with me or at least I am not yet manifest in it Therefore I say his ascending was that he might marry our natures in his own person unto his glorious head though he was marryed unto the father in eternity yet not as the son of man on earth but this was the marriage of the son of man on earth And so he carryed up our nature out of this state of poverty beggery in sin death yea out of legalor first covenant-righteousnesse into the glory of God that is the third marriage that I have been speaking of wherein you see how it differs from the first marriage The first was the marriage of the son of man in heaven unto the godhead but this is the marriage of the son of man on earth unto the son of man in heaven that is clear by our Saviour his own stating of it let us not slight that for he says before Abraham was I am this glory is to be the covering the clothing to the son of man on earth this is the wedding from which he comes You possibly will say why did not Christ come all this time hath this wedding lasted this 16. 1700. years my brethren our Lord Jesus Christ is presented as our head so that Christ was married as a publique person and we must all follow to this wedding this hath been the work ever since through all times and ages from Christs assention it hath been I say the preparation of the Bride the lambs wife for this fourth and last marriage Christs 3d marriage the heavens must receive until the restitution of all things till his Bride be ready And all the saints have been hastening out of themselves out of his fleshly fallible state and image into the resurrection life they have been hastning by a mistical death this is the work of all ages since Christ to prepare the Bride that is such a number of men and women as God hath fore known in his eternal counsel that are to come up successively upon the stage of this world in their generations and times to be the witnesses of our Lord and of his death his sufferings are to be fulfilled in them and so is his life to be manifested in them as the dyings of Jesus so his life this hath been his work since his a scention and when his number is eompleated then will the Lord reveal himself from heaven in our persons in that glory which our natures have been invested with from his ascention then will Christ and his bride the lamb and the lambs wise plant and model the world and they will have a new seed after that which shall be born in Christs own image as Adam is said to beget a son in his own image which will be the new race of men and women after this glorious marriage For Christ will have generations of saints that shall be brought forth unto him in his kingdom in another glory then we have known all this time Thus I have been carryed whether I would not for what I designed to speak I am not come to I should have shewed you by the example and pattern of his wedding on Christs part the glory of his marriage and I should have come to the application but I must take another time for this The Seventh Sermon 1. Ep. John 3.2 Beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be YOu see though I am off from my former text yet not from my subject this text benig of a kin to it and bordering upon it and having many things in my mind upon it though not digested into such a method as more leisure and time might have afforded I shall abruptly present to you the 2. heads upon which we shall spend this opportunity without more curious survey of the text or context and briefly they are 1. That blessed and glorious hope which is laid up for the Saints at Christs appearing and 2d the evidence of it These are the two things that I shall pick out of these words the hope is that we shall be like Christ when he appears the evidence of this hope is that we shall see him as he is for the hope it self you see it concerns us our persons and our spirits And that is the immediate and great concern and expectation of believers in Christs glorious kingdom and at his glorious appearing the change that shall be brought upon our selves the glorious change that shall be brought upon all things for he that sits upon the throne says behold I make all things new is to begin first upon us it is to begin upon the Saints and when they are changed not only will all things be changed to them but all things shall be changed with them though not presently yet in due course and order for the Apostle says that the whole creation grones and travels in pain expecting to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God they are to be delivered into our liberty and the Gospel throughout in all the priviledges both of grace and glory in both states of the kingdom both that of grace and of glory the militant and the triumphant state do hold forth first fruits that shall be first visited and first saved and then the Lump and body first the root and then the branches and I do the rather put a note upon this because we are apt to be carried forth into other contemplations and expectations of the change of times the change of kingdoms common-wealths Churches and overlook the fundamental change this head change this right change which begins in the persons of Saints of believers themselves which may be called the beginning of changes as we read of the beginning of revenges in Deuteronòmy or the head revenge of the enemy so this is the head of change and in vain do we look for a happinesse to come unto us by the change of our circumstances and of our conditions if there be not this Radical this fundamental change in our persons and spirits Now this change I shall first present it to you in the substance of it and then shall consider the arguments the illustrating arguments in the text and in the context First the substance of this change into a likenesse of Christ when he shall appear we shall be like him the likenesse unto Christ is that which cannot but speak for it self and commend it self sufficiently to our desires can there be any better thing then to be like Christ can there be a greater thing then to be like Christ Let us but consider who and what he is he is the likenesse of God the brightness of his glory the character of his person in whom god hath drawn forth himself to the life he is the image he is the glory of God there is not any excellency in God but it is displayed in our Lord Jesus most beautifully most divinely most advantagiously and therefore it may well be a hope
spot in Christ not in himself for if you examine the actions of the best men and take a tryal of them and weigh them they cannot hold weight before the Lord though a saint in his minde hath a more noble principle being renewed after the image of him that created him But if it were so in Christ that he at the very heighth of his legal righteousnesse was only thereby qualifyed and furnished to be a sacrifice to his father it is that which instructs us that in all our attainments in that first image we should look upon it to be only given us for a sacrifice There was you know several offerings under the law some were but a pair of young pigeons yet it was accepted so that I say whether we have more or lesse of that active righteousnesse in the force of our first life and principle restored this is a great shortness in our knowledg not to know that there is in Christ himself a first covenant-life a first covenant-principle this must all be laid down and parted with Christ did so himself and so must all his And this is that that the Lord is carrying on through this life we are dying daily and offering up our bodies and I pray what is that body which is dead because of sin the Apostle speaks of men that were in the body of the flesh therefore this body is the body of the first creation light it is that image of God that was presented in it's perfection by Christ in as great and absolute a perfection as in the first Adam And it is restored in principle in all that believe in Christ there is somthing of that lise whereby they tend to a greater exactnesse and perfection then they can attain unto but this body is dead and all must be broken off from this husband as in Rom. 7. you have it there very plainly declared know ye not brethren for I speak to them that know the law says he how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth that is as long as the man lives his own life for a believer is crucified with Christ but Christ lives in him what is the husband here it is the law you will say the law is not capable to be a mans husband as it is only a doctrine or as it is a form of words what is that to be ones husband Therefore you must consider herein that it is Christ mark ye that is the husband even under the law for he hath a first covenant wise and first covenant children he is a husband under the law is it not said though I was a husband unto them Ier. 31.32 I beseech you accept of these hints and weigh them I desire not to speak my own words and if I did not think that there was that in these things which doth mainly import our souls I durst not speak them but if you consider you will find that there is a world of professors that have only relation to Christ as a first covenant Lord and husband for it is Christ that is the person in both in law and Gospel Moses was but a typical mediator it was Christ that was the true Mediator There is an appearance in which Christ comes forth which is not to abide but is to go away as he acquaints his disciples with the expedience of it then yet he was a Bridegroom then but he was a Bridegroom in the flesh and that covenant-relation was to be exchanged for a better covenant-relation Rom. 7.4 Do you not see here that Christ is the Bridegroom his flesh was shadowed out by the law what do we mean by his flesh my beloved brethren let us wait upon the Lord for light in these things there hath been a great deal of pudder about the flesh of Christ as if Christ had no body now because the Apostle to the Hebrews reflects on the days of his flesh as past Alas this is not the meaning of Christ flesh for the flesh properly and the law and sin and death all these are relative one to the other so that the flesh as it is considered in us is the free hold of sin now Christ he comes in the flesh and he therein fulfils all rightousnesse and so doth as I may say recover that ground which the first Adam had loâ—t sin was entred upon the flesh Christ he comes and plants righteousnesse in the flesh marke ye it is but in the flesh the flesh is that active sate of first-covenant life and righteousness in conformity to the law and letter which was the state which was restored in Christ though lost in Adam and this is that which believers themselves are brought forth into in order to a passage through it into the righteousness of God the first stone of which building is laid in the dissolution and passing away of this first strength this first activiry and power that the creature finds himself invested withall and in which he thinks himself a gallant peice I say the first stone of this new building is laid by the pulling down of all this ye are dead to the law that ye night be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead there is our new husband that is a believer hath now given up as Christ did when he gave up that first life and righteousnesse to his father When he had done all and the law could require no more from him he had another piece of obedience which was a note above all the law what was that why he must be obedient unto death as much as if God had said unto him canst thou now my son forgo all this glory canst thou strip thy self canst thou put it all off canst thou trust me to raise thee again and bring thee forth in another glory in a heavenly image I can says he there is none but Christ could do it were it not for our captaine we should never have gone through he was marryed as I told you unto the original glory of God he was marryed to his head and he having the presence of eternal life with him he is able to charge through these legions of devils this land of death and darknesse though it was that made him sweat drops of blood and cry out my soul is sorrowful unto death yet he was so enabled and supported that through he goes and had that glorious issue that the Gospel is the report of this is one husband now mark ye he being raised from the dead walked a while with his disciples upon the earth about 40. days then he ascended he was not in that glory where he expected to be while he was on the earth for he would not let Mary touch him saying touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my father as who should say I am not yet where I would be nor where I shall be I am not yet the object of that new converse which thou shalt have
and them that worship therein this was the temple of priests for there was the Altar in the holy place now the other temple which was the most holy there was the Ark and that is the temple which is opened after the 7th trumpet sounded The holy of holies the temple of God was opened and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament Revel 11. last The ark was not seen in the temple of the Priests where the Altar was but it was seen in the most holy place for thither was the ark carryed and so in that chap. 15. Behold the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened This is not that state of the Church whiles they were under suffering from Antichrist but it is that state that the Church enters into after the expiration of the term of Antichrist when they are just going up into the kingdom that is the temple that is opened at the 7th trumpet and there it is called the temple of the tabernacle of testimony Because the ark was called the ark of the testimony and the tables that were in the ark are called the tables of testimony so that I say these temples were distinct that is the first thing The Second thing that I have to prove is that this most holy place is not opened for the Vyals to come out but is opened after they are come out for when the Angels are said to come out of the temple there is no specification that that temple was the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony but I heard a great voice out of the temple chap. 6. v. 1. now to prove this he says in the beginning of the 15th chap. I saw a great signe in heaven and there is a summary account of the Vyals pouring out and the victory of the true Church of Christ over the Antichristian Sinagogue in the four first verses before you hear of the opening of the ten ple of the tabernacle of testimony for this is a character that is observed throughout the Revelations where you meet with that word after these things as you do in 5th vers there is always another vision of distinct new matter and that which follows in time after the former as for instance after the Lord had dispatch't his minde unto Johu in those Epistles in the 2d and 3d chap. It is said chap. 4. After this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven so likewise in the 7th chap. after the 6th seal had brought the heathen dragon down and cast him to the earth it is said after these things I saw 4 Angels standing c. Now this is an evident token of things that do succeed and follow and are not contemporary so here chap. 15. v. 6. It is said after the Vyals and not before the Vyals of which he had given a summary account in the former verses and indeed if we do but consider the nature and import of Vyals that will help us in the discerning of this point that is before us which will serve for an answer to another objection and that is this You will say the Vyals are the judgments of God upon the beast now this is the order of divine justice that sin when it is finished brings forth death but the beast had not finished his sin at the begining of the times of reformation and therefore it is not to be expected that he should have his reward till he hath done his work Answ Yet he had done work enough to be rewarded for before the Vyals began he was not idle he fell to work immediatly when once he had power given to him he opened his mouth in blasphemies He had ravished the Christian world from Christ before these Vyals began to be poured forth did he not deserve something for all this was he not ripe for judgments all the work that he did afterwards was very much occasioned by the Vyals by the coming forth of the light and the truth against him which did sorely vex him so that he behaved himself like a beast indeed with great rage more then before But consider in the 2d place mark ye the import of the Vyals of which word we read but once as I know in the old Testament viz. of a Vyal and that was Samuels taking a Vyal of oyl but the Vyals we read of in the Revelations are full of odours or the prayers of the saints now there are but 3 things that can fill the Vyals either the sin of the enemies or the judgments of God for those sins or the prayers of the saints and I think they may be all in the Vyals It is certain the prayers of the saints are there they cryed from the primitive times and so down all along The sins of the enemy they also fill up these Vyals you know what God says of the Amorite The sins of the Amorites are not yet full for so God tells Abraham as much as to say the Vyals are not yet full I shall give you one place here the Lord speaks much in this kinde of phrase Deut. 3.34 Is not this laid up with me in store or sealed up among my treasures he says before Their wine is the poyson of Dragons is not this laid up in store with me you know there are seven seals and six of them were opened before the heathen Roman was destroyed So that all the whole time from Christ unto his second coming is all under the seals we are under the seals to this day the 7th seal is not sully opened till Jesus Christ in person be exhibited to the joyful view and beholding of those that look for him All this while God is registring and recording all the sins of the enemy all their bitterness it is sealed up amongst his treasures that is the 2d thing that fills the Vyals the sins of the enemy Consider that antichrist had been at work about a 1000 years before ever a Vyal did stir against him before the beginning of the Reformation And as there was the sins of a thousand years treasured up against him and the prayers of a thousanp years for vengeance upon him so there was the wrath of God distilling into these Vyals for every sin brought a drop of wrath into these Vyals still therefore you need not say that antichrist had not done his work and so was not to have his wages for you fee he had done a great deal of his work yea his sin was full that is so much as was to precede the Vyals Now because the time is so farr past I shall spend the remainder of it in a word or two of application it is a word of exhortation to us To be waiting for the return of our Lord from the wedding and I would not have you think this is th same word altogether with that I spake the last day thongh if it were yet it were worth the while I exhorted you then to watch and that was
thy faith fail not Luk. 22.31 neither did Jacobs faith fail him in that night of his conflict Gen. 32.25 nor Jobs while he could make such a glorious confession chap. 19.23.27 neither did Davids faith fail him though it was shaken and seemed to fail when he said I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul 1 Sam. 27.1 yet we read afterwards he encouraged himself in the Lord his God 1. Sam. 30.6 it is said the powers of heaven shall be shaken and so may faith be shaken but shall not fail Gog Magog shall compass the camp of the Saints on every side so that which way soever they look there is nothing but danger and sear this will make all things fail but faith as David saith my heart and flesh faileth but God is the strength of my heart it will put even faith if self to it and drive it into God where properly it is to dwell How great this tryal is like to be may be guessed from these considerations 1. That it is the last and dying effect of the Dragons cause therefore his rage is great saith the text knowing he hath but a short time after which he hath no more that he can do 2. He acts from desperation and though he cannot hope to prevail yet he will set his life as dear as he can and make it as costly and bloudy a victory to the Church as God will suffer him for no other bounds will be set to bloody rage then the restraint God lays upon him who in his holy counsel permits him to go as far as may be with the safety of the cause and interest and the faith of the Church which is to be a full tryal of it and of their patience that it may have it's perfect work and that the glory of that tryal may be the greater as we may see in Job the Devil had full scope to all manner tryals his life only excepted so the Church shall live and that is all till this tryal is over therefore the Lord sets this bound Esay 57.56 Lest the spirit fail before me and in another place lest the righteous put forth their hand to iniquity Psa 125.3 they shall almost come to it but there it shall stop A second end of god in this tryal is to bring upon the Church Christs mistical body that needful qualification and preparation for glory that God wrote upon Christ the head to make them conformable to him according to the law of his eternal counsel Rom. 8.29 for even Christ was made perfect by sufferings being crucified through weakness or for the weakness of that state he was in in the flesh which could not work out redemption for us without it's passing away and the Apostle tells us all after that law and example that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God this mistical death therefore is to rid us of our selves and those foul mixtures which made our former works miscarry and prove abortive as the snake pressing between sharp tones or rocks puts off her old skin and renews as the Eagle by casting her bill so God useth the ministry of Satan himself in these sharp tryals to help us off with the old man for it is a new race of Christians or Christians new formed regenerated spirited that are fit for the new Jerusalem and all this would not do to fit us for converse with Christ and that heavenly company if the Lord did not put to his own hand at last in that change in a moment in the twinckling of an eye but these tribulations help that is the 2d end The third is that the Lord may take occasion by this fresh and bleeding discovery of the serpent and his parties enmity to destroy them and deliver the Church from them for ever they have given occasion and provocation enough all along and God hath rapt them for it but deferr'd his anger till this time giving the Church support mean while as not having finished his work on Mount Sion and so former provocations slept and were forgotten but for the glory of Gods righteousnesse and to make his justice the more conspicuous he permits them this laft opportunity to shew themselves which they do to the full that God may take them in the fact while they are reaking hot in their rage against the Church that all the world may see for what it is he destroys them and how he favours the Church which the world could not well read in former dispensations they were so intermingled but now the vision shall be so plain that he may run that reads it this is the account which the Lord himself gives of this dispensation Zeph. 3.8 therefore wait ye upon me faith the Lord till I rise up to the prey for my determination is to gather the nations that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour upon them my indignation even all my fierce anger and Ier. 51.39 In their beat I will make their feasts and I will make them drunken that they may rejoyce and sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake saith the Lord God will give them all the scope their hearts can desire power multitudes to excecute their will and no power with the Church and then will God triumph over them as in the day of Iehosaphat and the day of Gideon call'd the day of Midian and the day of battel Zach. 14.3 Esa 10.26 Mich. 4.11.12.13 There are many other holy and gracious ends the Lord hath in this dispensation might be instanced as to commend the following rest and glory therefore the Lord continues to take his people just off a troublesom and tempest uous sea into it that they may have the fuller and more perfect rellish of it which to intimate to us seems to be consulted in that manner of phrase in Peter where he speaks of the spirit his testifying in the prophets beforehand of the suffering of Christ and the glory that should follow as much as to intimate that the sufferings are ordain'd among other and great ends as a foil to the glory But I hasten to the conclusion of this discourse there is one point I would speak more fully to and that is to give in fuller evidence and satisfaction that the times of the 5th trumpet are not to be ranged so high as interpreters commonly carry them but to belong to the times of Satan loosed which having slipt the proper place to bring it in I shall therefore add it at the close of this discourse and therewith shall also offer a paper which I drew some months since whereby the main subject of this discourse may receive some further light in the mean space I shall speak a word as to the aplication of the precedent discourse to the times and to the particular concern of the people of God in these times 1. As to the times the designe of this short discourse hath been to give or get some light to discern the times and
be run out and as this late time hath been full of wonders this might be reckoned among them as one to be too early with our expectations or observations it having been the common fault of all times hitherto to lagg and come behind and it were very strange if any of us in this sleepy age should be up and stirring before the Lord is stirring for my part I cannot think it I shall shut up this point with this one note referring the reader to what farther he shall find in the end of this discourse the 11th of the Rev. which gives us a chronology of the whole time and tryal of the Church from the race of Antichrist to the 7th trumpet gives us no expectation of any long time of exercise after the resurrection and ascention of the witnesses but only the third wo which it is there said comes quickly and will likely as quickly pass away which third wo can be nothing but this Gog and Magog Now that the witnesses are risen and ascended may I conceive be made out both from the time allotted for that scene and from the evidence of the thing it self when it appeared for the time it must be at and with the expiring of the 41 months of the beast which 42 months good measure pressed down and runing over and above a hundred years to spare may be put to the account of the beast if we should reckon from the downful of heathenisme at Constantines coming to the Empire but I pitch the Epocha and commencement of his 42 months Anno 390 in that last expiring of the Dragons cause by the discomfiture of Eugenius by Theodosius which came up in 1650. at or before which time I question not may be proved the witnesses were risen and ascended to a heaven of rest and glory to which they were called by a great voice from heaven as by a calm and unprejudiced reflection on times not out of our remembrance might be instanced when a scone of this nature not in one or two particulars but in all circumstances throughout so paraiel that an exacter portracter of the vision could not be drawn did present it self therefore that scene being over what can any wo since be other then that of Gog and Magog My 2d word thersore is to the people of God in respect of their spiritual and inward affairs and concernes it serves both to give them account of what hath befalne them and to advise them both what to expect and what to do 1. By way of account it hath been such a time of tryal and troubles upon the saints in respect of their own particulars as well as the publike within as well as without as I think no former experience can paraiel what with strange spirits false Christs and false prophets and danger of seduction and delusion thereby what with horrible temptations carried on with such artifice and cunning such delusive power not to be resisted wherein these spirits of darkness have been so far successful to make such impressions as have captivated multitudes hurried more and distracted somewhat with the shock of terrible outward dispensations by persecutions losses tryals of all sorts and that which hath added to the horror of all hath been the darkness of the dispensation that they have not known what to call it nor upon what account to put these things which now begins and I am perswaded will every day more and more go on to clear up to be upon the account of the Devil let loose and to be their particular share with the publick interest of Christ in this tryal by Gog and Magog 2. By way of advice it serves to teach us what to expect till this scone be over to direct us what to do and to comfort us in what shall follow first expect all that an enraged enemy the Dragon with all his instruments can do to the utmost of their line to make your lives uncomfortable and to drive you to utter despair we read under the 5th trumpet when the Locusts first came forth of the bottomless pit that so great would be the tryal and torment that men should seek death desire to dye Re. 9.6 if in those days under the first wo what in these days under the last wo both Jeremy Daniel Joel the prophets the Apostles Christ himself all acquaint us it will be a day none like it of such tribulation that men shall be dispiried walk up and down like Ghosts and shadows yet be not dismaid for as our Saviour said in the case of Lazarus this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God and for your glory when God hath sinished his work upon Mount Sion when patience hath had it's perfect work Therefore the direction is act faith in God under this dispensation let your eye be on the designe of God which is your mercy your glory see every tryal every thing ordain'd to serve and promote this designe anoint the means by faith that they may attain their end or rather Gods end upon them offer up your selves to God under this death this tryal to be regenerated to be made new to be fitted for the kingdom expect such a gracious working of your tryals not from your selves nor any grace in your selves but from the grace of God his covenant of grace our former works miscarried because wrote much in our own spirit therefore the Lord hath taken the work into his own hands hath laid by man and every creature that he may work all himself and have all the glory and his work shall abide this is the direction the comfort follows first this is the last enemy and this is the last shock by this enemy the last enemy is death if this enemy be not called death and signalised by that name Esa 25. as the type of him is Esa 28.15 yet death and the Dragon or the devil that hath the power of death fall together Rev. 20. for no sooner is the devil cast into the lake but the white throne appears and by the judgment of the white throne death and hell are cast into the lake so that the saints after that shall be troubled with death and hell no more neither death corporal nor death spiritual And what follows then but the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem a new world and all things therein new But you will say we must passe through a sore fiery tryal first but still remember it shall be but a tryal the devil shall compasse the camp of the Saints but shall not carry his design no more then the Sodomites did that compassed Lots house fire shall come down from God out of heaven and feed on them you reade how by the 7th Vyal the great câ—…y is divided who knows what God may work by Gog and Magogs own divisions this third wo is indeed the greatest woe but to whom to the inhabitants of the earth not to those that dwell in