The Saints Everlasting Rest, Treatise 1 · Chapter 7 · Section 4
SECT. IV.§. 4.
A Fourth comfortable adjunct of this Rest is, that it is in the fellowship of the Blessed Saints and Angels of God.4It is a Rest with Angels and perfect Saints. 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 compleated? Nor doth this make those joyes to be therefore mediate, derived by creatures to us, as here: For all the lines may be drawn from the center, and not from each other, and yet their collocation make them more comely, then one alone could be. Though the strings receive not their sound and sweetnes 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 watcht, 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 wrought in our natures perfected; sure I am according to the present temperature of the most sanctified humane affections, it would affect exceedingly: And he who mentioneth the qualifications of our happiness of 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 joyes. 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 recompence and deliverance; and as we have been scorned and despised, so shall we be crowned and honored 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 willful world say, *Socrates Critoni vehement…r suad…nti ut si vitam ipse suam negligeret, certe liberis estiam… parvulis & amicis ab ipso pendentibus se servaret incolumem: Liberi, inquit, Deo, qui mihi cos dedit, curae erunt: amicos hinc discedens inveniam, vobis ant similes aut etiam meliores, ne vestra quidem consuetudinediucariturus, quando quidem vos brevi eodem est is commigraturi. Eras. apoth. lib. 3. ex Platone Zenop.If our forefathers and friends be all in Hell, why 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 are wont to complain to one another, and open our doubts to one another, and our feares whether ever we should come there or no; shall then rejoyce with one another, and triumph over those doubts and feares! when we who were wont formerly in private to meet together for mutual edification, shall now most publikely be conioyned 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 habitations without fear: and as their fear then did cause them to shut the door against their enemies, so will Gods Justice shut it now. Oh when I look in the faces of the pretious 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 together here? our fellowship in duty and in sufferings? how oft our groanes made as it were one sound, our conjunct teares but one stream, and our conjunct desires but one prayer? and now all our prayses shall make up one melody; and all our Churches one Church; and all our selves but one body: for we shall be one in Christ, even as he and the father are one. Its true, we must be very carefull 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 kinde 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 reioyce in them; for love and enjoyment cannot stand without an answerable Joy. If the forethoughts 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 fight, and actual possession? It cannot chuse but be comfortable to me to think of that day, when I shall joyn 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 Henoch 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 compleating of our comforts, to live eternally with Peter, Paul, Austin, Chrysostom, Jerome, Wickliffe, Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Zanchius, Pareus, Piscator? with Hooper, Bradford, Latimer, Glover, Saunders, Philpot? with Reignolds, Whitaker, Cartwright, Brightman, Bayne, Bradshaw, Bolton, Ball, Hildersham, Pemble, Twisse, Ames, Preston, Sibbes? O faelicem diem (said old Grynoeus,) quum ad illud animorum concilium proficiscar, & ex hac turba & Colluione discedam! O happy day when I shall depart out of this crown and sink, and go to that same counsell of soules! 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 pretious friends in Christ; with whom I took sweet counsell, and with whom I went up to the house of God; who walked with me in the fear of God, and in 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 of such a friend died at such a time, and such a one at another time, such a pretious Christian slain at such a fight, and such a one at such a fight (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. Its a Question with some, Whether we shall know each other in Heaven or no? Surely there shall no knowledg cease which now we have, but only that which implyeth our imperfection: And what imperfection can this imply? Nay our present knowledg shall be increased beyond belief: It shall indeed be done away, but as the light of the candle and stares is done away by the rising of the Sun; which is more properly a doing away of our ignorance then of our knowledge. Indeed we shall not know each other after the flesh;2 Cor. 5.16. not by stature, voice, colour, complexion, visage, or outward shape; if we had so known Christ we should know him no more: not by parts and gifts of learning, nor titles of honour and worldly dignity; nor by tearmes of affinity and consanguinity, nor benefits, nor such Relations; not 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: Quod accidit Adam? nunquam ille vider at 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 shall know our parents, wives,Melchi. Adam in vita Lutheri. children, &c. much more perfectly then 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 owne Angels, there beholding our Fathers face: And those who now are willingly ministring Spirits for our good, will willingly then be our companions in joy for the perfecting of our good:Act. 12.15. Matt. 18.10. Luke 16.22. Luke 15.10. Heb. 1.7. &c. And they who had such joy in heaven for our conversion, will gladly reioyce with us in our glorification. I think Christian, this will be a more honourable assembly then you ever here beheld: and a more happy society then you were ever of before. Surely Brooke, and Pim, and Hambden, and White, &c. are now members of a more knowing, unerring, well ordered, right-ayming, self-denying, unanimous, honourable, Triumphant Senate, then this from whence they were taken is, or ever Parliament will be. It is better be doore-keeper to that Assembly, whether Twisse, &c. are translated, then to have continued here the Moderator of this.Psal. 119.63. That is the true Parliamentum Beatum, the Blessed Parliament, and that is the only Church that cannot erre. 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 to the City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels;Heb. 12.22, 23, 24. to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judg 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; 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 onelyonly Saints? If it be a delight to hear them pray or preach; what will it be to hear them praise? If we thought our selves in the Suburbs of Heaven, when we heard them set forth the Beauty of our Lord, and speak of the excellencies of the Kingdom; what a day will it be, when we shall joyn with them in praises to our Lord, in, and for that Kingdom. Now we have corruption, and they have corruption; and we are apter to set awork each others corruption, then our Graces; and so loose 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. 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 houshold of God, Eph. 2.19.