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
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
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
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
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
Graces set in opposition unto our Outward Man the Body with its Appurtenances which he saith daily perisheth that is is in a mouldring and decaying condition Chap. 5. ver 1. For we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens In this first verse of this fifth Chapter he meets with this Supposition But what if this outward Man or earthly Tabernacle be wholly dissolved and pull'd down what then shall become of this inner Man And he resolves it thus That if it be dissolved we have an House a Building of God in the Heavens And what is the We but this inner Man he had spoken of renewed Souls which dwell now in the Body as in a Tabernacle as the Inmates that can subsist without it And it is as if he had said If this inward Man be destituted of one House we have another God that in this Life was so careful over this inner Man to renew it every day hath made another more ample provision against this great Change It is but its removing from one House to a better which God hath built As your selves to speak in your own Language if Wars should beset you and your Country-House were plundered and pull'd down you would comfort your selves with this I have yet a City-House to retire unto Neither is the terming the Glory of Heaven and that as it is bestowed upon a separate Soul an House alien from the Scripture-Phrase Luke 16. 9. That when you fail they may receive you into everlasting Habitations Death is a Failing 't is your City-Phrase also when a Man proves Bankrupt a Statute of Bankrupts comes forth then upon your old House Statutum est omnibus semel mori and upon all you have and then it is a receiving or entertaining that otherwise desolate Soul into everlasting Habitations that is into an House eternal in the Heavens as the Text. Nor yet is the Phrase of terming Heaven a City-House remote neither for Heb. 11. 13. Abraham and the Patriarchs died in Faith Mark that In Faith or Expectation of what He had told us ver 10. He looked for a City whose Builder is God What is a City but an Aggregation and Heap of Houses and Inhabitants Multitudes had died afore Abraham and gone to Heaven from Adam Abel Seth downwards and God promiseth him Peace at his Death and a being gathered to those Fathers Gen. 15. 15. There was then a City built and already replenish'd with Inhabitants and amongst others an House provided for him that is his Soul built of God and ready furnished against this Removal Verse 2. For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our House which is from Heaven In this Verse he utters the working of the Affections of Christians towards their being cloathed upon with this House and so in order to this enjoiment of it their desiring even to be dissolved which Paul also utters of himself Phil. 1. Now if the first Verse speaks of the Glory of a separate Soul when he calls it an House this second verse must intend the same Verse 3. If so be that being cloathed we shall not be found naked In this Verse he gives an wholesom Caution by the way and withal insinuates why he used the word cloathed upon in the fore-going Verse thus speaking of the Glory of such a separate Soul even because it is absolutely necessary that all our Souls be found cloathed first and renewed with Grace and Holiness and not be found naked at our Deaths that is not devoid of Grace and so exposed to Shame and Wrath as Rev. 16. 15. Verse 4. For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life The fourth Verse gives a genuine and sincere Account why a Christian doth thus groan and that after dissolution it self in order to this Glory which he sets out with an accurate distinction of their desires of dissolution in difference from like desires in all other Men First Negatively not for that being burthened we desire to be uncloathed or dissolved that is simply for ease of those Burthens nor out of a despising of our Bodies we now wear as their Heathen Wise-men and Philosophers did and others do No. But secondly Positively For this as the top-ground of that Desire That we would be cloathed upon with that House spoken of Verse 1. and that still taken in the Sence spoken of in the second Verse to the end that this mortal animal Life which the Soul tho immortal in it self now leads in the Body full of Sins clogg'd with a Body of Death and Miseries each of which hath a Death in it and so it lives but a dying Life that this Life may be exchanged yea swallowed up by that which is Life indeed the only true Life the knowing God as we are known and enjoying him All which as to our Souls is truly performed at our Dissolution although the final swallowing up the Mortality of our Bodies also doth yet remain to be accomplished which will be done at the latter day at that Change both of Body and Soul tho in respect of the Body it will be compleated as then more fully This Interpretation and the suting of all the Phrases used in this 4th Verse to hold good of this Exchange at Death I cannot through straitness of time give an account of now I have lately and very largely done it elsewhere This for the Coherence I hasten to my Text. TEXT Verse 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit THe Current of the four former Verses running thus steadily along in this Chanel the Stream in this Verse continues still the same There is one word in this Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this self-same thing God hath wrought us which serves us as a Clue of Thread drawn through the Windings of the former Verses to shew us that one and the same Individual Glory hath been carried on all along and still is in this Verse also So then we see where we are What this self-same thing should be ask the first Verse and it will tell you it is that House eternal in the Heavens a Building of God prepared by him against the time that this earthly House is dissolved Ask the second Verse it is the same House we groan to be cloathed upon with when the other is pulled down Ask the fourth Verse and more plainly It is that Life which succeeds this mortal Life the Soul now lives in this Body and swallows up all the Infirmities thereof And then here it follows Even for this self-same thing c. So then if the Glory of the separate Soul be the Subject of any of these Verses then of all and so of this Verse
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
great Reward And so we come to connect this fifth Head with the foregoing Gen. 15. 1. And therefore if the being his God moved him to prepare that City against his death as hath been said then surely his being his Reward doth also then take place I shall not omit it because it falls in the next Chapter Heb. 12. 23. that in that stupendious Assembly of Heaven God the Judge of all is mentioned between the Church of the first-born which are written in Heaven this afore and the Spirits of justified Men made perfect this after it For there are none of these First-born or the Spirits of just Men do come to sit down there but they pass the award of this Judge first for they sit down by him and surely having done all their Work in the time of that day is allotted to each man to work in it is a righteous thing with God to give them a Reward in the evening of this day which is Christ's time set for rewarding and it is the twelfth and last hour succeeding the eleventh of the day Matth. 20. 6 9. See Brugensis Maldonat c. Lev. 19. 13. compared which is when the night of death comes Now there is a Law given by God that the wages to a man hired should be given him by him that set him awork in his day that is says the Septuagint the very same day so as his Work or the wages of his Work abide not with thee all the night until the morning Deut. 24. 15. says God Deut. 24. 15. Did God take care for hirelings when their Work was done not to stay any space of time no not a night and doth he not fulfil this himself unto his Sons that serve him Surely yes he defers not nor puts them off to the morning of the Resurrection as the Psalmist elegantly calls it Psal 17. last It abides not with him all that dark and longsome night or space after death in which their bodies rest in the grave which is termed Man's long home and Eccles 12. 5. The days of darkness are many says Solomon No he rewards them in the evening of the day besides what he will add to it in the morning It is observable that Rev. 6. 9 10. concerning the separate Souls slain for Christ that whilst they cry for Justice on their enemies only And when he had opened the fifth Seal I saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony which they held and they cryed with a loud voice saying How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth that they had white robes given them to quiet them in the mean time ver 11. And white Robes were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season till they heard that vengeance also was executed on that Roman Empire for their blood shed And thus to deal is a righteous thing with God Thus you have seen the Point confirmed from all sorts of relations that God bears unto us by congruous Reasons that so it becometh God the great God to do He that hath wrought us for this thing is God And so much for this first Branch of this second Doctrine §. The II. Branch of the second Doctrine That there is a glorious Contrivement and Workmanship carried on in this Dispensation of his like unto the great God indeed This carries on this Point yet higher For it is not onely an Ordination becoming God upon the respects mentioned but there is an Artifice a Workmanship in it such as he useth to shew in his Works of Wonder even in this That he should work upon Men's Souls in this life and then bring them into a Glory he had in the mean space been a working also for those their Souls This is the great God indeed When God secretly bestows Cost and Curiosity in preparing matters for such or such an end and then again as hiddenly hath laid out a greater Art Skill and Workmanship upon that end it self and then hath exactly suited and matched the one to the other when All comes to be finish'd and both wrought and brought together then will an infinite surpassing Glory arise unto God out of all which deserveth to have this Notoriety that is here put upon it He that hath wrought this for that Is GOD and lo this is found here which is demonstrated if we view 1. Each of these Workmanships singly and apart 2. Joyntly as designed and fitted each to the other §. 1. Each singly If there were no such ordination of the one for the other yet so considered they deserve to have each an He that hath wrought this is God to be written under it 1. For his Artifice in working us in this life Learned Cameron hath but one In his Myrothecium Note upon this whole fifth Chapter and and it falls to be upon this very Word who hath wrought and it is this This word says he as used by the Septuagint signifies Rem expolire rudem informem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To polish a thing that is rude and without fashion for which he gives instance out of Exod. 35. 33. in Bezaleel's work whom as the 31 32 verses speak of him God had filled with his Spirit in all Wisdom in all Workmanship to devise cunning Work And again the same word is used of the Temple-work that other was for Mose's Tabernacle 1 King 6. 36. by Solomon which how transcendent a structure it was you have all read or heard An infinitely surpassing Art then hath the Spirit himself who is the immediate worker in this shewn in the framing and hewing and curiously carving and engraving those living Stones that grow up into a Temple unto God 1 Pet. 2. 5. especially considering the utter remoteness indisposedness yea crookedness and perverseness in the matter wrought upon our souls fill'd with the contrary form and workmanship of Satan Ye are his workmanship says the Apostle Eph. 2. 10. And truly if we could enlarge upon all the varieties of dealings God useth to each Soul to work it the several sorts of gracious dispositions he impresseth and carveth upon it the manifold actings of every Soul drawn forth by him you may take a view of some in the very next chapter to that of my Text 2 Cor. 6. from the 4. ver In much Patience in Afflictions in Necessities in Distresses v. 5. In Stripes in Imprisonments in Tumults in Labours in Watching in Fastings ver 6. By Pureness by Knowledge by Long-suffering by Kindness by the Holy Ghost by Love unfeigned ver 7. By the Word of Truth by the Power of God by the Armour of Righteousness on the right-hand and on the left ver 8. By Honour and dishonour by evil Report and good Report as deceivers and yet true ver 9.