to eternity 1 Thess. 4. 16 17. The dead in Christ shall rise first then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air so shall we ever be with the Lord. After that meeting there shall not be a parting any more Secondly When holy Souls go to God they shall he heartily welcome and find as loving and gracious a Reception as they can desire When a Sinner doth here in this life by a sincere Repentance break off from his Sins and returns to God there is rejoycing above Luke 15. â— and 10. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Where upon Bernard said The Tears of a Sinner are the Wine of Angels At such a time indeed and upon such an account Hell is in an uproar and the Devils fret and rage they cannot endure to think that they should lose any of their Prey and that one of their Vassals should be brought into the liberty of the Sons of God But in Heaven there are Triumphs and singing of Allelujahs This our Lord sets out in the Parable of the Prodigal Son upon whose return to his Father and his Duty there were Kisses and Embraces Feasting and making Merry The good old Man forgot his Age and found his Legs ran to meet him and the Family following so good an example was in a transport Just so there is in Heaven upon a gracious Soul's arrival there after its dissolution The great God doth welcome it even the whole Trinity the Father who elected it the Son who redeemed it the Holy Ghost who sanctified it It s old Relations and godly Friends do welcome it for they will not then be Strangers to one another but both know and be known It shall be welcom'd by an innumerable company of Angels who are now ministring Spirits unto the Heirs of Salvation and by the general Assembly and Church of the First-born by all the Spirits of just Men made perfect in Heaven Whatever weeping and mourning bitter sighs and lamentations there are here for being deprived of a faithful Friend a comfortable Yokefellow a pleasant and hopeful Child a learned orthodox and painful Minister an useful warm and exemplary Church-member that did adorn Religion and credit his holy Profession there are Triumphs above for the addition of another Star that will for ever gloriously shine in that celestial Orb. Then indeed is that fulfilled which is written in Psal. 45. 14 15. Those thrice-happy Souls are brought unto the King in rayment of needle-work a curiously embroidered garment a spotless beautiful robe of righteousness wrought for them by the hand of Christ himself with gladness and rejoicing are they brought they do enter into the King's Palace So shall they be received with the highest demonstrations of affection Christ hath most graciously and faithfully promised that when Sinners do now come unto him he will in no wise cast them out And when Saints do at death come to him he will in no wise shut them out but an abundant entrance shall be ministred to them into the glorious Kingdom of their God and Saviour Yea and when the Lord Jesus shall have delivered up his Mediatorial Kingdom to the Father they shall still keep the Mansions prepared for them in their Father's house and God himself shall be all in all to them Thirdly These holy Souls shall not only meet with an hearty welcome from God and all the blessed Inhabitants of that Region of Light and Love but also they shall find a most splendid and glorious entertainment such as will evidently shew forth the Love and Greatness and Glory of God himself and not only issue in their full satisfaction but likewise excite and keep up in them eternal Admirings There are many Mansions and a place provided for every one of them in which they shall have room enough and whatsoever will be pleasant to them for Delights A Throne a Robe of Glory a Crown of Righteousness hidden Manna the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God and to render their happiness complete those bodies of theirs which are now bodies of vileness when they come to be raised out of their Bed of dust by the Divine Power and reunited to their Souls shall be made like unto Christ's own most glorious body Philip. 3. 21. What shall I say Had I the Tongues of men and Angels I could not speak more than is the largest descriptions will fall unspeakably short when you come there you will say not one half was told you I may say this in general in Heaven you will meet with that which will far more than defray all the Charges you were put to here that which will abundantly compensate and make amends for all the hardships you endured here Those that have been the greatest Sufferers in this world when they come into the next will thankfully and chearfully acknowledge they are no Losers They shall receive that which shall richly reward all their pains so that instead of complaining their labour is lost they shall wonder such sorry services should be so recompenced and cry Grace Grace to it They shall have the accomplishment of all their hopes their former askings and thoughts being outdone That which is laid up for them and shall be given out to them will transcend their highest expectations be a full and complete answer to all their Prayers satisfy silence and put an everlasting period to all their desires for their enjoyments will be so great and their capacities so fill'd that there will be no room left for more God will then make good all his Promises which are exceeding great and precious so that not one tittle of them shall fail and by this means all tears shall be wiped from their eyes sorrow and sighing shall flee away never more to return and they shall enjoy an endless Sabbath an everlasting Triumph being fill'd with joy unspeakable and full of glory In short there is that which mortal eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entred into the heart of man and though the holy and blessed Angels which kept their standing and continue to be Heaven's Courtiers do both see and enjoy it yet they are not able to express it there is all that which our dearest Lord Jesus did purchase at the inestimable price of his own heart-blood Now from all this which hath been spoken there is abundant reason to conclude Lastly That those holy and truly happy Souls are better with God in Heaven than they were while here or could ever possibly have been True love is free and liberal to its endeared object it studieth to be so and takes singular pleasure in it Those that are kind and affectionate Husbands and live up to the Law of their Relation do and will make it their business and endeavour to make the Lives of their Yokefellows not only easy to them
poor Sinners be wise while you may and know assuredly it is best going to him now for a pardon and grace and acceptance before you go to him to receive your final Sentence If you will not now go to him as humble Penitents with Confessions and Supplications that your Sins may be blotted out you shall come to him as Criminals in order to execution and if you desire to know aforehand what your punishment will be you may read it in 2 Thess. 1. 8. Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power Secondly We may from hence learn what our life in the world should be It is a matter of very high and near concernment for men and women to understand themselves well in this particular to know what they should be and do and how they should live that they may be approved and truly our life should be a coming to God and a walking with him In the first Conversion there is a facing about a turning of the mind and heart to God Christ sent Paul to the Gentiles to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God And after the first turn is made there should be a further returning all the actions of the life should be so many steps back to God This was the great design and end of our Lord Iesus in his dying not only that he might bring pardon and peace to men but also that he might bring men to God bring them into favour with God yea and into obedience and conformity to him and into a communion and conversation with him 1 Pet. 3. 18. He suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God Now since that was the gracious design of Christ the blessed and noble end he had in his eye and was willing to be at so much cost for the accomplishment of shall not we comply with him therein shall it not be in our heart as well as in his And since we have so great an excellent Person to take us by the hand and introduce us and bring us in and present us to the Father let us go let us not draw back let us not stand questioning and disputing and saying Shall I shall I this is a meer loss of time let us go presently the sooner the better You have heard that you must go at last yes you must there is no possibility of avoiding it and therefore let us all be persuaded and heartily willing to go now To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts Go now to God in your Mind and Thoughts in your Hearts and Affections before you go in your Persons Get as much of Heaven as you can before-hand The Psalmist said Psalm 73. ult It was good for him to draw night to God And without peradventure it is full out as good now as it was then as good for us as it was for him It is both a pleasant good and a profitable one Let us therefore do it yea and be drawing nearer and nearer to him every day never thinking our selves near enough so long as we are in a far Country and till we come to be with him in Heaven And yet again let us not think it enough to to be making frequent approaches to him in Holy Duties and in Gospel Ordinances which are as a Iacob's Ladder upon which the holy Soul ascends and makes its spiritual advances but keep up a daily Walk with God as Enoch and Noah did in their Generations maintain an intimate and constant Communion with him that you may be able to say with Paul Our Conversation is in Heaven And with Iohn Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son the Lord Iesus Christ. Oh how Noble is it to converse with God! it meliorates and raiseth and spiritualizeth the Soul it never is with him but it comes away better from him and how sweet is it God being pleasant for delights for certain you will find and judge it so when you do once come by experience to know what it is you will then say as Peter did upon the Mount of Transfiguration It is good Lord to be here Thirdly We may from hence learn that It is very much our Interest and therefore our wisdom to bid God heartily welcome whensoever he is geaciously pleased so far to condescend as to come to us You have heard and I hope you believe that it is appointed for all Men once to dye and when we do dye let it be in what way it will and by what stroke it will and let us be in what State and Frame we will we must all of us go to God all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ. And let us think with our selves what Entertainment we would have then how we would have Christ carry toward us Do not we desire that he should receive us graciously and bid us welcome as some of his old Friends and Acquaintance Would we not be glad to hear him owning us before his Father and the Holy Angels and saying to us Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you I do not in the least question but you would Then I counsel you that in order thereunto you would now carry kindly toward God and receive him as it becomes an infinite Great Holy and Glorious Majesty to be received Know this such is his Goodness that he often comes to you Frequently in his word therein he discovers and reveals his Mind and Will concerning you opens to you the Mysteries of his Kingdom that were kept hid from Ages and Generations from the Wise and Prudent of the World Bid him welcome and his Word welcome say with Hezâ—kiah Good is the word of the Lord yea those Precepts of it that are most contrary to corrupt Nature and those threatnings of it that are most tremendous and startling Receive it into your Hearts as well as into your Heads and let it dwell richly in you Do not imprison any word of God as Asa did one of the Messengers that brought it do not rebel against the Light do not hold any truth in unrighteousness Sometimes he comes to you by his Spirit in such and such an holy Motion awakening you out of your Sleep and Sloth reducing you from such a wandering calling you to such a Word and Duty Now do not you resist him but submit and comply do not you quench him but bring fewel rather do not grieve him but labour to be his Delight and Joy Carefully listen to his Voice and make speed to follow his Ducture as Paul did immediately not consulting with Flesh and Blood when God had once revealed his Son in him The Spouse was guilty of vile Ingratitude and sinn'd grievously in lying lazily and asking her self a company of simple questions I have put off my coat how shall I put it on I have washed my feet how shall I defile them Which
cloathed with a glorified Body as for other holy Ones tho they see Death yet they are translated too carried from Earth to Heaven from Creatures to God The Body must descend into the Grave and there lye putrifying corrupting crumbling until it return to Dust as it once was but the Spirit returns to God that gave it I desire you all frequently to call this to mind and consider it with the greatest seriousness and see that you have sanctified Souls Souls rightly prepared brought into such a frame as may be fit to appear in so glorious a Presence and converse with so pure and holy a Majesty that when they return to God they may be welcome to him and being come into his Presence for ever dwell and abide there and not afterwards cast out and banisht as the Object of his loathing Thirdly Holy Souls may very well be willing yea glad to go to God As a Bride is to go to her endeared Husband and as a Child at School under severe Discipline is to go to his most affectionate and tender Parents from whom instead of hard Blows he shall meet with soft Embraces Some Saints upon record in Scripture we find were in such a frame Good old Simeon was in haste and prayed for his Dismission Luke 2. 29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Having seen Christ he would sain see the Father too Having got Christ in his Arms he would have the World on his back He reckon'd that he had liv'd long enough here and would needs be gone He had now got his full freight and therefore desired to set up his Sail for the other World Having beheld so great a sight as the Lord of Glory tho but in his Infancy and Swathing-bands he was loath that his Eyes should be embased with the beholding of earthly Vanities any more Paul likewise had the same thing in his desire so he told us in Phil. 1. 23. I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ. He would go from all that he may go to him and leave all that he might be with him and he understood himself and acted rationally in this desire for it is saith he in the next words far better Heaven is inconceivably better than Earth when it is in the greatest Peace when it expresseth the greatest Kindness He very well knew what he said he was a competent Judge having been an Eye-witness of the Felicity and Glory above taken up into Paradice into the Third Heaven And tho others have not been partakers of that Priviledge not so rapt as Paul was yet they are of the same Judgment and have the same Desires working in them therefore he speaks of it as a Spirit and Disposition common to all the Saints while they are in this Tabernacle Their hearts stand Heavenward as the Needle doth to the North-Pole when it hath been once touch'd with the Loadstone as you may see in 2 Cor. 5. 2. In this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven They had not only some small Inclinations that way and languid faint Desires but earnest Groans And again verse 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. We are willing not only out of necessity because this is a thing must be but out of choice we had rather leave the Body that we might go to God But now we are to enquire why it is thus And you will find there is sufficient yea abundant reason for it if you do consider these four following Particulars First In going to God they go to their Father This was the comfort and joy of our Saviour's heart with this he comforted himself and with this he comforted his Disciples looking upon it as a Cordial strong enough for them all John 20. 17. Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God Mine by Nature yours by Adoption I am now going to one that I am most nearly related to and most fully interested in And in Iohn 17. we find him insisting and dwelling upon this as that which he took singular delight in and suckt a great deal of sweetness from verse 1. Father the hour is come Verse 5. O Father glorify thou me with thine own Verse 11. I come to thee Holy Father Verse 21. Thou Father art in me and I in thee Verse 24. Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am Verse 25. O righteous Father the World hath not known thee but I have known thee c. It is certain that when wicked Men the worst and vilest of them dye they go to God Did I say Go Rather they are forc'd and drag'd against their will they cannot help it It is to a God that many of them did not believe but laboured with all their might to obliterate the Notion of his Being because troublesome and tormenting to them Psalm 14. 1. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God It is to a God that none of them cared to know and be acquainted with Job 21. 14. They say unto God Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Neither of his ways nor of himself They go to God as their Righteous Judge but not their reconciled and gracious Father They are brought before his Tribunal as Malefactors to receive their Doom but they do not enter into his Kingdom as Children to take Possession Whereas those that are truly gracious go to him as a Father as a Father of Mercies yea and as their Father in Christ to him as a God yea and to their God in Covenant to a God and Father by whom they were begotten of whom they were born whose Spirit they have received and whose Image they bear Wicked Men go to God to give an account of what they have done in the Body and when once Sentence is past upon them and they adjudged to their Place and eternal State they go to Devils Matth. 24. 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels You followed his Conduct you did his Drudgery now take your Wages with him Where he is there shall his Servants also be When the Saints go to God they go to stay and to take up their everlasting abode with him Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall 〈◊〉 no more out As they shall be exalted so fixed their Happiness shall never be abated their Glory never eclipsed Once in Christ and ever in Christ there is no total and final falling from Grace they that are indeed planted in the house of the Lord shall never be pluckt up and so in the present case once in Heaven and in Heaven
But let me ask thee Was not the glory of God dear to thee and his Name precious Was he not highest in thy esteem valued above all the world set up in the Throne all other things being made his Footstool Canst thou not with all thy heart say after the Prophet in Psal. 73. Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee Hast thou made him thy choice and desired to live in an obedience to him and expressiveness of him Hast thou commended him to others thy Relations Friends and Neighbours and endeavoured in thy place to enlarge his Kingdom and submit themselves to his Government Hast thou offered thy self and thy praise to him He himself tells thee Psal. 50. 23. That is a glorifying him Hast thou had thy fruit unto holiness and was thy heart set for the bringing forth much fruit Our Saviour tells you Iohn 15. 8. Herein his Father is glorified If thou dost find these things in thy self tho thou dost also find too much of that which should not be and is matter of grief to thee thou may'st meditate terror without being terrified thou may'st be very willing yea glad to die whensoever God calls thee to it being fully persuaded that he will with an hand of grace put a glory upon thee when at the same time he will extort glory from others in a way of wrath and vengeance Thirdly Can you say as our Saviour did I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do He had work given him by the Father good and great work in which his Father himself and all his people were concerned it being for his Fathers and his own Glory and for his Peoples Salvation and everlasting Happiness And he was intent upon it industrious and diligent in it I must saith he work the works of him that sent me while it is day And at his giving up of the Ghost he could say It is finished Now none of us were made and sent hither to be idle nor to sport upon the Earth as Leviathan doth in the Sea No no we all have Work to do Work that our heavenly Father hath given us There is the general Work of Godliness and Religion and the particular Work of our several Stations and Relations None need sit still and study how to pass away the time for they have enough to do if they will but mind it Now if our Work be not done how shall we with any comfort or boldness look our great Lord and Master in the Face It was a terrible Sentence that past upon the lazy Servant that had buried his Talent in a Napkin But here again a poor humble Christian will presently object against its self for such an one needs none Accuser he can and will do that work fast enough And in this case he will take shame as his Portion and declare he is very far from finishing the Work which God gave him to do You have minded other things of less concern yea of no concern and neglected that You have lived in the World to very little purpose led unprofitable Lives and suffered your Days your precious Seasons your golden Hours to run out at waste You have done but very little for God and for your Souls and in order to your everlasting Happiness and that which you have done hath been so pitifully done that you are asham'd to look upon it you have botcht and bungled at it And I do readily grant your best Works do not deserve acceptance with God he may justly reject and abhor them and cast them as Dung into your Faces because of the Iniquities which adhere or cleave to them But let me ask you and do you ask your own Souls when you are in your Retirements and greatest Seriousness Hast thou loved the Work of God and preferred the hardest and most unpleasing pieces of it before the most facil and pleasant parts of the Devil's Hast thou counted his Service perfect freedom but that of Sin the basest of Drudgeries Have you been pleased and delighted when you did at any time find your hearts raised in it and enlarged and more than ordinarily carried out Hath it been your Grief and Trouble when you found in your selves straitness deadness and dulness Have you been angry with your selves because you have done no more and no better for God Have you often and often with earnestness begg'd of God that he would give you more Grace and greater Strength in order to your doing him better Service and bringing him more Glory Then you need not be afraid to appear before him for he will spare you as a Father spareth his Son that serveth him and you shall be accepted in the beloved and your gracious and prevailing Advocate will appear on your behalf and plead your Cause saying as once he did on the behalf of the good Woman whom the Disciples in their discontent quarrel'd They have done what they could And he will cover all your Failings and fill up all your Vacancies and Defects with his own most full and perfect Obedience for to your comfort know tho thy Duties be weak and deficient and defiled yet his Obedience was compleat and perfect nay more it was Satisfactory too and of a meritorious Nature too and the merit of it is sufficient for thee and for all his People And therefore if that which I have spoken be the frame of your Spirits you may at a dying hour with triumph say Now Father come I to thee We will now proceed to the third Use of this Doctrine which will be by way of Exhortation and it shall be divided only into Two Branches My first Exhortation is this Do not mourn immoderately over your deceased Friends and Relations Those of them I mean who while they were here lived unto the Lord and when they had finished their course and came to the period of their Days those Bounds which they could not pass died in the Lord and in the faith As to the business now in hand it is no matter by what they died whether a natural Death or a violent one by the hand of an Enemy or an Executioner consumed by the merciless Flames or swallowed up by the mighty Waters whether they died a short and easy Death and having serv'd their Generation according to the Will of God sell asleep or a tedious and lingring one cast upon Beds of Languishment and having wearisom Days Nights and Months numbred out unto them Nor is it as to this any matter in what manner they died whether under a dark and thick Cloud having many Questions Doubts and Fears or under the Smiles of God the Light of his Countenance and the bright sweet shining of his Face whether they came to their Harbour in a pleasant Calm or in a blustering Storm In a word whether they had the perfect use of their Understanding and Reason to the last or were under a delirium and distraction These