the Saints know one another upon the account of a temporal alms and shall they not know one another upon the account of spiritual offices performed one for another Lo here is probability if not demonstration for the stating of the Question the fruit of it certainly is as sweet as the truth it self is probable a mighty spur it is to holy and heavenly converse here on earth to converse with one another in grace so that we may promote our mutual converse in glory Ministers so to preach so to live Parents and Governours so to educate and govern their children and families as that they may mutually rejoyce one in another and for another in heaven It cannot but add much to their blessedness and joy in heaven and be matter of praise and glory to God to all eternity especially over such as to whom God hath made us instrumental either to their conversion or to their edification whiles in this vale of tears here we mourned and wept bitterly when we kissed their pale lips and cold cheeks when we follow the corps to the grave and laid them down in their cold beds of dust but there will be joy and glory with infinite compensation when we shall see and say The more unthankful are they that having received so infinite a mercy from God by their ministry would never in their liveâ— open their mouths to acknowledge it to their ministers for their encouragement oh here is my spiritual father who begot me to Christ under whose Ministry I drew my first spiritual breath how sweet are such acknowledgments here Certainly they are the richest rewards of Gods despised and persecuted Servants and Ambassadours here on earth oh what will it be in heaven when grace shall be seen what it is when grace shall have put on its royal apparel Oh what a joy to Parents by nature or by trust to see the dear Child that got into heaven as it were before its time and the Child to embrace the Parent oh this is my Father my Mother my Grandfather my Grandmother that travelled with me the second time till they saw Christ form in my heart oh blessed be God that ever I saw their faces on earth and now shall see them for ever in heaven and so for friends oh this was my soul-friend this was a brother that a kinsman who loved me with a spiritual love an heavenly love that loved me into Christ to heaven to this glory I now possess Christians if these things be not so Aug. Ep. 6. then Augustin mistook his Cordial which he wrote to the Lady Italica after her Husbands death telling her That she should know him amongst the glorified Saints yea know him and love him batter than ever she did in this life yea a greater than Augustin was mistaken else even the great Apostle who himself had been caught up to the third Heavens and saw what was done there even he was mistaken when 1 Thes 2.19 20 by an Apostolical Spirit he dignifieth his Thessalonians with those glorious titles his hope his joy the crown of rejoycing his glory and joy and that in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming Could they be all this to the Apostle in the resurrection and he not know them and be able to distinguish them from all other Saints of God that shall stand on Christs right hand at that day It cannot be What although all such relations do cease in Heaven must the remembrance of such relations cease also Or what if the glorified state make such an alteration in the Saints bodies that they are not the same for colour gesture and some other accidental circumstances as when we knew them in the valley of tears shall there be no lineâ—â—â—ent or property of individuation remaining whereby the quick acute eye of glorified sence may possibly discern who they were There want not instances in our experience of some who from their childhood even unto full age have been absent from their friends whom yet many years after upon a deliberate interview their relations have called to perfect memory again and if such a thing be possible in the imperfect state here why should it seem a thing incredible that the glorified eye and intellect should revive a distinct remembrance of their gracious relations even out of the imperfect bints and notions of their former knowledge If the resurrection do shew nothing of the old individual distinction of persons it may seem to be rather another Creation than a Resurrection and may shake a main Article of our Christian Faith But as clearer evidence than all this I demand further How did Adam know Eve upon the first sight even before God spake a word who she was or whence she came And did he own her as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh Will ye say it was by divine instinct and revelation Grant then but so much in this case and it shall suffice especially the rather because this solution of the difficulty will take in the case of elect infants dying before their form and figure can well be discerned possibly stilborn surely a distinct knowledge who they are when glorified will be no small joy to the elect parents to consider that free grace made them the happy vessels to help to people Heaven with such Inhabitants We may not presume to speak definitively in cases not clearly stated by the holy Scriptures but this we may with safety and modesty conclude that if such a mutual knowledge of godly relations in heaven may contribute any glory to God and any addition to the joy of the Saints the absolute perfection of the glorified estate will not permit any doubt about this matter surely if our natural affections of love and delight and joy be not extinguished in heaven but perfected it cannot but add to the elect Mothers joy to see her elect Infant now adult in glory and so for other nearest relations will it not be some accent to their hallelujahs to say This was my precious yâ—ak-fellow this my holy parent this my gracious brother kinsman friend with whom I had sweet communion on earth in holy duties We went to the House of God as friends c. Especially when it may be added whom God made Instrumental to the pulling me out of the infernal lake where the Devil and his Angels are tormented for ever and for the bringing of me into this place of rest and glory Thanks be to God for ever and ever Object If it be objected Doth not this distinct knowledge of our elect relation infer a distinct knowledge also of the Saints reprobate relations in hell And may not that be a Vision of as much terrour as the other of rejoycing Answ I answer No And that upon a two-fold ground First It stands with the analogy of faith to believe that all those affections which imply defect or imperfection shall be totally abolished in Heaven as inconsistent with
without holiness there is no vision for without holiness no man can see the Lord Heb. 12.14 And holiness doth dispose the Soul for this blessed Vision three wayes First By removing the distance between God and the Creature Secondly By assimilating the Soul to God Thirdly By causing mutual delight and complacency between them First Holiness disposeth the Soul for the seeing of God by taking away that distance which is between God and the Soul Sin is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that great Gulf In this respect sin is Hell which separates between God and the Creature and surely sin sets a vaster distance between the holy God and a sinner than there is between Heaven and Hell yea than there is between God and the Devil that is between God as a Creator and the Devil as he is a creature Until this distance be removed there is no possible access for the Soul to God this partition wall is broken down when holiness is set up and according to the degree of purity is the degree of vision as the Soul passeth from one degree of holiness to another so it passeth from one state and degree of vision to another 2 Cor 3. We all beholding as in a glass c. The purer the glass the brighter the vision Secondly Holiness disposeth for the vision of God by approximation and assimilating the Soul to God Holiness is the very Image of God the divine nature not in a fanatick sense not the divine being Indeed holiness in God is the divine essence but holiness in the Creature is but a gracious quality whereby the Creature resembleth God 1 Pet. 1.15 and is made pure as he is pure holy as he is holy This advanceth the Soul to a nearer vicinity to God whereby it is put into a passive capacity of seeing God passive I say for the formal visive power of seeing God is from the object more than the subject of it scil so far as God is pleased to beam in his glory into the faculty and enableth it to bear it Lumen confortans Schol. holiness only gives the Soul a sutableness to receive in those divine irradiations Thirdly Holiness causeth mutual delight and complacency between God and the Soul all liking is founded in likeness conformity is the fountain of complacency so that until holiness be formed in the Soul neither can God delight in the Soul nor the Soul in God verily without this mutual complacency the vision of God would be penal to the Creature rather than beatifical not much better than that vision which the damned themselves may be conceived to have of God in hell whose vision of God makes full one half of hell at least Oh quam miserum est Deum videre perire they see God and despair this is the Worm that never dyeth they only see what they have lost Christians as ye love Gods face look to your boliness God loveth holiness more than he loveth the Creature saith Arminius and I say so too if we understand it of the holiness that dwelleth in God for that is his essential holiness Exod. 15 11 God himself so loving holiness he loveth himself Gods holiness is his glory glorious in holiness he accounts it the most radiant Jewel in his Crown Royal the very varnish and beauty of all his glorious Attributes for the love he beareth to which he loveth to see the very image and likeness of it in the Creature but he loved the Creature so well in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he did elect the person unto the qualification though not for the qualification God chose the elect Eph. 1.4 not because he foresaw they would be holy but that they might be holy holiness was not the cause but the end of their election Oh love that dear Souls which God loves so much and loveth to see in his Saints who are therefore called Saints from their holiness There is nothing can make you so beautiful in Gods eye as holiness because in your holiness he seeth the reflection of his own beauty Ezek. 16.14 Taliter pigmentatae Dei habebitis Amorem Tert. Thou wast comely through the comeliness which I put upon thee God cannot chuse but love his own likeness where ever he seeth it oh love the Lord all ye his Saints and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness Psal 30.4 Let your hearts leap within you as oft as you think what an holy God you have who if he can but see true holiness in your faces will admit you to see that holiness which is in his face for ever Love holiness I say but be sure it be such an holiness as God loves there is an holiness in the world which is but a thing like holiness but is not so moral righteousness an harmless innocence a sober retiredness from sensual excesses a pretty ingenuity a readiness to do offices of love a negative Religion concerning which you may better tell what it is not than what it is yea there is a thing called holiness in the world that hath not so much as the appearance or shaddow of holiness freedom from grossest impieties and that but partial too not to swear at the highest rate to be soberly drunk and privately unclean Apud vos optimi censentur quos comparatio pessimorum sic facit Arnob. not to be overmuch wicked c. in a word as Arnobius speaks of the Gentiles not to be so bad as the worst is a kind of being good even this Sirs will pass in the world for holiness And lastly there is a superstitious holiness which to the Evangelical holiness is no better than what the Ivy is to the Oak and hath eaten out the very heart of it a Brat which as * Gurnats Christians Compleat Armour p. 2. one saith the Devil hath put to nurse to the Romish Church which hath taken a great deal of pains to bring it up for him and it hath brought in no small revenue as to her self of worldly riches and treasure so to Him of Souls for such holiness is the very road to Hell the followers of Antichrist fill up the greatest part of it But hear our Lord plainly telling you Except your righteousness exceed the best of these ye cannot enter c. Oh Christians get you a copy of grace out of the Scripture-Records those Court-Rolls of Heaven which may be seen and allowed by God and Angels and Saints if ever you desire to see Gods face Holiness of a peculiar strain Titus 2.14 Perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 Holiness to the Lord not an holiness that may approve it self to men only that is easily done but unto God Vnblameable holiness in Gods fight Colos 1.22 His holiness Heb. 12.10 That is An holiness which hath God for its pattern 1 Pet. 1.15 16. An holiness which hath God for its motive 1 Pet. 1.15 16. Be ye holy as God
Pet. 1.19 He bought the Inheritance for them and them for the Inheritance at the same price This is the first thing implyed in Fruition Propriety without which the vision were no way beatifical for how can that make me happy which I have no title to or interest in Tolle meum tolle Deum Take away mine and ye take away Heaven yea take away mine and ye take away God good is no farther good to me than as it is mine and as I may warrantably claim my right to it and interest in it A second Property of Fruition is Possession 2. Ingredient Possession the Saints have not only propriety in Heaven but Possession of Heaven when their dearest and sweetest Lord left the world and ascended to his Father they took possession of Heaven in him as in their great Representative and Head Joh. 14.2 But when they ascended to him now they take possession of it in their own persons They had livery and seasin given them by the Father upon the consummation of their marriage with his dear Son Jesus Christ their Royal Bridegroom And it was done in the presence of the eternal Spirit the publick Notary of Heaven 1 John 5.8 All the holy Angels standing by as so many Witnesses so that God himself could not make Heaven surer to them than he hath made it While the Saints were upon earth Heaven was theirs but it was only in reversion and they counted themselves blessed in that Matth. 5.3 But now reversion is turned into possession the Saints hold nothing in Heaven by reversion that title ceaseth there All the Beatitudes in Heaven are present possession God and Christ and the Holy Ghost Angels and Saints and all the glory of the upper world are so many possessions the Saints are possest of God and possest of Christ and possessed of the Holy Ghost and possest of glory as on the contrary the damned in hell are possest of the Devil they are possest of hell and of utter darkness and of the worm that shall never dye c. Oh dreadful possession Hope was once their tenure Titus 1.2 Rom. 5.1 In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lye c. And they rejoyced in it Ye rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God and they blessed God for it Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus which hath begotten us again unto a lively hope c. of which hope faith was the substance and basis Heb. 11.1 and even this hope was very precious unto them a little heaven upon earth save that now and then some clouds of fear and doubts did interpose between heaven and their dim eye and so eclipsed their vision But faith and hope did set them down at the gate of heaven and then with Moses died in the mount and took leave of them for ever And if faith was so precious to them then what is sight now If hope made their hearts not seldom leap for joy how doth possession now fill them with joy unspeakable and glorious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all hyperbolye of expression Object If any should be so critical as to object In heaven the Saints live in the hope and faith of the continuance of heaven We make use of the Apostles Maxime for Answer Hope seen is not hope Rom. 8.24 All the glory of heaven is seen and all is present there is no futurity in heaven heaven iâ— but one point of eternity 1 Cor 13. last the Saints have all beatitudes and all at once in God now abideth indeed faith and hope but then possession Mat. 18.1 They shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs and they shall sit by it All the precious priviledges of the Gospel which cost Christ so dear are now perfected into full possession Adoption is now perfect now they are the Sons of God and they know what it is to be the Sons of God Justification is now compleat Sanctification is now at perfect age In a word all their hopes are now their inheritance This is fruition A third Ingredient of which Fruition doth consist 3. Property Intimacy is Intimacy Propriety and Possession are not sufficient to constitute fruition Mutual converse will not serve the turn without intimate communion Communion not with one anothers persons only but with one anothers spirits this is fruition when friends are possest of one anothers heart and one anothers spirits In Heaven there is not mutual cohabitation only but mutual inhabitation 1 John 4.16 This is the great beatitude of heaven even vital vision with all the beatifying objects thereof mutual in dwelling and mutual in being God dwells in the Saints and the Saints dwell in God It was so here God is Love He that dwells in love dwelleth in God and God in him The Saints love to God is now made perfect without a figure and as their love is so is their mutual in being perfect I in them John 17.23 and they in me that they may be made perfect in one Perfect according to the supreme Exemplar verse 21 As thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may he one in us This also had its imitation on earth it hath now its consummation in heaven the Saints can be no nearer God than they are Essential union is the sole prerogative of the glorious Trinity They dwell also in Christ I in them and they in me Eternity is their wedding day Heaven their bride-chamber their bed of love is the heart of Christ and it is alwayes green alwayes fresh and alwayes flourishing with interchangeable loves There the Saints see the place where they were conceived from all eternity and read the very original thoughts wherewith their Redeemer and Bridegroom loved them when as yet they were not formed in their Mothers belly and their Epithalamium or Nuptial song is I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Cant. 2 1â— they began this Song in the day of their espousals and continue it in their everlasting wedding-day which they celebrate in mutual embraces and festivities joying in one another and glorying in one another delighting themselves in mutual appropriations and appreciations mutually contemplating and commending one anothers beauties and perfections Behold thou art fair my Love behold thou art fair and there is no spot in thee The Angels and Saints in light behold they dwell not with one another only but in one another they inhabit as it were in one anothers hearts That primative Congregation Acts 4. was a lively type of this Royal Congregation of the first-born Acts 2.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crederes unam aniâ—am in omnibus â—esse divisam Chap. 4.32 They are all with one accord in one place so these one place holds them all and one soul animateth and acts them all The whole multitude of Saints in heaven are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and how wofully full of diversions Such is our heaven on earth but our heaven in glory or our glory in heaven is not so God is the only unchangeable object of the Soul there the Soul stayes and sucks and drinks immeasurably and yet there is not a drop less in the object A seventh property is Reflextion 7. Property Reflection Reflexion is one of the choicest Ingredients into Fruition to enjoy Heaven in all the beatitudes thereof and to know I do enjoy it this is the beatitude of all beatitudes Direct Acts and Priviledges of Grace scil to believe to love Christ to be united to him to have communion with him to be cloathed with his Righteousness to be acted by his Spirit c. these may make a Christian safe but alone they cannot make him sure these may constitute a Christian happy but not give him the comfort of his happiness and how many precious Saints of God are there in this vale of tears whose all consists in these bare naked direct acts the new-born Babe Vivit est vitae nescius ipso suae oft like the natural Babes in the womb hath spiritual life in him but he knoweth it not how many gracious Souls believe but know not they do believe Yea cannot believe they do believe They think they have no grace because they have so much corruption they think they have no grace because they have not so much grace as they would have they love Christ but know not they love Christ they covet so much love to Christ that they seem to themselves to have none at all they are united to Christ and have communion with him but can apprehend neither this nor the other Et sic in caeteris And this is that which makes their lives so uncomfortable to them for the present Psal 42.9 and causeth them to go mourning all the day long yea sometimes with Mary they talk with Christ and Christ with them but their eyes are held they know him not Christ and the Soul speak like strangers one to another John 20.15 Woman saith Christ Sir saith the Soul Until Christ be pleased to speak in a more familiar dialect better understood by the poor Believer Mary and then the ravished Soul turns it self unto him ver 16. and springing into his arms cryes out Rabboni My Master my Lord and my God It fareth with many a poor believer here in the wilderness of desertion Gen. 21.16.17.18 Isai 12.3 as it did with Hagar in hers they sit down to dye for want of water when there is a well before them yea ver 19. many a well of living water the precious promises out of which wells of salvation they might with joy draw water and drink and forget their sorrows but alas they see them not until God open their eyes and then they can go and fill their bottles and drink and cause others to drink also This is oft the state of the way Oh but now in the Country the land of fruition there the Saints have their reflext Acts as well as their direct Acts they see and they know they see they love and they know they love yea they are beloved and they know they are beloved They are bathing themselves in the Rivers of pleasures and they know where they are and what they do All tears are wiped from their eyes and they know who wiped them off with the kisses of his mouth They are safe yea and they are sure they are blessed and they know they are blessed The Spouse is now got into the Throne the bosom of her Beloved the King of Glory and there she singeth and she sins not in it as the Harlot did Here I sit as a Queen Rev. 18.7 and am no widow and shall see sorrow no more for ever In a word all the acts of love and joy and delight in Heaven are acts of highest assurance without the least mixture of doubt and uncertainty There is no fear in this love because love being now perfected hath cast out fear And now the Saints come to see the reason of their love to God to be Gods love to them and the reason of Gods love to them to be God himself and in this the Soul sweetly acquiesceth triumphing for ever I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine for he hath loved me with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness will he draw me and I shall remain in his love for ever Eighth Freshness 8. Properly Freshness The Joyes of the glorified Saints are alwayes fresh from the Spring-head that makes them so sweet and luscious what we receive by the mediation of Creature-Conduits loseth much of its native delicacy Heaven is an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Drusius The name of a flower called Amarantus and that fadeth not away It is incorruptible not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only that cannot dye but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not obnoxious to corruption it is made all of materials that cannot corrupt and as it is in incorruptible so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also still fresh and green Adam and Eve were created in the prime ripeness and bravery of the humane nature in perfection of beauty and strength and such shall all the Saints be restored of what age and state of body soever they lay down in the grave the Children of the Resurrection shall rise in the morning in the most sparkling gallantry of youth and in that posture shall be for ever Like as the Angels are pictured to us in the adult and perfect beauty of youth not indeed of infancy that would import immaturity nor yet of old age that would intimate a declining state but I say of youth to shew they still retain the vive impressions of their first Creation The most delicate of all our sublunary delights of which we are at first so fond that we cannot spare them a moment out of our eye but are alwayes courting of them and solacing our selves in their fruition do quickly grow stale and flat upon our hands What is storied of Tython a beautiful active young man holds full analogy with all our Creature-felicities Aurora for the elegancy of his person and industry begg'd him of Jupiter to be her Husband withall praying that he might never dye both which Jupiter granted but she through her womanish inadvertency forgetting to pray that he might not grow old as well as not dye in his old age he grew impotent and burdensome to himself and to Aurora too so that repenting of her choice Jupiter out of pity turn'd him into a Grashopper Such are all our worldly beatitudes we would fain espouse them to our selves and write eternity upon them but how brave and sprightly soever they appear in our first appetitions of them they quickly grow old and fastidious and signifie no more than so many impotent Grashoppers But now there is no such thing in
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
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
bodies shall be transfigured into the likeness of his own Glorious body How according or suitably to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself God can do what he will and that 's enough And thus I have opened the first Consequence of Christ his Last Coming sc The Resurrection of the Saints as formerly in respect of the 1. Author The Lord Jesus 2. The Precedency of it they that are alive shall not prevent them which are asleep they shall rise first So also now 3. In respect of the manner of it the bodies of the Saints shall be invested with four glorious qualities 1. Incorruptible 2. Glorious 3. Powerful 4. Spiritual By all which it shall be conformed to the Glorious Body of our Lord Jesus It may be of Use 1. For Counsel 2. For Comfort and but a word of either First It may serve by way of Counsel 1. Use Of Counsel and that unto all indefinitly You that would secure unto your selves an interest in the glory which shall be put upon the Saints bodies in the Resurrection labour to experience this beatifical transfiguration first in your Souls on this side of the Grave Labour to get your vile spirits to be made like to his glorious Spirit Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ put Him on by an holy and universal Imitation Labour to be meek as He was meek Holy as He was Holy Pure as He was Pure Merciful as He was Merciful Heavenly as He was Heavenly And Joh. 4.34 Let it be your meat and drink to do the will of him that sent you and to finish his work * A. Christ was the brightness of his Father's glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Insculpta forma the express Image of his Person So do ye study in your finite capacity to be the brightness of Christ his glory the express Image of his Person Oh labour to get his Image and similitude to be deeply engraven upon your hearts and to scatter the beams of it in your Conversations Philip. 2.15 for the enlightning of a dark world Behold this shall be the evidence and first-fruits of your future conformity to Him in the Resurrection of the just The ground and Reason is because that blessed Transfiguration which shall conform the Saints to Christ their Head and Husband in the Resurrection and from thenceforth to all Eternity hath its beginning here in Regeneration Ephes 4.23 24. or the New Birth wherein they are renewed in the Spirit of their minds Bâ—ta referts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Regeneration ye also shall sit upon twelve â—nâ—â—nes and do put on habitually the New man which after God is Created in Righteousness and true holiness Jesus Christ is formed in their hearts And upon this very account is the Resurrection styled also the Regeneration Math. 19.28 In the Regeneration ye also shall sit i. e. in the Resurrection ye also shall sit c. And it is therefore called the Regeneration because the Resurrection shall perfect in the Saints what the Regeneration begun sc Conformity to Christ their Head and Husband in Holiness Yea at the Resurrection the Image of Jesus Christ shall be compleated as on their Souls so on their bodies also because that Image was begun upon their Souls on this side the Grave in their New Birth accordingly as they were predestinated to both in the purpose of God Rom 8.29 from all Eternity The Resurrection to Grace here and to Glory hereafter is but one and the same Regeneration Whosoever therefore is a Stranger to this Transformation of Spirit in the Resurrection to Grace shall never partake of that Transfiguration of body in the Resurrection to Glory The bodies of the wicked shall be raked out of their Graves with all their defects and excesses all their mis-shapes and deformities which they carried with them to their Graves in their perfect ugliness which were the shame and curse of the fallen nature an abhorrency to God and Angels c. Yea to the very Devils themselves whom they shall have to be both their Companions and Executioners The Saints of God were the world 's derided persecuted Non-Conformists here but themselves shall be Christs and his Saints Non-Conformists hereafter when their Carcasses shall be cast out for a spectacle of shame and abhorrency unto all flesh for ever Isa 66. ult Christians as you love your Souls and would bear the Image of the Son of God in his Kingdom and glory Study this Soul-Conformity now and make it your business Labour to feel this blessed change wrought in your hearts and let the world behold it in your lives without which all your Confidences concerning that day will prove but so many delusions Rom. 5.5 to aggravate your shame and everlasting dispair Hear oh hear how the Disciple of Love doth argue When He shall appear we shall be like Him Glorious But why 1 Joh. 3.2 cum c. 4.17 Because As He is so are we in this world He disputes from Conformity to Christ in the Gospel-state to Conformity to Him at this Appearance We shall c. because we are c. By such Argumentations Christians Philip. 2.12 1 Tim. 6.18 19. 1 Joh. 4.17 Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling that ye may have boldness in the day of Judgment c. Secondly It may serve by way of Comfort Second Use Consolation and for that end it is written by the Comforter Himself in this model for Comfort I say in reference to our sweet Relations that sleep in Jesus over whom not seldom we spend our fruitless Tears take we heed lest sinful also while we compare their once lively sweet amiable Countenances which sparkled so much beauty and delight in our eyes with their pale ghastly Visages in the Grave where they say to Corruption Job 17.14 thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister We look upon them I say not without a kind of trembling and horrour as if their Ghosts appeared to us out of their Graves or that we our selves were buried with them alive in the same Coffin Ah Sirs why stand ye not with the men of Galilee Act. 1.11 gazing up into Heaven but with Peter stooping down and looking into the Sepulcher Behold I bring you glad tydings of great joy The day is coming when that Corruptible shall put on Incorruption and that Mortal shall put on Immortality when that poor dust over which thou now mournest that vile body shall put on its Angelical Robes and shall more surpass it self in its freshest and liveliest colours while yet in the land of the living than that beautiful pile of flesh and blood did exceed it self when it was resolved into rottenness and dust Look not then oh ye Children of God upon your Selves or your Relations as they lye in the Grave but contemplate them as
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
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
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
〈◊〉 all of one heart and of one soul Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possesseth are their own but the joy of one is the joy of all I cannot say the sorrow of one is the sorrow of all for this is their prerogative which was not on earth there is no sorrow in heaven The Saints and Angels mutually open their hearts one to another and communicate their notions and mysteries and loves and desires one to another as having as much share in and right to one another as to themselves Neither are those celestial Inhabitants e're a whit the more remote from God when they thus go into one another There is no diversion in Heaven from the summum bonuoâ— for where ever it is they meet with God he fills Saints and Angels not only as he doth the world with the fulness of his being and power but with the fulness of his glorious and beatifying presence they are still in God and God in them In a word whatever beatitude there is in heaven the Saints and Angels are in it hence it is said they enter into joy here below joy entred into them but there they enter into joy Heaven is all inside yea God himself is the inside of heaven This is fruition indeed A fourth Ingredient into Fruition is Fulness A fourth In grediâ—â— Falneâ— There is in Heaven good and there is enough of it Fulness to satisfaction They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house Psal â—8 and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures The joyes of heaven are compared to a Feast Venachal gâ—ada necha consisting of all imaginable rarities both of meats and drinks fatness expressing the delicacy of food and the River of Eden for so the word signifieth of the River of thy Eden the ravishing sweetness of their drink infinitely beyond all that is fancied by the Poets of the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Gods which indeed was but an imperfect notion of the joys of Heaven filched out of some fragments of Scripture by those blind Naturalists But of such deliciousness doth this marriage Supper consist of and there is plenty of them plenty even to satiety they shall be satisfied with the fatness and inebriated with those wines upon the lees well refined The Master of the feast will say to his Guest then in the feast what he said here below in the figure Eat O friends drink yea drink abundatlny Cant. 5.1 Heb. Or be drunken with love my beloved And it must needs be so for every one of the glorified Inhabitants do enjoy an whole God even the whole glorious and thrice blessed Trinity an whole Christ in his glorified humane nature every one doth enjoy an whole Heaven with all the felicities of it as much as if Heaven had been made but for one individual person For although the Church of the first-born in heaven consists of ten thousand times ten thousands and thousands of thousands yet hath no one the less for what others do enjoy As in Nature every beholder hath an whole Sun and the whole Heavens to himself with all their splendour and influence as much as if there were but one man in the world In terrestrials indeed it is not so there what one man hath another hath not and where many share every single mans portion is the less whence it is that Meum and Tuum fills all the world with quarrels and confusions But there is no such thing in heaven the multitude of heirs do not divide or lessen the Inheritance the Reason is because there are no particles in Essentials every one hath all and none the less for what another enjoyeth Yea the more because the joy of one is the joy of all every heir of Glory enjoyeth not only what himself hath but what his Co-heir hath too so that upon the point each Saint enjoys as many heavens as there be Angels and Saints in heaven A blessed Mystery of Multiplication With thee is the fountain of life Psal 36.9 how can they chuse but be full who are alwayes at the fountain-head Yea are alwayes drencht and immerst in the immence Ocean of Beatitudes God himself the Latitude of all Being Truth and Good God is infinitely full of himself and infinitely happy in his own happiness and infinitely satisfied in his own happiness And this is the augment of the Saints joy that they are not able to contain that infinite Object of Glory apprehend it they may comprehend it they cannot And this the blessed Angels and Saints rejoyce in that God only dwelleth in himself and they in him and are as full of God as a finite Creature can be of an infinite Creator brim-full and running over yet so as that in all this reduncancy not one drop shall be spilt or run wast for all the overflowings of sweetness and glory do run back again into the fountain in streams or rather in the flames of love and admiration they take in by fruition and give out again by praise and admiration And thus of all other the unconceiveable Beatitudes of glory there shall be satiety without nauseating so that they shall say they have enough without envying others or wishing more for themselves Now they may have some fits of joy but then they shall have their fill even the external sences of the glorified body shall now contain more glory 2 Cor. 4.17 than the spiritual sences of their Souls were capable of in this imperfect state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pressing or oppressing weight The Saints shall have as much glory as they are able to stand under hence we read of a weight of glory a weight that would utterly sink and crush them into nothing were there not an Arm of Omnipotence to sustain them and to make them bear it as their Crown not as a burden with ease and delight Suitableness is another Ingredient into Fruition 5 Ingredient Suitableness without which both the former scil both Intimacy and Fulness would be a burden and not a bliss suffering rather than fruition In the choice of our inferiour felicities in this life whether things or persons we have more respect to the suitableness of them than to their preciousness the just content of the married estate consists not in the rareness of beauty or largeness of portion or possessions no not alwayes in the eminency of grace but in the suitableness of disposition and so our experience will tell us of all other states and conditions in the world and this is the great infelicity of this present world that it affords it not such an absolute parity between the person and the possession from the King upon the Throne to the Hermit in the Cave as that a Person should be found that can say unless it be upon the account of gracious submission to the divine will I would not wish my condition other than it
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
12. Ch. 5.8 Their patient bearing of the Cross Their keeping of the word of God in the precepts of it and keeping close to it in the Truth of it Their superlative Love to Christ Math. 10.37 Their Cordial Love to the Saints 1 Jo. 3.14 Their Contempt of the World 1 Jo. 2.15 Their Love of Christs appearance 2 Tim. 4.8 In a word Their conformity to Christ their Head Rom. 8.29 These and the like Divine Vertues although not seldome more visible to a judicious stander by than to themselves and not to be weighed but with some graines of allowance in the ballance of the Sanctuary these I say may administer abundant matter of hope and rejoycing to surviving Friends that those Relations which are fallen asleep were a people whom God hath set apart for himself pretious in his sight honourable and beloved of him a people formed for himself to shew forth his praise Col s 1.13 and made meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Yea even in them whose Sun goes down in the morning of their Youth A teachable Spirit Math. 13.16 Isa 28.9 71 Psal 5. Jo. 16.8 1 John 2.13 John 17.3 Pious Inclinations Sense of a lost Estate by Nature A Competent knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ in his Offices A real sense of the need and use of Christ 1 Pet. 2.7 2 Tim. 3.15 Ps 119.13 An early acquaintance with the Scriptures A good understanding of the Word Preached not without some savour of it Respects to Gods Sabbaths And in a word 1 Kings 14.13 Any good thing toward the Lord God of Israel These early Impressions I say where ever they are found though according to different ages and capacities more or less legible in them are so many hopeful Indiciums that God hath been at work upon their hearts betimes and that he doth not untimely take them away in judgment but are polished Jewels which he hath of special grace laid up and secured from the violence and prophanation of a reprobate world Nay once more Those very Babes and Sucklings whom God is pleased to remove from us very early snatched from their Mothers Breasts yea possibly who pass swiftly from the Womb of their Natural Mother unto the belly of the Earth their Original Mother even these I say they being A Covenant seed Appendices of their believing Parents Children of promise Act. 2.39 Consecrated unto God by their Baptisme or by the Tears and Prayers of their holy Parents in the want of it having a right to the mercies 1 Cor. 7.14 Rom. 9.11 Mar. 10.4 Luk. 1.44 Gal. 1.15 Renatiante quam nati Aug. priviledges of the Covenant as well as to Baptisme Among whom is dispersed God the Father's Election God the Son's purchase God the Holy Ghost's Influence and Operation Even these are not to be looked upon as a lost Generation but may in the warrantable judgment of Scripture Charity be hopefully reputed for an Holy Seed Gods adopted Children owned by Christ and in him heires co-heires of the Kingdome of Heaven by special prerogative advanced to their Inheritance as it were before their time Upon this Foundation stands our hope concerning our Godly Relations which are fallen asleep of what age or state soever we are not to mourn for them even as others which have no hope Let them mourn excessively who know not the Scriptures nor the power of God in raising the Dead who bury their Relations and their hopes together in one Grave but you that upon these Scripture evidences have good hope through grace concerning your deceased Friends that while you are mourning on Earth they are rejoycing in Heaven that whiles you are Cloathed with black they are Cloathed in white even in the long white Robes of Christs Righteousness while you are rooling your selves in the Dunghil they are sitting with Christ upon his Throne Do not I beseech you profane your Scriptural hope with an unscriptural mourning give not the world occasion to judge either your selves to live without Faith or your Relations to dye without hope but let your Christian moderation be known to all men that it may be a visible Testimony to all the world of God's grace in them and of your hopes of their glory with God Therefore comfort one another with this word also A third word of comfort followeth and that is A third word of Comfort Our gratious Relations are not alone in their Death The Captain of their Salvation did march before them through those black Regions of Death and the Grave Jesus died this is implied in the following words If we believe that Jesus died This is a third consolatory Argument and it carryeth in it strong consolation Our sweet Relations in dying run no other hazard than Abraham Isaac and Jacob did no other hazard than all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles did in their generations they all died and were resolved into their first dust Yea what shall I say They run no other hazard than the Lord of all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles did Jesus died this is wonderful indeed the Lord of Life died The eternal Son of God was laid in the Grave If our Children die we know we begot them mortal The Son of God had no principle of mortality in him * i.e. No sin in him to deserve it nor disease to cause it and yet he died Be our Children never so precious to us they cannot be so pretious to us God forbid they should as the Lord Jesus was to His Father who testifies concerning him from Heaven with a loud voyce This is my well-beloved Son Math. 3.17 in whom my Soul is well pleased And yet God gave up this well beloved of his Soul to the death Jesus died And we indeed justly Death is but our wages wages as truly earned as ever was a penny by the poor hireling for his days labour both we and our Off-spring have forfeited our lives over and over again by continual reiterated Treasons against the supreme Majesty of Heaven and Earth yea the best blood which runs in our veins is Traytors blood by succession from our first Rebellious Parents for which God might justly have executed the sentence at first imposed even as soon as ever we draw our first breath Thou shalt dye the death Gen. 3. But He what evil had he done He was holy harmless undefiled Heb. 7.26 Isa 53.61.71 Heb. Ho hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in him separate from sinners He did no sin neither was there guile found in his mouth He fulfilled all Righteousness and yet Jesus dyed And why so Surely he was wounded for our Transgressions he was bruised for our Iniquities the Chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed we all like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid upon him the Iniquity