Temple of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us And that it is the Soul the Apostle hath here in his Eye in this Discourse of his in my Text as that which he intends the Subject here wrought upon appears if we consult the Well-head of his Discourse about the Soul which is the 16. ver of the 4. Chap. Our inward Man says he is renewed c. there is your wrought upon here whilst the outward the Body perisheth Which Soul in being call'd the inward Man connotates at once both Grace and the Soul conjunct together and distinct from the Body as well as from Sin and Corruption Elsewhere it is declared the subject first and originally wrought on Eph. 4. 23. Be renewed in the Spirit of your Minds Look round about the Text and what is the Vs wrought on plainly this Inward Man by the Coherence afore and after Ask yet 1. If our earthly Tabernacle that is our Body be dissolved we have c. that is This inner Man our Souls have for the Body is supposed dissolved So likewise ver 4. We in this Tabernacle that is our Souls in these Bodies More expresly after ver 8. our very Souls not only whilst in our Bodies but when separated from our Bodies have the We given them We are willing to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. The We present with the Lord and absent from the Body is nor can be no other than a separate Soul in its estate of Widowhood And so here ver 5. Hath wrought Vs the Soul bears the Person carries away the Grace with it Add to this the Time here specified in Observa quôd non in futuro dicit Parabit â—s Non demumparabitur ubi jam induendum est c. Musc in locum the Text in which we are wrought upon It is but this Life and during the term thereof Hath wrought us says the Apostle not in the future Who shall work us for it That hath wrought referring to the work of Conversion at the first Who hath made us meet to be partakers c. Col. 1. 12. and who doth continue still to work us the Peterperfect being often put by the Apostle for the Present God renewing the inner Man Day by Day Chap. 4. 16. So working upon it in order to this self-same thing continually Unto which Words there these here have an evident aspect yet so as that time of working is but during this Life For it is whilst the outward Man is mouldring and that by Afflictions which during this moment work an eternal weight of Glory ver 17. and that is expresly said to be but this present time Rom. 8. So then there is no Parabit in that other World But as Solomon says of Man There is no work after this Life No remembrance Eccl. 9. 10. says David namely which Psal 6. 5. hath any influence into a Man's Eternity So there is no working upon us in order thereunto after Death God hath done his Do hath wrought and Man hath finished his course as Paul of himself and in this Chapter of my Text ver 10. Every Man receiveth the things done in his Body be they good or evil Those things that are done in this Body only therefore only what in this Life he hath wrought And for this he hath wrought us says the Text. §. These things premised I come to the Argument to be raised out of them to prove the Point in hand First that Grace or Holiness because they are immediately wrought in the Soul that therefore when the Body dies the Soul shall be taken up into Life That this is a meet and congruous Ordination of God the Scripture it self owns and seems so to pitch the reason of it in Rom. 8. 10 11. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you He gives an account of what is to become hereafter both of the Bodies and Souls of them in whom Christ is 1. First for the Body that is condemned to die The Body is dead because of Sin By Body I understand the same which he in the 11th Verse terms the mortal Body to be raised up which says he is dead that is appointed to die as one sentenced to Death you term a dead Man And this because of Sin It was meet that that first threatning of dying should have some effect to evidence the Truth of God therein Only God is favourable in his Ordination in this that he arresteth but the Body the less principal Debtor but that to be sure shall pay for it It is appointed to all Men once to die even for Men that are in Christ as this place of the Romans hath it Then 2. follows what remains the Soul of such an one when the Body dies But says he speaking by way of exception and contrary fate too The Spirit is Life because of Righteousness The Spirit is the Soul in contradistinction to the Body this when the Body dies is Life He says not Living only or immortal but is swallowed up into Life And why because of Righteousness which is Christ's Image and so preserves and by God's ordination upon dying elevates the Soul which is the immediate and original Subject of it which is the Point in hand For this thing it is God hath wrought it But then because the Query would be Shall this Body for ever remain dead because of this first Sin and bear this Punishment for ever No Therefore 3. he adds He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies So at last and then bringing both Body and Soul together unto compleat Glory And the congruity of Reason that is for this appointment is observable something like to that 1 Cor. 15. As by Man came Death so by Man came also the Resurrection from the Dead For that Sin that condemned us to this Death we had from the first Adam by bodily Generation as the channel or means of conveying it who was as other Father of our Flesh The Arrest therefore goes forth against the Body which we had from that Adam because of that Sin conveyed by means of our Bodies for tho I must not say the Body defiles the Soul or of it self is the immediate Subject of Sin yet the original Means or Channel through which it comes down and is derived unto us is the Generation of our Bodies The Body therefore congruously pays for this and the Death thereof is a Means to let Sin out of the World as the propagating it was a means to bring Sin in But an holy Soul or Spirit which is the Off-spring of God having now true Holiness and Righteousness from the second Adam communicated to it
and God's Wrath. Again ver 10. destroyed of the Destroyer Who was the Destroyer then Angels So Heb. 11. 28. And what Destruction or Destroyer under the Gospel is it that is typified out by these even God Himself who as by Christ is said to kill the Soul and destroy Body and Soul in Hell So ere the Apostle took off his Pen from prosecuting that Argument in the very same Chapter he in full effect says as much in setting afore them how it was God's Power and Wrath instead of those other Destroyers with which Sinners have now to do ver 22. Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousie are you stronger than he I might confirm this Notion from other Types 1 Cor. 15. 44 45. This fore-laid To approach nearer to our purpose in hand there are two things further to be done 1. as touching the Type it self what kind of Fire that was which devoured them And the manner of their Deaths The Fire was another manner of Fire than this our Elementary common Fire This was Fire from Heaven and therefore said to be a Fire from the Lord that devoured them it was such a Fire as blasts of Lightning are which strike and blast and shrivel the Spirits of a Living Body in an instant which is evident by the manner of their Deaths The Hebrew Doctors say of it that it was a Fire which burnt their Souls not their Bodies their meaning is their Bodies were not consumed or devoured by it for Lev. 10. 5. 't is said They carried their Bodies and Coats into the Tent as untouch'd It was therefore such a Fire as Lightning is from Heaven which useth to strike and lick up Mens Spirits in an instant when yet in the mean time it consumes not breaks not so much as Skin or Flesh which our Elementary Fire preys first and most upon It was therefore a far subtiller Fire then Culinary or Kitchin Fire which suitably served as the fittest and nearest Type of this fiery Indignation and of the vengeance which it executes And this was but the Shadow The second is What the substance answering to these Types should be This I shall set out by two things 1. What is the thing or subject devoured by this fiery Indignation It is the immortal Souls of Men these are the Fewel which this Fire doth prey upon As to the truth of the thing it self I need not insist on it But the Analogy of that as the Shadow and this as typified thereby that is the matter afore me Let it be considered that the Death and Destruction of the immortal Soul in Man could not any other way be more lively shadowed forth than by such a devouring as Moses word is or licking up the vital and animal Spirits that run in the Body when yet the Body it self remains unburnt Thereby demonstrating that it was such a Fire as struck immediately at that which is the Fountain of Life it self in the Body and at that which is the Bond the Vinculum the Tye of Union between Soul and Body for such are those Spirits And yet not so much as to singe the outward bulk or carcase of the Body There could have been nothing invented in the whole compass of Nature to have born a resemblance so near to shadow forth the Immortal Soul as those spirits running in Man's Blood and Arteries do which some affirm to be the very Animal and Vital Soul in Man Sure I am they are as the Oyl whereby Life is preserved and fed and in the Blood is the Life says Moses our best Interpreter in this Neither doth this Shadow hold a Similitude in this particular only but in another like case as evidently The pouring forth of the Blood of the Beasts that were Sacrificed under the Old Law was particularly ordained to signify Christ his pouring forth his Soul unto Death as Esay speaks As well as in general that the Sacrifice of those Beasts did typifie forth Christ's Sacrifice in the whole of it And this was as near a Representation of that Particular as could any way be made by what was corporeal in Beasts or else in the whole Creation for a Sacrifice of Mankind or the Blood of Men God liked not to be made to him in his Worship could possibly have been found to pourtray it forth The second thing is that the substance shadowed forth by that Fire was no other than the Indignation or Wrath of the great God Himself which is termed Fiery Indignation here For Proof of which I insist not that some Shim thereof this Shadow it self doth cast in Moses his saying again and again in Terminis that a Fire from the Lord c. which hath a great Emphasis and Resemblance of this in it But for proof I ask First Where shall we find or how Omnes ignes hujus Mundi sunt ut ignis Pictus ad ignem 〈◊〉 shall we imagine any created Fire so to exceed that Fire from Heaven recorded in that Story and so far exceeding it as the Substance doth a Shadow or such as should melt down Immortal Souls You may sooner invent or imagine a Fire so much comparatively hotter than that of the Sun it self which is the contract of Fire and Light and so much exceeding it as should be able to shrivel up this Sun into a burnt black Coal as to imagine any such created Fire so transcending this of Lightning from Heaven as shall thus devour reasonable Souls and Immortal Spirits that in the substance of them as being Spirits do bear the image of God In what Furnace will you think to find such a Fire No where but in the Bosom of him who hath here said Vengeance is mine even of God himself 2. To confirm this What created Fire can be conceived more subtile or powerful than the Angels themselves are conceived to be whom as Heb. 1. 7. out of the Psalms the Apostle compareth to Flames of Fire that is in our European Language to Lightning Now then I ask when Christ says Mat. 25. 41. Go into the Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels shewing that Man's Punishment shall be from the same hand that the Punishment of those evil Angels is what Fire can be supposed such that can work on Angelical Natures who themselves have Power over Fire of Fire of Lightning from Heaven as in Jobs case was seen None other but that which as the Apostle resolves us if we will rest in it That our God is a consuming Rev. 14. Fire Heb. 12. ult So that considering the State and Condition of the Devil I cannot but celebrate that fore-cited conclusive Speech of Luthers Ira Dei est infernus Diaboli omnium damnatorum It is the Wrath of God that is the Hell of the Devil and of all the damned For there can be no other Fire in which the Devils can be tormented Outward washings may as soon reach Conscience as Heb. 9. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 21. as such created
and cut me off Which with other Passages in that Chapter I shall after open at large Again Chap. 13. 24 26. Thou holdest me for thine Enemy thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the sins of my Youth also Chap. 16. ver 12 13 14 15. God He also hath taken me by my Neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark His Archers compass me about he cleaveth my Reins asunder and doth not spare He breaketh me with breach upon breach He runneth upon me as a Gyant I shall here only single out that of Heman which is a most full one and alone sufficient and reserve the explicating that of Job's Case wholly unto the setting forth the dreadfulness which is the subject of the second Section Heman complains at the third verse of that Psal 88. My Soul is full of Trouble c. And what was the matter of that trouble and the inflicting cause hereof ver 7. Thy Wrath lies hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves Selah those Words Thy Wrath lies hard c. others read sustains it self or bears up it self upon me which is as if a Giant should with his whole weight stay himself upon a Child And thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves The Waves of that immense Ocean of Wrath for unto such Waves he again compares these Terrors in ver 16 17. he says they came over him continually and overwhelmed his Soul as billows of the Sea wallowing and tumbling upon a Jonah cast into them And ver 14 15 16. he sets out his condition such as wherein there was not only a privation of God's Favour and that God seemed to reject his Soul as if he never meant more to look upon it or regard it so ver 14. Why castest thou off my Soul But further positively ver 15. I suffer thy Terrors And ver 16. Thy fierce Wrath goes over me Thy Terrors have cut me off The blows which God gave his Soul were so hard and sharp that to his feeling they not only wounded or cut into but cut off his Soul at every stroak The like follows ver 17. And this put him into the condition of Men in Hell I am free among the dead ver 5. that is of that Society Number and Company and as one of them that are cut off from thy Hand or as the Margent renders it by thy Hand All which are as if he had said they are not the stroaks of Creatures I feel or of thine Anger as conveyed by Creature distresses but of thine own immediate hand and such as those that are in Hell it self do feel from thee These are Notes and Degrees beyond and higher than the Ela of Dolours from or by the hands of Creatures though set on by God They are Strains of another Key the doleful Air of which doth sound another hand and stroak purely Divine that did immediately strike upon their Heart-strings that spake these things These are the resoundings of blows and stroaks which God's own immediate Hand gave upon the bare Spirit of one wounded by him he that attentively listens to them will soon perceive and esteem as they said this Man stricken and smitten of God himself Creature-distresses give a far less report But that it was God's own immediate hand is more plainly by himself expressed ver 16. Thy Terrors have cut me off and ver 15. while I suffer thy Terrors I am distracted and ready to dye from my Youth up as in the same verse Thy Terrors so he termeth them he speaking to God or the Terrors of Thee that is first From Thee efficiently and from thy hand setting them on And 2. Of Thee as arising As David stiles his Thoughts of God Psal 139. 17. Thy Thoughts in me from and with dreadful apprehensions and thoughts of Thee objectively and of Thy sore displeasure represented to my Soul by Thee And so God's Terrors are every way set forth in distinction from distresses from Creatures or such as are made mediately by or from Creature-afflictings although they also be from God Thus in like Phrase of Speech it is appositely said 1 Pet. 3. 14. Be not afraid of their Terror he speaks it of Men that were Persecutors and threatned the Saints Their Terror objectivè That is The Terror of them or that Terror which the apprehension of their Power Greatness Strength Threatnings c. may possibly work in you In a like Sense thy Terror here is spoken of God And the other great Apostle speaking of this ultimate Punishment of Hell he in like Phrase termeth it The Terror of the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 11. That is that Terror which is peculiar and proper to him in and to the Souls of Men who is the terrible God as he stiles himself in Moses and says Nahum Who can abide or stand in the fierceness of his Anger There are further two effects which Heman there relateth of this his having suffered these Terrors or that befel his Spirit whilst these Terrors were upon him 1. That he was continually ready to die the Wrath that lay on him was so heavy as it even well-nigh thrust his Soul out every moment and made the Spirit to fail And secondly it made him not himself as we say put him out of his right Mind Whilst I suffer thy Terrors I am distracted For the intention of a Soul taken up with and extended by the Wrath of God is such and is wound up so high as the String is ready to crack You usually term this in such Persons deeply wounded trouble of Conscience but that is more common whereas this Dispensation requires an higher Word it is indeed the Wrath of God or the Terror of God in Conscience making it as a fiery Oven within it self as the Psalmist speaks This for the instances of Good Men. A second Instance is of Bad and Wicked Men. What was it caused Judas to hang himself The Prophecy of the Psalmist and the Apostles reference to it have resolved us That it was the Curse or Wrath of God entring into his Soul The Psalm is the hundred and ninth which was penned on purpose about him the Apostle's Reference and Application is in Acts 1. 20. In the Psalm 't is said ver 18. as he loved Cursing that is Sin which is that accursed thing afore God so the Curse of God came into his Bowels or inwards like Water and like Oyl into his Bones and filled all within him full of Anguish and Torment And so was fulfilled that Saying Indignation and Wrath namely of God caused Tribulation and Anguish in his Soul The Similitudes or Allusions there are Elegant That as there are Spiritual Oyls which Mens Bodies being annointed withal they soak into the Bones c. they cool refresh and repair Spirits and Strength and allay fervent Heats and Pains into which more inward parts other Medicines more crasse and druggish cannot soak or come In the way
and Body c. or his downfal from a petty Kingdom Did these begin now at length so sadly to return upon him so as in the end his Spirit should begin to take them in and lay them at length to Heart which at first he in an holy Gallantry had made so light of Oh no he had fully concocted and digested all that had been occasioned from all or any of these and had quieted himself with one or two good Cordials namely that the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken and blessed be the Name of the Lord Chap. 1. 21. And again shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord and not evil Chap. 2. 10. which had carried away all that Sorrow might have been stirring in him from these What might be the matter then that was the cause of these so high disturbances The next Words ver 4. do enform us For the Arrows of the Almighty are within me the Poyson whereof drinks up my Spirits The Terrors of God do set themselves in Array against me Let us go on duly to weigh and consider these Passages of his Heman he in his Horrors had complained Psal 88. 7. That God's Wrath lay hard or heavy on him and says no more of it But Job here He in like manner feeling the like weight thereof goes about to express how heavy and how great the burthen was of his Grief that was caused thereby And he calls for a mighty Scale to weigh it in Such a Scale as might be large enough to contain all the Sands of the Sea Oh that my Grief were throughly weighed and my Calamities laid in the Ballance together for now it would be heavier than the Sand of the Sea His meaning is that to have his Grief and Calamity put in one of the Scales and the Sand of the Sea in the other his Calamity would be infinitely heavier His invention was heightned by what he really felt The greatness of it made him Eloquent For as Love so deep sense of Misery useth so to do And he pitcheth as you see upon the weightiness of Sand to express it by which is of all things the weightiest as Solomon tells us Prov. 27. 3. A Stone is heavy and the Sand is weighty Yea and the Sand of the Sea which take both those Sands within the Sea at the bottom of it and those also scattered without on the Shoar they do make an immence bulk and body condensated if they were gathered together into one heap as the Waters were into one place when God made the Sea Job had a most sublime Fancy as the high strains of that whole Book shew And this is in view a compaparison vast and great enough one would think as could be used But yet further observe how he breaks off that attempt of his to express it by this or by any such comparisons though in appearance never so hyperbolical Which breaking off his next Speech utters My Words says he are swallowed up As a small thing is swallowed up of a greater as a drop of the Ocean as one small scattered Sand would be in the bulk of all those Sands of the Sea when cast in among them So were all these his vast expressions and comparisons he had used although thus great which yet from all Rhetoricians would have had the name of Hyperboles far exceeding the reality But yet in his sense and feeling were swallowed up by the thing it self I feel my Words fall short says he so Broughton paraphraseth on those Words And therefore he cuts himself off from using any more or higher decipherings of it of any kind if any could have been found as being all but meer Metaphors too light and holding no weight with that far exceeding weight of Misery he felt as the Apostle on the contrary comparing present Afflictions and the Glory to come together speaks but Job here he gives it clean over as a thing unexpressible And in stead of all Essays that way he chooseth rather to speak and shew the Cause thereof the same which I in this Treatise have endeavoured to do And thereby he sets forth in a Reality the dreadfulness of it indeed And more than by all things whatever that his Grief could have been compared unto This you have in these Words For the Arrows of the Almighty are within me he had sores without in his Body and Afflictions in his outward Man or Condition Fears without and Terrors within he complains not that you hear of them at all Oh but they are these Arrows that are within me says he the Arrows of the Almighty That is which none but an Almighty Hand could shoot and shoot so deep such Arrows as could come out of no other Forge or Quiver The Soul of a Man is a Spirit of a vast depth and God and God alone can shoot up into it unto the Arrow Head And yet again besides the strength of the Arm that shoots them and the forkedness of the Arrows themselves they were all as Arrows that are dipt in Poyson envenomed with the guilt of his Sins which as Chap. 13. 23. 26. God had now set on upon his Soul Thou makest me possess the Sins of my Youth Thus it follows in the next Words And the Poyson thereof drinks up my Spirit They do not only let out the Spirits which Wounds made by other Arrows use to do but they drink them up The Strength and Violence of the Venom of them had such an Efficacy on his very Soul and the very Spirit and Life thereof as they drank all up Again it follows And the Terrors of God have set themselves in array against me God drew forth his Wrath as it were into an ordered Army into Rank and File at once to fall upon him If one Man had an whole Army set against him and each armed Man therein were to shoot a Bullet or an Arrow into him at once and if withal we could make the Supposition that that Man should have his Life still renewed after each Wound given so as never to dye and yet they still to renew to shoot all at once every moment how dreadful is this to any ones Thoughts thereof but yet these are but Men not God whose Arrows he says these were Oh that he would destroy me says Job that is kill me out-right so ver 8 9. Oh that I might have my Request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me and that he would let loose his Hand and cut me off Well But Job canst thou not stir up thy Spirits and harden thy self against all these present Sorrows The Spirit of Man will bear its Infirmity if it be steel'd with resolution To this Job himself gives answer by way of preoccupation to this effect That if Death indeed or a being utterly cut off should come upon me with all that Host of Fears whereof elsewhere Job tells us Death
also And to be sure it cannot be that extraordinary way of entrance into Glory by such a sudden Change both of Soul and Body into Glory at once without dissolution should be the self-same thing here aimed at For it was not the Lot of any of those Primitive Christians of whom the Holy-Ghost here speaks this He hath wrought us for this thing that they should be in that manner changed and so enter into Glory but the contrary For they all and all Saints since for these 1600 years have put off their Tabernacles by Death as Peter did and speaks of himself 2 Pet. 1. 14. and therefore the Scripture or Holy Ghost foreseeing as the Phrase is Gal. 3. 8. this change would be their fate would not have uttered this of them God hath wrought us for this whom he knew God had not designed thereunto Neither is it that those groaning desires spoken of in the foregoing verses 2 3 4. is that self-same thing here as some would for indeed as Musculus well If the Apostle had said He that hath wrought this thing in us c. that Expression might have carried it to such a Sense But he saith He that wrought us for the self-same thing And so 't is not that desire of Glory in us is spoken of But us our selves and Souls as wrought for that Glory If it be asked what is the special proper scope of these words as touching this Glory of the Soul The answer in general It is to give the rational part of this Point or demonstrative Reasons to evidence to Believers That indeed God hath thus ordained and prepared such a Glory afore the Resurrection And it is as if the Apostle had said Look into your own Souls and consider God's dealings with you hitherto viz. First the operation of his hands For what other is the meaning or mystery says he of all that God is daily so at work with you in this Life What else is the end of all the workings of Grace in you and of God that is the Worker This is his very design He that hath wrought us that is our Souls for this very thing is God Besides the evidence the work gives there is also over and above the earnest of the Spirit given to your Souls now whilst in your Bodies in Joy full of Glories of the same kind as Earnests are of what fulness of Glory they are both capable of then and shall be filled with when severed from your Bodies Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit §. We Preachers have it in use as to allege Proofs of Scripture for the Points or Subjects we handle So to give Reasons or Demonstrations of them And so doth our Apostle here of this great Point he had been treating of and such Reasons or Demonstrations run often upon Harmony and Congruity of one Divine Thing or Truth kissing another Also upon Becomingnesses or Meetnesses that is what it becometh the great God to do For instance In giving an account why God in bringing many Sons to Glory did choose to effect it by Christ's Death rather than any other way It became him says he Heb. 2. 10. For whom are all things and by whom are all things c. And so in the point of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 21. Since by Man came Death by Man came also the resurrection of the dead that is it was congruous harmonious it should thus be the one answering correspondently to the other The like congruity will be found couched here in God's bringing Souls to Glory afore that Resurrection Now there are two sorts of harmonious Reasons couched in the fore-part of these Words He that wrought us for this is God I. That it is Finis operis opérantis The End of the Work it self upon us and of God as an Efficient working for an End God hath wrought on us for this very thing II. It is Opus Dignum Deo Authore A Work as he is the great God and as a thing worthy and becoming of God as the Author of it He that hath wrought us for this thing is God There is a third point to be superadded and that is It is the Interest of all three Persons Which how clearly evidenced out of the Text will appear when I have dispatched these former Doctrines I. Doctrine That it is a strong Argument that God hath provided a Glory for separate Souls hereafter That He hath wrought us and wrought on us a Work of Grace in this Life Ere the Reason of this will appear I must first open three things natural to the words which will serve as materials out of which to make forth that Argument First that the thing here said to be wrought is Grace or Holiness which is a preparation unto Glory 1. Grace is the Work And so Phil. 1. 6. termed The good Work A frame of Spirit created to good works Eph. 2. 10. We are his Workmanship created unto good Works The Text here says Who hath wrought us There similarly We are his Workmanship And 2. Secondly this Work is a preparation to Glory For for one thing to be first wrought in order to another is a preparation thereunto Now saith the Text He hath wrought us for this thing and Rom. 9. 23. it is in terminis The Vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared to Glory which was by working Holiness for it follows ver 24. Even us whom he hath called Likewise Col. 1. 12. Who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in Light Meet by making us Saints So then Had prepared Hath made meet is all one with Who hath wrought us for this thing Here The second what is the principal Subject wrought upon or prepared and made meet for Glory 'T is certainly the Soul in Analogy to the Phrase here We use to say when we speak of our Conversion Since my Soul was wrought on And though the Body is said to be sanctified 1 Thess 5. 23. yet the immediate Subject is the Soul and that primitively originally the Body by derivation from the Soul And hence it is the Soul when a Man dies carries with it all the Grace by inherency All Flesh is Grass which withers that is the Body with all the appurtenances saith Peter 1 Pet. 1. 24. But you having purified your Souls being born again of incorruptible Seed our Bodies are made of corruptible Seed which is the opposition there by the Word of God which lives and abides for ever And this is the Word he says he means which by the Gospel is preached every day unto you ver 25. and by preaching is engrafted in your Souls purifying your Souls ver 22. In no other Subject doth that Word as preached for ever abide For the Body rots and in the Grave hath not an inherent but a relative Holiness such as the Episcopal Brethren would have to be in Churches consecrated by them because once it was the
follow me AFTERWARDS So here NOW believing which is the Principle at the present which you live upon you see him not but when the end of your faith shall come you shall then see him and in this it is consisteth the salvation of your soul So that still it carries on what I have afore spoken unto That when Faith ceaseth Sight cometh yea perfects and swallows it up as was said even now out of 1 Cor. 12 13. And let me add this That the Apostle on purpose doth bring the mention of this supereminent fruit of faith Even now when we see not that believing ye yet rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious On purpose I say to make way for the raising up their thoughts apprehensions how infinitely transcending that salvation of their souls must be when Faith ending they attain to Sight to see him face to face whom their souls have loved It is implicitly as if he had said unto them Oh! think with your selves what Joy what Glory that must needs be which exceedeth and surpasseth this that now accompanies your faith in an answerable proportion as much as sight of Christ's presence and face to face must be supposed to excel the knowledge of him by faith which sees him but as absent darkly And further give me leave to improve this Notion You may take this assured evidence That your souls shall then see and enjoy God when your faith shall CEASE which will be when once your souls shall come to be separate from your bodies by death In that even now in this life it is your Souls and Spirits that are the immediate receptives or partakers and subjects of such glorious Joys The soul enjoys them though in the body yet without the help or concurrence of the body or the phantasms of it yea such Raptures do pass understanding that is the common way of understanding which by the use and help of the body or images in the fancy the Mind exerciseth in other things and which do concur with the understanding ordinarily in faith But this joy falls into and is illapsed within the soul it self immediately yea the weakness of your bodies and bodily spirits will not permit you to have so much of this joy as otherwise the soul is now capable of by faith And therefore by this experimental taste aforehand in your own souls you may be ascertained That your souls when separate from your bodies by death as well as when united again unto their bodies shall enjoy this great Salvation And thus much for the first Point raised out of the words which did undertake an Argumentation for a separate soul's Glory and Happiness 1. From the Condition of the Soul as the immediate subject of Grace wrought in it 2. From God's Ordination of the Work wrought To raise the soul up to life whilst Sin should bring Dissolution upon the Body 3. From the Scope of the Worker God himself who as an Efficient will accomplish the End when his Work for that end is finish'd And all these as comprehended in what the very first view and front of the words of my Text hold out God hath wrought us for the self-same thing §. But lo a greater matter is here It is not simply said God hath wrought us for this but He that hath wrought us for this thing is God Thereby calling upon us to consider How great an Hand or Efficient is here even God who hath discovered in a transcendent manner his Glory in the ordaining and contriving of this Work unto this great end Take it not therefore as a bare Demonstration given from God's working Vs to this end such as is common to other Agents as hath been said But further a Celebration of the Greatness and Glory of God in his having contrived this with so high an Hand like unto the Great God And is as if he had said There is a Design in this worthy of God He hath shewn himself in this to be the Great God indeed He that hath wrought us for this is God When God's ordinary Works are spoken of it sufficeth himself to say God did thus or this But when God's Works of Wonder then often you find such an illustrious Note of Reflection upon and pointing at Him to have done as God And it is ordinary among Men when you would commend the known Worth of the Artist to say He that wrought this is such a Man so to commend the Workmanship And thus both when the Holy-Ghost speaks of this Glory it self which is the End for which here his stile is Wbose Maker and Builder is God Heb. 11. 10. And in like equipage here of Preparation to that End he saith He that hath wrought us for this thing is God In this very Chapter 2 Cor. 5. to go no further when the great Work of Salvation in the whole of it is spoken of he prefaceth thus to it All things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself c. That is in this Transaction he hath appeared like that God of whom all things else are and so more eminently in this than in all or at least any other Work What there is said of Salvation in the whole is here of that particular Salvation of a separate Soul You have the like Emphasis put Heb. 2. 10. of bringing many Sons to Glory It became him says the Text. Now put all together and the result is The Second Point That to have provided a Glory for separate Souls of Just Men wrought upon in this Life is a Dispensation becoming the Great God yea and that there is an Artifice and Contrivement therein worthy of God and like unto himself such as he hath shewed in other his Works of Wonder There are two Branches of this Doctrine which I set otherwise out thus 1. That it is a thing becoming the Great God thus to deal with such a separate Soul having been wrought upon 2. That God hath designed and brings forth therein a glorious Artifice and Contrivement such as argue him a God Wise in Counsel and Wonderful in Working I. First Branch of this second Doctrine That it becomes God The Account of this Becomingness is best made forth by comparing and bringing together into an Interview both the inward and outward Condition of such a Soul and then the Relations which God bears to it such as should thereupon move him through his good pleasure thus to deal with it You know I at first undertook chiefly Reasons of Congruity or Becomingness and such always consist of two parts and when the one answereth and suiteth to the other then the Harmony of such a Reason is made up Let Us therefore consider 1. What is on the Soul's part 2. What is on God's part §. I. On the Soul's part Therein two things 1. The Species the Kind and intrinsecal Rank of Being which this Creature we call the Soul thus wrought upon stands in afore God 2. The outward Condition or Case this
Soul is left in upon its parting with the Body unless God takes it up into Glory First For its Rank or Kind of Being Therein two things 1. This Soul was by its first Creation a Spirit and that in the substance or native kind thereof and in that respect considered apart for its Union with the Body is in a more special manner allied unto God than all other Creatures but Angels are You have the Pedigree of Man both in respect of Body and Soul set out Acts 17. The Extract of our Bodies in v. 26. He hath made of one Blood all Nations of Men. So then on that side as we say in respect of our Bodies there is a Consanguinity of all Men being made of one Blood between one another But then in respect of our Souls we are God's Off-spring v. 28. and so on that side there is an Alliance not of Consanguinity unto God upon the account of having been created immediately by him and in the very substance of our Souls made like him and in his Image and yet we are not begotten of his Essence or Substance which is only proper to his Great Son And in a correspondency unto this God is stiled Heb. 12. 9. The Father of our Spirits in distinction from the Fathers of our Flesh or Bodies see the words Which Alliance or Fatherhood take it as in common with all Mens Spirits lieth in this That he not only created our Souls immediately out of nothing but in his own Image as to the substance of them which Image or Likeness other Creatures did not bear which yet were made out of nothing as the Chaos was both which appear by putting two places together Zech. 12. 1. He frameth their Spirits speaking of the Souls of Men and that altogether saith the Psalmist Psal 33. 15. so Ainsworth and others read it that is both each of those Spirits and also wholly and totally every whit of the substance of them Creatio est productio totius entis for Creation differs from Generation in this that it is a raising up or producing the whole of a being out of meer nothing that is to say altogether whereas Generation presupposeth pre-existent matter as in the generation of our Bodies which are not wholly and every whit of God immediately but the Parents afford the matter and the formative virtue besides by which our Bodies are framed So then in respect of our first Creation our Souls apart considered are thus allied to God to which our Bodies are not being Spirits in the very Being of them that altogether do owe that their Being to him But there is a taint come upon the Souls of all Men by Sin so as this alliance is thereby worn out yea forfeited until it be restored Now therefore these Souls the only subject of our Discourse being such as God hath wrought and so are become his Workmanship by a new and far nobler Creation and thereby created Spirit anew according to what Christ says That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Hereupon these Souls are Spirit upon a double account as you say of Sugar it is double-refined so this is now become a spiritual Spirit or Spirit spiritualized and sublimated yea and thereby the inward Sanctuary the Holy Rom. 7. 22. 25. of Holies the seat of God's most spiritual Worship which the Body is not but only as it is the outward Temple or Instrument of this new-made Spirit And hereupon that original Affinity to God of Spirit is not only restored but endeared for now there is both the stuff or the ground-work and then the workmanship or embroidery upon it and both of them the Works of God that so look as the Gold wrought upon commends the Enamel and then again the Enamel enhaunceth the value of the Gold so as both are considered in the price so it 's here with this Soul wrought by God in both respects §. Secondly Consider we now again the Case and outward Condition of such a Soul that of it self would fall out to it upon the Dissolution of the Body 1. It fails of all sorts of Comforts it had in and by its union with the Body in this World Luke 16. 9. When you fail says Christ speaking of Death 't is your City-phrase when any of you break and perhaps are thereby driven into another Kingdom as the Soul now is 2. Then if ever a Mans flesh and his heart fails Psal 73. 26. 3. And which is worse a Man's Faith faileth or ceaseth after Death and all his spiritual Knowledg as in this Life 't is the express phrase used 1 Cor. 13. at the 8th verse and which is prosecuted to the end of that Chapter And so all that communion it had with God in this Life is cut off It is of all Creatures left the most destitute and forlorn if God provides not And yet fourthly It is now upon Death which it never was afore immediately brought into the presence of God Naked Soul comes afore naked God Eccles 12. 7. Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God that gave it it is put out of house and home and turned upon its Father again This as to the Souls Condition II. God's part §. This is a special season for God to shew his Love to such a Soul if ever afore or after an opportunity such as falls not out neither afore whilst it was in the Body nor after when it is united to the Body again at the Resurrection if ever therefore he means to shew a respect unto a poor Soul which is his so neer Kindred and Alliance it must be done now We read in Psal 73. 26. My Flesh and my Heart faileth as at Death to be sure it doth but God is the strength of my Heart both in this Life and at Death to support me and my portion for ever in the Life to come without any interruption or vacant space of time as that ever imports and that David spake this with an Eye unto the Glory to come when Heart and Flesh and all in this World he foresaw would fail him is evident by what he had immediately meditated in the words afore ver 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel so in this Life and afterwards that being ended shall receive me unto Glory The contemplation whereof makes him cry out again ver 25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee for all things else will fail me one day when my Flesh utterly fails me also And There is none upon Earth where he had at present many Comforts and Comforters in comparison of thee You see God is the portion of the whole of his time even for ever as ver 26. and his Estate in Heaven and Earth divide that time and portion between them and no middle state between both but when the one ceaseth the other begins for between them two must be the for ever and when all fail him
the Wrath and Indignation of God himself working immediately in and upon Mens Souls and Consciences that is intended in these and other Scriptures This is the Subject of the first Section of this Discourse And let it be noticed now at the entrance that the same Scriptures and Reasons that shall be brought to prove this in this first Section will be found again to serve as new Arguments by way of inference to set out and infer the latter also that is the dreadfulness of it as will appear in the second Section CHAP. II. The first sort of Proofs from Scriptures First those three prefixed as the Texts LEt us first see what the Scriptures speak more directly to this great Point I. Heb. 10. 28 29 30 31. In order to the Proofs from hence observe the occasion of the Apostle's mention of this Punishment here to be his having treated of the highest Sin and kind of Sinners the Sin against the Holy Ghost By the occasion of which he gives us to understand what for the Substance is indeed the recompence of all manner of other actual Sins small and great the Punishment being in solido one and the same to all though with a vast difference of Degrees And therefore it is said unto all that are found wicked at that day whether of greater or lesser Proportions and Sizes of Wickedness Go into Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels The Devil is the greatest of Sinners yet all go with him into the same Torment that is for Substance the same And upon the like ground what is here spoken by way of eminency concerning the Punishment of these the highest sort of Sinners of the Sons of Men is true of all others there being but one common Fire or Punishment in the Substance of it for all 2. Observe the manner of his setting forth the dreadfulness of that Punishment to us It is only by way of insinuation For seeing he could not express the soreness of it he thought fit to suggest only who is the immediate Author and Inflicter of it And so leaves it to our thoughts to infer how dreadful it is This in General To argue the Point in Hand out of this Text let us take these things along with us 1. You see he here brings in the great God as an enraged Enemy challenging the execution hereof to himself This Vengeance belongeth to me or as Rom. 12. 19. Vengeance is mine I will recompence as if he had said Let me alone with it 2. In that when he would set out the severeness of this Punishment which is his professed aim ver 29. as infinitely exceeding all those kinds of Corporal deaths in Moses Law he inferreth the soreness of this from God himself as the Avenger We know him that hath thus said Vengeance is mine that is what a great and powerful God he is The Saints only know God by Faith in Himself and his Greatness as Heb. 11. and that so as no other Men in this Life do And by what we know of him and the apprehensions we have of Him we cannot but forwarn what that Punishment must needs be when God himself shall thus solemnly profess himself to be the Avenger 'T is argued you see both from what this God is and from that knowledg the Saints have of Him They and they alone know Him in his Love and have tasted and found that his immediate Loving-kindness is better than Life and from the Law of Contraries they know that his Wrath must be more bitter than Death They are able to measure what he is in his Wrath by what he is in his Love And some of the Primitive Saints especially the Apostles who had the first fruits of the Spirit knew and had tasted how good the Lord is in his Love by immediate Impressions of it on their Souls in Communion with Himself The like tenour of speech has that in 2 Cor. 5. 11. We knowing the Terror of the Lord It is termed His Terror as noting out that which is proper to Him and his Greatness in his being able to punish and destroy Sinners Moses who in the Old Testament had seen the Glory of God the most immediately of any Man and was therein a Type of Christ was thereby made sensible of this very thing as touching this Punishment and therefore complains in the very like Language Psal 90. Who knows the Power of thine Anger Lamenting how the generality of Men did not know it because indeed they knew not God But We says the Apostle have known him c. And 3. Thereupon he further calls this Punishment a falling into God's Hands That very Phrase often notes out immediate Execution as in ordinary Speech it doth When a Father or a Master threaten a Child or a young Servant already corrected by other Hands at their appointment yet when either would threaten more severely they 'l say Take heed how you fall into my hands or come under my fingers when they mean to correct them themselves And then 4. That the Apostle thereupon infers from this the dreadfulness thereof even from this It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of God Reason tells us that the soreness of any Torment the fearfulness of any Death ariseth from the Power Force Violence or Efficacy of that which is the immediate Agent or Cause inflicting it As why do we argue burning or dying by Fire a more terrible Death in respect of Torment than drowning in Water But that Fire being the immediate Agent or Instrument applyed to that Execution hath a more fierce and violent working than Water hath which dispatcheth a Man more easily Now therefore the fearfulness and soreness of this Punishment and that with difference from that by Creatures compare for this ver 28 29. being here argued that it is a falling into God's Hands and we knowing this withal that he is in himself able to work by his fierce Wrath more powerfully and exquisitely upon the reasonable Soul of Man Sinful than all created Agents whatever and the Soul it self being also capable of such a working upon by him This doth strongly argue his own immediate Execution by his own Hands to have been intended 5. In ver 27. he termeth the immediate Cause inflicting this Punishment A fiery indignation devouring the Adversaries Indignation or Wrath is of some intelligent Nature provoked And whom should this refer to or whose Indignation can it be supposed but of this God who himself as the Apostle expounds and comments upon it hath said Vengeance is mine saith the Lord And this Indignation is called fiery because it works as Fire is in tormenting like to Fire or as a Flaming Sword red hot when it is made the Instrument of ones Death which wounds and kills and doth torment with a superadded anguish For the further opening of which I shall at present only say two things 1. That God compares himself in this respect unto a devouring or consuming
of a contrary vertue or effect he compares the Curse of God on his Soul unto a spiritual Oyl of a piercing penetrating Violence that strikes in as Quicksilver into the Bones and Nervous Parts and fills them with unsufferable Torments He compareth also this Curse and the Effects of it unto such painful Diseases as are caused by sharp Corroding Waters in the Bowels as of the Gout in the Bowels which when it possesseth those Inwards is mortal and intolerable The Apostle's Allusion elsewhere is correspondent to both these of the Psalmist when he says The Word of God through the Power of the Spirit is a savour of Death unto Death in some Mens Hearts as of Life unto Life in others 2 Cor. 2. 16. The meaning whereof is that look as venemous and sulphurous Vapours and Damps in Mines and Caverns arising out of the Earth do strike up such scents or smells as often kill by extinguishing the Spirits of those that descend into them Such exhalations of Hell and Wrath doth the Spirit of God by the Word preached exhale and draw forth and cause to ascend in some Mens Consciences which gives them the very scent of Hell it self They are the Savour or Odour of Death afore-hand unto Death and Damnation and so are Vapours of the same kind out of the same Matter that is laid up in the Mine or Treasury it self as those out of the Earth use to be The second thing requisite to be added for the compleating the Demonstration is That such immediate Impressions of Divine Wrath in this Life are sure and certain Evidences I say not as to what Persons but of what kind of Torment it is which in the fulness of it befalleth Men in Hell and that both do proceed from the same immediate Cause This needs not much probation for the Instances afore given carry their own evidence with them of this thing to any intelligent Reader And this general Reason for it will readily occur to any ones Thoughts that surely God will not punish them in Hell with a Punishment of lesser sort or kind for we speak not now of comparisons of Degrees than what his Dispensation reacheth forth unto some Men in this Life For that is the proper day and time and season of Wrath and of the fierceness of his Wrath in which the Fruits of their own doings are every way in their full Ripeness and Maturity to be returned to them and these inflictions in this Life are but the Buds and the Blooms that preceed yet both from the same Root and Cause Now to be punish'd by God's Wrath but mediately through the force only of created Instruments c. as of material Fire or the like if that were all the Punishment there this were certainly by a lower kind or sort than to be punish'd immediately from the Wrath of God it self As will abundantly appear in the second Section when I shall set out the dreadfulness of such a Punishment But let us particularly weigh the Instances themselves as we have singly and apart delivered them 1. Those Dispensations to wicked and bad Men as Judas c. 2. The same as they are exemplified in good and holy Men as Heman c. And either of them will afford an Argument for the proof of this Proposition in Hand 1. These direful Impressions of God's immediate Wrath when they do befal wicked Men what are they to them Not only Pledges or Fore-runners of that Punishment to come for such all sorts of Afflictions are unto wicked Men. But further these are Spices and Grudgings and lesser intermitting Fits of those future fiery burning and continued Calentures and Feavers yea Earnest-Penies of Hell and so of the same kind with what in full Men shall there receive As we use to say and speak of those glorious Joys which some Saints aforehand have the priviledge to partake of that they are pure drops of those Rivers of Pleasure flowing immediately from the same Fountain of Life So we may as confidently say of those breakings forth of Wrath upon wicked Mens Souls here that they are the sippings of that Cup of Wrath without mixture as the Revelation Rev. 14. 10. distinguisheth it from those in this Life whereof the Wicked must drink the Dregs though it be Eternity unto the bottom And therefore we may make a true and warrantable measure of what all such Men are to look for in Hell by what some few of them do partake of here And the Argument is strong every way from the one of these unto the other For as Heaven and Hell are Parallel in a way of contraries as out of Rom. 9. 22 23. hath been shewn So those unspeakable glorious Joys and these contrary extraordinary Horrors and Anguishes on the other hand do hold Parallel also in being in their several kinds Prelibations and Tastes of what is to come in the other World And in this very posture and tendency doth the Apostle set these two Dispensations together in this Life in a Parallel way as in Rom. 9. he doth the other whilst in the same Scripture 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. He compares those Joys common in those times in them that are saved to the breakings forth at the opening of the Gospel as of a Box of Spiknard of a sweet Odour or Savour of Life unto Life namely of the Life to come afore-hand sensing their Souls with some of those Perfumes that are fetcht from that Country and only grow there and on the contrary such also he declares those precursory Savours or Odours of Death in their kind to be which do arise from the threatnings of the same Word in Horrors upon many that perish which he pronounceth to be the very Evaporations of that Lake of Fire and Brimstone Rev. 20. 14 which is the second Death in stiling them the Odour or Savour of Death unto Death so speaks he These Men often smell the scent of Hell in their Consciences and the Spirits of it do strike up into their Souls The very Ashes and Smoak of that Vesuvius or Aetna of Hell I allude unto the last Words of Deut. 32. 22. do fall upon them which lighting upon Men in this Life do as those Ashes of the Furnace Exod. 9. 8 9 10. miraculously did they cause sores and blains upon Mens Consciences And however if the Apostle did therewithal intend the more common Dispensations by the Word and so both the ordinary and extraordinary of which we now speak Yet still take and compare those extraordinary Joys in the one as a Savour of Life with the extraordinary Horrors that are the Savour of Death unto the other and in their Proportion there is still the like reason of both as to the matter in hand and an alike persignificancy in either of those two eternal Estates Again that each of these are alike by and from God and by his more immediate Hand dispensed This I take from that Phil. 1. 28. and submit the
lusting after or enjoyment of things created or sinful Comforts in Creatures yet that the great and Foundation evil of it lieth in an aversion or turning off from God and therein and thereby there is a reflecting upon God an immediate slight or undervalue to an infiniteness of dishonour and contempt cast upon his Goodness Blessedness that is to be had in him as also to his Soveraignty Prerogative Supremacy Holiness c. which are shewn forth and laid at Stake of every of his Laws whereof Sin is the Transgression Now if indeed it could have been supposed that Sin were nothing else but that gross and crass part spoken of the enjoyment of Creatures than a punishment by Creatures only might equivalently have been even with that its obliquity of debasing its own excellency unto Creatures But it being an immediate reflection upon God Himself none can fill up the proportion of a meet and full Punishment which Justice doth require for this but God Himself I may make use of Eli's speech 1 Sam. 2. 25. If one Man sin against another the Judg shall judg him and revenge it but if against God who shall intreat for him Thus he And upon the same or like ground of Reason I infer if one Creature wrong another a Creature of the same kind can revenge it If a Man shed Man's Blood so far as it is wrong to the bare Creature By Man shall his Blood be shed so says the Law in relation to Man's day in this World But if Man sin against God who shall recompence it when God's day comes wherein he is to be glorifyed none so as to give satisfaction to his most exact Justice but God Himself Yea further if we retained to that opinion of many Learned Men That Adam's enjoyment of God for ever in that holy Estate of Innocency should have been of God but as manifested in and by Creatures and his holy Law and not as in Himself or as in Heaven c. yet this would not serve for a Rule whereby to estimate or make proportion that therefore this Punishment should oppositely be only from God by and through Creatures For whatever his enjoyment should have been whether of God mediately or of God as in Himself immediately I dispute not yet to be sure when God was cast off by him or is by us immediately and directly reflected upon even God as God which is that whereby every Man's Sin is heightned in Rom. 1. 21. the meaning whereof is that God as in Himself is debased by Sin So that as the Apostle says in the like case Rom. 5. 15. Not as the Offence so is the free Gift On the contrary upon the like ground Not as was the case or merit of Adam's Righteousness so is the demerit of Sin and so nor of Punishment Because there is so transcendent an undueness yea an injury done to the great God Himself by the Creature in Sinning over and above the proportion of all created Grace or Obedience For all Obedience was due and all Man's Reward in obeying was from the meer goodness of God which He and his Obedience and all depended upon and so the proportion thereof is no way to be lookt at either as the measure of the evil of Sin or of what is to be the Punishment thereof Sin we are sure is so great an Evil as no meer Creature but Christ God-Man and his Obedience or Suffering could have satisfied God for in the behalf of another And why may it not also be said that as none but He that was subjectivè God could satisfy God for the demerit of Sin committed against God objectivè so that Sin is such an evil as cannot in the Sinner himself be throughly punished unto the satisfaction of Justice but by God Himself efficiently that is God to be the inflicter thereof immediately A second equitable rule of Proportion that Justice requiring the fullest satisfaction that may be had will exact is that the principal Author and Actor in the Sin should principally bear the Punishment This not only Vengeance which is the second Topick doth in a more eminent manner aim at and affect but Justice doth call for it also The Justice both of God and Men. Now the principal in Sin is known to be the Soul of Man Which I shall urge when I come to shew how Vengeance also seeketh to wreck it self thereon That which serves to my present purpose which is this that in the point of satisfaction to be made unto God's Justice it is most proper for God Himself to punish Sin in the Soul in order thereunto is First to enquire What is it in Soul or Spirit of Man which God when he comes to deal strictly and down-rightly as a Judg of Mens Souls hath principally to do withal All must acknowledg that it is Conscience that hath to do with God as a Judge for it must be that in Man which is the most proper seat of the guilt of Sin which guilt is the obligation unto Judgment and Punishment And this to be Mens Consciences the Scriptures hold forth and every Man 's own Soul feels Hence also to be purged from an evil Conscience is all one and to be perfectly acquitted from the Guilt of Sin And for God no more to remember our Sins or to be atoned with us as a Judg is all one as to say that we on our parts have no more Conscience of Sins Heb. 10. 2 3 10 11 17. verses compared Conscience is that part of the Soul whereby God as the Judg arraigneth every Man It is the Hand which a guilty Soul holds up at God's Bar for all the rest of Man and is God's Witness within Man against himself Rom. 2. 15. and that in order unto Judgment as follows in verse 16. Again 2. I enquire when it shall come to the execution of the Punishment sentenced What is it in the Soul or Spirit of Man that is most directly and naturally capable of Anguish and Torment and what that part is which God may most properly strike a Man's Soul in when he would rebuke him for Sin Certainly still a Man's Conscience All Beasts have one tender part above any other that most grieves them if smitten This in guilty Man is Conscience We see it in Cain and Judas God burnt them both in this Hand in the Hand of Conscience in this World Having by these two Enquiries stated the Principal both in Guilt and in being the Seat of the Execution I shall for the Proof hereof as also in order to the clearer making forth the Argument afore us namely that Justice requires God's immediate Hand c. I shall in a more ample manner set together these five ensuing Assertions The First That Conscience and the intellectual or understanding Power in Man's Soul are God's Engagee and the Principal in a double respect 1. Conscience is responsible for the whole in Man or if you will principal in the Obligation As being that
which by its own acknowledgment of a Judgment made unto God when he shall come to judge binds over it self and with it self the whole Soul for the Payment And upon that account is to be reckoned the chief Obligee and therefore the Execution is justly to be served upon it and through it upon the whole Soul 2. If we take in together with Conscience the understanding part in Man the Intelligentia or the Spirit of the Mind in the summity of it That is really to be accounted also the Principal in respect of its share in the very acts of Sinning so as justly the Guilt of every act is refunded upon it as the principal Actor For it is betrusted by God with the steering and management of the whole Soul with the conduct of it as the General By reason of that Light God at first seated in it it was appointed for ever to be the Guide and Leader of the Will and Affections And therefore God justly requireth the account or the defaults and miscarriages of the whole at its Hands According to the equity of those Rules declared concerning Rulers of the People Jer. 5. 4 5. These have known the way of the Lord c. As also from that other like to it given forth touching the Priests and which we find so often inculcated in Ezekiel I will require their Blood at the Priests Hands And all these founded upon one and the same common ground common unto Conscience with these namely Conscience and Knowledg there being the Guides And yet in that Conscience gives but an ineffectual weak warning against Sin which should powerfully sway the whole and the Spirit of the Mind or the practick Understanding doth still wickedly give secret consent unto Sin c. Hence therefore that denunciation in Ezekiel holds that God will require the Blood of the Soul at its hands Although the Soul the Will and Affections do perish too in their Iniquity as it is there spoken And for this cause it becomes Justice to punish this chief Agent and Offender or this great Minister of State in sinning and to make these the Seat of the Execution above any or all other Faculties 2. It will furthermore agree with the Rules of Justice yea it will be a special Trophy unto Justice to have Sin it self in the Guilt of it made as far as possibly to be it's own Tormentor and Instrument of the highest Punishment in and unto the Soul that hath sinned There is no Sword like unto that will Justice say to slay a Sinner withall It is of all other the most proper and exquisite way of punishing For the Sinner to eat for ever of the Fruit of his own Ways and Prov. 1. 31. to be filled with their own Devices and their Iniquity to slay them This is the justest and highest Doom which Wisdom it self can invent or God's Power execute The very same doth Jeremy also speak Jer. 2. 19. Thine own Wickedness shall correct thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God Certainly for the Sinner to feel in the most intimate and immediate manner that may be the bitterness of the Guilt of Sin and to find that that above all other Punishments that can be inflicted is the sharpest and severest this is a transcendent strain of Justice indeed Now this is most exquisitely accomplish'd through that proper capacity which Conscience and the intellectual part in Man have as to this very thing And in their being the Seat of the Guilt of Sin they are thereby further fitted to become the Vessel or Receptacle of this the highest Punishment This is in a great measure verified by that in Isa 59. 11 12. We roar all like Bears And what was it that caused this For our Transgressions are multiplied before thee and our Sins testify against us For our Transgressions are with us they dwell with and possess us and we possess them as Job also speaks And as for our Iniquities we know them It was their very knowing of their Sins as set on by God that made them thus roar which is the loudest and wildest Tone of Grief and Note of insufferable Torment And observe how that that Knowledg had two things in contemplation which caused the Roaring 1. Sin together with the Wrath of God Our Transgressions are multiplied afore thee And so they had God in their eye as a Judge which those words shew We look for Salvation but it is far from us v. 11. And 2. They testify against us This was the accusation of their own Consciences themselves So as it was Conscience which was the Seat the Habitation as it were where these two took up their dwellings continually quartered upon and possessed Jeremy says the same To see and know how bitter a thing it is to sin c. And though these Scriptures speak not immediately of Hell yet they do clearly point out to us what and wherein the most exquisite punishment of Sin lieth and by what effected namely Knowledg of Sin and Wrath whether it be in Men in forerunning Anguish in this Life or hereafter in Hell in the fulness of it 3. It is not nor can it be the meer Spiritual evil that is in Sin as Sin is Sin and an opposite to true Holiness and as it stands in a contrariety to the Holiness and Goodness of God that is not it which Men in Hell shall spiritually know and see so as to lay to heart the evil thereof in that respect No for that is the peculiar effect of Grace and proper to the Saints even as to see the Beauty that is in Holiness as it is Holiness likewise is It is therefore Sin in the bitter effects thereof only whereby Souls still remaining wholly sinful as those in Hell do can come to know this bitterness of Sin Now to prosecute this The evil of Sin is not sufficiently or perfectly felt no not in the effects of it by the Conscience of a Sinner so as it may be until it be felt in that which is the highest and most transcendent and proper most immediate and first-born effect thereof of all other And that is no other than the Wrath and Indignation of the All-powerful God For that his Wrath shall break in upon the Sinner and so considered it is the most proper effect of all other of the demerit of Sin God being stirred up and provoked thereunto by Sin Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy 1 Cor. 10. 22. The like Jer. 7. 19. Sins are as a heap of Charcoal wicked Mens Consciences the Oven and God's Wrath the Fire Let this Fire be put into this Coal and let both meet in a guilty Conscience and it instantly becomes a fiery Oven within it self And as concerning all other Punishments I may say it That all other of what kind or from whomsoever although they are all the effects and deserts of Sin according to that
Job Thou writest bitter things against me and causest me to possess the Sins of my Youth Job 13. 26. Let no Man therefore imagine that Devils are the greatest Tormentors of Men or of their Consciences in Hell or if any would affirm it I would demand Who it is that torments the Consciences of Devils themselves Certainly none but God They now believing there is a God do tremble but in Hell they fear him and for ever have to do with him And it is as sure that the same God with whom those Spirits and their Consciences have for ever to do the Consciences of Men shall also And as for all other mediate or outward ways of Judgments executed in which the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven but as at the second hand take the sorest and severest of them that ever God executed by Creatures yea suppose all of the several kinds of Providential Judgments I call them such which are executed upon Men in this World afore-hand which God hath as Judg of all the World in his riding Circuit through all Ages since the Fall revealed his Wrath from Heaven by against all sorts of Unrighteousness of Men as the Apostle speaking of these Judgments says in Rom. 1. 18. Suppose I say they were let flie upon any one Sinner all at once yet would they not reach or touch that Man's Conscience further than as God should over and above the efficacy of them strike the Conscience it self with his anger and displeasure revealed more or less by himself therewith And although in all such Judgments his goings forth are as of a Judg and he accompanies such Judgments more or less but as with some ordinary light and glimmerings of an angry Deity yet his coming as a Judg upon Mens Consciences at the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God as if he had never revealed his Wrath before this is another manner of coming and shewing himself a Judg indeed rendring Indignation and Wrath upon the Souls of Men And of that Judgment it is the same Apostle in the second Chapter treats as of that other in the former And I may say of all the former in comparison to this latter that they all are but as the Batteries of the Out-works and as Bullets shot against the Walls in a Siege which may indeed terrify the Inhabitants and make them tremble Deut. 32. Rom. 2. and so these the Soul as by remote effects in the Suburbs of it But the latter is as shooting in of Granadoes which have been laid up with him in his Treasury carrying Fire from thence in them the Fire of his fierce and sorest Indignation and these himself alone can shoot into the inwards of Mens Souls And this is as shooting Fire into the the very Magazine into that which is the most inward in the Soul and fortified against the entrance of all created Powers the Magazine where all the Gun-pouder lies that is the guilt of a Man's Sins so as there needeth nothing else to blow up all If his Wrath doth but touch it takes and sets all on Fire Yea give me leave upon the same ground and by the like reason further to say That all the material Fire in Hell by which the Soul shall and will suffer by way of a Compatibility as it is termed or suffering by and with the Body an unspeakable Torment and this for the Sins a Man is guilty of yet these Flames nor these Punishments taken materially and abstracted from this Revelation of God's Wrath would not break into Conscience not until God did therewithal break in with the Fire of his Wrath and make the Conscience and intellectual Spirit of the Mind a fiery Oven within it self as the Psalmist expresseth it in Psal 21. 9. almost in these very words This being the state of matters between God the Judg of all and the Souls and Consciences of Sinners as touching that due and equitable Punishment for Sin and the execution thereof which Mens Souls are capable of I shall now compleat the reason why the Justice of God should move him to be willing yea and that there is in respect unto Divine Justice a kind of requisiteness if not necessity for the Great God to take this course to punish the Sinner by the Revelation of his own immediate Wrath. And this I shall do by gathering together what hath been said from which the Arguments for both these two Assertions that follow lie fair 1. That God for his Justice sake should be willing For Conscience being the principal Engagee obliged unto God as a Judg and the understanding Power in Man the eminent Transgressor and both lying so naked and immediately exposed unto God's Wrath and capable to receive the Revelation of it An Anguish made thereby in the Soul is the most proper natural suitable Reward unto Sin to pay the Sinner home in his own Coin as also the most ready direct and short way for God to take If therefore we suppose Justice be left to have but its free and full course if Justice according to the Prophet's language and God's own rule and direction given unto us run down as Waters and Righteousness as a mighty Stream in its proper natural Channel and so as to fall into that most capacious Vessel or Receptacle that is in Man to receive it Again if Divine Justice hath a will to put and lay its charge and execution where principally it is to be laid even against the Principal whether in the Obligation for Sin or in the guilt of the Act of sinning Or if it be deemed that Divine Justice will take a recovery where the fullest and fairest advantage lies and recover his principal Debt of that which is the principal Debtor and from that in Man which is capable to afford the most due satisfaction and punishment as being that which is the Treasury of all the Guilt of Sin and most exquisitely capable to suffer and thereby to make fullest payment for all Then we may conclude that assuredly God is willing to wreck his just Anger and in his Wrath to break forth upon the Conscience and Intellectual Faculty of the Sinner in Hell by the immediate Revelation of his Wrath and that upon all the accounts fore-mentioned thereby to punish it And we may well suppose that his Justice is willing to do this because God is as the Psalmist with an Emphasis Judg Himself Psal 50. 6. And judgeth for Himself Prov. 16. 4. And for the Recovery of his own Glory and Revelation of his Righteous Judgment And this Course of immediate Wrath being a way above all other so natural so ready so direct so compendious and so suited to the demerit of Sin as hath been shewn we may well think that God will be rather willing to shew his Wrath as the Apostle speaks this way if we could suppose there might be another because this so falls in with and agrees unto the rules and
of it For I argue asking this Question What is able to fill the Soul of Man with good or evil The Soul which was created in so large a Capacity as to be filled with God and with none but God himself He only is able to fill the vast corners of it with either Creatures like it self may afflict and torment it much especially whilst in the Body so much as to cause it to desire Death and a being out of the Body but the Soul they are never able to destroy The Soul is a Castle so strong built as it can bear the Assaults of all its fellow-Creatures and sustain it self and not sink into Destruction Nothing can destroy the well-being of the Soul but God's Power For it is said They may kill the Body but God only can kill the Soul And else according to that Argument of Christ Fear not them that can kill the body only c. they were to be feared as God himself is if they could kill the Soul as God can do For Christ says God is therefore to be feared and only to be feared because he can destroy both Body and Soul And he redoubleth it with an Emphasis Fear him yea I say unto you Fear him Luke 12. 5. Indeed one Evangelist says Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell which expresseth no more but an act of Authority to sentence and cast into Hell as the Judge doth into Prison Yet the other Evangelist puts it upon this because he is able to kill the Soul and that only he is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell He says not barely to cast into Hell as by way of Authority but adds kills and destroys in Hell when they are cast thither For God is both Judg and Avenger And therefore if it be Destruction 't is evident He only can and must do the execution And therefore in the Text 2 Thes 1. 8 9. their being punished with everlasting Destruction is attributed to the glory of his Power These are some of the Reasons of this great Point CHAP. VII A fourth sort of additional Confirmations drawn from the Harmonies that are between it and other Divine Truths I Shall in the last place cast in some Harmonies or Congruities and Correspondencies which this holds and makes up with other Divine Truths And in such Harmonies and Concords there is much of Reason at least to confirm if not demonstrate Truths in Divinity 1. To begin where I left Hereby it comes to pass that as the Souls of Men and other Spirits were immediately made and created by God who is therefore in a peculiar respect and with an opposite distinction to the Fathers of our Bodies said to be the Father of Spirits and the God of the Spirits of all Flesh So that their last termination or end should be into and by his immediate Hands also This makes up a congruous and suitable Dispensation That look as they receive their first Being from him likewise they should return to him as Ecclesiastes speaks as to their sole and immediate Author and Creator and so receive from him as a Father of Spirits their Portion at his immediat Hands And Man 's ultimate end either way is called their Portion Psal 11. 6. Mat. 24. 51. whether it be in blessedness as their Inheritance out of his Love or Misery as the wages of their Sin And thus hereby God himself is made the end and the beginning or terminus the Alpha and Omega of Souls to whom be Glory for ever 2. Thereby also there comes to pass an answerableness and a proportion held between the two conditions of Heaven and Hell Which the Apostle seems to make the ultimate aim and determination of God's Counsels Unto which all in this World are but preparations as he calls them Thus Rom. 9. 22 23. for the shewing forth of his own immediate Glory What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction And that he might make known the riches of his Glory on the Vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared unto Glory And thirdly also It is said that after that Christ the Judg of All hath delivered up his Administration and Kingdom unto his Father then God should become all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. not in respect of Being that is not as if the Being of all things shall return into God again as some have wickedly dreamed Or that God's blessed Being and the Creatures should become one that can never be 'T is a contradiction to say a Creature made out of nothing should come to be of it self and such God in his Being is But all in all in respect of immediate Dispensation And so look as to the Vessels of Mercy he will then be all in all so that they shall not need the light of the Sun and the Moon c. that is the comfort of any Creature though all created Excellencies in the Spirit and quintesence of them shall be there why should it not be also meant that the same God which makes up a Parallel seeing Mens Sins deserve it shall be all in all in Hell too in a contrary way to the other 4. And the rather this may be thought because when God shall have caused this visible World to pass away the Earth and the Heavens we now behold as some judicious Divines have inclined to think from Job 14. 12. and other Scriptures either by turning them into nothing or into their first Chaos And so there being none that is of this old World left but pure Heaven and Hell which are as two spiritual Places or Worlds and therein these two sorts of Creatures rational either those who are wholly Spirits as Angels good and bad or the Spirits of Men whose Bodies are raised Spiritual and so fitted for that other kind of World both of which are capable of Happiness or Wo from him That then these two sorts of intelligent Natures God and they being left thus alone the bruitish part of the World being done away should have to do with him for ever immediately either in a way of Wrath or Blessedness And so God shall be all in all in either Worlds and this to be the final ending and Catastrophe of all But these I urge not but only mention THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN in HELL SECT II. The dreadfulness thereof argued from all and each of the Particulars treated of in the former Section HEB. 10. 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God THe second thing at first propounded to be handled was the dreadfulness of this Punishment It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God Which being an inference from the foregoing words and not a simple affirmation only do come in with an amazing kind of implication wherein the Apostle leaveth it to our own Thoughts to conceive
of and is as if he had said How dreadful must it needs be which I leave to your own Thoughts to conceive of I not being able says he to utter or express the Terror of it Hence the genuine and natural way of handling this part is to set it forth by way of Inference or Corollary from that former Point which we have dispatch'd I shall therefore accordingly draw forth Demonstrations of the dreadfulness thereof from those fore-cited Scriptures or Grounds already laid in the fore-gone Section which doth afford sufficient Topicks unto this Head SECT I. The first Head of Demonstrations from this in General That it is a falling into the Hands of God immediately FIrst let us take the main Doctrine it self as in the General it is uttered here That it is a falling into the Hands of God Himself and not of Creatures only And a being punish'd from his Presence and the Glory of his Power immediately as 2 Thess 1. 9. And then extend and widen your apprehensions to take in how fearful this must be which I shall demonstrate by a comparative Gradation raised thus I. If it were but a giving us up into the Hands of meer Creatures to afflict and they assisted by God but with the common and ordinary concurrence of his Power which joins with and upholds the Agency of all things in their workings whether in comforting us or in distressing of us this is the lowest degree of supposition And yet consider how dreadful this Supposition would render to our Thoughts such a punishment to be if God should be but as the looker on and withal the setter of them on or as in the Scripture phrase Mat. 18. 34. but only deliver us up to these Tormentors As when it is termed a being cast into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone suppose it were a Lake of material corporeal Fire only wherein thy Body is cast and thy Soul no otherwise to suffer than by what the Spirits of that Body it is united to and dwells in is by that Fire made sensible of And suppose withal the Spirits thereof were kept up in their utmost sensibleness of what torment that Fire could inflict and thy Body continually flaming as the Bush in Exodus and yet never burnt up how terrible is it for Flesh and Blood to think but this of it Or to use another comparison If a Man were bound Hand and Foot with his Mouth set open and were cast into a Pit wherein as in the Apostles Sheet let down from Heaven were all manner of Creeping things Toads Serpents of all sorts fiery Scorpions Cockatrices Vipers Adders Snakes c. Flies Hornets Lice Pismires and Frogs c And that these should bite and sting thee with exquisite Pain and Torment also creep in at thy Mouth down into thy Inwards gnaw and swell thee there How did but one sort of these Creatures when sent by God afflict Pharaoh and all the Aegyptians A Man in this case should endure not only the Pains mentioned but beyond them the torture which Antipathy cotrariety and natural abhorrency Works which is of all other most exquisite and turns nature backward as of Jordan it is said into a recoyl and wresteth it against it self and throws it off its hinges I need not instance how by this way of Antipathy a Cock makes a Lion roar a Mouse the Elephant to tremble a Serpent or a Toad a Spider sets the whole of nature in Man into an inconsistency a Man knows not how to bear up sustain himself or be himself But besides what Pains or Torments these or any of these can inflict II. Let us proceed in our Supposition a step further If God should so far further assist as to set his Wisdom a-work and that only to find out and invent what mixture of Torments from Creatures would be most exquisite of all others As if a King whose Wrath is compared to the roaring of a Lion who yet sets but others to Torment should but order ten Men to invent Torments for one poor Man as the Sicilian Tyrants did Hence Majus tormentum siculi non invenire Tyranni And then consider for the exaggeration of this unto your Thoughts 1. That the nature of Man is so framed as it is capable to recieve discomfort as well as comfort from every Creature the least Creature hath a sting in it as well as Honey unto something or other in Man's Nature if it be applyed and turned against it 2. God knows all the Ingredients in the Creatures Natures as also it is said he knows our frame and so there with the suitableness of Sense in Man's Nature thereunto Think then what Punishment from their mixture can he invent and temper and put all the Venoms the dregs into one Cup as the Psalmist speaks And as by some lesser proportion we may estimate this by what those that know the secrets of Nature can effect above what other Men as Solomon did Now 3. Raise up your apprehensions from these two steps of comparison thus first laid If as the Psalmist says He that made the Eye shall not he see speaking of that infinite Omniscience in God Himself above what is in the Creatures Say I then in this case if the Creatures that God hath made may thus be supposed able to work anguish to a Man Dolour and Misery what then can God the great God that made all these himself immediately inflict As the Prophet Isaiah slighteth the Aegyptians and their Assistance Isa 31. 3. Thus Their Horses are Flesh not Spirit and the Aegyptians that ride them are Men and not God So we may of all these Suppositions and still say these are but of what Creatures can do who are Creatures and not God Flesh and not Spirit III. That we may yet heighten the dreadfulness of this immediate Hand of God let us make a third Supposition beyond the former that God not only should use his ordinary concurrence with Creatures but as sometimes he hath done arm those Creatures with his own Wrath over and above the activity of their ordinary Sphere of Workings heating that Sword of created Powers he strikes with red hot in the Furnace of his fiery Indignation And so intending the power of Creatures beyond their Strength yet still so as to use them as the sole Instruments of that anguish wrought conveying his Anger with them but as at second hand And so as the Man so afflicted is sensible not of the Stroke of the Creatures only but of God and his Wrath accompanying and seconding it through them This would be yet more dreadful than the former and yet still fall short of what the Doctrine hath held forth that Himself is the Avenger and strikes immediately 1. This latter is more dreadful to suppose than the former yea is not a bare supposition for if God conveys his Wrath with the least Affliction and in his Providences fight against a Man and the Heart is thereby made sensible of
Spirit and in the substantial Faculties of it assimulated to him made in his Image a Spirit as God is that hath an Understanding and other Faculties to receive and take in from him what he is pleased to pour forth into it by them and is accordingly more sensible thereof than the Senses of the Body are or can be supposed to be from Creatures The Prophet Nahum seems to have considered this chap. 1. v. 5 6. When setting out God's Wrath to Men in the effects of it he first considers how it works upon inanimate Creatures that are at such a distance in respect of the kind of their being from God's It kindleth a Fire says he which maketh the Hills to melt and the Eaath is burnt up at his presence yea the World and all that dwell therein which he will one day burn up with Fire Now from these the Prophet infers and raiseth up our thoughts Doth he work thus upon insensible Creatures as the Hills and the Earth and the whole World Do the Elements melt with fervent heat Are the Heavens shrivel'd up as a Scrole of Parchment afore him by the violence of that Fire which he sends forth Consider then O consider ye Sons of Men how will the Fire of his Wrath work upon your intellectual Souls And as unto this Scope and Coherence with the former I understand what follows verse 6. Who can stand afore his Indignation who can abide in the fierceness of his Anger He here turneth his Speech and applieth it to Men. For the Souls of Men being in their beings and kind nearer of kin to him Spirits as he is the great Spirit and the Father of Spirits which were made only for God and to be filled with God have accordingly a more intimate sense of his Workings on them And 't is as if he had said If then he sends forth such a Fire as melts and dissolves the Earth Mountains of Iron or Brass how much more will it be able to melt Wax And such are Mens Souls to God comparatively to other Creatures Christ speaking of his Soul when he had thus to do with God in the Day of his Anger Psal 22. 14. that Psalm was all made of him My Heart is melted like Wax it is melted in the midst of my Bowels And towards this Sence doth Sanctius seem to understand that Complaint of Job's uttered to his Friends concerning those Terrors of God which he felt within him Job 6. 4 11. verses compared Is my Strength the Strength of Stones Or is my Flesh my Nature or Constitution of Brass that I should be able to encounter with this Indignation of the Almighty Stones and Brass have no sense in them or but a dull sense if their Opinion should hold true de sensu rerum they have no Blood nor Spirits to make them sensible of these Arrows of God's Anger he had spoken of vers 4. Ay but Job meaneth to say I have a Soul made of other Metal suited to God the great Spirit whose Arrows I feel which is exquisitely sensible of all his Actings Take the Statue of a Man made of Brass or cut out of Stone and slash and cut him and he feels it not but cut the same Limbs that answer to these in a living Man made of Flesh and Blood with the same knife and what Torture is it You may see this and aggravate it to your selves by what inferior Spirits to this great Father of Spirits as Angels and Devils can work upon Man's Soul that is a Spirit like themselves being yet inferior to them When Saul had but one evil Spirit sent from the Lord how distracted and terrified was he tho in the midst of the enjoiments of a Kingdom 1 Sam. 16. 14. Also that great Apostle that had his Spirit fortified as having been newly feasted with the Joys of Heaven and that not as at a distance only but as a Spectator that stood by present there 2 Cor. 12. Yet one Angel Satan buffeting him he was so disturbed and put to it as he knew not what to do or how to bear it only God told him My Grace is sufficient for thee Well but do Mens Souls in Hell fight with Flesh and Blood yea or with Principalities and Powers chiefly No that is but whilst they are the Rulers of this World as there 't is added And yet if these Spirits have such power over our Spirits to buffet and terrify them what hath God the Father of them Again consider how the Soul is capable of more Joys and Sorrows than the Bodily Senses are and this by how much it doth exceed them in its Eminency and Capacity The Soul is able to drink up all the Pleasures the whole Creation can afford the Bodily Senses or they bring in to drink them up I say even at one Draught and yet would in the midst of it still cry Give Give Now as it is in the Body of a Man look whatever part is capable of more Pleasure it is also capable more of Pains So the Soul proportionably look how capable it is of greater Joys as it is from God it is as much of Sorrows also unto the same extention and intention of them Add II. As to this Point That as the Soul is thus vastly capable of more Sorrow and Anguish So further that these Souls to be punisht are filled with Sin and in that respect termed Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction Rom. 9. 22. Take a Barrel of Wood and of it self it will burn as it is Wood but if withal it be Pitcht within and full of Tar and combustible Matter it will burn more rageingly Of unfruitful Branches Apostatizing from Christ it is said John 15. 6. That they are cast into the Fire and they are burned that is they burn to purpose make a mighty Fire That Clause And they are burned is added by way of Auxesis or Emphasis else it needed not We see when Sins were but laid upon Christ by Imputation who in himself was separate from Sinners and had no Conscience of Sin how yet the Anger of God against Sin dealt with him as undertaking to be a Surety for Sin And can you drink says Christ the Cup that I am to drink of that is so as to bear it and not be overcome with it Now in Luke 23. 31. you may see how Christ infers from his Sufferings as being the Sufferings of one who had not been himself personally guilty of Sin what therefore with difference those in whom Sin is inherent must expect Weep for your selves says he for if they do those things to the green Tree what will be done in the Dry that is who are fit combustible Matter for the Fire and as the Prophet says are as Stubble fully dry Nahum 1. 10. And of the terribleness of God's Anger he had afore discoursed as was even now observed in all that Chapter Again III. In the Soul some Faculties are more capable of Anguish from his
to avoid the Terror of thy Looks Now all this I can do says God with a meer Look whenever I please And I can as easily save also as I can thus destroy which thou canst not do thine own Soul as the next Verse insinuates Then will I confess thine own hand can save thee You see he resolves saving and destroying into the same Power of his and maketh the same estimate of either which the Apostle also doth chap. 4. 12. There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy My Exhortation therefore in fine is Let us not fear Creatures but fear Him and make him your dread and learn to know what a God ye walk before every day and have for ever to do withal Christ that came out of his Bosom knowing him doth Luke 12. 4. 5. compared with Mat. 10. 26. 28. upon knowledg of this God make this same Exhortation I say to you says he and I will forewarn you he says it twice and it is as if he had said Take it from me that know him Fear him that is able to destroy Body and Soul The Apostle succenturiates We know him that hath said Vengeance is mine so here Heb. 10. And again We knowing the terror of the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 11. which they know by an estimate taken from his Goodness that his Wrath must be answerable And Moses also that had seen his Back-parts and his Glory He cries out Who knows the power of thine Anger Hypocrites and carnal Professors as those were whom God professedly takes to task Psal 50. think to play with the great God and deal with him any how as we say as with a Man that is their Fellow They know him not Psal 50. 21. These things hast thou done and I kept silence and thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self And what things they had done and were guilty of see if thou hast not been guilty of the same or like the 18 19 20 verses shew When thou sawest a Thief then thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Thou givest thy Mouth to Evil and thy Tongue frameth Deceit Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother thou slanderest thine own Mothers Son And God was silent or long-suffering The like you have Isa 57. 11 12. Of whom hast thou been afraid that thou hast lied and hast not remembred me nor laid it to thy Heart Have not I held my peace even of old and thou fearest me not c. But mark what is the issue of all this in Psal 50. 21. it follows But I will reprove thee and set them in order afore thee They had never felt the smart of his Anger in all their Lives and little thought that the Lion was in him but it follows Consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in peices and there be none to deliver Oh take heed and turn to him or on the sudden he will start up like a mighty Lion and tear your Souls in pieces as a Giant might do Cobwebs and prey upon the Blood of your very Souls and break the Bones thereof as a Lion could of the most silly Creature Add to this MEDITATION Consider What it is to die and what the State and Condition of the other World is It is to have to do with God immediately either in Wrath or Love and from his own hands as well as from the immediate Sentence of his Mouth to receive thy Weal or Woe That we come naked into this World and go as naked out of it was Job's Meditation first after that David's Psal 49. 15. We shall carry nothing away that is of what belongs to this World then after him Solomon the Son Eccles 5. 15. As he came forth of his Mothers Womb speaking of Man naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his Labour which he may carry away in his Hand The Effect of which divine Meditation comes to this To put secure and careless Man upon the consideration of his immortal Souls Condition which first cometh into this World naked as well as his Body And poor thing the meaning of its first cry if the Soul it self could then speak out its mind is I am an empty thing and have brought nothing with me who will shew me any good But after its being grown up it begins to find a World richly furnished with all things to enjoy as the Apostle's Phrase is 1 Tim. 6. 17. But yet again when he goes out of this World he is then turned out of House and Home as perfectly naked as he came into it and as Rev. 18. 14. The Fruits that thy Soul lusted after and all things which are dainty and goodly are departed from thee and thou shalt find them no more at all Death is therefore compared unto the breaking or failing of a Merchant or Tradesman proving Bankrupt Luke 16. 9. That when ye fail c. says Christ of which I have elsewhere spoken Now if this be thy case as to this and that other World think with thy self what thine eternal Soul must then betake it self unto and also unto whom in that other World My Doctrinal part hath informed you that it is God himself God immediately Eccl. 12. 7. The Spirit returns unto him that gave it To explain which There was that evident difference put in the making man's Soul at first from that of his Body That God made the Body out of the Earth but the Soul was breathed in by God and therefore not out of any preexistent matter as the Souls and Forms of all other living things are And upon this dissolution or separation of each from other it is that Solomon says Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Soul to God that gave it that is to say the same common Law befalls either in their kind that to other things in their kind they are reduced unto their first Principles And so look as the Body is materially resolved into the Earth which was the first matter of it so according to some kind of Analogy thereunto and so far as the Soul is capable of a like return unto God the Soul returns to God that gave it as having been the immediate Original of it not materially as a Spark is out of the Fire but as the immediate Efficient It came from God by way of Gift God gave it that is freely and voluntarily produced it by a sole single free Act of his Will and Power whereby he created it out of nothing and so in the whole of it it was an entire and meer Gift of his And therefore in the beginning of his Exhortation verse 1 of this Chap. he had aforehand laid this as a Foundation for it Remember thy Creator or Creators and is so stiled because he is in a more special manner thy Creator than of our Bodies or of other Creatures and that because himself
redeemeth thy Life from Destruction there is Salvation from Sin and Hell the privative part Who crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender Mercies over and above deliverance and satisfieth thy mouth with good things there you see also is the positive part You might observe the very same in this 49. Psalm Thou shalt redeem me c. and Thou shalt receive me By all that hath been spoken although you are saved from it yet look down into Hell a little as it hath been set out to you And think with your selves Hath God delivered me from so great a Death and given me such a deliverance as this from a death so dreadful and eternal also How would the Devils and Spirits in Prison prize an escape and deliverance from Wrath present and to come if they could be supposed capable thereof yea if they had no more A Nobleman or Favourite that hath run into great and high Treasons to have but meer Life given him how would he value it though he never saw the Court more nor were never restored unto his Estate and Dignities had he but wherewithal to live If a Man were in danger to be drowned and a Rope were thrown him and a Crown and bidden take his choice with promise Thou shalt be King of all the World if thou come to shore safe with the Crown on thy Head of the two he would in this case take hold of the Rope and refuse the Crown And why because it is Salvation and his Life But for a Man to be both wasted safe to shore and then arriving there to have this Crown besides how great Salvation would this be valued stupendous Grace and Love These things the Saints should consider chiefly unto two ends and purposes 1. To be thankful to God and Christ 2. To comfort their own Souls I. To be thankful both to God and Christ 1. To God the Father It was his part to contrive the whole design of our Salvation to the end to set forth his Love to us And the Scripture spreads afore us the Love of the Father herein upon this double consideration 1. That he appointed us not to Wrath which otherwise we should have in the issue and execution by reason of Sin fallen under 2. That he ordained us to Salvation You have an express Scripture for both these setting forth the Love of God the Father hereby 1 Thess 5. 9. God hath not appointed us to Wrath but to obtain Salvation Here are first two parts of the Mercy vouchsafed 1. Deliverance from Wrath. 2. Salvation Then the Love of the Father in his not appointing us to Wrath and so not to leave us under it as well as appointing us to Salvation and both as appointments of God the one as well as the other And then in the second Epistle chap. 2. ver 13. he provokes them unto thankfulness for this But we are bound to give thanks always unto God for you who hath from the beginning chosen you unto Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth which he speaks with reference to what was done to others ver 12. compared Let me speak to you then in the Apostles Language Oh what thanks are your selves then bound if the Apostle gave them for others to give unto God for your selves to whom God hath given Faith and Holiness upon both these respects 2. To Jesus Christ for that hand which he had in this our Deliverance from Wrath thus expresly 1 Thess 1. ult Ye wait for his Son from Heaven even Jesus who delivered us from the Wrath to come Here again you have these two parts of Salvation set together 1. His coming from Heaven which they waited for with hopes of his carrying them thither as he tells them chap. 4. ver 17. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Then 2. which the Apostle adds with an Emphasis even Jesus who delivered us from the Wrath to come Take in that too says he and forget it not to endear your Jesus to you and for ever know him by this Character It is that Jesus who delivered you from the VVrath to come It was the Fathers work indeed to appoint and ordain this Deliverance and us unto the benefit of it through Faith but it was our Jesus his Son's work to effect and accomplish it 't was his Soul that paid for all And the manner or way how he delivered us from this Wrath heightens this his Love yet more for he delivered us from it by being made himself a Curse for us Gal. 3. 23. The second thing I propounded was To comfort your Souls in the consideration of this Salvation and Deliverance Thus Christ Psal 16. 9 10. for his deliverance Therefore my Heart is glad my Flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell thou wilt shew me the path of Life c. And David in the 49. Psalm which led on to this doth comfort himself also ver 15. when of wicked Men he had said Like Sheep they are put into Hell as some read it Death shall feed on them He then for his own particular comforts himself with this But God shall redeem my Soul from the power of Hell for he shall receive me And the Apostle to the Thessalonians epist 1. chap. 5. having ver 9. set before them as was afore opened that God had not appointed them to Wrath but to obtain Salvation he subjoins ver 11. Wherefore comfort your selves together FINIS An Immediate STATE OF GLORY FOR THE Spirits of Just Men upon Dissolution DEMONSTRATED BY THO. GOODWIN D. D. LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1680. 2 COR. 5. 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit THere is no Point of more moment to All nor of greater Comfort to Saints than what shall become of their Souls when they die 'T is our next Stage and things that are next use more to affect us And besides it is the beginning and a taking possession of our Eternity That these words should aim at this self-same thing cannot be discerned without consulting the fore-going part of the Apostle's Discourse and yet I cannot be large in bringing down the Coherence having pitched upon what this fifth Verse contributes unto this Argument which alone will require more than this time allotted having also very largely gone through the Exposition of the foregoing verses elsewhere and I now go but on where I left last But yet to make way for the understanding the Scope of my Text take The Coherence in brief thus In the 16th Verse of the fore-going Chapter where the Well-head of his Discourse is to be found he shews the extraordinary Care God hath of our inward Man to renew it day by day where Inward Man is strictly the Soul with its
contradict He that believeth hath eternal life c. and shall never no not for Joh. 9. 51. 11. 26. a moment die and in those Promises it is not simply a sluggish Immortality but to live and act and enjoy God which is our life must needs be meant Or we must on the other side affirm That the life of Faith ceasing and God yet having that way wrought all that ever he intendeth That then Sight of God face to face must come in its place which indeed the Apostle in that 1 Cor. 13. affirms in saying ver 10. When that which is perfect is come then that which is but in part is done away There is not an utter ceasing of the imperfect and then an interval or long space of time to come between and then that which is perfect is to come but the imperfect is done away by the very coming of that which is thus perfect And in the 12th Verse he explains himself That the imperfect is this our seeing Now in a glass darkly that is by Faith and that perfect to be that seeing God face to face as that which presently entertains us in that other world Nay the Apostle admits not so much as a moment of cessation but sayes That the imperfect is done away ver 10. and vanisheth as ver 8. by the coming in of the perfect upon it and so the imperfect namely Faith is swallowed up of the perfect namely Sight And then further if we thus grant as we must this separate Soul to have this sight or nothing now left it to enjoy God any way by Then it can be no other than Glory it is admitted unto For the sight of God face to face and to know as we are known is the very essence of Glory as it differs from Faith Neither is that ultimate Enjoyment or happiness in God which Souls shall have after the Resurrection any other in Name or Thing than the sight of God as it is thus distinguished from Faith although it shall be then raised and intended unto far higher degrees of Perfection § And for a Conclusion of this first Point that which follows in that place lately cited out of 1 Pet. 1. 9. Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls may as fitly serve for the confirmation of all these latter fore-going Notions as to any other sense Interpreters have affixed I am aware how these words Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls are interpreted of that joy unspeakable and full of glory which the Verse afore had spoken that many Saints through believing do in this life enjoy as being salvation imperfect and the earnest of it in the same kind and so a part of the Reward of Faith received in hand as we say or aforehand and vouchsafed over and above the ordinary way of living by Faith This interpretation I no way gainsay nor will go about to exclude for I know it doth consist with that other I am about to give and is subordinate to it And I have learned to take the most comprehensive sence the holy Ghost may be supposed to aim at in any Scripture But if this sence should directly alone obtain yet by consequence and at the rebound it doth strongly argue the Point in hand For if whilst Faith continues God is pleased to vouchsafe the Soul through believing such joys much more when Faith ceaseth he will vouchsafe the same Soul a fuller enjoyment of himself at the ending of Faith For why else are these present joys termed Salvation and that as distinct from that right to salvation which otherwise Faith at all times estates us into but for this that these joys are an entrance into and a taking possession of Glory over and above what ordinarily Faith giveth And therefore they have the name given them as being the earnest of the same kind unto that greater fum is to be paid as in all Contracts it useth to be at the end of that performance on one part which end is when Faith ends And so that is made the set Date or time when this full payment is to begin which this earnest aforehand bindeth God unto And it were hard to suppose that God would give such a part of these joys even whilst Faith continues for so long a time as until the Resurrection and then withdraw all communication of himself both in Joy and Faith also But I leave the prosecution of this Argument till I come to those words Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit I also know that by this phrase The salvation of our souls the Soul being the eminent part of man is often in Scripture by a Synecdoche put for the whole person And I must not deny but that ultimately it is intended here it extending it self to the whole of Salvation first and last after Faith ended Which sense on the other hand many interpreters are for I only contend for this That the salvation of the soul is intended also of that Salvation which falls out in the midst between these joys the earnest in this life and that ultimate Salvation at the Resurrection that is the Salvation of the Soul whilst separate as being the next It hath a weight in it that Salvation and Damnation should so often be said to be of the soul by Christ himself as Mat. 26. 16. What shall it profit a Man to gain the whole World and so provide for his body and lose his own Soul And again in speaking of the Soul as considered apart from the Body Mat. 10. 28. Fear not them that are able to kill but the body and are not able to kill the soul But that which is more conjunct to my purpose it is observable that this our Apostle Peter should choose to use in this Epistle more than any other Apostle this phrase of Soul in relation to Salvation either as being the eminent subject and sometimes as the single subject both of Grace and Salvation So in this Chapter You have purified your souls c. as the immediate susceptive of the incorruptible seed as was observed Then again in chap. 2. 11. Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the Soul and 8. 25. Ye are returned to the Bishop of your Souls Which he speaks as being the eminent part and upon separation from the body the special charge he hath pastoral care of And more directly to our purpose ch 4. last v. he exhorts them when they come to die to commit their souls to God as then being to be separate from their bodies Now it were hard to think that this Salvation to come should bear the title and name of the salvation of the soul in this and other Scriptures and Heb. 10. v. last Jam. 5. v. last that yet when this Soul shall in the other World come to subsist for a long time single and alone and then be properly and without figure A meer soul without a
which he had on Earth then God alone becomes his Happiness in Heaven But this only in general shews what God is and will be to a Soul in this condition §. But I having undertaken to proceed by way of congruity I must further more particularly shew how in a correspondency to this inward and outward state of this Soul he shews himself God and how meet and becoming a thing it is for God to receive it into Glory upon the consideration of many Relations which he professedly beareth to such a Soul 1. God is a Spirit and thereupon in a special manner as Wisd 11. 26. The Lord is a lover of Souls above all his other Creation So it is there Thou art merciful to all because they are thine O Lord thou lover of Souls God is a Spirit when therefore this naked and withal sublimated Spirit by its being born again by his own Spirit and so assimulated to God himself a pure Spark now freed and severed from its Dust and Ashes flying up or is carried rather by Spirits the Angles out of their like spiritual Love to Luke 26. 22. Heb. 1. ult it as a Spirit unto that great Spirit that element of Spirits it will surely find union and coalition with him and be taken up unto him for if as Christ speaks John 4. 23. God being a Spirit therefore seeks for such as worship in Spirit and Truth that is he loves delights in such as a Man doth in a Companion or Friend who suits him And doth God seek for such whilst they are on Earth Then surely when such Spirits shall come to him and have such a grand occasion and indeed the first occasion in such an immediate way to appear before him in such a manner and upon such a change as this as they never did before these Spirits also having been the Seat the inner Temple of all this spiritual Worship and sanctifying of him in this World surely God who sought such afore will now take them into his Bosom and Glory We also read Isa 57. 16 17. of the regard he bears to Persons of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive them upon this superadded consideration that they are Souls and Spirit and so thereby allied to him the lofty One. Hear how in this case he utters himself The Spirit would fail afore me says he and the Souls which I have made He speaks of their very Souls properly and respectively considered And them it is which he considering and it moves him unto pity for he speaks of that in Man whereof God is in a peculiar manner the Maker or Creator The Spirit which I have made says he and it is one of the eminent Titles he takes into his Coat The framer of the Spirit of Man within him Zech. 1. 12. as in many other places This is argued also in that he speaketh of that in Man which is the subject sensible of his immediate Wrath. I will not contend for ever nor Child of Light walking in Darkness will I be always Wrath. This I have observed in what is publick of mine Now what moves him to remove his Wrath from such an one The Spirit would fail says he Now doth God thus profess to have a regard to them in this Life and that upon this account that they are Spirits lest they should fail or faint and shall we not think that when indeed otherwise they do fail as after Death you have heard even now Christ himself expresseth they would and would upon all these considerations before-mentioned sink into utter desolation unless they were received into everlasting Habitations as Christ there also speaks Do we think that God will not now entertain them The time is now come the full time to have pity on them 2. God at this season forgets not but full well remembers his Relation of being Their Creatour both by the new and also first Creation the new reviving and ingratiating the remembrance of the first The Souls which I have made said he in Esa But in St. Peter this is more express and mentioned as that which indeed moves God and should be accordingly a support to our Faith to take care of our Souls when we come to die even upon this account that he is the faithful Creatour of them 1 Pet. 4. last Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the Keeping of their Souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator He speaks this specially unto such as were continually exposed unto persecution unto death for Christ in those Primitive times which therefore v. 12. he terms the fiery trial and ver 17. forewarns them of a time of judgment was begun and going on upon the of house God such as they had not yet felt who yet Heb. 10. 32 33 34. had suffered reproach and spoyling of their Goods as Peter writes to the same Jews hereupon Peter pertinently instructs them to commit the keeping of their Souls unto God At death you know it is that when Mens bodies are destroyed and so the season when their Souls to be separated therefrom should be committed to God's care as our Darling as our Translation or lovely Soul when separate Psal 22. See Ainsw as others as Christ in David speaks Ps 22. And Peter had in his eye Christ's example and pointed them thereunto who at his death committed his separate Soul or Spirit into the hands of God Luk. 23. 46. and the word commit is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the same in both these places onely there is this difference that whereas Christ sayes Father I commit Peter substitutes another title of God's there being more than one Relation moving God and strengthening our Faith to this even of faithful Creatour And I understand not the first Creation onely or chiefly here meant by Peter but the second Creation chiefly which brings into repute and acceptation with God the first again together with its own and so God is thereupon engaged to be faithful in his care and provision for such Souls according to his promises And faithfulness doth always respect and refer unto Promises and my reason why thus I understand it is because I find God's faithfulnesse still annexed unto his calling of us that is converting us which is all one with this new Creation Faithful is he that hath called you that is made you new Creatures 1 Cor. 1. 9. 1 Thes 5. 24. And I find that David also urges it upon God as a motive as in other Psalms So Ps 138. 8. Forsake not the works of thine own hands that is this double workmanship of thine of the first and then superadded unto that of the second creation which he urgeth thereby to move him to perfect the work begun and to be merciful unto him for ever in the former part of that verse 3. God professeth himself the Father of Spirits which relation though it speaks his being the Creatour of them at the
first yet hath something more of bowels in it it sayes withal something further when it falls out that such Spirits as he is a Father unto by the first creation are also the subjects of His eternal Love by Grace and Election unto the Adoption of Children as Eph. 1. 3 4 5. see the words Which Love having accordingly taken hold of their Souls by a work of Grace wrought upon them in this life thereby owning them as his in this case that God that is a Father of their Spirits by the Law of the first creation is in a more transcendent manner become the Father of the same Spirits by Grace and the second Creation superadded Hence it falls out in a parallel way that as it was said such Souls were become Spirit upon a double account that is Spirits for the substance of their being and again Spirit by being born again of the Spirit so answerably it is that God stands in relation unto them as a Father of their Spirits upon the like double respect And this is equitable upon a very great account for his relation of Father is more eminent to his Grace by Election and then again by the grace of his second Creation than it could be any way supposed to be by the first Creation And therefore is set and pitcht in like singularity and eminency upon the same object that is their Spirits And hence it may well yea must be supposed and acknowledged That if God did make such a Darling of the Soul such an account of it by creation as to entitle himself so specially the Father thereof then certainly this love of Grace much more hath in like equipage taken up the same gracious special relation in its kind of Father thereunto not only because Nature shall never be found to exceed Grace in its favours but that indeed the motives are far greater that God should extend the like and greater priviledges where he meant to love by Election and Choice than he did where he loved only by a due and meet Law of Creation So that when God shall profess himself a Father to their Spirits speaking to such as are his Elect he strongly insinuateth thereby That he is by Grace likewise the Father of their Spirits in a peculiar manner And truly that speech of our Saviour at his death confirms it Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit It was not barely as a Father of his Spirit by creation as you all know but by everlasting Love and so in that respect also in a peculiar manner the Father of his Spirit and therefore as to a Father he commends his separate Spirit unto him And this he did although he was to rise again in less than three whole dayes space Now we read Heb. 12. 12. the Apostle to hold forth this very relation of God's being a Father of Spirits with this promise thereunto annexed That they should live which relation of Father c. although it be there explicitely spoken in respect of their first Creation which is common unto the Saints with others yet being uttered of and unto Men in the state of Grace as those were supposed whom he there exhorteth and that to move them to be subject unto him as such with promise that they should live it evidently respecteth not meerly the relation of Father in respect of what was past the act of creating them but it looketh to the future That they depended upon him as Children do upon Fathers for their future livelihood so these for to live in him and with him as a Father to their Spirits by Grace For I take hold of that Word and live this Life is well interpreted by ver 14. They shall see God that is be glorified and so I conclude all thus That if he would have them be subject unto God in holiness as upon that relation as unto the Father of Spirits with this promise That they should live then surely one special aim of the Promise is answerable and hath this Eye That God as a Father of their Spirits will therefore take care of their Spirits singly and so when separate that they shall live And that accordingly he will give demonstration of this special relation born to their Spirits when the occasion shall be considered apart in bestowing this Life on them and truly when is it more proper for him to shew himself as a Father than when their Souls after their subjection to him in Holiness here accomplished and when that as naked Spirits they come to stand in need and stand afore him in his Presence being now turned out of house and home and quite cashered out of this World and come stript and naked of all but Holiness unto their Father for it is said They return to God that gave them who proves to be their Father by Grace And doubt not of it but he will certainly then own them and give them a Father's Blessing and not reject them as if they were but Bastards and no Children as that Chapter to the Hebrews speaks but as Spirits who as Sons have served him and been subject to him Add to this Fourthly God his being our God which is more home to the Demonstration of this Point than all the former The Text says He that wrought us for this is God I add he is your God And this alone if we will take the Scriptures verdict will carry it and loe as he is styled The Father of Spirits in common and yet withal a Father of their Spirits out of special Love So in like manner he is styled both The God of the Spirits of all Flesh that is of Man Numb 16. 22. Job 12. 20. thus in common and also to his Elect I am your God by Grace And these two Relations God and Father are commensurate and exactly parallel whether they be applied unto all Men in common or to the Elect in special he is termed The God of the Spirits and likewise The Father of the Spirits of all Men So in common answerably he is your God and your Father by special Grace to his Elect both which in this latter respect you find yoked hand in hand Joh. 20. 17. Look how far he is a God of the one so far a Father also extendeth in the other And look how far that he is our God so far reacheth also that he is our Father If therefore the God of our Spirits to provide for them because he is our God then answerably the Father of our Spirits in the like peculiarness because our Father And so the proof of this fourth Particular will add further strength and confirmation to that we presented in the former Now that his being our God which is the substance of the Covenant of Grace doth engage him to provide Glory for separate Souls That one instance of Abraham The Father of the faithful and we all his Sons personated in him is a sufficient evidence God did profess himself The God