our sins by himself," and accomplished our salvation? Now we are absent from God, yet in believing his infallible promises, we "rejoice with a joy unspeakable and glorious :" But how much more joyful is the fruition of them? Here the divine goodness is derived to us through secondary means, that weaken its efficacy; but in Heaven the consolations of the creator are most purely dispensed, and his immediate excellencies are made known. This blessedness exceeds all our thoughts, and explicate desires, and requires the eloquence and experience of an angel to set it forth. The bright sum of it is this, we shall see God in his glory face to face, 1 Cor. 13. in the most perfect manner: The sight of his glory shall transform us into his likeness; we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, 1 John 3. This shall produce in us the most pure and ardent love; and love shall be attended with inexpressible joy, and that with the highest praises of the blessed God, whose influxive presence is the heaven of heavens. And that which crowns all is, that the life above is eternal. This satisfies all our desires, and excludes all our fears: For unchangeableness is an inseparable attribute of perfect felicity. The blessed are in full communion with God, the fountain of life, and Christ the prince of life. "Because I live," saith our Saviour, "ye shall live also." What can interrupt, much less put an end to the happiness of the saints? The love of God is immutably fixed upon them, and their love upon him. Here their love is subject to decays, and gradual alienations; as the needle in the compass, though it always has a tendency to the North-pole, yet sometimes it declines, and has its variations. But in heaven the love of the saints is directly and constantly set upon God. The light of his countenance governs all their affections. It is as impossible to divert their desires from him, as to cause one that is inflamed with thirst, to leave a clear flowing spring for a noisome puddle. In short, heaven is filled with eternal hallelujahs: for there is no appearance of sin, no shadow of death there all miseries are vanished, and all that is desirable is possessed by the saints: the circle of their employment is to enjoy and praise the divine goodness forever. Now is not the blessed exchange a christian makes of the present life, for that which is infinitely better, sufficient to make death not fearful, nay desirable to him? The regular well-grounded hope of this will compose the thoughts in the nearest approach and apprehension of death: no other principles or resolutions are able to vanquish the terrors of our last enemy. And this happiness was purchased for us by the everlasting treasure of our saviour's blood. The satisfaction of his sufferings was meritorious, as the merit of his active obedience was satisfying. CHAPTER IV. The reasons why believers die, and are in a state of death for a time, notwithstanding the sting of death is taken away. Sin is abolished by death. The graces are eminently exercised in the encounter with the last enemy. The natural body is not capable of the celestial life. The resurrection of the saints is delayed till the coming of Christ. The resurrection proved from revelation; and the possibility of it by reason. How the resurrection of Christ is an assurance of the happy resurrection of the saints. Before I proceed to the third head, I shall resolve a question, how it comes to pass, since believers are freed from the sting of death, that they die, and remain in a state of death for a time? For there are several reasons. 1. By this means all the sinful frailties that cleave to the saints in this life, are abolished. The body is dead because of sin, Rom. 8. And what is more becoming the wise and holy providence of God, than that as by sin man was at first made subject to death, so by death sin dies entirely forever. Thus, as in Sampson's riddle, out of the devourer comes meat; and our worst enemy is conquered by his own weapons. 2. Death is continued to the saints, for the more eminent exercise and illustration of their graces, for the glory of God, and in order to their future reward. *Faith, and love, and patience, are declared in their most powerful operations in our encounter with death. If every saint were visibly and entirely translated to heaven, after a short course of holy obedience; if the wicked did visibly drop down quick into hell, faith would be resigned to sight here. This would confound the militant state of the church with the triumphant. Therefore now death happens to the good as well as to the wicked. In the next state they shall be separated by a vast gulf, and an amazing difference. Now faith, whatever the kind of death be that a christian suffers, sees through the thickest clouds of disgrace and misery, the glorious issue. As the illustrious confessor, who was crucified with our Saviour, proclaimed his eternal kingdom in the midst of insulting infidels. And our love to God then appears in its radiancy *Poterat autem Christus etiam hoc donare credentibus, ut nec istius experirentur corporis mortem: sed si hoc fecisset carni quædam fœlicitas adderetur, minueretur fidei fortitudo. Quid enim magnum erat vivendo eos non mori qui crederint se non morituros? Quanto est majus, quanto fortius, quanto laudibilius ita credere, ut se speret moriturus sine fine victurum? Aug. de pecc. Mort. Lib. 2. and vigor, when we are ready for the testimony of his truth, and advancing his glory, to suffer a violent death: Or when it comes in a gentler manner, for it is even then terrible to nature, we are willingly subject to dissolution, that we may be united to God in heaven. And our patience has never its perfect work, and is truly victorious, until this last enemy be subdued. Death is the seal of our constancy and perseverance. Now the righteous rewarder will crown none but those that strive lawfully, and are complete conquerors. And how wise and sweet is the economy of the divine providence in this, that the frailty of our nature should afford us a means of glorifying God, and of entitling ourselves by his most gracious promises to a blessed reward? 3. Our Saviour, by his unvaluable obedience and sufferings, has procured for believers a celestial divine life, of which the natural body is not capable. The apostle saith, "Flesh and blood cannot enter into the the kingdom of heaven." The Exigencies and decays of the sensitive nature require a continual relief by food and sleep, and other material supplies: But the life above is wholly spiritual; and equal to that of the angels. Therefore until this earthly animal body be reformed and purified, it is not capable of the glory reserved in heaven. This is so absolutely requisite, that those believers, who are found alive at the last day, shall "in the twinkling of an eye be changed," that they may be qualified for it. Now herein the wisdom of God is wonderful, that death, which by the covenant of works, was the deserved penalty of sin, by the covenant of grace should be the instrument of immortality: That as Joseph by a surprising circuit was brought from the prison to the principality; so a believer by the grave ascends to heaven. This the apostle, in his divine disputation against infidels, proves in a most convincing manner; "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." As the rotting of the corn in the earth is necessary to the reviving and springing of it up: So we must die, and the image of the earthly Adam be abolished, that we may be transformed into the image of the heavenly one. And to the other part of the question, Why the saints remain in the state of death for a time? There is a clear answer. The resurrection of the saints is delayed till Christ's coming to judg ment, partly for the glory of his appearance: For what an admirable sight will it be, that the saints of all ages shall at once arise glorified and immortalized, to attend upon our Saviour in the last act of his regal office, and then to make a triumphant entry with him into heaven? And partly, that the established order of providence may not be disturbed: For the changing of * Exercitia nobis sunt non funera, dant animo fortitudinis gloriam: contemptu mortis præparant ad coronam. Cypr. de mortal. our nature into glory, in a súdden and inexplicable manner, cannot be without miraculous power; and if every believer, presently after death, were in his glorified body translated to heaven, the world would be always filled with miracles, which were to cease after the sufficient confirmation of the gospel by them. But how long soever the interval be to the resurrection, it shall be with "them that sleep in Jesus," as it is with those that awake out of a quiet natural sleep, to whom the longest night seems but as a moment: So when the saints first awake from death, in the great morning of the world, a thousand years will seem no more to them than to God himself, but as one day. I now come to prove the third thing, that our Saviour will abolish the dominion of death over the saints. Whilst the bodies of the saints remain in the grave, they seem to be absolutely under the power of death. The world is a Golgotha, filled with the monuments of its victories. And it may be said to this our last enemy, in the words of the prophet to the bloody king, "Hast thou killed, and taken possession?" But we are assured by an infallible word, that the power of death shall be abolished, and the bodies of the saints be revived incorruptible and immortal. The resurrection is a terra incognita to the wisest heathens; a doctrine peculiar to the gospel: Some glimmerings they had of the soul's immortality, without which all virtue had been extinguished in the world, but no conjecture of the reviving of the body. But reason assists faith in this point, both as to the will of God, and his power for the performing it. I will glance upon the natural reasons that induce the considering mind to receive this doctrine, and more largely shew how the resurrection of the just is assured by our Redeemer. The divine laws are the rule of duty to the entire man, and not to the soul only: And they are obeyed or violated by the soul and body in conjunction. Therefore there must be a resurrection of the body, that the entire person may be capable of recompences in judgment. The soul designs, the body executes : The senses are the open ports to admit temptations. Carnal affections deprave the soul, corrupt the mind, and mislead it. The love of sin is founded in bono jucundo, in sensible pleasures: "And the members are the servants of iniquity." The heart is the fountain of profaneness, and the tongue expresses it. And the body is obsequious to the holy soul in doing or suffering for God; and denies its sensual appetites and satisfactions in compliance with reason and grace. The "members are the instruments of righteousness." It follows then there will be an universal resurrection, that the rewarding goodness of God may appear in making the bodies of his servants gloriously happy with their souls, and their souls completely happy in union with their bodies, to which they have a natural inclination, and his reveng ing justice be manifest in punishing the bodies of the wicked with eternal torments answerable to their guilt. And of the possibility of the resurrection, the circular and continual production of things in the world, is a clear demonstration of the power of God for that effect. There is a pregnant instance that our Saviour and the apostle made use of as an image of the resurrection: A grain of corn sowed in the earth, corrupts and dies, and after springs up entire; its death is a disposition to life. The essays of God's power in the works of returning nature, flowers and fruits in their season, instruct us how easily he can make those that are in the dust to awake to life. If the art of man, whose power and skill are very narrow and limited, can refine gold and silver to such a lustre, as if their matter were not earth digged out of the mines: If from black cinders it can form crystal glasses so clear and shining, how much more can omnipotency recompact our dust, and reanimate it with a glorious life? Death that dissolves our vital frame, does not abolish the matter of our bodies: And though it is corrupted and changed by a thousand accidents, yet, it is unperishing; and under whatsoever colors and figures it appears, God perfectly discerns, and will separate it for its proper use. More particularly, I will show how the resurrection of Christ is an assurance of the resurrection of believers to glory. As our surety he was under the arrest of death; it becoming the holy majesty of God, and conducing to the ends of his government, not to derogate from the dignity of his law, but to lay the penalty upon his son, who interposed for us. Now having finished the work of our redemption by his sufferings, his resurrection was the just consequent of his passion. And it is observable that his resurrection, though one entire act, is ascribed as to himself, so to his father, Rom. 1. 11. by whose consent and concurrence he rose again. Therefore it is said, Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, since it was impossible he should be holden by it, Acts 2. 24. It was naturally impossible upon the account of the divine power inherent in his person; and legally impossible, because divine justice required that he should be raised to life; partly to vindicate his innocence, for he was reputed and suffered as a malefactor, and principally because he had fully satisfied God. Accordingly the apostle declares, he died for our sins, and rose again for our justification, Rom. 4. Having paid our debt, he was released from the grave, and the discharge was most solemnly published to the world. It is therefore said, the God of peace raised him from the dead : Heb. 13. the act is most congruously ascribed unto God invested with that title, because his power was exerted in that glorious work, after he was "reconciled by the blood of the cove * Nomen terræ in igni reliquit. Turtul. VOL. I. 45 |