VII. The excellencies of our rest
shalt receive a hundredfold. (Matt. 19:29.) Spare not, man, for state, for honour, for labour. If heaven do not make amends for all, God hath deceived us; which who dare once imagine. Cast away friends, houses, lands, life, if he bid thee: leap into the sea, as Peter,
(Matt.14:29,) if he command thee: lose thy life, and thou shalt save it everlastingly; when those that saved theirs, shall lose them everlastingly. Venture all, man, upon God's word and promise. There is a day of rest coming which will fully pay for all. All the pence and the farthings thou expendest for him, are contained, with infinite advantage, in the massy gold and jewels of thy crown. When
Alexander had given away his treasure, and they asked him where it was, he pointed to the poor, and said, "In scriniis," In my chests. And when he went upon a hopeful expedition, he gave away his gold; and when he was asked what he kept for himself, he answers, "Spem majorum et meliorum," The hope of greater and better things. How much more boldly may we lay out all, and point to heaven, and say, it is in scriniis, in our everlasting treasure; and take that hope of greater and better things, instead of all. Nay, lose thyself for God, and renounce thyself, and thou shalt at that day find thyself again in him. Give him thyself, and he will receive thee upon the same terms as Socrates did his scholar, Æsehines; who gave himself to his master, because he had nothing else, "Accipio, sed ea lege ut te tibi meliorem reddam quam accepi:" that he may return thee to thyself better than he received thee. So, then, this rest is the good which containeth all other good in it. And thus you see, according to the rules of reason, the transcendent excellency of the saints' glory in the general. We shall next mention the particular excellencies.
CHAP. VII
The Excellencies of our Rest.
YET let us draw a little nearer, and see more immediately from the pure fountain of the Scriptures, what further excellencies this rest affordeth. And the Lord hide us in the clefts of the rock, and cover us
with the hands of indulgent grace, while we approach to take this view. And the Lord grant we may put off from our feet the shoes of irreverence and fleshly conceivings, while we stand upon this holy ground.
Sect. I. And first, it is a most singular honour and ornament, in the style of the saint's rest, to be called the purchased possession; that it is the fruit of the blood of the Son of God; yea, the chief fruit; yea, the end and perfection of all the fruits and efficacy of that blood. Surely, love is the most precious ingredient in the whole composition; and of all the flowers that grew in the garden of love, can there be brought one more sweet and beautiful to the garland, than this blood?
Greater love than this there is not; to lay down the life of the lover.
And to have this our Redeemer ever before our eyes, and the liveliest sense and freshest remembrance of that dying, bleeding love still upon our souls! O, how will it fill our souls with perpetual ravishments, to think, that in the streams of this blood we have swum through the violence of the world, the snares of Satan, the seducements of flesh, the curse of the law, the wrath of an offended
God, the accusations of a guilty conscience, and the vexing doubts and fears of an unbelieving heart, and are passed through all, and are arrived safely at the breast of God! Now we are stupified with vile and senseless hearts, that can hear all the story of this bloody love, and read all the dolors and sufferings of love, and hear all his sad complaints, and all with dulness, and unaffected. He cries to us,
"Behold and see; is it nothing to you, O, all ye that pass by? Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" (Lam. 1:12.) And we will scarce hear or regard the dolorous voice, nor scarce turn aside to view the wounds of him who turned aside, and took us up to heal our wounds at this so dear a rate. But, oh! then our perfected souls will feel as well as hear, and, with feeling apprehensions, flame again in love for love. Now we set his picture, wounded and dying, before our eyes, but can get it no nearer our hearts than if we believed nothing of what we read; but, then, when the obstructions between the eye and the understanding are taken away, and the passage opened between the head and the heart, surely our eyes will everlastingly affect our
heart. And while we view, with one eye, our slain, revived Lord, and with the other eye, our lost, recovered souls, and transcendent glory, these views will eternally pierce us, and warm our very souls. And those eyes, through which folly and lust have so often stolen into our hearts, shall now be the casements to let in the love of our dearest
Lord for ever. Now, though we should, as some do, travel to Jerusalem, and view the Mount of Olives, where he prayed and wept, and see that dolorous way by which he bare his cross, and entered the temple of the holy grave; yea, if we should, with Peter, have stooped down and seen the place where he lay, and beheld his relicts; yet these bolted doors of sin and flesh would have kept out the feeling of all that love. But, oh! that is the joy! We shall then leave these hearts of stone and rock behind us, and the sin that here so close besets us, and the sottish unkindness that followed us so long, shall not be able to follow us into that glory. But we shall behold, as it were, the wounds of love with eyes and hearts of love for ever.
Suppose, a little to help our apprehensions, that a saint, who had partaken of the joys of heaven, hath been translated from as long an abode in hell, and after the experience of such a change, should have stood with Mary and the rest, by the cross of Christ, and have seen the blood, and heard the groans of his Redeemer. What, think you, would love have stirred in his breast or no? Would the voice of his dying Lord have melted his heart or no? O, that I were sensible of what I speak! With what astonishing apprehensions, then, will redeemed saints everlastingly behold their blessed Redeemer! I will not meddle with their vain, audacious question, who must needs know, whether the glorified body of Christ do yet retain either the wounds or scars. But this is most certain, that the memory of it will be as fresh, and the impressions of love as deep, and its working as strong, as if his wounds were still in our eyes, and his complaints still in our ears, and his blood still streaming afresh. Now his heart is open to us, and ours shut to him: but when his heart shall be open, and our hearts open, oh! the blessed congress that there will then be!
What a passionate meeting was there between our new-risen Lord and the first sinful, silly woman that he appears to! How doth love struggle for expressions, and the straitened fire, shut up in the
breast, strive to break forth! (John 20:16; Matt. 28:9.) "Mary!" saith Christ: "Master!" saith Mary: and presently she clasps about his feet, having her heart as near to his heart as her hands were to his feet.
What a meeting of love then, there will be, between the new glorified saint and the glorious Redeemer! But I am here at a loss, my apprehensions fail me, and fall too short; only this, I know, it will be the singular praise of our inheritance, that it was bought with the price of that blood; and the singular joy of the saints, to behold the purchaser and the price together with the possession. Neither will the views of the wounds of love renew our wounds of sorrow: he whose first words, after his resurrection, were to a great sinner:
"Woman, why weepest thou?" (John 20:13;) knows how to raise love and joy by all those views, without raising any cloud of sorrow, or storm of tears at all. (2 Sam. 23:16, 17.) He that made the sacramental commemoration of his death to be his church's feast, will surely make the real enjoyment of its blessed purchase to be marrow and fatness. And if it afforded joy to hear from his mouth,
"This is my body which is given for you," and "This is my blood which was shed for you;" what joy will it afford to hear, "This glory is the fruit of my body and my blood!" And what a merry feast will it be, when we shall drink of the fruit of the vine new with him in the kingdom of his Father, as the fruit of his own blood! David would not drink of the waters which he longed for, because they were the blood of those men who jeoparded their lives for them, and thought them fitter to offer to God, than to please him. But we shall value these waters more highly, and yet drink them the more sweetly, because they are the blood of Christ, not jeoparded only but shed for them.
They will be the more sweet and dear to us, because they were so bitter and dear to him. If the buyer be judicious, we estimate things by the price they cost. If any thing we enjoy were purchased with the life of our dearest friend, how highly should we value it! nay, if a dying friend deliver but a token of his love, how carefully do we preserve it, and still remember him when we behold it, as if his own name were written on it! And will not then the death and blood of our Lord everlastingly sweeten our possessed glory? Methinks they should value the plenty of the Gospel with their peace and freedom at
a higher rate, who may remember what it hath cost; how much precious blood; how many of the lives of God's worthies and witnesses, besides all other costs! Methinks, when I am preaching, or hearing, or reading, I see them as before mine eyes, whose blood was shed to seal the truth, and look the more respectively on them yet living, who suffered to assert it. O, then, when we are rejoicing in glory, how shall we think of the blood that revived our souls, and how shall we look upon him whose sufferings did put that joy into our heart! How carefully preserve we those prizes which with greatest hazard we gained from the enemy! Goliah's sword must be kept as a trophy, and laid up behind the ephod: and in a time of need, David says, "There is none to that." (1 Sam. 20:9.) Surely, when we do divide the spoil, and partake of the prize which our Lord so dearly won, we shall say indeed, "There is none to that." How dear was
Jonathan's love to David, which was testified by stripping himself of the robe that was upon him, and giving it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle; and also by saving him from his father's wrath! How dear for ever will the love of Christ be then to us, who stripped himself, as it were, of his majesty and glory, and put our mean garment of flesh upon him, that he might put the robes of his own righteousness and glory upon us; and saved us, not from cruel injustice, but from his Father's deserved wrath! Well, then, Christians, as you used to do in your books, and on your goods, to write down the price they cost; so do you on your righteousness and on your glory, write down the price, "The precious blood of Christ."
Yet understand this rightly: not this highest glory was in strictest proper sense purchased, so as that it was the most immediate effect of Christ's death. We must take heed that we conceive not of God as a tyrant, who so delighteth in cruelty, as to exchange mercies for stripes, or to give a crown on condition he may torment men. God was never so pleased with the sufferings of the innocent, much less, of his Son, as to sell his mercy properly for their sufferings: fury dwelleth not in him, nor doth he willingly correct the sons of men, nor take pleasure in the death of him that dieth. But the sufferings of
Christ were primarily and immediately to satisfy justice that required blood, and to bear what was due to the sinner, and to receive the blow that should have fallen upon him, and so to restore him to the life he lost, and the happiness he fell from; but this dignity, which surpasseth the first, is, as it were, from the redundancy of his merit, or a secondary fruit of his death. The work of his redemption so well pleased the Father, that he gave him power to advance his chosen to a higher dignity than they fell from, and to give them the glory which was given to himself; and all this according to his counsel, and the good pleasure of his own will.
Sect. II. The second pearl in the saint's diadem, is, that it is free. This seemeth, as Pharaoh's second kine, to devour the former; and, as the angel to Balaam, to meet it with a drawn sword of a full opposition.
But the seeming discord is but a pleasing diversity, composed into that harmony which constitutes the melody. These two attributes, purchased and free, are the two chains of gold, which by their pleasant twisting, do make up the wreath for the heads of the pillars in the temple of God. (1 Kings 7:17.) It was dear to Christ, but free to us. When Christ was to buy, silver and gold were nothing worth, prayers and tears could not suffice, nor any thing below his blood; but when we come to buy, the price is fallen to just nothing: our buying is but receiving, we have it freely, without money, and without price. Nor do the Gospel conditions make it the less free, or the covenant tenor before mentioned contradict any of this. If the Gospel conditions had been such as are the laws, or payment of the debt required at our hands, the freeness then were more questionable; yea, if God had said to us, 'Sinners, if you will satisfy my justice but for one of your sins, I will forgive you all the rest;' it would have been a hard condition on our part, and the grace of the covenant not so free, as our disability doth necessarily require. But if all the condition be our cordial acceptation, surely we deserve not the name of purchasers: thankful accepting of a free acquittance is no paying of a debt. If life be offered to a condemned man, upon condition that he shall not refuse the offer, I think the favour is nevertheless free; nay, though the condition were, that he should
beg, and wait before he have his pardon, and take him for his Lord who hath thus redeemed him: and this is no satisfying of the justice of the law; especially when the condition is also given, as it is by God to all his chosen; surely, then, here is all free, if the Father freely forgive the Son, and the Son freely pay the debt; and if God do freely accept that way of payment, when he might have required it of the principal, and if both Father and Son do freely offer us the purchased life upon those fair conditions, and if they also freely send the Spirit to enable us to perform those conditions, then what is here that is not free? Is not every stone that builds this temple free stone? O, the everlasting admiration that must needs surprise the saints to think of this freeness! What did the Lord see in me that he should judge me meet for such a state? That I, who was but a poor, diseased, despised wretch, should be clad in the brightness of this glory! That I, a silly, creeping, breathing worm, should be advanced to this high dignity!
That I, who was but lately groaning, weeping, dying, should now be as full of joy as my heart can hold; yea, should be taken from the grave, where I was rotting and stinking, and from the dust and darkness where I seemed forgotten, and here set before his throne!
That I should be taken with Mordecai from captivity, to be set next unto the King; and with Daniel from the den, to be made ruler of princes and provinces: and with Saul from seeking asses, to be advanced to a kingdom! O, who can fathom unmeasurable love?
Indeed, if the proud-hearted, self-ignorant, self-admiring sinners should be thus advanced, who think none so fit for preferment as themselves, perhaps instead of admiring free love, they would, with those unhappy angels, be discontented yet with their estate. But when the self-denying, self-accusing, humble soul, who thought himself unworthy the ground he trod on, and the air he breathed in, unworthy to eat, drink, or live, when he shall be taken up into this glory! he who dare scarce come among, or speak to the imperfect saints on earth, because he was unworthy; he who dare scarce hear, or scarce read the Scripture, or scarce pray and call God Father, or scarcely receive the sacraments of his covenant, and all because he was unworthy, for this soul to find itself wrapt up into heaven, and closed in the arms of Christ even in a moment! do but think with
yourselves, what the transporting, astonishing admiration of such a soul will be! He that durst not lift up his eyes to heaven, but stood afar off, smiting on his breast, and crying, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner;" now to be lift up to heaven himself! He who was wont to write his name in Bradford's style, "The unthankful, the hardhearted, the unworthy sinner," and was wont to admire, that patience could bear so long, and justice suffer him to live; surely he will admire at this alteration, when he shall find by experience, that unworthiness could not hinder his salvation, which he thought would have bereaved him of every mercy! Ah, Christian, there is no talk of our worthiness or unworthiness; if worthiness were our condition for admittance, we might sit down with St. John and weep, "because none in heaven or earth is found worthy; but the Lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy and hath prevailed;" and by that title must we hold the inheritance: we shall offer there the offering that David refused, even praise for that which cost us nothing. Here our commission runs, "Freely ye have received, freely give:" but Christ hath dearly received, yet freely gives. The Master heals us of our leprosy freely; but Gehazi, who had no finger in the cure, will surely run after us, and take something of us, and falsely pretend, it is his master's pleasure. The pope, and his servants, will be paid for their pardons and indulgences, but Christ will take nothing for his. The fees of their prelates' courts are large, and commutation of penance must cost men's purses dear, or else they must be cast out of the synagogue, and soul and body delivered up to the devil: but none are shut out of that church for want of money, nor is poverty any eyesore to Christ.
An empty heart may bar them out, but an empty purse cannot: his kingdom of grace hath ever been more consistent with despised poverty than wealth and honour, and riches occasion the difficulty of entrance far more than want can do, "for that which is highly esteemed among men, is despised with God:" and so it is also; "the poor of the world, rich in faith, whom God hath chosen to be heirs of that kingdom, which he hath prepared for them that love him." I know the true "labourer is worthy of his hire:" and, "they that serve at the altar, should live upon the altar:" and, "it is not fit to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn:" (James 2:5; 1 Cor. 6:4–13.) and I
know, it is either hellish malice, or penurious baseness, or ignorance of the weight of their work and burden, that makes their maintenance so generally incompetent, and their very livelihood and subsistence so envied and grudged at; and that it is a mere plot of the prince of darkness, for the diversion of their thoughts, that they must be studying how to get bread for their own and children's mouths, when they should be preparing the bread of life for their people's souls; but yet let me desire the right-aiming ministers of Christ, to consider what is expedient as well as what is lawful, and that the saving of one soul is better than a thousand pounds a year, and our gain, though due, is a cursed gain, which is a stumbling-block to our people's souls: let us make the free Gospel as little burdensome and chargeable as is possible. I had rather never take their tithes while I live, than by them to destroy the souls for whom Christ died; (1 Cor.
9:18, 19;) and though God hath ordained, that "they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel," yet I had rather suffer all things than hinder the Gospel; (Rom. 14:13, 15, 20, 21;) and it were better for me to die than that any man should make this my glorying void. (Rom. 15:1, 2; 1 Cor. 9:12–15.) Though the well-leading elders be worthy of double honour, especially the laborious in the word and doctrine, yet if the necessity of souls and the promoting of the Gospel require it, I had rather preach the Gospel in hunger and rags, than rigidly contend for what is my due; and if I should do so, yet have I not whereof to glory, for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe be to me if I preach not the Gospel, though I never received any thing from men. (1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Cor. 4:10–12; 9:16.) How unbeseeming the messengers of his free grace and kingdom is it, rather to lose the hearts and souls of their people, than to lose a groat of their due; and rather to exasperate them against the message of God, than to forbear somewhat of their right, and to contend with them at law for the wages of the Gospel, and to make the glad tidings to their yet carnal hearts seem to be sad tidings because of this burden! this is not the way of Christ and his apostles, nor according to the selfdenying, yielding, suffering doctrine which they taught. Away with all those actions that are against the main end of our studies and calling, which is to win souls; and woe be upon that gain which hinders the
gaining of men to Christ. I know, flesh will here object necessities, and distrust will not want arguments; but we who have enough to answer to the diffidence of our people, let us take home some of our answers to ourselves, and teach ourselves first before we teach them.
How many have you known that God suffered to starve in his vineyard?
But this is our exceeding consolation, that though we may pay for our Bibles, and books, and sermons, and, it may be, paid for our freedom too, to enjoy and use them; yet as we paid nothing for God's eternal love, and nothing for the Son of his love, and nothing for his Spirit, and our grace and faith, and nothing for our pardon, so shall we pay nothing for our eternal rest. We may pay for the bread and wine, but we shall not pay for the body and blood, nor for the great things of the covenant which it seals unto us; and, indeed, we have a valuable price to give for those, but for these we have none at all: yet this is not all: if it were only for nothing, and without our merit, the wonder were great; but it is, moreover, against our merit, and against our long endeavouring of our own ruin. O, the broken heart that hath known the desert of sin, doth both understand and feel what I say!
What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between our deservings and our receivings; between the state we should have been in, and the state we are in; to look down upon hell, and see the vast difference that free grace hath made betwixt us and them; to see the inheritance there, which we were born to, so different from that which we are adopted to! O, what pangs of love will it cause within us, to think, Yonder was my native right, my deserved portion; those should have been my hideous cries, my doleful groans, my easeless pains, my endless torment; those unquenchable flames I should have lain in; that never-dying worm should have fed upon me; yonder was the place that sin would have brought me to, but this is it that Christ hath brought me to; yonder death was the wages of my sin, but this eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Did not I neglect grace, and make light of the offers of life, and slight my Redeemer's blood a long time, as well as yonder suffering souls? Did I not let pass my time, and
forget my God and soul, as well as they; and was not I born in sin and wrath as well as they? O, who made me to differ? Was my heart naturally any readier for Christ than theirs, or any whit better affected to the Spirit's persuasions? Should I ever have begun to love, if God had not begun to me; or ever be willing, if he had not made me willing; or ever differed, if he had not made me to differ? Had I not now been in those flames, if I had had mine own way, and been let alone to mine own will? Did I not resist as powerful means, and lose as fair advantages, as they? And should I not have lingered in Sodom till the flames had seized on me, if God had not in mercy carried me out? O, how free was all this love; and how free is this enjoyed glory!
Doubtless this will be our everlasting admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner; that such high advancement, and such long unfruitfulness and unkindness can be the state of the same persons; and that such vile rebellions can conclude in such most precious joys: but no thanks to us, nor to any of our duties and labours, much less to our neglects and laziness: we know to whom the praise is due, and must be given for ever; and, indeed, to this very end it was, that infinite wisdom did cast the whole design of man's salvation into the mould of purchase and freeness, that the love and joy of man might be perfected, and the honour of grace most highly advanced, that the thought of merit might neither cloud the one nor obstruct the other, and that on these two hinges the gates of heaven might turn. So then, let "Deserved" be written on the door of hell, but on the door of heaven and life, "The free gift."
Sect. III. Thirdly, The third comfortable attribute of this rest is, that it is the saint's proper and peculiar possession. It belongs to no other of all the sons of men; not that it would have detracted from the greatness or freeness of the gift, if God had so pleased, that all the world should have enjoyed it: but when God hath resolved otherwise, that it must be enjoyed but by few, to find our names among that number must needs make us the more to value our enjoyment. If all
Egypt had been light, the Israelites should not have had the less; but yet to enjoy that light alone, while their neighbours live in thick
darkness, must make them more sensible of their privilege.
Distinguishing, separating mercy affecteth more than any mercy. If it should rain on our grounds alone, or the sun shine alone upon our habitations, or the blessing of heaven divide between our flocks and other men's, as between Jacob's and Laban's, we should more feelingly acknowledge mercy than now, while we possess the same in common. Ordinariness dulleth our sense; and if miracles were common they would be slighted. If Pharaoh had passed as safely as Israel, the Red Sea would have been less remembered; if the firstborn of Egypt had not been slain, the first-born of Israel had not been the Lord's peculiar; if the rest of the world had not been drowned, and the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah burned, the saving of Noah had been no wonder, nor Lot's deliverance so much talked of.
The lower the weighty end of the balance descends, the higher is the other lifted up; and the falling of one of the sails of the windmill, is the occasion of the rising of the other. It would be no extenuation of the mercies of the saints here, if all the world were as holy as they; and the communication of their happiness is their greatest desire; yet it might perhaps dull their thankfulness, and differencing grace would not be known. But when one should be enlightened, and another left in darkness; one reformed, and another by his lusts enslaved; it makes them cry out, with the disciples, "Lord, how is it, that thou wilt reveal thyself to us, and not unto the world?" (John
14:22.) When the prophet shall be sent to one widow only of all that were in Samaria, and to cleanse one Naaman of all the lepers, the mercy is more observable. (Luke 4:24–27.) Oh! that will surely be a day of passionate sense on both sides; when two shall be in a bed, and two in the field; the one taken, and the other forsaken. For a Christian, who is conscious of his own undeserving and ill-deserving, to see his companion in sin perish, his neighbour, kinsman, father, mother, wife, child, for ever in hell, while he is preferred among the blessed; to see other men's sins eternally plagued, while his are all pardoned; to see those that were wont to sit with us in the same seat, and eat with us at the table, and join with us in the same duties, now to lie tormented in those flames, while we are triumphing in divine praises; that Lot must leave his sons-in-law in the flames of Sodom,
and the wife of his bosom as a monument of divine vengeance, and escape with his two daughters alone; here is choosing, distinguishing mercy! Therefore, the Scripture seems to affirm, that as the damned souls shall, from hell, see the saint's happiness, to increase their own torments, so shall the blessed, from heaven, behold the wicked's misery to the increase of their own joy; and as they looked on the dead bodies of Christ's two witnesses, slain in the streets, and they that dwelt on the earth rejoiced over them and made merry, (Rev.
11:10,) and as the wicked here behold the calamities of God's people with gladness, so shall the saints look down upon them in the burning lake, and in the sense of their own happiness, and in the approbation of God's just proceedings, they shall rejoice and sing,
"Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast thus judged; for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. Allelujah, salvation, and glory, and honour, and power to our
God; for true and righteous are his judgments." (Rev. 16:5, 6.) And as the command is over Babylon, so will it be over all the condemned souls, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her." (Rev. 18:20, and 19:7,
8.) By this time the impenitent world will see a reason for the saints' singularity while they were on earth, and will be able to answer their own demands, Why must you be more holy than your neighbours? even because they would fain be more happy than their neighbours: and why cannot you do as others, and live as the world about you? even because they are full loth to speed as those others, or to be damned with the world about them. Sincere singularity in holiness, is, by this time, known to be neither hypocrisy nor folly. If to be singular in that glory be so desirable, surely to be singular in godly living is not contemptible. As every one of them knows his own sore, and his own grief, so shall every one of them feel his own joy: and if they can now call Christ their own, and call God their own God, how much more then upon their full possession of him! for as he takes his people for his inheritance, so will he himself be the inheritance of his people for ever. (2 Chron. 6:29; Psal. 16:5, 33:12, 67:6, and 78:71.)
Sect. IV. A fourth comfortable adjunet of this rest is, that it is the fellowship of the blessed saints and angels of God. Not so singular will the Christian be, as to be solitary. Though it be proper to the saints only, yet is it common to all the saints; for what is it but an association of blessed spirits in God; a corporation of perfected saints, whereof Christ is the head; the communion of saints completed? Nor doth this make those joys to be therefore mediate, derived by creatures to us, as here; for all the lines may be drawn from the centre, and not from each other, and yet their collocation make them more comely than one alone could be. Though the strings receive not their sound and sweetness from each other, yet their concurrence causeth that harmony which could not be by one alone; for those that have prayed, and fasted, and wept, and watched, and waited together, now to joy, and enjoy, and praise together, methinks should much advance their pleasure. Whatsoever it will be upon the great change, that will be in our natures perfected; sure I am, according to the present temperature of the most sanctified human affections, it would affect accordingly: and he who mentioneth the qualifications of our happiness on purpose that our joy may be full, and maketh so oft mention of our consociation and conjunction in his praises, sure doth hereby intimate to us that this will be some advantage to our joys. Certain I am of this, fellow-Christians, that as we have been together in the labour, duty, danger, and distress, so shall we be in the great recompense and deliverance; and as we have been scorned and despised, so shall we be crowned and honoured together; and we who have gone through the day of sadness, shall enjoy together that day of gladness; and those who have been with us in persecution and prison, shall be with us also in that palace of consolation. Can the wilful world say, If our forefathers and friends be all in hell, we will venture there too? And may not the Christian say, on better grounds, Seeing my faithful friends are gone before me to heaven, I am much the more willing to be there too? Oh! the blessed day, dear friends, when we that were wont to enquire together, and hear of heaven, and talk of heaven together, shall then live in heaven together; when we who were wont to complain to one another, and open our doubts to one another, and our fears, whether
ever we should come there or no, shall then rejoice with one another, and triumph over those doubts and fears; when we who were wont formerly, in private, to meet together for mutual edification, shall now, most publicly, be conjoined in the same consolation. Those same disciples, who were wont to meet in a private house for fear of the Jews, are now met in the celestial habitation without fear; and as their fear then did cause them to shut the door against their enemies, so will God's justice shut it now. Oh! when I look in the faces of the precious people of God, and believingly think of this day, what a refreshing thought is it! Shall we not there remember, think you, the pikes which we passed through here; our fellowship in duty and in sufferings; how oft our groans made, as it were, one sound, our conjunct tears but one stream, and our conjunct desires but one prayer? and now all our praises shall make up one melody, and all our churches one church, and all ourselves but one body; for we shall be one in Christ, even as he and the Father are one. It is true we must be very careful in this case, that, in our thoughts, we look not for that in the saints which is alone in Christ, and that we give them not his own prerogative, nor expect too great a part of our comfort in the fruition of them: we are prone enough to this kind of idolatry. But, yet, he who commands us so to love them now, will give us leave, in the same subordination to himself, to love them then, when himself hath made them much more lovely: and if we may love them, we shall surely rejoice in them; for love and enjoyment cannot stand without an answerable joy. If the forethought of sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, may be our lawful joy, then how much more that real sight and actual possession! It cannot choose but be comfortable to me to think of that day, when I shall join with Moses in his song, with David in his psalms of praise, and with all the redeemed in the song of the Lamb for ever; when we shall see Enoch walking with God, Noah enjoying the end of his singularity, Joseph of his integrity, Job of his patience,
Hezekiah of his uprightness, and all the saints the end of their faith.
Will it be nothing conducible to the completing of our comforts, to live eternally with Peter, Paul, Austin, Chrysostom, Jerome,
Wickliffe, Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Zanchius,
Paræus, Piscator, Camero; with Hooper, Bradford, Latimer, Glover, Saunders, Philpot, with Reighnolds, Whitaker, Cartwright, Brightman, Bayne, Bradshaw, Bolton, Ball, Hildersham, Pemble,
Twisse, Ames, Preston, Sibbs? "O fœlicem diem (said holy Grynæus) quam ad illud animarum concilium proficiscar, et ex hac turba colluvione discedam!" O happy day, when I shall depart out of this crowd and sink, and go to that same council of souls! I know that Christ is all in all; and that it is the presence of God that maketh heaven to be heaven. But, yet, it much sweeteneth the thoughts of that place to me, to remember that there are such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ; with whom I took sweet counsel, and with whom I went up to the house of God; who walked with me in the fear of God, and integrity of their hearts: in the face of whose conversations there was written the name of Christ; whose sweet and sensible mention of his excellencies hath made my heart to burn within me. To think such a friend, that died at such a time, and such a one at another time; Oh! what a number of them could I name; and that all these are entered into rest; and we shall surely go to them, but they shall not return to us. It is a question with some, whether we shall know each other in heaven or no. Surely, there shall no knowledge cease which now we have, but only that which implieth our imperfection; and what imperfection can this imply? Nay, our present knowledge shall be increased beyond belief. (2 Cor. 5:16.) It shall indeed be done away, but as the light of candles and stars is done away, by the rising of the sun; which is more properly a doing away of our ignorance than of our knowledge: indeed, we shall not know each other after the flesh; nor by stature, voice, colour, complexion, visage, or outward shape. If we had so known Christ, we should know him no more; nor by parts and gifts of learning, nor titles of honour and worldly dignity; nor by terms of affinity and consanguinity, nor benefits, nor such relations; nor by youth or age; nor, I think, by sex: but by the image of Christ, and spiritual relation, and former faithfulness in improving our talents, beyond doubt, we shall know and be known. Nor is it only our old acquaintance, but all the saints of all ages, whose faces in the flesh we never saw, whom we shall there both know and comfortably enjoy. Luther, in his last
sickness, being asked his judgment, whether we shall know one another in heaven, answered thus, "Quid accidit Adamo? Nunquam ille viderat Evam," &c., i.e. How was it with Adam? He had never seen Eve: yet he asketh not, who she was, or whence she came; but saith, 'She is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone.' And how knew he that? Why, being full of the Holy Ghost, and indued with the true knowledge of God, he so pronounced. After the same sort shall we be renewed by Christ in another life, and we shall know our parents, wives, children, &c. much more perfectly than Adam did then know
Eve; yea, and angels as well as saints, will be our blessed acquaintance and sweet associates. We have every one now our own angels, then beholding our Father's face; and those who now are willingly ministering spirits for our good, will willingly then be our companions in joy for the perfecting of our good; and they who had such joy in heaven for our conversion, will gladly rejoice with us in our glorification. I think, Christian, this will be a more honourable assembly than ever you beheld; and a more happy society than you were ever of before. Then we shall truly say, as David, "I am a companion of all them that fear thee: when we are come to Mount
Sion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."
(Acts 12:15; Matt. 18:10; Luke 15:10, and 16:22; Heb. 1:7, &c., and 12:22–24; Psal. 119:16.) We are come thither already in respect of title, and of earnest and first-fruits; but we shall then come into the full possession. O beloved, if it be a happiness to live with the saints in their imperfection, when they have sin to imbitter, as well as holiness to sweeten their society, what will it be to live with them in their perfection, where saints are wholly and only saints; if it be a delight to hear them pray or preach, what will it be to hear them praise; if we thought ourselves in the suburbs of heaven when we heard them set forth the beauty of our Lord, and speak of the excellencies of his kingdom, what a day will it be when we shall join with them in praises to our Lord in and for that kingdom! Now we
have corruption, and they have corruption; and we are more apt to set awork each other's corruption than our graces; and so lose the benefit of their company while we do enjoy it, because we know not how to make use of a saint: but then it will not be so. Now we spend many an hour which might be profitable, in a dull, silent looking on each other, or else in vain and common conference; but then it will not be so. Now the best do know but in part, and therefore can instruct and help us but in part; but then we shall, with them, make up one perfect man. So then, I conclude, this is one singular excellency of the rest of heaven, that we are "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." (Eph. 2:19.)
Sect. V. Fifthly, Another excellent property of our rest will be, that the joys of it are immediately from God. Nor doth this contradict the former, as I have before made plain. Whether Christ, who is God as well as man, shall be the conveyer of all from the divine nature to us; and whether the giving up the kingdom to the Father do imply the ceasing of the Mediator's office; or whether he shall be Mediator fruitionis, as well as acquisitionis; are questions which I will not now attempt to handle. But this is sure: we shall see God face to face, and stand continually in his presence, and consequently derive our life and comfort immediately from him. Whether God will make use of any creatures for our service then; or, if any, of what creatures, and what use, is more than I yet know. It seems that the creature shall have a day of deliverance, and that into the glorious liberty of the sons of God: (Rom. 8:21:) but whether this before, or at the great and full deliverance, or whether to endure to eternity, or to what particular employment they shall be continued, are questions yet too hard for me. When God speaks them plainer, and mine understanding is made clearer, then I may know these: but it is certain that at least our most and great joys will be immediate, if not all. Now, we have nothing at all immediately, but at the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth hand, or how many, who knows? From the earth, from man, from sun and moon, from the influence of the planets, from the ministration of angels, and from the Spirit and Christ; and, doubtless, the further the stream runs from the fountain,
the more impure it is. It gathers some defilement from every unclean channel it passeth through. Though it savours not, in the hand of angels, of the imperfection of sinners, yet it doth of the imperfection of creatures; and as it comes from man it savours of both. How quick and piercing is the word in itself! yet many times it never enters, being managed by a feeble arm. Oh! what weight and worth is there in every passage of the blessed Gospel! enough, one would think, to enter and force the dullest soul, and wholly possess its thoughts and affections: and yet how oft doth it fall as water upon a stone; and how easily can our hearts sleep out a sermon time; and much because these words of life do die in the delivery, and the fruit of our conception is almost still-born! Our people's spirits remain congealed, while we who are intrusted with the word that should melt them, do suffer it to freeze between our lips. We speak, indeed, of soul-concerning truths, and set before them life and death; but it is with such self-seeking affectation, and in such a lazy, formal, customary strain, like the pace the Spaniard rides, that the people little think we are in good sadness, or that our hearts do mean as our tongues do speak. I have heard of some tongues that can lick a coal of fire till it be cold. I fear these tongues are in most of our mouths, and that the breath that is given us to blow up this fire, till it flame in our people's souls, is rather used to blow it out. Such preaching is it that hath brought the most to hear sermons, as they say their creed and pater-nosters, even as a few good words of course. How many a cold and mean sermon that yet contains most precious truths! The things of God which we handle are divine; but our manner of handling too human: and there is little or none that ever we touch, but will leave the print of our fingers behind us; but if God should speak this word himself, it would be a piercing, melting word indeed. How full of comfort are the Gospel promises! yet do we oft so heartlessly declare them, that the broken, bleeding-hearted saints, are much debarred of their joys. Christ is indeed a precious pearl, but oft held forth in leprous hands: and thus do we disgrace the riches of the Gospel, when it is the work of our calling to make it honourable in the eyes of men; and we dim the glory of that jewel by our dull and low expressions, and dunghill conversations, whose lustre we do pretend
to discover, while the hearers judge of it by our expressions, and not its genuine proper worth. The truth is, the best of men do but apprehend but little of what God, in his word, expresseth, and what they do apprehend they are unable to utter. Human language is not so copious as the heart's conceivings are; and what we possibly might declare, yet through our own unbelief, stupidity, laziness, and other corruptions, we usually fail in; and what we do declare, yet the darkness of our people's understandings, and the sad senselessness of their hearts, do usually shut out and make void. So that as all the works of God are perfect in their season, as he is perfect; so are all the works of man, as himself, imperfect: and those which God performeth by the hand of man, will too much savour of the instrument. If an angel from heaven should preach the Gospel, yet could he not deliver it according to its glory; much less we, who never saw what they have seen, and keep this treasure in earthen vessels. The comforts that flow through sermons, through sacraments, through reading, and company, and conference, and creatures, are but half comforts; and the life that comes by these is but half a life, in comparison of those which the Almighty shall speak with his own mouth, and reach forth to us with his own hand. The Christian knows by experience, now, that his most immediate joys are his sweetest joys: those which have least of man, and are most directly from the Spirit. That is one reason, as I conceive, why
Christians who are much in secret prayer, and in meditation and contemplation, rather than they who are more in hearing, reading, and conference, are men of greatest life and joy, because they are nearer the well-head, and have all more immediately from God himself: and that I conceive the reason also, why we are more indisposed to those secret duties, and can more easily bring our hearts to hear, and read, and confer, than to secret prayer, selfexamination, and meditation, because in the former is more of man; and in these we approach the Lord alone, and our natures draw back from the most spiritual and fruitful duties: not that we should therefore cast off the other, and neglect any ordinance of God. To live above them, while we use them, is the way of a Christian: but to live above ordinances, as to live without them, is to live without the
compass of the Gospel lines, and so without the government of Christ. Let such beware, lest while they would be higher than
Christians, they prove in the end lower than men. We are not yet come to the time and state where we shall have all from God's immediate hand. As God hath made all creatures, and instituted all ordinances for us, so will he continue our need of all. We must yet be contented with love-tokens from him, till we come to receive our all in him. We must be thankful if Joseph sustain our lives, by relieving us in our famine with his provisions, till we come to see his own face.
There is joy in these remote receivings, but the fulness is in his own presence. O, Christians! you will then know the difference betwixt the creature and the Creator, and the content that each of them affords. We shall then have light without a candle, and a perpetual day without the sun; "for the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof:" (Rev. 21:23:) nay, there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, nor light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever." (Rev. 22:5.)
We shall then have rest without sleep, and be kept from cold without our clothing, and need no fig-leaves to hide our shame: for God will be our rest, and Christ our clothing, and shame and sin will cease together. We shall then have health without physic, and strength without the use of food; for the Lord God will be our strength, and the light of his countenance will be health to our souls, and marrow to our bones. We shall then, and never till then, have enlightened understandings without Scripture, and be governed without a written law: for the Lord will perfect his law in our hearts, and we shall be all perfectly taught of God. His own will shall be our law, and his own face shall be our light for ever. Then shall we have joy, which we drew not from the promises, nor was fetched us home by faith or hope. Beholding and possessing will exclude the most of these. We shall then have communion without sacraments, when Christ shall drink with us of the fruit of the vine new, that is, refresh us with the comforting wine of immediate fruition, in the kingdom of his Father.
To have necessities and no supply, is the case of them in hell; to have necessity supplied by the means of creatures, is the case of us on
earth; to have necessity supplied immediately from God, is the case of the saints in heaven; to have no necessity at all, is the prerogative of God himself. The more of God is seen and received with, and by the means, and creature here, the nearer is our state like that in glory. In a word, we have now our mercies, as Benjamin had Joseph's cup; (Gen. 44:12;) we find them at a distance from God, and scarcely know from whence they come, and understand not the good-will intended in them, but are oft ready to fear they come in wrath, and think they will but work our ruin. But when we shall feed at Joseph's own house, yea, receive our portion from his own hand; when he shall fully unbowel his love unto us, and take us to dwell in Goshen by him; when we shall live in our Father's house and presence, and "God shall be all and in all;" then we are, indeed, at home in rest.
Sect. VI. Sixthly, Again, a further excellency is this: it will be unto us a seasonable rest. He that expecteth the fruit of this vineyard in season, and maketh his people as trees planted by the waters, fruitful in their season, he will also give them the crown in season. He that will have the words of joy spoken to the weary in season, will sure cause that time of joy to appear in the meetest season. And they who knew the season of grace, and did repent and believe in season, shall also, if they faint not, reap in season. (Mark 12:1; Luke 20:10; Psal.
1:3; Isa. 50:4; Gal. 6:9.) If God will not miss the season of common mercies, even to his enemies, but "will give both the former and the latter rain in their season, and the appointed weeks of the harvest in its season," (Jer. 5:24, and 33:20,) and by an inviolable covenant hath established day and night in their seasons; then, sure, the harvest of the saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season. Doubtless, he that would not stay a day longer than his promise, but brought Israel out of Egypt that self-same day that the four hundred and thirty years were expired; neither will he fail of one day or hour of the fittest season for his people's glory. (Exod. 12:40,
41; Jer. 8:7.) And as Christ failed not to come in the fulness of time, even then when Daniel and others had foretold his coming; so in the fulness and fitness of time will his second coming be. He that hath given the stork, the crane, the swallow, to know their appointed time,
will surely keep his time appointed. When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness, will not the day breaking and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable? When we have endured a hard winter in this cold climate, will not the reviving spring be then seasonable? When we have (as St. Paul, Acts 27:7, 9) sailed slowly many days, and much time spent, and sailing now grown more dangerous; and when neither sun, nor stars, in many days appear, and no small tempest lieth on us, and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away, do you think that the haven of rest is not then seasonable? When we have passed a long and tedious journey, and that through no small dangers, is not home then seasonable? When we have had a long and perilous war, and have lived in the midst of furious enemies, and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch, and received from them many a wound, would not a peace with victory, be now seasonable? When we have been captivated in many years' imprisonment, and insulted over by scornful foes, and suffered many pinching wants, and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries, would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful state, even from this prison to a throne, be now seasonable? Surely, a man would think, who looks upon the face of the world, that rest should to all men seem seasonable. Some of us are languishing under continual weakness, and groaning under most grievous pains, crying, in the morning, 'Would God it were evening!' and, in the evening,
'Would God it were morning!' weary of going, weary of sitting, weary of standing, weary of lying, weary of eating, of speaking, of walking, weary of our very friends, weary of ourselves. Oh! how oft hath this been mine own case; and is not rest yet seasonable? Some are complaining under the pressure of the times; weary of their taxes, weary of their quartering, weary of plunderings, weary of their fears and dangers, weary of their poverty and wants, and is not rest yet seasonable? Whither can you go, or into what company can you come, where the voice of complaining doth not show, that men live in a continual weariness, but especially the saints, who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel? What godly society almost can you fall into, but you shall hear by their moans that somewhat aileth them? Some weary of a blind mind, doubting concerning the way
they walk in, unsettled in almost all their thoughts; some weary of a hard heart, some of a proud, some of a passionate, and some of all these, and much more: some weary of their daily doubtings, and fear concerning their spiritual estate; and some of the want of spiritual joys, and some of the sense of God's wrath; and is not rest now seasonable? When a poor Christian hath desired, and prayed, and waited for deliverance many a year, is it not then seasonable? When he is ready almost to give up, and saith, 'I am afraid I shall not reach the end, and that my faith and patience will scarce hold out; is not this a fit season for rest? If it were to Joseph a seasonable message, which called him from the prison to Pharaoh's court; or if the return of his Benjamin, the tidings that Joseph was yet alive, and the sight of the chariots which should convey him to Egypt, were seasonable for the reviving of Jacob's spirits; then, methinks, the message for a release from the flesh, and our convoy to Christ, should be a seasonable and welcome message. If the voice of the king were seasonable to Daniel, (Dan. 6:19, &c.,) early in the morning calling him from his den, that he might advance him to more than former dignity, then methinks that morning voice of Christ our King, calling us from our terrors among lions, to possess his rest among his saints, should be to us a very seasonable voice. Will not Canaan be seasonable after so many years' travel, and that through a hazardous and grievous wilderness? Indeed, to the world it is never in season.
They are already at their own home, and have what they most desire.
They are not weary of their present state. The saints' sorrow is their joy, and the saints' weariness is their rest: their weary day is coming, where there is no more expectation of rest, but for the thirsty soul to enjoy the fountain, and the hungry to be filled with the bread of life, and the naked to be clothed from above, for the children to come to their Father's house, and the disjoined member to be conjoined with their Head. Methinks this should be seldom unseasonable. When the atheistical world began to insult, and question the truth of Scripture promises, and ask us, 'Where is now your God? Where is your longlooked-for glory? Where is the promise of your Lord's coming?' O, how seasonable, then, to convince these unbelievers, to silence these scoffers, to comfort the dejected, waiting believer, will the appearing
of our Lord be! We are oft grudging now that we have not a greater share of comforts; that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent; that the world prospers more than we; that our prayers are not presently answered, not considering that our portion is kept to a fitter season; that these are not always winter fruits, but when summer comes we shall have our harvest. We grudge that we do not find a Canaan in the wilderness, or cities of rest in Noah's ark, and the songs of Sion in a strange land; that we have not a harbour in the main ocean, or find not our home in the middle way, and are not crowned in the midst of the fight, and have not our rest in the heat of the day, and have not our inheritance before we are at age, and have not heaven before we leave the earth; and would not all this be very unseasonable?
I confess, in regard of the church's service, the removing of the saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable; therefore, doth God use it as a judgment, and therefore the church had ever prayed hard before they would part with them, and greatly laid to heart their loss; therefore are the great mournings at the saints' departures, and the sad hearts that accompany them to their graves; but this is not especially for the departed, but for themselves and their children, as Christ bid the weeping woman; therefore, also, it is, that the saints, in danger of death, have often begged for their lives, with that argument, "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit?" (Psal. 30:9.) "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave; or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psal. 88:10.) "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" (Psal. 6:5.) And this it was that brought Paul to a strait, because he knew it was better for the church that he should remain here. I must confess, it is one of my saddest thoughts, to reckon up the useful instruments, whom God hath lately called out of his vineyard, when the loiterers are many, and the harvest great, and very many congregations desolate, and the people as sheep without shepherds; and yet the labourers called from
their work, especially when a door of liberty and opportunity is open; we cannot but lament so sore a judgment, and think the removal, in regard of the church, unseasonable. I know I speak but your own thoughts; and you are too ready to overrun me in application. I fear you are too sensible of what I speak, and, therefore, am loath to stir you in your sore. I perceive you are in the posture of the Ephesian elders, and had rather abate the violence of your passions; our applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins: and we will more quickly say, this loss is mine, than, this fault is mine. But,
O consider my dear friends, hath God any need of such a worm as I?
Cannot he a thousand ways supply your wants? You know when your case was worse, and yet he provided; hath he work to do, and will he not find instruments? And though you see not for the present where they should be had, they are never the further off for that. Where was the world before the creation; and where was the promised seed, when Isaac lay on the altar? Where was the land of promise, when
Israel's burden was increased; or, when all the old stock, save two, were consumed in the wilderness? Where was David's kingdom when he was hunted in the wilderness; or, the glory of Christ's kingdom, when he was in the grave; or, when he first sent his twelve apostles?
How suddenly did the number of labourers increase immediately upon the reformation by Luther; and how soon were the rooms of those filled up, whom the rage of the papists had sacrificed in the flames! Have you not lately seen so many difficulties overcome, and so many improbable works accomplished, that might silence unbelief, one would think, for ever? But if all this do not quiet you, for sorrow and discontent are unruly passions, yet at least remember this; suppose the worst you fear should happen, yet shall it be well with all the saints; your own turns will shortly come; and we shall be housed with Christ together, where you will want your ministers and friends no more. And, for the poor world, which is left behind, whose unregenerate state causeth your grief; why, consider, shall man pretend to be more merciful than God? Hath not he more interest than we, both in the church and in the world; and more bowels of compassion to commiserate their distress? There is a season for judgment as well as for mercy; and if he will have the most of men to
perish for their sins, and to suffer the eternal tormenting flames, must we question his goodness, or manifest our dislike of the severity of his judgment? I confess we cannot but bleed over our desolate congregations; and that it ill beseems us to make light of God's indignation; but yet we should, as Aaron when his sons were slain, (Lev. 10:3,) hold our peace, and be silent, because it is the Lord's doing; and say, as David, "If I (and his people) shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me them, and his habitations; but if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do with me as seemeth good unto him." (Psal. 39:9; 2 Sam. 15:25, 26.) I conclude, then, that whatsoever it is to those that are left behind; yet the saints' departure, to themselves, is usually seasonable. I say usually, because I know a very saint may have a death in some respect unseasonable, though it do translate him into this rest. He may die in judgment, as good Josiah; (2 Chron. 35:24;) he may die for his sin.
For the abuse of the sacrament many were weak and sickly, and many fallen asleep, even of those who were thus judged and chastened by God, that they might not be condemned with the world.
He may die by the hand of public justice; or die in a way of public scandal. He may die in a weak degree of grace, and consequently have less degree of glory. (Luke 19:17–19.) He may die in smaller improvements of his talents, and so be ruler of but few cities. The best wheat may be cut down before it is ripe; therefore it is promised to the righteous, as a blessing, "that they shall be brought as a shock of corn into the barn in season." (Job 5:26.) Nay, it is possible he may die by his own hands; though some divines think such doctrine not fit to be taught, lest it encourage the tempted to commit the same sin; but God hath left preservatives enough against sin, without our devising more of our own; neither hath he need of our lie to his glory.
He hath fixed that principle so deep in nature, that all should endeavour their own preservation, that I never knew any whose understanding was not crazed or lost, much subject to that sin; even most of the melancholy are more fearful to die than other men. And this terror is preservative enough of that kind; that such committing of a heinous known sin, is a sad sign, where there is the free use of
reason; that, therefore, they make their salvation more questionable; that they die most woful scandals to the church: that, however, the sin itself should make the godly to abhor it, were there no such danger or scandal attending it, &c. But to exclude from salvation all those poor creatures, who in fevers, frenzies, madness, melancholy,
&c., shall commit this sin, is a way of prevention, which Scripture teacheth not, and too uncomfortable to the friends of the deceased.
The common argument which they urge, drawn from the necessity of a particular repentance, for every particular known sin; as it is not universally true, so were it granted, it would exclude from salvation all men breathing; for there was never any man, save Christ, who died not in some particular sin, either of commission or omission, great or small, which he hath no more time to repent of, than the sinner in question: but yet, this may well be called untimely death: but in the ordinary course of God's dealing, you may easily observe, that he purposely maketh his people's last hour in this life, to be of all other to the flesh most bitter, and to the spirit most sweet; and that they who feared death through the most of their lives, yet at last are more willing of it than ever, and all to make their rest more seasonable. Bread and drink are always good; but at such a time as Samaria's siege, to have plenty of food instead of doves' dung, in one night's space; or in such a thirst, as Ishmael's or Sampson's, to have a supply of water by miracle in a moment, these are seasonable. So this rest is always good to the saints, and usually also is most seasonable rest.
Sect. VII. Seventhly: A further excellency of this rest is this; as it will be seasonable, so a suitable rest: suited, 1. To the natures. 2. To the desires. 3. To the necessity of the saints.
1. To their natures. If suitableness concur not with excellency, the best things may be bad to us; for it is not that which makes things good in themselves, to be good to us. In our choice of friends, we often pass by the more excellent, to choose the more suitable. Every good agrees not with every nature. To live in a free and open air, under the warming rays of the sun, is excellent to man, because
suitable: but the fish, which is of another nature, doth rather choose another element; and that which is to us so excellent, would quickly be to it destructive. The choicest dainties which we feed upon ourselves, would be to our beasts, as an unpleasing, so an insufficient sustenance. The iron which the ostrich well digests, would be but hard food for man; even among men, contrary appetites delight in contrary objects. You know the proverb, "One man's meat, is another man's poison." Now, here is suitableness and excellency conjoined.
The new nature of saints doth suit their spirits to this rest; and indeed their holiness is nothing else but a spark taken from this element, and by the spirit of Christ kindled in their hearts, the flame whereof, as mindful of his own divine original, doth ever mount the soul aloft, and tend to the place from whence it comes. It worketh towards its own centre, and makes us restless, till there we rest. Gold and earthly glory, temporal crowns and kingdoms, could not make a rest for saints. As they were not redeemed with so low a price, so neither are they endued with so low a nature. These might be a portion for lower spirits, and fit those whose nature they suit with; but so they cannot a saint-like nature. (1 Pet. 1:18, 23.) As God will have from them a spiritual worship, suitable to his own spiritual being, so will he provide them a spiritual rest, suitable to his people's spiritual nature. As spirits have not fleshly substances, so neither delight they in fleshly pleasures: these are too gross and vile for them. When carnal persons think of heaven, their conceivings of it are also carnal; and their notions answerable to their own natures.
And were it possible for such to enjoy it, it would surely be their trouble, and not their rest, because so contrary to their dispositions.
A heaven of good fellowship, of wine and wantonness, of gluttony and all voluptuousness, would far better please them, as being most agreeing to their natures. But a heaven of the knowledge of God, and his Christ; and a delightful complacency in that mutual love, and everlasting rejoicing in the fruition of our God, a perpetual singing of his high praises: this is a heaven for a saint, a spiritual rest, suitable to a spiritual nature. Then, dear friends, we shall live in our element.
We are now as the fish in some small vessel of water, that hath only so much as will keep him alive; but what is that to the full ocean? We
have a little air let in to us, to afford us breathing; but what is that to the sweet and fresh gales upon Mount Sion? We have a beam of the sun to lighten our darkness, and a warm ray to keep us from freezing; but then we shall live in its light, and be revived by its heat for ever. Oh! blessed be that hand which fetched a coal, and kindled a fire in our dead hearts, from that same altar, where we must offer our sacrifice everlastingly. To be locked up in gold, and in pearl, would be but a wealthy starving; to have our tables with plate and ornaments richly furnished without meat, is but to be richly famished; to be lifted up with human applause, is but a very airy felicity; to be advanced to the sovereignty of all the earth, would be but to wear a crown of thorns; to be filled with the knowledge of arts and sciences, would be but to further the conviction of our unhappiness; but to have a nature like God's very image, holy as he is holy; and to have God himself to be our happiness, how well do these agree? Whether that in 2 Pet. 1:4 be meant, as is commonly understood, of our own inherent renewed nature, figuratively called divine, or rather of Christ's divine nature without us, properly so called, whereof we are also relatively made partakers, I know not; but certainly were not our own in some sort divine, the enjoyment of the true divine nature could not be to us a suitable rest.
2. It is suitable also to the desires of the saints: for, such as their nature, such be their desires; and such as their desires, such will be their rest. Indeed, we have now a mixed nature; and from contrary principles, do arise contrary desires: as they are flesh, they have desires of flesh; and as they are sinful, so they have sinful desires.
Perhaps they could be too willing, whilst these are stirring, to have delights, and riches, and honour, and sin itself. But these are not prevaling desires, nor such as in their deliberate choice they will stand to; therefore is it not they, but sin and flesh. These are not the desires that this rest is suited to, for they will not accompany them to their rest. To provide contents to satisfy these, were to provide food for them that are dead. "For they that are in Christ, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof." (Gal. 5:25.) But it is the desires of our renewed natures, and those which the Christian will
ordinarily own, which this rest is suited to. Whilst our desires remain corrupted and misguided, it is a far greater mercy to deny them, yea, to destroy them, than to satisfy them; but those which are spiritual, are of his own planting, and he will surely water them, and give the increase. Is it so great a work to raise them in us; and shall they after all this vanish and fail? To send the word and Spirit, mercies and judgments, to raise the sinner's desires from the creature to God, and then to suffer them so raised, all to perish without success; this were to multiply the creature's misery; and then were the work of sanctification, a designed preparative to our torment and tantalizing, but no way conducible to our happy rest. He quickened our hungering and thirst for righteousness, that he might make us happy in a full satisfaction. Christian, this is a rest after thy own heart; it containeth all that thy heart can wish; that which thou longest for, prayest for, labourest for, there thou shall find it all. Thou hadst rather have God in Christ, than all the world; why there thou shalt have him. Oh! what wouldst thou not give for assurance of his love?
Why, there thou shalt have assurance beyond suspicion: nay, thy desires cannot now extend to the height of what thou shalt there obtain. Was it not a high favour of God to Solomon, to promise to give him whatsoever he would ask? Why, every Christian hath such a promise. Desire what thou canst, and ask what thou wilt as a Christian, and it shall be given thee; not only to half of the kingdom, but to the enjoyment both of kingdom and king. This is a life of desire and prayer; but that is a life of satisfaction and enjoyment. Oh! therefore, that we were but so wise, as to limit those which we know should not be satisfied; and those which we know not whether or no they will be satisfied; and especially those which we know should not be satisfied; and to keep up continually in heart and life, those desires which we are sure shall have full satisfaction. And, oh! that sinners would also consider, that seeing God will not give them a felicity suitable to their sensual desires, it is, therefore, their wisdom to endeavour for desires suitable to the true felicity, and to direct their ship to the right harbour, seeing they cannot bring the harbour to their ship.
3. This rest is very suitable to the saints' necessities also, as well as to their natures and desires. It contains whatsoever they truly wanted; not supplying them with the gross-created comforts which now they are forced to make use of, which, like Saul's armour on David, are more burden than benefit. But they shall there have the benefit without the burden; and the pure spirits extracted, as it were, shall make up their cordial, without the mixture of any drossy or earthly substance. It was Christ, and perfected holiness, which they most needed, and with these shall they here be principally supplied: their other necessities are far better removed than supplied in the present carnal way. It is better to have no need of meat, and drink, and clothing, and creatures, than to have both the need and the creature continued: their plaster will be fitted to the quality of their sore. The rain which Elias's prayer procured was not more seasonable, after the three years' drought, than this rest will be to this thirsty soul. It will be with us as with the diseased man, who had lain at the waters, and continued diseased thirty-eight years, when Christ did fully cure him in a moment; or with the woman, who, having had the issue of blood, and spent all she had upon physicians, and suffered the space of twelve years, was healed by one touch of Christ. (Luke 8:43; Mark
5:25.) So, when we have lain at ordinances, and duties, and creatures, all our lifetime, and spent all, and suffered much, we shall have all done by Christ in a moment: but we shall see more of this under the next head.
Sect. VIII. Eighthly: Another excellency of our rest will be this, that it will be absolutely perfect and complete; and this both in the sincerity and universality of it. We shall then have joy without sorrow, and rest without weariness: as there is no mixture of our corruption with our graces, so no mixture of sufferings with our solace. There are none of those waves in that harbour, which now so toss us up and down: we are now sometimes at the gates of heaven, and presently almost as low as hell; we wonder at those changes of Providence towards us, being scarcely two days together in a like condition. Today we are well, and conclude the bitterness of death is past; tomorrow sick, and conclude we shall shortly perish by our distempers;
to-day in esteem, to-morrow in disgrace; to-day we have friends, tomorrow none; to-day in gladness, to-morrow in sadness: nay, we have wine and vinegar in the same cup, and our pleasantest food hath a taste of the gall. If revelations should raise us to the third heaven, (1 Cor. 12:7,) the messenger of Satan must presently buffet us, and the prick in the flesh will fetch us down; but there is none of this inconstancy, nor mixtures, in heaven. If perfect love cast out fear, then perfect joy must needs cast out sorrow; (1 John 4:18;) and perfect happiness exclude all the relics of misery. There will be a universal perfecting of all our parts and powers, and a universal removal of all our evils: and though the positive part be the sweetest, and that which draws the other after it, even as the rising of the sun excludes the darkness; yet is not the negative part to be slighted, even our freedom, from so many and great calamities. Let us, therefore, look over these more punctually, and see what it is that we shall there rest from. In general, it is from all evil. Particularly, first, from the evil of sin; secondly, and of suffering.
First: It excludeth nothing more directly than sin; whether original, and of nature; or actual, and of conversation: for there entereth nothing that defileth, nor that worketh abomination, nor that maketh a lie. (Rev. 21:27.) When they are there, the saints are saints indeed. He that will wash them with his heart-blood, rather than suffer them to enter unclean, will now perfectly see to that; he who hath undertaken to present them to his Father, "not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but perfectly holy, and without blemish, will now most certainly perform his undertaking." (Ephes. 5:27.)
What need Christ at all to have died, if heaven could have contained imperfect souls? "For to this end came he into the world, that he might put away the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8.) His blood and Spirit have not done all this, to leave us, after all, defiled. "For what communion hath light with darkness; and what fellowship hath
Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. 6:14.) He that hath prepared for sin the torments of hell, will never admit it into the blessedness of heaven; therefore, Christian, never fear this: if thou be once in heaven, thou shalt sin no more. Is not this glad news to thee, who hast prayed, and
watched, and laboured against it so long. I know if it were offered to thy choice, thou wouldst rather choose to be freed from sin than to be made heir of all the world. Why, wait till then, and thou shalt have thy desire: that hard heart, those vile thoughts, which did lie down and rise with thee, which did accompany thee to every duty, which thou couldst no more leave behind thee than leave thyself behind thee, shall be now left behind for ever. They might accompany thee to death, but they cannot proceed a step further. Thy understanding shall never more be troubled with darkness: ignorance and error are inconsistent with this light. Now thou walkest like a man in the twilight, ever afraid of being out of the way; thou seest so many religions in the world, that thou fearest thy own cannot be only the right among all these; thou seest the Scripture so exceeding difficult, and every one pleading for his own cause, and bringing such specious arguments for so contrary opinions, that it entangleth thee in a labyrinth of perplexities; thou seest so many godly men on this side, and so many on that, and each zealous for his own way, that thou art amazed, not knowing which way to take: and thus do doubtings and fears accompany darkness, and we are ready to stumble at every thing in our way; but then will all this darkness be dispelled, and our blind understandings fully opened, and we shall have no more doubts of our way. We shall know which was the right side, and which the wrong; which was the truth, and which the error. Oh! what would we give to know, clearly, all the profound mysteries in the doctrine of decree, of redemption, of justification, of the nature of grace, of the covenants, of the divine attributes, &c.; what would we not give to see all dark scriptures made plain, to see all seeming contradictions reconciled! Why, when glory hath taken the veil from our eyes, all this will be known in a moment; we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about doctrine or discipline that now perplex us. The poorest Christian is presently there a more perfect divine than any is here. We are now, through our ignorance, subject to such mutability, that, in points not fundamental, we change as the moon; that is cast as a just reproach upon us, that we possess our religion with reserves, and resolvedly settle upon almost nothing; that we are to-day of one opinion, and within this week, or month, or
year, of another; and yet, alas! we cannot help it. The reproach may fall upon all mankind, as long as we have need of daily growth.
Would they have us believe before we understand; or say, 'We believe,' when indeed we do not? Shall we profess ourselves resolved before we ever thoroughly studied; or say, 'We are certain' when we are conscious that we are not? But when once our ignorance is perfectly healed, then shall we be settled, resolved men; then shall our reproach be taken from us, and we shall never change our judgments more; then shall we be clear and certain in all, and cease to be sceptics any more. Our ignorance now doth lead us into error, to the grief of our more knowing brethren, to the disturbing of the church's quiet, and interrupting her desirable, harmonious consent; to the scandalizing of others, and weakening ourselves. How many a humble and faithful soul is seduced into error, and little knows it!
Loth they are to err, God knows, and therefore read, and pray, and confer, and yet err still, and confirmed in it more and more: and in lesser and more difficult points how should it be otherwise? He that is acquainted amongst men, and knows the quality of professors in England, must needs know the generality of them are no great scholars, nor have much read or studied controversies, nor are men of the most profound natural parts; nor have the ministers of England much preached controversies to them, but were glad if their hearers were brought to Christ, and got so much knowledge as might help to salvation, as knowing that to be their great work. And can it be expected that men, void of learning, and strength of parts, unstudied and untaught, should, at the first onset, know those truths, which they are almost incapable of knowing at all;y when the greatest divines, of clearest judgment, acknowledge so much difficulty that they could almost find in their hearts sometimes to profess them quite beyond their reach? Except we will allow them to lay aside their divine faith, and take up a human, and see with other men's eyes the weight and weakness of arguments, and not with their own, it cannot be thought that the most of Christians, no, nor the most of divines, should be free from erring in those difficult points, where we know they have not headpieces able to reach. Indeed, if it were the way of the Spirit to teach us miraculously, as the apostles
were taught the knowledge of tongues, without the intervening use of reason; or if the Spirit infused the acts of knowledge, as he doth the immediate knowing power, then he that had most of the Spirit would not only know best, but also know most: but we have enough to convince us of the contrary to this. But, oh! that happy, approaching day, when error shall vanish away for ever; when our understanding shall be filled with God himself, whose light will leave no darkness in us! His face shall be the Scripture, where we shall read the truth; and himself, instead of teachers and counsels, to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with himself, who is the perfect truth. No more error, no more scandal to others, no more disquiet to our own spirits, no more mistaking zeal for falsehood; because our understandings have no more sin. Many a godly man hath here, in his mistaking zeal, been a means to deceive and pervert his brethren, and when he sees his own error, cannot again tell how to undeceive them; but there we shall all conspire in one truth, as being one in him who is that truth.
And as we shall rest from all the sin of our understandings, so of our wills, affection, and conversation. We shall no more retain this rebelling principle, which is still withdrawing us from God, and addicting us to backsliding. Doubtless, we shall no more be oppressed with the power of our corruptions, nor vexed with their presence; no pride, passion, slothfulness, senselessness, shall enter with us; no strangeness to God, and the things of God; no coldness of affections, nor imperfection in our love; no uneven walking, nor grieving of the Spirit; no scandalous action, or unholy conversation: we shall rest from all these for ever: then shall our understandings receive their light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun, where there is no earth to interpose betwixt them; then shall our wills correspond to the divine will, as face answers to face in a glass; and the same, his will, shall be our law and rule, from which we shall never swerve again. Now our corruptions, as the Anakims, dismay us; and, as the Canaanites, in Israel, they are left for pricks in our sides, and thorns in our eyes; (Josh. 23:13;) and as the bondwoman and her son in Abraham's house, (Gen. 21:9,) they do
but abuse us, and make our lives a burden to us; but then shall the bondwoman and her son be cast out, and shall not be heirs with us in our rest. As Moses said to Israel, "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every one whatsoever is right in his own eyes, for ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. (Deut. 12:8, 9.) I conclude, therefore, with the words next to my text; "For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." (Heb. 4:10.) So that there is a perfect rest from sin.
Sect. IX. 2. It is a perfect rest from suffering: when the cause is gone the effect ceaseth. Our sufferings were but the consequents of our sinning, and here they both shall cease together. I will show particularly ten kinds of suffering, which we shall there rest from.
1. We shall rest from all our perplexing doubts and fears; it shall no more be said that doubts are like the thistle, a bad weed, but growing in good ground; they shall now be weeded out, and trouble the gracious soul no more. No more need of so many sermons, books, and marks, and signs, to resolve the poor doubting soul: the full fruition of love itself hath now resolved his doubts for ever. We shall hear that kind of language no more: What shall I do to know my state? How shall I know that God is my Father, that my heart is upright, that conversion is true, that faith is sincere? Oh! I am afraid my sins are unpardoned; oh! I fear that all is but hypocrisy; I fear that God will reject me from his presence; I doubt he doth not hear my prayers; how can he accept so vile a wretch, so hard-hearted, unkind a sinner, such an undervaluer of Christ as I am! All this kind of language is there turned into another tune; even into the praises of him who hath forgiven, who hath converted, who hath accepted, yea, who hath glorified a wretch so unworthy; so that it will now be as impossible to doubt and fear, as to doubt of the food which is in our bellies, or to fear it is night when we see the sun shine. If Thomas could doubt with his finger in the wounds of Christ, yet in heaven I am sure he cannot; if we could doubt of what we see, or hear, or taste, or feel, yet I am sure we cannot of what we there possess.
Surely, this will be comfort to the sad and drooping souls, whose life was nothing but a doubting distress, and their language nothing but a constant complaining. If God would speak peace, it would ease them, but when he shall possess them of this peace, they shall rest from all their doubts and fears for ever.
Sect. X. 2. We shall rest from all that sense of God's displeasure, which was our greatest torment, whether manifested mediately or immediately; "for he will cause his fury towards us to rest, and his jealousy to cease, and he will be angry with us no more." (Ezek.
16:42.) Surely, hell shall not be mixed with heaven. There is the place for the glorifying of justice, prepared of purpose to manifest wrath, but heaven is only for mercy and love. Job doth not now use his own language, "Thou writest bitter things against me, and takest me for thine enemy, and settest me up as a mark to shoot at," &c. (Job 3;
13:26; 16:12–14; and 7:10.) O, how contrary now to all this! David doth not now complain, "that the arrows of the Almighty stick in him: that his wounds stink and are corrupt; that his sore runs and ceaseth not; that his moisture is as the drought of summer; that there is no soundness in his flesh, because of God's displeasure, nor rest in his bones because of sin; that he is weary of crying, his throat is dried, his eyes fail in waiting for God;" (Psal. 38;) "that he remembers God, and is troubled; that in complaining his spirit is overwhelmed; that his soul refuseth to be comforted; that God's wrath lieth hard upon him, and that he afflicteth him with all his waves. (Psal. 66:3.) O, how contrary now are David's songs! Now he saith: "I spake in my haste, and this was my infirmity." (Psal. 77:2,
3.) Here the Christian is often complaining, Oh! if it were the wrath of man, I could bear it; (Psal. 88:7;) but the wrath of the Almighty, who can bear? Oh! that all the world were mine enemies, so that I were assured that he were my friend! If it were a stranger, it were nothing; but that my dearest friend, my own father, should be so provoked against me, this wounds my very soul! If it were a creature,
I would contemn it, but if God be angry who may endure? If he be against me, who can be for me? And if he will cast me down, who can raise me up? But, oh! that blessed day when all these dolorous
complaints will be turned into admiring thankfulness; and all sense of God's displeasing swallowed up in that ocean of infinite love; when sense shall convince us that fury dwelleth not in God: and though for a little moment he hide his face, yet with everlasting compassion will he receive and embrace us; when he shall say to Sion, "Arise and shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." (Isa. 60:2.) Sect. XI. 3. We shall rest from all the temptations of Satan, whereby he continually disturbs our peace. What a grief is it to a Christian, though he yield not to the temptation, yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord: that such a thought should be cast into his heart: that he can set about nothing that is good, but Satan is still dissuading him from it, distracting him in it, or discouraging him after it! What a torment, as well as a temptation is it, to have such horrid motions made to his soul, such blasphemous ideas presented to his fantasy!
Sometimes cruel thoughts of God, sometimes undervaluing thoughts of Christ, sometimes unbelieving thoughts of Scripture, sometimes injurious thoughts of Providence; to be tempted sometimes to turn to present things, sometimes to play with the baits of sin, sometimes to venture on the delights of the flesh, and sometimes to flat atheism itself; especially when we know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as tinder or gunpowder, ready to take fire, as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them. Oh! how the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness, to feel these motions: but more, that his heart should be the soil for this seed, and the too-fruitful mother of such an offspring; and, most of all, through fear, lest they will at last prevail, and these cursed motions should procure his consent. But here is our comfort; as we now stand not by our own strength, and shall not be charged with any of this; so when the day of our deliverance comes, we shall fully rest from these temptations: Satan is then bound up, the time of tempting is then done: the time of torment to himself, and his conquered captives, those deluded souls, is then come, and the victorious saints shall have triumph for temptation. Now we do walk among his snares, and are in danger to be circumvented with his methods and wiles; but then we are quite
above his snares, and out of the hearing of his enticing charms. He hath power here to tempt us in the wilderness, but he entereth not the holy city. He may set us on the pinnacle of the temple in the earthly Jerusalem; but the new Jerusalem he may not approach.
Perhaps he may bring us to an exceeding high mountain, but the Mount Sion and city of the living God he cannot ascend: or, if he should, yet all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, will be but a poor despised bait to the soul which is possessed with the kingdom of our Lord and the glory of it. No, no, here is no more work for Satan now. Hopes he might have of deceiving poor creatures on earth, who lived out of sight, and only heard and read of a kingdom which they never beheld, and had only faith to live upon, and were encompassed with flesh, and drawn aside by sense. But when once they see the glory they read of, and taste the joys they heard of, and possess that kingdom which they then believed and hoped for, and have laid aside their fleshly sense, it is time, then, for Satan to have done: it is in vain to offer a temptation more. What! draw them from that glory; draw them from the arms of Jesus Christ; draw them from the sweet praises of God; draw them from the blessed society of saints and angels? draw them from the bosom of the Father's love, and that to a place of torment among the damned, which their eyes behold! Why, what charms, what persuasions, can do it? To entice them from an unknown joy, and unknown God, were somewhat hopeful; but now they have both seen and enjoyed, there is no hope.
Surely, it must be a very strong temptation that must draw a blessed saint from that rest. We shall have no more need to pray, "Lead us not into temptation," nor "to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation;" (Matt. 6:13, and 26:41;) nor shall we serve the Lord as Paul did, in "many tears and temptations;" (Acts 20:19;) no: but now they who continued with Christ in temptation, shall by him be appointed to a kingdom, even as his Father appointed to him, (Rev.
3:10,) that they may eat and drink at his table in his kingdom. (Luke 22:28–30.) "Blessed, therefore, are they that endure temptation; for when they are tried, they shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him:" (James 1:12:) and then they shall be saved from the hour of temptation. Then the malignant
planet Saturn shall be below us, and lose all its influence, which is now above us exercising its enmity: and Satan must be suffering, who would have drawn us into suffering, as Bucholtzer wittily, "Ubi
Saturnus non supra nos, sed infra nos conspicietur luens pœnas, pro sua in nos sævitia et malitia."
Sect. XII. 4. We shall rest also from all our temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh, as well as Satan; and that is a number inexpressible, and a weight, were it not that we are beholding to supporting grace, utterly intolerable. Oh! the hourly dangers that we poor sinners here below walk in! Every sense is a snare; every member a snare; every creature a snare; every mercy a snare; and every duty a snare to us. We can scarcely open our eyes, but we are in danger. If we behold them above us, we are in danger of envy. If we see sumptuous buildings, pleasant habitations, honour and riches, we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires: if the rags and beggary of others, we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness. If we see beauty, it is a bait to lust; if deformity, loathing and disdain. We can scarcely hear a word spoken, but contains to us matter of temptation. How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches, by that passage, creep into the heart! How strong and prevalent a temptation is our appetite, and how constant and strong a watch doth it require! Have we comeliness and beauty? what fuel for pride! Are we deformed? what an occasion of repining! Have we strength of reason, and gifts of learning? oh! how hard it is not to be puffed up! (2 Cor. 11:3, and 1:12, &c.) To seek ourselves; to hunt after applause; to despise our brethren; to mislike the simplicity that is in Christ, both in the matter and manner of Scripture, in doctrine, discipline, in worship, and in the saints; to affect a pompous, specious, fleshly, service of God, and to exalt reason above faith. Are we unlearned, and of shallow heads and slender parts? how apt, then, to despise what we have not, and to undervalue that which we do not know; and to err with confidence, because of our ignorance: and if conceitedness and pride do but strike in, to become a zealous enemy to truth, and a leading troubler of the church's peace, under pretences of truth and
holiness! Are we men of eminency, and in place of authority? how strong is our temptation to slight our brethren, to abuse our trust, to seek ourselves, to stand upon our honour and privileges; to forget ourselves, our poor brethren, and the public good: how hard to devote our power to his glory from whom we have received it: how prone to make our wills our law, and to cut out all the enjoyments of others, both religious and civil, by the cursed rules and model of our own interest and policy! Are we inferiors and subject? how prone to judge at others' pre-eminence, and to take liberty to bring all their actions to the bar of our incompetent judgment; and to censure and slander them, and murmur at their proceedings! Are we rich and not too much exalted? Are we poor and not discontented, and make our worldly necessities a pretence for the robbing God of all his service?
If we be sick, oh! how impatient: if in health, how few and stupid are our thoughts of eternity! If death be near, we are distracted with the fears of it: if we think it far off, how careless is our preparation! Do we set upon duty? why there are snares too: either we are stupid and lazy, or rest on them, and turn from Christ; or we are customary and notional only. In a word, not one word that falls from the mouth of a minister and Christian, but is a snare; nor a place we come into; not a word that our own tongue speaks; not any mercy we possess; nor a bit we put into our mouths, but they are snares; not that God hath made them so, but through our own corruption they become so to us: so that what a sad case are we poor Christians in, and especially they that discern them not! for it is almost impossible they should escape them. It was not for nothing that our Lord cries out, "What I say to one, I say to all, Watch." We are like the lepers at Samaria; if we go into the city, there is nothing but famine; if we sit still, we perish.
(Deut. 12:30, and 7:25; Hos. 9:8; Psal. 69:22; Prov. 20:25, 22:25, and 29:6, 25; 1 Tim. 6:9; Job 8:8, 10.
But for ever blessed be omnipotent love, which saves us out of all these, and makes our straits but the advantages of the glory of his saving grace. And "blessed be the Lord, who hath not given our souls for a prey; our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken and we are escaped." (Psal. 124:6, 7.) No, our
houses, our clothes, our sleep, our food, our physic, our father, mother, wife, children, friends, goods, lands, are all so many temptations; and ourselves, the greatest snares to ourselves. But in heaven, the danger and trouble are over; there is nothing but what will advance our joy. Now every old companion, and every loose fellow, is putting up the finger, and beckoning us to sin, and we can scarcely tell how to say them nay. 'What,' say they, 'will not you take a cup? Will you not do as your neighbours? Must you be so precise?
Do you think none shall be saved but puritans? What needs all this strictness, this reading, and praying, and preaching? Will you make yourself the scorn of all men? Come, do as we do, take your cups, and drink away sorrow.' Oh! how many a poor Christian hath been haunted and vexed with these temptations: and it may be father, or mother, or nearest friends will strike in, and give a poor Christian no rest: and, alas! how many, to their eternal undoing, have hearkened to their seducements! But this is our comfort, dear friends, our rest will free us from all these. As Satan hath no entrance there, so neither any thing to serve his malice; but all things shall there, with us, conspire the praises of our great Deliverer.
Sect. XIII. 5. And as we rest from the temptations, so also from all abuses and persecutions which we suffer at the hands of wicked men.
We shall be scorned, derided, imprisoned, banished, butchered, by them no more; the prayers of the souls under the altar, will then be answered, and "God will avenge their blood on these that dwell on the earth." (Rev. 6:2, 10; 2 Tim. 3:12.) This is the time for crowning with thorns, buffeting, spitting on; that is the time for crowning with glory: (Rom. 8:17:) now the law is decreed on, That whosoever will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution; then they that suffered with him, shall be glorified with him. Now we must be hated of all men for Christ's name-sake, and the Gospel; then will Christ be admired in his saints that were thus hated. Now, because we are not of the world, but Christ hath taken us out of the world, therefore doth the world hate us; then, because we are not of the world, but taken out of their calamity, therefore will the world admire us. Now, as they hated Christ, they will also hate us; then, as they will honour
Christ, so will they also honour us. We are here as the scorn and offscouring of all things; as men set up for a gazing-stock to angels and men, even for signs and wonders amongst professing Christians; they put us out of their synagogues, and cast out our name as evil, and separate us from their company: but we shall then be as much gazed at for our glory, and they will be shut out of the church of the saints, and separated from us, whether they will or no. They now think it strange that we run not with them "to all excess of riot, speaking evil of us;" (1 Pet. 4:4;) they will then think it more strange, that they ran not with us in the despised ways of God, and speak evil of themselves; and more vehemently befool themselves for their carelessness, than ever they did us for our heavenliness. A poor
Christian can scarcely go along the streets now, but every one is pointing the finger in scorn, but then they would be glad of the crumbs of his happiness. The rich man would scarcely have believed him that would have told him, that he should beg for water from the tip of Lazarus's finger. Here is a great change! We can scarcely now pray in our families, or sing praises to God, but our voice is a vexation to them. How must it needs torment them then, to see us praising and rejoicing, while they are howling and lamenting! How full have their prisons often been, and how bitter their rage! How have they scattered their carcasses on the earth, and delighted themselves in the blood of saints! How glad would they have been, if they could have brought them to ruin, and blotted out their name from under heaven! How have they prepared, like Haman, their gallows! And if God had not gainsaid it, the execution would have been answerable; "But he that sitteth in heaven did laugh them to scorn, the Lord had them in derision." Oh! how full were their hearts of blood, and their hands of cruelty; so that the next generations, that knew them not, will scarcely believe the fury of their predecessors' rage. Blessed be the Guardian of the saints, who hath not suffered the prevalency of that wrath, which would have over-done the gunpowder treason, the Turkish slavery, the Spanish inquisition, and the French massacres. But the Lord of hosts hath often brought them down, and his power and justice have abated their fury, and raised to his name everlasting trophies, and set up many a monument for
remembrance, which God forbid should ever be forgotten, "So let all thine incurable enemies perish, O Lord." (Judg. 5:23.) "When the Lord maketh inquisition for blood, he will remember the precious blood which they have shed; and the earth shall not cover it any more." (Psal. 9:12.) They shall pursue, but as Pharaoh, to their own destruction: and where they fall, there we shall pass over safely, and escape them for ever. For our Lord hath told them, "that whither he goes they cannot come." (John 7:34, 36, and 8:21, 22; Rev. 12:16;
Heb. 11; Matt. 27:29, 30.) When their flood of persecution is dried up, and the church called out of the wilderness, and the New
Jerusalem come down from heaven, and mercy and justice are fully glorified, then shall we feel their fury no more. There is no cruel mockings and scourgings; no bonds, or imprisonments; no stoning, or sawing asunder; tempting, or slaying with the sword; wandering in sheep-skins, or goat-skins, in deserts and mountains, dens or caves of the earth; no more being destitute, afflicted, tormented. We leave all this behind us, when once we enter the city of our rest; the names of Lollards, Hugonots, &c., are not there used; the inquisition of Spain is there condemned; the statute of the six articles is there repealed; and the law de hæreticis comburendis more justly executed; the date of the interim is there expired; no censures to loss of members, perpetual imprisonment, or banishment. Christ is not there clothed in a gorgeous robe, and blindfolded; nor do they smite him, and say, 'Read who struck thee:' nor is truth clothed in the robes of error, and smitten for that which it most directly contradicteth; nor a schismatic wounded, and a saint found bleeding; nor our friends smite us, whilst they mistake us for their enemies: there is none of this blind mad work there. Dear brethren, you that now can attempt no work of God without resistance, and find you must either lose the love of the world, and your outward comforts, or else the love of God and your eternal salvation; consider, you shall in heaven have no discouraging company, nor any but who will further your work, and gladly join heart and voice with you in your everlasting joy and praises. Till then, possess your souls in patience; bind all reproaches as a crown to your heads; esteem them greater riches than the world's treasures; account it matter of joy, when you
fall into tribulation. You have seen that our God is able to deliver us; but this is nothing to our final deliverance: he will recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you that are troubled rest with Christ. Only see to this, brethren, that none of you suffer as an evil-doer, as a busy-body in other men's matters, as a resister of the commands of lawful authority, as ungrateful to those that have been instruments of our good, as evil-speakers against dignities, as opposers of the discipline and ordinances of Christ, as scornful revilers of your christian brethren, as reproachers of a laborious, judicious, conscientious ministry, &c. "But if any of you suffer for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you." And if any of you begin to shrink, and draw back because of opposition, and are ashamed either of your work, or your
Master, let such a one know to his face, that he is but a base-spirited, cowardly wretch, and cursedly undervalueth the saint's rest, and most foolishly overvalueth the things below; and he must learn to forsake all these, or else he can never be Christ's disciple; and that Christ will renounce him, and be ashamed of him, before his Father and the angels of heaven. But for those that have held fast their integrity, and gone through good report, and evil report, and undergone the violence of unreasonable men, "let them hear the word of the Lord; your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name-sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified; (they had good words, and goodly pretences;) but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed." (Isa. 66:5.) "Your Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is his name. He shall throughly plead your cause, that he may give rest to his people, and disquietness to their enemies." (Jer. 50:34.)
6. We shall then also rest from all our sad divisions, and unchristianlike quarrels with one another. As he said, who saw the carcasses lie together, as if they had embraced each other, who had been slain by each other in a duel, "Quanta se invicem amplectuntur amicitia, qui mutua implacabili inimicitia periere!" "How lovingly do they embrace one another, being dead, who perished through their mutual, implacable enmity!" So how lovingly do thousands live together in heaven, who lived in divisions and quarrels on earth; or,
as he said, who beheld how quietly and peaceably the bones and dust of mortal enemies did lie together, "Non tanta vivi pace essetis conjuncti;" "You did not live together so peaceably; so we may say of multitudes in heaven now all of one mind, one heart, and one employment, You lived not on earth in so sweet familiarity. There is no contention, because none of this pride, ignorance, or other corruption; Paul and Barnabas are now fully reconciled. There they are, not every man conceited of his own understanding, and in love with the issue of his own brain, but all admiring the divine perfection, and in love with God, and one another. As old Gryneus wrote to his friend, "Si te non amplius in his terris videam, ibi tamen conveniemus ubi Lutherus cum Zuinglio optime jam convenit;" "If I see you no more on earth, yet we shall there meet, where Luther and Zuinglius are now well agreed." There is a full reconciliation between sacramentarians and ubiquitarians, Calvinists and Lutherans; remonstrants and contra-remonstrants; non-conformists and antidisciplinarians, conformists and non-conformists, are terms there not known. There is no discipline erected by state-policy, nor any disordered popular rule; no government but that of Christ; no bitter invectives, nor voluminous reproaches; the language of Martin is there a stranger; and the sound of his echo is not heard. No recording our brethren's infirmities; nor raking into the sores which Christ died to heal. How many sermons zealously preached, how many books studiously compiled, will then by the authors be all disclaimed!m How many backbiting, slanderous speeches! How many secret dividing contrivances, must then be laid upon the score of Christ, against whom and his saints they were committed! The zealous authors dare not own them; they would, then, with the Ephesians, burn their books, (Acts 19:19,) and rather lose their labour than stand to it. There is no plotting to strengthen our party; nor deep designing against our brethren. And is it not shame and pity, that our course is now so contrary? Surely, if there be sorrow or shame in heaven, we shall then be both sorry and ashamed to look one another there in the face; and to remember all this carriage on earth; even as the brethren of Joseph were to behold him, when they remembered their former unkind usage. Is it not enough that all the
world is against us, but we must also be against one another? Did I ever think to have heard Christians so to reproach and scorn
Christians; and men professing the fear of God, to make so little conscience of censuring, vilifying, slandering and disgracing one another? Alas! if the judgment be once perverted, and error hath possessed the supreme faculty, whither will men go, and what will they do? Nay, what will they not do? Oh! what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience! It will make a man kill his dearest friend, yea, father or mother, yea, the holiest saints, and think he doth God service by it; and to facilitate the work, it will first blot out the reputation of their holiness, and make them take a saint for a devil, that so they may vilify or destroy him without remorse.
Oh! what hellish things are ignorance and pride,q that can bring men's souls to such a case as this! Paul knew what he said, when he commanded that a novice should not be a teacher, lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:6.)
He discerned that such young Christians that have got but a little smattering knowledge in religion, do lie in greatest danger of this pride and condemnation. Who but a Paul could have foreseen, that among the very teachers and governors of so choice a church as Ephesus, that came to see and hear him, that pray and weep with him, there were some that afterwards should be notorious sectmasters? "that of their own selves men should arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them?" (Acts 20:30.)
Who then can expect better from any society now, how knowing and holy soever? To-day they may be orthodox, unanimous, and joined in love; and perhaps, within a few weeks be divided, and at bitter enmity, through their doting about questions that tend not to edify.
Who that had seen how lovingly the godly of England did live together, would have believed that ever they would have been so bitter against one another; that we should fall upon one another for the very same duties; and that professors of religion should oppose and deride almost all that worship God out of conscience, which others did before them through profaneness? Did I not think, that of all other, the scorning at the worshippers of Christ, had been a sure sign of a wicked wretch? But I see now we must distinguish between
scorners and scorners, or else I fear we shall exclude almost all. I read, indeed, in pagan writers, that the Christians were as cruel as bears and tigers against one another: Ammianus Marcellinus gives it as the reason of Julian's policy, in proclaiming liberty for every party to profess and preach their own opinions, because he knew that cruel
Christians would then most fiercely fall upon one another; and so by liberty of conscience,u and by keeping their children from the schools of learning, he thought to have rooted out Christianity from the earth. But I had hoped this accusation had come from the malice of the pagan writer; little did I think to have seen it so far verified!
Lord, what devils are we unsanctified, when there is yet such a nature remaining in the sanctified! Such a nature hath God in these days suffered to discover itself in the very godly, that if he did not graciously and powerfully restrain, they would shed the blood of one another; and no thanks to us, if it be not done. But I hope his design is but to humble and shame us by the discovery, and then to prevent the breaking forth.
Object. But, is it possible such should be truly godly? Then, what sin will denominate a man ungodly?
Answ. Or else I must believe the doctrine of the saints' apostacy, or believe there are scarcely any godly in the world. Oh! what a wound of dishonour hath this given not only to the stricter profession of holiness, but even to the very christian name; were there a possibility of hiding it, I durst not thus mention it. O Christian, if thou who readest this be guilty, I charge thee before the living God, that thou sadly consider how far is this unlike the copy! Suppose thou hadst seen the Lord Jesus, girded to the service, stooping on the earth, washing his disciples' dirty feet, and wiping them, and saying to them, "This I have done to give you an example, that if your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's;" would not this make thee ashamed, and tremble? Shall the Lord wipe the feet, and the fellow-servant be ready to cut the throat? Would not thy proud heart scorn to stoop to thy Master's work? Look to thyself; it is not the name of a professor, nor the zeal
for thy opinions, that will prove thee a Christian, or secure thee from the heat of the consuming fire. If thou love not thine enemy, much more thy christian friend, thou canst not be Christ's disciple. It is the common mare, whereby his disciples are known to all men, "that they love one another." Is it not his last great legacy, "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." (Matt. 5:44; John 13:35, and 14:17.) Mark the expressions of that command, "If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men." (Rom. 12:8.)
"Follow peace with all men, and holiness." (Heb. 12:14.) O the deceitfulness of the heart of man! that those same men, who lately in their self-examination, could find nothing of Christ so clear within them as their love to their brethren, and were confident of this, when they could scarcely discover any other grace, should now look so strangely upon them, and be filled with so much bitterness against them! That the same men, who would have travelled through reproaches many miles, to hear an able faithful minister, and not think the labour ill-bestowed, should now become their bitterest enemies, and the most powerful hinderers of the success of their labours, and travel as far to cry them down! It makes me almost ready to say, O sweet, O happy days of persecution, which drove us together in a closure of love! who being now dried at the fire of liberty and prosperity, are crumbled all into dust by our contentions.
But it makes me seriously, both to say, and to think, O sweet, O happy day of the rest of the saints in glory! when as there is one God, one Christ, one Spirit, so we shall have one judgment, one heart, one church, one employment for ever! When there shall be no more circumcision and uncircumcision, Jew and gentile, anabaptist, pædobaptist, Brownist, separatist, independent, presbyterian, episcopal: but Christ is All in All. We shall not there scruple our communion, nor any of the ordinances of divine worship; there will not be one for singing, and another against it; but even those who have jarred in discord, shall all conjoin in blessed concord, and make one melodious quire. I could wish they were of the martyr's mind, who rejoiced that she might have her foot in the same hole of the stocks in which Master Philpot's had been before her. But, however, I am sure they will joyfully live in the same heaven, and gladly
participate in the same rest. Those whom one house could not hold, nor one church hold them, no nor one kingdom either; yet one heaven and one God may hold.a One house; one kingdom could not hold Joseph and his brethren; but they must together again, whether they will or not; and then how is the case altered! then every man must straight withdraw, while they weep over, and kiss each other. O how canst thou now find in thy heart, if thou bear the heart or face of a Christian, to be bitter or injurious against thy brethren, when thou dost but once think of that time and place, where thou hopest in the nearest and sweetest familiarity to live and rejoice with them for ever? I confess their infirmities are not to be loved, nor sin to be tolerated, because it is theirs. But be sure it be sin which thou opposest in them; and do it with a spirit of meekness and compassion, that the world may see thy love to the person, while thou opposest the offence. Alas! that Turks and Pagans can agree together in wickedness, better than Christians in the truth! That bears and lions, wolves and tigers, can agree together, but Christians cannot! That a legion of devils can accord in one body, and not the tenth part of so many Christians in one church! (Matt. 5:9; Luke
8:30.) Well, the fault may be mine, and it may be theirs; or more likely both mine and theirs: but this rejoiceth me, that my old friends who now look strangely at me, will joyfully triumph with me in our common rest.
Sect. XV. 7. We shall then rest from all our dolorous hours, and sad thoughts which we now undergo, by participating with our brethren in their calamities. Alas! if we had nothing on ourselves to trouble us, yet what heart could lay aside sorrows, that live in the sound of the church's sufferings? If Job had nothing upon his body to disquiet him, yet the message of his children's overthrow, must needs grieve the most patient soul. Except we are turned into steel or stone, and have lost both christian and human affection, there needs no more than the miseries of our brethren, to fill our hearts with successions of sorrows, and make our lives a continued lamentation. The church on earth is a mere hospital; which way ever we go, we hear complaining; and into what corner soever we cast our eyes, we
behold objects of pity and grief: some groaning under a dark understanding, some under a senseless heart, some languishing under unfruitful weakness, and some bleeding for miscarriages and wilfulness; and some in such a lethargy that they are past complaining; some crying out of their pining poverty; some groaning under pains and infirmities; and some bewailing a whole catalogue of calamities, especially in days of common sufferings, when nothing appears to our sight but ruin; families ruined; congregations ruined; sumptuous structures ruined; cities ruined; country ruined; court ruined; kingdoms ruined. Who weeps not, when all these bleed? As now our friends' distresses are our distresses, so then our friends' deliverance will be part of our own deliverance. How much more joyous now to join with them in their days of thanksgiving and gladness, than in the days of humiliation in sackcloth and ashes!
How much then more joyous will it be to join with them in their perpetual praises and triumphs, than to hear them now bewailing their wretchedness, their want of light, their want of life, of joy, of assurance, of grace, of Christ, of all things! How much more comfortable to see them perfected, than now to see them wounded, weak, sick, and afflicted? To stand by the bed of their langnishing as silly comforters, being overwhelmed and silenced with the greatness of their griefs, conscious of our own disability to relieve them, scarce having a word of comfort to refresh them; or if we have, alas, they be but words, which are a poor relief, when their sufferings are real; fain we would ease or help them, but cannot: all we can do, is to sorrow with them, which alas, doth rather increase their sorrows. Our day of rest will free both us and them from all this. Now we may enter many a poor Christian's cottage, and there see their children ragged, their purse empty, their cupboard empty, their belly empty, and poverty possessing and filling all. How much better is that day, when we shall see them filled with Christ, clothed with glory, and equalised with the richest and greatest princes! O the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that our eyes have seen in four years' space! In this fight a dear friend is slain; scarce a month, scarce a week, without the sight or noise of blood; surely there is none of this in heaven. Our eyes shall then be filled no more, nor our hearts pierced with such dreadful sights, &c.
Our eyes shall never more behold the earth covered with the carcasses of the slain. Our mourning attire will then be turned into the white robes and garments of gladness. Oh! how hardly can our hearts now hold, when we think of such, and such, and such a dear christian friend slain or departed! O how glad must the same hearts be when we see them all alive and glorified! But a far greater grief it is to our spirits, to see the spiritual miseries of our brethren; to see such a one with whom we took sweet counsel, and who zealously joined with us in God's worship, to be now fallen off to sensuality, turned drunkard, worldling, or a persecutor of the saints! and these trying times have given us too large occasion for such sorrows; to see our dearest and most intimate friends to be turned aside from the truth of Christ, and that either in or near the foundation, and to be raging confident in the grossest errors; to see many near us in the flesh, continue their neglect of Christ and their souls, and nothing will waken them out of their security; to look an ungodly father or mother, brother or sister, in the face; to look on a carnal wife, or husband, or child, or friend, and to think how certainly they shall be in hell for ever, if they die in their present unregenerate estate! Oh! what continual dolors do all these sad sights and thoughts fill our hearts with from day to day; and will it not be a blessed day when we shall rest from all these? What Christian now is not in Paul's case, and cannot speak in his language? "Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches; who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?" (2 Cor. 11:28, 29.) What heart is not wounded to think on Germany's long desolations? Oh! the learned universities; the flourishing churches there that now are left desolate! Look on England's four years' blood, a flourishing land almost made ruinate; hear but the common voice in most cities, towns, and countries through the land, and judge whether here be no cause of sorrow; especially, look but to the sad effects, and men's spirits grown more out of order: and is this not cause of astonishing sorrows? Look to Scotland, look to Ireland; look almost every where, and tell me what you see. Blessed be that approaching day, when our eyes shall behold no more such sights, nor our ears hear any more such tidings! How
many hundred pamphlets are printed, full of almost nothing but the common calamities! so that it is become a gainful trade to divulge the news of our brethren's sufferings; and the fears for the future that possessed our hearts, were worse than all that we saw and suffered: nay, have not many died with the fears of that which, if they had lived, they had neither suffered nor seen? It is said of Melancthon, that the miseries of the church made him almost neglect the death of his beloved children; to think of the Gospel departing, the glory taken from Israel, our sun setting at noon-day, poor souls left willingly dark and destitute, and with great pains and hazard blowing out the light that should guide them to salvation! What sad thoughts must these be!e To think of Christ removing his family; taking away both worship and worshippers, and to leave the land to the rage of the merciless: these were sad thoughts. Who could then have the harp in hand, or sing the pleasant songs of Sion? (Isa. 60:11–14.) But blessed be the Lord, who hath frustrated our fears, and who will hasten that rejoicing day, when Sion shall be exalted above the mountains, and her gates shall be open day and night, and the glory of the Gentiles be brought into it, and the nation and kingdom that will not serve her shall perish: when the sons of them that afflicted her shall come bending unto her, and all they that despised her "shall bow themselves at the soles of her feet; and they shall call her the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel;" (Isa. 60:21, 22;) when her people also shall be all righteous, even the work of God's hands, the branch of his planting, who shall inherit the land for ever, that he may be glorified. When that voice shall sound forth, "Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that love her; that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolation; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." (Isa. 66:10, 12.) Thus shall we rest from our participation of our brethren's sufferings.
Sect. XVI. 8. We shall rest also from all our own personal sufferings, whether natural and ordinary, or extraordinary, from the afflicting hand of God. And though this may seem a small thing to those that live in continual ease, and abound in all kind of prosperity, yet,
methinks, to the daily afflicted soul, it should make the fore-thoughts of heaven delightful; and I think I shall meet with few of the saints but will say, that this is their own case. O the dying life that we now live! as full of sufferings, as of days and hours! We are the carcasses that all calamities prey upon: as various as they are, each one will have a snatch at us, and be sure to devour a morsel of our comfort.
When we bait our bulls and bears, we do but represent our own condition; whose lives are consumed under such assaults, and spent in succession of fresh encounters. All creatures have an enmity against us, ever since we made the Lord of all our enemy; and though we are reconciled by the blood of the covenant, and the price is paid for our full deliverance, yet our Redeemer sees it fit to leave this measure of misery upon us, to make us know for what we are beholden, to mind us of what we would else forget, to be serviceable to his wise and gracious designs, and advantageous to our full and final recovery. He hath sent us as lambs among wolves; and sure there is little rest to be expected. As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so they are become the inlets of our sorrow. Grief creeps in at our eyes, at our ears, and almost every where: it seizeth upon our heads, our hearts, our flesh, our spirits; and what part doth escape it? Fears do devour us, and darken our delights, as the frosts do nip the tender buds; cares do consume us, and feed upon our spirits, as the scorching sun doth wither the delicate flowers: or, if any saint or stoic have fortified his inwards against these, yet he is naked still without; and if he be wiser than to create his own sorrows, yet shall he be sure to feel his share; he shall produce them as the meritorious, if not as the efficient cause. What tender pieces are these dusty bodies! What brittle glasses do we bear about us; and how many thousand dangers are they hurried through; and how hardly cured, if once cracked! O the multitudes of slender veins, of tender membranes, nerves, fibres, muscles, arteries, and all subject to obstructions, exhesions, tensions, contractions, resolutions, ruptures, or one thing or other, to cause their grief; every one a fit subject for pain, and fit to communicate that pain to the whole! What nobler part is there that suffereth its pain or ruin alone? whatever it is to the sound and healthful, methinks to such as myself this rest
should be acceptable, who in ten or twelve years' time, have scarce had a whole day free from some dolour. Oh! the weary nights and days; oh! the unserviceable, languishing weakness; oh! the restless, working vapours; oh! the tedious, nauseous medicines, besides the daily expectations of worse! And will it not be desirable to rest from all these? There will be then no crying out, Oh! my head, oh! my stomach, oh! my sides, or oh! my bowels: no, no, sin, and flesh, and dust, and pain, will all be left behind together. Oh! what would we not give now for a little ease, much more for a perfect cure! How, then, should we value that perfect freedom! If we have some mixed comforts here, they are scarce enough to sweeten our crosses; or if we have some short and smiling intermissions, it is scarce time enough to breathe us in, and to prepare our tacklings for the next storm. If one wave pass by, another succeeds; and if the night be over, and the day come, yet will it soon be night again. Some men's fevers are continual, and some intermittent; some have tertians, and some quartans; but, more or less, all have their fits. O the blessed tranquillity of that region, where there is nothing but sweet continued peace! No succession of joy there, because no intermission. Our lives will be but one joy, as our time will be changed into one eternity. O healthful place, where none are sick! O fortunate land, where all are kings! O place most holy, where all are priests! How free a state, where none are servants, save to their supreme Monarch! For it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall give us rest from our sorrow, and our fear, and from the hard bondage wherein we served. (Isa. 14:3.) The poor man shall no more be tired with his incessant labours; no more use of plough, or flail, or scythe, or sickle; no stooping of the servant to the master, or the tenant to the landlord; no hunger, or thirst, or cold, or nakedness; no pinching frosts, nor scorching heats. Our very beasts who suffered with us, shall also be freed from their bondage; ourselves, therefore, much more: our faces shall no more be pale or sad; our groans and sighs will be done away; and God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. (Rom. 8:19–22; Rev. 7:15–17. 21:3, 4.) No more parting of friends asunder, nor voice of lamentation heard in our dwellings. No more breaches, nor disproportion, will be in our
friendship, nor any trouble accompanying our relations; no more care of master for servants, or parents for children, or magistrates over subjects, or ministers over people; no more sadness for our study lost, our preaching lost, our entreaties lost, the tenders of Christ's blood lost, and our dear people's souls lost; no more marrying, nor giving in marriage, but we shall be as the angels of God. O what room can there be for any evil, where the whole is perfectly filled with God! Then shall the "ransomed of the Lord return and come to Sion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isa. 35:10.) Hold out then a little longer, O my soul; bear with the infirmities of thy earthly tabernacle; endure that share of sorrows that the love of thy Father shall impose; submit to his indignation also, because thou hast sinned against him; it will be thus but a little while; the sound of thy Redeemer's feet are even at the door; and thine own deliverance nearer than many others. And thou who hast often cried, in the language of the divine poet,
Herbert, "Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believed, Till grief did tell me roundly, that I lived," shalt then feel, that God and joy is all thy soul; the fruition of whom, with thy freedom from all these sorrows, will, more sweetly, and more feelingly, make thee know, and to his eternal praise acknowledge, that thou livest.
And thus we shall rest from all afflictions.
Sect. XVII. 9. We shall rest also from all the trouble and pain of duty.
The conscientious magistrate now cries out, Oh! the burden that lieth upon me! The conscientious parents, that know the preciousness of their children's souls, and the constant pains required to their godly education, cry out, Oh! the burden! The conscientious minister above all, when he reads his charge, (2 Tim. 4:1,) and views his pattern;
(Mark 3:20, 21, &c.; Acts 20:18, 31;) when he hath tried awhile what it is to study, and pray, and preach, according to the weight and excellency of the work; to go from house to house, and from neighbour to neighbour, and to beseech them night and day with tears, and, after all, to be hated and persecuted for so doing, no wonder if he cry out, O the burden! and be ready to turn away with Jonas; and, with Jeremy, to say, "I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name; for his word is a reproach to us, and a derision daily; but that he hath made his word as a fire shut up in our bones and heart, that we are weary of forbearing, and cannot stay."
(Jer. 20:8, 9.) How long may we study and labour before one soul is brought clear over to Christ! and when it is done, how soon do the snares of sensuality or error entangle them! How many receive the doctrine of delusion before they have time to be built up in the truth; and when heresies must of necessity arise, how few of them do appear approved! The first new, strange apparition of light doth so amaze them, they think they are in the third heaven, when they are but newly passed from the suburbs of hell, and are presently as confident as if they knew all things, when they have not half light enough to acquaint them with their ignorance; but, after ten or twenty years' study, they become usually of the same judgment with those they despised. And seldom doth a minister live to see the ripeness of his people; but one soweth and planteth, another watereth, and a third reapeth and receiveth the increase. Yet were all this duty delightful, had we but a true proportion of strength. But, to inform the old ignorant sinner, to convince the stubborn and worldly wise, to persuade a wilful resolved wretch, to prick a stony heart to the quick, to make a rock to weep and tremble, to set forth Christ according to our necessity and his excellency, to comfort the soul whom God dejected, to clear up dark and difficult truths, to oppose with convincing arguments all gainsayers, to credit the Gospel with exemplary conversations, when multitudes do but watch for our halting; Oh! who is sufficient for these things? So that every relation, state, age, hath variety of duty: every conscientious Christian cries out, O the burden! or, O my weakness that makes it so burdensome!
But our remaining rest will ease us of the burden. Then will that be
sound doctrine, which now is false, that the law hath no more to do with us; that it becomes not a Christian to beg for pardon, seeing all his sins are perfectly pardoned already; that we need not fast, nor mourn, nor weep, nor repent; and that a sorrowful countenance beseems not a Christian: then will all these become truths.
Sect. XVIII. 10. And, lastly, we shall rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God; the trouble that is mixed in our desires and hopes, our longings and waitings, shall then cease. We shall no more look into our cabinet, and miss our treasure; look into our hearts, and miss our Christ; nor no more seek him from ordinance to ordinance, and inquire for our God of those we meet; our heart will not lie in our knee, nor our souls be breathed out in our requests; but all conclude in a most full and blessed fruition. But because this, with the former, are touched before, I will say no more of them now; so you have seen what we shall rest from.
Sect. XIX. The ninth and last jewel in our crown, and blessed attribute of this rest, is, that it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown; without which, all were comparatively little or nothing.
The very thought of once leaving it, would else embitter all our joys: and the more would it pierce us, because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake. It would be a hell in heaven to think of once losing heaven: as it would be a kind of heaven to the damned, had they but hopes of once escaping. Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights. It makes our present life of little value (were it not for the reference it hath to God and eternity), to think that we must shortly lay it down. How can we take delight in any thing, when we remember how short that delight would be; that the sweetness of our cups and morsels is dead as soon as they are but once past our taste! Indeed, if man were as the beast, that knows not his suffering or death till he felt it, and little thinks when the knife is whetting, that it is making ready to cut his throat, then might we be merry till death forbid us, and enjoy our delights till they shall forsake us; but, alas! we know both good and evil; and evil foreknown, is in part endured; and thus our knowledge increaseth our sorrows. (Eccles.
1:18.) How can it choose but spoil our pleasure, while we see it dying in our hands! How can I be as merry as the jovial world, who have mine eye fixed upon eternity! When methinks I foresee my dying hour, my friends waiting for my last gasp, and closing my eyes, while tears forbid to close their own; methinks I hear them say, He is dead.
Methinks I see my coffin made, my grave in digging, and my friends there leaving me in the dust: and where, now, is that we took delight in? O but methinks I see, at the same view, that grave opening, and my dead, revived body rising; methinks I hear that blessed voice,
'Arise and live, and die no more.' Surely, were it not for eternity, I should think man a silly piece; and all this life and honour but contemptible: I shall call him, with David, a vain shadow; and with the prophet, nothing, and less than nothing, and altogether lighter than vanity itself. It utterly disgraceth the greatest glory in mine eyes, if you can but truly call it mortal. I can value nothing that shall have an end, except as it leads to that which hath no end; or as it comes from that love which hath neither beginning nor end. I speak this of my deliberate thoughts; and if some ignorant or forgetful soul have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure, I confess he may be merrier for the present; but where is his mirth when he lieth adying? alas! it is a poor happiness that consists only in the ignorance or forgetfulness of approaching misery; but, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears; where we shall be "pillars in God's temple," (Rev. 3:12,) and go out no more. O, what do I say when I talk of eternity! Can my shallow thoughts conceive at all what the highest expression doth contain? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Why, surely this, if any thing, is the resemblance of God: eternity is a piece of infiniteness. Then, O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? Days, and nights, and years, time, and end, and death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity, as the mention of hell, to extol heaven. No more use of our calendars or chronology: all the years of our Lord, and the years of our lives, are swallowed up and lost in this eternity. While we were servants, we held by lease; and that but for the term of transitory life; but the son abideth in the house for ever.
(Gal. 6:8.) Our first and earthly paradise in Eden had a way out, but none that ever we could find in again; but this eternal paradise hath a way in (a milky way to us, but a bloody way to Christ), but no way out again; "for they that would pass from hence to you," saith
Abraham, "cannot." (Luke 16:24.) A strange phrase! Would any pass from such a place if they might? Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour! No, but upon supposal that they would; yet they could not. O then, my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures; and loose thy hold of earth and flesh. Fear not to enter that estate, where thou shalt ever after cease thy fears. Sit down, and sadly, once a day, bethink thyself of this eternity: among all the arithmetical numbers, study the value of this infinite cipher, which, though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account, doth yet contain all our millions, as much less than a simple unit. Lay by the perplexed and contradicting chronological tables, and fix thine eye on this eternity; and the lines which remote thou couldst not follow, thou shalt see all together here concentred. Study less those tedious volumes of history, which contain but the silent narration of dreams, and are but the pictures of the actions of shadows; and, instead of all, study frequently, study thoroughly this one word, 'eternity,' and when thou hast learned thoroughly that one word, thou wilt never look on books again. What! live, and never die? Rejoice, and ever rejoice! O, what sweet words are these, 'never and ever!' O, happy souls in hell, should you but escape after millions of ages! and if the Origenist doctrine were but true! O miserable saints in heaven, should you be dispossessed after the age of a million of worlds! But, O this word,
'everlasting,' contains the accomplished perfection of their torment and our glory. O that the wicked sinner would but soundly study this word 'everlasting,' methinks it should startle him out of his deadest sleep! O that the gracious soul would believingly study this word
'everlasting,' methinks it should revive him in the deepest agony!
And must I, Lord, thus live for ever? Then will I also love for ever.
Must my joys be immortal; and shall not my thanks be also immortal? Surely, if I shall never loose my glory, I will also never cease thy praises. Shouldst thou but renew my lease of these firstfruits, would I not renew thy fine and rent? But if thou wilt both