(5.) " And to the spirits of just men made perfect." A most glorious privilege indeed; in which we are distinctly to confider, 1. The quality of those with whom we are affociated or ta ken into fellowship.

2. The way and manner of our affociation with them.

1. The quality of those with whom we are affociated, or to whom we are faid to be come; and they are described by three characters, viz.

(1.) Spirits of men.

(2.) Spirits of just men.

(3.) Spirits of juft men perfected, or confummated.

(1.) They are called fpirits, that is, immaterial fubftances, ftrictly opposed to bodies, which are no way the objects of our exterior fenfes, neither visible to the eye, or fenfible to the touch, which were called properly fouls whilft they animated bodies in this lower world; but now being loofed and feparated from them by death, and exifting alone in the world above, they are properly and ftrictly tiled fpirits.

(2.) They are the fpirits of just men.] Man may be termed just two ways, (1.) By a full difcharge and acquittance from the guilt of all his fins, and fo believers are just men, even whilst they live on earth, groaning under other imperfections, Acts

xiii.

39. Or, (2.) By a total freedom from the pollution of any fin. And though in this fenfe there is not a just man upon earth that doth good, and finneth not," Ecclef. vii. 22. yet even in this fenfe Adam was just before the fall, Ecclef. vii. 29. according to his original conftitution; and all believers are fo, in their glorified condition; all fin being perfectly purged out of them, and its exiflence utterly deftroyed in them. which account,

On

(3.) They are called the fpirits of just men made perfect,] or confummate. The word perfect is not here to be understood abfolutely, but by way of fynecdoche; they are not perfect in every refpect, for one part of thefe juft men lies rotting in the. grave: but they are perfected, for fo much as concerns their pirit; though the flesh perifh and lie in dishonour, yet their fpirits being once loofed from the body, and freed radically and perfectly from fin, are prefently admitted to the facial vifion and fruition of God, which is the culminating point (as I may call it) higher than which the spirit of man afpires not; and attaining to this, it is, for fo much as concerns itfelf, made perfect. Even as a body at laft lodged in its centre, gravitates no more, but is at perfect reft; fo it is with the fpirit of man come home

VOL. III.

LI

to God in glory, 'tis now confuminate, no more need to be done to make it as perfectly happy as it is capable to be made; which is the first thing to be confidered, viz. the quality of thofe with whom we are affociated.

2. The fecond follows, namely, the way and manner of our affociation with thefe bleffed fpirits of juft men, noted in this expreffion, [we are come.] He faith not, we fball come herehath restored our bodies, or after

after, when the refurrection

the general judgment; but, we are come to thefe fpirits of juft The meaning whereof we may take in these three parti

men.

culars,

(1.) We that live under the gospel-light, are come to a clearer apprehenfion, fight and knowledge of the blessed and happy eftate of the fouls of the righteous after death, than ever they had, or ordinarily could have, who lived under the types and fhadows of the law, Eph. iii. 4, 5. And fo we are come to them, in refpect of clearer apprehenfion.

(2.) We are come to thofe bleffed fpirits in our reprefentative, Chrift, who hath carried our nature into the very midst of them, and whom they all behold with highest admiration and delight. By Chrift, who is entred into that holy place where these fpirits of just men live, we are come into a near relation with them: For he being the common head, both to them in heayen, and to us on earth, we and they confequentially make but one body or fociety, Eph. ii. 10. Whereupon (notwithstanding the different and remote countries they and we live in) we are faid "to fit down with them'in heavenly places," Eph. iii. 15. and ii. 6.

(5.) We are come] That is, we are as good as come, or we are upon the matter come; there remains nothing betwixt them and us but a puff of breath, a little space of time, which shortens every moment: We are come to the very borders of their country, and there is nothing, to speak of, betwixt them and us: And by this expreffion, we are come, he teacheth us to account and reckon thofe things as prefent, which fo, fhortly will be present to us, and to look upon them as if they already were, which is the highest and most comfortable life of faith we live on earth. Hence the note is,

can

Do&t. That righteous and holy fouls, once separated from their bodies by death, are immediately perfected in themselves, and affociated with others alike perfect in the kingdom of God. That the fpirits of juft men at the time of their feparation from their bodies do not utterly fail in their beings, nor that. they are fo prejudiced and wounded by death, that they cannos

exert their own proper acts in the abfence of the body, hath been already cleared in the foregoing parts of this treatile, and will be more fully cleared from this text.

But the true level and aim of this discourse is at a higher mark, viz. the far more excellent, free, and noble life the fouls of the just begin to live immediately after their bodies are dropt off from them by death, at which time they begin to live like themselves, a pleafant, free, and divine life. So much at least is included in the apostle's epithet in my text, fpirits of just men' made perfect; and suitable thereto are his words in 1' Cor. xiii. 10, 12. “When that which is perfect is come, then that which "is in part fhall be done away. For now we fee thro' a glais darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then " I shall know, even as also I am known.”

66

These two adverbs, now and then, diftinguish the twofoldi state of gracious fouls, and thew what it is whilst they are con fined in the body, and what it shall be from the time of their émancipation and freedom from that clog of mortality. Now we are imperfect, but then that which is perfect takes place, and that which is imperfect is done away, as the imperfect twi light is done away by the opening of the perfect day.

And it deferves a ferious animadverfion, that this perfect ftate doth not fucceed the imperfect one after a long interval, (as long as betwixt the diffolution and refurrection of the body) but the imperfect ftate of the foul is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one. The glass is laid by as ufeless, when we come to fee face to face, and eye to eye.

The waters will prove very deep here, too deep for any line of mine to fathom; there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come, a gloom and haziness upon that state: Fain we would, with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge, penetrate this cloud, and difpel this gloom and haziness, bur cannot : We think seriously and close to this great and awful fubject, but our thoughts cannot pierce through it: we reinforce thofe thoughts by a fally, or thick fucceffion of freth thoughts, and yet all will not do, our thoughts return to us either in' confufion, or without the expected fuccefs. For alas, how little is it that we know, or can know of our own fouls now whilft they are embodied! much lefs of their unbodied ftate. The apoftle tells us, 1 Cor ii. 9" That eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, neither have entred into the heart of man, the things which God Each prepared for them that

66

"love him." And another apoftle adds, "It doth not yet ap 66 pear what we shall be," 1 John iii. 2.

Yet all this is no difcouragment to the search, and regular enquiry into the future ftate; for though reafon cannot penetrate these myfteries, yet God hath revealed them to us (tho' not per fectly) by his Spirit. And though we know not particularly, and circumftantially) what we shall be, yet this we know, that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." And it is our privilege, and happiness, that we are come to the fpirits of just men made perfect, (i. e.) to a clearer knowledge of that ftate, than was ordinarily attainable by believers, under former difpenfations.

66

These things premifed, I will proceed to open my apprehenfions of the feparate state of the fpirits of just men made perfect, in twelve propofitions; whereby, as by fo many steps, we may orderly advance as far as fafely, and warrantably we may, into the knowledge of this great mystery, clearing what afterwards fhall remain obfcure, in the folution of feveral questions relating to this fubject, and then apply the whole, in several uses of this great point: And the firft propofition is this:

Propofition 1. There is a two-fold feparation of the foul from the body: viz. one mental, the other real: Or, 1. Intellectual, by the mind only.

2. Phyfical, by the stroke of death.

1. Of intellectual, or mental feparation *, I am first to speak in this propofition; and it is nothing else but an act of the understanding, or mind, conceiving, or confidering the foul and body, as feparate and parted each from other, whilft yet they are united in a perfonal oneness by the breath of life. This. mental feparation may, and ought to be frequently, and ferioufly made, before death makes the real, and actual feparation; and the more frequently, and feriously we do it, the lefs of horror, and distraction will attend that real, and fatal ftroke, whenever it fhall be given: For hereby we learn to bear it gradually, and, by gentle effays, to acquaint our fhoulders with the burden of it. Separation is a word that hath much of horror in the very found, and useth to have much more in the sense and feeling of it, elfe it would not deferve that title, Job viii. 14. "The king of terrors," or the most terrible of all terribles: But acquaintance, and familiarity abates that horror, and that two ways efpecially.

*Mental feparation is, a conceiving of two things feparately, which really are united. Conimbr. on the foul, p. 595.

(1.) As it is preventive of much guilt.

(2.) As it gains a more inward knowledge of its nature. (1.) The ferious, and fixed thoughts of the parting hour, is preventive of much guilt; and the greatest part of the horror of death rifes out of the guilt of fin; "The fting of death is "fin," 1 Cor. xv. 56. Auguftine faith, "Nothing more "recals a man from fin, than the frequent meditation of death." I dare not say it is the strongest of all curbs to keep us back from fin, but I am fure it is a very strong one.

Lett a foul but seriously meditate what a change death will make shortly upon his perfon, and condition; and the natural effects of fuch a meditation, through the bleffing of God upon it, will be a flatting, and quenching of its keen, and raging appetite, after the enfnaring vanities of this world (which draw men into fo much guilt) a confcientious fear of fin, and an awakened care of duty. It was once demanded of a very holy man (who spent much more than the ordinary allowance of time in prayer, and fearching his own heart) why he fo macerated his own body by fuch frequent, and long-continued duties ! His answer was, Oh! I must die, 1 muft die! Nothing could feparate him from duty, who had already separated his foul from his body, and all this world, by fixed, and deep thoughts of death.

(2.) Hereby we gain a more inward knowledge, and acquaintance with it, the lefs it terrifies us. A lion is much more dreadful to him that never faw him, than he is to his keeper, who feedeth him every day. A pitch'd battle is more frightful, and scaring to a new-lifted foldier, that never took his place in the field before, nor faw the dreadful countenance of an army ready to engage, nor heard the thundring noife of cannon, and vollies of fhot, the fhouts of armies, and groans of dying men on every fide, than it is to an old foldier who hath been used to fuch things. The like we may obferve in feamen, who it may be trembled at first, and now can fing in a storm.

Scarce any thing is more neceffary for weak and timorous believers to meditate on, than the time of their feparation. Our hearts will be apt to flart, and boggle at the first view of death;

* Nibil fic revocat a peccato, quam frequens mortis meditatie. Aug.

He who confiders, what he will be in death, will always act with a fear of caution, and live as in the fight of his Creator, he defires nothing that is tranfitory, and confiders himself as almoft dead, because he knows he muft foon die. Greg. Mer. 12.