contradict He that believeth hath eternal life c. and shall never no not for Joh. 9. 51. 11. 26. a moment die and in those Promises it is not simply a sluggish Immortality but to live and act and enjoy God which is our life must needs be meant Or we must on the other side affirm That the life of Faith ceasing and God yet having that way wrought all that ever he intendeth That then Sight of God face to face must come in its place which indeed the Apostle in that 1 Cor. 13. affirms in saying ver 10. When that which is perfect is come then that which is but in part is done away There is not an utter ceasing of the imperfect and then an interval or long space of time to come between and then that which is perfect is to come but the imperfect is done away by the very coming of that which is thus perfect And in the 12th Verse he explains himself That the imperfect is this our seeing Now in a glass darkly that is by Faith and that perfect to be that seeing God face to face as that which presently entertains us in that other world Nay the Apostle admits not so much as a moment of cessation but sayes That the imperfect is done away ver 10. and vanisheth as ver 8. by the coming in of the perfect upon it and so the imperfect namely Faith is swallowed up of the perfect namely Sight And then further if we thus grant as we must this separate Soul to have this sight or nothing now left it to enjoy God any way by Then it can be no other than Glory it is admitted unto For the sight of God face to face and to know as we are known is the very essence of Glory as it differs from Faith Neither is that ultimate Enjoyment or happiness in God which Souls shall have after the Resurrection any other in Name or Thing than the sight of God as it is thus distinguished from Faith although it shall be then raised and intended unto far higher degrees of Perfection § And for a Conclusion of this first Point that which follows in that place lately cited out of 1 Pet. 1. 9. Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls may as fitly serve for the confirmation of all these latter fore-going Notions as to any other sense Interpreters have affixed I am aware how these words Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls are interpreted of that joy unspeakable and full of glory which the Verse afore had spoken that many Saints through believing do in this life enjoy as being salvation imperfect and the earnest of it in the same kind and so a part of the Reward of Faith received in hand as we say or aforehand and vouchsafed over and above the ordinary way of living by Faith This interpretation I no way gainsay nor will go about to exclude for I know it doth consist with that other I am about to give and is subordinate to it And I have learned to take the most comprehensive sence the holy Ghost may be supposed to aim at in any Scripture But if this sence should directly alone obtain yet by consequence and at the rebound it doth strongly argue the Point in hand For if whilst Faith continues God is pleased to vouchsafe the Soul through believing such joys much more when Faith ceaseth he will vouchsafe the same Soul a fuller enjoyment of himself at the ending of Faith For why else are these present joys termed Salvation and that as distinct from that right to salvation which otherwise Faith at all times estates us into but for this that these joys are an entrance into and a taking possession of Glory over and above what ordinarily Faith giveth And therefore they have the name given them as being the earnest of the same kind unto that greater fum is to be paid as in all Contracts it useth to be at the end of that performance on one part which end is when Faith ends And so that is made the set Date or time when this full payment is to begin which this earnest aforehand bindeth God unto And it were hard to suppose that God would give such a part of these joys even whilst Faith continues for so long a time as until the Resurrection and then withdraw all communication of himself both in Joy and Faith also But I leave the prosecution of this Argument till I come to those words Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit I also know that by this phrase The salvation of our souls the Soul being the eminent part of man is often in Scripture by a Synecdoche put for the whole person And I must not deny but that ultimately it is intended here it extending it self to the whole of Salvation first and last after Faith ended Which sense on the other hand many interpreters are for I only contend for this That the salvation of the soul is intended also of that Salvation which falls out in the midst between these joys the earnest in this life and that ultimate Salvation at the Resurrection that is the Salvation of the Soul whilst separate as being the next It hath a weight in it that Salvation and Damnation should so often be said to be of the soul by Christ himself as Mat. 26. 16. What shall it profit a Man to gain the whole World and so provide for his body and lose his own Soul And again in speaking of the Soul as considered apart from the Body Mat. 10. 28. Fear not them that are able to kill but the body and are not able to kill the soul But that which is more conjunct to my purpose it is observable that this our Apostle Peter should choose to use in this Epistle more than any other Apostle this phrase of Soul in relation to Salvation either as being the eminent subject and sometimes as the single subject both of Grace and Salvation So in this Chapter You have purified your souls c. as the immediate susceptive of the incorruptible seed as was observed Then again in chap. 2. 11. Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the Soul and 8. 25. Ye are returned to the Bishop of your Souls Which he speaks as being the eminent part and upon separation from the body the special charge he hath pastoral care of And more directly to our purpose ch 4. last v. he exhorts them when they come to die to commit their souls to God as then being to be separate from their bodies Now it were hard to think that this Salvation to come should bear the title and name of the salvation of the soul in this and other Scriptures and Heb. 10. v. last Jam. 5. v. last that yet when this Soul shall in the other World come to subsist for a long time single and alone and then be properly and without figure A meer soul without a
follow me AFTERWARDS So here NOW believing which is the Principle at the present which you live upon you see him not but when the end of your faith shall come you shall then see him and in this it is consisteth the salvation of your soul So that still it carries on what I have afore spoken unto That when Faith ceaseth Sight cometh yea perfects and swallows it up as was said even now out of 1 Cor. 12 13. And let me add this That the Apostle on purpose doth bring the mention of this supereminent fruit of faith Even now when we see not that believing ye yet rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious On purpose I say to make way for the raising up their thoughts apprehensions how infinitely transcending that salvation of their souls must be when Faith ending they attain to Sight to see him face to face whom their souls have loved It is implicitly as if he had said unto them Oh! think with your selves what Joy what Glory that must needs be which exceedeth and surpasseth this that now accompanies your faith in an answerable proportion as much as sight of Christ's presence and face to face must be supposed to excel the knowledge of him by faith which sees him but as absent darkly And further give me leave to improve this Notion You may take this assured evidence That your souls shall then see and enjoy God when your faith shall CEASE which will be when once your souls shall come to be separate from your bodies by death In that even now in this life it is your Souls and Spirits that are the immediate receptives or partakers and subjects of such glorious Joys The soul enjoys them though in the body yet without the help or concurrence of the body or the phantasms of it yea such Raptures do pass understanding that is the common way of understanding which by the use and help of the body or images in the fancy the Mind exerciseth in other things and which do concur with the understanding ordinarily in faith But this joy falls into and is illapsed within the soul it self immediately yea the weakness of your bodies and bodily spirits will not permit you to have so much of this joy as otherwise the soul is now capable of by faith And therefore by this experimental taste aforehand in your own souls you may be ascertained That your souls when separate from your bodies by death as well as when united again unto their bodies shall enjoy this great Salvation And thus much for the first Point raised out of the words which did undertake an Argumentation for a separate soul's Glory and Happiness 1. From the Condition of the Soul as the immediate subject of Grace wrought in it 2. From God's Ordination of the Work wrought To raise the soul up to life whilst Sin should bring Dissolution upon the Body 3. From the Scope of the Worker God himself who as an Efficient will accomplish the End when his Work for that end is finish'd And all these as comprehended in what the very first view and front of the words of my Text hold out God hath wrought us for the self-same thing §. But lo a greater matter is here It is not simply said God hath wrought us for this but He that hath wrought us for this thing is God Thereby calling upon us to consider How great an Hand or Efficient is here even God who hath discovered in a transcendent manner his Glory in the ordaining and contriving of this Work unto this great end Take it not therefore as a bare Demonstration given from God's working Vs to this end such as is common to other Agents as hath been said But further a Celebration of the Greatness and Glory of God in his having contrived this with so high an Hand like unto the Great God And is as if he had said There is a Design in this worthy of God He hath shewn himself in this to be the Great God indeed He that hath wrought us for this is God When God's ordinary Works are spoken of it sufficeth himself to say God did thus or this But when God's Works of Wonder then often you find such an illustrious Note of Reflection upon and pointing at Him to have done as God And it is ordinary among Men when you would commend the known Worth of the Artist to say He that wrought this is such a Man so to commend the Workmanship And thus both when the Holy-Ghost speaks of this Glory it self which is the End for which here his stile is Wbose Maker and Builder is God Heb. 11. 10. And in like equipage here of Preparation to that End he saith He that hath wrought us for this thing is God In this very Chapter 2 Cor. 5. to go no further when the great Work of Salvation in the whole of it is spoken of he prefaceth thus to it All things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself c. That is in this Transaction he hath appeared like that God of whom all things else are and so more eminently in this than in all or at least any other Work What there is said of Salvation in the whole is here of that particular Salvation of a separate Soul You have the like Emphasis put Heb. 2. 10. of bringing many Sons to Glory It became him says the Text. Now put all together and the result is The Second Point That to have provided a Glory for separate Souls of Just Men wrought upon in this Life is a Dispensation becoming the Great God yea and that there is an Artifice and Contrivement therein worthy of God and like unto himself such as he hath shewed in other his Works of Wonder There are two Branches of this Doctrine which I set otherwise out thus 1. That it is a thing becoming the Great God thus to deal with such a separate Soul having been wrought upon 2. That God hath designed and brings forth therein a glorious Artifice and Contrivement such as argue him a God Wise in Counsel and Wonderful in Working I. First Branch of this second Doctrine That it becomes God The Account of this Becomingness is best made forth by comparing and bringing together into an Interview both the inward and outward Condition of such a Soul and then the Relations which God bears to it such as should thereupon move him through his good pleasure thus to deal with it You know I at first undertook chiefly Reasons of Congruity or Becomingness and such always consist of two parts and when the one answereth and suiteth to the other then the Harmony of such a Reason is made up Let Us therefore consider 1. What is on the Soul's part 2. What is on God's part §. I. On the Soul's part Therein two things 1. The Species the Kind and intrinsecal Rank of Being which this Creature we call the Soul thus wrought upon stands in afore God 2. The outward Condition or Case this
all these Considerations thereby also exhorteth them to that which is the only true Wisdom even to turn unto the Lord so to escape that Wrath that is to come And he as an holy Man that knew the Terror of the Lord doth thus persuade Men And O let our Souls be persuaded by it And to this end USE I Would first persuade you to believe that there is this Wrath to come VVe knowing the Terror of the Lord that is our selves being assured by believing that such a Wrath is in the Heart and Breast of God against impenitent Sinners as also understanding what and how dreadful that Wrath is we do persuade Men 2 Cor. 5. 11. And for Men to apprehend and believe it is the first most effectual Engine to persuade them by God did not ere he placed these Souls of ours in our Bodies first carry them down to Hell and then up to Heaven that so we having a fore-knowledg of either by Sight and Sense might then be left to act in this World accordingly But God hath left only the Revelation of both these unto Faith in this World by the Word Heb. 11. 7. 'T is said Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with Fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his House By the which he condemned the VVorld and became Heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith You know how the Day of this great Wrath to come the Day of Judgment is assimilated by Christ to the Days of Noah Mat. 24. 37 38 39. And that among other in respect of the Security and Unbelief that is and will be afore it comes in the Hearts of Men about it which is Christ's special scope there And the place in the Hebrews cited answerably reckoneth that Faith of Noah who being forewarned of the Flood was moved with Fear and prepared an Ark to save himself and his Family amongst those other Instances of Saving Faith which that Chapter doth enumerate as that which had this Wrath to come signified thereby in his eye Shewing withal the Foundation of the Condemnation of that World to lie in this That though Noah declared this Wrath to come unto them by his Preaching and Example for as he was a Preacher of Righteousness so of this Wrath as Enoch also had been yet they believed it not because it was unseen as the words of that 7th Verse are For these things then happened in Types of what was to fall out concerning this great Wrath to come that Destruction of the old World being but the shadow of this as expresly 't is interpreted to be 1 Pet. 3. 20. The Spirits in Prison which sometimes were disobedient when once the Long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing The like Figure whereunto is Baptism which now also saves us If the Ark was of Salvation then the Flood of Damnation and that then as the word also now evidently shews This Wrath it is a thing to come as that of the Flood then was to them stiled therefore the Wrath to come and so it is a thing not seen and so is reckoned amongst the Objects of Faith Men indeed have some lesser stitches in Conscience afore-hand both from it and about it but little do they imagine that these will or should ever become the matter of such torturing Aches as they rise up to in the end Men do as little imagine this of these fore-running Warnings or secret Gripings and Twitches as the Old World did then that the usual Clouds of Heaven that caused Storms would have ever swell'd to the drowning of the World Nor indeed doth this fall out to Mens Souls until the Curse or Wrath of God enters like Oil into their Bones as the Psalmist speaks of Judas Psal 109. 18. For this Wrath is in the mean time a thing hidden in the Breast and Bosom of the Almighty and is therefore termed a Treasure of Wrath A Treasure because hid so Treasures use to be they are termed hidden Treasures Prov. 2. 4. and elsewhere And for the same reason the coming of it upon Men is called the Revelation of the righteous Judgment of Luk. 19. 42. God As the things belonging to Mens Peace so their Destruction are hidden from their Eyes Though Damnation slumbers not 2 Pet. 2. 3. but is in its March and proceedeth in its approaches towards them every hour nearer and nearer yet Men slumber in respect of the belief thereof and not so much as dream of it in their Slumber 1 Thess 5. 3 6 9. The Apostle's complaint there is the same in effect with that of Moses Who knows the Power of thine Anger so as to apply his Heart to Wisdom The Baptist who began the publishing of the Gospel he began it with forewarning Men of this Wrath and stiled it the Wrath to come And Christ whose office was to preach that Gospel seconds him therein and terms it Hell-Fire c. Now observe how he speaks to the Pharisees about it O ye Generation of Vipers who hath warned you to flee from the Wrath to come Mat. 3. 7. 'T is Vox admirantis as if he had said 'T is strange that the Preaching of Wrath to come should any way startle yours so hardened Hearts as to see you here attending at my Sermons and that the Consideration thereof should any way arrest or make any dint upon your Souls The reason of his Wonder was because indeed Men believe it not or very slightly Who hath demonstrated it unto you as his word is And Christ useth the very same word about this matter Luke 12. 5. I will forewarn you or demonstrate to you whom you shall fear even him that can destroy in Hell All this still tends to shew how hidden it is from the most of Men. The very same Unbelief is more darkly and in other terms expressed in the Old Testament Deut. 32. 29. O that they would consider their latter end And Eccles 11. 8 9. Remember the Days of Darkness for they are many But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment Now to help you a little in the belief of this Besides what the Scriptures speak hereof 1. Consult thine own Heart Thou hast a busy Principle within thee Conscience that like a Spy sent in from an adverse Party into anothers Quarters observes and takes notice of all that passeth not thy Actions or Speeches only but what is done in thy Privy-Chamber or Closet of thy Soul and not only so but thou mayest hear the noise of his Pen still a running and punctually writing that which it observeth and there is not a Motion a Lust a Desire a Purpose an End a flying Thought but it diligently doth set down and can give thee the Sense thereof and thou canst not stop the Course hereof And what is the meaning of all this but that thy Judgment is continually a preparing thine Examination a taking
and abiding in it and being not only the immediate Subject thereof but further the first and original Subject from and by which it is derived unto the Body the Womb into which that immortal Seed was first cast and in which the inward Man is formed and in respect of a constant abiding in which it is that Seed is termed incorruptible Hence therefore says God of this Soul It is Life It shall live when this Body dies There is nothing of Christ's Image but is ordained to abide for ever Charity never fails His Righteousness 1 Cor. 13. 8 2 Cor. 9. 9. endures for ever and therefore is ordained to conserve and elevate unto Life the Subject it is in and that is the Soul This as a Foundation of the substantial parts of this first Reason out of this one Scripture thus directly and explicitly holding this forth §. I come 2. to the Argumentation it self which ariseth out of these things laid together 1. That the Soul is the immediate Subject of Grace 2. The first and primitive Susceptive thereof 3. And it self is alone and immediatly capable of Glory which Grace is a preparation to And 4. that God afore our Deaths hath wrought all of Grace he intends to work in preparation to Glory Out of all these a strong Argument doth arise That such a Soul upon Death shall be admitted unto Glory and not be put to stay till the time of the Resurrection when both Soul and Body shall be joined again together And that this holdeth a just and meet conveniency upon each or at least all these grounds when put together First consider the Soul as the immediate Subject of this working and preparation for Glory Hence therefore this will at least arise That the Inherency or Abiding of this Grace wrought in this Soul depends not upon its conjunction with the Body but so as it remains as an everlasting and perpetual Conserver of that Grace stampt on it yea and carries it all with it self as a rich Treasure innate unto it wherever it goes when separate from the Body I say it either hath in it or appertaining unto it all that hath been wrought for it either in it or by it Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord And their Works do follow them They go to Heaven with them and after them And in what Subject else is it that the Seed 1 Pet. 1. 23 25. of God remains incorruptible or the Word of God abides for ever Or how else comes that Saying to be performed 1 John 2. 17. He that doth the Will of God endures for ever Having therefore all these Riches by it and as complete as here it shall be meet it is it should partake the benefit thereof and live upon them now when it is single and alone and in its Widow's condition And it is an opportune season that by a Glory given it for that Holiness this should now appear That it was the Soul which was the sole intrinsick and immediate Receptive of all this Holiness This is the first Add also Secondly It s being the first and primitive Subject of Holiness from vhich it is derivatively in the Body Meet it was this Soul should not be deferred till Magis conveniens videtur ut animae inquibus per prius fuit culpa meritum prius etiam vel puniantur vel praemientur Aquinas cont Gent. lib. 4. cap. 19 § 3. the Appurtenance of it be united to it but be served first and admitted into that Glory ordained and by having it self first possession given of that Inheritance the Body might in its season be admitted derivatively thereinto from it after that renewed Union with it by the Resurrection Reason good that look as in Priority Grace the preparation unto Glory was wrought so in that Order of Priority Glory it self should be communicated And therefore seeing its Fate is to abide a while alone therefore first to enjoy and drink both the Juice and Fruit of that Vine it is the Root of And 3. it being in it self when separate as immediatly capable of this Glory as when it shall be again united to the Body For what is the Essential of Glory the Substance of that Life that swallows up all but as we said on v. 4. God's immediate Presence and our knowing him face to face as we are known Now of this the Apostle doth in these 6 7 and 8 Verses expresly inform us That the separate Soul is not only capable thereof but that it then begins to enjoy it Therefore says he we are always confident knowing that whilst we are in the Body we are absent from the Lord for we walk by Faith not by Sight We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Where to be present with the Lord and to live by Sight is expresly made the Privilege of a Soul absent from the Body which can mean no other State than that of the Soul between the Death of the Body and the Resurrection For whilst it is present in the Body afore Death it is absent from the Lord and when it shall be present with the Lord after the Resurrection it shall not then be any more absent from the Body This Conjunction therefore of absent from the Body and present with the Lord falls out in no State else but only in that Interim or space of time between Let us withal view this Place in the Light by bringing the one to the other which that Passage 1 Cor. 13. 12. doth cast upon it For now we see through a Glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known To see as in a Glass darkly there is to walk by Faith here But to see face to face and to know God as we are known so there is all one and to attain to sight and be in Christ's presence here And to be sure the Body is in no estate whatever capable of knowing God as we are known of him None durst ever affirm that For besides that the Spiritual Knowledg of God is proper to an intellectual Nature Further so to know God as God knows us and so to be elevated to the Similitude of God's Understanding is not communicable to the Body We may as well dare to affirm God himself to be a Body as that our Bodies are capable of ever being raised up thus to know God Hence therefore whether the Soul be out of the Body as after Death or so in the Body as it shall be after the Resurrection yet still it is the Soul that is immediately alone capable of that Sight and Knowledg of God And therefore seeing it depends not on the Body it is as well capable of it afore the Resurrection without the Body as after the Resurrection in the Body Only this must be added That whilst indeed the Soul is
body a lonesome soul That during that state it should not be the subject of this Salvation and so intended here when more properly and literally if ever it is the salvation of the Soul And it would be yet more strange that the phrase salvation of the Soul should be wholy restrained unto that estate of the Soul when remitted to the body at Resurrection and onely unto that And that word the soul should serve onely synecdochically as a part put to signifie the whole man as then it is to be raised up but especially it were strangest of all if it should be confined and limited in this place of Peter wherein this salvation of the soul is set forth for the comfort of such as were to lay down their tabernacles of their bodies for Christ as this Peter speaks of himself in the next Epistle and whose faith was then to cease with their lives whose expectations therefore he would in this case certainly pitch upon that salvation of the soul next which is this of the soul separate To confirm all which That which further invited me to this place was this phrase The end of your Faith especially upon the consideration that he speaks it unto such Christians who in these times were as he foretells ch 4. ver 4. shortly to be martyred and at present were sorely tried v. 7. of this Chapter and in the last verse of the fourth he thereupon instructeth and exhorteth them to commit their souls when they die to be kept by God And so understood in a proper and literal sence this salvation of their souls is in all respects termed The end of their Faith First in that it is the next and immediate event that Faith ends and determines in as Death is said to be the end of life So noting forth that when Faith ends this Salvation of the Soul begins and succeeds it The end of a thing signifies the immediate event issue period thereof As of wicked men it is said whose end is destruction Phil. 3. Heb. 10. last v. Apostacy and unbelief are said to be a drawing back unto perdition And on the contrary there Faith is termed a believing to the salvation of the Soul And both note out the final event onsequent of each and salvation of the soul to be the end of faith when men continue and go on to believe until their faith arrive at and attaineth this Salvation of the Soul To this sence also Rom. 6. 22. You have your fruit in holiness and the end everlasting life And the Apostle Peter having in the foregoing verses celebrated the fruits and workings of their faith in this life as in supporting them gloriously under the sorest trials v. 7. and then sometimes filling their hearts with joy unspeakable and glorious v. 8. he here at last concludeth with what will be the end or issue of it in that other life when faith it self shall cease and what it is that then they shall receive Receiving after all this the end of your faith the salvation of your souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present by a frequent and usual Enallage of time being put for the future for ye shall receive or being about to receive to shew the certainty of it that when Faith shall end you may be sure on 't even of that Salvation that great Salvation so spoken of by the Prophets v. 10. of your souls which as it hath no end to be put unto it as Faith hath so no interruption or space of time to come between during which your souls should not be actually saved A salvation of your souls singly whilst through death they shall so exist as well as of the same souls primarily and more eminently when both soul and body shall be reunited 2. The end of your Faith that is of your aims and expectations in your Faith the end importing the aim or expectation which is also proper and a literal sence of that word And upon this account also the salvation of the soul when they should die that being the very next thing their eyes must needs be upon is therefore here intended And 3. The end of your faith that is as being that for which the great God who keeps us by his power through faith unto salvation v. 5. hath wrought this faith in you Accordingly we find it termed the work of faith 1 Thes 1. 3. Which when God hath fully wrought and brought to that degree he aimed at in this life or to use the Apostles own expression of it 2 Thes 1. 11. when God hath fulfilled the work of faith with power he then crowneth it with this Salvation of the Soul without end As James speaks of Patience when it hath had its perfect Work chap. 1. 4. compared with verse 12. And so speaks my Text for this self-same thing he hath wrought us And therefore when this Faith shall cease which he wrought for this he will attain his end without delay and you says he shall attain your end also and Faith thus ceasing if this salvation of the soul did not succenturiate and recruit it anew the end of this Faith were wholly and altogether present destructive losse unto the soul in its well-being until the Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. The End signifies the perfection and consummation of any thing as Christ is said to be the End of the Law Rom. 10. 4. and so the meaning is That your faith which is but an imperfect knowing God shall then when it ceaseth be swallowed up of sight which is all one with that salvation here tanquam perfectibile a perfection as that which is imperfect is said to be by that which is perfect 1 Cor. 13. 10. Thus much for the literal and proper import of the word End Now then If we take the word End in its proper meaning and the word Soul likewise in its native proper meaning also which sence in Reason should be first served when the scope will bear it then it makes for that purpose more fitly which we have had in hand §. That nothing may be wanting in this last place cited to make up all the Particulars in the foregoing Sections insisted on So it is that the Apostle Peter doth further plainly insinuate That this Salvation here consisteth in the Sight and Vision of Christ which was one Particular afore-mentioned accompanied with Joy unspeakable and glorious The Coherence if observed makes this forth clearly For whereas in the Verse immediately foregoing he had commended their present State of Faith by this Whom now though you see not yet believing rejoice with Joy unspeakable and glorious That Now you see not in this Life is set in opposition and carries a promise with it of a time to come wherein they should see even as Christ said to his Disciples Joh. 13. 33. 36. compared Whither I go I Now say to you ye cannot come but thou shalt
the Wrath and Indignation of God himself working immediately in and upon Mens Souls and Consciences that is intended in these and other Scriptures This is the Subject of the first Section of this Discourse And let it be noticed now at the entrance that the same Scriptures and Reasons that shall be brought to prove this in this first Section will be found again to serve as new Arguments by way of inference to set out and infer the latter also that is the dreadfulness of it as will appear in the second Section CHAP. II. The first sort of Proofs from Scriptures First those three prefixed as the Texts LEt us first see what the Scriptures speak more directly to this great Point I. Heb. 10. 28 29 30 31. In order to the Proofs from hence observe the occasion of the Apostle's mention of this Punishment here to be his having treated of the highest Sin and kind of Sinners the Sin against the Holy Ghost By the occasion of which he gives us to understand what for the Substance is indeed the recompence of all manner of other actual Sins small and great the Punishment being in solido one and the same to all though with a vast difference of Degrees And therefore it is said unto all that are found wicked at that day whether of greater or lesser Proportions and Sizes of Wickedness Go into Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels The Devil is the greatest of Sinners yet all go with him into the same Torment that is for Substance the same And upon the like ground what is here spoken by way of eminency concerning the Punishment of these the highest sort of Sinners of the Sons of Men is true of all others there being but one common Fire or Punishment in the Substance of it for all 2. Observe the manner of his setting forth the dreadfulness of that Punishment to us It is only by way of insinuation For seeing he could not express the soreness of it he thought fit to suggest only who is the immediate Author and Inflicter of it And so leaves it to our thoughts to infer how dreadful it is This in General To argue the Point in Hand out of this Text let us take these things along with us 1. You see he here brings in the great God as an enraged Enemy challenging the execution hereof to himself This Vengeance belongeth to me or as Rom. 12. 19. Vengeance is mine I will recompence as if he had said Let me alone with it 2. In that when he would set out the severeness of this Punishment which is his professed aim ver 29. as infinitely exceeding all those kinds of Corporal deaths in Moses Law he inferreth the soreness of this from God himself as the Avenger We know him that hath thus said Vengeance is mine that is what a great and powerful God he is The Saints only know God by Faith in Himself and his Greatness as Heb. 11. and that so as no other Men in this Life do And by what we know of him and the apprehensions we have of Him we cannot but forwarn what that Punishment must needs be when God himself shall thus solemnly profess himself to be the Avenger 'T is argued you see both from what this God is and from that knowledg the Saints have of Him They and they alone know Him in his Love and have tasted and found that his immediate Loving-kindness is better than Life and from the Law of Contraries they know that his Wrath must be more bitter than Death They are able to measure what he is in his Wrath by what he is in his Love And some of the Primitive Saints especially the Apostles who had the first fruits of the Spirit knew and had tasted how good the Lord is in his Love by immediate Impressions of it on their Souls in Communion with Himself The like tenour of speech has that in 2 Cor. 5. 11. We knowing the Terror of the Lord It is termed His Terror as noting out that which is proper to Him and his Greatness in his being able to punish and destroy Sinners Moses who in the Old Testament had seen the Glory of God the most immediately of any Man and was therein a Type of Christ was thereby made sensible of this very thing as touching this Punishment and therefore complains in the very like Language Psal 90. Who knows the Power of thine Anger Lamenting how the generality of Men did not know it because indeed they knew not God But We says the Apostle have known him c. And 3. Thereupon he further calls this Punishment a falling into God's Hands That very Phrase often notes out immediate Execution as in ordinary Speech it doth When a Father or a Master threaten a Child or a young Servant already corrected by other Hands at their appointment yet when either would threaten more severely they 'l say Take heed how you fall into my hands or come under my fingers when they mean to correct them themselves And then 4. That the Apostle thereupon infers from this the dreadfulness thereof even from this It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of God Reason tells us that the soreness of any Torment the fearfulness of any Death ariseth from the Power Force Violence or Efficacy of that which is the immediate Agent or Cause inflicting it As why do we argue burning or dying by Fire a more terrible Death in respect of Torment than drowning in Water But that Fire being the immediate Agent or Instrument applyed to that Execution hath a more fierce and violent working than Water hath which dispatcheth a Man more easily Now therefore the fearfulness and soreness of this Punishment and that with difference from that by Creatures compare for this ver 28 29. being here argued that it is a falling into God's Hands and we knowing this withal that he is in himself able to work by his fierce Wrath more powerfully and exquisitely upon the reasonable Soul of Man Sinful than all created Agents whatever and the Soul it self being also capable of such a working upon by him This doth strongly argue his own immediate Execution by his own Hands to have been intended 5. In ver 27. he termeth the immediate Cause inflicting this Punishment A fiery indignation devouring the Adversaries Indignation or Wrath is of some intelligent Nature provoked And whom should this refer to or whose Indignation can it be supposed but of this God who himself as the Apostle expounds and comments upon it hath said Vengeance is mine saith the Lord And this Indignation is called fiery because it works as Fire is in tormenting like to Fire or as a Flaming Sword red hot when it is made the Instrument of ones Death which wounds and kills and doth torment with a superadded anguish For the further opening of which I shall at present only say two things 1. That God compares himself in this respect unto a devouring or consuming
which by its own acknowledgment of a Judgment made unto God when he shall come to judge binds over it self and with it self the whole Soul for the Payment And upon that account is to be reckoned the chief Obligee and therefore the Execution is justly to be served upon it and through it upon the whole Soul 2. If we take in together with Conscience the understanding part in Man the Intelligentia or the Spirit of the Mind in the summity of it That is really to be accounted also the Principal in respect of its share in the very acts of Sinning so as justly the Guilt of every act is refunded upon it as the principal Actor For it is betrusted by God with the steering and management of the whole Soul with the conduct of it as the General By reason of that Light God at first seated in it it was appointed for ever to be the Guide and Leader of the Will and Affections And therefore God justly requireth the account or the defaults and miscarriages of the whole at its Hands According to the equity of those Rules declared concerning Rulers of the People Jer. 5. 4 5. These have known the way of the Lord c. As also from that other like to it given forth touching the Priests and which we find so often inculcated in Ezekiel I will require their Blood at the Priests Hands And all these founded upon one and the same common ground common unto Conscience with these namely Conscience and Knowledg there being the Guides And yet in that Conscience gives but an ineffectual weak warning against Sin which should powerfully sway the whole and the Spirit of the Mind or the practick Understanding doth still wickedly give secret consent unto Sin c. Hence therefore that denunciation in Ezekiel holds that God will require the Blood of the Soul at its hands Although the Soul the Will and Affections do perish too in their Iniquity as it is there spoken And for this cause it becomes Justice to punish this chief Agent and Offender or this great Minister of State in sinning and to make these the Seat of the Execution above any or all other Faculties 2. It will furthermore agree with the Rules of Justice yea it will be a special Trophy unto Justice to have Sin it self in the Guilt of it made as far as possibly to be it's own Tormentor and Instrument of the highest Punishment in and unto the Soul that hath sinned There is no Sword like unto that will Justice say to slay a Sinner withall It is of all other the most proper and exquisite way of punishing For the Sinner to eat for ever of the Fruit of his own Ways and Prov. 1. 31. to be filled with their own Devices and their Iniquity to slay them This is the justest and highest Doom which Wisdom it self can invent or God's Power execute The very same doth Jeremy also speak Jer. 2. 19. Thine own Wickedness shall correct thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God Certainly for the Sinner to feel in the most intimate and immediate manner that may be the bitterness of the Guilt of Sin and to find that that above all other Punishments that can be inflicted is the sharpest and severest this is a transcendent strain of Justice indeed Now this is most exquisitely accomplish'd through that proper capacity which Conscience and the intellectual part in Man have as to this very thing And in their being the Seat of the Guilt of Sin they are thereby further fitted to become the Vessel or Receptacle of this the highest Punishment This is in a great measure verified by that in Isa 59. 11 12. We roar all like Bears And what was it that caused this For our Transgressions are multiplied before thee and our Sins testify against us For our Transgressions are with us they dwell with and possess us and we possess them as Job also speaks And as for our Iniquities we know them It was their very knowing of their Sins as set on by God that made them thus roar which is the loudest and wildest Tone of Grief and Note of insufferable Torment And observe how that that Knowledg had two things in contemplation which caused the Roaring 1. Sin together with the Wrath of God Our Transgressions are multiplied afore thee And so they had God in their eye as a Judge which those words shew We look for Salvation but it is far from us v. 11. And 2. They testify against us This was the accusation of their own Consciences themselves So as it was Conscience which was the Seat the Habitation as it were where these two took up their dwellings continually quartered upon and possessed Jeremy says the same To see and know how bitter a thing it is to sin c. And though these Scriptures speak not immediately of Hell yet they do clearly point out to us what and wherein the most exquisite punishment of Sin lieth and by what effected namely Knowledg of Sin and Wrath whether it be in Men in forerunning Anguish in this Life or hereafter in Hell in the fulness of it 3. It is not nor can it be the meer Spiritual evil that is in Sin as Sin is Sin and an opposite to true Holiness and as it stands in a contrariety to the Holiness and Goodness of God that is not it which Men in Hell shall spiritually know and see so as to lay to heart the evil thereof in that respect No for that is the peculiar effect of Grace and proper to the Saints even as to see the Beauty that is in Holiness as it is Holiness likewise is It is therefore Sin in the bitter effects thereof only whereby Souls still remaining wholly sinful as those in Hell do can come to know this bitterness of Sin Now to prosecute this The evil of Sin is not sufficiently or perfectly felt no not in the effects of it by the Conscience of a Sinner so as it may be until it be felt in that which is the highest and most transcendent and proper most immediate and first-born effect thereof of all other And that is no other than the Wrath and Indignation of the All-powerful God For that his Wrath shall break in upon the Sinner and so considered it is the most proper effect of all other of the demerit of Sin God being stirred up and provoked thereunto by Sin Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy 1 Cor. 10. 22. The like Jer. 7. 19. Sins are as a heap of Charcoal wicked Mens Consciences the Oven and God's Wrath the Fire Let this Fire be put into this Coal and let both meet in a guilty Conscience and it instantly becomes a fiery Oven within it self And as concerning all other Punishments I may say it That all other of what kind or from whomsoever although they are all the effects and deserts of Sin according to that
his Wrath therein this as it often falls out so it useth wonderfully to enflame and rage in Man's Spirit even as a poysoned Arrow useth to do the Flesh which it self alone would only pierce and wound but as it is an Arrow but if further dipp'd in Poyson or as the Apostle's comparison is Eph. 6. made a fiery Dart it works a further Anguish and Torment Now there is no Creature but if armed with God's Wrath or if it be but a Messenger and a Representer of God's Anger but it is infinitely more dreadful than of it self otherwise it is What is less than the shaking of a Leaf which seems it self to tremble But if God send faintness of Heart and Terror with it and by it into a Man's Heart the very Sound of the shaking of a Leaf chaseth them Lev. 26. 36. Every Grass-blade burnished with God's Wrath strikes terror into the Heart as that flaming Cherub did into Adam's This is experimented in Men troubled in Mind unto whom Iratumque refert quaelibet herba Deum Every Creature presents an angry God and strikes trembling of Heart into them They fear where no fear is The Light which of all Creatures is the most amiable and pleasantest yet to a Spirit wounded the Beams thereof are dreadful and when it is day he wisheth it were night and that Darkness might for ever cover him and why should the Light arise says he to disclose my Rebellion against my Maker Thus Job Job 4. 20. Wherefore is the Light given to him that is in misery Even as on the contrary to a Soul God's Face shines on every Creature strikes up comfort and gladness into it He hears the Thunder which made Caligula tremble 'T is my Father's Voice says he views the Stars these are mine saith he The greatest Afflictions to such an one do turn into Joy knowing he hath a Treasury of Love in the Bosom of his Father that sent them The perfect contrary is here 2. This latter Supposal of God's arming the Creatures with his displeasure and conveying it by them falls yet lower and is less than God's immediate Wrath from himself even as God's Love conveyed by Ordinances and Means is a a far lower Dispensation than the immediate Communication thereof from himself God's power tho never so great yet in working by and through an Instrument is abated lessened stinted in working You may have read and heard perhaps the comparison between God's Power and the Creatures in respect of Torment thus expressed That the one is but as if a Child should strike a Blow in comparison of a Giant But to the case in hand I have used to raise it thus A Giant that can of himself give a great Blow immediately if he yet should take but a Straw to strike withal the Stroke would prove but small and yet it would be greater than if a Child should strike with it Why because his Power is limited and enervated by the Instrument he strikes withal Now what are all the Creatures though in God's hand but as Straws in a Giant 's And yet how terrible is his Wrath when conveyed by them I conclude this with allusion to that Speech of Rehoboam 1 Kin. 12. 10. The weight of God's little Finger is heavier than that of the whole Creation And if they be able or God by them to scourge us with Whips then God himself immediately with Scorpions Having thus considered how the immediateness of God's working doth comparatively exceed that of the Creatures or of himself by the Creatures In the Fourth place Let us go on more sadly in a positive way to consider What his immediate Power is what the Strength of those hands is which Men must fall into And how may this amaze you As it is said of God's Wisdom There is no end of it no searching of his Vnderstanding so nor of his Power And how can I discover or unbare that Arm before you I begin to do it thus God had begun to enter into a Contest with Job and touched him but with his little Finger and Job soon felt him and cries out If I speak of Strength or think that way to grapple with him He is strong Job 9. 19. If but his little Finger be so strong as Job found it what is his Fist which Ezekiel next sets forth his Strokes of his Wrath by And what God himself there speaks against covetous and bloody Men Ezek. 22. 13 14. do you apply to every Sin you live and go on in Says God I will strike with my Fist at thy dishonest Gain And can thy Heart endure or thy Hands be made strong in the Day in which I shall have to do with thee Let every one that heareth or readeth this who yet go on in their Sins consider with themselves Am I able to stand it out and encounter this God And encounter him thou must if thou goest on in thy Sins Or can my Heart endure say thou The Apostle puts the very same consideration upon the Corinthians Spirits when guilty of Idolatry And 't is the same case of uncleanness or any other known Sin Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy Are you stronger than he 1 Cor. 10. 22. As if he had said Do you not consider what a powerful God you have to do withal and that immediately Can you grapple with him think you or make your part good with him Hear yet further by what way it is that the Apostle sets forth to us the Strength of God and let us make a further estimate thereby as to the matter in hand The Apostle in the same Epistle though upon another occasion Chap. 1. 25. had said That the Weakness of God is stronger than the Strength of Men. In which Speech he evidently puts our thoughts upon making of a measure of what is to be accounted more or less stronger or weaker in God in respect of the putting forth his Power by what the Scriptures do express of him after the similitude of Man as in Job the comparison is of his little Finger and in Ezekiel of his Fist whereof the one is weaker in Man and the other stronger Now in Man what is weaker than his Breath which will scarce blow away a Straw and his weakness is usually expressed by this that his Breath is in his Nostrils Now estimate the Strength of God according unto what is said in the Scriptures of God and that as to this point of destroying us after the manner of Men. By the very Breath of his Nostrils we are consumed Job 4. 9. His Power is such that he needs put forth no more as it were to destroy us His very Weakness is enough Job had in the same verse first said By the Blast of him we perish but because a Blast imports some forcibleness the utmost might of what is in a Man's Breath and it is a Man's putting forth his Breath with a more than ordinary violence therefore by way of Diminution and
Correction he adds By the Breath of his Nostrils that is still measuring it as spoken after the similitude and manner of Men by the most ordinary and weakest putting forth of his Power And yet we see if he puts forth no more he blows us to Destruction when his intent is to destroy And why For of us the Scriptures use a comparison suitable thereto in saying that We are but as the Dust of the Ballance Isa 40. 15. Yea all the Nations put all together are but as the small Dust of the Ballance As that little that is left in the Ballance when what is weighed is taken forth which is easily blown away with a Man's Breath Again yet lower in Man his Nod is of less force than his Breath and yet Lo at the rebuke of his Countenance we perish Psal 80. 16. He can look on one that is proud and abase him and his Eye can cast about Rage and Destruction Job 40. 11 12 13. He had said before ver 9. Hast thou an Arm like God He riseth from the Power of his Nod the weakness of his Power unto the Power of his Arm And so may we from his Looks to his Breath from that to his little Finger from that to his Fist from that to his Arm and Hands in which his Strength is said to lie Luke 1. 51. O think how dreadful then it must needs be to fall into those Hands as here in the Text into those Hands I say that measure the Waters in the hollow of them that span the Heavens and at the same time comprehend also all the Dust of the Earth in one grasp as one of us doth a little Pebble And verse 15. Takes up the Isles as a very little thing as you would do Hazel-nut-shells out of a Pail of Water Now for thee a poor Grashopper to be taken into those hands and to be grip'd and crush'd and squeezed with the might thereof But the Scripture expressions go further yet to have this God like a Mill-stone fall upon thee with his whole weight which is Christ's comparison Mat. 21. 44. Thy Wrath lies hard upon me said Heman You see in Summer little green Flies creeping upon green leaves which if a Man doth but touch they die such a slight Creature art thou in comparison to this God Or further as Job's comparison is that this Great and Mighty God should run upon thee as a Mighty Giant with his full force the utmost of his Force as a Man doth upon his Enemy yet so Job speaks of it Chap. 16. 14. And in another place the same Job that he should take thee about the Neck and throttle thee O what do we poor Potsheards of the Earth striving with our Maker as Isaiah speaks chap. 45. 9. Or as Christ spake from Heaven will Flesh think to kick and spurn against such Iron Pricks and Pikes which run up into the Soul whilst it strikes upon them And that we may yet further have a through sensibleness of our obnoxiousness and exposedness to this Great God let us withal consider his absolute Sovereignty over us as well as his Power What an inconsiderable portion doth any one Soul and every one is singly to deal with him for his own particular bear unto this Infinity of Being and Glory to whom not one Nation but all Nations and not only all Nations that are now extant in the World but that ever have been or shall be are counted as nothing yea less than nothing What a little thing is this Island of ours to the whole Body of Nations And yet all Isles are to him but a little thing as Isaiah speaks Lord think thou what am I to Thee or any Man that thou shouldest regard him Yea and being sinful why should any Man as he is of himself think that God should have any stick or demurr within him to withhold himself from destroying him every moment For lo even the greatest of Men that have been of greatest Wisdom Parts being Sinners he hath in his distance and greatness laid them aside and regarded them not at all Job 38. last He regards not the Wise in Heart What is all or any Excellency in thee to him There is therefore no way but to turn unto him and seeing you must fall into his hands prevent him by putting your selves into his hands This great Arm of his may be held Isa 27. 5. Let them take hold of my Strength Fury is not in me There is an Arm also of another one that is Christ who can deal with God for thee and overcome him Isa 53. 1. To whom is the Arm of the Lord so he termeth Christ revealed Thus you have seen and heard something of the Greatness of this God and that but in general as he is the Author of this Punishment and thereby this Punishment aggrandized unto us and yet how little do we know of him as Job speaks §. II. The second Head of Demonstrations from the Capacity of the Soul the Subject of this Punishment And from this that it is the Destruction of the Soul II. SUbjoin hereunto the consideration of what is the eminent Subject of this Punishment the Soul of Man and that the Issue of this Punishment is no less than the Destruction of that Soul And these two which I join together will afford further Reflections to help us to conceive of the fearfulness of this Punishment And the Consideration hereof cometh in most pertinently next unto the foregoing wherein the Power of the Agent was spoken to but now in this the Capacity of the Subject or Patient and the Receptivity thereof of Impressions from this Worker That the Soul is the immediate Vessel of this Wrath that I spake to afore Mat. 10. 28. Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell The former part of which words evidently import 1. That the Soul alone and immediately in it self and not only in respect of what it suffers with or from the Bodies suffering is the Subject of this Punishment tho the Body also is And 2. Christ concludes that it is the Destruction of both Body and Soul You know also the Rule That the Measure of every Agent 's working upon another must be taken from the Capacity of the Subject which the Impression is made upon as well as from the Power of the Agent that works Fire works more fiercely upon Oil and Brimstone than upon Stones or upon Dust or Sands You may discern this in the parts of your own Body Rheum falling upon the Lungs doth not torture so as falling upon a Tooth a Joint or Eye How also are the inward parts capable of more exquisite Torment as by the Stone c. bred in them than the outward are by any Cuttings or Wounds Now the Soul of Man is capable of more exquisite Impressions from God's hand in that it is an intelligent
circa medium Author of Sin Fulgentius among other highly-evincing demonstrations of it casts in this Iniquitatis cujus est Vltor non est Autor God is not the Author of Sin whereof he is the Avenger Which Maxim is founded upon an high Principle of Reason and Equity God puts the whole of this matter so far off from himself that he lays all both Sin and Punishment wholly upon Man so as although the Punishment it self be from his own just Wrath that is provoked to inflict it yet even thereof he thus speaks Do they provoke me to Anger 't is true they do but do they not provoke themselves to the Confusion of their own Faces So as he ascribes his own Wrath that inflicts that Punishment whollly to themselves returns even that upon themselves As if he had said I am angry indeed c. 't is true yet they are more the provoking Causes of that Anger than my self They spight but themselves when they sin against me Like unto which is that Speech also Rom. 2. 4 5. Thou treasurest up Wrath unto thy self Thou to thy Self although it be God's Wrath in his Breast that is treasured up yet the treasuring of it up is aseribed unto themselves God will send his Son Jesus Christ on purpose to clear all such imaginable Suspicions and Suppositions that Men or Devils can cast upon him for condemning of Men or executing this Punishment himself Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute Judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly Deeds which they have ungodlily committed and of all their hard Speeches which ungodly Sinners have spoken against him His work at that Day is to convince yea and to convince is named first as well as to execute Judgment And it is certain that in order thereto he will speak all Fairness Equity Justice and Reason 't were not Conviction else and he will have all his Saints and Angels about him as Judges and Witnesses He will have all the World to hear it and how equal it is for him to execute so sore a Vengeance And as he will convince them of their Deeds to be ungodly and deserving it so of their hard Speeches and that whatever his Decrees were they themselves were ungodly and their Deeds ungodly and ungodlily committed Mark but how he doth ungodly them And he will convince them and stop their Mouths for ever Christ sent him in the Parable speechless to Hell Mat. 22. 12. And this is one great Service the Man Christ Jesus is to do for God at the latter day And if he should not do this satisfyingly and clear all these things he must shut up his Books and come off the Bench and proceed no further either to Sentence or Execution A MEDITATION LEt our Meditation upon what hath been delivered be what Moses hath prompted to us and let us make the same use thereof which he also did The 90th Psalm was penned by Moses as the Title shews A Prayer of Moses the Man of God and it was composed by him in his latter days after he had seen in forty years an whole Generation in a Nation of Men removed out of this World and their Carcases fallen in the Wilderness a Spectacle so sad as perhaps not any one Man in the World hath seen or Age afforded but at the Flood afore or since in so short a compass of time His Song is a Funeral Elegy or Meditation of Death made upon that whole Generation verse 3. Thou turnest Man to Destruction and sayest Return ye Children of Men. And verses 5 6. Thou carriest them away as with a Flood In the morning they are like Grass which groweth up in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up in the evening it is cut down and withereth And God from that time began also to stint and limit Man's years to that measure which it hath held to unto this day Vers 10. The Days of our years are threescore years and ten and if by reason of Strength they be fourscore years yet is their Strength Labour and Sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away Our Souls fly away like Birds when the Shell is broke and then Hell follows as the Revelation speaks as in reality so in Rev. 6. 8. Moses's Discourse And that was it which was the matter of deepest and saddest thoughts in this Meditation unto him of any other Verse 11. it follows Who knoweth the Power of thine Anger Even according to thy Fear so is thy Wrath. Which he utters 1. By way of Lamentation He sighing forth a most doleful complaint against the Security and Stupor he observed in that Generation of Men in his times both in those that had already died in their Sins as well as of that new Generation that had come up in their room who still lived in their Sins O! says he Who of them knoweth the Power of thine Anger namely of that Wrath which followeth after Death and seizeth upon Mens Souls for ever that is who considers it or regards it till it take hold upon them He utters it 2. In a way of Astonishment out of the apprehension he had of the greatness of that Wrath Who hath known the Power of thine Anger that is who who hath or can take it in according to the greatness of it Which he endeavours to set forth as applying himself to our own apprehensions in this wise Even according to thy Fear so is thy Wrath. Where those words thy Fear are taken objective and so is all one and the Fear of thee And so the meaning is that according to whatever proportion our Souls can take in in fears of thee and of thine Anger so great is thy Wrath it self You have Souls that are able to comprehend vast Fears and Terrors they are as extensive in their Fears as in their Desires which are stretched beyond what this World or the Creatures can afford them to an Infinity The Soul of Man is a dark Cell which when it begets Fears once strange and fearful Apparitions rise up in it which far exceed the ordinary proportion of worldly Evils which yet also our Fears usually make greater than they prove to be But here as to that Punishment which is the effect of God's own immediate Wrath let the Soul enlarge it self says he and widen its apprehension to the utmost fear what you can imagine yet still God's Wrath and the Punishment it inflicts are not only proportionable but infinitely exceeding all you can fear or imagine Who knoweth the Power of thine Anger It passeth knowledg Now the Use Moses makes of all this Doctrine of Death and Wrath in the next following verse 12. is this So teach us to number our Days that we may apply our Hearts to VVisdom This he spake to God in behalf of that present Generation that then survived and by spreading afore them
to avoid the Terror of thy Looks Now all this I can do says God with a meer Look whenever I please And I can as easily save also as I can thus destroy which thou canst not do thine own Soul as the next Verse insinuates Then will I confess thine own hand can save thee You see he resolves saving and destroying into the same Power of his and maketh the same estimate of either which the Apostle also doth chap. 4. 12. There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy My Exhortation therefore in fine is Let us not fear Creatures but fear Him and make him your dread and learn to know what a God ye walk before every day and have for ever to do withal Christ that came out of his Bosom knowing him doth Luke 12. 4. 5. compared with Mat. 10. 26. 28. upon knowledg of this God make this same Exhortation I say to you says he and I will forewarn you he says it twice and it is as if he had said Take it from me that know him Fear him that is able to destroy Body and Soul The Apostle succenturiates We know him that hath said Vengeance is mine so here Heb. 10. And again We knowing the terror of the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 11. which they know by an estimate taken from his Goodness that his Wrath must be answerable And Moses also that had seen his Back-parts and his Glory He cries out Who knows the power of thine Anger Hypocrites and carnal Professors as those were whom God professedly takes to task Psal 50. think to play with the great God and deal with him any how as we say as with a Man that is their Fellow They know him not Psal 50. 21. These things hast thou done and I kept silence and thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self And what things they had done and were guilty of see if thou hast not been guilty of the same or like the 18 19 20 verses shew When thou sawest a Thief then thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Thou givest thy Mouth to Evil and thy Tongue frameth Deceit Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother thou slanderest thine own Mothers Son And God was silent or long-suffering The like you have Isa 57. 11 12. Of whom hast thou been afraid that thou hast lied and hast not remembred me nor laid it to thy Heart Have not I held my peace even of old and thou fearest me not c. But mark what is the issue of all this in Psal 50. 21. it follows But I will reprove thee and set them in order afore thee They had never felt the smart of his Anger in all their Lives and little thought that the Lion was in him but it follows Consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in peices and there be none to deliver Oh take heed and turn to him or on the sudden he will start up like a mighty Lion and tear your Souls in pieces as a Giant might do Cobwebs and prey upon the Blood of your very Souls and break the Bones thereof as a Lion could of the most silly Creature Add to this MEDITATION Consider What it is to die and what the State and Condition of the other World is It is to have to do with God immediately either in Wrath or Love and from his own hands as well as from the immediate Sentence of his Mouth to receive thy Weal or Woe That we come naked into this World and go as naked out of it was Job's Meditation first after that David's Psal 49. 15. We shall carry nothing away that is of what belongs to this World then after him Solomon the Son Eccles 5. 15. As he came forth of his Mothers Womb speaking of Man naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his Labour which he may carry away in his Hand The Effect of which divine Meditation comes to this To put secure and careless Man upon the consideration of his immortal Souls Condition which first cometh into this World naked as well as his Body And poor thing the meaning of its first cry if the Soul it self could then speak out its mind is I am an empty thing and have brought nothing with me who will shew me any good But after its being grown up it begins to find a World richly furnished with all things to enjoy as the Apostle's Phrase is 1 Tim. 6. 17. But yet again when he goes out of this World he is then turned out of House and Home as perfectly naked as he came into it and as Rev. 18. 14. The Fruits that thy Soul lusted after and all things which are dainty and goodly are departed from thee and thou shalt find them no more at all Death is therefore compared unto the breaking or failing of a Merchant or Tradesman proving Bankrupt Luke 16. 9. That when ye fail c. says Christ of which I have elsewhere spoken Now if this be thy case as to this and that other World think with thy self what thine eternal Soul must then betake it self unto and also unto whom in that other World My Doctrinal part hath informed you that it is God himself God immediately Eccl. 12. 7. The Spirit returns unto him that gave it To explain which There was that evident difference put in the making man's Soul at first from that of his Body That God made the Body out of the Earth but the Soul was breathed in by God and therefore not out of any preexistent matter as the Souls and Forms of all other living things are And upon this dissolution or separation of each from other it is that Solomon says Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Soul to God that gave it that is to say the same common Law befalls either in their kind that to other things in their kind they are reduced unto their first Principles And so look as the Body is materially resolved into the Earth which was the first matter of it so according to some kind of Analogy thereunto and so far as the Soul is capable of a like return unto God the Soul returns to God that gave it as having been the immediate Original of it not materially as a Spark is out of the Fire but as the immediate Efficient It came from God by way of Gift God gave it that is freely and voluntarily produced it by a sole single free Act of his Will and Power whereby he created it out of nothing and so in the whole of it it was an entire and meer Gift of his And therefore in the beginning of his Exhortation verse 1 of this Chap. he had aforehand laid this as a Foundation for it Remember thy Creator or Creators and is so stiled because he is in a more special manner thy Creator than of our Bodies or of other Creatures and that because himself
the King of terrors Job 18. 19. were setting down his siege about him and that all the Iniquities of his heels or ways which are Deaths strongest Forces The Sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15. 5 6. were as an Army formed up encompassing him round which out of Psal 40. 12. I have shewed to have been his case and the very Metaphor he there also useth But now David was so steeled as though he placed himself thus aforehand in the full view and face of all these single and alone in the midst of them he yet outdares them all as the Apostle did Rom. 8. ult strengthned with this for the Lord will receive my Soul which Phrase of Speech to be the same that a dying Saint useth you all know And this part of his Speech v. 5. might have come in as comfortable an Use as any other of that former Doctrine the innumerable number of Sins but that this other part that now follows doth properly belong unto what hath been now last insisted on and so I rather placed both here The second thing is The opposite state of wicked Men in their Lives and in relation to their dying and also at and after Death by which he both illustrates and expounds his meaning in ver 5. to be to utter his own blessed condition at his Death v. 15. and to that purpose it is he further dilates upon the death of wicked Men in the rest of the Psalm And which is indeed a kind of Summary of what in the former Meditation I have prest During their Lives they trust in their Wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their Riches v. 6. and yet they see as the word is v. 10. that they cannot redeem their own or others precious Souls from bodily Death or obtain of God by a Ransom that they should live for ever For he sees the wise Man die like as the Fool and so leave their Wealth to others Thus in v. 7 8 9 10. That which therefore miserable Wretches they relieve themselves with against this is Their inward thought is that their Houses shall continue for ever and their Dwelling-places to all Generations They call their Lands after their own Names and their Posterity approve their Sayings v. 13. Tho when he dies he shall carry nothing away his Glory shall not descend after him c. And whither goes he when he dies His Soul so 't is in the Original and varied in the Margin shall go to the Generation of his Fathers to the Company of those Giants of the Old World from whom Hell hath its Name so oft in the Proverbs And where are they all The Spirits in Prison So the Apostle resolves us speaking of the Men of the old World 1 Pet. 3. 19. And they shall never see Light or comfort more says the Psalmist But as for me says David v. 15. God shall receive me into the bosom of his Love and Bliss And then again upon their dying They are laid as Sheep in the Grave Death shall feed on them and prey upon them The first Death upon their bodies in the Grave the second Death upon their Souls And their Beauty shall consume in the Grave so as at the morning as there of the Resurrection the greatest Personages that have had such a Gleam of Glory to attend them whilst they lived accompanied perhaps also with dominion over others shall then rise such ugly shabby Death-eaten and Hell-eaten Creatures as we use to say Moth-eaten all their Beauty being preyed upon that 's his word and consumed And such shall they appear in Judgment where the upright whom they despised shall have dominion over them ver 14. But says David God shall redeem my Soul from the power of the Grave For he shall receive me Selah And for the further illustration of all this and how it relates unto Death I shall only cast in a manifest parallel between what David here had meditated about the condition of wicked Men at Death with what our Lord himself hath seconded it withal in expressions fully herewith agreeing treating of wicked mens dying also Luke 12. 16. unto ver 21. 'T is the Parable of that rich Man whose Soul was taken away that night 1. Says David Their inward thought is c. ver 11. And says Christ He thought within himself so ver 17. 2. Whilst he lived he blessed himself so David ver 18. namely in those his inward Thoughts about his Goods and Posterity And the like speaks Christ to be the inward speech and applauding himself of his rich Man He says to his Soul Soul thou hast many Goods laid up for many years take thine ease and be merry Again 3. of this Man Christ says Thou Fool this night c. ver 20. And David of his This their way is their Folly ver 10. 4. And finally the reason of that their Folly which both Christ and David give do center in one and the same This Night thy Soul shall be required thee then whose shall these things thou hast provided be Thus Christ ver 20. and David correspondently His Soul shall go c. They shall never see light ver 19. and he shall carry nothing away but leave his Wealth to others verses 10 17. But still withal let us remember what David's conclusion is concerning himself at his Death and which he placeth in the midst as the center of his Discourse which hath all this other about wicked Men round about it to the end to magnify the Mercy thereof to himself But God shall redeem my Soul and shall receive me Selah The Mercy of both which the last Use of all that next follows doth concern and so shuts up this Discourse USE Let all Believers from hence learn how to set a due and full value upon that Salvation which they profess to expect and which God hath designed to give them Our great and gracious God the more to bind and oblige the redeemed of the Sons of Men unto himself hath twisted their Salvation of a double Cord of Love 1. A privitive one seen in what they are snatcht out of which is termed a being saved from Wrath Rom. 5. A delivering from Wrath 1 Thess 1. 10. An escaping the Damnation of Hell Mat. 23. 33. A not so much as entring into Condemnation John 5. 24. 2. The other a positive part The Glory to be revealed the greatness of which no Tongue can utter or Heart conceive That Blessedness or Glory conferred on the elect Angels and that favour shewn them hath not this privative part of Salvation to greaten it further then as by way of prevention in that God upheld them from falling into the Merit or Desert of it Whereas we Men are all become guilty afore God were actually under Wrath Children of Wrath even as others one as well as another Ephes 2. And the weight of this he in that Scripture would have them put
at home in this Body this earthly Tabernacle it is not capable of this Sight of the Glory of God i. e. as to continue in the Body and enjoy it for it would crack this earthen Vessel as 1 Cor. 15. 50. Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God And altho Paul as a Stander-by was an Over-hearer 2 Cor. 12. and an Eye-witness by way of Revelation and Vision of what the Spirits of Just Men in Glory do enjoy Even as on the contrary the Angels are often Standers-by on Earth and Overseers of us what is therein done as the Phrase is Zech. 3. 7. yet he was not estated into it or admitted a Possessor thereof himself no more than Angels into an earthly estate and therefore could not say whether the Revelation vouchsafed him might not be in the Body as well as out of it Whereas God had otherwise long since peremptorily determined that Question That no Man could see God and live that is at once continue in this Body and see him face to face And Paul here in my Text also determines it That whilst we are at home in the Body as now we are absent from the Lord. They are two incompatible Estates But still when that which thus lets this Body is taken out of the way the Soul it self is sufficiently capable as truly as ever it shall be §. But if this Argument from these be yet judged not home enough but short Then let us in the fourth place add what Force the third Premise will give to it concerning the Time of God's working on us to drive all closer home namely That God hath wrought upon the Soul in this Life all that ever he means to work by way of Preparation for Glory For this thing God hath wrought us which tho it might with the Enlargements and Sub-Arguments that now shall follow be made an Argument alone yet I choose to cast it into this Total to make the whole the more strong Therefore 4. gather up the Demonstrations thus If the Soul be the immediate and first Subject of Grace which is a preparation to Glory and capable of this Glory when out of the body And God the great Agent or Worker hath wrought all that ever he means to work in it this way by way of preparation to Glory Then as Peter said in the case of admitting the Gentiles to Baptism What should hinder that these Souls should not be glorified Act. 10 47. instantly when out of their bodies If indeed as the Papists and corrupted Jews and Heathens have feigned there were any work to be after wrought a Purgatory or the like Then a Demurre or Caveat might be yet put in to suspend this their admission into Glory But the contrary being the truth then c. Now the strength of the Argument from this latter superadded to the rest stands upon two strong Grounds First if we consider what is common to God in this with all other but ordinarywise Efficients or Workers that are intent upon their Ends which must be given to him the only Wise All-powerful God who is here said as an Efficient to work us for this End When any ordinary Efficient hath brought his Work to a period and done as much to such or such an End as he means to do he delays not to accomplish his End and bring it to execution unless some over-powring impediment do lie in his way to it If you have bestowed long great Cost upon any of your Children to fit and prepare them for any Imployment The Vniversity suppose or other Calling Do you then let these your Children lie Truants idle and asleep at home and not put them forth to that which you at first designed that their Education unto Will you suffer them in this case to lose their time Do you know how to do good to your Children and doth not God We see God doth thus in Nature We say when the Matter is as fully prepared as ever it shall be that the forms enter without delay Now Grace is expresly termed a preparation to Glory Also God doth observe this in working of Grace it self when the Soul is as fully humbled and emptied and thereby prepared for the Lord by John Baptists Ministry as he means to prepare it the work of justifying Faith presently follows In all his Dispensations of Judgments or Mercies he observes the same When mens sins are at full as of the Amorites he stays not a moment to execute Judgment So in answering the Faith of his People waiting on him for Mercies And thus it is for Glory I have glorified thee on earth the only place and condition of our glorifying God I have finished the work thou gavest me to do And now what now and presently now remains there follows Glorifie me c. Thus spake Christ our Pattern Secondly there is this further falls out in this Case and Condition of such a Soul as doth indeed call for this out of a kinde of necessity and not of congruity only For whereas by God's Ordination there are two ways of Communion with him and but two unto all Eternity either that of Faith which we have at present and of Sight which is for hereafter Into these two the Apostle resolves all God's Dispensations to us ver 7. of this Chapter We walk by faith namely in this life not by sight And again 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see in a glass Then face to face These two Now and Then do divide the Dispensations for Eternity of time to come The like in Peter 1 Epist 1. 8. In whom though Now you see him not as you one day shall yet believing If therefore when the Soul goes out of the Body that way of communion with God by Faith utterly ceaseth (a) 2 Cor. 13. 8 13. that door and passage will be quite shut up God having (b) 1 Thes 1. 11. John 6. 28. fulfilled all the work of faith The work of God with power that ever he intendeth Then surely Sight must succeed according to God's Ordination or otherwise this would inevitably follow That the Soul would be for that interim until the Resurrection cut off from all communion with God whatever having yet all its acquired holiness of Sanctification abiding in it and Righteousness accompanying of it all that while Look therefore as a Childe hath two and but two wayes of living and when the one ceaseth the other succeeds or Death would follow In the Womb it lives by nourishment from the Navel without so much as breathing at the mouth but it no sooner comes into the world but that former means is cut off and it liveth by breath and taking in nourishment by the mouth or it must instantly die So stands the case with the Soul here between Faith and Sight So that we must either affirm That the Souls dies to all spiritual actings and communions with God until the Resurrection which those Scriptures so much do
which he had on Earth then God alone becomes his Happiness in Heaven But this only in general shews what God is and will be to a Soul in this condition §. But I having undertaken to proceed by way of congruity I must further more particularly shew how in a correspondency to this inward and outward state of this Soul he shews himself God and how meet and becoming a thing it is for God to receive it into Glory upon the consideration of many Relations which he professedly beareth to such a Soul 1. God is a Spirit and thereupon in a special manner as Wisd 11. 26. The Lord is a lover of Souls above all his other Creation So it is there Thou art merciful to all because they are thine O Lord thou lover of Souls God is a Spirit when therefore this naked and withal sublimated Spirit by its being born again by his own Spirit and so assimulated to God himself a pure Spark now freed and severed from its Dust and Ashes flying up or is carried rather by Spirits the Angles out of their like spiritual Love to Luke 26. 22. Heb. 1. ult it as a Spirit unto that great Spirit that element of Spirits it will surely find union and coalition with him and be taken up unto him for if as Christ speaks John 4. 23. God being a Spirit therefore seeks for such as worship in Spirit and Truth that is he loves delights in such as a Man doth in a Companion or Friend who suits him And doth God seek for such whilst they are on Earth Then surely when such Spirits shall come to him and have such a grand occasion and indeed the first occasion in such an immediate way to appear before him in such a manner and upon such a change as this as they never did before these Spirits also having been the Seat the inner Temple of all this spiritual Worship and sanctifying of him in this World surely God who sought such afore will now take them into his Bosom and Glory We also read Isa 57. 16 17. of the regard he bears to Persons of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive them upon this superadded consideration that they are Souls and Spirit and so thereby allied to him the lofty One. Hear how in this case he utters himself The Spirit would fail afore me says he and the Souls which I have made He speaks of their very Souls properly and respectively considered And them it is which he considering and it moves him unto pity for he speaks of that in Man whereof God is in a peculiar manner the Maker or Creator The Spirit which I have made says he and it is one of the eminent Titles he takes into his Coat The framer of the Spirit of Man within him Zech. 1. 12. as in many other places This is argued also in that he speaketh of that in Man which is the subject sensible of his immediate Wrath. I will not contend for ever nor Child of Light walking in Darkness will I be always Wrath. This I have observed in what is publick of mine Now what moves him to remove his Wrath from such an one The Spirit would fail says he Now doth God thus profess to have a regard to them in this Life and that upon this account that they are Spirits lest they should fail or faint and shall we not think that when indeed otherwise they do fail as after Death you have heard even now Christ himself expresseth they would and would upon all these considerations before-mentioned sink into utter desolation unless they were received into everlasting Habitations as Christ there also speaks Do we think that God will not now entertain them The time is now come the full time to have pity on them 2. God at this season forgets not but full well remembers his Relation of being Their Creatour both by the new and also first Creation the new reviving and ingratiating the remembrance of the first The Souls which I have made said he in Esa But in St. Peter this is more express and mentioned as that which indeed moves God and should be accordingly a support to our Faith to take care of our Souls when we come to die even upon this account that he is the faithful Creatour of them 1 Pet. 4. last Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the Keeping of their Souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator He speaks this specially unto such as were continually exposed unto persecution unto death for Christ in those Primitive times which therefore v. 12. he terms the fiery trial and ver 17. forewarns them of a time of judgment was begun and going on upon the of house God such as they had not yet felt who yet Heb. 10. 32 33 34. had suffered reproach and spoyling of their Goods as Peter writes to the same Jews hereupon Peter pertinently instructs them to commit the keeping of their Souls unto God At death you know it is that when Mens bodies are destroyed and so the season when their Souls to be separated therefrom should be committed to God's care as our Darling as our Translation or lovely Soul when separate Psal 22. See Ainsw as others as Christ in David speaks Ps 22. And Peter had in his eye Christ's example and pointed them thereunto who at his death committed his separate Soul or Spirit into the hands of God Luk. 23. 46. and the word commit is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the same in both these places onely there is this difference that whereas Christ sayes Father I commit Peter substitutes another title of God's there being more than one Relation moving God and strengthening our Faith to this even of faithful Creatour And I understand not the first Creation onely or chiefly here meant by Peter but the second Creation chiefly which brings into repute and acceptation with God the first again together with its own and so God is thereupon engaged to be faithful in his care and provision for such Souls according to his promises And faithfulness doth always respect and refer unto Promises and my reason why thus I understand it is because I find God's faithfulnesse still annexed unto his calling of us that is converting us which is all one with this new Creation Faithful is he that hath called you that is made you new Creatures 1 Cor. 1. 9. 1 Thes 5. 24. And I find that David also urges it upon God as a motive as in other Psalms So Ps 138. 8. Forsake not the works of thine own hands that is this double workmanship of thine of the first and then superadded unto that of the second creation which he urgeth thereby to move him to perfect the work begun and to be merciful unto him for ever in the former part of that verse 3. God professeth himself the Father of Spirits which relation though it speaks his being the Creatour of them at the
but the Perishings of this outward Man as also All things and dispensations else that do befal us they are secretly at work too all that while so set to work by God who works the inner Man daily unto such a measure of Grace and these to work and by his Ordination procure a proportionable Weight for God works all these things in Weight and Measure our light Affliction works for us a far more exceeding and eternal Weight of Glory as shall in a comely and in the exactest manner answer and suit that curious Workmanship on the inward-man and it is observable that the same Word for working is used in that verse that is used in my Text but yet these are but outwardly a work as inferiour Artificers or Instruments Therefore 3. He further declares verse 1. of this Chapter that God himself is at work about this Glory who as the Master-workman that hath the draught and platform of all afore him drawn by his own designing he viewing the inward work on us the outward work of means and dispensations and knows afore-hand what degree of holiness to bring us ultimately unto he according unto these as patterns is a framing a Building for us in Heaven exactly suited to the working of all the other which building he prepares and makes ready for this inner Man to entertain it when the body is dissolved If our earthly House were dissolved we have a Building of God an House not made with hands of either Men or Means or of our own Graces but of God But every Soul hath a State of Glory proportioned to all these ready built for it against this time even as Statues in Stone are framed and carved to be set up in such a curious Arch framed for them by the Builder Now then 4. Add but the Words of my Text which is the close of this his discourse And it opens all the Scene He that wrought us for this self-same thing is God The Apostle's Conclusion answers his beginning he began in chap. 4. ver 16. and the circle ends in my Text. And this is God who is wise in working and wonderful in counsel §. But there is a third point yet remains Doctrine III. That it is the interest and engagement of all Three Persons to see to it that a righteous separate Soul be brought to Glory at dissolution And this carries it yet higher even to the highest and gives the most superabundant security and assurance of this thing that can be given and superadds above all the former But you will ask me How I fetch this out of my Text Thus 1. You see here are Two Persons expresly named God the Father namely and the Spirit That 's a Rule that where the name God and then some besides other of the Two Persons Christ or the Spirit are mentioned therewith as distinct There God is put personally not essentially only to express the Father Now here the Spirit or holy Ghost is mentioned distinct from God For it is said That this God hath given the Spirit which also Christ so often speaketh of the Father as I need not insist on it 2. It is another Rule that in any Scripture where Two Persons are mentioned as concurring in any thing or matter There the other Third Person also must be understood to have his special share therein also as when he wisheth Grace and Peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ 'T is certain the holy Ghost is as specially understood as indeed we find him in that Apostolical Blessing as distinctly spoken of as the Father or Christ Thus it must be here Christ must be taken in who also in John is so often said to give the Spirit when the Father gives him as it is said here he hath For this same thing But 3. You have even Christ also not far off interested in this self-same thing in the next verse and ver 8. Absence from the Lord whilst in the body ver 6. and present with the Lord when separate from the body ver 8. This Lord is Christ the Phrase of the New Testament concerning Christ runs in this stile To be with Christ This day with me To be where I am and see my Glory So Christ To be with Christ is best of all and we shall be ever with the Lord. So Paul Use I. Doth God work Us for this thing ere he brings us to it What hath God wrought hitherto upon Thee or Thee in order to this end 'T is a blunt question but the Text puts it in my mouth How many Souls are there living in the profession of Christianity that know not what this means to have a work wrought on them anew upon them over and above what moral Honesty which was Nature's portion and the common profession of Christianity adds thereunto by custom and meer Education An honest Turk professing also and observing the Principles of his Religion upon the ground of his Education onely and a Religon every Man must have will as soon go to Heaven as Thou for all thy Religion is founded but upon the like Foundation that his is I tell thee that Christian Religion is not a thing so cheap nor Salvation by Christ at so low a rate Thou must have a Work upon thy Soul suited unto all the Truths thus professed in the power and efficacy of them They must enter thy Soul by a spiritual Faith and Frame and mould it anew to a likeness to them Carry home therefore the Caveat our Apostle hath put in ver 3. If so be that being clothed we be not founded naked of Grace and Holiness wrought and Christ's Righteousness by spiritual efficacious Faith applied Faith in earnest bowing the Soul to be obedient unto Christ as heartily and as honestly as it expects Salvation by Christ as without which thou wilt never be saved This is our Religion and when at death thy Soul thy poor lonesome Soul being stript of all things in this World even the Body and all shall come afore the great God and Jesus Christ what will the enquiry be as Mat. 22. 11. When the King came in to see the Guests he saw a Man had not the Wedding-garment he spied him out And the Man was speechless ver 12. Take him and bind him says he and cast him into utter darkness ver 13. The other that were clothed were admitted unto the Marriage and as the Psalmist the words of which are here alluded unto She was brought unto the King the very Title which in both these places is given to Christ see ver 11. in Rayment of Needle-work and this clothing is of God's working and so my Text falls in with both There is no admission unto Christ without it This the first Vse Use II. Hath God began to work this good work in thee he will perfect it whereof the Text gives this assurance that he hath wrought it for this thing that is for this end and God will not lose his
end Besides he says he hath given earnest Use III. Thou Saint be content to live for whilst thou livest thou art under God's working in order unto Glory Value life 't is a season of being wrought upon And to be sure thou shalt live no longer than whilst God is some way or other a working this What an advantage is it that all thy sins occasioned by living long shall surely be forgiven and nothing of thy score be uncut off for thee but all the Righteousness that is wrought upon thee and wrought by thee and therefore wrought by thee because upon thee for being wrought upon we work and all is Acti agimus rather God hath wrought us than that we have wrought All thy righteousness I say shall remain for ever All the time 2 Cor. 9. 9. thou remainest in this life thy Soul is ripening or maturing for Glory How great a comfort is that In explicating the Doctrinal part I gave Instance of a Child in the Womb curiously Psal 139. 15. wrought all that time in order to its living and subsisting afterwards in this World 'T is a dark place the Womb which the Child is wrought in and it lives there in a stifled condition it cannot breath it takes nourishment but at the Navel a way invented and prepared of God meerly for that season it lies boiling tossing and tumbling and sleeping away the most of its time and gives now and then a faint stirring to shew it is still alive and it is a life scarse worth the name of life Well but all this is a being wrought and fitted to live another freer and braver life in this Word And this is your present case your life is hid it is to come all that you find in this World is but that God hath wrought you for the self-like thing And if this Child we speak of should be forced out of the Womb afore the due time it would have the more imperfect life in this World So here if you could suppose a Saint should die afore the full birth of his Soul 's being wrought on Therefore be content to wait God's leisure until your change shall come Use IV. No matter what befals thee so it works towards this end let whatever be so thou findest God to go on with this design that he works upon thy Soul be it upward in communion with himself or downward in disowning thy self thy vileness and corruptions so it works Thou hast afflictions that break thy heart as reproach broke Christ's Heart sayes the Psalmist in his name no matter so they work upon thy Soul Know then they are set awork by the hand that sent them to work a far exceeding weight Phil. 3. of Glory for thee If by any means says Paul no matter what so the work go on A Carver comes with his Chissels and cuts off this piece and cuts in to that part of the Stone No matter a stately Statue bearing the Image of some Person of Honour is to be set up for perpetuity and is accordingly a framing So though God carves his Image out of thy flesh no matter Comfort thy self and think not much at any condition whilst as St. Paul says it turns to thy Salvation Phil. 1. Election sent thee not into this World to have a great Name perhaps God will load it nor to be rich or to have Power but to work thee for this self-same thing and if thou seest that Plough a going though it makes deep furrows on thy back yea heart yet so that this seed be sown therein rejoyce for thou shalt bring thy sheaves with thee For my self so that I find Election pursuing its design of making me holy and blessing me with spiritual blessing in heavenly places as Eph. 1. 4. I care not I would not care what befals me in this World FINIS
redeemeth thy Life from Destruction there is Salvation from Sin and Hell the privative part Who crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender Mercies over and above deliverance and satisfieth thy mouth with good things there you see also is the positive part You might observe the very same in this 49. Psalm Thou shalt redeem me c. and Thou shalt receive me By all that hath been spoken although you are saved from it yet look down into Hell a little as it hath been set out to you And think with your selves Hath God delivered me from so great a Death and given me such a deliverance as this from a death so dreadful and eternal also How would the Devils and Spirits in Prison prize an escape and deliverance from Wrath present and to come if they could be supposed capable thereof yea if they had no more A Nobleman or Favourite that hath run into great and high Treasons to have but meer Life given him how would he value it though he never saw the Court more nor were never restored unto his Estate and Dignities had he but wherewithal to live If a Man were in danger to be drowned and a Rope were thrown him and a Crown and bidden take his choice with promise Thou shalt be King of all the World if thou come to shore safe with the Crown on thy Head of the two he would in this case take hold of the Rope and refuse the Crown And why because it is Salvation and his Life But for a Man to be both wasted safe to shore and then arriving there to have this Crown besides how great Salvation would this be valued stupendous Grace and Love These things the Saints should consider chiefly unto two ends and purposes 1. To be thankful to God and Christ 2. To comfort their own Souls I. To be thankful both to God and Christ 1. To God the Father It was his part to contrive the whole design of our Salvation to the end to set forth his Love to us And the Scripture spreads afore us the Love of the Father herein upon this double consideration 1. That he appointed us not to Wrath which otherwise we should have in the issue and execution by reason of Sin fallen under 2. That he ordained us to Salvation You have an express Scripture for both these setting forth the Love of God the Father hereby 1 Thess 5. 9. God hath not appointed us to Wrath but to obtain Salvation Here are first two parts of the Mercy vouchsafed 1. Deliverance from Wrath. 2. Salvation Then the Love of the Father in his not appointing us to Wrath and so not to leave us under it as well as appointing us to Salvation and both as appointments of God the one as well as the other And then in the second Epistle chap. 2. ver 13. he provokes them unto thankfulness for this But we are bound to give thanks always unto God for you who hath from the beginning chosen you unto Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth which he speaks with reference to what was done to others ver 12. compared Let me speak to you then in the Apostles Language Oh what thanks are your selves then bound if the Apostle gave them for others to give unto God for your selves to whom God hath given Faith and Holiness upon both these respects 2. To Jesus Christ for that hand which he had in this our Deliverance from Wrath thus expresly 1 Thess 1. ult Ye wait for his Son from Heaven even Jesus who delivered us from the Wrath to come Here again you have these two parts of Salvation set together 1. His coming from Heaven which they waited for with hopes of his carrying them thither as he tells them chap. 4. ver 17. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Then 2. which the Apostle adds with an Emphasis even Jesus who delivered us from the Wrath to come Take in that too says he and forget it not to endear your Jesus to you and for ever know him by this Character It is that Jesus who delivered you from the VVrath to come It was the Fathers work indeed to appoint and ordain this Deliverance and us unto the benefit of it through Faith but it was our Jesus his Son's work to effect and accomplish it 't was his Soul that paid for all And the manner or way how he delivered us from this Wrath heightens this his Love yet more for he delivered us from it by being made himself a Curse for us Gal. 3. 23. The second thing I propounded was To comfort your Souls in the consideration of this Salvation and Deliverance Thus Christ Psal 16. 9 10. for his deliverance Therefore my Heart is glad my Flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell thou wilt shew me the path of Life c. And David in the 49. Psalm which led on to this doth comfort himself also ver 15. when of wicked Men he had said Like Sheep they are put into Hell as some read it Death shall feed on them He then for his own particular comforts himself with this But God shall redeem my Soul from the power of Hell for he shall receive me And the Apostle to the Thessalonians epist 1. chap. 5. having ver 9. set before them as was afore opened that God had not appointed them to Wrath but to obtain Salvation he subjoins ver 11. Wherefore comfort your selves together FINIS An Immediate STATE OF GLORY FOR THE Spirits of Just Men upon Dissolution DEMONSTRATED BY THO. GOODWIN D. D. LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1680. 2 COR. 5. 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit THere is no Point of more moment to All nor of greater Comfort to Saints than what shall become of their Souls when they die 'T is our next Stage and things that are next use more to affect us And besides it is the beginning and a taking possession of our Eternity That these words should aim at this self-same thing cannot be discerned without consulting the fore-going part of the Apostle's Discourse and yet I cannot be large in bringing down the Coherence having pitched upon what this fifth Verse contributes unto this Argument which alone will require more than this time allotted having also very largely gone through the Exposition of the foregoing verses elsewhere and I now go but on where I left last But yet to make way for the understanding the Scope of my Text take The Coherence in brief thus In the 16th Verse of the fore-going Chapter where the Well-head of his Discourse is to be found he shews the extraordinary Care God hath of our inward Man to renew it day by day where Inward Man is strictly the Soul with its
Graces set in opposition unto our Outward Man the Body with its Appurtenances which he saith daily perisheth that is is in a mouldring and decaying condition Chap. 5. ver 1. For we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens In this first verse of this fifth Chapter he meets with this Supposition But what if this outward Man or earthly Tabernacle be wholly dissolved and pull'd down what then shall become of this inner Man And he resolves it thus That if it be dissolved we have an House a Building of God in the Heavens And what is the We but this inner Man he had spoken of renewed Souls which dwell now in the Body as in a Tabernacle as the Inmates that can subsist without it And it is as if he had said If this inward Man be destituted of one House we have another God that in this Life was so careful over this inner Man to renew it every day hath made another more ample provision against this great Change It is but its removing from one House to a better which God hath built As your selves to speak in your own Language if Wars should beset you and your Country-House were plundered and pull'd down you would comfort your selves with this I have yet a City-House to retire unto Neither is the terming the Glory of Heaven and that as it is bestowed upon a separate Soul an House alien from the Scripture-Phrase Luke 16. 9. That when you fail they may receive you into everlasting Habitations Death is a Failing 't is your City-Phrase also when a Man proves Bankrupt a Statute of Bankrupts comes forth then upon your old House Statutum est omnibus semel mori and upon all you have and then it is a receiving or entertaining that otherwise desolate Soul into everlasting Habitations that is into an House eternal in the Heavens as the Text. Nor yet is the Phrase of terming Heaven a City-House remote neither for Heb. 11. 13. Abraham and the Patriarchs died in Faith Mark that In Faith or Expectation of what He had told us ver 10. He looked for a City whose Builder is God What is a City but an Aggregation and Heap of Houses and Inhabitants Multitudes had died afore Abraham and gone to Heaven from Adam Abel Seth downwards and God promiseth him Peace at his Death and a being gathered to those Fathers Gen. 15. 15. There was then a City built and already replenish'd with Inhabitants and amongst others an House provided for him that is his Soul built of God and ready furnished against this Removal Verse 2. For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our House which is from Heaven In this Verse he utters the working of the Affections of Christians towards their being cloathed upon with this House and so in order to this enjoiment of it their desiring even to be dissolved which Paul also utters of himself Phil. 1. Now if the first Verse speaks of the Glory of a separate Soul when he calls it an House this second verse must intend the same Verse 3. If so be that being cloathed we shall not be found naked In this Verse he gives an wholesom Caution by the way and withal insinuates why he used the word cloathed upon in the fore-going Verse thus speaking of the Glory of such a separate Soul even because it is absolutely necessary that all our Souls be found cloathed first and renewed with Grace and Holiness and not be found naked at our Deaths that is not devoid of Grace and so exposed to Shame and Wrath as Rev. 16. 15. Verse 4. For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life The fourth Verse gives a genuine and sincere Account why a Christian doth thus groan and that after dissolution it self in order to this Glory which he sets out with an accurate distinction of their desires of dissolution in difference from like desires in all other Men First Negatively not for that being burthened we desire to be uncloathed or dissolved that is simply for ease of those Burthens nor out of a despising of our Bodies we now wear as their Heathen Wise-men and Philosophers did and others do No. But secondly Positively For this as the top-ground of that Desire That we would be cloathed upon with that House spoken of Verse 1. and that still taken in the Sence spoken of in the second Verse to the end that this mortal animal Life which the Soul tho immortal in it self now leads in the Body full of Sins clogg'd with a Body of Death and Miseries each of which hath a Death in it and so it lives but a dying Life that this Life may be exchanged yea swallowed up by that which is Life indeed the only true Life the knowing God as we are known and enjoying him All which as to our Souls is truly performed at our Dissolution although the final swallowing up the Mortality of our Bodies also doth yet remain to be accomplished which will be done at the latter day at that Change both of Body and Soul tho in respect of the Body it will be compleated as then more fully This Interpretation and the suting of all the Phrases used in this 4th Verse to hold good of this Exchange at Death I cannot through straitness of time give an account of now I have lately and very largely done it elsewhere This for the Coherence I hasten to my Text. TEXT Verse 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit THe Current of the four former Verses running thus steadily along in this Chanel the Stream in this Verse continues still the same There is one word in this Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this self-same thing God hath wrought us which serves us as a Clue of Thread drawn through the Windings of the former Verses to shew us that one and the same Individual Glory hath been carried on all along and still is in this Verse also So then we see where we are What this self-same thing should be ask the first Verse and it will tell you it is that House eternal in the Heavens a Building of God prepared by him against the time that this earthly House is dissolved Ask the second Verse it is the same House we groan to be cloathed upon with when the other is pulled down Ask the fourth Verse and more plainly It is that Life which succeeds this mortal Life the Soul now lives in this Body and swallows up all the Infirmities thereof And then here it follows Even for this self-same thing c. So then if the Glory of the separate Soul be the Subject of any of these Verses then of all and so of this Verse