divine essence is an arbitrary and voluntary glass manifesting all mysteries not by necessity but according to the freedom of his own will there the Saints may read to the full the Mystery of the blessed Trinity how three in one and one in three Father Son and Holy Ghost God blessed for ever That thrice glorious and till we come to Heaven not to be fathomed Mystery the wonder and adoration of the believing world that immense ocean over which so many daring Spirits having essayed to fly have fallen in and been drowned that burning light unto which so many presuming to approach too near have scorcht their wings and lost both their eyes and themselves together that sacred Ark into which too many presumptuous Bethshemites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having dared over boldly to look have been smitten What is essence And what is person And how they differ How the Father begets and the Son is begotten and how the Holy Ghost proceeds from both how they are distinguished by their order their personal properties and manner of working upon the Creature how the Father worketh from himself the Son worketh from the Father and the Holy Ghost worketh both from the Father and the Son How there should be alius alius and not aliud aliud c. These will be Lectures which shall be read in the Trinity it self in glory and that in a most clear and intelligible notion then shall the Saints be able to understand the mystery of the incarnation of the second Person the Son of God that Mystery of Godliness of Godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 because it transforms sinners into Saints and mystery because it containeth so many deep and mysterious wonders in it The blessed blessed-making Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God our Lord Jesus Christ scil Why the second Person in Trinity rather than the first or third should be incarnate Why he should take the nature of man rather than the nature of Angels and that when it was at the worst how he could take the nature of sinful man and yet not take the sinfulness of his nature the Hypostatical union between the divine and humane natures in the Lord Jesus in one person how there should be there aliud aliud and yet not alius alius That mysterious union between the Lord Christ the Head and all Believers the true Members of his body what it is and how they are made one with Christ as the Father and the Son are one this precious Mystery I say shall then be made manifest Jehn 14.20 at that day you shall know both what it is and how it is that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you c. then and not till then How he that is every where filling Heaven and Earth with his presence should yet be included in the narrow limits of a Virgins womb How he that made the Law should be made under the Law How the Ancient of dayes should become an Infant of moments How he that was begot before all time should be born in the fulness of time Ephes 3.10 How a Virgin and yet a Mother These and a thousand difficulties more wherein doth meet that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multiform multivarious wisdom of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 1.12 Ephes 3.10 as lines in a center where into the very Angels desire to peep and for some imperfect discoveries whereof they are glad to be beholding to the Lectures read in the Churches by their * Hoc vâ—rd nostra altior no titis praedicatur quam Anclorum tan 〈◊〉 intelligit Petrus ea nobu promitti quorum complementum videre cupiunt Cal. in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alludit ad propuiatorii formam c. Jam tum indicante figurâ fore ut in Christo cujus typur erat arca omnes sapientiae intelligentiae insiderent thesauri per Evangelii praedicationâ—m patesaciendi avidâ— ipsis Angelâ— beatâ— totum hoc mysterium cognoscare cujus etiam exhibitionem jam inde ab ipâ—is Christi noscentu incunabilu ecclesiae enarrâ—rant Beza in loc earthly Angels the Ministers of the Gospel these I say shall be clearly read and understood in that original wisdom wherein they were first conceived That profound and dark Mystery of Election and Reprobation why God should chuse one and leave another Why God should love Jacob and hate Esau Why the one should become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why first the Jews should be a Church and the Gentiles Aliens should afterward be adopted into the Covenant and the Jews broken off and cast out That God should break open the heart of a rebellious sinner by efficacious Grace and deny sufficient aid to one that hath improved his present strength far better With all other the dark profound Mysteries of Gods Decrees shall then be made glasses And lastly That mystery of wickedness and abominations and why God hath suffered him so long to reign and to usurp so great a part of Christs purchased and promised possessions with all his witchcrafts and sorceries whereby he hath deceived the Nations they shall all be discovered and brought to light to his eternal shame and confusion That God should shine out only upon some few spots of ground with the light of the Gospel and shut up the rest in palpable darkness The Creation of the World shall then be more clearly understood in the cause than now it is in the effect how all things were made out of the first matter and that out of nothing Rev. 13 10 14.12 Those hard mysteries of providence which do now try and exercise the faith and patience of the Saints scil Why they that are best should speed worst That there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked and again That there be wicked men Eccl 8.14 unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous In so much that now we call the proud happy Mal. 3.15 and they that work wickedness are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered Why the worse cause should many times have the better success Why God should suffer his dearest Children to be abused and insulted over when wickedness in the mean while triuÌ„mphs securely Why wickedness should be set up in high places and innocence should be trod under foot Somewhat of these Riddles the Word doth now interpret unto the Saints blessed be God to command their silence and submission to God but then shall they return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not all this will be then seen in God to infinite satisfaction The grand Article of the Faith The Resurrection of the dead being then already past shall be fully understood how the body after thousands of years in some through unutterable varieties of mutations and vast
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by a reprobate world even as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things the scraping of their Shooes or the common Town-Dung-cart into which every one cast's their soil and draught I say though the Saints of God are thus base and contemptible in the opinion of the ignorant World yet they have another rate and value set upon them in Heaven Heb. 11.6 Heb. 2.11 Cant. 4.8.11 Rev. 21.9 God is not ashamed to be called their God nor Christ ashamed to call them Brethren Yea he dignifies them with the stile of his Spouse the Bride the Lambs Wife and all this upon the account of that admirable and inconceivable Vnion which is between Christ and them that spiritual real operative inriching total intimous and indissoluble Vnion by vertue whereof 1 Cor. 6.17.15.19 they are in Christ and Christ in them as to their more divine part their Soul 's one spirit with the Lord and even as to their terrene and corruptive part their Bodies Members of Christ and Temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in yea saith my Text their very dust is United to Christ They sleep in Jesus Such Honour have all his Saints How should the sense of it engage them to Honour Christ Third Use who hath put so great honour upon them yea to honour themselves whom Christ hath so highly honoured to stand upon their advancement and not to prophane themselves by any thing that is common or unclean or upon the least account unsutable to their glorious Union with Jesus Christ but to possess their Vessels in Sanctification and Honour 1 Thes 4.4 as under an holy awe of that tremendous Sentence If any man defile the Temple of God 1 Cor. 3.17 him will God destroy Surely the thought of so near and intimate an Union with the Son of God should make sin become an impossibility Upon all the Adulterous solicitations of the Flesh World or Satan to make holy Joseph's quick reply How can I do this great Wickedness and sin against my Vnion with Jesus Christ Fourthly Fourth Use And oh that such as have for many years together Exhortation to such as are yet out of Christ sitten under the Ministry of the Gospel of Christ and to this day are altogether strangers to this blessed Union with Christ would now with all seriousness and holy contention apply themselves to know it and to know it experimentally that they would with holy Paul account all things loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledg of Jesus Christ Phil. 3.8 9 even this that they may be found in him to know him with interest to know him in this mysterious and beatifical Vnion Christ in them and they in Christ This only is the saving knowledg of Jesus Christ to be able to make out our Conjunction with him upon Scripture-evidence Alas this is the undoing Mistake of thousands that are called Christians they know somewhat of the History of Christ they have some notions of a Christ in their heads but this is the precipice upon which they ruine themselves They think to be saved by a Christ without them they hang upon the outside of the Ark they live upon bare notions The Son of God took our nature upon him died for sins rose again James 1.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is gon up into Heaven and sits at God's right hand and therefore conclude they shall be saved Oh but what a paralogism and fallacy do they put upon their own Souls They put more into the Conclusion then there is in the Premisses while they leave out this great and indispensible medium of Vnion and Conjunction with Jesus Christ without which a Christ and no Christ is all one Men and Women generally take Faith to be nothing else but a loose conjectural application of Christ and his Merits to themselves not considering that the great saving Office of Faith is To unite the Soul to Jesus Christ Eph. 3.17 It is true there is no Condemnation but it is only to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom 8.1 Christ is the hope of Salvation it is true I but it is not simply Christ in the Womb of the Virgin not simply Christ on the Cross not Christ in the Grave no not alone Christ on the Throne but saith the Apostle Christ in you the hope of Glory Colos 1.27 It were an easie thing to be saved if a Christ without us were all and I know no reason why reprobate men and Devils might not get to Heaven on such terms No but as there is no other name under Heaven Acts 4.12 given amongst men whereby we must be saved but the Name of Jesus Christ i. e. his merit and influence So there is no other medium whereby that merit and influence can be effectually applied to the Soul but only this spiritual real operative enriching intimous total and inseparable Union with Jesus Christ Christ must be in us by his Spirit and we must be in Christ by Faith or else our persons and our hope as to the present state are both reprobate 2 Cor. 13.15 Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 3.22 23. All is yours if you be Christ's as Christ is God's Appear before God's Tribunal in the great day Math. 7.21 22 23. Luk. 13.26.27 without this Vnion and plead what you will your answer will be I never knew you depart from me c. Believe this Oh all you carnal Christ-less Christians and tremble and swim no longer down the stream of Security lest it empty you forth into the Lake of Perdition but work out your Salvation with Fear and Trembling and give all diligence to make this conjunction with Christ sure to your own Souls Colos 3.3 4. that when He shall appear you may also appear with him in Glory Remember All your true and solid comfort and rejoycing in life in death and at the day of Judgment is all bound up in your Vnion with Jesus Christ Christ in you the hope of Glory Fifthly and Lastly Fourth and last Use Consolation The Doctrine of this glorious Union with Christ is not more for the honour of the living than for the comfort of the dying Saints and of their surviving mourners And for their sakes it is here specially calculated by the Holy Ghost behold this Vnion is not dissolved by death it self though it dissolve the Union between Body and Soul it cannot dissolv◠the Vnion which is between Christ and his Members Hence you find even death it self filling up the Apostle's Triumph What can separate neither life nor death c. Not life for Christ by vertue of this Union is their life Not death for as terrible as it is let death do its worst it cannot dissolve this blessed Vnion Neither life nor death can separate c. Why do ye tremble at the
and shall be filled with horror and astonishment in the certain looking for of Judgment and that siery Inaignation which shall devour the Adversaries and even now already seising upon them For surely this Sight shall be the beginning of their sorrows but of everlasting joys and triumphs to the followers of the Lamb Who now comes in glory to meet them and to receive them to himself Which brings me to the second Meeting mentioned here in the Text c. The Saints meeting with Christ their Head The Saints meeting with Christ Jesus to meet the Lord in the Air. In this Meeting there be three things considerable 1. The Persons meeting 2. The Place where they meet 3. The ends of their meeting 1. The Persons meeting Christ and his Saints He Descends to meet them and they Ascend to meet him Such is the Love and Condescention of the Lord Jesus to his Saints that he cometh out of his Royal Pavilion more than half way to meet them and then sends his Charrets and Horse-men a Guard of Angels to carry them up in the Clouds and to conduct them unto the place where he stayeth for them There shall they be brought into his Royal presence and like a Royal Spouse who hath been long separated from her Bridegroom by distance of place they shall fall down before Him and with Tears of joy shall wash his feet and wipe them dry with the Kisses of their Lips while at the same time Christ will take his Bride up into his Arms and with the Father of the Prodigal fall upon her neck and kiss her and with all the unconceivable expressions of Love and Joy receive her to Himself and bid her welcom into his presence Oh! what Soul can conceive what mutual Joy and Triumph there will be between Jesus Christ and his Saints in this blessed Interview Oh how welcome will the Saints be to the Lord Jesus at that day The Saints under a three-fold Relation when he shall look upon them under a three-fold Relation sc 1. As the Father's Election First The Fathers Election Joh 10.6 Eph 1.18 To see the whole number of names which were given unto him by the Father from all Eternity as the fruit and reward of his Passion now at the last all gathered together and given into his actual possession as an inheritance for ever 2. To look upon them as the Purchase of his own Blood 2. The Sons Purchase If it was a satisfaction to the Lord Jesus when behold he was in the throws and agonies of his Travel with them upon the Cross to see his Seed Isa 53 11. when they were but in the swadling Cloaths of their imperfect Regeneration according to their successive generations wherein they were to be brought into the Church Oh what infinite satisfaction will it now be to the Lord Jesus to see the Travel of his Soul in their perfect and consummate estate all the mixtures of Corruption and Infirmity now deleted and they come to a perfect man to the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ to see them all brought in not a Soul wanting of all those whose names he bare upon his breast while he hung upon the Cross that not one drop of Blood not one Prayer not a Sigh or Groan or Tear that ever he spent for them in the days of his Flesh is lost or fruitless as to any one Soul whom he purchased of the Father Joh. 17.12 In the Pastoral charge of Christ there was one Son of Perdition but in his Mediatory charge not one Soul shall miscarry but all shall be presented to him safe and entire at his appearance And over them shall he glory saying as it were All these are mine the Travel of my Soul the Purchase of my Blood the Fruit of my Agonies for these I was born and for these I was made under the Law For these I Bled Joh. 1â— 24 and for these I made my self an Offering for sin Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me Come near unto me my Sons and my Daughters that I may kiss you Gen. 27.27 See the smell of my Redeemed is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed A Woman when she is in Travel hath sorrow because her hour is come Joh. 16.21 but as soon as she is delivered she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man-Child is born into the World Surely the joy of our Lord will so much transcend the joy of all natural Mothers by how much his agonies were more bitter the birth more precious and his Soul more capacious of higher and purer joyes than are to be sound in the poor narrow Creature 3. When he shall look upon them as the charge and deposisitum of the Holy Ghost Whom the Father did Elect the Son was to purchase and whom the Son purchased the Spirit was to Sanctifie Who therefore is called the Holy-Ghost not only because as the third glorious Person in the blessed Trinity he is essentially holy in himself but because by Office he is a Fountain of Holiness to all the Elect. The Blood of Christ indeed is the Fountain of Merit but the Spirit of Christ the Fountain of operation and efficacy gathering the Elect out of the world wherein they lay in common with the rest of the lost Sons and Daughters of Adam Gal. 5.22 23. planting their Souls with the habits of Grace which are therefore called the Fruits of the Spirit and then acting supporting preserving and ripening those habits into perfection The Father's Election and the Son's Purchase are both perfected by the Sanctification of the Spirit The Father's Election 2 Thes 2.13 so the Apostle tells his Thessalonians God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit The Son's purchase Tit. 3.5 He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost Oh how acceptable then must the Offering up of the Saints be to Jesus Christ because thus Sanctified by the Holy-Ghost And when Christ shall thus present his Redeemed unto Himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but Holy and without blemish How will he rejoyce over her as the Bridegroom over his Bride That day being indeed the Marriage of the Lamb of which anon Rev. 19.7 Thus will the Lord Jesus the King of glory rejoyce to meet the Saints And surely the Saints according to their finite capacity will not less rejoyce and triumph to meet their Lord. Oh! to meet him now whom their Soul loved whom in the days of their Pilgrimage upon Earth they often sought and could not find sought him in Prayer Meditation Conference c. but could not find him and when they could not find him mourned for him lamented after him bedewed their
forward Pardon relateth to a state past already Righteousness to a state future the State of a Sinner for the time to come Now in both these God's design is to declare himself a just God in Remission he declareth himself a just God by pardoning upon the accompt of satisfaction by the justice of God we are to understand the infinite severity of God in punishing sin in a way agreeable to the nature of his justice and this God eminently declareth Pardoning Sin in God is not an Act of mercy only but of Justice as in the Eternal Damnation of the Reprobates in their own persons so even in pardoning the sins of the Elect while he doth not pardon them Justitia nemine intelligatur summa illa Dei in vindicandis peccaris sâ— veritas justissimae ipsius na urae coâ—veniens Bez. in loc but upon the accompt of a valuable consideration namely as in the beginning of the verse of that propitiation or propitiatory Sacrifice which Christ hath made to divine justice by his Blood apprehended by Faith Whether God could not have pardoned sin by absolute Prerogative is an enquiry of an extrinsick consideration to this place since the Text informs us God was resolved to Consult his own Honour as well as the Creatures Happiness in this great Act of jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Placamâ—ntum Beza namely Pardoning of Sin and purposed in Himself as highest reason requireth to pitty Sinners so far as He might not be Cruel to Himself and to shew Mercy to them in such a way as he might not wrong his own glorious Attributes and cast no blemish upon his Law and Government Should God indeed without any further Consideration have meerly Pardoned it might have had the shadow of a Reflection sc 1. Upon his Wisdom as if he had made a Law either so Strict as could not have been kept or so inconsiderable that being broken it was not worth the Vindication Or 2. Upon his All-sufficiency as if he wanted Power to have Chastised the breach of his Holy and Just and Good Law with Condign punishment Or 3. Above all His Veracity and Justice who having presentenced the breach of his Law with Death Death surely answerable to the nature of his Righteous and Eternal Law The Law being now notoriously Violated He should account it a a matter of indifferency whether He executed the threatned Sentence yea or no c. Oh how had this been to have prostituted the honour of His Government to be trampled under foot by bold and presumptuous Sinners Nay but God Pardoning Sin upon no inferiour accompt than the Propitiatory Sacrifice which his own Blessed Son made to Divine Justice by his Death hath born Witness to his High and Glorious Attributes Wisdom Power and Justice c. And hath left such a dreadful Monument of severity in the world as may for ever affright lapsed Sinners from daring God and destroying themselves Thus God is just in not putting up the wrong done to his most glorious Attributes by Sin without either the death of the Sinner according to the Letter or the death of the Surety according to the Equity of the Threatning 2dly As God declareth himself a just God by pardoning upon the accompt of satisfaction so he declares his Justice also in accompting the Sinner Righteous upon the consideration of a positive Righteousness For the better clearing of which point I shall briefly speak of the second accompt viz. Secondly The perfection of the Law And for better understanding of this I shall lay down these following propositions 1. Prop. The first is this The Law which at first God wrote in mans heart and afterward in two Tables of Stone was a Law of a most holy and absolute perfection It must needs be so for if God in his own nature and ends be most Holy his Law also must be so too it being the very Image of Gods Nature and Will So that the Law was a perfect mirrour wherein the perfections of the Divine Nature were made visible and conspicuous 2. Prop. This most perfect Law was given by God for two great Ends sc 1. To be a rule and pattern of Eternal Life and happiness 2. To be a condition of Eternal Life and happiness Do this and Live It was not only a Command but a Covenant with a promise of Eternal happiness upon perfect and perpetual obedience 3. Prop. These two ends being of perpetual necessity the Law it self must needs be so too such an excellent piece of beauty and perfection God never made for an Almanack to continue but for a year yea a day rather or moment of mans Integrity It is hard to conceive that God should intend to null this Law this had been for God to have let go his hold of man and to set up another in the room of it considering the end he aimed at as soon as he had made it A Law of an higher perfection Hoe solum omnipotenter non potuit God could not make and A Law of an inferiour perfection would not serve the turn either Gods's or man's 4. Prop. Although God permitted man to lose the perfection of his nature he never did intend to lose or dispence with the perfection of his own Law Heaven Earth may pass away but one jot or tittle of the Law must not pass away The Righteousness of God's Law like that of his Nature is immutable and everlasting Man being fallen and so by the abuse of his own free will having rendred himself altogether unable to fulfil this holy and perfect Law God sent his only begotten Son into the world not to introduce another Law or another Righteousness but another medium to fulfil and establish the former Rom. 3.31 There was no need of a new Law but of a new Nature to keep and fulfil that which was already in being That Law was abundantly able to justifie but the laps't Nature of man was not able to keep it what defect there was lay in the humane Nature not in the divine Law The Law was weak Rom. 8.3 but how through the flesh If fallen man could have fulfilled the Law the Law as considered in its self and its first institution could have justified him Christ therefore when he comes into the world destroys not that which was perfect but repairs Mat. 9.27 and perfects that which was weak and that he did by taking the humane nature into the same Personality with the divine Nature by a supernatural Conteption in the Womb of the Virgin Gal. 4 4. 6. Prop. Jesus Christ as Mediatour thus born of a Woman was under the Law He that made the Law as God was made under the Law as God-Man whereby both the Obligations of the Law fell upon him Paenal Praeceptive The Paenal Obligation For in the laps'd Estate there we begin to undergoe the Curse and so to satisfie Divine Justice The Praeceptive Obligation to fulfill all Righteousness Math.
an abortion if man should out-live his heavenly Paradise as he did the earthly though his lease should be made for never so many lives this would but aggravate the vanity of his creation and we must needs approve of Solomon's choice Wherefore I praised the dead more than the living Eccles 4.2 3. yea better is he than both they which hath not yet been Surely such an improvidence is totally inconsistent with that immense understanding whose most just tile is The only wise God This then is the first account of this ever here in my Text Gods wisdom Another Attribute upon which this beatifical Truth standeth is 2. Attribute The Truth of God The veracity and truth of God the future estate both of the reprobate and of the elect is every where in Scripture held out to us with a note of eternity That of the reprobate Eternal judgment Heb. 6. everlasting sire Mat. 18.8 and 25.41 Eternal fire Jude 7. unquenchable fire Matth. 3.12 Luke 3.17 fire that is not to be quenched ver 44. fire that never shall be quenched ver 43. after never so many years and ages of continuance it is still wrath to come everlasting darkness Jude 6. It seems though there be fire enough in hell there is no light in that fire even those flames are darkness and that darkness everlasting fire for heat but not for light whatever is afflictive within hell nothing that's refreshive that 's dreadful The worm that shall never dye Everlasting destruction 2 Thes 1.9 And as that of the reprobate is so This of the elect is exprest under the like notions not a moment short of eternity the Father of Glory who best knew what he had begotten baptizeth it with that name Eternal glory 2 Tim. 2.10 1 Pet. 5.10 Everlasting life fourteen times so called in the new Testament and once in the old Dan. 12.2 Eternal life thirty times so called by the Evangelists and Apostles Everlasting Kingdom 2 Pet. 1.11 Enduring substance Heb. 10.34 An incorruptible Crown 1 Cor. 9.25 Pleasures for evermore Psal 16. ult A Kingdom that * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not fluctuating or floating up and down as all sublunary Kingdome and glory cannot be moved Heb. 12.18 An eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Heaven is a weight of glory both the Hebrew and Chaldee words signifie both weight and glory Heaven is made all of massy glory glory that would be too heavy even for the shoulders of glorified Saints were not underneath them the everlasting arms But as God puts forth omnipotence to cause the damned to subsist under their otherwise intollerable pains for the glory of divine justice so in Heaven he is pleased to exert the arm of his almighty power to sustain the Saints under their unconceiveable weight of glory for the more illustrious manifestation of his everlasting love But this is not all as there is a weight of glory to make heaven as big as the Saints can joyfully bear so that weight must also be eternal that so the glory may not be too short for them but every way commensurate to all the dimensions of their souls This this is the witness and testimony which God himself hath given to the Saints inheritance in light and to shew the infallibility of this testimony the Apostle gives that glorious character of God Titus 1.2 God that cannot lye and that in the very same Scripture wherein he makes this glorious promise Eternal life which God that cannot lye hath promised before the world began Observe it as if the Apostle by the Spirit did foresee what atheisme might object or weakness of faith might call in question viz. the eternity of heaven How can that be Oh yes saith the Apostle it must needs be so God who cannot lye hath called it eternal life cannot he saith not will not but cannot lye whereas it might be objected why the least Child in the world can lye I but saith the Apostle God cannot lye Hoc solum omnipotens om nipotenter non potest Aug. it is against his essence It is omnipotence in God that he cannot lye as Augustine speaks if he could lye he were not almighty whoever calls the eternity of the Saints rest in question at the same time calls in question Gods omnipotence as well as his truth his being as well as his bounty If heaven were but a moment shorter than the measure which the Scripture giveth us the Apostle had ascribed to God a mistaken title God that cannot lye upon such a testimony as this from the mouth of God how securely may the Saints lye down in their beds of dust in confidence of enjoying an eternal rest after the Resurrection A third Attribute which mightily contributes assurance to the faith of heavens eternity A third Attriâ—ute is Immutability is Gods Immutability The unchangeableness of his counsel and purpose will set the ever of the Saints vision and fruition of God beyond all dispute and hesitation It was the very design and purpose of God upon the Saints in their regeneration and renewing by the Holy Ghost which he shed upon them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his grace they should be made heirs of eternal life Did God manifest his eternal purpose to the world of eternal life and make such solemn provision for the carrying on that purpose upon the heirs of promise by interesting the third Person in the glorious Trinity the Holy Ghost in it and after all this can Heaven become but a peradventure and the Saints everlasting communion with God prove a Scepticisin or ungrounded opinion only Nay Tit. 3.8 saith the Apostle in the very next verse This is a faithful saying i. e. a man may venture his soul upon it and these things I will that thou affirm constantly i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assert as a matter of greatest assurance of which there is no doubt scil this grand principle The eternity of the Saints blessedness that we should be made heirs of eternal life and that to this end that believers may be careful to maintain good works leave Christians at an uncertainty of an everlasting reward and farewell good works men will act arbitrarily where they work doubtfully Nay but tell them The foundation of the Lord stands sure his counsels and purposes are unchangeable with him is no variableness Jam. 1.17 neither shadow of turning fix their faith upon this bottom that Gods purpose of eternal life is as immutable as God himself this will set them on work to purpose in the use of all such means as tend to so glorious an end Did God from eternity purpose salvation to the elect to eternity A soul set beyond all suspition of the accomplishment of this blessed promise will be careful to maintain good works so the Apostle follows it home 1 Cor. 15. ult Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the
shall bring them together Math. 24.31 The incineration dissipation of their dust shall have a Recollection in the Resurrection not so much as one dust wanting for he that numbers the Stars doth number also the dust and ashes of his Redeemed as not an hair of their heads so not a dust of their resolved flesh shall perish Thus gathered together Christ by his mighty power shall unite dust to dust every dust in its own proper place and form it up into the same numerical body it was when it was dissolved and laid down in the Grave And thus made up into a beautiful Structure more beautiful than ever it was in its first Creation as I shall shew hereafter Christ will put each Soul into its own body again and unite them together into the same sweet conjugal society and fellowship they possessed before their separation this friendly espoused Pair shall now be solemnly Married together before God and Men and Angels never to suffer Divorce any more and they shall become one entire person a totum compositum as they were in the days of their first contract And this excellent person will Christ animate and quicken with the influences of that blessed Union with himself which during all this long interval of their sleeping in the Grave was not dissolved but hidden only and suspended Now shall the Saints know and feel the meaning of that word which Christ spake to Martha I am the Resurrection and the Life Martha in the verse immediately before had professed her Faith of a Resurrection I know that my Brother shall rise again in the Resurrection at the last day Presently Christ replieth Jo. 11.25 I am the Resurrection and the Life discovering to her the Fountain and Cause of that Resurrection namely that Life and Vertue shall then go forth from himself to animate and quicken all his Members and shall cause them to stand upon their feet again as the Children of the Resurrection Thirdly Soul and body thus Vnited Christ God-man shall bring with him unto the place where the great Assizes of the quick and dead shall be solemnly kept which the 17th v. tells us will be in the Air of which more distinctly when we come to that verse Thither Christ will bring with him all his Elect whose bodies to that moment have slept in him Christ will carry the risen Saints with him to the Judgment when he hath awakened them And that upon a Twosold Accompt First For the greater Honour of that Day For the greater solemnity of that last and tremendous Judgment The Saints shall be brought out of their Graves to attend the Judge for his greater State and Grandeur to strike the greater Terrour into the hearts of Reprobate men and Angels who then shall be brought forth in Chains to the Tribunal of Christ to see and suffer the severity and impartiality of that last Tryal The Glory of a King consists in the multitude of his Nobles and Royal Attendants The Judge of Assize is brought in with the Posse Comitatus the power and gallantry of the Country for the striking of the greater terror and aw into the hearts of offenders Angels and Saints shall be Christ's Life-guard as it were Christi Satellitium or as his Troops and Legions which shall conduct him in State and Triumph to the Judgment Seat Secondly when Christ shall have raised his sleeping Saints out of their beds of dust he shall bring them with him from the Grave to the place of Judgment That they may accompany him and be with him throughout the whole carriage and conduct of the last judicial process to hear and applaud his righteous proceedings This is that which the Apostle calls The Saints judging of the World and judging of Angels yea 1 Cor. 6.2 3. it seems that is not all our Saviour tells his Apostles that in that day Math. 19.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nâ—mpe ut Christi vere propâ—è Judicis Assâ—ssâ—res Bern. in â—oe they shall sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes c. judging or condemning how certainly not as bare Spectators only but as Assessors to sit with Him on the Bench to justifie and consent to the judgment of Christ the great and Supream Judg giving in their full and free suffrages to the final sentence which he shall pass upon the Reprobate world of Jews and Gentiles of Men and Devils probably in some such language as we hear from the Saints upon the downfall of Antichrist Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty And by that Doctrine they shall be judged also in the general judgment Math. 13.18 Jo. 12.48 Heb. 117. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He condemned the world partly as the building of the Ark was a visible prediction of the Flood partly as it was a witness and conviction of their infidelity just and true are thy waies thou King of Saints for thy judgments are made manifest Here the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel judged the Wicked of the world by their Doctrine and both Ministers and others of Gods faithful Servants judged them by their Holy lives and patient bearing of the Cross as it is said of Noah that by his Faith in believing the warning and obeying the Command of God in preparing the Ark he judged or condemned the unbelieving World The holiness of the Saints is a tacit reproach and conviction upon the Consciences of Wicked men whereby they condemn them before hand yea whereby wicked men become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-condemned But now the Preachers of the Gospel with the rest of the Saints shall Judge the world judicially and probably by an audible Vote to and with the Judgment of Jesus Christ * Rev. 16.5 Thou art Righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus This honour shall all the Saints have at that Day Thus Christ shall bring the raised Saints with him to the place of Judgment But Fourthly Fourthly God shall bring them with him i. e. that last and solemn Judgment being finished Christ shall carry all his Saints back with him from the place of Judgment the neather Heavens into the upper the supreme Heavens where the Throne of God is and the seat of glorified Angels and Saints All the Saints of God shall follow the Judg in a Triumphant manner into the streets of the New Jerusalem the gates whereof shall be set wide open to receive them An abundant entrance shall be administred unto them into the everlasting Kingdome of the Lord and Saivour Jesus Christ where they shall be welcomed home with lowd Acclamations of joy Heaven will ring again with Triumphant shoutings Thus also God shall bring them with him that sleep in Jesus he will bring them into the Glory of his Father but of this I shall have occasion to speak more largely hereafter This is another Word of Comfort and there is great need
priviledg of the Resurrection which was an Arcanum or Mysterie not formerly made known to the Church But this is but a conjecture which carrieth with it little probability The Apostle telling us in the same place that the words he heard in that Extatical Vision were Vnspeakable words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. things which were either not lawful to be uttered or not possible to be uttered ineffable words had this Mysterie been that Revelation or any part of it the Apostle had in reporting it to the world either exceeded his commission or done impossibilities Others therefore conceive that this was a mystery revealed to none but to the Apostle himself and that not unto him until he wrote this Epistle and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word of Lord signifies only the Apostle his delivering this by divine Authority from divine inspiration quasi eo ipso loquente Bern. Christi mandato Grot. Others there are that waving both these Conjectures are apt to think this mystery so called because it was not commonly understood in the Church to be none other than the Doctrine which our Lord himself delivered by word of month in the dayes of his flesh concerning the Resurrection for which Some would make us beholding to Tradition but others more rationally suppose the Apostle to entitle this Doctrine to the Lord not as if any where delivered in terminis in so many express letters and syllables but as a divine Truth deduceable from the general doctrine which the Lord Jesus did deliver in his Sermons and discourses touching the raising of the dead And to this judgment I do much incline as the more safe and warrantable Christ's own words being a much more solid foundation to build an Article of Faith upon than either Tradition or Revelations Witness the Holy Ghost in the mouth of the Apostle St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.19 We have also a more sure word of Prophesie more sure then what Why more sure than the Voyce which the Disciples heard from Heaven when they were with Christ in the Mount ver 18. An infallible Oracle attested by infallible Witnesses and yet behold the written Word is a surer bottom for our Faith to stand upon in taking up divine doctrine than that because though the voyce from Heaven was in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infallible yet the holy Scriptures being the standing * Psal 19.7 God's Amen Testimony and Expositor of Gods mind to the world it is a more authentick Touch-stone to try Truth by then a Voyce from Heaven which may be Counterfeited by Satan and Satanical Imposture We shall reckon then this mystery delivered here by holy Paul as the Doctrine which Christ himself Preach'd unto the world and testified by the Evangelists and other Secretaries of the Holy Ghost until Revelation be more clearly revealed unto us in this point Amongst the passages of our Lords Doctrine recorded by the Evangelists concerning the Resurrection from which this particular mystery may be collected we may with safety and modesty select these Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man Math. 24.30 and they shall see him coming in the Clouds of Heaven with power and great glory And he shall send forth his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet and they shall gather his Elect from the four Winds from the one end of Heaven to another When they shall rise from the dead Mark 12.25 they neither marry nor are given in marriage And again As touching the Dead that they rise have ye not read in the book of Moses c Behold by the way Jesus Christ that he might give testimony to Moses quotes the testimony of Moses for the Doctrine of the Resurrection But yet further take another testimony or prediction of his own The hour is coming Jo. 5.28 in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear the voyce of the Son of man And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life c. To these Scriptures and the like it is most probably conjectured our Apostle doth refer when he doth here quote the Authority of our Lord for the Doctrine here delivered For although it doth not run verbatim word for word with any of the recited Texts yet these things are evident First That in these Scriptures our Blessed Saviour doth positively and expresly assert the doctrine of the Resurrection at the last day The dead must rise Secondly That the main care which Christ will take at his coming will be To gather unto himself all his Elect which have been upon the earth from the Creation until that blessed hour Math. 24.31 He shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather his Elect c. not one of them shall be wanting Thirdly Christ comprehends all these his Elect whether quick or dead under one and the same notion namely the dead and those that are in the Graves not the least mention made or notice taken of them that shall survive and be found alive at his coming whence two things are clearly deducible First That the Resurrection which the Saints that sleep in Jesus shall be made partakers of shall put them into as full a capacity of the glory of Christs coming as if they had remained alive in the body until that blessed hour Yea Secondly That the Saints then surviving can upon no other account become capable of that glory than as they fall under the notion of the dead Christ takes notice in the prediction of his coming of no other but the dead for whom that glory is reserved Whence Some are of opinion that the surviving Saints must dye in a literal sense and a real separation must pass upon them between their bodies and their souls Mirâ celeritate of which opinion Austin himself was though he conceived it would be transacted in a wonderful swift and speedy way But others conceive that the Saints whom Christ his coming shall find in the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall suffer only some thing analogical to death and to this opinion our faith must needs subscribe the Holy Ghost bearing witness to it in the mouth of the Apostle in the 15th Chapter to the Corenthians 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep i. e. all shall not dye in a literal sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what then but we shall all dye or be changed i. e. they that dye not must be changed All must either dye or be changed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that do not sleep must suffer a mutation that shall bear some proportion to death Verse 50 whereby the corruption of their nature must be abolished for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption The body as it is corruptible much less as it is sinful is not capable of glory there must a refining change pass upon it they must put off their
of his humiliation Thirdly Third Reas to finish his Mediatory Office Our Lord Jesus Christ must come himself at the last day to perfect and finish his Mediatory-Office At his first coming his Mediatory-work was to pay a price to divine Justice 1 Per. 1.19 So he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so to purchase us of his Father At his second coming his Mediatory-work will be to gather all his Redeemed ones together and to present them a glorious Church to his Father not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but holy and without blemish in some such language as was long before Prophesied Behold here am I and the Children whom thou hast given me Isa 8.18 And again as when he was going out of the world he gave his account to his Father of all whom thou hast given me Joh. 17.12 I have lost none but the Son of perdition At his first coming his Mediatory-work was to fight with the Devil Act. 26.18 Colos 1.13 Luk. 11.21 22. In this respect he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 11.26 and all the powers of darkness and to rescue what he had bought of the Father out of the power of Satan that strong man armed who kept his goods in peace At his second coming his Mediatory-work will be to vanquish all those Enemies out of whose dominion he hath freed his Elect to bind them with chains to cast them into everlasting darkness and to seal the bottomless pit upon them for ever And when he hath done this the Lord Jesus shall deliver up the Kingdome to his Father His Office is not compleated till this be done God's Oath is past upon it and cannot be reverst Isa 45.23 c. The Text is applyed to Christ presently upon his Exaltation to this very purpose Phil. 2.20 Well then we have now found out the person of the Judg. The Lord Himself c. And for the Use it may serve 1. For infinit terror to the Wicked 2. For unspeakable Consolation to the Godly First it serves for infinit terror to the Wicked Use 1 That the Judgment now should be put into the hand of Him Terror to the Wicked whom of all the world they counted their Enemy at least if they did not call him so they used him so Oh what a dreadful sight will his Appearance be If Ahab cryed out with so much discomposure of spirit at the suddain appearance of Elijah the Prophet of God Hast thou found me Oh mine Enemy With what horror and affrightment will Reprobate Gaitiff's cry out when they shall be drag'd from before the Tribunal of the Lord Jesus the Lord of the Prophets Hast thou found us Oh our Enemy If Josephs Brethren were so astonished at the presence of Joseph when he said unto them I am Joseph whom you sold into Egypt How will all the world of ungodly men be confounded at the presence of the Lord now coming in the glory of his Father to Judg them when he shall say unto them I am Jesus I am Jesus whom ye sold for less than ever Judas sold me even for the price of a base Lust I am Jesus whom ye Crucified over and over again to your selves and put me to an open shame I am Jesus whose Person you have slighted whose Government you have spurn'd at crying in the Pride and Rebellion of your obstinate spirits We will not have this man Reign over us I am Jesus whose Counsel you have rejected whose Threatnings you have laughed to scorn whose Promises you have derided and set at nought I am Jesus whose Blood you have trampled under your feet as an Vnholy thing even doing despite to the Spirit of grace c. I say Now will the Reprobate world be confounded at the presence of their Judg Behold in the days of his Flesh when he appeared in the forme of a Servant and was even led away as a Sheep to the Slaughter and as a Lamb before the Shearer not opening his mouth by way of murmur against his Father or reviling against his Enemies yet how did that Lamb-like Word I am He fill the hearts of those sturdy Souldiers who came to apprehend Him with horror and strike them to the ground like a blast of Thunder and Lightning Oh how will that word when he shall come cloathed with Majesty and terror with all the glorious Host of Heaven attending his Person I am he fill Reprobate Souls with astonishment and distraction and even strike them backward into Hell before their time How will it cause them to woo the Mountains and Rocks now as hard and inexorable as their hearts once were in the day of God's patience crying out to them to the amazement of Heaven and Earth Mountains Fall on us Rev. 6.26 27. Rocks cover us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne and from the presence of the Lamb for the great day of his Wrath is come and who shall be able to stand But all in vain As the Lord Jesus once in the day of his grace cryed unto them and they would not answer c. So they shall now cry to Heaven and Earth to Rocks and Mountains Prov. 1.24 25 26. Psal 50.22 and they shall not answer yea the Judg shall laugh at their Calamity and mock when their fear cometh Oh consider this ye that forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Second Use Second Use of Comfort to the Saints Christ Himself will be their Judg. But on the contrary unspeakable Consolation may this doctrine of Christ's personal Appearance speak to the Godly the Sheep of Christ which have heard his voyce speaking to them in the Gospel of peace and have obeyed it Behold He that in the days of his flesh came to be their Redeemer now in the day of his power shall come to be their Judge He that so often pleaded for them to his Father and for whom they so often pleaded and contended with a disobedient and gain-saying Generation I say He shall now be their Judg and pass sentence upon them their Friend their Brother their Head their Husband What need they fear that Tribunal where not their Enemies who were wont fasâ—y to accuse and condemn them no not their prejudiced and imprudent Friends who somtimes have rashly and causelesly mis-judged them much less the Accuser of the Brethren Rev. 12.10 who accused them before their God day and night none of these I say shall sit in Judgment But their dear Redeemer who for their sake came down from Heaven that loved them so dearly that he died for love of them that he might Redeem them and wash them in his own Blood He that Regenerated Sanctified Justified Preserved and Perfected them He to whom both in Life and Death they were so nearly and inseparably Vnited and by vertue of which Conjunction they are now
awakened and set upon their feet again in a most beautiful perfect state I say where He and none but He who long since became their Adocate shall now by the appointment of the Father be their Judge Oh what matter of Joy and Triumph will this administer unto the Saints at that day How may they lift up their heads with joy because their Redemption and Redeemer shall then draw nigh Second branch of Comfort in reference to the Saints departed Again The Doctrine of Christ his Personal Appearance at the last day affords no less Consolation in reference to the Saints departed and to this very end doth the Holy Ghost mention it in this place The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven The Relative consideration I told you the words have a Relative consideration in them as they do imply an account why the Saints which are alive at the coming of Christ shall not prevent them which are asleep why it immediatly follows For the Lord himself shall descend The Saints of God need not doubt of this either in reference to themselves or to their Relations whom they have sent before them to the Grave The Lord that bought them will see to Their Resurrection in the first place It was the will of him that sent him that of all which he hath given him Joh. 6.39 he might lose nothing but that he should raise it up again in the last day And Jesus Christ is so punctual to his trust that He will not delegate it to any of the Angels or Seraphims but will come in Person to accomplish that charge that so not any one of his little ones may possibly be forgotten * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing may be lost neither Person nor Member nor Dust but that Christ may present it entirely to his Father at his coming in the same language he spake when he went out of the world Those that thou gavest me John 17. I have kept and none of them is lost He bought them at too dear a rate to leave any one of them in the Grave and therefore to make all sure He will come in Person and finish his work Himself As sure as He ascended up into Heaven after his own Resurrection so surely shall he descend from Heaven to perfect that Resurrection in his Saints which brings me to the second Particular The second particular in this Eighth word of Comfort The second word of Comfort He shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is The Certainty of his coming couch'd in the Verb here He 〈◊〉 shall descend from Heaven He shall i.e. most certainly and infallibly And so all the Scriptures which mention the Coming of the Lord speak of it in the notion of a most unalterable Decree and Statute of Heaven thus the Apostle to the Athenians God hath appointed a day wherein he will judg the world in righteousness Act. 17.31 by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given us assurance c. See how many words here are heaped one upon another to assure our Faith of the infallible certainty of Christs Coming First he hath appointed a day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Statuit diem There is the divine Appointment and Decree past upon it in Gods Eternal purpose and Counsel It is a Statute enacted in Heaven that there shall be a future Judgment a Statute more sure than ever the Laws of the Medes and Persians for Heaven and Earth may pass away but Gods Decree shall stand c. And then there is a certain Day appointed for it a stated time by the same Power A day which can neither be adjourned nor accelerated The time is fixed He hath appointed a day and it cannot be altered And then the Work is determined as well as the day and that is judgment wherein He will Judge The Judgment is not left Arbitrary or Contingent but God is resolved on 't He will Judg not peradventure he may Judg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as sure as He is God he will Judg. The Persons to be judged are also specified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not less than the whole world He will Judg the world not a single Person shall escape that Judgment 2 Cor. 5.10 we must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ As the Persons to be Judged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so likewise the Person that is to Judg is named and designed to it already That man that special that peculiar man the man Christ Jesus And to make all sure he hath his Commission already That man whom he hath Ordained the Judg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 6.27 is Elected and commission'd under the broad Seal of Heaven is passed And if all this be not enough there is yet further Assurance and evidence given of it already to the world open and evident demonstration if men will not shut their eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fide palam facta omnibus of which he hath given assurance unto all men what that assurance is I shall shew anon In the mean time see how the Holy Ghost useth all the words and expressions which may create a firm assent to the doctrin of Christs coming to Judgment that there may be no room for doubting left Formid Oppositi as the Schools calls it no hesitancy in the minds of men And not here only but in many other Scriptures 2 Cor. 5.10 that hinted even now We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ c. Not we may only but we must Christ must Judg and we must all appear But not to multiply Scriptures take we a brief account of the Grounds And Behold 1. Reason says Reasons or Grounds of the certainty of Christs coming He may Come 2. Faith says He must Come 1. Reason saith He may Come The very Course of Providence shews it The Godly are not the happiest in this world 1 Cor. 15.9 If in this life only says the holy Apostle we had hope in Christ we were of all men most miscrable Vertue hath not a full reward nor Vice sufficient punishment in this life Dives the Representative of the Voluptuous world flowed in ease and pleasure while Lazarus a godly man afflicted with pain and hunger was glad to dine with his Dogs at the dore The Dogs were both his Almoners and his Chirurgeons Things must not go after this rate for ever Sooner or later a man shall say i. e. He that is no more than a man that hath no better eye in his head than the eye of Sense and Reason shall be convinced of this and compelled to confess of a truth There is a reward for the Righteous Verily he is a God that judgeth the Earth Sin is now somtimes punished with * In judicijs suis quae Deus in hoc mundo exercet non est ista plena mensura justitiae quae erit in judicis ultimi Dici
scil Non implent plenum postulatum legis justitiae neque super impios neque super pios Streso in Act. 17.31 exemplary Vengance to shew there is a Providence that God is not an idle Spectator in the world And somtimes it is let alone to tell the world that there is a Judgment to come the full punishment of sin is not till then Thus Reason says He may Come But now Faith goes further and says He must Come He shall Come The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven It is a truth not only which God can make good but a truth which God cannot but make good Witness Christ must come 1. His Purchase says so 1. His Purchase would Christ buy a people at so dear a rate and then go away and come no more at them Nay 2. Witness also his promise And if I go John 14.3.2 His Promise I will come again He will especially considering the design of his leaving them for a time it was but to go and prepare a place for them and he hath done it the place is prepared Mansions in his Fathers house are made ready for them ver 2. Why now Christ being gon to this very end and all things prepared for their entertainment if he should not come again he should certainly fail not his promise only but his project too this cannot be He that never yet failed his own promise Fidelis Deus in Omnibus in extremo non desieret nor his peoples expectations will not now do it No I will come and receive you He that went from them only to prepare the place for them will certainly come again to receive them into that place now it is prepared He loves them so well that he will not he cannot be without their company I will come and receive you that where I am there you may be also Heb. 11.11 Faithful is he that hath promised who also will do it 3. Witness The Sacrament of his last Supper 3. The Sacrament of his last Supper 1 Cor. 11.26 which is nothing else but a pledg and seal to keep alive the memorial of his second Coming As oft as ye eat of this bread and drink of this cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come Now when the Lord Jesus Christ hath engaged the expectation of his people by so solemn a Covenant if he should fail their expectation this Grand Institution had been in vain Nay surely He never said to the Seed of Jacob Seck ye my face in vain He speaketh Righteousness Isa 45.19 4. And lastly Witness his Resurrection that is 4. His Resurrection the Assurance given in the Text Act. 17.31 He will judge the world by that man whom he hath appointed How may we be sure of that why he hath given the world assurance of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non quod omnibus fidem in Christum dederit Sed quod omnibus argumentum dederit Streso in loc what assurance in that he hath raised Christ from the dead He hath given assurance Gr. he hath offered Faith the meaning is God could not have confirmed his purpose and promise of sending Christ to Judge the world at the last day by a more firm and solemn Argument than by raising him from the dead after he had paid the debt made satisfaction to divine Justice upon the Cross Partly in as much as Jesus Christ was hereby openly declared to be the Son of God with power To judg the world is an act of divine Power and Authority and what fitter person in the Trinity is there to judg the world righteously than He that was unrighteously judged by the world put to death in the Flesh but quickened in the Spirit raised by his own divine power Partly because that after his Resurrection God the Father took him up into Heaven Vid. Strev in loc and placed him at his own right hand A certain evidence that when the whole number of his Redeemed shall be accomplished he will send him the second time to take Vengeance in his own Person on the Shedders of his Blood and the Oppugners of his Gospel Else it had been all one as if Christ had been left to lye still in the Grave Thus you see Christ his personal Coming at the last day established upon its four-fold Foundation 1. Use His Purchase 2. His Promise 3. His Supper 4. His Resurrection Now therefore O ye Saints of God cast not away your Confidences either in respect of your selves or of your sweet Relations which have out-run you to the Sepulcher He that shall come will come and will not tarry In the mean time let the just live by their Faith keep up your Faith and your Faith will keep up your hearts from sinking 2 Cor. 4.16 for this Cause we faint not c. I proceed to the third Circumstance The manner of Christ his coming In the Description whereof we find a three-fold Summons or Citation to all the world to make their appearance at this great Oecumenical Assize 1 Summon◠A Shour sc 1. A Shout 2. The Voyce of an Arch-Angel 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hortatorius clamor The Trump of God The first solemn summons is a Shout the Lord shall descend from Heaven with a Shout The word in the Greek signifies such a Shout as is to be heard amongst Marriners and Seamen when after a long and dangerous Voyage they begin to descry the Haven crying with loud and united voyces a shore a shore as the Poet describes the Italians when they saw their Native Country lifting up their voyces and making the Heavens ring again with Italie Italie Italiam Laliam laeto clamore salutani Virg Aeneid Irgenti Angelorum jubile acclamatione Atetius Or as Armies when they joyn battail rend the air with their loud Acclamations In like manner shall the mighty Angels of God with united clamour proclaime the Advent of their Lord crying aloud with a voyce that shall be heard from one end of the Heavens to another the Earth and Sea and Hell it self shall hear and tremble Behold the Lord cometh Jud. v. 14. Jud. v. 14. Math. 25.5 Behold the Bridegroom cometh Math. 25. v. 6. The second Summons is the Voyce of the Arch-Angel Expositioric vice Calv. This clause some take to be Exegetical to the former expounding that hortatory clamour or shout mentioned before q. d. with a shout i. e. with the voyce of the Arch-Angel Arch-Angelus praeconts fungetur officio citet vivos mortues ad Christi tribunal Others conceive it to be added by way of eminency All the Angels shall shout for joy but the Voyce of the Arch-Angel shall be heard above all the rest The greatest Angel hath the greatest voyce lowder and shriller than all the other Angels as Captain General to them all The third Summons is the Trump of God Great Trees Trees of God High
Seed of the Woman nor è contrà but there shall be a perfect separation The Sheep shall be separated from the Goats the Elect from the Reprobate there shall not be a Servant of the Lord amongst the Worshipers of Baal nor a Son of Beltal among the Sons of God Sinners and none but Sinners Saints and none but Saints shall make up these two distinct Congregations Nay so terrible will the glory which Christ will put upon his Saints be upon the faces of the Reprobates and so great the horrour of their own guilty Consciences that they shall now as much dread their Society as once they hated it and chuse rather to leap alive into the burning Lake then to mix themselves unto them or so much as to put their head within that holy Assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in praestituto tempâ—re Verse 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Christ assureth to his Mourners shall be effected in the appointed time if not in our time yet in Gods time in the time of Harvest But what shall we do in the mean time why saith our Lord Suffer them to grow together suffer them not by sinful toleration in Rulers nor by sinful compliance in people Expectardo non temeâ—è occupando If we cannot separate from Churches yet separate from their Corruptions and defilements 2 Use but suffer them by patient expectation in case of necessity having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reproving them If you cannot avoyd the Workers yet avoyding the Works of darkness and then in your patience do you possess your Souls 2. This Circumstance of the Saints separation from the Wicked is improved for comfort by our Lord Jesus Christ himself In case of undue exclusion from Church Ordinances of such as Christ would not have excluded Our Lord Jesus hath foretold that the power of the keys should fall sometimes into such hands as would so diametrically pervert the use of them as that oft-times none should be excluded but whom Christ would have admitted nor admitted but such as Christ would have shut out They shall put You out of their Synagogues 1 Joh. 16.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Excommunicate you You my Disciples you my Friends Hard measure I but here is comfort the time is coming wherein all the Elect shall be Congregated into one universal Assembly never to suffer exclusion or ejectment any more to all Eternity And then their unrighteous Excommunicators shall be righteously Excommunicated yea they shall be Excommunicated with the highest sort of Excommunication higher than any Church of Christ ever used Excommunicated for ever delivered unto Sathan not for the destruction of the flesh only but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thes 1.9.10 and from the glory of his Power when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints That 's a dreadful Excommunication indeed the Anathema Maranatha in the highest sense quum Dominus venit quia Domino quasi in manus citra veniae spem dedentur Jude 14. Now the Saints of God are glad to get into Corners by twoes and by threes and blessed be God not without a promise to seek the face of God so making the Harlot's Text Prov. 17.17 speak chast language Stollen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant But in that glorious Morning of the Resurrection they shall meet by millions and myriads of millions and there shall be none to disturb or offend them yea their Enemies shall look on and gnash their Teeth for anguish and vexation of Spirit to see them now got for ever out of their power 3. 3 Use And lastly for Comfort in case of the Saints separation one from another whether by the unrighteous hand of Violence or the righteous hand of Providence Now by means of Dispersions Imprisonments Exile c. the people of God are like Arms and Legs torn out of the body and lye bleeding in their separations Yea God Himself is pleased to make sad breaches between them and their sweetest Relations by Death Under which they are many times like Rachel not without sin weeping for her Children and refuse to be Comforted because they are not lifting up their voyces and crying Oh! my Father Abraham and Oh! my Son Isaac O Absolon my Son my Son Absolon would God I had dyed for thee I will go down to the Grave to my Son mourning c. But here is Comfort the time is coming when the Parent and Child Husband and Wife Friend and Friend with the whole Family of Heaven and Earth from all their dispersions from the uttermost part of the Earth to the uttermost part of Heaven shall meet together and embrace one another Everlasting Joy shall be upon their Heads and sorrow and mourning shall flee away In a word how may all the Saints of God in what state or condition so ever for the present solace themselves in the fore-contemplation of the Triumphant gathering together of the Elect of God What a joyful Sight will it be when all the Saints and Servants of the most high God which ever saw one anothers faces or heard of one anothers names yea and all they which never saw or heard each of other All of every Tongue Nation Kindred or Family of the Earth of what Age Sex Generation soever from the day wherein God made time to the day wherein time shall be no more shall meet together and stand on tip-toe ready to take their flight to meet their Lord and Bridegroom coming in the Clouds with his mighty Angels Yea what a glorious sight will it be to see all The glorious Company of the Apostles The goodly Fellowship of the Prophets The whole Army of Martyrs with The holy Church throughout all the World A Congregation of Kings and Priests in all their Royal Robes Yea as I may so say a Congregation or Constellation of Morning-Starrs yea of so many Noon-day Suns arising from the Earth co-Ascending through the several Regions of the Air to meet the Sun of Righteousness now descending from his own Orb of Supream Glory and Majesty in the highest Heavens to Judg both the quick and the dead Surely such an Assembly eye never saw ear never heard of nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive how immense how august how exceeding it will be in glory While in the mean time the Congregation of the Reprobate the Malignant Church that are left below upon the Earth on the left hand shall stand trembling looking upwards and gnashing their Teeth to see this sudden and tremendous turn of things the Saints whom they despised and persecuted before thus snatched out of their cursed power and fellowship Ascending in so much Pomp and Royalty to meet their glorious Redeemer They themselves left behind to curse themselves and one another for their Prejudices Envy and Rage which once they breath'd out against Gods people
be put upon him for the recompencing of the ignominy and abasement of his first coming in the flesh I come now to the ends of this Meeting And the ends why the Saints ascend to meet Christ in the Air we may conceive to be such as these 1. Their publick Reception and owning by Christ 2. Their full and perfect Justification 3. The Consummation of their unptial Contract 4. Their Consession or Sitting together with Christ in the Judgment 5. Their compleat and sinal Benediction or blessed Sentence 6. Their solemn and triumphant Attondance on the Judg going to take possession of the Kingdom These or the like ends of the Saints meeting with the Lord in the Air are not obscurely hinted to us in Scripture The first is Their publick reception and owning by Christ come now to judge the world The Elect Angels having gathered together the Elect Saints according to the Commission upon which they were sent forth Go ye and gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice and having carried them up into the Air where the Judge stayeth for them for he will do nothing until they come I say their Angels shall now present them before Him in the rich and glorious attire of their now perfected Resurrection wherein their once vile bodies are now made like to Christ his glorious body With gladness and rejoycing shall they be brought into the King's presence and the first publick Act which the King shall do is solemnly to receive them Come ye blessed of my Father and embraceing them in his armes and kissing them as it were as Joseph once did his Brethren in the open view of Heaven and Earth he will solemnly own them and acknowledg them and that First in their Persons and Relation unto himself A Prerogative long-before promised Mal. 3.17 Christ will own the Saints 1. In their persons They shall be mine when I make up my Jewels That is the very work which Christ is now come about to make up his Jewels to lay them up in their Heavenly Cabinet And the first word he will speak is These are mine he appropriates them for his own they be mine my Jewels my Gems my * Sâ—gullah precious Treasure As the Saints have not been ashamed of Christ before men so neither will Christ now be ashamed of them before his Father Luk 9 Heb. 1.11 2 In their Relations and all his mighty Angels he will not be ashamed to call them Brethren yea he will appropriate them as his Children a Seed given him of his Father as the great reward of is Passion saying These be the Children which God hath given me Ver. 13. my Sons and my Daughters who have served me thus he owns them in their Relations Secondly 3. In their Duâ—ies and attendance He will own and acknowledg all the holy duties publick and private which they have done in obedience to his Commands their hearing praying fasting and afflicting their Souls for their own sins and for other mens sins their fearing of God and laying to heart the reproaches of Religion and Blasphemies cast upon his Name their mutual holy conferences Mal. 3.16 one with another c. All these were written in a book of Remembrance of old and laid up before him that they might never be forgotten and now the Book shall be brought forth and read in the Audience of the world for their greater honour even the very secret duties which they have performed in their Closets when no eye saw them but God's even they shall be proclaimed in the Audience of this Universal Assembly at the last day Mat 6.6 Thy Father which saw in secret will now reward thee openly not a prayer but it was filed up not a sigh Psal 56.8 nor groan but it is booked not a tear but is botled not an holy ejaculation but was upon Record and shall be now publickly produced and acknowledged I know your Works and your Labour and your Charity and your Service Rev. 2.19 and your last Works to be more then the first c. Thirdly 4. In their fidelity and perseverance Rev. 2 13. Jesus Christ at that day will own the fidelity of his Saints their constancy and perseverance in their holy Profession and confess them before all the world I know your Works and where you have dwelt even where Satan's seat was and you have held fast my Name Chap. 2.10 and have not denied my Faith even in those days wherein Antipas Cranmer Ridley Latimer c. were my faithful Martyrs who were slain among you where Satan dwelleth behold to you who have been faithful to the death do I now give a Crown of Life To you who have overcome do I grant to sit with me in my Throne Chap. 3.21 as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne 5 In their sufferings Fourthly He will own and acknowledg the Saints in their sufferings for his sake All the reproaches hard speeches * Lâ—quntur lapides incivilities abuses scandals persecutions which ever they sustained in their names persons lively-hoods and lives upon Christ's and the Gospels account he will acknowledg and bespeak them in some such language as this Isa 66.7 Your Brethren which hated you that cast you out for my names sake said * So mocking God and deriding the Godly for their confidence in God Luk. 22.28 29 30. 6. In all the Offices of love done to him or his Let the Lord be glorified but now I appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed Or as he once encouraged his Disciples in the days of his flesh You are they which have continued with me in my temptations and behold I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdome c. Fifthly and lastly The Lord Jesus will own all the Services and Offices of Love done to Himself or to any of his Members Cloathing Feeding Visiting them when Sick coming to them when in Prison He will acknowledge all before Heaven and Earth yea what they themselves have forgotten never thought-worthy of their own notice much less of Christ's notice Lord when saw we thee an hungred and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink c Observe by the way the difference between Saints and Shadows Hypocrites can boast of what they never truly did they can own what God will disown We have fasted say they nay saith God In the day of your fast ye find pleasure ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness c. We have say they afflicted our Soul no such thing saith God Ye have bowed down the head like a bul-rush for a day ye have spread Sack-cloath and Ashes under you Is this a Fast will you call this Soul-afflicting if you will I will not I but now
without holiness there is no vision for without holiness no man can see the Lord Heb. 12.14 And holiness doth dispose the Soul for this blessed Vision three wayes First By removing the distance between God and the Creature Secondly By assimilating the Soul to God Thirdly By causing mutual delight and complacency between them First Holiness disposeth the Soul for the seeing of God by taking away that distance which is between God and the Soul Sin is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that great Gulf In this respect sin is Hell which separates between God and the Creature and surely sin sets a vaster distance between the holy God and a sinner than there is between Heaven and Hell yea than there is between God and the Devil that is between God as a Creator and the Devil as he is a creature Until this distance be removed there is no possible access for the Soul to God this partition wall is broken down when holiness is set up and according to the degree of purity is the degree of vision as the Soul passeth from one degree of holiness to another so it passeth from one state and degree of vision to another 2 Cor 3. We all beholding as in a glass c. The purer the glass the brighter the vision Secondly Holiness disposeth for the vision of God by approximation and assimilating the Soul to God Holiness is the very Image of God the divine nature not in a fanatick sense not the divine being Indeed holiness in God is the divine essence but holiness in the Creature is but a gracious quality whereby the Creature resembleth God 1 Pet. 1.15 and is made pure as he is pure holy as he is holy This advanceth the Soul to a nearer vicinity to God whereby it is put into a passive capacity of seeing God passive I say for the formal visive power of seeing God is from the object more than the subject of it scil so far as God is pleased to beam in his glory into the faculty and enableth it to bear it Lumen confortans Schol. holiness only gives the Soul a sutableness to receive in those divine irradiations Thirdly Holiness causeth mutual delight and complacency between God and the Soul all liking is founded in likeness conformity is the fountain of complacency so that until holiness be formed in the Soul neither can God delight in the Soul nor the Soul in God verily without this mutual complacency the vision of God would be penal to the Creature rather than beatifical not much better than that vision which the damned themselves may be conceived to have of God in hell whose vision of God makes full one half of hell at least Oh quam miserum est Deum videre perire they see God and despair this is the Worm that never dyeth they only see what they have lost Christians as ye love Gods face look to your boliness God loveth holiness more than he loveth the Creature saith Arminius and I say so too if we understand it of the holiness that dwelleth in God for that is his essential holiness Exod. 15 11 God himself so loving holiness he loveth himself Gods holiness is his glory glorious in holiness he accounts it the most radiant Jewel in his Crown Royal the very varnish and beauty of all his glorious Attributes for the love he beareth to which he loveth to see the very image and likeness of it in the Creature but he loved the Creature so well in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he did elect the person unto the qualification though not for the qualification God chose the elect Eph. 1.4 not because he foresaw they would be holy but that they might be holy holiness was not the cause but the end of their election Oh love that dear Souls which God loves so much and loveth to see in his Saints who are therefore called Saints from their holiness There is nothing can make you so beautiful in Gods eye as holiness because in your holiness he seeth the reflection of his own beauty Ezek. 16.14 Taliter pigmentatae Dei habebitis Amorem Tert. Thou wast comely through the comeliness which I put upon thee God cannot chuse but love his own likeness where ever he seeth it oh love the Lord all ye his Saints and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Psal 30.4 Let your hearts leap within you as oft as you think what an holy God you have who if he can but see true holiness in your faces will admit you to see that holiness which is in his face for ever Love holiness I say but be sure it be such an holiness as God loves there is an holiness in the world which is but a thing like holiness but is not so moral righteousness an harmless innocence a sober retiredness from sensual excesses a pretty ingenuity a readiness to do offices of love a negative Religion concerning which you may better tell what it is not than what it is yea there is a thing called holiness in the world that hath not so much as the appearance or shaddow of holiness freedom from grossest impieties and that but partial too not to swear at the highest rate to be soberly drunk and privately unclean Apud vos optimi censentur quos comparatio pessimorum sic facit Arnob. not to be overmuch wicked c. in a word as Arnobius speaks of the Gentiles not to be so bad as the worst is a kind of being good even this Sirs will pass in the world for holiness And lastly there is a superstitious holiness which to the Evangelical holiness is no better than what the Ivy is to the Oak and hath eaten out the very heart of it a Brat which as * Gurnats Christians Compleat Armour p. 2. one saith the Devil hath put to nurse to the Romish Church which hath taken a great deal of pains to bring it up for him and it hath brought in no small revenue as to her self of worldly riches and treasure so to Him of Souls for such holiness is the very road to Hell the followers of Antichrist fill up the greatest part of it But hear our Lord plainly telling you Except your righteousness exceed the best of these ye cannot enter c. Oh Christians get you a copy of grace out of the Scripture-Records those Court-Rolls of Heaven which may be seen and allowed by God and Angels and Saints if ever you desire to see Gods face Holiness of a peculiar strain Titus 2.14 Perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 Holiness to the Lord not an holiness that may approve it self to men only that is easily done but unto God Vnblameable holiness in Gods fight Colos 1.22 His holiness Heb. 12.10 That is An holiness which hath God for its pattern 1 Pet. 1.15 16. An holiness which hath God for its motive 1 Pet. 1.15 16. Be ye holy as God
Pet. 1.19 He bought the Inheritance for them and them for the Inheritance at the same price This is the first thing implyed in Fruition Propriety without which the vision were no way beatifical for how can that make me happy which I have no title to or interest in Tolle meum tolle Deum Take away mine and ye take away Heaven yea take away mine and ye take away God good is no farther good to me than as it is mine and as I may warrantably claim my right to it and interest in it A second Property of Fruition is Possession 2. Ingredient Possession the Saints have not only propriety in Heaven but Possession of Heaven when their dearest and sweetest Lord left the world and ascended to his Father they took possession of Heaven in him as in their great Representative and Head Joh. 14.2 But when they ascended to him now they take possession of it in their own persons They had livery and seasin given them by the Father upon the consummation of their marriage with his dear Son Jesus Christ their Royal Bridegroom And it was done in the presence of the eternal Spirit the publick Notary of Heaven 1 John 5.8 All the holy Angels standing by as so many Witnesses so that God himself could not make Heaven surer to them than he hath made it While the Saints were upon earth Heaven was theirs but it was only in reversion and they counted themselves blessed in that Matth. 5.3 But now reversion is turned into possession the Saints hold nothing in Heaven by reversion that title ceaseth there All the Beatitudes in Heaven are present possession God and Christ and the Holy Ghost Angels and Saints and all the glory of the upper world are so many possessions the Saints are possest of God and possest of Christ and possessed of the Holy Ghost and possest of glory as on the contrary the damned in hell are possest of the Devil they are possest of hell and of utter darkness and of the worm that shall never dye c. Oh dreadful possession Hope was once their tenure Titus 1.2 Rom. 5.1 In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lye c. And they rejoyced in it Ye rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God and they blessed God for it Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus which hath begotten us again unto a lively hope c. of which hope faith was the substance and basis Heb. 11.1 and even this hope was very precious unto them a little heaven upon earth save that now and then some clouds of fear and doubts did interpose between heaven and their dim eye and so eclipsed their vision But faith and hope did set them down at the gate of heaven and then with Moses died in the mount and took leave of them for ever And if faith was so precious to them then what is sight now If hope made their hearts not seldom leap for joy how doth possession now fill them with joy unspeakable and glorious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all hyperbolye of expression Object If any should be so critical as to object In heaven the Saints live in the hope and faith of the continuance of heaven We make use of the Apostles Maxime for Answer Hope seen is not hope Rom. 8.24 All the glory of heaven is seen and all is present there is no futurity in heaven heaven iâ— but one point of eternity 1 Cor 13. last the Saints have all beatitudes and all at once in God now abideth indeed faith and hope but then possession Mat. 18.1 They shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs and they shall sit by it All the precious priviledges of the Gospel which cost Christ so dear are now perfected into full possession Adoption is now perfect now they are the Sons of God and they know what it is to be the Sons of God Justification is now compleat Sanctification is now at perfect age In a word all their hopes are now their inheritance This is fruition A third Ingredient of which Fruition doth consist 3. Property Intimacy is Intimacy Propriety and Possession are not sufficient to constitute fruition Mutual converse will not serve the turn without intimate communion Communion not with one anothers persons only but with one anothers spirits this is fruition when friends are possest of one anothers heart and one anothers spirits In Heaven there is not mutual cohabitation only but mutual inhabitation 1 John 4.16 This is the great beatitude of heaven even vital vision with all the beatifying objects thereof mutual in dwelling and mutual in being God dwells in the Saints and the Saints dwell in God It was so here God is Love He that dwells in love dwelleth in God and God in him The Saints love to God is now made perfect without a figure and as their love is so is their mutual in being perfect I in them John 17.23 and they in me that they may be made perfect in one Perfect according to the supreme Exemplar verse 21 As thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may he one in us This also had its imitation on earth it hath now its consummation in heaven the Saints can be no nearer God than they are Essential union is the sole prerogative of the glorious Trinity They dwell also in Christ I in them and they in me Eternity is their wedding day Heaven their bride-chamber their bed of love is the heart of Christ and it is alwayes green alwayes fresh and alwayes flourishing with interchangeable loves There the Saints see the place where they were conceived from all eternity and read the very original thoughts wherewith their Redeemer and Bridegroom loved them when as yet they were not formed in their Mothers belly and their Epithalamium or Nuptial song is I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Cant. 2 1â— they began this Song in the day of their espousals and continue it in their everlasting wedding-day which they celebrate in mutual embraces and festivities joying in one another and glorying in one another delighting themselves in mutual appropriations and appreciations mutually contemplating and commending one anothers beauties and perfections Behold thou art fair my Love behold thou art fair and there is no spot in thee The Angels and Saints in light behold they dwell not with one another only but in one another they inhabit as it were in one anothers hearts That primative Congregation Acts 4. was a lively type of this Royal Congregation of the first-born Acts 2.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crederes unam aniâ—am in omnibus â—esse divisam Chap. 4.32 They are all with one accord in one place so these one place holds them all and one soul animateth and acts them all The whole multitude of Saints in heaven are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
glorified body of our Lord will be as transparent glass through which the glorious beams of Divinity will display themselves to the eye of the blessed beholders And in the beholding whereof there will go forth a transforming vertue which will change them into the same Image if it were so I say in the Gospel vision how much more will it be so in the beatifical The Soul by enjoying God cometh nearer to the pleasure of God himself The sight of God hath a conforming power in it to assimilate the beholder into the likeness of God he converts all into its own nature God as he is a consuming fire to the wicked so he is a purifying refining fire to the Saints by purifying out their dross to make them partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.10 It was the design of their correction in this world and the perfecting of that conformity is the ultimate and supreme design of the facial vision we shall be like him for we shall see him we shall be as he is when we shall see him as he is we shall be like him Like him in Our Souls Our Bodies Like him in our Souls like him in all the faculties of our Souls The Saints like God in their understanding our understandings shall be like the divine understanding we shall know all things past present and to come we shall know all things as God knows them for we shall know all things and see all things in God ut supra Then Adam for the promise of a Redeemer being first preacht to him Gen. 3.15 and that by God himself giveth us more than a probable ground to believe that he is in heaven Adam I say shall have his ambition satisfied in a better sence than he intended oâ— the Tempter suggested of being like unto God knowing good and evil Gen. 3.5 now he knows universal good to be filled and satisfied with it and evil in all the distinctions of it as it is now through the infinite grace of a Redeemer the Tempters portion and not his own The will is made like unto Gods will not a fountain indeed but a large vessel full of goodness and holiness the Saints shall be holy as God is holy pure as God is pure perfect as he is perfect they were so on earth truly now in Heaven they are so perfectly the will shall be as holy as it would be as holy as the holy God would have it be so holy that there will be mutual joy and delight between God and the Saints in the contemplation of their holiness the Saints shall rejoyce in the holiness of God that they have such an holy God it was their duty in the state of Grace Psal 30.4 Sing unto the Lord oh ye Saints of his give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness They rest not and yet they are not wâ—â—â—y Rom. 4.8 It is their work and wages their labour and their rest now in the state of glory They rest not day nor night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty c. See how the Saints are ravished with the contemplation of Gods holiness they double and treble the mention of this glorious attribute they cry Holy holy holy for once Almighty c. And it seems God if I may so say is as much taken with the beauty of their holiness they have their denomination from their holiness Saints in English Holy ones such as God accounts to be his Inheritance yea the glory of it they were so while they were below Eph. 1.18 The riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints What is it above where their holiness is consummate where the Saints are now presented by Christ a glorious Church even like their God glorious in holiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not having spot or wrinkle neither sin nor shadow of sin neither spot nor appearance of a spot but holy and without blemish immaculate holiness there is not so much as a stained thought not an inordinate motion in the whole Region of Heaven to defile that upper world this God delights in because in the holiness of the Saints he sees the reflection of his own face God pleaseth himself to see how like himself he could make a Creature such was the design in the first Creation Let us make man in our own image after our likeness Gen. 1.26 it was the counsel of the thrice blessed Trinity and now though once it suffered a miscarriage it is perfected with advantage by the second Adam They will what God willeth and nill what God nilleth An Argument that it was not a miscarriage of improvidence but of ordination In a word in Heaven there is but one will between God and the Saints and that will is Gods Moreover In their affections Love Hatred Joy His exaltation to the right hand of his Father Isai 62.5 the Saints are like God in their affections They love what God loveth and hate what God hateth their joy is Gods joy they rejoyce in God and in his glory they rejoyce in Jesus Christ their Bridegroom and he rejoyceth in them As the Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride so shall thy God rejoyce over thee that was but the word spoken to the Church at her Espousals what must the joy be think we upon her wedding-day All the affections which either were inordinate or suitable only to the imperfect state as envy malice fear hope desire c. they are all abolished as either inconsistent with or useless to the heavenly state and therein consists no small part of their conformity to God as being capable of nothing which denoteth infirmity or imperfection The Saints are like God in their memories they shall have holy memories their memories shall be like the Ark of the Covenant which was overlaid with gold wherein according to the Apostles Inventory were The golden Pot that had Manna And Aaron's Rod that budded And the Tables of the Covenant The Ark of the Memory now overlaid with glory likewise shall contain the Manna that Angelical food of Word Sacraments Promises Ordinances Providences Experiences wherewith God was wont to feed the Soul while in the wilderness of the world Aaron's Rod that budded Gods fatherly Rod of correction which though for the present seemed not joyous but grievous yet afterward it yielded the peaceable fruits of Righteousness Heb. 12.11 in them that were exercised thereby And the Tables of the Covenant The two Covenants which God made with man the one of Works the witness of Gods holiness and perfection the other of Grace the witness of Gods goodness and commiseration The Covenant of Works the standing evidence of mans guiltiness The Covenant of Grace the standing evidence of Gods righteousness The Covenant of works the lasting monument of mans impotency and changeableness The Covenant of Grace the everlasting monument of Gods omnipotence and immutability These with all the particulars included in either are the chief things
which shall fill the memory and the remembrance of them comparing the type with the antitype if I may so say things past with things present will fill the Soul with admiration and delight If any thing of evil do occur whether of sin affliction as soon as ever it enters within that glorious firmament it loseth the nature of evil and is naturalized into matter of rejoycing and thankfulness In a word the entire Image of God Eph. 5.1 It was their duty in the state of grace it shall be their infinite dignity in the state of glory which was imprinted upon the Soul in the first Creation and reprinted upon it though in an imperfect character in the new Creation shall now be perfected to the life in the Regeneration the Saints shall be as like God as ever they can look as like God as ever Children were like their Father so that there will be nothing but looking and liking the one upon the other Prevent that holy gaze now oh ye children of the most high God be often taken up in the beholding and contemplation of the face of your heavenly Father behold will it not Quicken you to duty Comfort you in your droopings Cause you to overlook the contempt of the world with an holy pride And even be the dawnings of glory upon your faces whereby some line and lineaments of beauty shall be added daily to that blessed draught begun already against that day Once more before we go off from this pleasing contemplation add we The very bodies of the Saints shall share in this blessed conformity as well as the soul It had its degree in the first Paradise man had a kind of resemblance to God in the very make of his body The bodies of the Saints Os homini sublims dâ—dit caelumque tueri jussit c. beautiful upright active no such visible picture of God in Heaven or Earth as man was not Sun Moon or Stars not Earth and Sea or the visible Heavens themselves have so much of their Maker in them as the body of man his very corporeal sences had much of God in them they were Vestigia Dei though not Imago one might easily have known who was their Father But now in glory saith the Apostle Our vile body shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body Phil. 3.21 The glorified body of Christ next to the divine essence to which it is hypostatically united shall be the glory and the wonder of Heaven and our body saith the Apostle shall be like his conformable unto his glorious body What a mirrour of glory will the Saints be in their souls conform'd to the divine nature and their body conform'd to the glory of the humane nature of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory Oh wonderful astonishing transfiguration Well said the Apostle It doth not yet appear what we shall be surely eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither can it enter into the heart of man c. This will be an infinite compensation to the Saints of God for all their holy endeavours of being like to God that as obedient Children they have been followers of their heavenly Father Eph. 5.1 and for all the reproaches and abasements they susteined from a reprobate world because of those endeavours The earth was not able to bear the hard speeches wherewith the enemies of God have reproached the footsteps of Gods anointed ones labouring to insist in the steps of their heavenly Father willing to be Nonconformists to the will and lusts of men and striving to be conformable to the will and pattern of their holy King and Law giver the Lord Jesus the King of Saints Now I say it shall be no shame nor grief of heart unto them when they shall reap the fruit of their weak and imperfect conformity on earth in the most full and perfect consummation of that conformity in heaven when behold whatsoever is glorious and wonderful in the person of their glorious Redeemer or in the thrice glorious and blessed Trinity the very print and Character of it shall be stampt upon the glorified Saints in their created capacities causing them to appear not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as so many Angels but even to resemble God himself and to shine as so many Christs in the Kingdom of their heavenly Father and they that laughed them to scorn shall see it and their faces being filled with shame their consciences with horrour and their hearts with envy they shall now revile and curse themselves howling out Wisd 5.4 We fools accounted their lives madness c. Oh how much better are the reproaches of Christ than all the grandieur and applause in the world Be of good chear all ye Servants of God the time is coming when you shall not repent of your conformity to God and Christ in holiness but shall ever sing I thank the Lord who gave me counsel and taught me to chuse the better part which shall never be taken away from me I come now to the Complement and perfection of this last fruit and consequent of Christ his coming the Saints cohabitation and fellowship with the Lord namely The extent and duration of it in this particle ever We shall ever be with the Lord. The extent and duration ever Ever a little word but of immense signification a Child may speak it It was a witty reply of a Grandchild of Doctor Reynolds now Bishop of Norwich He asking the Child How long Eternity is The Child answered If you will tell me how long half eternity is I will tell you how long whole eternity is but neither Man nor Angel can understand it Oh who can take the demensions of eternity Yea who can tell me how long half eternity is Behold I shew you a Mystery half eternity is eternity yea every part and particle of eternity is eternity for eternity is not made up of hours or dayes or years or lustrums or jubiles or ages or millions of Ages the whole space between the creation of the world and the dissolution of it would not make a day in eternity yea so many years as there be dayes in that space would not fill up an hour in eternity Eternity is one entire Circle beginning and ending in it self This present world which is measured out by such divisions and distinctions of times is therefore mortal and will have end 2 Cor. 4.18 If eternity did consist of finite times though never so large and vast it would not be eternity but a longer tract of time only that which is made up of finite is finite Eternity is but one immense indivisible point wherein there is neither first nor last Deus est octus simplicissimus ex quo omnia sâ—nt in â—uem omnio redeuâ— beginning nor ending succession or alteration but is like God himself one and the same for ever From hence we infer this Doctrine The blessedness of the Saints in Heaven is everlasting Their
felicity amongst sensual men who live no higher than the brate beasts of the earth meerly by sight and sence but when all is done the pardoned man is the blessed man yea he is blest and blest and blest again double and treble blessednesses are his portion for ever In like manner we may conceive our holy Apostle calling after sinners and even beseeching them not to loose themselves and their precious souls in the pursuit of a lye They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies Jonah 2.8 Here therefore he discovers to them who are blessed and what it is that will make them happy for ever only with this difference David's Maschil in the Psalm describes initial blessedness the holy Apostle here describes perfect and consummate blessedness David describes the blessedness of the way Paul sets forth to us the blessedness of the Country and state whither the Saints are travelling David speaketh of the blessedness which lieth in order and tendency to blessedness Saint Paul of ultimate and supreme blessedness the summum bonum the chief and most transcendent good which either the Creature is capable of or God can confer on it even immediate vision and fruition of himself to all eternity Ever with the Lord. Adam by that first candle which God lighted in his first creation clearly saw in what his summum bonum did confist and for a moment enjoyed it but the Angel who kepe not his first estate envying his happiness Ad solamen calomitat is suae incipit perditus pordere well remembring the method of his own apostacy tempts him by the same medium of pride to cast himself down from the pinnacle of happiness whereon he stood whereby himself fell down from heaven and the temptation unhappily took for while Adam was ambitious to be a sun he miserably put out his candle and so lost his way and himself too since which time none of his unhappy posterity could ever by the help of that snuff which remained find their way again to true happiness How miserably did the great Sophiâ—s of the world the Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 21. In their ratiocinations those Secretaries of Nature the reputed Masters of Knowledge and Learning cum ratione insanire and in the Apostles language Grow vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened How did they weary themselves with the blind Sodomites to grope out the door which openeth to happiness but lost themselves instead of finding the truth Varro the learnedst of the Romans maketh report of no less than two hundred and eighty Opinions in his time concerning mans chiefest good Aul. Gol. each differing from the other and all from the truth as Basilis is reported to have asserted one hundred sixty five Heavens To this very day we see all the sons and daughters of Adam seeking for happiness but few or none finding what they seek for all agree in the notion but they differ in the object People generally go for happiness to the worlds Trinity Scil. The lust of the flesh 1 John 2.16 Scil. The lust of the eyes 1 John 2.16 Scil. The pride of life 1 John 2.16 But alas Nihil dat quòd non bobâ—â— these have it not to give men would fain squeeze that out of the world which God never put into it As an evidence whereof it is highly observable that the wisdom of God who best knows the worth of things hath not in that Scripture 1 John 2.16 dignified these elements of the world with those innocent titles of their primitive institution pleasures riches honours but calls them by the odious names which the first apostacy and the habitual degeneracy of nature hath justly imposed the lust of the flesh instead of pleasures the lust of the eyes instead of riches and the pride of life instead of honours in which respect the Apostle denieth them their original from the Father and sends them to fetch their pedigree from a lower extraction nim from the world ver 16. And behold if these objects which contain in them the utmost latitude of all worldly excellency and that in their puris naturalibus were never ordained by the great and wise Creator for any higher service than of the inferiour part of man the sensitive part wherein he differs little from the beasts that porish now when by the malice of the Devil and the corruption of mans heart they are debauched and poysoned into so many snares and temptations how totally I say uncapable are they become of being an adequate blessedness for immortal souls Such of the sons and daughters of Adam as have had the candle of the Lord which was put out by the fall lighted anew by the Sun of Righteousness are mightily enabled by the irradiation of the Holy Ghost to discern the airiness and emptiness of all sublunary and elementary happiness and to make choice of more solid supercelestial excellencies for their summum bonum to sing with the sweet singer of Israel In thy presence is fulness of joy Psal 16. â—â— and at thy right hand there are pleasunes for evermore Moses in the Old Testament and Paul in the New stand as two pillars of fire to light men the way to true blessedness Moses was courted by all the honours pleasures and treasures of Egypt to espouse them as his ultimate and supreme beatitudes but he shakes them off all as once Paul the Viper into the fire not less full of poyson than that venomous beast was Acts 28. â—4 First Pride of life the honour and grandeur of Pharaâ—h's Court came to do him homage every one in the Kings Court for there he was brought up bowed the knee and saluted Moses by the Prince-like title of the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter which signified no less than Heir apparent to the Crown of Egypt Pharach having then no other Child but that only Daughter nor she but Moses whom she had adopted to be her Son from the Cradle of Bul rushes yet all this glory did Moses when he came to years able to make his own choice refuse by faith seeing what an hollow insignificant advancement this was iâ— was not the Egyptian Monarchy which could make Moses happy especially in the terms he must take it namely to turn Egyptian and forsake the society of Gods people no said Moses I 'le have none of it to suffer with Gods people here and to reign with God hereafter is a felicity infinitely to be preferr'd before all the Empires in the world This temptation failing next succeeded in the second place Pleasure called by the Apostle the lust of the flesh with her face painted her locks curled breasts naked and impudently sollicits Moses his embraces All the beauties of the Kings Court delicious fare ravishing musick beautiful gardens stately walks fruitful orchards pools of water princely sports and pastimes in a word all the delights of the sons of men the sensual fruitions of an
Egyptian Paradise if these can make Moses happy they are at his service he may be where he will and do what he please oh dangerous temptation Did it not take What 's the reason Why faith here also stept in to Moses his rescue Moses by his piercing eye of faith did quickly discern a double blemish in the face of pleasure though it was never so artificially painted i. e. First They were but the pleasures of sin fit for nothing but to defile the soul and to render it unmeet for communion with God wherein consists the highest felicity of the humane or of the Angelical nature sensitive pleasures have more of dregs intellectual more of the quintessence the pleasure of the Bee is more refined than the pleasure of a Swine 2. Again another fault he finds in pleasures is their brevity as they were the pleasures of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so they were but for a season as impure as they were they had no duration they perish in the using so soon doth the pleasure of an Epicure wither he eats and drinks and dieth before his morsel or his draught be swallowed The pleasure of tast is but in fine polati just when it is going off Anacreon in the midst of his cups was choaked with the husk or kernel of a grape so did Epicurus himself dye with a cup of wine at his mouth and this was the end of their summum bonum the sweetest pleasures are the shortest Moses his Spirit was to august to be filled with a little poysoned air But. 3. This offer also thus despised the Mammon of Egypt presents its self to Moses money may tempt him that is not taken with beauty What say you Moses all the treasures of Egypt attend your Highness ready to make you one of the richest Monarchs in the world for so at that time Egypt was for Jewels Gold Silver precious Stones all the peculiar treasure of Kings the most opulentous of all Kingdoms round about the very Magazine of the world Moses need never to fear being poor any more Is not this enough to make a man happy No not a Moses Insatiabilu divitiarum gurges Tacit. Germana ista bestia non curat pecunia◠a covetous Mammonist might have taken it down with a grateful swallow such an one as Felix was that infatiable gulf of riches as the Historian calls him but Moses as the Papists once said of Luther could not be caught with money The reproach of Christ was a mountain of infinitely more valuable invaluable treasure esteeming the reproach of Christ i. e. Christ in the promise or the reproach of the Church which is Christ mystical 1 Cor. 12.12 Oh saith Moses let me be counted worthy to suffer reproach for Christ and his peoples sake and I desire no more riches in the world How so Moses faith did clearly out-bid all the proffers of Egypt he looks within the vail Heb. 11.26 fixing his eye upon the recompence of neward and there he discovered such honours pleasures treasures as eye never saw 1 Cor. 2.9 ear never heard nor can enter into the heart of man in comparison whereof all the preferments delights and riches of Egypt were but as so many gilded erowns painted banquets insignificant cyphers ten thousand of which in the summa totalis make just nothing Thus Moses turns his back upon the world and all her glittering elements Valde protestot◠son monon ito setiori à Deo protesting as it were as it is said of Luther that God should not turn him off with these things he had weighed them in the ballance of faith and found them too light to make a summum bonum of there wanted something within 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such an account doth the Apostle Paul that Evangelical Moses bring in concerning the whole visible world when it was as it were set forth to sale in all its splendour and gallantry to what Merchants would bid for it Paul would offer nothing but passeth by in an holy scorn and will not so much as cast an eye upon it Oculo irrotorto 1. Cor. 4.13 We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen How much doth the judgment of Saints differ from the judgment of the men of the world the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things which fall under sight and sence were Paul's nothings but they are the men of the worlds only solid substances and realities è contra the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible things of eternity they were in the holy Apostle his estimation the only entities and real beings but in the judgment of the men of the world they are the only chimera's and shadows which have no more being than what they have in the fancy so far were the things of the world from being able to make up an happiness for a rational Creature that the Apostle accounts them not worth a look unless it be of contempt and derision which account that ye may know did not proceed from pride and singularity but from a well-informed judgment he gives us the ground or reason of it scil the perishing nature of things visible they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the present moment as Moses even now sum'd them up for a season and how short a season no man can tell Psal 14.1 Well hath holy David called the Atheist a fool The fool hath said in his heart there is no God And why sayes he so Because he cannot see God a fool indeed If God could be seen he were not God whatever falls under sight and sense to be sure is subject to mutation Is this a fit thing to make a beatitude of No upon this very account the wise man calls off our eyes and hearts from all sublunary fruitions as most insufficient to make up a felicity for a Creature which God hath ennobled with a rational faculty wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not Mark Prov. 23.9 the most proper title which the wisdom of God can give these seen things is a non-entity the world in all its ruffe and bravery is nothing else but a spectrum an apparation a meer non ens a great goodly gilded nothing and why so but upon the account of their lubricity and fickleness there is no more staying of them than of the running stream or wind or bird in the air for riches verily make themselves wings riches i.e. whatever it is which men make their confidence they make themselves wings a metaphor from a bird in the nest it is hatched naked yet feathers out of the very nature of the bird if no hand take it out of the nest yet in short time it will take wings and fly away just so it is with riches of what species soever if the plunderer or oppressours the thief fire inundations c. give them no wings they will quickly give themselves wings and take their slight
passed from death to life and God hath given us eternal life Chap. 5.11 not only will give but hath given as sure as if we were there already and thus in many Scriptures more Now this is certain what hath been may be what some of the Saints have attained and not only by special prerogative others may attain also provided they be not slothful Heb. 6.11 curn 12. but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises Thus heaven may be made sure But on the other side The world nor any part of it can be made sure earth cannot 1. It is not all the ensuring Offices in the world nor all the Law or Lawyers in Westminster-hall that can make an undefeazable entail to secure an inheritance upon the third or second generation not only in respect of the brevity and uncertainty of mans life the great mutability in the Creature the wiles and frauds of men who are cunning to deceive but even in regard of the methods and intricacies of the Law it self 1 Tim. 6.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hence the Apostle calls all sublunary possessions uncertain riches to which he opposeth the living God God only is immortal not mutable all the things in the world which men make their riches are uncertain heaven only by a true Copernicisme is fixed the earth moveable and unstable 2. And God would have it so God hath on purpose filled the whole Creation with emptiness and vanity that the heart of man might not be ensnared and beguiled with it for saith God Prov. 23. â— wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not How not Not that which it appears to be a meer non-ens a nothing Not that which the heart of man promises to it self from it happiness and satisfaction nothing less Not fixed and durable for riches verily make themselves wings and fly away as an Eagle towards heaven Supra from whence they came God gave them and when he calls them they take wings and are gone in a moment they cannot be secured as good secure the bird upon the wing as go about to secure the world in any of the elements thereof 3. God would have us sit loose from the Creature here God would have us contented to be at uncertainties Matth. 6. ver 25. Take no thought for your life 34. Take no thought for to morrow In the concerns of the present life God would have us live at an holy kind of adventure and leave all to providence i. e. as to the issues and events of things But oh how are men turned Gods antipodes What cannot be made sure and God would not have to be sure that vain man would make sure and that which may be made sure which God commands us to make sure and what the Saints have made sure this and this only he takes upon trust and leaves it upon Why nots and peradventures Thus man stands as one saith upon his head and shakes his heels against heaven It is a Lamentation and shall be for a Lamentation A second Consideration may be this Motive 2. To get assurance of heaven is a work never unseasonable but never more seasonable than in times of danger and uncertainty when all sublunary things are in a doubtful and wavering condition in such a juncture of time he that can secure heaven by making his calling and election sure he is like the Philosophers good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 four-square cast him which way you will he alwayes falls upon a square he is built upon a Rock and cannot be shaken or though he be moved he cannot be removed but stands like a pillar in the Temple of God even like those pillars in Solomon's Temple Jachin and Boaz stability and strength This is the most important business incumbent on us and it being about an Inheritance which is fixed and sure it is both our duty and our wisdom to be so too uncertainty in things of uncertainty is no solecisme but to be uncertain in things of greatest assurance and permanency is an intollerable shame Heaven secur'd our work is done a man may sit down and sing a requiem to his own soul in an holy security Rora hora brevis mora O sidurasset saying Soul thou hast goods laid up for many years for years of eternity eat drink and be merry and not fear the rebuke of O thou fool The joy of the Lord enters into the soul before the soul entreth into the Lords joy the Inheritance safe a man may well be merry for he can never be miserable He that is sure of Heaven knoweth also that whatever he hath more or less in this life he hath it as The fruit of Gods everlasting electing love The purchase of Christs blood With Gods love as well as with Gods leave By promise as well as by providence As part of his childs portion in earnest of what is to come He knoweth that whatever befalls him on this side heaven Honour or dishonour Good report or bad report Health or sickness Prosperity or adversity Peace or persecution Life or death All shall work together for good his best his spiritual his eternal good Rom. 8.28 Who but a mad man would leave such an estate upon uncertainties The world may call him if they will a wise man but a greater fool goeth not about the streets with a whisk and a batible And truly without this a man cannot rationally take any delight in these inferiour enjoyments this will be a care at the bottom yea it is well now but what it will be hereafter to all eternity I know not Consider in the third place Motive 3. The more wisdom any have attained to the greater hath been their care and diligence to secure to themselves an interest in this future blessedness Witness holy David and Paul Porphyry saith of Photinâ—â— that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose indifferency about the present and contention about the future estate was such as if they had forgotten they were in the body Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee so sings David Psal 73.25 And I forget the things that are behind and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus so professeth holy Paul Phil. 3.13 14. Oh happy security they were careless of the world that they might secure themselves of heaven Fourthly and lastly consider Motive 4. That disappointment is the most afflicting evil that a rational Creature is capable of And there be three Aggravations which render it intolerable First The more precious the concernment the more grievous the disappointment to be disappointed of a common preferment is very vexatious what is it then to be disappointed of a Crown a Kingdom Secondly The higher the confidence of speeding the deeper the anxiety of disappointment to come to the Church door in expectation
day of redemption whereby ye are sealed i. e. whose office it is to seal up believers Grieve him not Malitious sins despise the Holy Ghost Heb. 10.29 Wilful sins vex the Spirit Isai 63 10. Obstinate going on in sin resists the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 Immersing our selves in pleasures and profits of this present world doth quench the Spirit 1 Thess 5.19 But the least sins convinced of grieve the Spirit He is an holy Spirit and therefore sin must needs grieve him sin quâ sin being a pure contrariety to his holy nature Enemies do despise and vex and resist and quench but friends are properly said to grieve and such are the persons to whom the Apostle directs his exhortation friends believers unkindnesses do most properly grieve a friend Oh all you that desire assurance take heed of Vnkindnesses take heed of small sins appearances of sin take heed of neglecting your communion with God in holy duties take heed of bitterness wrath anger be ye kind one towards another Res delicato est Spiritia sanctin tender hearted c. for so it exegetically followeth the Text q. d. by all these the Spirit is grieved It is a tender thing and you may quickly grieve it and if you grieve your Comforter who shall comfort you And if you grieve the holy Spirit who shall sanctifie you And if you grieve the sealing Spirit who shall seal you to the day of redemption Never look for assurance as long as you are not afraid of grieving the Spirit which is the earnest of the inheritance Carnal mens question is May I do this and not be damn'd But a godly mans question is Can I do this and not grieve the Spirit of God Will not Jesus Christ take this unkindly 5. 5. Means Take heed of blotting that evidence Take heed of any thing that may darken your evidences or damp your comforts a small drop of ink or dirt falling upon an Evidence may make it illegible or darken it people make nothing of small sins but small sins do not the least hurt to the soul if it were no more than this small sins will raise up a jealousie between God and the soul great sins will destroy peace little sins will disturb it the least hair casts its shadow and a barly corn laid upon the light of the eye will hinder the sight of the Sun as well as a mountain abstain from all appearance of evil if you desire God should be a God of peace to you 1 Thess 5.22 cum 23. Abstain from all appearance of evil and the God of peace sanctifie you Make much of the least intimations of love and favour from God in prayer hearing or reading meditation 6. Means Make much of the least hint of Divine love at Christs Table or any other of your holy converses with God the least beam or ray of Gods face upon thy soul let it be as life from the dead do as Benhadad's servants 1 Kings 20.33 did to the King of Israel Diligently observe whether any thing will come from him any smile from Christs face any wink of his eye any sweet breath any whisper of peace from his lips such possibly Son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee or the like and hastily catch at it thy Son Lord I am most unworthy to be called so not worthy to be an hired servant but Lord since thou pleasest to deign me so infinite an honour Luke 1.33 Behold the servant of the Lord and be it unto me according to thy word come in thou blessed Lord and take possession of my soul and rule in me according to all the desire of thine heart Object But how shall I know whether such a whisper of peace may be indeed the voice of God or a delusion of Saan Answ For answer briefly 1. Such breathings of God upon the soul do usually carry their own evidence with them if God say I am thy salvation the irradiation carrieth a satisfying light with it the Sun needeth no other luminary to comment upon its own light but its own nor the Spirit of God any other manifestation of its own presence but it self 2. We say though it want no other manifestation it hath other the effects as Christ said of his miracles John 5.36 and impressions of such whispers and breathings upon the soul will witness of them whence they come Springs will rise as high as they fall that which cometh from heaven will carry up the soul to heaven Do therefore such hints and intimations of love and favour endear God to thy soul cause that to say as Psal 103.1 and 116.1 Do they make Evangelical Ordinances publick and private more sweet and delightful to thee To say as Psal 43.4 I will go to God my exceeding joy Do they make thee more active and vigorous for God and for the promoting of the interests of Christs Kingdom in thy place and station Fear not thy God and the God of thy Fathers hath given thee treasure in thy sack That is the answer which in my poor ministry I have used to give to all those who have repaired to me for satisfaction whether their peace and comfort be good Doth your comfort make you more humble more active for God more holy Peace be unto you your comfort is heaven-born comfort and you may christen it Gad for behold a troop cometh Oh be very thankful for the least of such messengers of peace to thy soul and write down such divine testimonies in thy book Habemii dabitur Mat. 25.29 with the year and day of the month that it may never be forgotten be thankful for what thou hast and thou mayst comfortably expect more Be much in duties of mortification 7. Help lye often in sackcloath and ashes before the Lord exercise thy self in frequent acts of Self denial little dost thou know how soon God may put a new song into thy mouth Lord thou hast turned for me my mourning Psal 30.11 thou hast put off my sack-cloth and hast girded me with gladness to the end my glory may sing praise unto thee and not be silent c. Be careful to mortifie corruptions and to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 A mortified Christian is the fittest vessel to contain the precious liquor of assurance Mortification first purifieth and then dilates the heart and makes it capacious to divine consolations I keep under my body and bring into subjection 2 Cor. 9. ult 2 Cor. 5.1 was his voice that could say We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God c. He filleth the hungry with good things Set others to pray for thee Yet not every one 8. Help who it may be can pray Assurance is not an errand to send every common Christian to the Throne of Grace about Special Favourites are imployed to Princes for special Favours thou canst not pray
thy self nor set any of the houshold of Faith at work for an higher Boon than for Assurance Oh get some special Favourite under the great Mediator some Noah some Job some Daniel c. Men or Women of great acquaintance and much communion with God Christians of large experience and eminent holiness to such God usually denyeth nothing And Heb. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him Psal 25.14 his Covenant to make them know it Speaks to others as men and women ordinarily bespeak prayers Pray pray for me and the like and truly for the most part it passeth for a common if not a vain Complement and there 's an end of it speak to some not Heathen and they will laugh at thee they know not what thou sayest speak to others and they 'l forget thee He that makes not assurance his own concernment how can he make it thine Speak to serious solid broken-hearted Christians who know what assurance is and what it is worth earnestly beg of them If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies That they would plead hard for that in the interest of our Lord Jesus if God would remember your poor thirsty soul for one draught of this wine of this consolation Assurance and they cannot yea they dare not forget thee They know whose prayers have prevailed for themselves in the like petitions and they dare not but pay their debts But whilst thou settest others to pray for thee Caution forget not to pray for thy self forget not to pray for thy self If thou settest others to pray for thee and prayest not thy self thou art an Hypocrite and God will account thee as one that mockest and thou wilt get a curse and not a blessing wherefore pray pray constantly and pray instantly Vehementia constantia in istu petitionibus requiritur c. knock hard at the gate of heaven for this grand mercy and if God open not the first or second or twentieth or the hundreth time yet with Peter continue knocking let God know as it were that thou art resolved to take no denial to thy Petition for assurance This was the greatness of the poor woman of Canaans Faith Mat. 15.27 she would not be denied Be constant and conscientious in your attendance upon Christs Table 9. Help behold it is the sealing Ordinance his Banquetting-house his Presence-chamber his Marriage-feast his Bed of love where he doth use to give out to his Spouse his Loves Cant. 6.12 〈◊〉 Behold the Spirits run in the blood and the sealing Spirit of Christ is not seldom conveyed in the precious streams of Christs blood in that mysterious Ordinance The holy Supper was the pledge of his dying Love a Seal of his last coming to receive home his Spouse to himself This Cup is the New Testament in my blood 1 Cor. 11.25 26. this do ye as est as ye drink it in remembrance of me As oft as ye eat c. Christ would have his Spouse perpetuate the remembrance of his dying love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 3.12 that thereby they might look for a hastning of his coming Oh let not thy place be empty at such a glorious festivity who can tell whether the Lord may come in the very hour of this solemn Ordinance which he hath appointed to be the very sanction and pledge of his glorious and triumphant coming Sam. 20.27 and say concerning thee Where is the son of Jesse to day Oh at such a time for the Bridegroom to find thee absent how unkindly may he take it Who that he might be sure not to miss thy company at this Love-feast hath said As oft as ye eat c. Lastly Wait. This is blessedness in assurance 10. Help next to the beatifical vision it self and there wants not blessedness in waiting for it while short spirited Christians can find no sweetness but in a plerophâ—ry gracious souls can tast blessedness in waiting for it Lam. 3.26 The Saints in Scripture have been not only a praying generation but a waiting generation the old Testament Believers waited for the Promise of the Messiah Luke 2.25 It is said of good old Simeon He waited for the consolation of Israel And the Primitive believers in the new Testament after Christs Ascention were commanded by our Lord to wait for the Promise of the Father Acts 1.4 which said he ye have heard of me namely the Promise of the Holy Ghost which should fill their hearts with assurance and seal them up to the day of Redemption Indeed there is Patience in Faith as well as Power it knoweth as well how to stay the Lords leasure as to wrestle with him for the blessing Indeed it is a rare temper to be importunate with God and Christ willing to stay Gods leisure but it is most excellent and there is nothing lost by it Holy David gives us his own experience Psal 40.1 I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry Go you and do likewise Pray and wait wait and wait patiently and if the Lord answer not as soon as your souls could wish know this that you do not so much wait for God as God for you Isai 30 18. The Lord waits to be gracious God doth but wait the fittest season of mercy and therefore blessed are they that wait for him And let me tell you this for your unspeakable encouragement that if assurance come not till your dying hour nor then neither to your own or others sence and observation yet vigorous and persevering indeavours shall wear the same Crown with assurance in heaven not want of assurance but the neglect of it is the sin which God takes unkindly It was the last words wherewith holy Jacob went triumphing out of the world I have waited for thy salvation Gen. 49.18 O Lord. And thus I have done with the second Use of this Ever I come to a third Ever with the Lord. Use 3. 1 Cor. 15 ult It may serve as a spur to diligence and activity in the wayes of God It is the very use the Apostle makes of this blessed Doctrine Therefore my brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as ye know your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Not in vain a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more is to be understood than is exprest the meaning is your reward shall be great and glorious What is that this motive hath relation to the glorious resurrection treated on in the whole foregoing Chapter q. d. on the other side of the resurrection God hath prepared an eternity of glory for you and therefore bestir your selves in good earnest do somewhat for God on this side the grave that may if possible bear some proportion with your future expectation Whatever thy hand findeth to do do