The Morning Exercise Methodized
[2.] Sp • ritual good things they had here, and might have had in common with the Saints; in Hell no offers of Christ, nor pardon by him; no Pr achers nor promise • s, nor p • ssibility of heaven, as there was here in the w • ckeds apprehensions, whic • will be exceedingly enlightened to see what they are deprived of; yet then can see no Wells of salvation, only the pit of d • mn • tion.
[3.] Eternal good things; the wicked lose God himself, and heaven with him; oh unspeakable loss to the understanding soul! infinite loss! to want an infinite good, to be separated from the chief good! to depart from God, this is a most sad departure, the worst of all (as Reverend and Learned Bolton well observes from the Ancients) 'tis true, wicked men cannot depart from God's essence; for he is essentially in Hell; but they depart from his comfortable presence, not to see God, nor to have one comfortable glance at the great Creator, merciful Redeemer, and gracious Sanctifier. And with this loss of losses, they are deprived of heaven, and those admirable perfections, and ravishing beauties, with which the Spouse of Christ is for ever, endowed, and are shut out with the foolish Virgins from those inconceivable pleasures, and joys which are at God's right hand for evermore.
2. The pain of sense; Depart from me saith Christ, whither may the damed say? why from my face into the fire of Hell; not a purifying, but a tormenting fire; in the last verse called everlasting fire; in my Text [the fire] as more notable than any other; but what, and where this fire is, I have only this to say negatively; neither the fire, nor place of Hell are merely fantastical or imaginary; i.e. such only as have their being in the operation of the mind; but positively, that both are real, such as have a certain physical being; however Scripture gives me not a warrant distinctly and demonstratively to particularize of what kind, and where. Some style this more gross part of Hell punishment positive, vexation and torment, considering it concretely; yet abstractively considered, even the pain of sense may be privative; as these torments deprive a man of that due perfection which would otherwise be in him; ex. gr. though the sensible vexation of a man in a Cauldron of scalding liquor be in the materality of it positive; yet the formal nature of that punishment precisely considered, lies in this, that the scalding takes away from the man some perfection belonging to him, else the scalding liquor would be no more an evil to him, than fire is to the Salamander; for 'tis impossible (saith the Learned Barlow) that should be evil to a man, which does not in some respect make him worse; as that which does not deprive him of any perfection cannot do, and by consequent could not be evil; this I only premise, that I may not be understood by any to have a mind to cavil.
There are three things requisite to constitute the nature of this pain of sense.
[1.] The real presence of all evil; that which some term the position of all horror, anguish and vexation; some resemblance we may have of it, by supposing what the person sustains, who is cast into a furnace of scalding lead or brimstone, still remembering that all the tortures which ever seized upon all the senses of anybody in this world, are but shadowy resemblances of this more sensible part of Hell torments.
[2.] The strong impression of vindictive justice, in reference unto sin, else the most vehement tormentings could not properly be punishments; when one undergoes the cutting off a rotten leg, ne pars sincera trahatur, that pain is not properly called a punishment, because 'tis not inflicted for any f • ult, 'tis for cure, not in vengeance; but in Hell torment, which is the execution of the just wrath of God, the Lord Chief Justice comes in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance, which relates to the fault, by reason 'tis fit that the punishment be apportion'd to the fault in the execution of justice, as maybe more plain in this case. Suppose Titius for Treason should justly deserve death, yet so, that none living know his crime; then imagine Caesar in a rage take away Titius his life, • his crime of Treason all this while neither considered, nor discovered, why! the death of Titius (though in itself it be a natural evil, yet) in order to Caesar is no proper punishment, sit'h it is not the execution of justice in reference to the crime; however it may be so in respect of God, who k • ew not only that Titius so died, but that he deserved so to die; this may illustrate that in the punishment of the damned, there is an impression of Divine justice; and therefore because of God's just judgment, this punishment is called the damnation of Hell thereby noting the keen impression of God's wrath, wherein not only the Almighty Punisher doth respect sin; but the finite creature who is punished, knows that he is cast into the furnace of fire for his sin against the infinite God; whereupon there is further requisite to this punishment:
[3.] That the party punished have an acute feeling himself spoiled of all his perfections; a lively sense of all that he is deprived of, by reason of his sin, otherwise it would not properly be punishment, as I hinted before; the damned hath always quick and terr • ble apprehension of an angry God impressing his wrath, and persisting to deprive him of all that glorious good was offered to him; instead of which (that being refused) he is more and more assured of lying in a consuming fire, that is, and will be continually burning up all those perfections he had; not purging, but plaguing him worse and worse; yet not so, that the flames devour his essence, or that the torments utterly, i. e. absolutely destroy his substance; but that they are continually feeding upon all that it should otherwise have been, his simple being nevertheless remaining; thus of the punishment itself both of loss and pain.
(2.) The Properties of Hell punishment inseparable from it, are its
- Extremity.
- & Eternity.
[unspec 1] 1. Extremity; it infinitely exceeds all other punishment; no pain so extreme as that of the damned, who sustain the absence of all good, and the presence of all evil; all the cruelties in the world cannot possibly make up any horror comparable to the horrors of Hell.
I noted in the Analysis of my Text, that the Extremity of Hell-torments is aggravated by
- their inflammation, [the fire.]
- the preparation of them [the prepared.]
- the association in them, [the Devil and his Angels.]
There is a great force and Emphasis in these praepositive Articles, in the Original thus repeated, demonstrating and defining this punishment to exceed all others in its Extremity.
[1.] The grievous inflammation, setting forth the extremity of these torments; fire is the most furious of all Elements; but this is the fire, hotter than Elementary or culinary fire, importing the torments to be of a more violent nature than any other. Strabo relates that there is a Lake near Gadara in Galilie, infected with su • h malignant and pestiferous qualities, that it scaldeth off the skin of whatsoever is cast into it; yet this is not comparable to the fiery Lake of brimstone, where the extreme anguish of the damned is.
(1.) Most exquisite; all the exquisite torments that ever were heard of, cannot express it to the full; Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace could but cause horrors like flea-bitings, in comparison of those the damned in hell do suffer in every sense; the little Monasyllable Hell, though 'tis easily overlooked by many at present, yet 'tis the most inexpressibly grievous Rack in the world. They say Gehenne (which we translate Hell in the New Testament) does in French signify a Rack, which (as the Strappado ) is thought to be the most exquisitely tormenting; those terrible allusions to Tophet, to the shreeks and yellings of Children sacrificed there, are but shadowy representations of their pain who die the second death.
(2.) Intolerable; soul and body shall be ever supported by God in being, but neither be able to avoid, nor yet endure hell-pain; if Cain the foreman coming within the sight of hell here, cry out, My punishment is greater than I can bear; (for a wounded spirit who can bear? ) if the apprehensions of hell even distract the Psalmist; if an angry God but meeting the soul of a sinner, rent the caul of his heart, how will he be able to bear burning in the Lake with fire and brimstone? hanging, sting, racking, roasting, suffering under harrowes and sawes of Iron, fleaing of the skin, scratching off the flesh with Thorns, &c. unheard of merciless miseries, are nothing to the unsufferable tortures of Hell. I grant there are degr • es of torment in hell, yet the least is int lerable, whether,
1. We look up on the Omnipotent hand of God executing the vengeance of eternal fire; ah, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, the Judge to whom vengeance belongs, who takes the wicked immediate • lie into his own hands, as if none else were strong enough to inflict the fierceness of his wrath. Or,
2. Look down on the impotent punished creature, no way able to make any resistance, or lift up his head under the burden of divine indignation, but must crouch under it; for alas! what can a leaf driven too and fro do against the blast of God's displeasure! how should the weak back of a poor feeble man, bear the pile of fire and much wood, which the breath of the Lord doth kindle? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burning? they that suffer least in hell will find the torments intolerable. So that when our Savior saith, 'I will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that City which despiseth the offers of Gospel-grace, he means not that any damned Sodomites should find hell-pains tolerable at all; for Jude writing by the same spirit that Matthew did, says, They suffer the vengeance of eternal fire; and eternal fire with a vengeance can be no tolerable pain. Christ will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on those that know not God, as well as on those that • bey not the Gospel; yet the disobedient and despisers of the Gospel (especially as to the pain of loss) shall be more fearfully plagued than Sodomites. If Turks and Tartars be damned, than debauched Christians (as their sins have been double died, so) shall be double damned, deeper in hell, by reason here they were nearer to heaven; if there be heinous sins against wonderful mercies, they must needs bring tremendous pun • shments; oh, consider it England, City and Country, Courtiers and Common-wealths men. Again, the anguish is
(3.) Easeless and remediless; the wrath of God abides; in hell no cooling fits, but continued burnings, the worm perpetually gnawing, the same torment remaining both day and night; there no Remission of sin, dismission of pain, intermission of sense, or permission of comfort; but judgment without mercy, mischief without measure, crying without compassion, pain without pity, sorrow without succor, bitter lamentation without any consolation, descending without hopes of ascending; the Prisoners being locked up in this dungeon without possibility of release, no passage out of this darksome fiery Pit of no ease, where the Prisoners would not live, yet cannot die, nor get out; Christ the Supreame Keeper, who hath the Key in his own hand, affirms with an asseveration (if thou be cast in) Veri • y thou shalt not come out, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing nay, cue or mite, which will never be.
(4.) Universal, and various, both in respect of the subject tormented, and the objects tormenting; even as the toothach, stone, gout, fever, plague, &c. concurring to torment one man in every part; every power and faculty, sense and member, both of soul and body, will be filled with anguish and vexation, within and without; the never-dying worm of conscience, and unspeakable tribulation that follows upon it, manifested in weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, to confound the eye, and perplex the mind; as all have joined in sin, so they shall in suffering; the soul indeed was ring-leader in sin, and so will be chief in suffering, when the sharp arrows of the Almighty are within, and the poison thereof drinks up the spirit. Thus of the inflammation greatened by the four Ingredients.
[2.] The preparation further aggravates the extremity of the torments; the Text acquaints us that 'tis [the prepared] fire by way of transcendency, as if the wisdom of God had devised on purpose the most tormenting temper for this formidable fire, which the Lord kindled in his anger of old; In God's secret purpose 'twas prepared from eternity, and actually made ready for the fallen Angels when they fell from God. The Talmudists conceive, that by reason to the things created in the second day, there is not added (as in the rest) that it was good; therefore the fire of hell was then created; but to leave such a conjecture, we are certain 'tis the prepared fire, and that for the Devil and his Angels; not as if it were not prepared also for wicked men, but chiefly to show 'twas first assigned to the Devils, to note the extremity and inevitablenesse of the torment of the wicked, who have the Devil and his Angels for their companions. Hence,
[3.] The Association, in hell, the Devil and his Angels contribute to the extremity of the damneds punishment: The Devil so called, because he first calumniated God to Eve, as elsewhere Satan, because the capital enemy of God and man. It should seem there is one notorious Beelzebub in the Kingdom of darkness, over the rest of evil spirits, who may be called his Angels, probably by reason he being one above the rest, (as Head of the Faction) drew multitudes of others into the party, who with him sinned, and fell; but because the distinction in the o • der of Angels is not so evident, we may take it of the evil Angels coll • ctively, rather than distributively, miserable comforters, indeed tormenting companions. Oh! think how sad 'tis to be chained with the Devil in his fiery fetters, shut up in the darkest den with the roaring Lion, with ravenous Wolves, to live in a Nest among stinging freckled Adders, having your loins encircled with the girdles of Serpents, to lie in a Pit amongst millions of ugly to • ds, to be everywhere bitten with venomous Asps, to have Cockatrites killing you with their eyes, Dragons spitting fire in your faces, Uipers eating out your bowels; and then tell me, if the companions in hell, (who are infinitely worse than these) can be desirable, that we should any of us be so mad (as too many are) to choose them, rather than the Society of Saints. Wier speaks of a Charmer at Satlsburg, that when in the sight of the people he had charmed a company of Serpents into a Ditch, and killed them, at last there came one huge one, far bigger than the rest, which leap'd upon him, winded about his waste like a girdle, and rolled him into the Ditch, and so killed the Charmer himself in the Conclusion. Alas! how may men and women can sport themselves with the Devils temptations here, till at last the grand Old Serpent come out with his strength, and roll them into the pit of hell, where they shall live in misery, and lie sprawling w • th no other companions but the Devil and his cursed fiends, who will be continually tormenting one another, and stinging them with horrors to all eternity! Hence,
The second Proprety of this punishment is its Eternity, in the Text 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the everlasting fire; and verse 46. everlasting punishment, which is there directly opposed to eternal life, that blessed state of the righteous which will never have an end; and therefore according to the Rules and Maxims of reason , doth necessarily import a punishment of the same duration that the reward is; now that's acknowledged by the Socinians themselves, to be eternal, absolutely so, as never to end; and therefore the punishment cannot, but be so too. The damned are in everlasting chains of darkness, suffering no less than the vengeance of eternal fire, in the blackness of darkness for ever, and their smoke goes up for ever and ever. A parte post, it is an interminable duration; as beyond measure in extremi • y, so beyond time in eternity; None but he who was from everlasting to everlasting, can fully describe this most permanent duration. They that by the help of the best spiritual and rational prospective, can see furthest into it, will be forced to cry out, O the Ocean that cannot be looked over, the depth that cannot be fathom'd! there is never an exit to this saddest Tragedy, this eternal judge • meant; God sets an end to all other darkness, but none to the darkness of hell; when the wrath of God is come upon the ungodly, 'twill still be wrath to come; this fiery durance is not measureable by our petite particles of time; alas! 'tis for ever, woe! woe! woe! O Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! this word ever, ever, everlasting, will even break the hearts of the damned. Mark what I say, suppose with me, (after others) the whole world were a Mountain of Sand, and a little Wren come • but once every thousandth year to fetch one grain of Sand, what inc mprehensible millions of millions (not to be numbered by a finite being) would be spent before this supposed wonderful Mountain could be fetched away? (when it would be millions beyond reckoning, before the sands in an hour-glass could be carried away after this rate; but six thousand years, and so but six Sands would be gone since the Creation of the world) Well! but supposing yet this wonderful astonishing thing should be effected; if a damned person should stay in torment so long, and then have an end of his woe, it were some comfort; but when that immortal bird should (according to the presupposed portion) have carried away this Mountain ten thousand times over, Alas! alas! and woe! his anguish and torment will be as great as ever it was, and he no nearer coming out, than he was the very first moment he entered into Hell. Beloved, think seriously on this sad supposition, I know not whether your hearts tremble, but I am sure mine does when I dwell on these things in my thoughts: Oh! who are so flout-hearted among us, that they can dwell with everlasting burnings? that they can strugle with this wrath to come, which will never be overcome, never come to an end? believe it friends! the worm dieth not, the fire is not quenched; they are not mine, bur the most sure (yet sad) words with which the most Evangelical Prophet Isaiah shuts up his long and sweet Prophecy; and you know our Lord Jesus, who spake as never man spake, did frequently utter his mind in the same style. Thus for Explication.
II. For Confirmation, That the wicked shall depart from Christ, into an extremity and eternity of torment, as hath been descr • bed, take these Particulars, which laid together are cogent.
[unspec 1] First, The fore-mentioned Explication grounded upon evident Texts of Scripture (not wrested from their genuine meaning) doth imply the quod sit, i. e. the existency of the Subject, viz. that there is an Hell, as the basis or Hypothesis upon which not only the quid, but quale is founded in Scripture; i. e. the essence and essential properties, viz. that there is a real punishment appointed to some, consisting in the pain of loss and sense, both extreme and eternal; for of that which is not, there can neither be essence, nor manner of being described; but from what hath been said, you see there are both predicates in Scripture answering to the Questions, what pain? and what manner of pain? and therefore it must necessarily follow, that there is some subject on which they are affirmed, and to which they do appertain; to this purpose Augustine says truly, That whatsoever is grieved doth live or exist; and that there cannot possibly be any grief, but there must be some real subject to sustain it; if then the Scripture speaks of an Eternal pain, it doth certainly suppose some must endure it.
[unspec 2] Secondly, The beams of natural light in some of the Heathens, have made such impressions on the heart or natural conscience, that several of them have confused notions of an Hell, as well as of a judgment to come. Profound Bradwardine and others, have produced many proofs concerning their apprehensions of this Truth ; what made the Heathen Emperor when he lay a dying, cry out? O animula vagula blandula, &c. O my little wretched wandering soul, whither art thou now hastening, &c. Oh, what will become of me? live I cannot, die I dare not! but some discoveries of the wrath to come. Surely, it was not merely the dissolution of nature, but the sad consequent that so startled and terrified Belshazzar, when he saw the hand-writing on the Wall; guilty man when conscience is awaked, fears an after-reckoning, when he shall be paid the wages of his crying sins, proportionable to his demerits. Hence Tertullian in this matter appealing to the consciences of the Gentiles, and after him Chrysostom affirmeth, that Poets and Philosophers, and all sorts of men speaking of a future retribution, have said that many are punished in Hell. Plato is very plain, that whoever are not expiated but profane, shall go into Hell to be tormented for their wickednesses, with the greatest, most bitter, and terrible punishments forever in that Prison in Hell. And Trismegistus affirms concerning the souls going out of the body defiled, that 'tis tost too and fro with e ernal punishments; and another , that it was the comm n opinion among them, that the wicked were held in chains by Pluto (so they call the Prince of Devils) in chains which cannot be loosed. 'Twould take up much time, and not be so fit for your Christian ears to mention what conceits the Poets have of Tartarus (i. e. in plain English Hell ) and the judgment there, wherein for want of Scripture Revelation, they are much out in their fictions concerning the manner of this punishment; yet these imaginations of theirs, give some evidence to the thing itself written in their consciences, about which the Word of God doth inform us more fully and clearly. Every ones guilty conscience (not seared and stifled) calls for our assent to this same Doctrine; the secret checks in our own bosom, do sometime affright and appale us, even anticipating torments, and giving the sinner an earnest of that sum of misery (which is the wages of sin ) the payment whereof shall never have an end; so that every conscious wretch may find and feel such a worm crawling in his own breast, which unless it be killed by the Physician, who only cures sin-stung souls with his own blood, will never die. The very Turks speak of the house of perdition, and affirm that they who have turned God's grace into impiety, shall abide eternally in the fire of hell, and there be eternally tormented.
Thirdly, It cannot but be equitable, that the wicked who despised everlasting happiness, should suffer eternal miseries: They would not be heirs of an Everlasting Kingdowe; and therefore no marvel they are everlastingly shut out. They sleight and refuse God's eternal mercy, and the honor which the Heirs of glory do accept of upon the terms of the Gospel; and therefore they must arise to shame and everlasting contempt, and undergo eternal misery, according to the terms of the Law. For
Fourthly, The violation of those everlasting obligations which lie upon them unto God, do demerit an answerable punishment. Sit'h the wicked have trampled upon the blood of the Covenant, and abused the many favors God tendered to them to make them meet for glory (by which they have fitted themselves for destruction ) 'tis but reasonable they should be punished with the mist and blackness of darkness for ever, who by their profaneness and errors, did seek to cloud the beams of God's infinite goodness, Everlasting light, and eternal truth. To draw to a period,
Fifthly, If wicked impenitents after this life, shall not be punished by God with everlasting torments, then something must hinder Either on
- God's part,
- or, Theirs.
If on God's part, then 'tis either,
[unspec 1] 1. Because he will not: Now what his will is, you have heard revealed, and may know further if you consult the Scripture: My Text acquaints you plainly with Christ's mind, and that's the mind of God. Or
[unspec 2] 2. Because he cannot, which to affirm, were to deny his Omnipotency, to say he is not God. Or
[unspec 3] 3. Because he dare not; what were this, but to suppose the Sovereign Judge upon the Bench to be (as it were) a cowardly Underling to the trembling Prisoner at the Bar! when his very breath can kindle the fiery River of brimstone into which he sentenceth every impenitent Malefactor. Or
[unspec 4] 4. Because like unjust Judges, he may be corrupted with bribes; but shall not the Judge of all the World do right?
If the hindrance be on the wicked's part, then I conceive it must be either
[unspec 1] 1. Because their living and sinning but a short time here on earth, does not deserve eternal punishment in Hell; for the evil of punishment should be but commensurate to the evil of sin: Now there is no proportion betwixt finite and infinite. I confess this pretence is ready to shake the faith of many in this point; but if the ground of it be rightly understood, it may confirm the point; for
(1.) If the wicked had lived always, they would always have separated themselves from God by sinning against him, and never have repented of their sin, nor been weary of sinning; neither then will God be weary of plaguing, or repent of punishing: The Schoolmen from Augustine argue, Pe • cant in aeterno suo, ergo puniuntur in ae • erno Dei; which will never have an end, but remain while God is God. This may be illustrated by a similitude; as men addicted to pleasure, do in the night time eagerly and earnestly pursue their game at Chess, Tables, or the like, by an inch of candle, which unexpectedly goes out, would questionless have played willingly all night had the light lasted: So wicked men they desire to spend all their inch of time in the pursuit of their sins, if that would continue, they would continue in sin, and not leave sinning, wherefore they shall not leave suffering; had they lived forever here, they would have sinned forever; but in Hell, where they would not live, they must be kept alive, because of their will of sin upon Earth: Oh! wicked wretch, is it not a righteous thing with God (what thinkest thou? ) that thy punishment for thy sin should never cease in Hell; who shouldst thou live forever here, thou wouldst be an Eternal standing provocation to his Majesty? I deny not, but the wicked will sin Eternally in Hell, yet I lay not the stress on that, (which some do) as the reason of their Eternal punishment, but because they •• ven ceased, nor would have ceased to transgress God's Law, whiles upon earth; and Eternal punishment was denounced against the first transgression, which everyone that lives and dies in sin, is not only guilty of, but will not repent of; he would not be reconciled to God here, and God will not be reconciled to him hereafter, but will say to him always, as Tiberius once said to one that requested death, rather than long imprisonment; nondum tecum redii in gratiam; I am not yet reconciled to thee, that I should show thee such a favor.
(2.) The sinner hath but his choice and option; if he be plagued with Eternal death, 'tis no other than that which he preferred before Eternal life. The Lord sets life and death before us, (as by Moses the typical, so by Christ the true Messiah) if we will choose Christ, and accept of him, we may have Eternal life; if not, we must be sure of Eternal death; he that refuseth the Eternal weight of glory in one end of the scale, chooseth Eternal punishment in the other end; as our first Parents did choose the curse by their voluntary refusing of the blessing; which bad choice of theirs, laid obnoxious unto Eternal pain both themselves and their posterity, who cannot complain of God for inflicting the death they are by corrupt nature liable to; since besides their choice in their first parents, and in their own persons, they who live under the Gospel have as great a mercy tendered by the second Adam, as Eternal death is a grievous punishment; yea, the Atheist (who (as 'twas said of Antiochus Epiphanes) takes more pains to go to Hell, than some others to go to Heaven) must confess that he deserves his wages of Eternal death as his Pay, since he hath toiled and drudged all his life long in the Devils Service, only to fit himself for misery.
(3.) The Schoolmen have observed from the Philosopher, that the punishment ought to be levied according to the dignity of him against whom the offense is committed. He is more severely punishit, who gives his Sovereign a box on the ear, than he that does so to his equal: Now wicked men (and that without Repentance) sin against the Eternal God by the violation of his Honorable Law, which he resolves to magnisie: And as they ought not in their own case (so they are unqualified) to be competent Judges of their Own offenses; (sit'h they cannot see the thousandth part of that evil there is in the least sin) and therefore unfit to apportion the punishment which ought to be levied by the Judge of all the World, (who knows what is meet, and will do nothing but what is right ) proportionable to the offense committed against the supreme Majesty; for where there is satisfaction required, there must be proportion, which would not at all be here in this case, without some kind of infiniteness; and because that cannot be found in any mere creature in value, it must necessarily be in duration; for if after millions of years it could ever be said the damned had fully satisfied God's justice, it might be said they shall be set free, as the prisoner from the Goal, having paid the debt; (a thing impossible) but because the sufferings of the damned (which are all the satisfaction they can give infinite justice) in regard of the subject, being finite, and consequently not of nifinite value, they must be so in duration; at least à parte post, as to the future, for the defect of satisfaction in the temporal finite punishment of any mere creature.
Excep. If it be excepted, neither by the Eternal punishment of men is God's justice satisfied; for then this punishment would not be Eternal, (which is a contradiction in the very thing itself) if ever it could be said of God's justice now 'tis satisfied.
Repl. I Reply; [1.] Let it be very well considered, whether God's justice, being infinite, and consequently an essential Attribute in God, doth not require from man (upon his delinquency) that satisfaction which is of infinite value, he the party offended being essentially of infinite dignity. Now such a satisfaction, i. e. of infinite value, could only be made by Christ, who (being the Surety of the Covenant, and suffered in our stead) is God-man in one person, and gave plenary satisfaction unto God.
[2.] Though Eternal punishment may not be called a satisfaction made or given to the party offended, yet 'tis that which the party offending must ever be in making or giving, (by the order of the Supreme Judge who is to hear the cause and apportion the punishment to the fault) because he the delinquent wanting that infiniteness in dignity of person, which doth bear a proportion to the dignity of the party offended, must make this up by an infinite duration of punishment, which may perhaps in some sort be termed satisfaction performed to the Law, it being the payment of the whole in the obligation; for upon defailance of paying the debt of duty and obedience, what more is required of the debt of penalty and suffering to be paid, than death in its full latitude, temporal, spiritual, and Eternal? so that in this respect 'tis no error to call it satisfaction; but if we speak of a complete satisfaction made to the party offended, it must be granted that none but the only Son of God did, or could give it; thus for the first great impediment pretended in regard of the Subject. Or
[unspec 2] 2. It is because there is a possibility of freedom from the Prison of Hell; and then this must be either by Covenant and Compact, which whoever affirms, proferat tabulas; for 'tis fan y, not faith which believeth any such thing without the written Word. Or by commutation; and what place for such a fancy? Is any so absurd as to think there are any in Hell who belong to God, and in Heaven who belong to the Devil? that there should be matter for such a Chimaera, such a strange fiction? Or by force, and what were this but to over-power Omnipotency? Or by fraud, and what were this but to out-wit Divine Wisdom, and to put a trick upon him whose understanding is infinite? Or by a price paid, and what is it that offending man can lay down as a sufficient compensation or satisfaction to an offended God, who is infinite, for the injury done unto him, which God should accept of, is hard to fancy; and woeful experience (if nothing else will) may convince vain man, that 'tis impossible to procure. Or by manumission; now this doth belong only to obedient servants, not to ch • ldren of disobedience. Or,
3. The impediment is because there is an impossibility in regard of the subject (as is pretended) of undergoing torments of an eternal duration by a finite creature; and therefore all the Hell, Socinians, &c. grant, is Annihilation, by reason 'tis said, The wicked shall be destroyed. But to remove this, remember
(1.) The same infinite power of God which preserves Angels and men vessels of mercy, to the glorifying of his grace, can preserve Devils and wicked men vessels of wrath, to the glorifying of his justice; and God will do so, by reason his mercy annot contradict his justice and truth; Christ who at the last day will judge others for unmercifulness, best knows what it is to be merciful; and it concerns us to credit the verity of his sentence in my Text, though upon harkening to the shallow reasonings of flesh and blood we may be apt to apprehend severity in it: but as Gregory says truly, He that cannot find out a reason of God's doings, may easily find in himself a reason why he cannot find it out.
(2.) The destruction mentioned, is rather in a continual fieri, than in facto esse, in a perpetual doing, never finally done; the living of the w • cked in hell, is a dying life, and their dying is a living death; one arm of God's power is always bearing up what the other is always beating down.
(3.) They shall be destroyed in a moral, not in a natural sense; a man that is dead in Law, may live a natural life, but is deprived of that wh • ch before was due to him; the wicked have their b ings in hell, but are deprived of all that which makes to their well-beings; sequestered from the fruition of God, and all comfort with him, who is the Fountain of life; instead of which they cannot be freed from all that tends to their ill-beings. Christ says expressly, they must depart into everlasting fire, and everlasting punishment; therefore 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 certainly not to be annihilated, but to abide and remain in torment. For
[1.] He that shall be everlastingly punished, must needs remain in being everlastingly; his punishment cannot continue when he is not; he that hath an end, cannot be punished without end after he ceaseth t, be; so that if the wicked should be annihilated, or absolutely destroyed, and deprived of being, then nothing should be tormented with the never-dying worm; (if the worm die not, it must live in some subject) and nothing should dwell in unquenchable fire, as the Scripture affirms there shall. Again,
[2.] Men as well as Devils, may have their essence and being eternally preserved, and yet not inherit eternal life, but remain in a moral condition of eternal death; for eternal life promised and purchased in Scripture, does not only note our physical or natural being in life, but chiefly our moral well-being in bliss and happiness; and therefore eternal death does not deny wicked men being naturally alive, but their being morally alive; they live indeed, but miserably, in a condition absent from all comfortable good, present with all evil; there shall be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth forever; therefore there sha • l some be who shall so weep, &c. and they are the wicked that shall still remain in these remaining torments beyond expression, which are called the Second death; not that this death is a consumption of their persons, an absolute wasting of their substances, as to the continuance of their beings (for though they seek to have their beings destroyed, yet they shall not find their desire accomplished) yet as 'tis said of Roger Bishop of Salisbury, in King Stephens time (he would not have lived (that life in Prison) yet could not die; they would be annihilated and cannot) but this which is the worst death, is a deprivation of all the comfortable good of life natural, spiritual, and eternal, with an infliction of the greatest evil, the wicked are then su • ported and capacitated to lie groaning under for ever.
Thus for the Confirmation of the Point, wherein we have had likewise (implied) a confutation of the most considerable Adversaries to this infallible Doctrine of Hell, there remains
III. A short Application to be enlarged in your meditations; learn hence,
[unspec 1] 1. To fear sin, and its sad consequent, Hell; the clear evidence of an eternity and extremity of hell-tortures, should stir up in us an holy affection of fearing God, and being afraid (by reason we are guilty ) of eternal vengeance; the truth is, we should be so afraid of sin and hell, as to be afraid of nothing else, if we would copy out in our practice, the Lesson Christ commands; viz. Fear not them which can kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him; Christ repeats his precept, that it may not be forgotten; an urgent necessity lies upon us to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear; we must work out our own salvation in fear and trembling; we may, we ought to fear the pain of losing the sight of Jehovah's blessed face and favor; for this is a filial affection consistent with the greatest love; he that truly loves God, will solicitously fear nothing so much as to displease and lose him. Yea, and (though we may not with an irrationl, or selvish, ineffectual, slavish fear, (which dishonor-God) fear the pain of sense; yet ) because hell-torments are such extreme and eternal violations of the Primitive integrity of our nature, we may and ought also w • th a rational fear to be afraid of the pain of sense, but not immoderately and immeasureably more than we are afraid of sin, which is a worse evil in its own nature, than hell itself; for all the evil that is in hell, doth arise from sin as the mother of it. Oh! if we should but hear the bitter complaints of those suffering in Hell for their sin • , I need not then (I might hope) persuade the stoutest to be afraid of sin and hell; for our ears would even tingle, our hearts tremble, our blood curdle, and our spirits as it were congeal to ye, at the noise of their most horrible lamentations. Learn,
[unspec 2] 2. To flee speedily from sin by real Repentance; having this warning to fl e from the wrath to come, which will inevitably seize upon impenitent sinners; Oh! let's all learn of our Savior and Judge, from this consideration, to bring forth fruits meet for Repentance; his reason is in effect the same with this Doctrine; viz. Every fruitless Tree is cast into the fire unquenchable fire; yet of ourselves we can bring forth no acceptable fruit, till we be engraffed into Christ the true Vine: Oh! let's then labor to see, and be truly sorrowful for all our sins! and pray, Lord, Turn thou us, and we shall be turned from all our sins, and accept of a whole Christ for our only Lord and Savior; oh! since we cannot wash our hands in innocence, lets be washing them daily in the tears of true penitency; let's go to the Fountain opened to wash in for sin, and for uncleanness, that we may not be cast into the River and Lake of fire and brimstone; Oh! let's now bathe our souls in the blood of Christ, that everlasting burnings may not hereafter seize upon us. Hence Learn,
[unspec 3] 3. Not to blame Gospel-Ministers for preaching of terrors: hereby they would stave us off from running head-long into Hell, and bring us to repentance, that we may not be cast into that prison, where there is no place for repentance: Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men: in love to their precious souls we are bound (being assured we must give an account ) to awake our hearers, lest they forget God and be turned into hell: we dare not betray your precious souls to gratify you at present, and indulge you in your sins; as the Apostle says, — We must not for meat destroy the work of God; for preferment, favor or respect from you at present; we dare not suffer your immortal souls to perish without warning; oh friends, be not angry with us the Ambassadors of Jesus Christ, when we see any of you hastening down the broad way which leads to Hell, (as sure as we are here now) if we then cry fire! fire! to bring you back. You have no more reason to think us your enemies for this warning of you, and telling you the truth in love, than any of your children have to think the most dear and tender Parents amongst you, were their enemies when seeing them (through carelessness) ready to fall into fire or water, they should cry out, oh! take heed Children, or you are irrecoverably lost. Learn,
[unspec 4] 4. Not to grudge sinners their portion in this World: David's advice should be our practice, enforced from this very Doctrine; viz. Not to fret ourselves at evil doers, nor to be envious against the workers of iniquity; for they shall soon be cut down as the grass; they shall be turned into Hell; their foolish prosperity will destroy them, their candle shall be put out, and that in a snuff which will never cease stinking; why then should we be offended at their prosperity here, who are reserved to an extremity and eternity of torment hereafter! it is a gross mistake to call the proud happy, or to think the godly most miserable, because they are here sometimes a little under a cloud. The Psalmist was tempted to it; but the knowledge of this Doctrine in the Sanctuary, did soon rectify his judgment, and made him conclude that God had set them in slippery places to be cast down into destruction, and utterly consumed with terrors, and perish forever; we had more need to pity than repine at our wicked Neighbors, having their good things here: when we consider how hard a matter 'tis to have good things here with Dives, and with Lazarus too hereafter in Abraham's bosom. Learn,
[unspec 5] 5. Lastly, To admire, and be greatly affected with the superlative love of Christ in undergoing that punishment in our stead, (if we will receive him for our Lord and Savior) which will be extreme and eternal torment to all that do refuse him. And if he be Judge, they who receive not his Ambassadors in his Name, are of that number: Oh! who would not then kiss the Son, that believe the wrath of God will inflict these eternal torments. Oh! Christians! (such I wish we may a l be in deed and truth ) let's bless and kiss this blessed Son of God, that bare for us this insupportable wrath, even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come, and triumphed over principalities, and over though Grave and Hell; the greatness of the damnation we are exposed to by nature, doth greaten the salvation purchased by grace! Oh! blessed Jesus! thou wast cursed here, and tasted'st the death that was accursed; even this in thy sentence; thou wast bruised, afflicted, and broken of God for us; but thou was taken from Prison, and from judgment, and everlasting condemnation; for it was not possi • le that Thou shouldst be holden of any pains; so that though every Believer shall see a Temporal, yet shall he never see Eternal Death, but inherit Eternal Life.
OF HEAVEN.
MATTH. 25.34.
Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
THE Description of Heaven is a work fitter for an Aaron the High Priest of the Most High, when upon Mount Hor he is stripping himself of the vile body of sin; or for a Moses when on the top of Nebo, after a Pisgah prospect (as the Jews comment) he died at the kiss of God, refunding that breath of life, and expiring his soul into the bosom of God; Nay, more fit to be described by a pen taken from the Wing of a Cherubim, than the stammering tongue of any mortal man. For whoever attempts to speak of an heavenly state while himself is on earth, his discourses of that, must needs be like the dark dreams and imaginations of a child concerning the affairs of this world, while itself is yet swaddled and cradled in the womb. Yet discourses of Heaven were never more seasonable upon earth. When Anaxagoras was accused as not studying Politicks for his Countries good, he replied, I have a very great care of my Country, pointing up to heaven; if ever Christians had cause to make all honest haste to heaven, 'tis in a sinful and a perverse generation; when the waters cover the earth, whether should a Dove-like soul fly, but to the Ark of God? when God's judgments and his Avengers of blood threaten us on every hand, what City of refuge can we run to but the Sanctuary of God? when we know not how soon the members of Christ's body in conformity to their Head, may be called to sweat drops of blood; 'tis wisdom for us with our bitter herbs to keep the Passover, and to think on that large upper Roome, wherein we may be Feasted at the Supper of the Lamb. Therefore with holy David, when the floods of ungodly men made him afraid, let us take the wings of a Dove, fly away, and be at rest, in that desert of men, but Paradise of God, while we meditate on these words, Come ye Blessed, &c.
A little before the Text, you have such a division of this world, as you shall never see (as many divisions as there are) till you come to judgment; a Herd of hairy, rough, lustful Goats on the left hand, which (like Pythagoras his second number) are accursed for departing from unity, and have a sharp sentence with the unprofitable servant, Cut him in sunder, and appoint him his po • tion with the hypocrites. But the sheep on the right hand, are all folded up in the arms of Christ, Come ye blessed, &c.
In which words, you have
1. A Possession.
2. The admission into that possession.
In the Possession,
1. The nature and qualification of it, it is a Kingdom.
2. The Preparation of it, From the foundation of the World.
In the Admission,
1. The Title, and that is, Inheritance.
2. The Heirs, The blessed of my Father.
3. The formal Introduction, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit, &c.
First, The Possession, and in that its nature and quality, it is a Kingdom; God is King of all the earth; the Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, and the multitudes of Isles be glad thereof; for no places so subject to tempests, inundations and changes in the air and state, as they. Every creature pays him allegiance in the K • ngdom of his power. But the Scepter of his grace is stretched out over Zion, he is King of Saints, who are not only Subjects to his power, but his holy Will, being made willing in the day of his power. But yet the seeds of Rebellion are in their hearts; but when they enter the Kingdom of his glory, they shall not only become perfect Subjects, but Kings and Conquerors over his and their enemies; Come enter into this Kingdom prepared for you. Now in every Kingdom erected, there is something to be deposed, which they are to be devested of, something to be imposed, which they are to be invested in.
First, Therefore to make way for this Kingdom, the black Regiment of errors, ignorance, and misapprehension, shall be disbanded; though all the Subjects of Christ's Kingdom here, are freed from damnable heresies, and recovered from the absolute dominion of the Prince of darkness, yet they are subject to such errors and mistakes, as may make them troublesome not only to the Church of God, but to the wor d. Te tullian Montanizeth, Cyprian rebaptize h, and Origen brings others from those errors himself fell into, as he did Saint Ambro • e from the Ualentinian Heresy, to the Orthodox fa • th. Bu • these and all other shadows on the minds of Saints shall vanish, when the morning shall appear as the darkness of the night is routed by the rising Sun. All those groundless scruples that now gravel tender hearts; and whatever offends, shall be gathered • ut of this Kingdom. All laborious studies, Controversies, and Polemical Disputations, shall • then have a final determination. All subtle distinctions, Jesuitical aequivocations and evasions (the usual masks, and genuine Vermilion of that Scarlet whore, whereby to render the foulest actions specious to the eye of the world) shall be then swept away as a Refuge of lies; Death will be the molting time to deplume men of all those fantastic opinions, and Mercurian fancies, which they now wing their heads withal; all those. Scales of ignorance wherein they pride themselves as the Leviathan, and fling the world into aestuations, shall then drop off their eyes; their Leopards spots, and Ethiopian skins contracted by too hot a Sun, and too open a converse with the prosperities of this world, shall be taken off. And though now upon our eye-lids sits the very shadow of death, yet there the meanest understanding shall confute the ignorant determinations of a whole Sanerdrim of Rabbi's, and look down upon all the grandeur of Human Policies, and reasons of State, with as scornful an eye, as we now look up with to the meanest Cobweb in our Windows.
2. All that turbulent Rout of affections shall be cashiered; as all those clouds of ignorance shall be blown over, so all that thunder and lightning of passion which they involve and travel with, shall pass away. All those furious waves which now ebb and flow in men's hearts, according to the various and lunatic impressions of worldly interests and imaginations, which make men storm like the winds, rage like the Seas, and foam forth their own shame, shall be reduced to a calm; these murmuring Gadarenes, and their swinish lusts shall be buried in a dead sea. We shall hold all these winds in our fists, and these waves in the hollow of our hands. All those peevish, fiery Policicks, Ecclesiastics, and blinders of natural conscience, wherewith men sting one another in these days of sin, shall be eternally extinguished; those mutinous commotions of spirits, which now dethrone judgment, and conscience in men's breasts (and therefore enforce judgment-seats without them to be set up) shall be as calmly subdued, as the Sun puts out the fire; thunders, lightnings, pestilences, earth-quakes, shake not the world so much, as men's passions. The pride and envy of a Caesar and a Pompey, were able to inroll three hundred thousand Heads in the dust. The impetuous motions of these lustful affections, breed those miserable necessities men talk of; but as Augustine says , those necessities will be ended, when these lusts are conquered; then men will be more than conquerors; and shall be able to conquer themselves, their passions, which Victors themselves obtain not to do here. Men are now like bruits, staked down to particular interests, humors and lusts; but then, and not till then, free-will itself shall take up its freedom, and all those Wills of the flesh, shall have a totaI and final circumcision, when this eighth day, and great Sabbath of the Saints is come.
3. The whole body of bodily infirmities shall be shaked off. So long as the soul weareth the body, it carries an Almanac about it, by virtue of those passions which button soul and body together, and convey its distempers to the mind; and the soul on the other hand, as primarily affected with sin, as a rusty sword infects the scabbard; but when the body called the sheath of the soul by the Prophet Daniel, shall drop off, the soul like the flaming sword or Cherubim rather, shall enter into the Paradise of God. How long is the soul, that Candle of the Lord, in the dark Lan ho • n of the body, ere it shine at all? and when it begins to flame forth, the Lanthorn burns; one feverish distemper or other comes, and that is raked up as a spark in its ashes. That great Pub • ican of time, Sleep, what an Excise upon custom hath it out of our lives? and our bellies are the graves of a great part of our days; But meats for the b • lly, and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy both it and them; that is, as to their prese • t use . As in a Ship, all the Masts, Sails, Poop and Sterne abide when in the Haven, as • hey were in the Voyage, so all the Tackling of the bo • y may remain in heaven; Elijah dropped his Mantle, none of his clothes; so the looser humors, dull phlegm, and melancholy, which clog us with indispositions, and make us heavy-hearted, and dull-spirited in holy duties, shall be all drawn off, and then we shall serve God without any lassitude, fainting or tediousness; Heaviness may endure for this night, but joy cometh in that morning, when with the Sun, we shall rejoice as a Giant, to run our race.
4. All that Legion of fowl spirits, with their armoury of temptations, shall be confined forever in their chains of darkness; the Prince of this world shall be deposed when this Kingdom taketh place; the great old Serpent cast into the bot • omelesse pit. No Serpent shall hiss in that Paradise. And though all this world, the scene of his temptations, should remain after its purifying by fire, and all creatures as man's servants be clothed with a better Livery, when their Master is advanced; yet they could no more fasten a temptation on a Saint in glory, then you can now shoot an arrow into the heart of the Sun. Though Satan and the world are now always nibbling at a Christians heels, that as many ej • culations as the soul hath to God, it finds as many injections from the Devil, yet the God of peace will then finally bruise Satan under their feet. The ground that now Lord's it over men, and is the Lordship, not the man, and plows up his heart with c • reful solicitudes, and casts its furrows, and wrinkles in his face, shall never give Thorns and Thistles to his eyes more; but he shall be able to serve God without any Vellications, Convulsions, Cramps, of Distractions, from the sour Fermentations of the Flesh and the World.
Secondly, As these enemies shall be deposed and disappear; so there is something to be super-induced, in order to the confummation of this happiness.
1. Therefore all the Subjects of this State, shall be clothed with long white R • bes, whi h is the righteousness of the Saints; they shall be in the beauties of holiness, from the very womb and first opening of that morning; every infant-grace shall then have its adolescence into a perfect man, and to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Here is imperfection, intermission, and remission in our devotions of the highest elevation. David himself when his heart was most strung with Divine affections, and in the best tune; yet he had his Cadences. His Hallelujahs, and highest strains of praise, came off with Selah, a Prostration of voice, and an affectionate pause; but in that Choir of souls once entered the holy of holies, shall sing, Blessing, and glory, and honor, and power, to him that sits on the Throne, and the Lamb forever and ever, with an Amen Hallelujah, with the most distended faculties and intentions of soul to all eternity, in that house of praises, and at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Here every Christian hath his Garments made white in the blood of the Lamb, being justified from his iniquities by Faith in Jesus; but when they shall be translated to that Mountain of Bliss, their faces shall appear as the Sun, and their Garments of light as the top of Lebanon, shall shine as white as Snow. Here like poor common Soldiers, some get one piece of Armor, others another, one is skilled at one weapon, others at another; Job gets a Helmet of Patience, David a Girdle of Truth on his Loynes, and Peter a Shield of Faith, after they had been trained up to the use of them in many combats; but there everyone shall have put upon him, the whole Armor of Light, not to fight but triumph in; for God will be to them all in all: and the Sun himself being their Shield, Sanctuary, and holy temple of his holy ones; yea, the clothing of his Saints; all sublunary glories, like your half-mooned honors, shall be under their feet, but an asterism and Crown of everlasting Righteousness shall be upon their heads.
2. As they shall have this Royal Apparel when they enter into this Kingdom as their Robes, so they shall have their palms in their hands; the doors of the holy of holies were made of Olive Trees, Palms, Cherubims, and open flowers canved on them, which signified that absolute Peace, complete Victory, Angelical felicity, and an incorruptible Crown of glory, that never fadeth away, to be their inheritance that enter into that place. There is no worm in the fruit of this Paradise, but tranquil order in the soul, the fruit of rightoousness here being * peace, and the effect of it joy and assurance forever; Surely there where we shall * be joined to the Lord, and become one Spirit, his mind and will perfectly taking place in us; our peace will be as a River, when our righteousness shall be as the waves of the Sea. No reflections upon sins or sorrows passed with bitterness of spirit, as now we have in our greatest Triumphs and festivities, as the Jews in their Feasts of Tabernacles, had their willow boughs among their Palms, while they remembered the dangers they passed in the Wilderness on their Festival Revolutions, but every review (if actual felicity can possibly give way to it) will only widen and dilate the soul for a more ample fruition of the present state, even that peace of God which passeth all understanding. So that as Augustine says, if you ask what this enjoyment is of God, what kind of action, or rather rest? to speak truth, I know not; and no wonder when that which is enjoyed here , contains more than any understanding can comprehend.
3. To make up the Kingdom there must be a Crown, and so there is; but this Crown is the King himself; here the King of glory enters in at our everlasting gates, but there we shall enter in to the King of glory; I am thy exceeding great Reward. But there are three wreaths in this Crown.
1. God as considered the object of Vision, the Crystal Ocean of all Truth; and there we shall be able to read every truth in the Original, and see it in him as our faces in a glass; not only those truths that are so mainly conducing to our happiness, but those more speculative to the satisfaction of curiosity itself. Luther discoursing at Supper the night before he died, said, That as Adam after his sleep knew his Wife to be bone of his bone, and called all the Creatures by their names; so after we shall awake, we shall not only be satisfied with God's image, but shall know one another; yea, all things to be known; Philosophy will then be not a dead contemplation, but a meditation of life; and every idiot now, shall then have the collection, and pure extract of all the notions in the world, while the book of life lies open and legible before his face, the idea's, and Representations of all beings in God the Father, the mirrors of all grace and truth in Jesus Christ, the beauty of all delights and sweetnesses imaginable in the holy Spirit, and all these in all, and all in one, with infinite variety in unity transcendent to all imaginable reflections of glory. But who of us dark creatures can bear this inaccessible light? and therefore he appeared in the Temple in Divine darkness, all the purest light in the world being but a shadow of God. If an idolatrous Temple of Diana's was so bright, that the door-keepers cried always to them that entered in, Take heed to your eyes, 'tis difficult to imagine how, even an immortal eye should see him and live. Therefore to him that overcomes, he will give the morning star, a light to strengthen the eye to behold this glory, as all the Stars can look upon the Sun; we shall then not only have all the Riddles of providence unfolded, seeing how one Politician was used to crack another's Crown, and one Serpent broke the head of another; but the glorious Majesty of God shall be reflected to us in the all-glorious body of Jesus Christ as the rain-bow about the Throne; nay, some think the very Angels shall assume aery bodies to feed the eyes of the Saints with all, and to be in a nearer capacity of conversing with them. Yea, Saint Augustine says, we shall see God in his Saints and their glorious actings, as well, and as manifestly as we now see men's bodies in the vital actions of the bodies.
2. The next wreath in this Crown, is the perception of Divine goodness to the satisfaction of our love as all other desires; this is the great Sabbath of loves, and the soul like a Phoenix shall lie down in a bed of Spices, and live like a Salamander in those Coals of Juniper, desiring exstatically to be in its best self, and archetypon God himself. But who of us can dwell with devouring flames? who of us can lie down with everlasting burnings? even the love wherewith God loveth himself, and loveth his Saints; but then we shall find his love strengthening of us to love him with his own love; and these dull earthly hearts of ours by beholding of that Sun, shall be converted into fixed Stars, reflecting back his own glory; we shall then feel the sweetness of God's Electing love from all eternity; the love of our blessed Jesus, which was stronger than death; yea, we shall then enjoy the Spirit of love, who is love itself, and whose loving-kindness is better than life. And as one says of Paul, that as Iron put into the fire becomes all fire, so Paul enflamed with charity and love, becomes altogether love. If The Philosophers say the reason of the Irons cleaving to the Loadstone so constantly, is because the pores of both bodies are alike, and so there are effluxes and emanations that slide through them, and unite them together; now this will be the magnetism of heaven, that our wills shall perfectly fall in with the Divine Will, and nothing seem good to us, but what is good in God's esteem, so that we shall then need no threatenings to drive us, nor promises to lead us; but Divine goodness will so perfectly attract us, that we shall be naturalized to God and goodness, and be no more able to turn off from that ineffable sweetness, than the Loadstone is to convert itself to the West.
3. The last wreath is the result of both the former; from vision and fruition of infinite truth and goodness, reflected in the Center of the soul, springs up delight to all eternity; Heaven is nothing but the joy of truth. After a tedious Racking of our brains on a knotty problem, if we discover any satisfaction, with what an exultancy do we break out into the Mathematicians phrase, I have found, I have found, what I a long time studied for. What joy will it be then, to see every truth in God as our faces in a glass, without all studying? for the joys of heaven are therefore oftener compared to drink, than meat in Scripture, because there is no labor in chewing upon them, nor any diminution of them, but they slide in smoothly, and fully replenish the soul with delight; the pleasures of sense are short, no longer than the Oesophagus, a glib swallow, a grateful hogough; but there the quire of Divine powers shall be fixed in an everlasting fruition of eternal felicities. Now the Saints may have some fits of that joy, but then they shall have their fill. Now they have many a sweet hour, but a short one, but then joy shall be a standing dish, and we shall be satisfied with the fatness of God's house. Now their memories are slippery, but then there shall be an actual sensation of Divine joys continually, when we shall see God face to face; the concupiscible part shall be filled with a Fountain of righteousness, the irascible with perpetual tranquility. We shall come within the verge of God's own happiness; when we shall enter into our Masters joy, when we shall joy more in his happiness, than in our own; there shall be joy upon joy, joy above all joy, joy without which there is no joy. We shall be perfectly at leisure for God, and see him, we shall see him and love him, we shall love him and praise him in the end without all end; for as the seventh day had no evening mentioned, and the New Jerusalem hath no night; its length, breadth, &c. all alike cubed for perpetuity. And if ever we be happy, we must be assured of the eternity of that state; for else, fear of the loss doth lessen our joy, or else we think it is perpetual, and yet it is not, and so we are miserable in our ignorance and mistake; and as the joy of that state is not lessened by future fears, so neither by passed or present sorrows, all tears being then to be wiped from their eyes; and the view of their nearest Relations in the bottomless Pit, shall no more be an allay to their joy, than if they saw so many fish caught in a Net; but they shall rejoice as well in the Justice of God glorified in the ruin of his incorrigible enemies, as in the glory of his mercy in their own Salvation; all those feeble affections that are now so strongly contracted to poor particularities, shall be divorced when once we come to be Espoused to those dilated joys in the Immense Deity.
But yet there are two accessory Coronets we may add to this Crown of happiness as compleaters of it.
1. When the bodies of the Saints shall be re-united to their souls, there shall be an accession of joy; as the Schools say, The body must have its dowry, ere it be Espoused to Christ. If the vile body of an ambitious and imperious Alexander, had such a crasis and temperament, that it gave a perfume to the air when he was dead, doubtless those that have conquered the world, and are to triumph forever in the world to come, their very bodies shall give (as the flowers of that Paradise) a very fragrant smell, being members of the body of Christ, whose very crucified body was an offering of a sweet smelling savor unto God. Anselm tells us, the bodies of Saints shall be so endued with strength, that they will be able to remove the whole earth with one touch of their foot, when on the contrary the wicked shall be so weakened by sin and wrath, that they shall not be able to a move a very worm from feeding upon their eyes; and the Prophet says, that Meshech and Tubal are gone down to hell with their Weapons of War, and they have laid their Swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they have been the terror of the mighty in the Land of the living. But the bodies of the Saints shall be spiritual bodies; that is, every way subject to the motions and desires of the soul, full of agility; as Macarius says, God made not man wings as birds, though his Nest be above the Stars, because after the Resurrection, he should have in Tertullian's Phrase Angelified flesh; and as the Apostle says , In a moment we shall be all snatched, and changed in the twinkling of an eye to meet the Lord; there shall be such agility of body, and nimble collection of the parts, that the body shall be no more liable to a stroke or a wound, than the air, or the heavens, or the Sun itself. And as the soul now drinks in dark informations, obscure apprehensions, and cloudy notions by the corporeal senses, those painted Windows of these Houses of clay; yet when the soul is become a Vessel replenished with immortal and unspotted light, it will transmit such rays into the very body, that it shall shine as the stars, nay, as the glorious body of the Sun in the Firmament forever.
2. The second accessory to this Crown, is the blissful society of all the Saints and Angels about the Throne. In this life it is the happiness of true believers; that whether Paul, Apollo, or Cephas, all their eloquence, learning, gifts, and graces, they are all theirs for their benefit and spiritual advantage. But then, whether Prophets, or Apostles (whose imaginary relliques some go many a weary Pilgrimage to see) all the Martyrs with their glorious scars of honor; nay, Angels, Cherubims, Seraphims, and all that blessed Choir of Spirits, who have done them, while they were in dangers here, many an invisible courtesy which they could never thank them for, they being ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them, who shall be heirs of salvation; all these are theirs. If a Diagoras when he saw his three Sons crowned in one day at the Olympic games as Victors, died away while he was embracing them for joy; and good old Simeon when he saw Christ but in a body subject to the infirmities of our natures, and had him in his arms, cried out, Now Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen thy Salvation. What unspeakable joy will it be to see your Christian Friends and Relations; to whom you have been instrumental in their New Birth and Regeneration, all Crowned in one day with an everlasting Diadem of Bliss which never shall decay. There shall be no hypocrite then for you to lose your love upon, which is now the great cooler of your charity, and keeps your affections in a greater reserve; but there none but true Eagles, and heaven-born souls will be able to look upon that Sun in glory; you shall then rejoice, that there are so many pure spirits able to praise and love that God whom you could never yet, nor will then be able to love and praise enough, or as you desire. When the glorious Angels begin their Hallelujahs, the Saints shall also join in one common Choir, they shall be joyful in glory, and sing aloud upon their everlasting beds of rest. Oh how the Arches of heaven will echo, when the high praises of God shall be in the mouths of such a Congregation! for as when one eye moves, the other roles; and when one string in concord with another is struck, the other sounds; such a blend and sympathy of praises shall there be in that heavenly Chorus, with these high sounding Cymbals in most flourishing expressions, and anthems upon the divine glory. If the Sun, Moon, and Stars did as Ignatius says, make all a Choir as 'twere about the Star that appeared at Christ's Incarnation, * and there be joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner; no wonder then the morning stars shall sing together, and the Sons of God shou •• for joy, when there shall be a general Assembly, and Church of the first-borne, and the spirits of all the just shall be made perfect. And though there may be one Star differ from another in glory, yet there will be no envying one another's happiness, but everyone bear his part whatever it be in the lower or higher praises of the God of glory, with a most harmonious variety in perfect symphony; for there we shall love one another as ourselves, love God and our blessed Savior, better than ourselves, and he will love us better than we can love our selves, or one another. Oh how many, and how great joys shall he possess, who shall keep an eternal Jubilee in the enjoyment of so many and so great beatitudes and felicities of others as truly as of his own!
I have done with the possession and its qualification, it is a Kingdom.
I now come to its preparation, prepared for you from the foundation of the, &c.
But how is this Kingdom of so long preparation, when Christ tells his Disciples, I go to prepare a place for you, when he departed hence?
1. Therefore this Kingdom was prepared even when the foundations of the world were laid , for there the morning stars did sing together. God Created the Heavens, and then the earth, and the spiritual world of Angels above, before the foundation of the earth below: though as some judge, Moses mentioned it not, being to teach a dull people by sensible objects, concealed the notion of spirits, lest they should Idolatrously worship and attribute the Creation of the world to them. And so the Empyrean Heaven, and seat of glory, some venture to say, God then made; and determinately too in the Aequinoctial East of Judea, called therefore the Navel of the whole earth; to confirm it, they tell us Adam was made with his face towards the East, and so they worshipped Eastward three thousand and odd years. And thence Christ called the East, or day-spring from on high, and the blood was to be sprinkled on the mercy-seat Eastward seven times. But we may answer the curiosity of this enquiry about the Ubi and determinate place, as he of old was answered, that asked what God was doing before he created the world? he was making Hell for such unbelieving Querists, and Heaven for the reward of an humble Believer.
2. It was prepared from the foundation of the world, in regard of divine predestination, for that which is last in obtaining, is first in the intention of rational agents; so God from eternity designing his own glory in the salvation of the Elect, and their blisseful fruition of himself, may be said to have set the Crown upon them, while they were in the womb of his Decree; and to have prepared them a Kingdom before they were born. And though God made all the world for man, yet it was to be kept under his feet; he reserved himself to be the Crown of his hopes, and Portion of his heart. He chose us in Christ before the Foundation of the World, therefore all was ready. But
3. In regard of Divine D • spensation, the carrying on the whole economy hath been from the Foundation of the World, and so being, the Kingdom is not yet given up all unto the Father; it may be still said to be preparing; for though God being our heaven, it was always ready, yet by our fall we lost our title to this Paradise; Christ intervenes to divert the flaming Sword of vengeance, enters a Covenant with his Father, sends the glad tidings of it into the World before he came , typifies in the fuln • sse of time, makes atonement, proclaims reconciliation and pardon to penitent sinners, sends his Word and Spirit to wait to be gracious, to solicit the World, till all that are the truly called guests are invited and brought in; then he shuts up the door of mercy, opens the grave, summons all to judgme • t by the last Trumpet, makes the separation, and then pronounceth this Benediction; so that though the Kingdom was from the Foundations of the World prepared, yet in regard every Kingdom includes Subjects as well as Sovereign, Christ when he was going, that so he might send his Spirit to comfort his Disciples, and to gather in more Subjects, may be said to prepare a place for them, though most significantly he went to prepare them for that Kingdom. But Parabolical and Metonymical Expressions must not have too rigid an Interpretation exacted from them; but our Savior having bid his Disciples to go before and prepare a place for him to eat the Passover with them in, he tells them that he is going to prepare the Supper of the Lamb, and a place for them, to which they shall come from the East, and from the West; from the North, and f • om the South; and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingd • me of God; and this to raise the appetites of their faith and hopes, when a Supper of so many thousand years preparation is the entertainment they are invited to.
And so I come to the second Part of the Text, and that is the admission into this prepared Possession, Come ye blessed of my Father, &c.
When a Kingdom is proposed, every man is ready to be catching at a Crown; but therefore our Savior tells us it must be had by inheritance; that is the title by which we must be admitted; inherit, as the Jews had Canaan divided and apportioned to the several Tribes by lot; so some too curiously and boldly adventure to assign to every Saint a Mansion bigger than the whole earth, which is true indeed in this sense, in regard immensity and God himself is the lot of their inheritance; but it is an inheritance in regard
1. There is a claim made to it only by the new-born and first-born of God, and so by right of birth except a man be b • rn again, cannot see the Kingdom of God; the spirit of a slave cannot manage the Scepter of a Prince; nay, they that look to sit on Thrones of glory with Christ , must follow him in the regeneration of the body , that must die ere it be quickened ; for flesh and blood in corruption, moral or natural, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, which made the Father cry out, Oh then Lord let me die, lest I die, that so I may see thee. Now if an unregenerate body cannot enter, much less an unregenerate soul. An infamous person in the Civil Law may be excepted against as not fit to be an heir; and shall the Laws of men be purer than the Laws of God? If the pure in heart only can see God here in reflections, and through a glass darkly, then surely they must be without spot or wrinkle, who must see him face to face: Heaven is entailed upon holy souls; 'tis their birth-right; for no other but they that keep the Commandments of God have right to eat of the Tree of life, or enter in through the Gates into that Jerusalem, and vision of peace.
2. They inherit by right of Adoption; for Christ is heir, and we heirs of his righteousness, and so co-heirs of his glory; and h • irs of God; if sons, then heirs; now we are the sons of God by Adoption; Regeneration makes us not perfectly holy, and so not perfectly sons, and so not heirs, and therefore we receive the Adoption of sons, and being called to be we are sons, and if sons, then heirs; for if a son be passed by in his Fathers Will, and not named, and a reason of the passing of him by, the Testament is invalid in Civil Law, when ano • her is made he • r; and God, his nature and love transcends all the compassions of men, and is a greater obligation than any Laws among them; so that if thou canst make it out that thou hast the spirit of Adoption, thou art as sure to inherit this Kingdom, as thou mayst be sure thou art not by name excepted from the inheritance in the Gospel of Christ, which is his Will and Testament.
3. 'It is inherited by right of Donation and Gift; Fear not l • ttle fl • ck, it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom; and though the wages of sin be death, and men are but justly rewarded therein for their demerit, yet eternal life is the gift of God; and it is not such a gift as is a salary or stipend for our work, pay for our service; for when we have done all that we can, we are but unprofitable servants, and deserve nothing, unless it be to be beaten with many stripes: It is not an honorary gift, as he that had lost an Arm in Battle, his Commander General gave him an Arm of gold, as an honorable reward of his service; but alas, What singular thing can we do to emerit anything at God's hands? when the more we do, we are the further from merit, in regard we are the more indebted to our Master, who gave us the opportunity and grace to perform it: Nor is it an Eleemosynary gift of charity, such as we extend to poor fellow creatures; for that is but a piece of justice, and self-love, if we have that in abundance, which others want to relieve them. Every act of charity is but a piece of equity, a paying of our debts; for we are to owe every man love; but God owes us nothing, nor is he bound to pity our poverty, which we have by our own default contracted on ourselves; but this gift of God is a mere gratuitous act of bounty and grace; but when it is promised and given, then it is but an act of justice to grant possession, and so the title is inheritance, but by way of free Donation.
4. By right of Redemption they may be said to inherit; for under the Law the next of Kin was to redeem a sold or mortgaged possession; accordingly Christ took our nature upon him, that he might be of our consanguin • ty; he became a curse for us, was made sin, that he might ransom penitent believers from the curse; and having satisfied to the utmost, and bought us with a responsible price, he hath right to give his sheep eternal life; and therefore it is cal • ed the purchased possession. In Law, he that buys a slave, may dispose of him as he please by his will; accordingly Christ hath made h • s will to dispose of all those he hath bought: Father, I will that where I am, these may be also: And so they are heirs by Will and Testament of him that took upon him the right of Redemption.
Now I come to the second thing in the second general, and that is the heirs of this inheritance, described in these words, Ye blessed of my Father; 'tis the Fathers work to bless his Son; and when Isaac blessed Jacob, he made him his heir; so God's blessing makes us a title to this inheritance.
1. Then ye that are blessed of my Father from the foundation of the World in his Electing love, and they whom he hath so blessed, they shall be blessed; the word signifies well-spoken to; now God's Eternal thoughts are his words; and they that were in his thoughts from Eternity, their names were written in the book of l fe: God had Eternal purposes of grace to them, thine they were, and thou gavest th • m me; they were blessed in the thoughts of his heart before all generations; this is an Elective Kingdom, yet we are saved not according to the merit of our works done o • foreseen, but accord ng to his own purpose and grace, which was given in Christ Jesus before • the World began. And in vain • id Christ Covenant with his Father, or make a Testament for us, unless the he • rs purchased were fore-known , heirs being the ground-work of a Testament.
2. Well spoken to in the Word of God by the powerful vocation of his Spirit ; they are called to be holy, and he blesseth them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places by Christ Jesus. There are none come, but they that are invited to the Supper of the Lamb; they that God hath persuaded to dwell in the Tents of Shem; whom he hath drawn with the cords of his love, and made them a people of a free-will offering in the day of his power; whom the day-spring from on high hath visited, and the womb of the morning of the day of grace hath brought them forth; those that God hath allured and brought into the Wilderness, that he might speak to their hearts. None shall be followers of the Lamb but those that are called faithful and chosen.
3. Well-spoken of in the Word and Promises of the Gospel; those that are meek, poor in sp • rit, pure in heart, merciful, persecuted for righteousness sake, and merciful; for all these shall obtain mercy; as it follows in the Verses after the Text, Come ye blessed, &c. For I was an hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me; in prison, and you came to me: And he said, Verily inasmuch as you have done it to one o • these my brethren, these littte ones, you have done it unto me; for not the hearers, but the doers of the Word are blessed; the heirs of these promises are the only heirs of glory.
4. Blessed in the final pardon, absolution and justification which shall be pronounced at the last day. Ye shall inherit, whom the righteous Judge of all the world shall acquit and discharge from your sins, to whom God shall say , son be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee; nay, Euge, well done good and faithful servant, enter into thy Masters joy; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee Ruler over many. Oh how good a word will this be to a soul, as soon as it is got up out of the Wilderness of this World! yet thus shalt thou be blessed that fearest God. He will give thee then to be sure a new name, and a white stone, and write upon thee, as a Pillar, or a Trophy erected after victory, his own Name; and when God shall thus bless thee, and speak to thee, thou wilt need never a word more to make thee happy, but the generations that come up after thee, shall when they rise up to heaven, call thee blessed.
And so I come to the third particular, the formal introduction of these blessed heirs into their inheritance, Come ye blessed, &c.
1. This is the speech of one that gives us an everlasting avocation from the troubles and vanities of this present world. Christ will speak to them in this manner, only in more emphatical significancies, Come poor souls, where have you been all this while? poor sheep, where have you been wandering upon the barren Mountains of the earth, climbing the cliffs of preferment and worldly honors, as if you had been of the number of the Goats, and had no title to the blessings on my right hand? In what a pickle have you been in, in a nasty World which lies altogether in filthiness, in a muddy body of sin, pepsed with a number of temptations; you have lain a long time among the pots, griming yourselves, and defiling your garments amongst the Egyptians on my left hand. I but now you shall have the wings of a Dove, which are all covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. I will never more give the soul of my Turtle Dove into the hands of her enemies; you shall never more be cooped up in a Cage with such a company of unclean Birds; no, Come my Love and Dove, and fly away.
2. 'It is the speech of one that admits us into this inheritance; Christ is pleased to condescend so low as to style himself the door; nay, the Keeper of the door; he opened a door of hope by his death, a door of faith by his preaching the Gospel, a door of life by his resurrection, and heaven-gates also by this admission; and when he hath admitted his heirs of glory, and taken them out of this deluge of sin and sorrow into that Ark of salvation, he will shut them in as God did Noah; and though they have an abundant entrance ministered to them into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; yet when entered, the door is shut, and no egress or back-door of Apostasy can be found in that state. Adam was created out of Paradise to show that his admission, even in his innocence, was of grace; much more is it of grace upon a recovery from his fall. Christ while in the Kingdom of his patience, doth call his to many a penitent groan, to mournful prayers, and many tribulations, which make a very bed of dust to be a soft couch of repose; and he calls them thither, Come my people, enter thou into thy Chambers, shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself for a little moment, till the indignation be over-past. Come child, go to bed in the grave; oh but then his v ice will be sweet, when he shall call to them to come up to this Mountain, to a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the Lees, of fat things full of ma • row, of wines on the Lees well refined.
3. 'It is the speech of one that bids us welcome to the feast too; Come my friends; I, it is Come and welcome now; Come poor heart, thou hast been coming a long time, I went myself to call thee; I sent my Messengers, rising up early, and sending them continually to invite thee to come in. I sent my holy Spirit also like a Dove from heaven, and it did light upon thee, and gave thee an Olive branch of peace in the Wilderness of thy fears; when it allured thee, and called thee from all thy wanderings, then I sent my black rod for thee by that grim Serjeant death, to strip thee of thy soul body of sin, not to be touched, but by the Angel of death; then I sent my Angels to bring thy soul to the Courts of thy God, and now by the sounding of the last Trumpet I have called for thy sleepy body to arise out of the dust of death: And now after all these Messengers thou art come, I will not upbraid thee for thy delays, but come, come blessed soul with as many welcomes as there are Saints and Angels in glory; I have prepared a place for thee, thou at come into my Garden; Eat oh friends, Drink, yea drink abundantly, oh beloved!
And so I have done with the explication of the several branches of the Text; now let us see what fruit they bear that may be sweet to oru taste.
First, Then if there be a Kingdom prepared before the foundation of the World for the blessed Saints and holy ones; then what manner of persons are we in all unholy Conversation and godlessnesse in this generation? Men are as dead to Religion, as if heaven was but a dream; and as hot upon sin, as if hell had no fire, or was all vanished into smoke; as atheistical and wretched, as if neither heaven, hell nor earth, neither did feel a God, or any memorandum 's of his Providence. Therefore a little to fortify this notion, which artificial wickedness hath endeavored to expel, and expunge out of natural consciences, I shall endeavor to confirm your faith by Scripture and reason. The Socinians deny the revelation of eternal life, and a state to come, to have been propounded under the Old Testament; and the reward being only earth, their Law and obedience to be but carnal and low, which is to level the Jews to the order of brutes, that so the Gentiles under the Gospel might be advanced to the state of men, and so by virtue of rhe new prize of immortal life proposed, they should have a new command, as their care to run; which is all as true as that all the Tribes of Israel were converted into Isacar 's, strong asses couching down between two burdens; but wisdom is justified of her children; and the Chaldee paraphrase renders those words, if thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted? by this gloss, Amend thy works in this world, and thou shalt be forgiven in the world to come; and the • argum says, the very dispute betwixt Cain and Abel, was concerning a world to come; and those carnal Heretics that are sensual, not having the spirit; in what they know naturally as brute beasts, corrupt themselves, they are gone into the way of Cain: But when God tells Abraham I am thy exceeding great reward; and Jacob cries out, I have waited for thy salvation O Lord, even when about to die; God styling himse • f their God, is not by our Savior's authority the God of the dead, but of the living; therefore God held out eternal life in the promises, yea and in the very command too, do this and live; the reward of that obeeience there enjoined, was no less than this everlasting life, as appeareth by our Savior's interpretation when the Lawyer came to him, saying, Master, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? and he said, What is written in the Law? how readest thou? and he answered, thou shalt love the Lord, &c. and Jesus said, Thou hast answered right, this do and thou shalt live; that is, thou shalt have that thou desiredst; viz. inherit eternal life; and the very reproach of the Sadducees, and the distinction of their Sect from Pharisees and others, argueth sufficiently the world to come was a very common notion among all the Jews; and indeed the whole land of Canaan was but a comprehensive type and shadow of heaven, and all their Religion but a shadow of good things to come in the Kingdom of heaven, as well as in the Kingdom of the Messiah whose day they then saw, and were glad; and if the Gospel contain the promise of eternal life, then they had it in Abraham's days; for the Gospel was preached before to him; yea, and before to Adam, that the seed of the woman should break the S rpents head; and the skins of the Sacrifices wherewith he was clothed might suggest the putting on of that promised seed and his obedience, who was to be bruised for the iniquities of his people: But now to awaken Atheistical souls that deny not only the revelation of this Kingdom of God under the Old Testament, but its reality and existence under old and new; consider these four things very briefly, as the limits of this Exercise command.
1. The whole Creation is a Book which always lieth open, wherein we may read that there is a God who made the goodly Structure and Fabric of Heaven and Earth; Who else could be able to hang the vast body of the Earth upon nothing! or to girdle the Sea, and all its mountainous Waves with a Rope of Sand, to spread the heavens as a Curtain, and hang up those vast Vessels of light in the Skies; there must be a being existent from, and of himself; and so being improduced, is infinitely perfect, and comprehendeth all those perfections dispersed through the whole Creation, and infinitely more; yet what he makes, is like himself; every creature bears his footsteps; but the heavens are the works of his fingers, and man bears the very image of God. We see in the several stories and degrees of the Creation, love and communicativenesse to their offspring, groweth more and more; the higher you go it grows, more in brutes than plants, in men than in brutes; in God therefore love and goodness, which are most communicative, are most transcendent: Now God himself is the heaven we plead for; he is the Region of souls and spirits; and for the resurrection of the body, his infinite power can surely give to every seed its own body; though one part of our flesh was sublimated into the fire, another precipitated into ashes, and cast into the midst of the Sea, devoured by a fish, taken and eaten again by men; and another part dissipated into the Air, and sucked into some other body; yet if a Chymick can out of the ashes of a flower reproduce the flower in its former beauty; nay, out of the dung of beasts reproduce the very herbs they have eaten, notwithstanding what is passed into nourishment, by the architectonical parts and spirits yet abiding in those Relics; much more can God recover our bodies from all possible dispersions, and conversions into other bodies, when all the World shall be his Furnace, and everything resolved into its first seminal parts by the reverberation of the flames, and give to everybody the flower of resurrection, and a reflorescence into glory.
2. As there is a God, and so that Kingdom, so there are heirs, and they are immortal souls, and therefore fitted to be in Divine conjunction; for that which is contiguous to an Eternal, Spiritual Being, is Eternal and Spiritual; but man is here only himself, when in communion with God and spiritual things: And God when he infused the reasonable soul, he breathed into man the breath of lives. And Tertullian who had too gross a conception of the nature of the soul, yet calls it the sheath and scabbard of Divine breath, heir of his bounty, &c. in the exercise of those acts of apprehension, judgment and argumentation; it is impossible such steady and orderly consequential actions should be performed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms; or its reflexive acts much less by the purest flame, nobody being able to penetrate itself, nor to dive into itself without a disorder of its parts. But Religion rather then Reason being the great difference of a man from brutes, 'tis a sign he is made for communion with a better being; and therefore as Augustine says, Thou hast made our heart O Lord for thee, and it will never rest till it come to thee; and when I shall wholly inhere and cleave to thee, then my life will be lively; but now being not full of the enjoyments of thee, I am a burden to myself: The World was made for brutes to live in, but for man to contemplate the Wisdom and Power of God; he made many brutes, but one man, that he might be chieflly for the society of God, and keep coherence to his Maker. And alas the World is but a dry Morsel to an immortal soul, whose vast Chaos of desires cannot be satisfied by it, though every drop of comfort in it was swelled into an Ocean. There is upon the soul such a drought without God, as all the waters in the world cannot quench it; such an endless thirst after truth, and goodness in the general notion, as it can never be satisfied, till it find out the fountain of this water of life.
3. This Eternal state is the common sense of the World; and the voice of natural conscience hath in all Ages proclaimed it. Every Nation hath some Diety or other, and so a Religion; Heathens sacrifice, though it may be it be to the Devil, who cruelly sucks their very blood. Turks and Saracens must have the black drop cut out of their breast, and their circumcision; every Religion puts some restraints upon men's lusts and lives. Now though I believe, though there were no reward, or a future state, Religion would be as good for our bodies, as prunings are to Trees, health to our navels, marrow to our bones; yet its severities would in no degree down with men, were it not for the urgings and prickings on of natural conscience. But Christians above all men were most miserable, if in this life only they had hope, whose principles enjoin the highest degree of self-denial, patience and bearing of the Cross. But every good man, let the mad World prate as it will, and vomit all its gall and bitterness in reproaches and persecutions, yet if he suffer for righteousness sake in innocent patience, his own conscience gives him an acquittance, and a secret absolution, so as he can glory even in tribulation; yea, every devout soul more or less tasteth of those first fruits of heavenly delight, in being conscious of his duty discharged in simplicity and godly sincerity, whatever calamities may attend him in this life; which if they were not pledges of a fuller crop in that future harvest of joys, the best men were most unhappy by that great frustration and disappointment of their expectations. And so wicked men, though the World may applaud their actions as highly virtuous by a sordid spirit of flattery; yet their own consciences affr ght them, and smite them with many a deadly and deaf blow, which nobody else doth hear or observe Cain may build his Cities and his Walls as high as the Clouds, yet there is that within as he said to the Emperor, that will ruin all; his countenance falls, and the guilt of his Brothers blood maketh his soul to blush, and pulleth down his high looks. The highest-formed sinners that have sinned themselves into despair, have nothing left them but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which sh • ll devour such Adversaries. Others that have sin'd themselves into the highest presumptions, never come to any senseless ease, till they attain to make a Covenant with Hell, and can be content to suffer torments to eternity with the enemies of God, rather than to part with the pleasures of sin which a • e bu • for a season; and seem to have that wrote on the tables of their hearts, which that Wretch subscribed under the Image of God and the Devil, Lord, if thou wilt not, here is one that begs of me to be his, and his I will be. Now if there be a Law, a Judge, punishments, and rewards in some degree here, then every man is a Prophet, in this case of this Future state.
4. The promiscuous dispensations and providences of God in this world, all things coming alike to all; nay, the wicked it may be have their belly full of a large portion in this life, when the godly have their teeth broken with gravel stones, and covered with ashes; these argue,
1. There is a day to come when the scales shall be turned; Abel is slain for his piety, when Cain lives and builds Cities; Herod reigns, Herodias danceth, when John Baptists head is served in in a Charger. And though God sometimes by extempore and sudden justice hangs up some wicked wretches in chains, yet many times the most wretched oppressors are too strong and high for justice in this world; and they that live like Lions, die like Lambs; they have liberty in their lives, and no bands in their deaths. Dionysius a bloody Tyrant, dies quietly in his bed, when David lies roaring all night, and a good Josiah falls in Battle; which made the Prophet cry out , Wherefore doth the wicked devour one more righteous than himself? the just must therefore live by his Faith in the world to come, or else all Piety will die; therefore there shall be a judgment hereafter; for God is not unrighteou • to forget their labor of love, and patience; doubtless there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.
2. Is the life to come such a Kingdom? then here is field-room for all our ambition, avarice, and contention, to show itself; be ambitious for something; if we must be ambitious, let us all King it here. What scuffling and scrambling is there for Crowns and Scepters in the world, out of that impetuous lust of dominering; whereas a profane Esau sold his Birth-right, which had a Kingdom and a Blessing too in it, for a mess of pottage! Lysimachus when inflamed with thirst, proffered his Kingdom for a draught of cold water; and how much gold, or how many Kingdoms would Dives give, if he had them, for a drop of cold water, or to be delivered from that one Kingdom of the Devil? and shall Christians contend about these things? Alas, Christian Religion was never made for a secular Engine; we may as soon turn Axioms of Truth into Swords and Speares; the Rules of holy living, into Canons and Musquets; and prayers and tears into powder and shot, as to make Religion a troubler of the order and peace of the world; that is of a Dove-like innocent temper, full of meekness, humility, gentleness, easiness, to be entreated, without partiality, without hypocrisy, can suffer any evil, but do none; can live and secure itself better by suffering, than the crafty world by acting; to use sinful means to avoid suffering, or preserve worldly greatness, is like him that when one hoped to see him at his Diocese ere long, Replyed, He feared he should be in heaven before that time should come. It is not Christian Religion, but that Anti-Christian spirit, which diffuseth itself all over Christendom in its Doctrines and Agitations, its Philtres and Poysons, that inflames it more with contentions and Wars, than any part of the world besides. For Religion truly Christian, takes only the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Let one Roman Emperor busy himself in catching flies, another gather Cockle-shells with his Army on the Sands, after great preparations for an Expedition; silly emblems of the most valiant attempts of many highly-famed Mortals; but let Christians March with all Zeal only for the holy Land of Promise. All those tittles of Honor (for we pronounce them too long) which the world plays with, as children with Farthing Candles, blowing them in with one breath, puffing them out with another; if they had never so good a Pattent, yet what will they come to, when the Heavens shall role up as a Scrole? much more shall these shrivel up as a piece of Parchment before the Flames, when all the Arms and Ensigns of Honor, shall be blazoned alike in a Field ardent at the judgment day. Beauty, that blossom of flesh and blood, which now carries so many Captives at her Wheeles, tyrannizing over fond mortals affections, when we come to those beauties of Glory, will be no more comely than a dry skull, in comparison of the Ravishing Luster that will be in the most deformed body of the Poorest Lazarillo, whose Brightness will transcend the loveliest face more, than the rarest Jewel doth a vile piece of Jett. And though perhaps difference of Sexes may remain for all Scotus his Gloss, That in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female; yet they will only delight the eye, not incline to any vicious thought, all lust being fired out, and no spark of concupiscence left in the Saints, but Grace triumphing in those objects that conquered it here, when they shall be as the Angels of God, only pure flames of Divine Love and joy. When all the pure gold in the World shall be melted out of the veins of the Earth, and men's Coffers into one common stream, and all Pearls, and precious Stones should lie as the gravel on the side of that River, yet they would scarcely be thought fit then to make a Metaphor of for the very Pavement of the new Jerusalem, one sight whereof will dim and deface all the glory of the World.
3. Must the Title be Inheritance? then look to your evidences, Regeneration, and Adoption; as ever you look for this Kingdom, prove your Fathers Will, and yourselves Sons; it is no matter how your names are wrote on earth, in dust or Marble, in reproach or renown, if they be written in Heaven. Some say this world is but a shadow of that above (and it was so before sin had blotted and defaced all) therefore look for the lineaments of that Kingdom above, to be portrayed on you; all are for an Heaven; but as Eusebius says, there were many spurious Gospels, so Basilis asserted one hundred sixty five Heavens, as many Heavens as days in a year. The Turks delighting in flowers, and their Tulipomania, dream of such a Paradise. A silly Country Woman coming upon the Exchange, was so amazed at the view, that she fell down, and said, She had oft heard of Heaven, but never was in it before; The voluptuous Epicure will have his a Poetical Heaven of Nectar and Ambrosia; the ambitious an Heaven of honors and Gallantry. But holy Abraham passed all these, by looking for a City that had foundations. The Kingdoms of the world want legs and foundations to stand upon; and while men dream of such Paradises, they do but build Castles in the air, without any basis but imagination. But look you for the new Heavens, wherein dwells Righetousness; get a Copy of grace in your hearts out of Scripture-Records, the Court-Roles of Heaven, and then you have laid hold upon eternal life. 'It is easy to be a Saint of the earth, a State-Saint, a designing Saint; nay, a Church-Saint; but it must be a heavenly Saint, one truly holy, that is meet to be partaker of the Inheritance of the Saints in light. Examine therefore what Authority and entertainment have the most searching truths, and cutting Providences of God with you? what spiritual wickedness that never hurt your body, Purie, or Fame, have you forsaken for Christ? This sincere beauty of holiness, • s able to make you Ornaments even to heaven itself.
4. Is this Kingdom prepared for those that are Blessed of the Father? Oh then labor to obtain your Fathers blessing, though you seek it with tears. Now the Father says, Blessed are the pure, the poor in heart, the merciful, they that pray for them which persecute them; be careful not only to have oil in your Lamps, grace in your hearts, but get your Lamps trimmed, be upon your Watch, for you know not what hour your Master comes. Look how you improve your Talents, what good you do in the world; Remember it runs thus in the last account, I was an hungry, you fed me; naked, you clothed me; in Prison, you visited me; and every man shall be rewarded according to his Works; and the more you have of Heaven and Divine love here, the more you shall have hereafter; for one piece of it will lie in comfortable reflections upon what good we have done in the world; though everyone hath his penny, that comes in at the Eleventh hour; viz. all that is essential unto happiness, yet one Star differs from another in glory. Art thou therefore in Authority? use it for God? Art rich? alas, riches make themselves wings and fly away; Up then, and be doing good, and make thyself wings of thy Wealth for Heaven, by all charitable expressions; there is no way to lay your treasure up in Heaven, but by laying it out here; no way to lend God anything, but by giving to the poor; How will hopes of Preferment nourish Conformity?
Tully tells us, A Prince is to be fed with glory, and drawn to worthy acts by the allurement of Honor and Renown. Did but Christians feed more upon the Heritage of Jacob, and their Immortal hopes, they would act more for their immortal honor; such Meditations do as the Philosopher says of speculations, immortalize men, and make them spiritual ones indeed, or as Ambrose phraseth it, carry them upwards, as Birds of Paradise, all upon Eagles Wings to soar on high.
Fifthly, Will Christ say, Come ye blessed, &c. then here is an Io triumph over all the World; Let it look as grim as it will upon thee, yet Christ will smile; though it gnash its teeth upon thee, yet Christ will open his lips, and kiss thee with the kisses of his mouth; though the world speak words as hard as stones about Stephens ears, yet Christ will speak comfortably. If the World say Go, Get you hence; yet Christ will say Come; if that say Go, ye Cursed; Christ will say Come ye Blessed. Though men say Go ye Cursed Generation who are hated of all men; yet Christ will say Come ye blessed of my Father. They say Turn out; Christ will say Turn in; they cry, Away from houses and lands, and wives, and children, and all for Christ's sake; yet be not discouraged poor heart, for Christ will recompense thee a hundred fold, and thou shalt have a Kingdom for thy Cottage. And when they have done all, this, they rejoice that their Plot hath taken effect, for they designed your ruin long ago; I but Christ's thoughts of love run higher yet, Come blessed soul, inherit the Kingdom prepared for thee from the foundation of the World. The World may thrust thee out with both hands, Christ will receive thee with both arms. When Cyrus gave one of his friends a kiss, another a wedge of gold, he that had the gold, envied him that had the kiss, as a greater expression of his favor; what if thou hast not the onions of Egypt, if thou have the Quails and Manna in the Wilderness, if thou beest a man of G ds hand, if thou beest one of his heart, there is small ground to complain. Upon all, if an Epicurus was the best of the Philosophers without an Elysium; If a Platonic lecture of the immortality of the soul made another cast his life away that he might enter upon that state; If an Aristotle upon Euripus banks being not able to resolve himself of the cause of its motion, dissolved himself, by casting himself into the stream, saying, If I cannot take thee, take thou me; when we have such a glory as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for those that love him; how shameful • y are we run a ground, if we cannot have a kind of lust to be dissolved; and when Christ holds this price in his hand, and cries, Come ye blessed, we do not answer, Come Lord Jesus, Come quickly!
THE Conclusion.
2 TIM. 1.13.
Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith, and love, which is in Christ Jesus
AT the beginning of this Moneths Exercise I entered upon this Text, and then resolved the matter contained therein into these four Doctrinal Observations.
- 1. Evangelical words are sound words. Or, All Gospel-truth is of an healing nature.
- 2. It is of great use and advantage both for Ministers and private Christians to have the main Fundamental truths of the Gospel collected and methodized into certain Models and Platforms.
- 3. Such Forms and Models are very carefully and faithfully to be kept.
- 4. Faith and Love are as it were the two hands, whereby we may hold fast Gospel-truth.
I fingled out the second of these Doctrines to be the subject of that first introductive Sermon which fell to my lot in the course of this morning Exercise.
I shall now for the CONCLUSION of this Service, make choice of the third Doctrine. Scil.
Such Forms and Collections of the special Heads of Gospel-Doctrine are to be kept and observed with all care and diligence.
The other two Doctrines, namely the first and last, may be useful some where or other in the managing of the present Truth; which is,
That Forms and Models of Gospel-Truths are carefully to be kept, &c.
The Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 hath both significations in it, scil. to Have and to hold; to get such Models, and to keep them when we have them: Our English word implieth the first, and expresseth the second;
Hold fast, i. e. first have them, and then, let them not go when you have them: And the word in the next verse expounds this to the same sense, both in the Greek and in the English, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Custodi, keep; keep as in safe Custody, as under Lock and Key. That good thing which was commtited to thee; what was that? Some extend it to his whole Evangelical MINISTERY, which was committed to Timothy with the gifts and graces confer'd therewith by Divine Ordination: Others restrain it to the form of sound Doctrine in my Text, which Timothy had received either by word of mouth: or in scriptis from Saint Paul, whichsoever, or both, as he must have it, so he must preserve it safe and sound; Hold fast, keep, &c.
Thus in the Old Testament the Kings and Princes of Israel must get a Copy of the Law of God; and when they have it, they must keep it, and keep close to it, Deut. 17.18, 19, 20. for
First, He must write him a Copy of the Law in a book.
And then it must be WITH HIM, and he shall READ therein all the days of his life.
The good King Hezekiah caused his Secretaries to make a Transcript of Solomon's Proverbs, a bundle or Model of Divine Aphorisms, both for knowledge and practice: These are also the Proverbs of Solom • n which the men of Hezekiah King of Judah copied out. These were to be laid up safe as a sacred depositum; and carefully preserved for the public use and service of the Church.
The Jews Phylacteries mentioned by our Savior, Matth. 23.5. were in their first institution of the same nature, that is to say, certain Memorials appointed of God, by the help whereof they might have the Law of God always in their minds and memories, which the pride of the Scribes and Pharisees (not contented with the command of God) had enlarged into broad scrolls of parchment, upon which were written certain abridgments of the Law, which they wore ( over and above God's institution ) about their arms, and necks, and heads; which practice of theirs although a superstitious addition to the Divine appointment, yet it held forth God's design, which was the having and preserving Models of divine principles, both for knowledge and practice.
It is the express command of God in the close of all the Prophets in the Old Testament, Remember the Law of Moses which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the Statutes and Judgments. Though Gospel times were drawing nigh, yet the Law of Moses must not be forgotten, but must be kept exact and entire, as an eternal rule of righteousness.
In the New Testament the frequent repetition of those words of command,
HOLD, 2 Thes. 2.15. Heb. 3.14.
HOLD FAST, 1 Thes. 5.21. 2 Tim. 1.13. Heb. 3.16. Heb. 4.23. Rev. 2.25. and 3.11.
KEEP, 1 Cor. 11.2. and 15.2. 1 Tim. 6.20. 2 Tim. 1.14. Rev. 1.3. and 22.9.
CONTINUE, Joh. 8.31. Acts 14.22. Gal. 2.9. Col. 1.23. 1 Tim. 4.16. 2 Tim. 3.14.
ABIDE, Joh. 15.7. 1 Joh. 2.14, 24. 2 John. 9.
These I say, and other of like nature, all of them relating to Gospel-doctrine, either in general, or in some of the special forms and Models thereof give sufficient testimony to the Point in hand.
For further proof whereof, I shall need to add no other Grounds or Reasons then what we made use of to the Confirmation of the first Doctrine.
Those very Considerations which commended to us the having of such Collections and Models of Gospel-truths, do commend also the keeping and holding of them fast as a sacred treasure. The end of having is keeping, and the end of keeping is using; we cannot 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 use unless we keep; and we cannot keep unless we have: The Reasons therefore why we should get such Models of Evangelical Truths, will sufficiently evidence the necessity of holding them fast.
All then that I shall do in the prosecution of the Doctrine shall be to show you
HOW, or in what RESPECTS such Collections or Forms of Doctrine are to be HELD FAST.
Now the Rules and Directions for the keeping of them are to be suited to the several Orders and Sorts of Persons concerned in this great Trust and Depositum.
And they are of three Ranks and Conditions;
-
Scil.
- Rulers and Magistrates.
- Ministers.
- Christians of a more private rank & relation.
First Rulers and Magistrates, they are to hold fast such forms of sound words.
1. Rulers and Magistrates, they are to keep these Models and Platforms of Fundamental Truth; and that for thee Reasons.
1. That there may be a certain test for the public Ministry, that so they may know whom they ought to encourage with their countenance and maintenance, as it was Hezekiah's praise that he spake comfortably to all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord, 2 Chron. 30.22. Certainly Magistrates are to take notice what kind of Doctrine is preached in their Dominions; for they are bidden to be wise, and to be instructed, Psal. 2.10. which importeth more than a bare negative act that they should take heed only they do not oppose Christ's Doctrine; but something positive, that they should protect and countenance it. The Magistrate has a great trust as to sacred things, for which he is responsible to God; and many ways may he offend in the not discharging of it, as by opposing the truth, by tolerating Errors, and which is a higher degree, by countenancing those that broach them; to tolerate false Doctrines is a sin, but to share out his respects equally to the Heterodox and Orthodox, is a greater; much more when the Heterodox are only countenanced, and those that preach the good word of the Lord in the Land are burdened with reproaches and all manner of contempt. Certainly the least that can be expected from him, is that the true Religion by his civil sanction should be preserved from reproach; and the professors of it from being affronted in the exercise thereof.
2. Because without preserving of unity and uniformity in Religion, civil peace cannot be long maintained; no differences being carried on with so much heat and earnestness of contention as differences in matters of Religion; for, that which should be a Judge of strifes, then becomes a party; and what should restrain our passions feeds them: Therefore when one scorneth what another adoreth, there must needs be great contentions and exasperations of mind▪ and when every man is left to hold what he lists in matters of Religion, all manner of mischief and confusions must inevitably follow; and everyone stickling for the precedency of his party, there can be no solid union of heart under so vast and boundless a liberty. Tumults in the Church do necessarily beget confusions in the Common-wealth; for the Church and State, like Hippocrates twins, they weep, and laugh, and live, and die together.
3. That youth may be kept untainted, and seasoned with good Principles in Churches and Schools; the durable happiness of the Comm n-wealth lying much in the education of youth which is the seed-plot of future felicity; and we use to say that Errors in the first concoction are hardly mended in the second; when youth are poisoned with Error in their first education, they seldom work it out again in their age and riper years. But because the power of Magistrates in Sacred things is much questioned, and we are usually slandered as a Rigid sort of men that would plant Faith by the Sword, and are more for compulsion of conscience than Information; I shall a little give you a taste of what we hold to be the Magistrates duty in and about Sacred things.
We say therefore that Religion may be considered as to be planted; o • as already planted in a Nation. When it is to be planted, and hath gotten, no interest or footing among a people, the Preachers and Professors of it must run all hazards, and boldly own the Name of Christ, whatever it c • st them; the only weapons which they have to defend their way, are, Prayers and tears; and whatever Proselytes they gain to the faith of Christ, they must use no resistance, but only overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony, not loving their lives to the death, Revel. 12.11. And thus did the Christian Religion get up in the face of the opposite World, not by any public interest and the power of the long sword, but merely by its own evidence and the efficacy of God's grace accompanying the publication thereof; And though it were a Doctrine contrary to nature, and did teach men to row against the stream of flesh and blood, yet it prevailed without any Magistracy to back it. The Primitive Christians, how numerous soever they were, never made head against the Powers then in being, but meekly and quietly suffered all manner of butcheries and tortures for the conscience of their duty to God. And what we say concerning Religion in the general, holdeth true also concerning Reformation or the restitution of the Collapsed state of Religion; when men oppose themselves against the stream of corruptions which by a long succession and descent run down against them, and are armed by Law and Power, they are in patience to possess their souls, and to suffer all manner of extremity for giving their testimony to the truths of God: And in this case we only press the Magistrate to be wise or cautious that he do not oppose Christ Jesus, by whom Kings Reign, and Princes decree Justice.
But when Religion is already planted, and received among a people, and hath gotten the advantage of Law and public Edicts in its favor, not only for its security and protection, but also for its countenance and propagation, then it becomes the people's birth-right as the Law of Moses is called the inreritance of the Congregation of Jacob, Deut 33.4. and ought to be defended and maintained by the Magistrate as well as other Laws and Privileges which are made for the conservation, welfare, and safety of that Nation. Yea much more; because if the Magistrate be the Minister of God for good, Rom. 13.4. then he is to take care of the chief good, which is Religion, as concerning not only the bodies but souls of the people committed to his charge; and therein to take example from the holy Magistrates of the people of the Jews who were zealous for God in this kind.
For first it is the will of Christ who was appointed to be King of Nations as well as King of Saints, Rev. 15.3. not only to erect himself a Government in the hearts of his people; but also to be publicly owned by Nations, as to the Religion which he hath established. There is a National acknowledgement of Christ, as well as a Personal and Ecclesiastical. Christ is personally owned when we receive him into our hearts: He is Ecclesiastically owned by his worship in the Churches of the Saints: And Nationally owned, when the Laws and Constitutions of the civil Government are framed so as to advance the interest of his Scepter, and the Christian Religion is made a National Profession; this is spoken of in many places of Scripture, Gen. 18.8. Isa. 55.5. Isa. 60.12. Matth. 28.20.
2. When Religion is thus received and imbodied into the Laws of a Nation, it is the greatest scorn and affront that can be put upon Christ, that such an advantage should be lost and carelessly looked after, when other Privileges and birth-rights of the people a e so zealously and with such heat and sharpness of contest vindicated and asserted.
In Scripture God often debates the case with Nations upon this account, Jer. 2.9, 10, 11, 12, 13. He calls upon the Sun to look pale upon such a wickedness, and the Creatures to stand amazed that any people should be so foolish as to cast off their God, So Isa. 43.22. God complaineth of Israel they were grown weary of him, and Mich. 6.2, 3. Hos. 8.12. The sum of all those Scriptures is this; If Magistrates who are to open the gates for the King of glory to come in, Psal. 24. and to welcome Christ into their Dominions, should be so far from opening the gates to him that they should turn him out when once entered, and should look upon the great things of his Law as a strange thing, Hose 8.12. that wherein they were not concerned, or which they knew not what to make of, what a vile scorn is this put upon the Majesty of God?
It will be more tolerable for a Nation who had never known Christ, than after a public and National owning of him, they should be cold, indifferent, and negligent in his interest; if the business had been to introduce a Religion, the crime of refusal were not so great, as when the business is to conserve and defend a Religion already received, that it may be transmitted to posterity.
Briefly then, that which we say, is this, that a Religion received by a Nation, and established by Laws, should not be violated, and the Magistrate is to see that it be preserved against all open opposition and secret underminings, and in no case contemned and- scorned. The consciences of men are liable only to the judgment of God; but their words and practices come under the Magistrates cognizance. Inquisition into men's thoughts we condemn; but taking notice of their hard speeches and contemptuous revilings, and public opposition against the truth, is that which we commend in the Christian Magistrate; the Law of Theodosius concerning Heretics doth fully express our sense: If men will perish by holding pernicious Doctrines, let them perish alone; but let not others perish with them by their holding them out. The Canon in this case, is, Their mouths must be stopped; we contend not punishment so much (unless in point of blasphemy ) as prevention. If Seducers be not severely chastised, yet (like wild beasts) they must be muzzled, (that's the Metaphor) that they may do no harm; their mouths must be stopped, lest by teaching things which they ought not, they subvert whole houses. Once more; we are not such Rigid Imposers as the world doth make us to be, as that in lesser things wherein good men may err or differ, we should presently call in the power of the Magistrate to avenge our quarrel; we know there is a due latitude of allowable differences wherein the strong should bear with the weak; and are so far from making use of civil censures in such cases, that we think the Church should not use any extreme course, but rather all manner of patience and indulgence. And thus much for the Magistrates duty.
The Minister's follows.
Secondly; Ministers are to hold fast this form of sound words; for they are God's Witnesses to the present age, and Trustees for the future. 1 Tim. 1.11. The glorious Gospel of the blessed God which is committed to my trust; and 1 Tim. 6.20. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, &c.
Now they are to keep it,
First by Catechizing and instilling these Principles into the hearts of young ones: Foundation stones must be laid with great exa • tness and care; for they support the whole building. It seems by Heb. 6 2. that there was an Ap • stolical Catechism wherein some Principles were laid as a foundation f • r all other Christian Doctrine.
Secondly by assiduous preaching, that they may explain and apply these Principles, and still keep up the remembrance of them in the Church: God that hath appointed Apostles and Prophets to write Scriptures, hath also appointed Pastors and Teacher • to explain and apply Scriptures; Therefore are Evangelic l Ministers called Prophets, because they are to interpret the Oracles of God: Nabi signifying an Interpreter as well as a Foreteller of truths to come, Ephes. 4.11. 'It is a part of our trust to keek these things still a foot. 2 Tim. 2.2. The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same c • mmit th • u to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others, by solid explications, without innovating either as to the matter or expression; for uncouth words make way for strange Doctrines.
Thirdly to vindicate them from the glosses and oppositions of Seducers; for the good Shepherd must not only fodder the sheep, but hunt out the Wolf. This is part of our true;st for we are set (saith the Apostle) for the defense of the Gospel, Phil. 1.17. And we are to convince gainsayers, to hold fast the Word of Truth, Tit. 1.2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the word signifieth to hold fast a thing which others would wrest from us, and implies that Ministers should be good at holding and drawing, and be able to maintain the truth, when others would force it out of their hands.
Two things will hinder us in the discharge of our duty herein.
First a faulty easiness; the wisdom that is from above is gentle and easy to be entreated, but 'tis in that which is good; in other things we must be obstinate and resolute, and not betray the truths of God by our condescensions and compliances. It is said of Chrysostom that he was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by his own simplicity and candour often drawn into inconveniences; when this goodness of nature is apt to abuse us, Ministers should awaken themselves by a zeal for God's glory; shall we be yielding when his Truths are despised, his Name blasphemed? No, let us resist them to the face, and give not place, no not for an hour, Gal. 2.5, 11. as also by a comp • ssion over souls; shall we suffer them to be seduced, and by droves led into error, and be sinfully silent? God forbid.
Secondly, by a fearful cowardice; the Prophet complains, none are valiant for the truth upon the earth, Jer. 9.3. We must stand to these Principles, though it cost us bonds and imprisonments, yea life itself; a good Shepherd will lay down his life for the sheep, Joh • 0. Christ did for their Redemption, and we must, for their confirmation in the Faith, and not be light and vain, off and on as our carnal interests be more or less befriended. Thus for the Ministers duty.
The people's followeth.
Thirly, The people are to hold fast these Truths. Christians of all Ranks and Sizes, they are to hold them fast in their judgments, memory, practice, and in contending for the truth.
First, In their judgments; every Christian should have a Platform of sound Doctrine; not only some scraps and fragments of knowledge but a distinct and clear deleination of Gospel-truth, that they may know things not only at random, but in their order and dependence, how they suit one with another: Two faults are Christians usually guilty of: Either they content themselves with warm affections without knowledge; and then are like a blind horse full of mettle, but ever and anon stumbling; their wild affections misguide them, not being directed and governed by an answerable light. Or secondly, they content themselves with loose Notions, without seeing the truths of God in their frame, and so are never stable and ro • ted in the Faith; therefore this should Christians first look after, the riches of the full assurance of understanding in the Mysteries of godliness.
Secondly, Christians must keep such Models of truth in their memory; the memory is like the Ark wherein the holy things of God are to be kept. The Spirit of Christ Jesus is given not only to teach us all things, but to BRING ALL things to our REMEMBRANCE, Joh. 14.26. and Scripture is written upon this occasion, not to lay in new truths, but to keep the old in remembrance, 2 Pet. 3.1. This second Epistle I write unto you by way of Remembrance. His first Epistle was like the Sermon, the second as the Repetition; the first to inform the judgment, the second to help their memories; so must Ministers pegge in one Sermon with another, never leave repeating the same truths, till they are fastened upon their Auditors. Phil. 3.1. To write the same things to you, to me it is not grievous, but to you it is safe. Men's understandings are dull to conceive, hard to believe, and their memories apt to forget; therefore we should press, if not; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , always the same things; which Hippius liked not; yet 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 much about the same matters, as Socrates advised. The memory is a leaking vessel, therefore as the Apostle exhorts, it concerns us 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , more abundantly to attend, to give the more diligent heed; lest we let them slip, and thereby we lose the Ministers and our own labor;
Thirdly, Hold fast the Models of Divine Truth in your pratice a; practical mem ry is the best memory; to live the truths which we know, is the best way to hold them fast.
There are Heretical manners as well as Heretical Doctrines. Profane Christians live against the Faith, whilst Heterodox Christians dispute against the Faith: There be not a few that live Antimonianisme, and Libertinism, and Atheism, and Popery, whilst others Preach it: Apostates are practical Arminians; a profane man, a practical Atheist. Whilst others therefore live Error, do you live the truth; whilst others deny the Gospel, do you live the Gospel: As you have received the truth as it is in Jesus, so walk in it, to all well-pleasing; without this a man forsakes the truth while he doth profess it. They profess to know God, but in thei • works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work disobedient.
Yea to live the Truths we hear, is the way not to hold them only, but to hold them forth to others; as the Apostle speaks, holding forth the Word of Life, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is a Metaphor taken either from Fire-lights upon the Sea-coasts burning all night, the use whereof is to give notice to Seamen of some neighbouring Rocks and Quicksands that may endanger their Vessel; or else from Torch-bearers in the night-time, who hold out their lights, that passengers may see their way in the dark; according to which Metaphor our Savior calls true real Christians the Lights of the world, a City set on a hill, to enlighten the dark world with their beams of holiness.
It is a blessed thing when the Conversations of Christians are practical Models of Gospel-truths, walking Bibles, holding forth the graces or excellencies of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Fourthly, Christians are to hold fast Models of truth by contending for the Truth, against all the opposition of the reprobate world, in contending and publicly owning the truth, whatever it cost them; God ordereth the love which the people show to the truth, not seldom to be a restraint to carnal Magistrates when they would introduce mischiefs into the Church by force and power, Matth. 14.5. He feared the multitude. Matth. 21.46. They feared the multitude, because they took him for a Prophet. Acts 4.21: They let them go because of the people: Thus doth God make use of the people, though contemptible for their quality, yet considerabe for their number, as a bank of sand to keep back the waves of furious and opposite greatness: Yea when the flood of Persecutions is already broken in upon the Church, their zealous owning of the Truth keeps it alive, and is a means to propagate it to after ages. We owe our present truths not only to the disputations of the Doctors, but the death of the Martyrs who were willing to resist unto blood, striving against sin, Heb. 12.4: By whose flames, after ages see the truths of the Gospel more clearly.
USE.
The first Use may serve for Lamentation.
We live in a frozen and dull age, wherein men have learned to hold fast everything but the Truth; Rich men will hold fast their Estates, though Christ, his Church and Cause have never so much need of them. Ignorant People will hold fast their Ignorance; ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth: Superstitious people will hold fast their Superstitious Customs and Idolatries: Vain people will hold fast their Fashions and Modes: Seduced wrerches will hold fast their Errors; Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris; yea they are bold and impudent in justifying and propagating their false Doctrines; they bend their tongue like their bow for lies, but they are not valiant for the Truth upon the Earth; while multitudes are outrageous against the Truth, few, very few are courageous for it. We may take up that complaint, Isa, 1.21, 22. How is the faithful City become an Harlot? how is our gold become dross? and our Wine mixed with water? who would have thought England could have so quckly forgotten Jesus Christ, and changed the truth of God into a lie? have the Nations been guilty of such a thing! Jer. 2.9. The World once wondered to see itself turned Arian; England may wonder and be astonished to see itself turned Arminian, Antinomian, Socinian, Anabaptist, Quaker, Papist, Atheist, anything but a Christian! This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation; Oh that mine head were waters, and mine eyes rivers of tears, &c.
And now my Brethren, to make some brief Application of what what hath been said, in order to this morning Exercise.
As you have heard, so you have seen, this Moneth now elapsed hath brought to your view an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Model of sound words; you have had as it were, the Sum and Substance of the Gospel preached over in your hearing: I know it falls far short both in respect of Matter and Method, of a perfect body of Divinity, an exact and full delineation of all the chief Heads and Principles of Religion: But considering the smallness of the Circle of this monthly course in which this Model was drawn, I dare take the boldness to say, there hath as much of the Marrow and Spirits of Divinity been drawn forth in these few Morning Lectures, as can be rationally expected from men of such various Studies, and assidnous labors in the Ministerial work. Former ages have rarely heard so much Divinity preached over in many years, as hath been read in your ears in twenty six days: These few Sermons have digested more of the Doctrine of faith, than some large volumes, not of a mean consideration, now extant in the Church of God,
Truly, every single Sermon hath been a little 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 within itself. Each Subject in this morning Exercise hath been handled in so ample a manner, and with so much judgment, acuteness, and perspicuity, that it may well pass for a little Treatise of Divinity; wherein many profound Mysteries have been discust, and stated, not with more judgment in the Doctrine, than with life and vigor in the Use and Application.
The Preachers have sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was spoken was upright, even words of truth. Insomuch that a man that had never heard of a Gospel before, this months conduct had been sufficient, not only to have left him without excuse, but with the wise men's STAR to have led him to Christ.
The more I dread to think what a tremendous account you have to make, who after twenty, twirty, forty years Revelation of the Gospel, have the addition of this month of Sabbaths also, to reckon for in that day when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, &c. if while in this Mirror, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, you are not changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.
I shall not undertake ( as formerly ) to extract the Sum and Substance of what you have heard; I have some hope to be saved that labor upon a better account.
I shall recount to you the Heads only, and Points of Christian Doctrine which have been handled in this Monethly Exercise, that now in the close of all, you may behold as in a Map or Table, the Method and Connection which they hold amongst themselves.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Or a Summary repetition of the Heads of Divinity preached upon in this Course.
The first Divine (after the preparatory Sermon) that preached to you, began with that which is the first and chief object of Knowledge and Faith; that α and ω in Divinity,
[Subject. 1] THERE IS A GOD,
Heb. 11.6. He that cometh to God, must believe that GOD is, &c.
Hereupon, because if there be a God, then he is to be worshipped; and if to be worshipped, then there must be a Rule of that worship; and if a Rule, it must be of God's own appointment; therefore
[Subject. 2] The Second days work was, against all other Books and Writings in the world, to Evince this Truth, the
SCRIPTURES CONTAINED IN THE BOOKS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT,