which they are most endeared and familiarized into the divine and spiritual world there is no one duty whatsoever to the due performance of which our carnal affections are naturally more listless and averse and therefore as herein we have most need of the Holy Spirit 's assistance so herein he more especially operates on our minds exciting in us all those graces and affections which are proper to the several parts of our Prayer such as shame and sorrow in the confession of our sins a sense of our need of mercy and a hope of obtaining it in our supplications for pardon and forgiveness resignation to God's Will and dependance on his truth and goodness in our address for temporal mercies and deliverances hunger and thirst after Righteousness in our Petitions for his grace and assistance and in a word Gratitude and Love and Admiration of God in our praises and thanksgivings for mercy and in these divine affections the life and soul of Prayer consists And accordingly in Gal. 4.6 the Apostle tells us Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father that is by kindling devout and pious affections in your Souls enabling you to cry to God with all earnestness and assurance as to a kind and merciful Father and hence also we are said to pray in or by the Holy Ghost Iude 20. because all the proper graces and affections of Prayer are excited in us by him And this his excitation of the graces of Prayer in us is called his making Intercession for us Rom. 8.26 27. which imports no more than his enabling us to offer up the matter of our Prayers to God in a most devout and affectionate manner or as he there explains himself with sighs and groans that are not to be uttered that is with such earnest and flagrant affections as are too big for words to express And this is properly to intercede for us For as Christ who is our Advocate in Heaven doth offer up our Prayers to the Father and enforce them with his own Intercessions so his Spirit who is our Advocate on Earth begets in us those affections which render our Prayers prevalent and wings them with fervour and ardency the one pleads with God for us in our own hearts by kindling such desires there as render our Prayers acceptable to him and the other pleads with him for us in Heaven by presenting those desires and soliciting their supply and acceptance Now this Intercession of the Holy Spirit is also performed as all the aforegoing operations by suggesting to and imprinting such thoughts upon our minds as are most apt to raise and excite our affections which thoughts he often urges with that vehemence and presses with that reiterated importunity that if we do not wilfully repel them from our minds and refuse them admittance to our hearts and affections they cannot fail to stir up in us all the graces of Prayer and enflame our Souls with a servent devotion and accordingly whenever we harbour these suggestions of the Spirit and by seriously attending to them cherish and encourage them we find by experience they so affect and influence our devotions as that in every Prayer our Souls take wing and like the Angel that appeared to Manoah â—ly up to Heaven in the flames of our Sacrifice And thus I have given a brief account both of what the Holy Spirit hath done and of what he still continues to do towards the promoting and effectuating of Christ's Mediation for God with men And by what hath been said it abundantly appears that he hath done for us and still continues to do all that our case and necessity requires and that there is nothing imaginable wanting on his part towards the reducing and reconciling our minds to God. So that now he may justly say to us what God doth to his Vineyard Isa. 5.4 What could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done Or as the Hebrew expresses it What is to be done more Not but that by his omnipotent power absolutely considered the Holy Spirit can do more for us than he ordinarily doth he can in an instant infuse a new nature into us in despite of all the resistance of our Wills and make such irresistible impressions on our minds as our most inveterate prejudice and enmity against God shall never be able to withstand but then his power always acts by the direction of his wisdom and can do no otherwise that is it can do no more than it can wisely do and it is certain that ordinarily and regularly it cannot wisely so act upon men as to determine their natural liberty to good and evil since by so doing he must not only commit a perpetual violence on the frame of our Beings and thereby reverse the established course of our natures but also destroy the very being of Vertue in us which is no longer Vertue than while it is free and unconstrained But whatsoever he can wisely do or which is all one consistently with the liberty of our nature he hath done and still continues doing So that now to the reduction of our Souls to God there is nothing wanting but our own consent and free co-operation which if we will refuse we may for for desperate obstinacy there is no remedy if we will not comply with the blessed Spirit it is certain he will not save us whether we will or no. So that when inquisition shall be made for the bloud of our Souls the utmost we can charge him with is that he did not drag us to Heaven in spite of our teeth and bind up our hands in the Cords of an irresistible Fate to hinder us from murdering our selves but if we have so little regard of our selves as to spurn at our own happiness it is by no means fit that he should force it upon us and it would be a very mean and unreasonable condescension in him to prostitute his grace to such as scorn and refuse it If therefore after all these things that the Spirit hath done for us we persist and finally perish in our enmity against God he may fairly wash his hands in innocency over us and charge our bloud upon our own heads and how deplorable soever our condition proves in the future state his Iustice will Triumph gloriously in our ruine and our own Consciences together with all the reasonable World will be forced to be his Compurgators and to pronounce him infinitely just and righteous in all his ways SECT II. Concerning the particular Offices of Christ's Mediation FOR the clearer stating what are the particular Offices of the Mediator it will be necessary briefly to enquire into the state and condition of the Parties between whom he Mediates as they stand related to one another For he being to officiate for and between God and Man to be sure his Offices must be such as their respective states and conditions do require For how can
and of our own form and shape which of all others is most familiar to and most beloved and reverenced by us and consequently of all others is most familiar to and most beloved and reverenced by us and consequently of all others is most apt to encourage our prayers and inflame our zeal and raise our admiration For in what sensible appearance could God have more powerfully affected our sense than in that which we are most inclined to love most prone to trust to and most accustomed to reverence and obey and than that in which alone we discern the Image of God and the reflections of those divine Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness and Truth and Justice for which we reverence and adore him There being therefore no visible substance in which God could more advantageously exhibit himself to us in order to the exciting our worship to him and determining it upon him than that of a humane form he thought meet to assume our natures into a personal union with his Divinity and therein to rule and govern us So that now the Humanity of our Saviour is the Tabernacle and Shechinah of God wherein the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily and these two natures united in Person and Glory are the immediate object of our worship wherefore as the ancient Iews fell upon their faces and worshipped when they beheld the Shechinah or glory of the Lord their imagination being thereby assisted and their affections excited Levit. 9.24 So when we by our internal sense or imagination look up to the Glorified Humanity of our Saviour in Heaven it is our duty to raise up our affections to Heaven by that sensible Shechinah of God and thereupon to fall down and worship But as the Iews when they fell down before their Shechinah did not worship the visible light or glory separately from God but as it was united to and assumed into conjunction with him so neither ought we to worship our Shechinah viz. the humanity of our Saviour separately from his Divinity but in Union and Conjunction with it and in short as it was utterly unlawful for the Iews to worship God in any other Shechinah or sensible appearance either unshapen or shaped than in that Glorious one which he himself vouchsafed to them that being sufficient to affect their sense and thereby to raise up their minds and affections to him so is it utterly unlawful for us Christians to worship God in any other Shechinah Image similitude or visible appearance than that of the glorified humanity of our Saviour that being sufficient to assist our imaginations and elevate our hearts and devotions to him For though we cannot behold his glorified Humanity with our bodily Eyes now he is removed into Heaven yet so neither did the Iews the Glory of the Lord at least but very rarely after the Ark whereupon it sat was removed into the Holy of Holies which was a figure of Heaven yet as they being assured it was there could easily view it in their imaginations and thereby assist their devotion so we being assured from Scripture that Christs humanity is in Heaven can look up thither in our imagination and by beholding its glory there lift up our heavy minds and affections to the eternal Divinity that inhabits it so that if we Christians make any other Shechinah or Image to worship God in besides his own humanity which he himself made and wherein he now dwells above in the Heavens we are of all false worshippers the most inexcusable because by assuming our humanity God hath vouchsafed to us such an Image and Shechinah of himself as is of all others the most proper and effectual to excite and determine our Devotions III. God hath chosen to Govern us by his own eternal Son in our natures that he might thereby the more powerfully incourage us to obedience for now we have all the assurance in the World that the great design of his Government is to do us good and to advance our happiness and that under his blessed Empire we shall be sure to enjoy all the graces and favours that can be wisely indulged on his part or modestly expected on ours Had he Governed us immediately by himself we could not have been so secure of our interest in him as we have reason to be of our interest in his Son hypostatically united to our nature because the divine Nature considered purely as such is infinitly distant from ours and has no other relation to it than as it is the common cause of all things and being so distant in nature from us it would have been hard for us to imagine how he could be touched with the same tender and compassionate regard for us as he would be if he were nearer allied to us especially when we reflected upon our own demerit and considered that by our sins we had set our selves at a wider distance from him than we were by our natures this together with that anxiety which naturally arises in guilty minds could not but have rendered us very suspicious of Gods intentions towards us had he governed us immediately by himself but now that he governs us by his own Son cloathed in our own nature at his hands we may with full confidence expect a most gracious and merciful treatment For now we are assured we have a close and most intimate interest in him by reason of his kindred and Alliance to us in the same common nature which makes him every mans another self under different accidents and circumstances and his nature being perfectly happy and perfectly pure from all irregular passions and appetites cannot but be affected with a most tender regard to all the individuals of its own kind because being compleatly happy himself he can have nothing farther to desire for himself but that his kindred by nature who are all his own substance dilated and multiplied may be happy too and being intirely good he can have nothing of that sordid selfishness in him which doth too often contract and narrow our benevolence and cause us like Serpents to infold our selves within our selves and to turn out our stings to all the World besides Upon both these accounts therefore as he is a perfectly happy and perfectly good man he cannot but bear a hearty and universal good will to mankind and that he doth so he hath given us too many dear experiments to make the least doubt of it for while he was among us he all along prefer'd our interest before his own he made himself poor to inrich us exposed himself to contempt to raise us to glory took upon him our guilt to release us from punishment and willingly underwent a most miserable death that we might live happily for ever In all which he gave us the most Glorious demonstrations how infinitely dear the humane nature of which he participated was to him in all those numberless individuals into which it hath been multiplied The consideration of which is exceedingly pregnant with
is right as my servant Iob hath therefore take unto you seven Bullocks and seven Rams and go to my servant Iob and offer up for your selves a burnt Offering and my servant Iob shall pray for you for him will I accept lest I deal with you after your folly as if he should have said that you may see how ill I resent your severe and cruel usage of that good man know that if you offer to address to me immediately for your selves I will certainly throw your Prayers back upon your faces as therefore you hope to be restored to my favour go to that injured Friend of yours and beseech him to mediate for you and I will hear him though I will not hear you And after the same manner doth God manifest his high displeasure against our sins that he will not suffer us to approach him immediately to present our Petitions to him with our own hands but will have them all presented to him by a hand that is more acceptable to him than our own and not only so but by the greatest and most acceptable hand in the World even that of his own Eternal Son the Son of his Essence and delight in whom he is for ever well pleased For it is through him alone that we have access to the Father whom our sins have so horribly incensed against us that no Advocate in Heaven or Earth less great and less dear to him than his own Son can prevail with him to be reconciled to us upon our most unfeigned repentance or so much as to accept of our humble Supplications O good God! what a woful distance have my sins made between thee and me that notwithstanding the infinite goodness and benignity of thy nature I cannot be admitted to thee nor expect any favour at thy hands upon any less powerful interest or application than that of thine only begotten Son but O stupid creature that I am to make light of those sins that have so highly incensed thee against me that none in Heaven or Earth but only that dearly beloved Son can prevail with thee to cast a propitious eye on me or so much as to give me access to the footstool of the Throne of thy grace III. This way of God's communicating his favours to us through the intercession of Christ is also most apt to secure us from presuming upon God's mercy while we continue in our sins There is no one thing doth more universally obstruct the reformation of men than their confident presumption that God will be merciful to them notwithstanding they persist in their rebellions against him For all men have a natural notion of the infinite goodness and benevolence of the Divine Nature together with which all bad men have a natural desire to sin without disturbance when therefore their Conscience begins to clamour against their wickedness and to vex and persecute them for it the mercy of God is the usual Sanctuary they fly to Peace froward Conscience cry they God is a most gracious and merciful Being hard to be provoked and easie to be pacified fear not therefore his mercy is infinitely greater than my faults and I am sure so good a God as he is can never find in his heart to destroy his Creature and Off-spring for such Peccadillo's as these With such presumptions as these they commonly lull their Consciences asleep and so sin on securely in despite of all the threats and warnings of Heaven that Thunder about their ears Now to prevent such presumptions as these and dash them quite out of countenance there is no consideration in the world can be more effectual than this of God's communicating his mercies to us through the intercession of our Saviour For if notwithstanding the goodness of his nature he will not be propitious to us no not upon our repentace without being moved thereunto by the powerful intercession of his own Son how can we ever expect that he should be propitious to us whether we repent or no Is it likely he should be more indulgent to us for our own sake than he is for his Son's sake and our own together or that when all that his Son can obtain for us is to receive us into favour in case we will lay down our Arms that we by our own interest should prevail with him to receive us while we persist in our obstinacy and rebellion in short if our repentance which is the best thing we can render him be not sufficient to move him to pardon us without being seconded and enforced with the powerful Oratory of our Saviour's Intercession what should move him when we have neither repentance nor a Saviour to intercede for us For our Saviour will not intercede for us unless we repent and our repentance will not prevail for us unless he intercede what hope have we therefore while we continue impenitent when our repentance it self which is the best thing we can do to move God to be propitious to us is insufficient without Christ's intercession and when without our repentance Christ will not intercede for us and if the tears of a penitent suppliant will not prevail with him without an Intercessor what hope is there that the affronts of an impenitent rebel should But suppose we might reasonably presume upon the benignity of God's nature that he will be propitious to us notwithstanding our impenitence yet it is to be considered that now he hath placed the dispensation of his mercy in the hand of a Mediator who is not left to dispose of it arbitrarily as he shall think fit but is confined and limited to dispose of it only to penitent offenders For Christ's Trust can extend no farther than to dispence God's mercy to us upon the terms of that Covenant of which he is Mediator which Covenant proposes mercy to us only upon condition of our repentance So that now we can expect no mercy from God but what passes through the hands of Jesus our Mediator who cannot without violating his trust dispence the mercy of God to us except we repent and amend For now God cannot dispence his mercy to us immediately without displacing his Son from his Mediatorship and his Son cannot dispence his mercy to us unconditionally without transgressing the bounds and limits that are prescribed to him and therefore since God hath restrained himself to dispence his mercy only through his Son and restrained his Son to dispence it only to penitents for us to presume upon the mercy of God while we continue impenitent is the greatest nonsense in the world it is to suppose either that God will cancel the Oeconomy of his mercy for our sakes and resume the dispensation of it immediately into his own hands meerly to favour and encourage us in our Rebellion against him or that Christ will betray the trust which his Father hath reposed in him and dispence his mercy to us contrary to his Orders that is either that God the Father will depose his Son
for our sakes or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son and confining his Son to dispence it to us only upon the conditions of the New Covenant to flatter our selves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent is to presume both against reason and possibility IV. This way of God's communicating his Favours to us through the mediation of Christ is also most apt in it self to encourage us to approach him with Chearfulness and freedom For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to mens minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God and whilst we are under such thoughts of him how is it possible for us to approach him immediately and without any Friend or Advocate to introduce and speak for us with any chearfulness or freedom For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God purely upon my own fund or interest when I am conscious of a thousand times more evil in me to provoke him against me than of good to recommend me to his favour Unless therefore I am secured of some powerful friend in Heaven that is infinitely more acceptable to God than I can modestly hope to be and that will agitate for me and solicite my cause with all his power and interest my sense of the innumerable provocations I have given him to turn his back upon me must either render me quite desperate of success at the Throne of his grace or cause me to approach it with unspeakable horrour and confusion So that my intercourse with God must either be wholly interrupted or rendred very difficult and uneasie to me because my slavish dread of him must either chase me from his Altars or drag we to them with violence and reluctancy And hence it is that under the sense of our guilt we naturally fly to the Intercessions of others whom we believe to have more interest with God than our selves because we cannot modestly promise our selves a free admittance and access to him upon our own account Which probably was the Reason of the first institution of Demon-worship among the Heathens whose minds being stung with the sense of their own guilts they were not able to approach God without fearful despondence and anxiety whereupon they began to cast about as it is natural for guilty minds to do how they might procure some other Beings that were in great favour with God to interpose with him in their behalf and having learned by an universal Tradition that there was a sort of middle Beings called Angels or Demons between the Sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with Sacrifices and sacred honours to intercede with God in their behalf And hence Apuleius de Daemon Soc. calls these Demons Mediae potestates per quas desideria nostra merita ad Deos commeant inter terricolas coelicolasque vectores hinc precum inde donorum qui ultro citroque portant hinc petitiones inde suppetias seu quidam utrumque interpretes salutigeri i. e. They are middle powers by whom our desires and merits are presented to the Gods they go between Heaven and Earth and carry from hence the Prayers of men and from thence the Gifts of God from Earth they go with Petitions and from Heaven they return with Supplies or they are the Interpreters of both Worlds that do continually carry and report the mutual salutations of both to each other By which it is evident that they thought it very necessary in order to God's accepting their addresses that they should be presented and recommended to him by some better Beings than themselves their guilty minds it seems suggesting to them that it would be high presumption for such great offenders as themselves to approach the divine Majesty without being introduced and Patronized by some more pure and holy Beings And I am very apt to think that the great cause of that Spirit of bondage which possessed the ancient Iews and rendred them so diffident and tremulous in all their approaches to God was their want of an explicite knowledge of the Mediator For what dismal and melancholy expostulations do we frequently meet with in their addresses to God such as Wilt thou be angry for ever Hast thou forgotten to be gracious Wilt thou remember thy loving kindness no more Which plainly shews that their guilt suggested to them such frightful apprehensions of God as did very much cramp their hope and confidence in him And hence the Apostle opposes this Spirit of bondage in them to that Christian Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father i. e. by which we approach God with great freedom and assurance and go to him as Children to a kind and merciful Father Rom. 8.15 Now if you would know from whence this Christian freedom and assurance proceeds the Author to the Hebrews will inform you Heb. 10.21 22. Having therefore an High-Priest over the houshold of God i. e. to mediate and intercede for us let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and Heb. 4.14 15 16 the Apostle urges our having a compassionate High-Priest in Heaven to intercede for us as an argument to encourage us to come boldly to the Throne of grace And indeed what greater encouragement can we have to draw nigh unto God with an humble confidence than this consideration that the highest Favourite he hath in Heaven or Earth is our Advocate and that he is not only infinitely concerned for us as being akin to us by nature and having a compassionate sense of our infirmities that he doth not only imploy in our behalf all the favour and interest he hath with God as he is the Son of his Essence and the Object of his delight but that he ever intercedes for us in the right and vertue of that Meritorious Sacrifice with which he bought and purchased all those heavenly blessings he intercedes for So that now all we have to do is to return to God by an unfeigned repentance which if we do he stands engaged to undertake our cause and what may we not expect from the Patronage of so great and powerful a Mediator For how great soever our past sins are his interest in Heaven is far greater how loud and clamorous soever our past Provocations are his Bloud and Wounds are far louder and how importunately soever our past guilts may imprecate the divine Vengeance upon us his Intercessions do far more importunately and prevalently deprecate it So that now we cannot reasonably doubt of a free admission to God in any case whatsoever wherein our Saviour will make use of his interest for us with God and therefore since in all cases he doth continually imploy his interest for us but only in that of our impenitence every Penitent
the Church is to Confirm such as have been Baptized and instructed in Christianity which Ministry was always performed by Prayer and laying on of hands upon which the Party so Confirmed received the gift of the Holy Ghost It is true upon the first institution of this Imposition of hands the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit such as speaking with Tongues c. were many times consequent but from hence it doth no more follow that it was intended only for an extraordinary Ministry that was to cease with those extraordinary Gifts that accompanied it than that Preaching was so which at first was also attended with miraculous operations The great intendment of those extraordinary effects was to attest the efficacy of the Function and doth it therefore follow that the Function must cease because those extraordinary effects did so after they had sufficiently attested its efficacy and consequently were of no farther use If so then all the other Ministries of Christianity must be expired as well as this And what though those extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit are ceased Yet since our Saviour hath promised a continual Communication of his Spirit to his Church is it not highly reasonable to believe that he still continues to communicate it by the very same Ministry of Prayer and Imposition of hands whereby he communicated it first and that he now derives to us the ordinary operations of it in the same way that he first derived the extraordinary ones Especially considering that this laying on of hands is placed by the Apostle in the same Class with Baptism and made one of the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6.1 2. and therefore must without all doubt be intended for a standing Ministry in the Church and as such the Church of Christ in all Ages has thought her self obliged to receive and practise it but as for the administration of it it was always appropriated to the Apostles and Bishops So in Acts 19.5 6. it was S. Paul that laid his hands on the Ephesians after they were Baptized in the name of Jesus whereupon it is said that the Holy Ghost came upon them and in Acts 8. we read that when S. Philip by his Preaching and Miracles had converted the Samaritans and afterwards Baptized them S. Peter and S. Iohn two of the Apostles were sent to lay hands on them upon which it is said that they received the Holy Ghost ver 17. by which it appears that this Ministry of Confirmation appertained to the Apostles since S. Philip though a worker of Miracles a Preacher a Prime Deacon and if we may believe S. Cyprian one of the seventy two Disciples would not presume to assume it but left it to the Apostles as their peculiar Province And accordingly in the Primitive Church it was always performed by the hands of the Bishops for though from later Ages some probable instances are produced of some Presbyters that Confirmed in the Bishops absence or by his delegation yet in all Primitive Antiquity we have neither any one Canon nor example of it from whence we may fairly conclude that this imposition of hands for Confirmation was peculiar to the Apostles in the Original and to their Successors the Bishops in the continuation of it SECT X. Of Christ's Regal Acts in his Kingdom HAving in the foregoing Section given an account of the several Ministers which Christ imploys in the Administration of his Kingdom we proceed in the next place to inquire what those Acts of Royalty are which he himself exerts in his Kingdom and by which he perpetually rules and governs it and these may be distributed into three Orders First Such as he hath performed once for all Secondly Such as he hath always performed and will still continue to perform Thirdly Such as are yet to be peformed by him before the surrender of his Kingdom First One sort of the Royal Acts of our Saviour are those which he hath performed once for all and these are reducible to three particulars 1. His giving Laws to his Kingdom 2. His Mission of the Holy Spirit to subdue mens minds to the obedience of those Laws and to govern them by them 3. His erecting an External Polity or Form of Government in his Kingdom I. One of those Regal Acts which Christ hath performed in his Kingdom once for all is giving Laws to it and this he performed while he was upon Earth in those excellent Sermons and Discourses which he then preached and delivered to the World. For though he preached as a Prophet yet it was as a Royal Prophet as one that had Regal authority to Enact what he delivered into Laws for he was a King while he was upon Earth vid. p. 853 854 c. so that all his Prophesies were inforced with his Regal Authority and he commanded as he was a King whatsoever he taught as he was a Prophet Indeed had he been a mere Prophet he could not have obliged men by any Legislative Authority of his own to believe and obey him his Declarations had had no farther Force in them than as they expressed the Will and Command of the Almighty Sovereign of the World and if what he declared had not been Law before it could not have been made Law by his declaring it But being a Royal Prophet his words were Laws and all his Declarations carried a commanding power in them And hence the Gospel is called the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 and the Law of the Spirit of life in or by Christ Iesus Rom. 8.2 and that command of loving our Neighbour as our self is called the Royal Law i. e. the Law of Christ our King Iam. 2.8 for this our Saviour calls his Commandment John 15.12 and his new Commandment viz. that ye love one another even as I have loved you Joh. 13.34 and not only this but all other duties of the Gospel are called his Commandments Ioh. 14.21 and Matt. 28.20 by all which it is evident that in revealing his Gospel to the World he did not only perform the part of a Prophet but also of a Legislator and that by his own inherent Authority as he was a King he stamp'd those Doctrines into Laws which he taught and delivered as a Prophet And such as his Kingly power is such are his Laws and Commandments he is a spiritual King a King of Souls of Wills and of Affections and accordingly his Laws are spiritual and do extend their obligation to the Souls and Wills and Affections of his Subjects For they not only oblige our outward man but also the inmost motions of our heart they lay their reins upon our thoughts and desires as well as upon our words and actions and give directions to our inward intentions as well as to our outward actions so that to satisfie their demands it is not sufficient that we do well unless we also intend well that the matter of our actions be good unless the aim and design of them be so also for according
of himself to God and if every one then to be sure the Righteous must as well as the wicked not that there will be any doubt of the righteousness of the Righteous in the breast of the Judge to whose all-seeing Eye the darkest secrets of all hearts lie open but yet for otheâ—â—â—asons it is highly convenient they should undergo a trial as well as others As first for the more solemn and publick vindication of their wronged innocence that all that infamy and scandal with which their malicious Enemies have bespattered them may be wiped off before men and Angels and that being assoiled before all the World they may triumph for ever in a bright and glorious reputation And secondly That all those brave and unaffected acts of secret Piety and Charity to which none but God and themselves were conscious may be brought into the open light and to their everlasting renown proclaimed throughout all the vast Assembly of Spirits for now we shall see all those modest souls unmask'd whose silent and retired graces do make so little shew and noise in the world and all their humble pieties and bashful beauties which scarce any Eye ever saw but Gods shall be exposed to the publick view and general applause of Saints and Angels Thirdly They shall be tried also for the vindication of Gods impartial procedure in proportioning their reward to their vertue that so the degrees of each mans proficiency in piety and vertue being exposed to the view of the world by an impartial trial Angels and Men may be convinced that in distributing the different degrees of happiness the Almighty Judge is no way biassed by a fond partiality or respect of persons but that he proceeds upon immutable Principles of Iustice and doth exactly adjust and ballance his rewards with the degrees and numbers of our deserts and improvements that so even those that are set lowest in those blessed Forms and Classes of glorified Spirits may not envy those that are above them or complain that they are advanced no higher but every one may chearfully acknowledge himself to be placed where he ought to be as being fully convinced that he is only so many degrees inferiour to others in glory as they are superiour to him in divine graces and perfections Fourthly and lastly The Righteous shall undergo this Trial for the more glorious manifestation of the divine mercy and goodness For which reason I am apt to think that even their sins of which they have dearly and heartily repented shall in this their trial be exposed and brought upon the Stage that so in the free pardon of such an infinite number of them the whole Congregation of the blessed may behold and admire the infinite extent of the divine mercies and be thereby the deeper affected with and more vigorously excited to celebrate with Songs of praise the goodness of their merciful Iudge For these reasons the Wise man tells us Eccles. 12.14 that God shall bring every secret thing to judgment whether it be good or whether it be evil which Proposition being universal must extend to the Righteous as well as to the Wicked But yet though their sores shall be then laid open it shall be done by a soft and gentle hand by a serene Conscience and a smiling Iudge who without any angry look or severe reflection or any other circumstance but what shall contribute to the joys and triumphs of that day shall read over all the Items of their guilt and then cancel them for ever For IV. This Iudgment of the Righteous doth also include their Sentence Although to us whose operations are so slow and leisurely by reason of the unwieldiness of these fleshly Organs with which we act such a particular trial as hath been before described of such an infinite number of men and women may seem to require an unreasonable length of time yet if we consider that then both the Iudge and those who are to be judged shall be array'd in spiritual bodies in which they will be able to act with unspeakable nimbleness and dispatch we shall find that a little time comparatively may very well suffice for so great a transaction for the Iudge being one that can attend to infinite causes at once without any distraction and they who are to be judged being by reason of their spirituality in a condition to attend to every ones trial while they are undergoing their own I see no reason we have to imagine that they shall be tried successively one after another and if not why may we not suppose that we shall all be tried together at the same time and consequently that the trial of all may be transacted in as short a time as the trial of one And that they shall all be tried together is very probable since it is apparent from Scripture that they shall all be sentenced together for thus Mat. 25.34 Then shall the King say to those on his right hand i. e. to them all together Come ye blessed c. Having first by an accurate and impartial Trial manifested their integrity to all the world he shall arise out of his flaming Throne and with an audible voice and smiling Majesty pronounce their Sentence all together in these or such like words Come ye blessed Children of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world to which welcome Sentence they will doubtless all immediately resound a joyful Choir of Halelujahs through Heaven and Earth Allelujah Salvation and Glory and Power be to the Lord our God for true and righteous are his Iudgments ' Salvation be unto our Lord that sitteth on the Throne and to the Lamb for wonderful are thy works O Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways O thou King of Saints And now all their business being finished here below they shall from henceforth be no longer detained in this Vale of tears and misery but with overjoyed hearts shall take their leave of it for ever For V. And lastly Another thing implyed in this their Iudgment is their Assumption into the Clouds of heaven For their blessed Lord having thus publickly acquitted and pronounced them blessed they shall immediately feel the happy effect of it for now he will no longer suffer them to stand below at the Bar but from thence will call them up to his Tribunal there to give them a nearer access to his beloved person and more intimate participation of his glory At which powerful call and invitation of his they shall in an instant all take wing together like a mighty flock of pure and innocent Doves and fly aloft into the air singing and warbling as they go to meet their Redeemer in the Clouds of Heaven For so the Apostle in 1 Thes. 4.17 Then that is after their Resurrection and Judgment we which are alive and remain who never died but only have been changed and glorified shall be caught up together with them who shall be raised from the dead