promised these things, yet he will be enquired of by his people to do them.. We should therefore pray continually to him, and give him no reft day nor night until they are accomplished; and for the accomplishment of which we fhould quietly wait; for there is an appointed time, and when that comes there will be no tarrying: Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days". I add no more but this wish, the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ *. The Glorious State of the Saints in Heaven. Preached at a Wednesday's Evening Lecture in Great Eaftcheap, Dec. 31, 1755. ΤΗ PSALM LXXXIV. 11. The Lord will give Grace and Glory. HE only word in this paffage I fhall infift upon, is GLORY; by which I understand the glorious and happy state of the faints after death, the fruit of divine grace, freely given them of the Lord. I have in fome former discourses, on fuch occafions as this, treated of the latter-day-glory in the several branches of it, and of what shall go before it, and be done in it; and alfo of the faith which fuch things require, and of the fure and certain performance of them: and now I fhall treat of the ultimate glory of the faints in heaven; which will commence upon their departure out of this world, and be confummated in the morning of the refurrection from the dead; and this I fhall endeavour to do in the following method: I. I shall attempt to prove the reality and certainty of fuch an happy ftate. II. Describe it, as I am able, according to the fcriptural Account of it. III. Point out the Perfons that fhall enjoy it. I. Prove I. Prove that there will be a glorious and happy ftate enjoyed by good men. after death, or in another world. First, This will admit of fome fort of proof, from the light of nature and reafon; not that the kind or nature of such happiness is discoverable or demonftrable by it; but future happiness in general, or fome general notion of it, may be come at thereby; which may be concluded, 1. From the natural defire after happiness that is in mankind; and this defire of it is univerfal; there is not one man born into the world, if he lives to years of difcretion and understanding, and has the exercife of his reafon, but is defirous of happiness, and is eager in his purfuit of it, in fome way or another, and yet does not find it in this life. All created beings and excellencies fay, It is not in me; as is found by the moft diligent enquiry after it: it is not in worldly wealth and riches; it is not in the gratification of fenfual lufts and pleasures; it is not in the honours of this world, in popular applaufe, fame, and credit; it is not in natural wisdom and knowledge; not in all the endowments of the mind, or accomplishments of the body; no, not in any thing in the whole compass of the creation. Now either this defire of happiness is planted in human nature in vain, which is not reasonable to suppose; or else there must be a future state of happiness, in which fome, at leaft, of the individuals of human nature, even good men, will have this defire fully fatisfied; which will be when, and not before, they awake in the divine likeness. 2. It may be argued from the unequal distribution of things in this life, which makes the providences of God very intricate and perplexed; and to appear attended with fuch difficulties as we are not able to folve, without the fuppofition of a future ftate. It is easy to obferve, that wicked men oftentimes profper in this world, and increase in riches; abound in an affluence of good things; are not afflicted as other men, but spend their days in plenty, and go down to the grave in peace; when, on the other hand, many are the afflictions of the righteous; good men are often afflicted in their perfons, diftreffed in their circumstances, or labour under the oppreffion and tyranny of the wicked. Now there is no accounting for these things in a rational manner, without fupposing a future state, in which good men will be happy, and wicked men miferable; or the one be comforted, and the other tormented: it is only this confideration that can make the present state of things fit eafy on a rational mind, or on the mind of a good man, and reconcile him to it. 3. It may be observed, that a general notion of happiness after death has obtained among the wifer fort of heathens, who have only been guided by the light of nature; especially among such who have given in to the belief of the immortality of the foul. Hades, or the ftate and place of the dead, with them were twofold; VOL. I. P -4 twofold; the one they called Tartarus, the fame with bell; a place of torments, where the wicked, after death, having been judged by the proper judges, and fentence paffed upon them, were wafted over the Stygian lake in old Charon's boat, commonly called the ferry-man of hell. The other they call the Elysian fields, the island of the bleffed, the feat of the immortal ones, the place where the fouls of good men go after death; which fields and island they place in a temperate air and climate; where are no bluftering storms, nipping frofts, and fleecy fnows, but all calm, quiet, warm, and comfortable; where are cooling fhades, refreshing bowers fanned with soft and gentle zephyrs; where are graffy plains, flowery meads, and fruitful fields abounding with all the delights of nature, with pure flowing fountains and purling ftreams; where the bleffed inhabitants are regaled with ambrofia and nectar, and where they spend their happy hours in feafting, dancing, mirth, and mufic. These things I obferve, not to fhew that the heathens had any true notion of the nature of future happinefs; far from it; but only that the belief of it in general did obtain among them :: and this alfo ferves to fhew what poor things the light of nature, and the religion of nature are, which fome men would bring us back again unto. But blefsed be God for a divine revelation; for a more fure word of prophecy; for the gospel, which brings life and immortality to light; fets the ftate of an immortal life afterdeath in the trueft light, as well as fhews us the way unto it.. Wherefore,. Secondly, The clear and full proof of the faints future ftate of glory and hap-piness is to be fetched from the scriptures of truth, and may be ftrongly concluded, 1. From the promise of God concerning it. The divine promifes to godliness. and godly men reach not only to this life, but to that which is to come; yea,. the promise of eternal life is the principal one; the apostle John speaks of it, as if it was the only one, because the chief: this is the promise he hath promised us,. even eternal life; and is that indeed. in which all the reft center and terminate.. It was made very early, before the world began, and by that God which cannot lye, and therefore may be depended upon as fure and certain: bleffed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, by various afflictions in this life, he shall after death receive the crown of life, even life eternal, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 2. This • Vid. Diodor. Sicul. 1. 1. p. 82. Ed. Rhod. Plato in Gorgia, p. 357. Homer. Iliad. 8. ver. 13-16.. Virgil. Æneid. 1. 6. ver. 540, &c. ο Αλλα σ' ες Ηλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πειραια γαιης, &c. Homer. Odyff. 4. ver. 563, &c. Virgil. Æneid, 1. 6. ver. 638, 639, &c. Vid. Servium in Æneid. 5. p. 973. Plato. in Axiocho in fine, & Pindar. Olymp. Od. 2. p. 96, 98.. Ed. Schmid. 2 Peter. i. 19. 2. Tim. i. 10. 1 Tim. iv. 8. • 1 John. ii. 25. f Titus i. 2. 8 James i. 12. h 2. This glory is not only promifed, but prepared; it confifts of things unfeen and unheard of by men, and not to be conceived of by them in the prefent state, and which are prepared by the Lord for all true lovers of him. And this preparation of happiness was very early made; it is a kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world'; in the counfels and purposes of God, which are unfruftrable, and can never be made void; nor can it, nor will it be given to any other than to thofe for whom it is prepared by the Father of Chrift, and thefe fhall certainly enjoy it. 3. Not only this glory is promifed and prepared, but there are veffels of mercy afore, and as early prepared for this glory' in the deftination and appointment of God; there are some who are ordained to eternal life"; and these, as they certainly believe in Christ in time, so they fhall moft affuredly enjoy that life in eternity to which they are ordained; the means as well as end being fixed and fure for God has chofen them from the beginning; not from the beginning of the gospel being preached unto them, nor from the beginning of their converfion, but from the beginning of time, even from all eternity; through fanétification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, as means of falvation and eternal life; even to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jefus Chrift"; which he is entered into, is poffeffed of, and has in his hands to give unto his people, and which will partly consist in beholding his glory: and these things are firm and sure; predestination and glorification are links in the fame chain, and cannot be broken and parted; whom he did predeftinate - them be alfo glorified. 4. The covenant of grace includes and enfures a future state of glory and happiness, as well as all the bleffings of grace for the prefent; otherwise it would not be ordered in all things as it is, even in all things convenient for our fpiritual and eternal welfare; nor be all our falvation, fince that comprehends the whole of bliss and happiness, here and hereafter; nor all our defire, which certainly extends to another world. We call this covenant a covenant of grace, because it springs from the grace of God, is founded on it, and is filled with it: the scriptures call it the covenant of peace, because of an article in it refpecting peace and reconciliation by Chrift; and for the fame reafon it is called the covenant of life, as well as peace, because of the article of eternal life which is fettled in it the form in which the fubftance of it runs, is, I will be their God, and they shall be my people; and as this form of speaking in it, proves the immortality of the foul, and the refurrection of the body, for which last our Lord produces it, fo likewise a future ftate of glory and happiness; for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living '. 5. The 1 Rom ix. 23. P 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. 5. The furetyship-engagements and performances of Chrift give us abundant reafon to believe a future ftate of blifs and glory: he became a furety for his people in the covenant of grace, not only to bring them to the participation of the bleffings of grace in time, but to bring them to eternal glory; not only to bring them to himself by faith, and into his church and fold here below, but to fet them before his Father's face in heaven; as Judah became furety for Benjamin to bring him and fet him before his father Jacob, or bear the blame for ever': wherefore, in confequence of this engagement, he has looked upon himself under obligation to do every thing in order to bring them into this ftate: he came into this world in our nature to remove all the remoras, obftructions, and difficulties. that lay in the way to it, and to open the way for enjoyment of it; he came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly"; a more abundant, and a more excellent life than Adam had in innocence, or the angels in heaven; a life of glory with himself and accordingly he will bring all the many fons to glory, as the great captain of salvation; and present them to his Father, faying, Behold I, and the children whom God hath given me". 6. This we may be further affured of from the actual entrance of Chrift into glory after his fufferings and death, which were neceffary by the appointment and promife of God; and into which he entered, not as a fingle perfon only, orfor himself alone, but as a common perfon, public head and reprefentative of all his people; he entered into heaven as the fore-runner of them, and took. poffeffion of it in their name, and appears now in the prefence of God for them, representing them all; infomuch that they are said to be already made to fit together in beavenly places in Chrift Fefus; from which it may be most certainly concluded, that they will fit there in their own perfons hereafter. X 7. The preparations of Christ, and his prayers for the future glory of his people, furnish out an argument not inconfiderable, proving the reality and certainty of it in my Father's boufe, fays Chrift, are many mansions", of peace, joy, blifs, and happiness; if it were not fo, I would have told you; which is a ftrong and invincible proof of the truth we are treating of: I go to prepare a place for you; meaning in the other world, in his Father's houfe; which, though a kingdom prepared from eternity in the will, purpose, and defign of God, yet required another and fresh preparation by the perfonal prefence and powerful interceffion of Chrift; and if I go and prepare a place for you, as he certainly would and did; I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also; of which no doubt is to be made: and his prayers and interceffions are for the fame thing; of which we have an instance and example in his interceffory prayer here on earth; Father, I will that they alfo whom thou hast Gen. xliii. 9. " John x 10. Heb. ii. 10, 13. given × Heb. vi. 20. and ix. 24. |