shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds every one walking in their uprightness Death is nothing else but a Writ of ease to the poor weary Servants of Christ a total Cessation from all their labour of nature sin and affliction Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord that they may rest from their Labours c. While the Souls of the Saints do Rest in Abrahams Bosome their bodies do sweetly sleep in their Beds of dust as in a safe and Consecrated Dormitory Thus Death is but a sleep Secondly And then again as they that sleep in the night do awake in the morning so shall the Saints of God do This heaviness may endure for a night this night of mortality but joy cometh in the morning In the morning of the Resurrection they shall awake again Psal 17.15 it will not be an everlasting night an endless sleep but as sure as we awake in the morning when we have slept comfortably all night so sure shall the Saints then awake and shall stand upon their feet and we shall behold them again with exceeding joy Oh Blessed morning How should we long and wait for that morning more than they that watch for the dawning of the day It is an errour in Philosophy to call Death a total privation of the habit Divinity hath corrected that errour while it hath taught us to call the dissolution of Nature in the Saints at the most but a sleep Mors ista quam adeò perhorrescimus adeò timemus non est exitus sed transitus veni et eterum qui nos in lucem reponat dies Sen. which in the Philosophers own notion is but a partial privation and doth admit of a Regress or returning again to the habit or former state and capacity more beautiful active and vigorous than ever as hereafter shall appear A comfortable notion which were it realized by Believing would be able to silence our complaints and to still all our moan-makings over our departed Christian friends and Relations how sweet and precious soever they have been to us For do we indeed take on so when any of the Family are gon to Bed before us in the Evening Do we indeed cry out woe and alas my Father is fallen asleep my Mother is laid to Rest my dear Yoak-fellow is gone to bed before me my sweet Child the delight of mine eyes the joy of my heart his eyes are closed the Curtains drawn close about him and I cannot awake him Do we I say thus take on and afflict our selves in this case no surely he would be accounted little better than a Mad-man or a Fool that should do so Oh fie then fie for shame why do we so here the case is the same only if the night be a little longer which yet no man can determine before hand the morning will be infinitely more joyous and make us more abundant compensation for our patience and expectation why are we so unlike our selves in one and in the other Surely because we either forget our notions or believe them not we call the absence of our Friends by a wrong name We say my Father is dead my Mother is dead my Isaack is dead my dear Yoak-Fellow is not and these be killing words Dead the Letter killeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death is the most terrible of all terrible things the very name of it strikes a chilness and coldness into our hearts enough to kill us before our time for even worldly sorrow many times causeth death Call we then things as God calls them make we use of the notions which God hath suggested to us say we my Parent is gone to bed my Yoak-Fellow is at Rest my beloved Babe is fallen asleep * So also in Scripture is death tearmed a departure 2 Tim. 4.6 an absence from the body a going from home an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5 4.8 Job 15.11 An entring into peace a going to rest Isa 57.2 and behold the terrour of death will cease If God hath cloathed this horrid thing Death with softer notions for our comfort let not the Consolations of the Almighty be a small thing with us Oh how comfortable lives might we live had we but the right notions of things and Faith to realize them Our Friends are not dead but sleep Comfort one another with this Word The second Consolatory Argument is The hopeful condition of these our sleeping Relations 2d Word of Comfort Blessed be God we are not without hope of their happiness even while they thus sleep There be indeed that dye and neither carry away any hope with them nor leave any hope behind them to thâ—â— surviving Relations but the Righteous hath hope in his 〈◊〉 Prov. 14.23 when our gratious Relations dye we nâ—â—â—â—â—se the word sometimes that we may be understood there is hope They are infinite gainers by their death Sometimes they dye full of hope in their own sense Job 19.25 26 27. I know saith Jâ—b that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin Worme destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God c. Oh Blessed hopeâ— And thus holy Paul 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if the earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens Glorious Triumph And thus again we may find him in his own name and in the name of other of his Brethren and Companions in Tribulation and in the Kingdome and patience of Jesus Christ marching out of the field of this world in a Victorious manner with Colours flying and Drums beating and thus insulting over Death as a Conqueror 1 Cor. 15.56.57 Oh Death where is thy Sting Oh Grave where is thy Victory The Sting of Death is Sin the strength of sin is the Law but thanks be to God which giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ And thus 2 Pet. 1.11 An abundant entrance is administred unto them into the everlasting Kingdome of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Oh the superabundant Consolation of the Heires of promise And if any of the Saints of God at any time their Sun have set under a Cloud so that they are not able to express their own hopes yet they leave behind them sollid Scripture evidences of God's everlasting Electing Love and of their effectual vocation out of the world into the Kingdome and Fellowship of his dear Son Jesus Christ our Lord Evidences of saving vocation Gal. 5.22 23. such as are The Fruits of the Spirit Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance Their Poverty of Spirit Holy Mourning For Their own and Other mens Sins Math. 5.3 Their hungering and thirsting after Righteousness 6. v. 8. Their purity of heart visible in the holiness of their lives Their peaceable and peace-making dispositions 9.10 11
three glorious persons in Trinity and that other like unto it between the two natures in Christ profound and ineffable 1 Cor. 2.14 Quia nihil animal animali superius cogitare potest the heart of man is not able to conceive it nor the tongue of an Angel to express it the natural man knows it not at all no more of it than a Swine knows what the Union is between the Soul and body in man it is above his principle 1 Cor. 2.14 The spiritual man understandeth it very imperfectly all we know is rather that it is than what it is the full and perfect knowledg of it is reserved for the future state so our Lord hath told us John 14.20 At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you then and not till then we shall never perfectly understand this Union until we come fully to enjoy it In the mean time if a short improvement of such a rich point might not be judged too much improper in such a contemplative discourse as this is a few things might be hinted from hence by way of Use Use First Here we may discover the main Foundation 1 Perseverance stands not in the nature of Grace and Reason of the Saints perseverance surely it consists not in the nature of Grace infused in their Regeneration this differs not specifically from the Grace which Adam received in his first Creation that was the Image of God Gen. 1.26 27. and so is this Colos 3.10 and therefore of it self cannot produce any higher or more noble effects under the one Covenant then it did under the other Secondly 2. Nor in freedom of will Nor doth it consist in the liberty and rectitude of their own Wills though Regenerate for if Adams free will did him so little service in his perfect state when it was entire free without any mixture of servility how little security think you can the liberty Ex nolentibus facit volentes Aug. wherewith Christ maketh the will free in the new Creation afford the Saints wherein the state of Grace is yet imperfect and the freedom of their wills mixt with so much bondage that it made the holy Apostle look upon it little different for the present from a captivity Rom. 7.24 and to cry out to astonishment for a Redeemer to come in and make a rescue O Wretch that I am who shall deliver me c. He found by experience that if it were not more for a Christ than for the freedom of his own will that body of death which he carried about him would infallibly prove his total and final ruine but I thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord there was his security But 1. In the Covenant of Grace Where then shall we bottom the stability and fixedness of the Saints surely upon a two-fold Foundation First Divine Compact Grace in the Saints is under a Covenant God the Father hath Astipulated with the Mediator for his spiritual believing seed not only to repair the Ruines of the first Creation his Image in them but to uphold and secure it from ever dissolving decaying again totally or finally partial temporary decays and recidivations there may be but saith the word of the Covenant to the Redeemer in Reference to his divine off-spring my Spirit which is upon thee Isa 59.21 and my words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Adams grace was under no such Covenant and therefore left to it self it was exposed to the power of Temptation and perished This is one account of the Saints perseverance But Secondly Secondly Union with Christ The next and immediate Foundation of it is this blessed Vnion whereof we are now speaking by vertue whereof the true Believer is so made one with Christ as Christ is one with his Father ut supr As we are one as that is as it hath been expounded spiritually really operatively enrichingly intimously indissolubly in a word infallibly and availeably to all saving intents and purposes Here is the ground and foundation of the Saints perseverance Rev. 3.1 They are not only fixt Stars in Christs right hand if no more it would be hard pulling them thence But their lives are bound up in the same bundle with Christs own life Jo. 14.19 our life is hid with Christ in God Christ and his Saints have as it were but one life between them and that life is Christs whence Christ himself makes the inference because I live Col. 3.3 you shall live also Upon such an instance it may be questioned and possibly without breach of charity whether they who deny the infallible perseverance of the Saints did ever truly study or believe the notion and nature of the happy and glorious Vnion which is betwixt Christ and them * The inseparableness of the Union is given as the account of the Saints perseverance Nothing can separate us Rom. 8 39. If we should form what hath been said unto such a Syllogism as this namely They that are United to Christ by a spiritual real operative enriching intimate inseparable Union can never totally or finally fall away But all true Believers are so United Therefore they can never so fall away I say cast all into such a form and we find that both the Premisses and the Conclusion are of Christ's own making Because I live ye shall live also And therefore until I hear that Christ is dead the second time which I am sure I shall never do for Christ being raised dieth no more Rom. 6.9 death hath no more dominion over him c. I dare not believe this doctrine The possibility of the Saints total and final Apostacy Only because Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light and the heart is deceitful above all things Caution and desperately wicked my earnest advice and obsecration to all such as do pretend to this blessed Vnion as to mine own Soul is To give all diligence upon solid Scripture-evidence that is to say by the precious and powerful influences of this Vnion upon their Souls and by the gracious Reciprocations of Faith and Love and sweet holy communion with the Father and the Son c. by these I say and the like to secure the Assumption But I am thus Vnited to Christ And the Conclusion need not fear the gates of Rome or Hell but the Believer may boldly send forth St. Pauls challenge Who shall condemn What shall separate 1 Cor. 15.57 Thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ In the second place Second Use Hence we may take notice of the honour and dignity of the Saints how meanly and basely so ever reputed in The Dignity of the Saints 1 Cor. 4.13
like my God glorious in holiness this is not only an evidence of heaven but heaven it self Thirdly Evidence 3. Again an universal hatred of sin is a good token that heaven is designed for thee for hatred of sin is the negative part of holiness and heaven is a place provided by God on purpose that there the Saints may be as holy as they will without disturbance or reproach fear not to think much and often of heaven if sin be an offence to thee if sin be an hell on earth to thee heaven is designed for thee to be thy Paradise Learned men conceive the sin of the apostate Angels went no further than the first ambitious thought fear not to be often solacing thy self in the contemplation of that place where sin never entred or if it did it was cast out as soon as ever it was conceived Indeed it is but a fancy men have taken up that they love happiness while they continue to love sin a chast love of heaven can never consist with the love of impure lusts Sin is the Devils image holiness is Gods he loves not the beauty of holiness that would have the Devil advanced thither If men would not have it so why else do they give sin such free entertainment in their own bosomes and will by no means give it a bill of divorce Fourthly Evidence 4. A superlative love to him that hath purchased this state for us and us for it is an infallible evidence of our right to it and interest in it that is the Lord Jesus Christ and a strong motive upon which gracious souls are so often in heaven by their contemplations is that thereby an eye of faith they may behold not the purchase only but the purchaser whom having not seen we love and whom loving we would fain see and this is the glory of every one that is so affected so it is expresly said 1 Cor. 2.9 The good things prepared for them that love him Dost thou love the Lord Jesus Ascend often in the Chariot of love that thou mayest see his face and in his face the glory and beauty of heaven Surely such as love not Christ and yet think they love heaven are miserably mistaken they know neither Heaven nor Christ and may well cry out Isa 44.20 Is there not a lye in my right hand Well Christians you that would gladly have your portion in this glory shut your eyes downward I may invert the Angels Question to the men of Galilee and say Acts 1.11 Why stand ye paring upon the â—arth Yea why crawl ye with your bellies upon the ground as if you had inherited the Serpents curse as well as your own Sursum corda lift up your hearts let your souls often withdraw and bid the body farewell for a time that you may with Paul be wrapt up to the third heaven and then see things which may even ravish your souls out of your bodies seek the things above set your affections on things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Pregustation by faith is a kind of prepossession an entrance beforehand into the glorious joyes of our Lord and Master an ascent into the Mount of transfiguration when the soul may truly say Master it is good for us to be here and the oftner ye come the more welcome Christ will make you they that know the divine relishes of such contemplation would not exchange them for the most delicious fruitions of the whole inferiour creation Oh strive to antidate glory and to get into heaven before your time Yet give me leave to add one Caution I do not say every one that hath a right to heaven hath an assurance of heaven or else no right or warrant to meditate on heaven but this I say 1. Though every Christian hath not assurance every one may if not by way of special prerogative and extraordinary revelation yet in a way of holy duty the mediums whereby Christians attain to assurance being common to all 2. Though all attain not to the same degree of assurance the plerophory of Gods love yet all may attain to such a degree of Scripture-hope good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2.16 as may quiet their hearts and cause them to go on their way rejoycing looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 16. 3. I say not it is the duty of all to have assurance in what degree soever but it is the duty of all to labour for assurance in the highest degree not to labour for assurance argues a defect of love to God true love can rest in nothing short of assurance and even this may sustain the soul till assurance comes 4. Therefore I say let not thy want of assurance be the fruit of thy sloth do not continue without assurance for want of holy industry in the pursuit of it for want of giving all diligence as the text saith to make thy calling and election sure and thy want of assurance need not discourage thee from taking a full and frequent prospect of heavens glory let God bear witness to thy Conscience that assurance is thy design and that you are not voluntarily and habitually wanting to God and your selves as to the pursuit of that design in a concurrent use of all those mediums which God hath sanctified for the attainment thereof and you may with as much boldness and considence get within the vail and there take a full prospect of the upper Canaan Northward Southward Eastward Westward in all the dimensions of it as God once spake to Abraham Gen. 13.14 concerning the â—â—ather Canaan and with the same promise All the land all the glory which thou seen to thee will I give it for ever I say with as much boldness as if thou hadst got the plerophory of faith and were already sealed with the Spirit of promise to the day of redemption and who knows but in the same Chariot wherein Love ascends into Heaven Assurance may come down from heaven and or ever thou art aware thy soul may make thee like the Chariots of Amminadib Quest But what are those mediums in the concurrent use whereof assurance of an interest in the heavenly inheritance may be had Answ The Question being but occasional 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall with much brevity but hint only at some special Helps 1. Take heed of determining before inquiry 1. Means 2. Study well your evidences 2. Help Take heed of false evidence and verily this is an evidence to be sollicitous about your evidences Take heed that neither your evidences be false evidences nor you make a false application of the true that you neither take exclusive evidences for inclusive i. e. Jam. 1.22 such as are only to shut out bold presumers as bare doing of duties hearing praying c. for such as do necessarily conclude a state of grace counterfeit graces for the fruits of the Spirit of God
thy self nor set any of the houshold of Faith at work for an higher Boon than for Assurance Oh get some special Favourite under the great Mediator some Noah some Job some Daniel c. Men or Women of great acquaintance and much communion with God Christians of large experience and eminent holiness to such God usually denyeth nothing And Heb. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him Psal 25.14 his Covenant to make them know it Speaks to others as men and women ordinarily bespeak prayers Pray pray for me and the like and truly for the most part it passeth for a common if not a vain Complement and there 's an end of it speak to some not Heathen and they will laugh at thee they know not what thou sayest speak to others and they 'l forget thee He that makes not assurance his own concernment how can he make it thine Speak to serious solid broken-hearted Christians who know what assurance is and what it is worth earnestly beg of them If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies That they would plead hard for that in the interest of our Lord Jesus if God would remember your poor thirsty soul for one draught of this wine of this consolation Assurance and they cannot yea they dare not forget thee They know whose prayers have prevailed for themselves in the like petitions and they dare not but pay their debts But whilst thou settest others to pray for thee Caution forget not to pray for thy self forget not to pray for thy self If thou settest others to pray for thee and prayest not thy self thou art an Hypocrite and God will account thee as one that mockest and thou wilt get a curse and not a blessing wherefore pray pray constantly and pray instantly Vehementia constantia in istu petitionibus requiritur c. knock hard at the gate of heaven for this grand mercy and if God open not the first or second or twentieth or the hundreth time yet with Peter continue knocking let God know as it were that thou art resolved to take no denial to thy Petition for assurance This was the greatness of the poor woman of Canaans Faith Mat. 15.27 she would not be denied Be constant and conscientious in your attendance upon Christs Table 9. Help behold it is the sealing Ordinance his Banquetting-house his Presence-chamber his Marriage-feast his Bed of love where he doth use to give out to his Spouse his Loves Cant. 6.12 〈◊〉 Behold the Spirits run in the blood and the sealing Spirit of Christ is not seldom conveyed in the precious streams of Christs blood in that mysterious Ordinance The holy Supper was the pledge of his dying Love a Seal of his last coming to receive home his Spouse to himself This Cup is the New Testament in my blood 1 Cor. 11.25 26. this do ye as est as ye drink it in remembrance of me As oft as ye eat c. Christ would have his Spouse perpetuate the remembrance of his dying love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 3.12 that thereby they might look for a hastning of his coming Oh let not thy place be empty at such a glorious festivity who can tell whether the Lord may come in the very hour of this solemn Ordinance which he hath appointed to be the very sanction and pledge of his glorious and triumphant coming Sam. 20.27 and say concerning thee Where is the son of Jesse to day Oh at such a time for the Bridegroom to find thee absent how unkindly may he take it Who that he might be sure not to miss thy company at this Love-feast hath said As oft as ye eat c. Lastly Wait. This is blessedness in assurance 10. Help next to the beatifical vision it self and there wants not blessedness in waiting for it while short spirited Christians can find no sweetness but in a plerophâ—ry gracious souls can tast blessedness in waiting for it Lam. 3.26 The Saints in Scripture have been not only a praying generation but a waiting generation the old Testament Believers waited for the Promise of the Messiah Luke 2.25 It is said of good old Simeon He waited for the consolation of Israel And the Primitive believers in the new Testament after Christs Ascention were commanded by our Lord to wait for the Promise of the Father Acts 1.4 which said he ye have heard of me namely the Promise of the Holy Ghost which should fill their hearts with assurance and seal them up to the day of Redemption Indeed there is Patience in Faith as well as Power it knoweth as well how to stay the Lords leasure as to wrestle with him for the blessing Indeed it is a rare temper to be importunate with God and Christ willing to stay Gods leisure but it is most excellent and there is nothing lost by it Holy David gives us his own experience Psal 40.1 I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry Go you and do likewise Pray and wait wait and wait patiently and if the Lord answer not as soon as your souls could wish know this that you do not so much wait for God as God for you Isai 30 18. The Lord waits to be gracious God doth but wait the fittest season of mercy and therefore blessed are they that wait for him And let me tell you this for your unspeakable encouragement that if assurance come not till your dying hour nor then neither to your own or others sence and observation yet vigorous and persevering indeavours shall wear the same Crown with assurance in heaven not want of assurance but the neglect of it is the sin which God takes unkindly It was the last words wherewith holy Jacob went triumphing out of the world I have waited for thy salvation Gen. 49.18 O Lord. And thus I have done with the second Use of this Ever I come to a third Ever with the Lord. Use 3. 1 Cor. 15 ult It may serve as a spur to diligence and activity in the wayes of God It is the very use the Apostle makes of this blessed Doctrine Therefore my brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as ye know your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Not in vain a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more is to be understood than is exprest the meaning is your reward shall be great and glorious What is that this motive hath relation to the glorious resurrection treated on in the whole foregoing Chapter q. d. on the other side of the resurrection God hath prepared an eternity of glory for you and therefore bestir your selves in good earnest do somewhat for God on this side the grave that may if possible bear some proportion with your future expectation Whatever thy hand findeth to do do
that shall be revealed at the appearance of the Lord Jesus they cannot take up with such miserable comforts as men usually dye with And it must needs be an addition to the torments of hell to leave godly Relations mourning under the dreadful apprehensions of a Relation miscarrying to all eternity And to be regardless of our friends anxiety of spirit even in this respect is somewhat less charity than they have in hell Dives in hell was sollicitous to prevent his brethrens coming thither Graceless Relations dying with the marks of their unregeneracy upon them do even scorch the hearts of their gracious surviving friends with the sence of those flames which they suffer So it will be to them while they are yet in the body Woodcock his Sermon of Heaven p. 657. though at the Resurrection as one saith it shall be no more allay to their joy than if they saw so many fishes caught in a net Impartially therefore and accurately examine your own estates make your Consciences faithfully to answer this Question Can I give my self or friends comfort in this present state should I dye this very moment If Conscience assisted with Scripture light say no this is a lost estate this is a damnable condition I am now in oh poor wretch how highly doth it concern thee this very hour to look about thee for thou knowest not how near thou art to the last point and period of thine appointed time Vide Morning Exercise Giles in the Fields 1659. It is a vain thing for thee to comfort thy self without some Scripture grounds of interest in Christ who is the resurrection and the life Paul sends Tychichus to comfort the Colossians but he must know their state first Colos 4.8 That he may know their state and comfort their heart We have a generation that comfort others without knowing their spiritual estate which is to clap on a plaister without searching the wound a way to lead men to hell hoodwinkt the spiritual estate must be known before comfort can be well applied Examine therefore and suffer others to examine and search how it is with your souls in relation to Christ and Grace what knowledge what repentance what faith what mortification what contempt of the world what love to Christ what thoughts of the world to come If these things be in you and abound then comfort your hearts For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ In the tenth and last place 10. Branch of Information Hence we are informed how much it concerns every man and woman that would comfortably observe this blessed Command of administring comfort to himself or others who are in tribulation I say how much it concerns them to search the Scriptures O study the Scriptures that Magazine and Store-house of all divine comfort especially in the reading of Scriptures to make a Collection of the Promises which are the nests and boxes of Christs Cordials and Antidotes against the fainting Fits to which Believers themselves are subjects there are the soul-refreshing water-brooks the wells of salvation ever sending forth streams of consolation to make glad the City of God Here is Christs Wine celler and Banquetting-house Cant. 2.4 to which he doth invite his disconsolate Spouse and where he doth revive her fainting soul according to her longing desire Stay me with apples and comfort me with flaggons for I am sick of love What though the Scripture and the Promises do abound with consolation if we be ignorant and unacquainted with the variety nature and use of these heavenly Ingredients they signifie no more to us than for a man to be in an Apothecaries shop fraught with the richest Drugs but he knows not the boxes where they are laid nor the vertue of them he and his friends may dye in a Fit and miscarry in the midst of all those Preservatives or if he venture on them he may peradventure take poyson instead of Cordials Wherefore study the Promises and in studying of them be careful to refer them to their distinct heads Make your selves Catalogues of Promises that refer to several soul distresses and exigencies and do as Apothecaries Collect the Promises of Scripture into distinct heads write their titles over their Heads Promises for pardon Promises for power against corruption Promises for comfort prison Promises sick-bed Promises Promises relating to the loss of gracious Relations c. I say be careful skilfully to sort your Promises that you may know whither to go when you repair to the Scriptures and may not administer mistaken Ingredients Corasives instead of Cordials as Job's friends did nor Cordials instead of Corasives as the generality of ignorant Christians do 2. Study the great art of officing the Promises labour to know to which of the Offices of Christ every Promise doth relate which to his Kingly Office as the Promises of grace and increase of grace and power against temptation the conquering of death and the fear of death which belong to his Prophetical office as promises of knowing God and Christ and the Spirit promises of being taught of God inward powerful experimental knowledge what Promises belong to his Sacerdotal office as promises of reconciliation to God peace with God acceptance of person and performances peace of Conscience joy in the Holy Ghost comfort in the loss of sweetest Relations and this will be of great use to inable you in prayer to plead the Promises and to put them in suit in the proper office a great honour to Christ and a mighty help and incouragement to faith 3 Pray for the Spirit whose Office is to make good the Promises to the Children of Promise and upon that very account called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Comforter The Promises are never comfort until the Spirit apply them to the Conscience and then they are Cordials indeed whether to our selves or others then they are full of life and power and can with one taste comfort more than all the Arguments of Philosophy in the world And verily Christians as all the Cordials in Scripture are no Cordials until they are applyed to the Conscience by a powerful hand and breathed into the soul by the warm vital animation of the Spirit of God to know it your selves are Physicians of no value in this great work of comforting one another until ye learn to joyn the words of prayer with the words of comfort until by prayer you call in the presence and power of the Comforter who only is able to make these words to be so many real consolations Amen Soli Deo Gloria FINIS A TABLE Of the principal things contained in this TREATISE The first Figure notes the Part The second the Page A A Basement of Christ 3.20 Christ his abasement and exaltation compared together 3.21 Absolution the Saints shall be absolved in the last day from all guilt and punishment 2.134 And in what sense 2.136
of us all Jesus Christ was the Center in whom the sins of all the Elect of God did meet and unite together to make Him as it were the common sinner For God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him and under the insupportable burthen of our sin he swet and wept and bled and groaned and gave up the Ghost Behold Rom. 8.31 So God the Father Loved us that he spared not his own Son but delivered him up to the death for us all and shall we think much to give up the dearest Treasures of our blood in death to Him So much did God the Son love us that He died for love of us he died the first death that we might not die the second death he died for us that we might live with him And shall we count our lives or the lives of our dearest Relations too dear for him especially when no such advantage can accrue to the Lord Jesus by our death as did accrue to us by his death also in as much as neither we nor ours are in any capacity to reap the fruit and advantage of his death until we dye also and the sooner we dye the sooner shall we reap those fruits Behold God's First-borne was laid in the Sepulchre and shall we think God deals hardly with us if we follow our first-born to the Grave and leave them there till our Lord himself come to awaken them Especially since therefore Jesus died and was buried that he might sanctifie death to us by his death and by his being buried might perfume the Grave and make it a sweet Dormitory or bed of spices for his members to rest in until the Morning of the Resurrection Oh Christians Let us comfort our selves and one another with these words also Jesus dyed The fourth word is yet more Cordial A fourth word of Comfort and that is although Jesus dyed yet He rose again He died indeed but he rose again from the dead God suffered his dear Son to be laid in the Sepulchre but he did not leave him there nor suffer any taint of Corruption to seize upon his precious Body And to that end Christ made hast to rise again out of the Grave he rose the third day and that very early in the Morning saith the Text as soon as ever it could be called day The Alarm no sooner went off as it were but the Lord Jesus did lift up his Royal head and put on his Glorious Apparel and came forth out of his Grave as a Bridegroom out of his Chamber in State and Triumph And this was the Cordial which our Lord himself took before his passion Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell Psal 16.10 neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see Corruption Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth c. This was his Triumphant Song And it may be ours as well as his yea therefore ours because his whether in reference to our selves or to our gratious Relations For therefore was not Christ left in Hell i. e. in the state of the dead that he might lift up us also out of the pit and therefore his body saw i. e. sustained no corruption or putrefaction no not for the least particle of time that our mortal bodies might not inherit Rottenness and Oblivion in the dust for ever And indeed in this phrase in the Text Jesus arose again there be three things implied which interest every believer in this Triumph of Christs Resurrection c. Jesus rose again implieth three things First Power Secondly Right Thirdly Office First 1st Power 〈◊〉 Jesus Rose again it implieth Christs power Viz. That Jesus Christ rose by his own power It is not said Jesus was raised which might have spoken Him passive onely in his Resurrection but Jesus rose which speaketh Him active namely that he rose as a Conquerour by his own strength as Himself professeth I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again Joh 10.18 What power that was Rom. 1.4 will tell us declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the Resurrection from the dead It is true it is elsewhere said that Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father Rom. 6.4 And likewise that he was quickned by the Spirit Pet. 3.18 To shew that neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost were excluded from a joynt share and concurrence in his Resurrection but here as elsewhere it is said also that Christ rose to shew that he was not merely passive in his Resurrection as the Children of the Resurrection are but that he rose also by the mighty power that was seated in his own Royal person The divine Nature in Christ to which the humane nature was personally united Alteram Christi naturam intelligamus nempe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verbi incarnati potentiâ was that Spirit of Holiness by which the Lord Jesus did rise Triumphantly from the dead In the same language speaks another Apostle he was put to death in the flesh but quickned by the Spirit i.e. by the Divine essence which was in Christ Death and the Grave had swallowed a morsel which they could not keep but as the Whale when it had swallowed Jonas in this the Type of Christ was forced to vomit him up again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being impossible Christ should be holden by death The power of the word incarnate loosed or dissolved the bonds of Death as a thread of Tow is broken when it is touched with the fire Yea Sampson-like herein also another type of his Jesus Christ did break in sunder the bars of the Grave and carried away the Gates of death upon his shoulders making a shew of them openly Thus Jesus rose again as a Conquerour by his own power and this is our Triumph and Rejoycing For surely He that thus raised up himself can raise up us also and will indeed raise us up by the same power Phil 3 21. whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself Secondly Jesus rose again it implieth his Office Second Office he rose as a Jesus a Saviour the Mediator of our peace who having finished the work he came about namely to satisfie divine Justice and to bring in everlasting Rightcousness so making peace by the blood of his Cross God the Father sent a publique Officer from Heaven to open the Prison doores Math. 28.2 an Angel to rool away the stone from the mouth of the Sepulchre thereby proclaiming to all the world that the debt was paid and that God had received full satisfaction for the sins of the Elect saying as it were Deliver him for I have received a Ransom This is another ground of our Triumph that Jesus rose that is he rose as our Jesus our Saviour and so by dying hath
and shall be filled with horror and astonishment in the certain looking for of Judgment and that siery Inaignation which shall devour the Adversaries and even now already seising upon them For surely this Sight shall be the beginning of their sorrows but of everlasting joys and triumphs to the followers of the Lamb Who now comes in glory to meet them and to receive them to himself Which brings me to the second Meeting mentioned here in the Text c. The Saints meeting with Christ their Head The Saints meeting with Christ Jesus to meet the Lord in the Air. In this Meeting there be three things considerable 1. The Persons meeting 2. The Place where they meet 3. The ends of their meeting 1. The Persons meeting Christ and his Saints He Descends to meet them and they Ascend to meet him Such is the Love and Condescention of the Lord Jesus to his Saints that he cometh out of his Royal Pavilion more than half way to meet them and then sends his Charrets and Horse-men a Guard of Angels to carry them up in the Clouds and to conduct them unto the place where he stayeth for them There shall they be brought into his Royal presence and like a Royal Spouse who hath been long separated from her Bridegroom by distance of place they shall fall down before Him and with Tears of joy shall wash his feet and wipe them dry with the Kisses of their Lips while at the same time Christ will take his Bride up into his Arms and with the Father of the Prodigal fall upon her neck and kiss her and with all the unconceivable expressions of Love and Joy receive her to Himself and bid her welcom into his presence Oh! what Soul can conceive what mutual Joy and Triumph there will be between Jesus Christ and his Saints in this blessed Interview Oh how welcome will the Saints be to the Lord Jesus at that day The Saints under a three-fold Relation when he shall look upon them under a three-fold Relation sc 1. As the Father's Election First The Fathers Election Joh 10.6 Eph 1.18 To see the whole number of names which were given unto him by the Father from all Eternity as the fruit and reward of his Passion now at the last all gathered together and given into his actual possession as an inheritance for ever 2. To look upon them as the Purchase of his own Blood 2. The Sons Purchase If it was a satisfaction to the Lord Jesus when behold he was in the throws and agonies of his Travel with them upon the Cross to see his Seed Isa 53 11. when they were but in the swadling Cloaths of their imperfect Regeneration according to their successive generations wherein they were to be brought into the Church Oh what infinite satisfaction will it now be to the Lord Jesus to see the Travel of his Soul in their perfect and consummate estate all the mixtures of Corruption and Infirmity now deleted and they come to a perfect man to the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ to see them all brought in not a Soul wanting of all those whose names he bare upon his breast while he hung upon the Cross that not one drop of Blood not one Prayer not a Sigh or Groan or Tear that ever he spent for them in the days of his Flesh is lost or fruitless as to any one Soul whom he purchased of the Father Joh. 17.12 In the Pastoral charge of Christ there was one Son of Perdition but in his Mediatory charge not one Soul shall miscarry but all shall be presented to him safe and entire at his appearance And over them shall he glory saying as it were All these are mine the Travel of my Soul the Purchase of my Blood the Fruit of my Agonies for these I was born and for these I was made under the Law For these I Bled Joh. 1â— 24 and for these I made my self an Offering for sin Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me Come near unto me my Sons and my Daughters that I may kiss you Gen. 27.27 See the smell of my Redeemed is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed A Woman when she is in Travel hath sorrow because her hour is come Joh. 16.21 but as soon as she is delivered she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man-Child is born into the World Surely the joy of our Lord will so much transcend the joy of all natural Mothers by how much his agonies were more bitter the birth more precious and his Soul more capacious of higher and purer joyes than are to be sound in the poor narrow Creature 3. When he shall look upon them as the charge and deposisitum of the Holy Ghost Whom the Father did Elect the Son was to purchase and whom the Son purchased the Spirit was to Sanctifie Who therefore is called the Holy-Ghost not only because as the third glorious Person in the blessed Trinity he is essentially holy in himself but because by Office he is a Fountain of Holiness to all the Elect. The Blood of Christ indeed is the Fountain of Merit but the Spirit of Christ the Fountain of operation and efficacy gathering the Elect out of the world wherein they lay in common with the rest of the lost Sons and Daughters of Adam Gal. 5.22 23. planting their Souls with the habits of Grace which are therefore called the Fruits of the Spirit and then acting supporting preserving and ripening those habits into perfection The Father's Election and the Son's Purchase are both perfected by the Sanctification of the Spirit The Father's Election 2 Thes 2.13 so the Apostle tells his Thessalonians God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit The Son's purchase Tit. 3.5 He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost Oh how acceptable then must the Offering up of the Saints be to Jesus Christ because thus Sanctified by the Holy-Ghost And when Christ shall thus present his Redeemed unto Himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but Holy and without blemish How will he rejoyce over her as the Bridegroom over his Bride That day being indeed the Marriage of the Lamb of which anon Rev. 19.7 Thus will the Lord Jesus the King of glory rejoyce to meet the Saints And surely the Saints according to their finite capacity will not less rejoyce and triumph to meet their Lord. Oh! to meet him now whom their Soul loved whom in the days of their Pilgrimage upon Earth they often sought and could not find sought him in Prayer Meditation Conference c. but could not find him and when they could not find him mourned for him lamented after him bedewed their
all things to be known the knowing whereof may any way make us happy in Heaven we shall know as much of all the mysteries of Grace and Nature as we would know Etiam curiositas satiabitur Anselm John 14.20 Curiosity it self shall be satisfied we shall know whatsoever it is we desire to know with this our Lord satisfieth his Disciples concerning those two great mysterious unions the essential union union between the Father and the Son that I am in my Father and the mystical union that is between him and all believers you in me and I in you q. d. although now ye are ignorant of these high transcendent mysteries yet let this stay and comfort your hearts when I shall come again in glory to take you unto my self that where I am there you may be also then these shall be no mysteries unto you but so many evidential Revelations At that day ye shall know then and not till then And so it may abundantly satisfie the insatiable desires of inquisitous spirits into the deep mysteries both of Creation and Redemption That when Christ shall appear we shall also appear with him in glory and then shall the veil be taken away and they shall see God and all things in Gods face which their souls desire to see the soul shall be filled and inebriated with variety of all desirable knowledge that may any way tend to its perfection This may satisfie save that it may set their souls a longing for that day and cause them to cry out with the Bride Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly The third Priviledge contained in Cohabitation is Fruition A third Priviledge implyed in the Saints being with the Lord 3. Priviledge Fruition is Fruition Vision in Glory is accompanied with fruition and this is that which makes it truly beatifical whatever glorified Saints see they do enjoy else this Vision would not differ much from Report nor that state of glory from an Heaven in a well-drawn Launskip The very Reprobate it seemeth have a prospect of Heaven Luke 13.28 but to their torment they themselves being thrust out Now Fruition consists of a ten-fold Ingredient or Property Viz. 1. Propriety 2. Possession 3. Intimacy 4. Suitableness 5. Satiety or fulness 6. Freshness 7. Present 8. Fixedness 9. Reflection 10. Complacency The first Ingredient into Fruition is Propriety 1. Ingredient Propriety Whatsoever the Saints see in Heaven is their own God saith to Abraham Gen. 13.14 now in the heavenly Canaan what he once said to him of the earthly Lift up thine eyes and look from the place where thou art Northward Southward Eastward and Westward for all the land which thou seest 〈◊〉 thee do I give it whatever is within that vast circumference of Heaven it is Abraham's and all his spiritual seeds for ever Now David may tune his Michtam a key higher and instead of Gilead is mine Psal 60.7 8 and Manasseh is mine Ephraim and Judah c. he may now sing God is mine and Christ is mine and the Spirit is mine all the elect Angels are mine and all the whole Congregation of the first-born mine all the glory of Heaven is mine And so may the best of the Saints in heaven triumph all is mine and what pleasures or riches or honours or glory or joyes are in the presence of God they are all mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 1.13 They did sing so while yet in the valley of tears or they might have sung so Faith gave them a title their Jus adrem a right to Heaven but the blessed vision giveth them now real interest Jus in re right in Heaven and they need not now fear to call it theirs they might have said my God my Christ and my Comforter here below but one thing was to be done first sound Scripture evidence was to be cleared out and sealed up to their souls but some or other defect therein did not seldom check their confidence and damp their joy for a time But now in glory Propriety is beyond all dispute their evidences were seen and allowed at their first admission into Heaven and now mine mine is their song and triumph to all eternity and God is not ashamed to be called their God truly he was not ashamed to be called so even when they had but too much cause to be ashamed of themselves and gave God too much cause to be ashamed of them But now God is so far from being ashamed of owning them that he rejoyceth in them and glorieth over them This people I have formed for my self Isai 43.21 they shall shew forth my praise And again Fear not for I have redeemed thee verse 1 I have called thee by thy name thou art mine Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee The Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren to own them for Subjects Friends Rev. 15.3 chap. 14.1 Coheirs with himself in glory his Bride And they claim their Propriety in him as such The King of Saints chap. 1.6 verse 5 9 with their Fathers name written in their foreheads they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth chap. 21.9 Mat. 18.10 owning themselves as his beloved his redeemed Kings and Priests unto God and his Father yea as the Lambs Wife They have a propriety in all the elect Angels of God they be still their Angels as ready to do them brotherly offices as ever and take more complacency in their company and in them than ever by how much more purified and Angelified they are then when they lay among the pots of the earth now made like themselves fellow Angels as it were as well as fellow Saints They have propriety in one another although they may know some of the Saints under the notion of natural relations yet do these all cease there as now being retired into the first and chief root and Spring-head of divine Relation Children of one heavenly Father in whose House they are all together embracing and courting one another in purest communion and communications of love each Saint not more himself than his fellow Saints In a word the place where the Saints are met together never to part it is their own not a strange Country where they see one another as Strangers and Pilgrims do sometimes visit and comfort one another Heaven is not a borrowed Palace where they are admitted by curtesie to celebrate a Festival for a few dayes or years but the Saints in Heaven are at home now 2 Cor. 5.2 in their own house and Kingdom Their own 1. By Inheritance Col. 1.13 An Inheritance prepared for them from before the world had any foundation but what it had in Gods Decree Matth. 25.24 2. By purchase Therefore is Heaven called the Purchased possession Ephes 1.14 Their dear Lord and Bridegroom purchased them and their Inheritance together with his own blood 1
hath made them sc by vertue of their Union with Jesus Christ Doth Christ call God his Father and his God behold He Heb. 2.11 being not ashamed to call them Brethren lets them know that he is their God and Father God to my Brethren and say to them John 20.17 I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God Once more Hath the Father appointed him a Kingdom so doth he appoint unto them a Kingdom Luk. 22.29 Hath the Father assigned him a Throne so doth Christ assigne unto his Saints a Throne also To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me Rev. 3.21 in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne My Brethren what a Soul-enriching beatifical Union is this There be Unions in nature which convey nothing communicate nothing but empty and insignificant titles which make the person admitted into them not a whit the richer the better not a jot the more noble or happy but this Union as that divine essential Union between the Father and the Son doth invest Christ into all divine properties and prerogatives with the Father so this between Christ and the Believer invests the Believer into the whole Christ and all his riches and all his glory in so much as the Spouse gives in the whole accompt in this vast and invaluable sum Cant. 2.16 My Beloved is mine and I am his he is mine the whole Christ is mine in his natures offices excellencies prerogatives and inheritance In all he is and in all he hath it is all mine for my good and for my glory This is the voice of her Faith and then I am his this is the voice of her love I am his in all I am in all I have in all I can make by my interest in the world and if it were a thousand times more he should have it all and all too little for him who hath loved me and washed one in his own Blood and hath taken me into so rich and glorious an Vnion with his own self To him be glory for ever Amen This is the fourth Property I proceed to a fifth property of the Union Fifth Property an intimous Vnion and it is a near inward intimous Union To hint the intimateness of this Union the Holy Ghost in Scripture carries us through the climax of all Unions under Heaven and compares it with them of what nature and kind soever Whether Artificial Whether Political Whether Natural Wherein although you may find different degrees one exceeding another yet all falling short of this blessed Vnion in respect of closeness and intimacy It tells you that look how the house and foundation are one so are Christ and Believers 1 Pet. 2.4 5 6. yea higher It tells you that look how Husband and Wife are one so is Christ and his Saints Hos 2.19 Eph. 5.30 only with this incomparable difference Husband and Wife make but one flesh 1 Cor 6.16 17. but Christ and the Believer make one Spirit ut supra It tells us yet higher that look how the Head and Members are one so is Christ and his Church 1 Cor. 12.12 how root and branches are one John 15.1.6 so Christ and Believers and closer yer the Scripture tells us that look how Food and the body are one so also is Christ and the Believer one hence we hear of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood John 6.51 53 54 55 56. and nearer yet if nearer can be It 〈◊〉 that look how the Soul and Body are one how Life and the subject wherein it resides are one so is Christ and the Believer Colos 3.4 when Christ who is our life shall appear c. Behold here Christians is an Union which amounts tantum non to an identity say only with Cyprian it is not such an Union as is between the two natures in Christ Non miscet personas nec unit substantias Cypr. It is indeed an Union of persons but not a personal Union Mystici Theologi A Believer trans-essentiated into God and Bread and Wine transsubstantiated into Christ are much of a Language So they call the Holy Ghost auram zephyri caelestis and pardon of sin Deos superos manesque pacare Card. de Bemb which makes them but one person not such an Union as is between the three glorious Persons in the blessed Trinity who notwithstanding the distinction of their personality are but one nature and essence and you cannot say or think too highly of this Vnion yea whatsoever you can say or think will be short of the intimacy and excellency of this Union Onely we must tell the world that those mystical divines amongst the Papists as they call themselves who talk of the Saints being trans essentiated into God and those Seraphicks amongst us as they would be called but Phanatiques more truly and properly who rant at the same rate Christed with Christ and Godded with God these speak as men so ambitious of being accounted sublime and Angelical in comparison of all other men whom they scorn as illiterate Literatists that they think it a lessening to them to speak in a common and sober Dialect and rather then not speak bigger words then other men they fear not to speak Blasphemy The Lord convince them Notwithstanding I must add this to what I have said that because no Union under Heaven was close enough to express the oneness which is betwixt Christ and the Believer therefore our Lord Jesus himself carries us up to Heaven there to contemplate the essential Union which is between the Father and the Son Jo. 17. and puts them into the same parallel As thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us yet still we must be careful to understand the words of Christ in a sober sense lest whil'st our Lord doth honour our Union with himself by comparing it to divine Union in the Trinity we do in the least dishonour that Union by levelling it with ours we must duly remember that this comparative particle as doth not here intend equality but likeness oâ—â—y the truth of the intimacy and not the nature or the degree of it to lift up this mystical Union above all other Unions in nature but we must still keep the divine Union in its own place This is the fifth property The sixth property Sixth property total It is a total Union The whole Christ is United to the whole Christian as the whole humane nature in Christ is joyned to the whole divine nature so the whole person of a Believer is joyned to the whole person of Christ yet not so as to make Christ and the Believer but one person but as in the conjugal Union between Man and Wife making up one mystical body or as in the body natural every Member is joyned to the head and the head to every member so is Christ and the Believer Yea once
be put upon him for the recompencing of the ignominy and abasement of his first coming in the flesh I come now to the ends of this Meeting And the ends why the Saints ascend to meet Christ in the Air we may conceive to be such as these 1. Their publick Reception and owning by Christ 2. Their full and perfect Justification 3. The Consummation of their unptial Contract 4. Their Consession or Sitting together with Christ in the Judgment 5. Their compleat and sinal Benediction or blessed Sentence 6. Their solemn and triumphant Attondance on the Judg going to take possession of the Kingdom These or the like ends of the Saints meeting with the Lord in the Air are not obscurely hinted to us in Scripture The first is Their publick reception and owning by Christ come now to judge the world The Elect Angels having gathered together the Elect Saints according to the Commission upon which they were sent forth Go ye and gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice and having carried them up into the Air where the Judge stayeth for them for he will do nothing until they come I say their Angels shall now present them before Him in the rich and glorious attire of their now perfected Resurrection wherein their once vile bodies are now made like to Christ his glorious body With gladness and rejoycing shall they be brought into the King's presence and the first publick Act which the King shall do is solemnly to receive them Come ye blessed of my Father and embraceing them in his armes and kissing them as it were as Joseph once did his Brethren in the open view of Heaven and Earth he will solemnly own them and acknowledg them and that First in their Persons and Relation unto himself A Prerogative long-before promised Mal. 3.17 Christ will own the Saints 1. In their persons They shall be mine when I make up my Jewels That is the very work which Christ is now come about to make up his Jewels to lay them up in their Heavenly Cabinet And the first word he will speak is These are mine he appropriates them for his own they be mine my Jewels my Gems my * Sâ—gullah precious Treasure As the Saints have not been ashamed of Christ before men so neither will Christ now be ashamed of them before his Father Luk 9 Heb. 1.11 2 In their Relations and all his mighty Angels he will not be ashamed to call them Brethren yea he will appropriate them as his Children a Seed given him of his Father as the great reward of is Passion saying These be the Children which God hath given me Ver. 13. my Sons and my Daughters who have served me thus he owns them in their Relations Secondly 3. In their Duâ—ies and attendance He will own and acknowledg all the holy duties publick and private which they have done in obedience to his Commands their hearing praying fasting and afflicting their Souls for their own sins and for other mens sins their fearing of God and laying to heart the reproaches of Religion and Blasphemies cast upon his Name their mutual holy conferences Mal. 3.16 one with another c. All these were written in a book of Remembrance of old and laid up before him that they might never be forgotten and now the Book shall be brought forth and read in the Audience of the world for their greater honour even the very secret duties which they have performed in their Closets when no eye saw them but God's even they shall be proclaimed in the Audience of this Universal Assembly at the last day Mat 6.6 Thy Father which saw in secret will now reward thee openly not a prayer but it was filed up not a sigh Psal 56.8 nor groan but it is booked not a tear but is botled not an holy ejaculation but was upon Record and shall be now publickly produced and acknowledged I know your Works and your Labour and your Charity and your Service Rev. 2.19 and your last Works to be more then the first c. Thirdly 4. In their fidelity and perseverance Rev. 2 13. Jesus Christ at that day will own the fidelity of his Saints their constancy and perseverance in their holy Profession and confess them before all the world I know your Works and where you have dwelt even where Satan's seat was and you have held fast my Name Chap. 2.10 and have not denied my Faith even in those days wherein Antipas Cranmer Ridley Latimer c. were my faithful Martyrs who were slain among you where Satan dwelleth behold to you who have been faithful to the death do I now give a Crown of Life To you who have overcome do I grant to sit with me in my Throne Chap. 3.21 as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne 5 In their sufferings Fourthly He will own and acknowledg the Saints in their sufferings for his sake All the reproaches hard speeches * Lâ—quntur lapides incivilities abuses scandals persecutions which ever they sustained in their names persons lively-hoods and lives upon Christ's and the Gospels account he will acknowledg and bespeak them in some such language as this Isa 66.7 Your Brethren which hated you that cast you out for my names sake said * So mocking God and deriding the Godly for their confidence in God Luk. 22.28 29 30. 6. In all the Offices of love done to him or his Let the Lord be glorified but now I appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed Or as he once encouraged his Disciples in the days of his flesh You are they which have continued with me in my temptations and behold I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdome c. Fifthly and lastly The Lord Jesus will own all the Services and Offices of Love done to Himself or to any of his Members Cloathing Feeding Visiting them when Sick coming to them when in Prison He will acknowledge all before Heaven and Earth yea what they themselves have forgotten never thought-worthy of their own notice much less of Christ's notice Lord when saw we thee an hungred and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink c Observe by the way the difference between Saints and Shadows Hypocrites can boast of what they never truly did they can own what God will disown We have fasted say they nay saith God In the day of your fast ye find pleasure ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness c. We have say they afflicted our Soul no such thing saith God Ye have bowed down the head like a bul-rush for a day ye have spread Sack-cloath and Ashes under you Is this a Fast will you call this Soul-afflicting if you will I will not I but now
one another and yet unseparable by reason whereof when but one of them is mentioned both of them are to be understood 6. If satisfaction be imputed Righteousness must be imputed also both being the peculiar and proper Office of the Mediator neither of them falling within the capacity of the Creature standing at the Bar of Divine Justice The third end of the Saints meeting with Christ in the Air â— Psal 116. 3d. End Consummation of the Saints Nuptials is The solemn Consummation of the Saints Nuptials with Christ their Bridegroom They were Contracted here on Earth when Christ and the Saints gained one another's consent Jesus Christ did then solemnly Espouse the Saints to himself Hos 2.19 20. I betrothed thee unto me for ever yea I betrothed thee unto me in Righteousness and in Judgment and in loving kindness and in Mercies I even betrothed thee unto me in faithfulness Indeed the Church in her self when Christ came to make Love to her was a very unlovely Creature whose emblem therefore is a poor wretched Infant in the Blood of its Nativity Ezek. 16.4.6 But Jesus Christ did first Love her with a Love of Pity Ezek. 16.6 I saw thee polluted in thine own Blood I saw thee that is I cast an Eye of Pity upon thee my bowels yearned towards thee And then as Love-less as she was that he might have a Legal right to her Eph 5.25 he Purchased her of his Father He Purchased her at a dear rate for He gave himself for her first He gave himself for her and then He gave himself to her They were wont to buy their Wives of the Father of the Damosel but never did Husband buy a Wife at such a Rate as the Lord Jesus did the Church Shechem bid fairly for Dinah Gen. 34.12 Jacobs Daughter Ask me never so much dowry and gift and I will give according as ye shall say unto me Jacob served seven years for Rachel as it fell out twice over c. yea but the Lord Jesus gave himself for his Church he purchased her with his own blood Act. 20 2â— Thirdly That he might love her with a love of Complacency he doth sanctifie her Eph. 5.27 and cleanse her by the washing of water by the word As he doth purchase the Church with his blood so he doth purifie the Church by his Spirit compared to water for the cleansing vertue thereof in the Ministry of the word as Ahashuerus had the Virgins first purified and perfumed before he took them into his bed Fourthly He woeth her by the Ministers of the Gospel who love their Lord and poor Souls so well that they will take no denial at her hand as Eleazer Isack's Steward Gen. 24.33 would not eat before he had sped for Rebeccah to Wife for his Master's Son 2 Cor. 11.2 And when they have gained her consent then they present her as a chast Virgin unto Christ Fifthly Christ and his Church upon their mutual interview like one another so well that they mutually engage and contract themselves one to another Cant. 2.16 they do mutually give away themselves one for and one to another My Beloved is mine and I am His. Sixthly Christ doth nourish her and cherish her until she be of age fit for his Marriage-Bed Seventhly And then He cometh for her and meets her by the way as Isaack met Rebeccah sc in the Air as here in the Context Lastly Consummation of the Marriage Then and there he Consummates the Marriage before God and Angels and Men and Devils he doth take her to himself as his Royal Queen saying Come my Love my Dove my Vndefiled one He embraceth her and kisseth her with a Marriage kiss and takes her to Wife The Marriage knot is knit Heaven and Earth are witnesses to it thousand thousands yea ten thousand times ten thousand even a great multitude whose voyce is as many waters and as the voyce of mighty thunderings This was the Wedding unto which John was invited Rev. 21.9 Come hither I will shew thee the Bride the Lamb's Wife He that had the Bride was the Bridegroom the Lord Jesus King of Kings c. but John the Friend of the Bridegroom Jo. 3 29. stood and rejoyced greatly to hear the Bridegrooms Voyce then indeed was his joy fulfilled At the Consummation of this Marriage what inconceivable Triumph and Rejoycing will there be the loud Musick of Heaven shall sound the voyce of mighty thundrings all the Angels Cherubims Seraphims with all the Blessed Quoire of Celestial Spirits who attend this glorious King of Saints shall praise God with the still Musick of their Hallelujahs yea all the Saints of God whether Patriarchs or Prophets and Apostles all the Martyrs and Confessors of Jesus Christ with the whole number of the Redeemed who are both Guests and Bride in this glorious solemnity will make the Arches of Heaven to Eccho when they shall be joyful in glory and the high praises of God shall be in their mouths Rev. 19.7 singing one to another Let us rejoyce and be glad for the Marriage of the Lamb is come and his Wife hath made her self ready The Gates of Hell and the very foundations of the Kingdom of darkness shall tremble and be confounded at the report of this Triumphant Jubilâ—e This Nuptâ—ll solemnity finished Fourth end of Saints meeting Christ To sit as Assessors with him Psal 45.9 the next and fourth act in that solemn meeting will be that the Bridegroom will take the Queen his Bride and set her upon his Throne at his right hand as King Agrippa did Bernice Act. 25.27 as a Confessor with himself in the following part of the Judgment which He as Judg shall pass upon the Reprobate world of men and Devils who have all this while stood trembling below upon the Earth beholding to their infinite shame and horror all this glory put upon the Saints and fearfully looking for their own Judgment and that fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries which now succeeds For the Elect Angels who are appointed to be the Satellites or Posse comitatus to attend the Judg shall now drag that miserable company of Jale-birds those reprobate Caitifs of infernal Spirits The judgment of the wicked and wicked Men before the Tribunal of the great Judg there they shall pass under a most impartial exact and severe Tryal Mal. 3.16 the books shall be opened the book of Gods Remembrance and the book of their own Consciences and out of them they shall be judged for all the evils which ever they committed from the time they first had a being in the world The Reprobate Angels shall then be judged for their first Apostacy Ad solomen calamitatis suae non desinunt perditi perdere Min. Fel. Oct. and for all their malice and revenge which since that cursed defection they ever acted against God and against his Saints yea and against the
Vision the glorified Saints They shall see the glorified Saints in their souls as well as in their bodies all the elect of God that ever were in the world * In their souls as well 〈◊〉 in their bodies from Adam until the second coming of Jesus Christ and it will be a glorious sight to see the King and all his Peers and Nobles in their Parliament Robes with Crowns and Embellishments of honour fitting in their state and order is a â—ight which every one covets and crowds to see What will it be to see the King of Saints with all the Redeemed ones of God in their Robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb and Crowns of gold upon their heads and palms of victory and triumph in their hands a Parliament all of Kings and Priests every one of them shining forth as the Sun Mat. 13.63 in the Kingdom of their heavenly Father The Sun when it breaks forth out of a cloud and displayes its refulgent beams in full lustre and brightness what a glorious Creature is it and with what a beauty doth it guild and adorn the world Oh my soul what a sight will that be when I shall see an Heaven full of Suns scattering their rayes of glory through all those celestial Regions There is another Scripture which makes the glory of this Vision yet more splendid and radiant every one of the glorified bodies of the Saints shall be made conform to Christs own glorious body Phil. 3.21 the glory of the Father shines forth in the Son and the glory of the Son shall shine forth in the Saints He in his Fathers glory is even in his humane nature and they in his Surely the Luminaries of the first magnitude in the visible heavens the Sun and Moon will be turned into darkness before the glory of this Vision they shall shine as so many Christs in the Kingdom of their Father that will be a glorious Vision indeed Not to speak any thing of the several degrees and orbs of Saints orbs of several degrees of Grace and orbs of several degrees of offices and services in the Church Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors c. of which the Apostle gives us not an obscure hint 1 Cor. 15.41 As one star differeth from another in glory so also is the resurrection of the dead q. d. as the Luminaries of these visible heavens are of a different magnitude and brightness each above the other in their orbs and sphears so also is the Kingdom of glory there be different forms of Saints one excelling another in brightness and glory I say to pass by this in silence which yet certainly hath somewhat in it for the heightning of the beauty of this vision as we see in the Luminaries of this inferiour world their different orbs and magnitudes contribute not a little to the beauty and ornament of these visible heavens We may add this before we go off viz. That the communion and converse with the Saints in heaven will be as sweet to the tast as the vision of them will be glittering to the eye there will be heaven in both Behold their fellowship and converse here was so sweet that David could say All my delight is in the Saints that are in the earth Psalm 16.3 and in the excellent ones David could take no pleasure in the company of any in the world but only in Gods holy Ones who were beautified with his Image Oh what will their communion and fellowship think you be in heaven when they shall be totally divested of all their sinful corruptions their ignorance their pride their passion their peevishniss their tenaciousness their impurity their envy their impatience their câ—nsoriousness their unseriousness their infincerity and their unsavouriness whereby they are apt to offend and hurt one another Yea when they shall have put off their natural infirmities as well as their sinful their impertinencies their mistakes their weaknesses their indispositions their hunger and thirst their drowsiness their vanity their mutability whereby they are not more unlike to other men than to themselves sometimes their diversions and reservedness c. whereby they are less able to do one another good What will their converse be when they shall put off all their defects and all their imperfections When there shall be no dissent amongst them much less dissention but when they shall all speak the same thing and there shall be no division but they shall be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment which the Apostle commends so passionately even to the Saints on this side Heaven 1 Cor. 1.10 When there shall be such a perfect harmony amongst the Saints as if there were but one soul to act that whole Assembly of the first-born When there will be nothing in them to converse with but pure grace grace without mixture grace and nothing else but grace Yea not pure grace only but perfect grace when every grace shall be in its perfect state and have its perfect works when every grace shall act to the highest degree yea when there will be â—o use of those inferiour graces which are but for the way as patience repentance simpathy pity fear hope yea none of the highest of all the graces hath faith it self now abideth faith hope now is in this imperfect state faith it self belongeth unto the imperfect state but when that which is perfect is come then that which is imperfect shall be done away when sight is come then faith shall cease and the Saints shall converse one with another only in their superiour graces their marriage-graces their glorious graces that are proper to their adult state love joy delight in God mutual complacency zeal obedience praising God thankfulness when they shall love God as much as they would love him yea as much as God would be beloved and obey God as much as God would be obeyed and praise God as much as God would be praised c. Oh when the Saints are cast into such an heavenly mold yea and we our selves are capable of such pure converse for here in this imperfect state the Saints of God are not alwayes in the same frame one with another or with themselves whâ—n one Saint is up the other is down like an Instrument out of tune jarring and disharmonious when one is alive the other dead when this is hot the other is cold when one is ready to give the other is not fit to receive the communications of grace But oh when now I say all the Instruments of Glory are alike strung and equally tuned in their several capacities what sweet ravishing harmony what heavenly musick will they make Oh might we but see such a Saint on earth as one of these are how would every one be ready to kiss his lips yea to kiss his very feet and hardly forbear even to worship him Acts 10.25 Rev. 22.9 as Cornelius would have worshipped Peter or as John
the Angel Oh then when the whole Assembly of Saints shall be all such how will they fill one another with unspeakable joy How might this vision as it were be an heaven alone If Paul exprest so much satisfaction to be filled with his precious Converts company at Rome what satisfaction will it be when the Romans shall be filled with Paul's company and all other the Saints of God they and he now made perfect in glory Finally It will be no small security to the mutual love and complacency of the Saints that in Heaven they shall be set beyond all possibility of being mistaken in one anothers condition Here below how easily and how often are we deceived Behold a Judas amongst the Disciples whom none of them could discover but only their Lord that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a Devil John 6.70 Oh dreadful a Judas follower of Christ and yet a devil a Disciple and yet a devil a Preacher and yet a devil fast and pray and yet a devil do miracles and yet a devil cast out devils and yet a Devil yea once more Judas who for some time carried it so fair that when their Lord prophesied of one of their company that should be guilty of so horrid a treason as to betray his Lord they every man began to suspect rather than Judus and cried Lord is it I Is it I Lord c Oh dreadful mistake And such mistakes when discovered oh what a shame what condolency what grief what perplexity of spirit do they occasion amongst Gods upright ones But now are the Saints in Heaven delivered from all danger and fear of such charitable errors There shall be no Hypocrite in Heaven upon whom the Saints can lose their love Hypocrites shall be all lock'd up in one infernal dungeon together that they may never deceive any more Matth. 24.21 What an access of joy will this be to the Communion of Saints in glory Quest Whether or no in this blessed Vision the Saints shall see one another with a distinguishing sight i. e. see them so as to know them under such relations and respects as once they stood in one to another in this imperfect state Whether Abraham shall know Isaak as once his son and Isaak know Abraham as sometime his father Whether the Husband shall know his Wife and the Wife her Husband as once such that have drawn together in the same conjugal yoke Whether Kinred shall know their gracious Kinred and friend his friend Whether the godly Minister shall know his gracious People that were of his particular flock and the flock know him as once standing in that ministerial relation to them Et sic in caet This I say is a Question which seems neither difficult nor fruitless to be resolved Probability without doubt falls upon the Affirmative and that whether we consult Reason or Scripture Reason saith It is very likely we shall know them Reason whether by the secret impressions of former converse one with another or by revelation as some conceive is disputed some think that we shall remember what relation we have had one to another by circumstances and emergent occasions by comparing notes as it were but that discursive syllogistical way of coming into the knowledge one of another seems to be too mean and slow for the heavenly state and the reason is because the senses of the body and the faculties of the soul shall be elevated and refined to a kind of Angelical perfection for we shall be like the Angels Luke 20.36 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What although many Ages and Generations have passed over the Saints in their state of separation of the soul from the body and one from another wherein all the species and figures of sensible objects may seem to be totally obliterated or abolished Why may not those vestigia those impressions of sensible things which are granted to remain in the understanding be thought sufficient to reduce the species of those sensible objects themselves whereby the Saints did once converse each with other into the memory again by the sole help of that supernatural vigor and activity which the state of Glory superinduceth upon the faculties of the soul and corporeal senses Behold here in this dark region what quick and admirable recoveries of things past There shall no knowledg be wanting which now we have but only that which implieth imperfection And what imperfection can this imply To know one another as well in the glorified estate as we did in the state of mortality and better The good of this blessed state consisteth in the knowledg one of another communion one with another and mutual content in that knowledge and communion Baxtor do the senses of the body and faculties of the soul make sometimes The eye can distinguish its wonted object after many years separation the memory can presently recall the face and voice and gestures of an intimate friend after sleep which is deaths image yea after twenty years absence or more At the Resurrection the soul I make no question will know its own body at the first sight proportionably in the state of glory must the mutual knowledge and remembrance of old relations be more quick vive and if I may so say intuitive according to the admirable and glorious capacity which they shall then be invested with make but a just allowance for the vast disproportion between the regenerate state on earth and the glorified state in heaven and you may rationally conclude the affirmative And if we consult Scripture Scripture it votes no less for the Affirmative than Reason doth Did Adam know Eve in innocency Mat. 17.4 Did Peter and James and John know Moses and Elias at our Lords transfiguration whom they had never seen Tertul. contra Marcion No not so much as in a picture as Tetullian observes the Jews being great enemies to the use of pictures And shall not the Saints know one another at the first view whom they knew and mutually conversed with while they were here on earth Surely the knowledge of the beatifical vision shall excel not only the knowledge of Peter and John 1 Cor. 13.12 but even the knowledge of Adam in innocency as far as the state of glory excels the state of grace Did Peter and John know Elias on the Mount whom they had not seen and shall not Peter know John and John Peter whom they had mutually seen Again the Scripture tells us that Dives in hell knew Abraham and Lazarus in heaven Luke 16.23 shall the reprobate have better eyes in hell than the elect of God have in Heaven Shall Dives know Lazarus and shall not Lazarus know Paul and Peter c And yet again the Scripture tells us the poor Saints on earth shall know their rich benefactors when they come to heaven how else can they receive them in what sense soever into everlasting habitations shall
dispersions into all the quarters and corners of the world should be revolved back again bone to bone and skin to skin and every dust to its own dust it shall clearly be expounded in the mirror of the divine understanding Acts 26.8 The Saints themselves are both Instances and Expositions of that Text. and exemplified in the counter-part thereof the bodies of the Saints then it shall no longer be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead All the hard places of Scripture that vex the profoundest Divines and make the Believer sigh out his How can I understand except some man should guide me shall then be expounded in the Original text of eternal verity Acts 8.31 without looking into any other Commentary and oh what joy will that be to understand the whole Bible without study 2 Peter 3.17 There shall be in the glorified understanding at the Schools say Cognitio clara lucid clara fixa contemplatio omnium naturaliter scibilium even above its primitive capacity The Soul shall be indeed at its full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the meanest understanding shall be able to confute all the depths and fallacies of Jesuitical seducers whereby they have darkened the Truth and led away the willingly ignorant into their pernicious errors and doctrines of Devils In a word All the Arcana of Nature and all the Mysteries of Philosophy properly so called with all occult things under the Sun and the highest speculations of this neather Orb in the painful and knotty disquisition whereof the greatest Masters of secular learning have tired themselves almost to distraction and upon the gaining of some little supposed satisfaction wherein they have so much gloried and insulted over other men shall now be made easie and familiar to the Saints the very A B C of Heaven and only worth a cast of their eyes either as such knowledge came from God or as it leads them unto God again For the use of this last branch of the heavenly vision Vse It may serve to moderate and restrain that inordinate curiosity in our natures to be looking into dark and hidden mysteries There is a concupiscence in the understanding lusting after forbidden knowledge as there is in the will after forbidden fruit we inherit both from our first Father and Mother they affected a knowledge above the capacity of their natures they would know as God knoweth universally intuitively and at once but by such an ambition of knowing more than they ought they forfeited what they had which was sufficient to have made them happy and while they aspired to be as God which made them they became like the beasts that perish It was the presumption of the Bethshemites they would be prying into the Ark though they died for it and there is a pride and wantonness in our nature 1 Sam. 6.19 which sets us a prying into Arcana Coeli the hidden and secret councels of God Adam's Children are yet sick of his disease they would fain be as wise as God and know all things But the secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever that we may do them And in these revealed things there is matter enough to exercise our studies had we Methusalem's lease of life sealed to us In the revealed things of God there is so much yet unrevealed and therefore left unrevealed that we might search and dig into them Prov. 2 3 4. with the addition of a promise to encourage industry Then shall we know Hosea 6.3 Ars longa vita brevis Mâ—aeima pars corum quae scimus est minima pars eorum qua nescimus if we follow on to know the Lord so much I say that when we have travell'd many years in the disquisition and search thereof we may fit down and complain our lives are too short for our work and truly confess that the greatest part of what we know is nothing to what we are ignorant of Oh that upon those studies Christians would lay out their time and spirits proving what is that goood and acceptable and perfect will of God And therefore study to know it that they may do it for to such is the promise John 7.17 If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God Oh this is excellent when Christians study to know that they may do and not that they may know only and so doing they shall know and so knowing they shall do this will keep open the passage between the head and the heart That the man of God may be perfect 2 Tim. 3.17 thoroughly furnished unto all good works But in the time according to the Apostle his Caution Rom. 12.3 It is our duty to be wise to sobriety and it is our sobriety not to be wise where God would have us to be ignorant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels of heaven behold the very Angels of God who for their knowledge are called Angels of light Mark 12.32 are yet in this point of the last day contented to be in the dark and the Evangelist hath an addition of a higher consideration neither the Son but the Father whether the sence be that the humane nature of Christ is absolutely ignorant of that day or knoweth it only by revelation from the divine nature the document is the same viz. on this side glory to be contented to know no more than God hath revealed where Scripture is silent there to be willing to be ignorant And for our encouragement and satisfaction keep this consideration alive upon your hearts we shall not alwayes be ignorant secret things shall not alwayes be secret the time is coming when Mysteries shall be Revelations when we shall be able to read that in the original which we cannot now so much as spell out in the translation nor in any measure understand with the help of all our Commentaries It was that which much comforted that precious Saint and Martyr Mr. Câ—lamy c. Mr. Christopher Love while he was prisoner in the Tower The day before he died divers of his learned godly Brethren came to take their last farewell of him as being never to see him more untill they saw him ascending to and with their common Lord and Redeemer they fell into a discourse of the joyes of Heaven a discourse sutable to that solemn parting and in that discourse meeting with some difficulty which the Scripture had not determined and so being silenced that holy man with a smiling countenance and looking upward to Heaven brake forth into these words or others like them Well said he to morrow by this time I shall fully understand this mystery and it will be no difficulty unto me It is indeed a most satisfying contemplation that the time is coming when we shall be ignorant of nothing but know
Heaven there is eternity but no old age the joyes of heaven are alwayes young The flowers of Paradise of which the Saints Posie is made do neither wither nor change colour the drops of their morning dew standing thick upon them like orient Pearls preserve them in their perpetual verdure and odoriferousness God himself the fountain and spring of all those glorious beings is not a moment older than he was from all eternity and therefore all their fresh springs being in God their roots feed their branches with continual and unchangeable moisture and influence God who is an Object of infinite fulness doth alwayes feast the glorified Saints and Angels with fresh visions of delight and wonder Yea God himself the fountain and spring-head of all those glorious Beatitudes doth wash their roots perpetually with fresh moisture and influence though God be but one and the same ineffable essence yet he being an Object of such infinite fulness it cannot be conceived but he must needs feast the eye of the glorified Angels and Saints with fresh discoveries of delight and wonder to all eternity so that they can never be cloyed or furfeited with the same beatifical vision All the joyes of Heaven are present 9. Property Present there is nothing in the beatifical vision antecedaneous or future but as God himself is but one pure Act or Being alwayes the same from eternity to eternity so are all the felicities of Heaven There are no fragments in glory There is nothing in glory which shall be and is not nor any thing in fruition which shall ever cease or change Glory borrows that immense title of the God of Glory what the Jews say of the ten Commandements is Rev. 1.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was and is to come a name that is not to be divided or taken asunder but must be spoken all together in one word So Is as that it was so was as that it shall be so shall be as that it is Eternity is a single Point such are all the blessednesses of the Saints were and are and shall be so Past as to come and so to come as present this is a mystery and it is marvellous in our eyes Out of these nine Ingredients or Properties there ariseth a tenth the very top of all scil Delight and Complacency 10 Property Complacency and this makes Heaven to be Heaven indeed the joy of the Lord even the same joy which God himself possesseth the same for kind though not for degree Propriety Possession Intimacy Suitableness Satiety Reflexion Immutability they all meet in God essentially making up an infinite delight and complacency in the Saints and Angels they are perfectly though bounded and limitted according to the capacity of the Creature We cannot conceive it until it receive us making up a delight and joy which on this side Heaven passeth all understanding of which the Psalmist sings In thy presence is fulness of joy Psal 16.11 and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Behold faith in the glorious Redeemer doth at times raise the Soul of the poor Believer to a marvellous high pitch of joy and ravishment 1 Pet. 1.8 Whom having not seen ye love in whom though ye now see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory The expression is very full faith brings the Soul in love with an unseen Christ and fills the heart with joy not ordinary joy such as men do easily express upon all occasions but unspeakable the heart conceives such joy that the tongue cannot utter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ineffabilis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea it is not to be uttered by the tongue of men or Angels it cannot be spoken it is ineffable and that is not all it follows it is glorious and our translation gives it an addition very emphatical Of the Saints jâ—y and delight in heaven see incomparable Mr. Baxter's Saints everlasting rest p. 41 part 1. And else where abundantly full of glory and yet that reacheth not the top of this joy for the Greek signifieth not glorious only but Glorified faith fills the heart with glorified joy a joy that rivals as it were the joy of the glorified Saints a joy which sets the Soul for the present above it self and puts it into Heaven before its time Oh Christians if faith which must not enter in within the veil can transport the Soul into such extatical raptures what can vision and fruition do Oh the mountings of mind the ravishing joys of heart the solace of soul which glorified Saints possess in the beatifical vision The Soul shall live in joy and be filled with delight in the mirrour of all delights love and joy shall run in a circle and mutually empty themselves into one another love shall dissolve into joy and joy shall resolve into love a River an Ocean of unmixed Complacency wherein the Soul shall bathe it self for ever The Saints are so pleased with their own beatitudes that as they cannot spare any joy they have so they know not what their souls can wish for more This is pure complacency there are none above them that they need envy none beneath them capable of their pity Oh blessed state The fourth and last Priviledge contained in cohabitation is Conformity Even in the Evangelical state below Conformity is the fruit of vision vision produceth Assimilation We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Surely the heavenly vision will beget so much more full and perfect conformity by how much the mirrour is more vital and energetical The Apostle reacheth forth this blessed truth and the reason of it together as a known Doctrine Beloved now we are the Sons of God 1 John 3 2. that were dignity enough for a poor sinner one would think I but that 's not all it is well and it shall be better God hath laid out much upon us but how much glory he hath laid up for us we cannot conceive it doth not yet appear what we shall be This only we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him That 's infinite honour indeed But how doth he prove it Why he proves our conformity from our vision we shall be like him for we shall see him Him ver 3. God in Christ the Godhead in the glorified humane nature of Jesus Christ even while he was here in the dayes of his flesh the flesh of Christ was a veil 1 Tim. 3 1â— through which the deity of Christ did appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was conspicuous in the humane nature John 1.14 the invisible God was as it were made visible in a body of flesh We beheld his glory sayes the Evangelist if it were so upon earth how much more will it be verified in heaven The