The Saints Everlasting Rest, Treatise 1 · Chapter 7 · Section 1
SECT. I.
§. 1. 1. It is the fruit of the Love and Blood of Christ, whom we shall there also behold & enjoy.1. ANd first, it's a most singular honor and ornament, in the stile of the Saints 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 grow in the Garden of Love; can there be brought one more sweet and beautiful to the Garland, then this Blood? Greater Love then this there is not, to lay down the life of the Lover.John 15.13. 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!Quid mirum si caput p…o membris accepit curationem, quam tamen in se ipso non habuit necessariam▪ Nonne & in membris nustris saepe pro unius infirmita…e alteri adhibetur curatio? Dolet caput, & in brachio sit coctura; dolent renes & fit in tibia; …ta hodie pro totius corpo…is putredine Cauterium quodam infixum est in capite Christo. Berna. Serm. 30 de tem…ore. Fatescat ergo maeror tristitia fugiat; eliminetur dolor; rancor abscedat, ut liceat vacare et videre cum Moysi visionem hanc grand…m; qualiter Deus in venire virginis concipiatur; decipiatur diabolus, recipiatur perditum; ind…bitum accipiatur! Totum me trahit affectio, sed oratio deficit; Dives cogitatio vocis paupertate consunditur. Bernard. Serm. 24. in die Natal. Quid aeque mentem cogitantis impinguat? Nomen I…su M…l in ore; in aure Melos; in corde Jubilus. Omnis cibus qui non conditur hoc sale infatuatus est. Scriptura quae non fuerit interlita olco tantae devotionis, est insipida. Bernard. Serm: 23. Oh how will it fill our Souls with perpetual Ravishments? To think that in the streams of this Blood we have swam 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 unbeleeving heart, and are passed through all, and here arrived safely at the brest of God! Now we are stupified with vile and sensless 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? (Lamen. 1.12.) and we will scarce hear or regard the dolorous voyce; 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 neerer our hearts, then if we beleeved 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 hath so often stole 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 the Dolorons way by which he bare his Cross, and enter the Temple of the Holy Grave; yea, if we should with Peter have stooped down and seen the place where he lay, and behold his Relicts; yet these Bolted doors of sin and flesh would have kept out the feeling of all that Love. But, (Oh!Non cap o me pre lativa, quia illi May…tas naturam …uim naturae …ae carnts & so gaints subv…lat; & me ins…um in divilias gloriae suae, non ad horam, sed in sempternum includit; Fit scater me…s do…inus mens; Et tim… domini fratris vincit affectus. Domine Jesu Christe; L…benter audio te …egnantem in coelis; libenti…s nascentem in terris; liboutis sime crucem, clavos & lanceam sustinentem. Haec siquidem effusio rapit affictum meum; & istorum memoria incalescit cor meum, Berna, Serm 23. in die Nata. that's the Joy,) we shall then leave these hearts of stone and Rock behinde 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 hath partaked of the Joys of Heaven, had 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 Brest or no? Would the voyce of his dying Lord have melted his heart, or no? Oh 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 workings 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 straitned fire shut up in the brest, strive to break forth? *John 20 16. Mat. 28 9.Mary! saith Christ: Master! saith Mary: and presently she clasps about his feet: having her heart as neer to his heart, as her hands were to his feet. What a meeting of Love then will there be, between the new glorified Saint, and the Glorious Redeemer? But I am here at a loss: my apprehensions fail me, and fall so short. OnelyOnly 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,John 20.13. Woman, why weepest thou? knows how to raise Love and Joy by all those views, without raising any cloud of sorrow, or storm of tears at all. He that made the Sacramental Commemoration of his Death to be his Churches Feast; will sure 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,2 Sam 23.16, 17. because they were the blood of those men, who jeoparded their lives for them; and thought them fitter to offer to God, then 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 onelyonly, 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 us 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 England should value the plenty of the Gospel, with their Peace and Freedom at a higher rate, when they remember what it hath cost! How much precious blood! How many of the Lives of Gods worthies, and our most dear friends! besides all other cost. Methinks when I am with freedom preaching, or hearing, or living, I see my dying friends before mine eyes, whose blood was sh…d for this; and look the more respectively on them yet living, whose frequent dangers did procure it. Oh then, when we are rejoycing 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 hearts? How carefully preserve we those prizes, which with greatest hazard we gained from the enemy? Goliahs sword must be kept as a Trophie,1 Sam. 21.9. and layd up behinde the Ephod: and in a time of need, David says, There's none to that. Surely when we do divide the spoil, and partake of the prize which our Lord so dearly won; we shall say indeed, There's none to that. How dear was Jonathans Love to David, which was testified by stripping himself of the Robe that was upon him, and giving it David, 1 Sam. 18.4.and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle: and also by saving him from his fathers 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 man 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 Fathers deserved wrath? Well then Christians, as you use to do in your Books, and on your Goods, to write down the price they cost you; so do on your Righteousness, and on your Glory; write down the price, The Precious Blood of Christ *By the redundancy of which merit (after satisfaction thereby made unto his Fathers Justice for our debt) there is further a purchase made of Grace and Glory, and of al good things in our behalf. M Reinoldes Life of Christ, Pag. 402. Isa. 27.4. Lam. 3.33. Ezek. 18.23.32..
Yet understand this rightly; Not that this highest Glory was in strictest proper sense purchased, or that it was the most immediate Effect of Christs 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 lesse of his Sonne, 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 immediatly to satisfie the justice that required blood, and to bear what was due to the sinner, and to receive the blow that should have fallen upon him, & 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 then they fell from; and to give them the glory which was given to himself, and all this according to his counsell, and the good pleasure of his own will.