The Soul of Man, Part 8 · Doctrine · Proposition 11
PROP. XI. The separated Souls of the Iust do live in a more high and excellent way of Communion with God in his Temple-worship in Heaven, than ever they did in the sweetest Gospel-Ordinances, and most Spiritual Duties, in which they conversed with him here on Earth.
THAT Saints on earth have real Communion with God, and that this Communion is the joy of their hearts, the life of their life, and their relief under all pressures and troubles in this life; is a truth so firmly sealed upon their hearts by experience, as well as clearly revealed in the Word, that there can remain no doubt about it among those that have any saving acquaintance with the life and power of Religion,
This Communion with God is of that precious value with Believers, that it unspeakably endears all those Duties and Ordinances to them, which as means and instruments are useful to maintain it.
At death, the people of God part with all those precious Ordinances and Duties, they being only designed for, and fitted to the present state of imperfection, Eph. 4.12, 13. but not at all to their loss, no more than it is to his, that loses the light of his candle, by the rising of the Sun. A Candle, a Star, is comfortable in the Night, but useless, when the Sun is up, and in it's meridian Glory. Christian, Pray much, hear much, and drive as profitable a trade as thou canst among the Ordinances of God, and duties of Religion: For the time is at hand that you shall serve and wait on God no more this way.
But yet think not your Souls shall be discharged from all Worship and Service of God when you dye: No, you will find Heaven to be a Temple built for worship, and the worship there to be much transcendent to all that in which you were here employ'd. The Sanctuary was a pattern of Heaven in this very respect, Heb. 9.23. And on this very account it is called Sion in my Text, and the heavenly Ierusalem; as denoting a Church-state, and the spiritual Worship there performed by the Spirits of just men made perfect.
Some help we may have to understand the nature thereof, by comparing it with that Worship and Service which we perform to God here in this state of imperfection, and by considering the agreements and disagreements betwixt them. In this they agree, that the worship above and below are both addressed and directed to one and the same Object; Father, Son, and Spirit; all centers and terminates in God. They also agree in the general quality, and common Nature; they are both spiritual Worship. But there are divers remarkable differences betwixt the one, and other, as will be manifest in the following collation.
1. All our Worship on Earth is performed and transacted by Faith, as the instrument and mean thereof, Heb. 11.6. He that cometh to God must believe, &c. In Heaven Faith ceaseth and sight takes place of it, 1 Cor. 5.7. There we see, what here we only believe. There are now before us, Ordinances, Scriptures, Ministers, and the Assemblies of Saints in the places of worship: but if we have any communion with God, by or among these, we must set our selves to believe those things we see not. By realizing and applying invisible things, we here get sometimes, and with no small pains, a taste of Heaven, and a transient glance of that glory. In this service our Faith is put hard to it, it must work and fight at once. Resolutely act, whilst sense and reason stand by contradicting and quarrelling with it. And if with much ado, we get but one sensible touch of Heaven upon our Spirits, if we get a little spiritual warmth and melting of our affections towards God, we call that day a good day, and it is so indeed.
But in Heaven all things are carried at an higher rate, the joy of the Lord overflows us without any labour or pains of ours to procure it. We may say of it there as the Prophet speaks of the dew and showres upon the grass, Which tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the Sons of men, Mic. 5.7.
2. No grace is or can be acted here, without the clog of a contrary corruption upon its heel, Rom. 7.21. When I would do good, evil is present with me. Every beam of faith is presently darkned by a cloud of unbelief, Mark 9.24. Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief. Saepè in libro experientiae legimus, quomodo à corde nostro relinquimar, nunc est nobis…um, nunc alibi: nunc avo…at. nunc recurrit: in sola lubricitate manens. Bern.We often read in the Book of experience (saith one) what an inconstant fickle thing the heart is in duties: Now it is with us, by and by it's fled away and gone; we know not where to find it: It is constant only in its inconstancy and lubricity. There is iniquity in our most holy things, which needs pardon, Exod. 28.38. Our best duties have enough in them to damn us, as well as our worst sins, but in that perfect state above, grace flows purely out of the Soul, as beams do from the Sun, or crystal streams from the purest Fountain. No impure, or imperfect acts proceed from Spirits made perfect.
3. Here the graces of the Saints are never, or very rarely acted in their highest and most intense degree. When they love God most fervently, there is some coldness in their love. Who comes up to the height of that rule, Matt. 22.37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind, and all thy strength. When we meditate on God, it is not in the depth of our thoughts, without some wanderings and extravagancies, 'tis very hard, if not impossible for the Soul to stand long in its full bent to God.
But in Heaven it doth so, and will do so for ever, without any relaxation or remission of its fervour. Christ among the Saints and Angels in Heaven, is as a mighty Load-stone cast in amongst many Needles, which leap to him, and fix themselves inseparably upon him. They all act in glory as the fire doth here, to the utmost of their power and ability. There is no note lower, than Glory to God in the highest.
4 The most spiritual Souls on earth, who live most with God, have, and must have their dayly and frequent intermissions. The necessities of the Body, as well as the defectiveness of their graces require and necessitate it to be so. Our hands with Moses will hang down, and grow weary. Our affections will cool and fall, do what we can.
But as the Spirits of just men made perfect know no remissions in the degree, so neither any intermissions in the actings of their grace: They shall serve him day and night in his Temple, Rev. 7.15. You that would purchase the continuance of your spiritual comforts but for a day, with all that you have in this World, will there enjoy them at full, without any intermitting throughout eternity.
5. If the best hearts on earth be at any time more than ordinarily enlarged in spiritual comforts, they need presently some humbling providence to hide pride from their eyes. Even Paul himself must have a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. Bernard could never perform any duty with comfortable enlargement, but he seemed to hear his own heart whisper thus, benè fecisti, Bernarde, O well done, Bernard.
But in Heaven, the highest comforts are injoyed in the deepest humility, and the intire glory is ascribed to God without any unworthy defalcations, Rev. 4.10. They put not the Crown upon their own heads, but Christs: they cast down their Crowns, and fall down at the feet of him that sitteth upon the Throne.
6. All Assemblies for worship in this World are mixed: They consist of Regenerate, and Unregenerate, living and dead Souls; this spoils the harmony, and allays the comfort of mutual Communion. In a Congregation consisting of a 1000 persons, Ah! How few comparatively are there that are heartily concerned in the Duty! But it is not so above. There are ten thousand times ten thousand, even thousands of thousands before the Throne, loving, adoring, praising, and triumphing together, and not a jaring string in all their Harps.
7. Here the worship of God is impured, mixed, and adulterated by the sinful additions and inventions of men. This gracious Souls groan under as an heavy burden, sighing and praying for Reformation; as knowing they can expect no more of Gods presence, than there is of his Order and Institution in Worship. But above, all the Worship is pure, the least pin in the heavenly Tabernacle is according to the perfect pattern of the divine Will.
8. We have here Duties of divers kinds and natures to perform. All our time is not to be spent in loving, praising, and delighting in God: but we must turn our selves also to searching, watching, and Soul-humbling work. Sometimes we are called to get up our hearts to the highest praise, and then to humble them to the dust for sin and judgments. One while to sing his praises, and another while to sigh even to the breaking of our loins: but the Spirits of just men made perfect, have but one kind of imployment, viz praising, loving and delighting in God. There is no groaning, sighing, searching, or watching-work in that state.
9. The most illuminated Believers on Earth have but dark and crude apprehensions of Christs intercession work in Heaven, or of the way and manner in which it is there performed by him. We know indeed, that our High-Priest is for us entred within the vail, Heb. 6.20. That he appears in that most holy place for us, Heb. 9.24. That he there represents his sufferings for us to God, standing before him as a Lamb that had been slain, Rev. 5.6. That he offers up our prayers with his incense to God, Rev. 8.3.
But the immediate intuition of the whole performance by the person of Christ in Heaven, the beholding of him in his work there, with the smiles and honours, the delight and satisfaction of the Father in his Person and Work: certainly, this must be a far different thing, and what must make more deep and suitable impressions upon our hearts, than ever the most affecting view of them by Faith at this distance, could do.
10. In such ravishing sights, and joyful ascriptions of glory to him that s…tteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb for evermore, all the separated Spirits of the just are imployed and wholly taken up in Heaven as they come in their several times thither, and will be so imploy'd in that Temple-service unto the end of the World, when Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father, and thenceforth God shall be all in all.
The illustration and confirmation of this assertion we have in these two or three particulars.
(1). That all the Spirits of just men from the beginning of the World, until Christs ascension into Heaven, did enter into Heaven as a place of rest, as a City prepared for them of God, Heb. 11.16. and did enjoy blessedness and Glory there: but yet there seems to be an alteration even in Heaven it self, since the Ascension of Christ into it, and such an alteration as advanceth the glory thereof both to Angels and Saints.Dr. Owen's Coristologia, p. 158. Heaven it self (saith one who is now there) was not what it is, before the entrance of Christ into the Sanctuary for the administration of his Office. Neither the Saints departed, nor the Angels themselves were participant of that glory which now they are. Neither yet doth this argue any defect in Heaven, or the state thereof in its primitive constitution: For the perfection of any state hath respect unto that order of things which it is originally suited unto. Take all things in the order of the first Creation, and with respect thereunto, Heaven was perfect in Glory from the beginning,Page 355. &c.
Whatever was their rest, refreshment, and blessedness; whatever were their enjoyments of the presence of God: yet was there no Throne of Grace erected in Heaven, no High-Priest appearing before it, no Lamb as it had been slain, no joint ascription of Glory unto him that sits upon the Throne,Prius…p…am ad no…tra tempora pervintum est. Camero. and to the Lamb for ever; God having ordained some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect, Heb. 11.40.
Now both the Angels and Saints in Heaven do behold Christ in his Priestly Office within that Sanctuary, a sight never seen in Heaven before.
(2) This frame of heavenly Worship will continue as it is, until the end of the World, and then another alteration will be made in the manner of his dispensatory Kingdom. For then he must deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, and then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him, that God may be all in all, as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. 15.24, 28. so that as the present state of Heaven is not in all respects, what it was before Christ's Ascension thither; so after the Consummation of the Mediatorial Kingdom, and the gathering all the Elect into Glory, it will not in all respects be what now it is.
Christ will never cease to be the immediate head of the whole glorified Creation. God having gathered all the Elect, both Angels and Men, unto an head in him, and he being the Knot or Centre of that Collective Body; the whole frame of the glorified Church would be dissolved, should he lose his relation of an head to it. Yea, I doubt not but he will for ever continue to be the medium of Communication betwixt God and his glorified Church: God will still Communicate himself to us through Christ, and our adherence, love and delight, will still be through Christ: In a word, whatever change shall be made, the Person of Christ, and therein his humane nature, shall still continue to be the eternal Object of Divine Glory, Praise, and Worship, Rev. 22.4.
But when he shall have gathered home all his Elect to glory,Nam si dispensativum hoc regnum nunquam traditurus esset, nunquam regni naturalis usum plenum esset recepturus. Junius. he will resign this dispensatory Kingdom, and become subject (as Man, and as Head of that Body which he purchased) to his Father himself, that God may be all in all, as it is, 1 Cor. 15.28.
(1) All in all, that is, All the Saints shall be filled and abundantly satisfied, in and from God alone; there shall be no Emptiness, no want, no complaint: For as there is water enough in one Sea to fill all Rivers, light enough in one Sun, to illuminate all the World; so all Souls shall be eternally filled, satisfied, and blessed in one God. Surely there is enough in God for Millions of Souls; for if there be enough in God for all the Angels, Matth. 18.10. yea, enough in God for Iesus Christ, Col. 1.19. there must be enough for all our Souls; the capacity of Angels is larger than ours; the capacity of Christ is larger than that of Angels: he that fills them, can and will therefore fill us, or be all in all to us.
(2) All in all, that is compleat satisfaction to all the Saints in the absence of all other things, out of which they were wont to suck some comfort and delight in this World. He will now be instead of all. Eminently all without them. We shall suck no more sweetness out of food, sleep, Relations, Ordinances, &c. there will be no more need or use of them, than there is of Candles in the Sun-shine, Rev. 22.5.
(3) All in all, that is, God only shall be loved, praised, and admired by all the Saints; they shall love no Creature out of God, but all in God, or rather God in them all. This is that blessed state to which all things tend, for which the Angels and glorified Souls in Heaven long. Hence it is that there is joy in Heaven upon the Conversion of any poor sinner on Earth, because thereby the Body of Christ mystical advanceth towards its fulness and compleatness, Luke 15.10. no sooner is a poor Soul struck by the word to the heart, and sent home crying, O sick! Sick! Sick of sin, and sick for Christ; but the news of it is quickly in Heaven, and is matter of great joy there, because they wait as well as Christ, for the time of Consummation. To conclude, Those that went first to Heaven before Christ's Ascension, were fully at rest in God, and blessed in his enjoyment, and yet upon Christ's Ascension thither, their happiness was advanced: 'tis a new Heaven as it were to feed their eyes upon the Man Christ Iesus there Those that now stand before the Throne, ravished with the face of Christ, and ascribing glory to him for ever, are also in a most blessed state, and are filled with the joy of the Lord. And yet, two things still remain to be farther done, before they are, as they shall be for ever; viz. the Restitution of their Bodies, which yet lie in the dust, and the delivering up of the dispensatory Kingdom, upon the coming in of the fulness of all their fellow Saints, and after that no more alteration for ever: But they shall be both in Soul and Body for ever with the Lord. What Tongue of Man or Angel can give us the compleat Emphasis of that word, ever with the Lord? or that, of Gods being all in all? O what hath God prepared for them that love him!