us for it is an infallible evidence of our right to it and interest in it that is the Lord Jesus Christ and a strong motive upon which gracious souls are so often in heaven by their contemplations is that thereby an eye of faith they may behold not the purchase only but the purchaser whom having not seen we love and whom loving we would fain see and this is the glory of every one that is so affected so it is expresly said 1 Cor. 2.9 The good things prepared for them that love him Dost thou love the Lord Jesus Ascend often in the Chariot of love that thou mayest see his face and in his face the glory and beauty of heaven Surely such as love not Christ and yet think they love heaven are miserably mistaken they know neither Heaven nor Christ and may well cry out Isa 44.20 Is there not a lye in my right hand Well Christians you that would gladly have your portion in this glory shut your eyes downward I may invert the Angels Question to the men of Galilee and say Acts 1.11 Why stand ye paring upon the â—arth Yea why crawl ye with your bellies upon the ground as if you had inherited the Serpents curse as well as your own Sursum corda lift up your hearts let your souls often withdraw and bid the body farewell for a time that you may with Paul be wrapt up to the third heaven and then see things which may even ravish your souls out of your bodies seek the things above set your affections on things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Pregustation by faith is a kind of prepossession an entrance beforehand into the glorious joyes of our Lord and Master an ascent into the Mount of transfiguration when the soul may truly say Master it is good for us to be here and the oftner ye come the more welcome Christ will make you they that know the divine relishes of such contemplation would not exchange them for the most delicious fruitions of the whole inferiour creation Oh strive to antidate glory and to get into heaven before your time Yet give me leave to add one Caution I do not say every one that hath a right to heaven hath an assurance of heaven or else no right or warrant to meditate on heaven but this I say 1. Though every Christian hath not assurance every one may if not by way of special prerogative and extraordinary revelation yet in a way of holy duty the mediums whereby Christians attain to assurance being common to all 2. Though all attain not to the same degree of assurance the plerophory of Gods love yet all may attain to such a degree of Scripture-hope good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2.16 as may quiet their hearts and cause them to go on their way rejoycing looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 16. 3. I say not it is the duty of all to have assurance in what degree soever but it is the duty of all to labour for assurance in the highest degree not to labour for assurance argues a defect of love to God true love can rest in nothing short of assurance and even this may sustain the soul till assurance comes 4. Therefore I say let not thy want of assurance be the fruit of thy sloth do not continue without assurance for want of holy industry in the pursuit of it for want of giving all diligence as the text saith to make thy calling and election sure and thy want of assurance need not discourage thee from taking a full and frequent prospect of heavens glory let God bear witness to thy Conscience that assurance is thy design and that you are not voluntarily and habitually wanting to God and your selves as to the pursuit of that design in a concurrent use of all those mediums which God hath sanctified for the attainment thereof and you may with as much boldness and considence get within the vail and there take a full prospect of the upper Canaan Northward Southward Eastward Westward in all the dimensions of it as God once spake to Abraham Gen. 13.14 concerning the â—â—ather Canaan and with the same promise All the land all the glory which thou seen to thee will I give it for ever I say with as much boldness as if thou hadst got the plerophory of faith and were already sealed with the Spirit of promise to the day of redemption and who knows but in the same Chariot wherein Love ascends into Heaven Assurance may come down from heaven and or ever thou art aware thy soul may make thee like the Chariots of Amminadib Quest But what are those mediums in the concurrent use whereof assurance of an interest in the heavenly inheritance may be had Answ The Question being but occasional 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall with much brevity but hint only at some special Helps 1. Take heed of determining before inquiry 1. Means 2. Study well your evidences 2. Help Take heed of false evidence and verily this is an evidence to be sollicitous about your evidences Take heed that neither your evidences be false evidences nor you make a false application of the true that you neither take exclusive evidences for inclusive i. e. Jam. 1.22 such as are only to shut out bold presumers as bare doing of duties hearing praying c. for such as do necessarily conclude a state of grace counterfeit graces for the fruits of the Spirit of God
Not sufficient to capacitate the Saints for glory 2.139 Accusation the Saints shall not be accused by Christ 2.131 Adam most probably saved 3.78 Affections the Saints shall be like God in their affections 3.80 They may be moderately exercised 3.144 Air the place where Christ will stay to meet his Saints and why 1. Because of the capacity of the place 2.125 2. Because of the conspicuity of the judgment 2.126 Angels instruments of the Saints ascension divers wayes 2.106 They separate the sheep from the goats ministerially 2.114 They shall present the elect before Christ in the air 2.127 They shall drag the wicked to the Tribunal to receive their sentence 2.164 The reprobate Angels shall be judged for their first Apostacy and for all their malice against the Saints ever since 2.164 How Saints shall hereafter converse with them 3.15 How they converse among themselves 3.16 How they will be interpreters of God to the Saints in Heaven 3.18 Communion with them in heaven will be a great encrease of our happiness 3.16 They will communicate excellent notions to the Saints in heaven 3.17 Antinomians notion about Christ his being in us 1.29 Apology the sinner shall not make any Apology for himself at the great Assize 2.172 Apostles how they shall judge the twelve tribes 1.49 Appeal there will be no appeal from the great Tribunal 2.169 An appeal from Moses to Christ 2.169 Arrians in denying the deity of Christ discover a double ignorance 1.25 Ascension of the Saints one consequent of Christ his Resurrection It will be effected 1. By the power of Christ 2.104 2. By the ministry of the Angels 2.106 3. By the spirituality of the Saints own bodies 2.107 It is a continued resurrection 2.104 How the Saints ascension holds due proportion with their Lord 2.108 The Saints shall meet together before their ascension 2.112 Assessor the Saints shall be assessors with Christ at the judgment 2.164 Assurance some Saints have it but not all 2.136 Motives to it 3.111 It hath been obtained 3.112 A work never unseasonable and most seasonable in times of danger 3.114 It will make Christians fruitful 3.117 To endeavour after it an evidence of heaven 3.119 It brings divers priviledges 3.114 Whether every one that hath a right to heaven hath an assurance of it Neg. 3.121 What are the mediums to attain assurance 3.123 A twofold Office of the Spirit in attaining assurance 3.123 It is much hindred by our unkindness to Christ 3.128 Atheists and divers other sorts of sinners will be convinced at the day of judgment 2.165 Attributes of God a foundation of the Saints eternity 3.87 B Believers how said to be in Christ and Christ how said to be in believers 1.22 They are Kings Prophets Priests 1.31 They are the sons of God 1.31 They are united to the whole divine nature in the Diety and to each Person of the Trinity 1.35 Blessedness the blessedness of the Saints in heaven is everlasting 3.84 The reasons of it 1. Christs merit 3.85 2. The Saints immortal souls 3.86 3. The Saints graces eternal Ib. 4. The attributes of God 3.87 1. His wisdom ibid. 2. His veracity and truth 3.88 3. His immutability 3.91 4. His mercy 3.92 5. His omnipotency ibid. 6. His eternity ibid. 7. His love 3.96 8. His justice 3 92 Blood the blood of Christ is the fountain of merit but the spirit of Christ the fountain of efficacy 1.122 Body the body shall be incorruptible 2.89 It shall be glorious 2.90 1. By vertue of a Principle within 2.90 2. By vertue of an external irradiation ibid. It will depend wholly on the soul at the resurrection 2.95 It is a vile body 2.97 The bodies of the saints shall be like unto God 3.82 Book the book of Gods remembrance and the book of conscience will agree exactly together 2 267 C Children of believers when they dye are not to be looked upon as a lost generation 1.8 Christ accounts not himself full without his members 1.17 His resurrection why called his youth 1.16 He rose as a publick head on which account 1. The saints are said to be risen already 1.14 2. They are assured they shall arise 1.15 He arose by his own strength 1.12 He is risen as our first fruits 1.19 How he is said to be in a believer and a believer said to be in Christ 1.22 How he is the hope of salvation 1.43 His own words more authentick than tradition or revelation 2.63 Whether he shall sit on a visible throne 2.70 He will appear in the same humane nature he assumed of the Virgin and why 2.71 He will appear personally for three reasons 2.70 His first and second coming compared 2.71 His being Judge great terror to the wicked 2.73 Great comfort to the godly 2.75 Two reasons of the certainty of his coming 1. Reason saith he may come 2.78 2. Faith saith he must come ibid. Witness 1. His purchase ibid. 2. His promise 2.79 3. Sacrament of the Supper ibid. 4. His Resurrection ibid. The manner of his coming it will be by a threefold summons 1 A shout 2.80 2 A voice of Archangel 2.81 3 The Trump of God ibid. His coming to give the Law and his coming to judgment compared 2.82 Separation from him the worst part of hell 2.105 His blood the fountain of merit but his spirit the fountain of efficacy 1.122 The benefit of his subjecting of himself to the Law redoundeth not unto himself but to the saints 2.145 He solemnly espoused the saints to himself 2.162 He had a twofold right to the Kingdom of glory 1 Natural 3.19 2 Constitutive ib. A superlative love to him an evidence of heaven 3.120 Christians must reject no doctrine warranted by the word 2.67 Church it is Christs outward not inward fulness 1.17 Comfort for them that are unjustly excluded 2.117 Closet closet duties shall be remembred at the last day 2.128 Cohabitation with Christ containeth four priviledges 1 Presence 3.2 2 Vision ibid. 3 Fruition 3.50 4 Confomity 3.77 Commendation Saints shall be praised and commended at the last day for their graces though wrought in them c. 2.132 Comfort we should administer comfort to mourning friends 3.150 All comfort is in God 3.153 Ministers must see that the comforts they administer be Gods comforts 3.154 Much pride in refusing comfort 3.157 It is as great an indignity to God to slight his comforts as to scorn his counsels 3.156 No comfort belongs to wicked men when they die 3.158 We should labour for comfort in our own death and leave matter of comfort to our surviving friends 3.160 Words of prayer to be joyned with words of comfort 3.165 Compassion compassions of God are great and therefore so are his consolations 3.148 Confidence many confident of heaven that have least right to it 3.117 Conformity of the saints to Christ in the resurrection hath its beginning in regeneration 2.101 Study soul-conformity to Christ 2.102 It is the fountain of complacency 3.42 Conscience the book