(for then we should see the thoughts of men) rest we in the testimony of a safer witness, a council, In speculo divinitatis quicquid eorum intersit illucescet; In that glass we shall see, whatsoever we can be the better for seeing. First, all things that they believed here, they shall see there; and therefore, Discamus in terris, quorum scientia nobis cum perseveret in cœlis, Let us meditate upon no other things on earth, than we would be glad to think on in heaven; and this consideration would put many frivolous, and many fond thoughts out of our mind, if men and women would love another but so, as that love might last in heaven.

This then we shall get, concerning ourselves, by seeing God face to face; but what concerning God? Nothing but the sight of the humanity of Christ, which only is visible to the eye. So Theodoret, so some others have thought; but that answers not the sicuti est; and we know we shall see God, (not only the body of Christ) as he is in his essence. Why? did all that are said to have seen God face to face, see his essence? no. In earth God assumed some material things to appear in, and is said to have been seen face to face, when he was seen in those assumed forms. But in heaven there is no material thing to be assumed, and if God be seen face to face there, he is seen in his essence. St. Augustine sums it up fully 27, upon those words, In lumine tuo, In thy light we shall see light, te scilicet in te, we shall see thee in thee; that is, says he, face to face.

And then, what is it to know him, as we are known? First, is that it, which is intended here, That we shall know God so as we are known? It is not expressed in the text so: it is only that we shall know so ; not, that we shall know God so. But the frame, and context of the place, hath drawn that unanime exposition from all, that it is meant of our knowledge of God then. A comprehensive knowledge of God it cannot be; to comprehend is to know a thing as well as that thing can be known; and we can never know God so, but that he will know himself better : our knowledge cannot be so dilated, nor God condensed, and contracted so, as that we can know him that way, comprehensively.

25 Senon.

£6 Hierome.

27 In Psalm xxxvi. 10.

It cannot be such a knowledge of God, as God hath of himself, nor as God hath of us; for God comprehends us, and all this world, and all the worlds that he could have made, and himself. But it is Nota similitudinis, non æqualitatis; As God knows me, so I shall know God; but I shall not know God so, as God knows me. It is not quantum, but sicut; not as much, but as truly; as the fire does as truly shine, as the sun shines, though it shine not out so far, nor to so many purposes. So then, I shall know God so, as that there shall be nothing in me, to hinder me from knowing God; which cannot be said of the nature of man, though regenerate, upon earth, no, nor of the nature of an angel in heaven, left to itself, till both have received a super-illustration from the light of glory.

And so it shall be a knowledge so like his knowledge, as it shall produce a love, like his love, and we shall love him, as ho loves us. For, as St. Chrysostom, and the rest of the fathers, whom Oecumenius hath compacted, interpret it, Cognoscam practicè, id est, accurrendo, I shall know him, that is, embrace him, adhere to him. Qualis sine fine festivitas 28!. What a holyday shall this be, which no working day shall ever follow! By knowing, and loving the unchangeable, the immutable God, mutabimur in immutabilitatem, we shall be changed into an unchangeableness, says that father, that never said anything but extraordinarily. He says more, Dei præsentia si in inferno appareret, If God could be seen, and known in hell, hell in an instant would be heaven.

How many heavens are there in heaven? How is heaven t multiplied to every soul in heaven, where infinite other happinesses are crowned with this, this sight, and this knowledge of God there? And how shall all those heavens be renewed to us every day, Qui non mirabimur hodie", that shall be as glad to see, and to know God, millions of ages after every day's seeing and knowing, as the first hour of looking upon his face. And as this seeing, and this knowing of God crowns all other joys, and glories, even in heaven, so this very crown is crowned; there grows from this a higher glory, which is, participes erimus Divinæ naturæ3,

28 Augustine.

29 Idem.

30 2 Pet. i. 4.

L.

(words, of which Luther says, that both Testaments afford none equal to them) That we shall be made partakers of the Divine nature; immortal as the Father, righteous as the Son, and full of all comfort as the Holy Ghost.

Let me dismiss you, with an easy request of St. Augustine; Fieri non potest ut seipsum non diligat, qui Deum diligit; That man does not love God, that loves not himself; do but love yourselves: Imo solus se diligere novit, qui Deum diligit, Only that man that loves God, hath the art to love himself; do but love yourselves; for if he love God, he would live eternally with him, and, if he desire that, and endeavour it earnestly, he does truly love himself, and not otherwise. And he loves himself, who by seeing God in the theatre of the world, and in the glass of the creature, by the light of reason, and knowing God in the academy of the church, by the ordinances thereof, through the light of faith, endeavours to see God in heaven, by the manifestation of himself, through the light of glory, and to know God himself, in himself, and by himself, as he is all in all; contemplatively, by knowing as he is known, and practically, by loving, as he is loved.

SERMON XXII.

PREACHED UPON EASTER DAY, 1629.

JOB IV. 18.

Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly. WE celebrate this day, the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, blessed for ever; and in his, all ours; all, that is, the resurrection of all persons; all, that is, the resurrection of all kinds, whether the resurrection from calamities in this world, Ezekiel's resurrection, where God says to him', Son of man, dost thou think, these scattered bones can live again? Or the resur

1 Ezek. viii. 6.

rection from sin, St. John's resurrection2, Blessed is he that hath his part in the first resurrection: or of the resurrection to glory, St. Paul's resurrection, that is, more argued, and more particularly established, by that apostle, than by the rest. This resurrection to glory, is the consummation of all the others; therefore we look especially at this; and in this, our qualification in this state of glory, is thus expressed by our Saviour Christ himself, Erimus sicut angeli, In the resurrection, we shall be as the angels. And that we might not flatter ourselves in a dream of a better estate, than the angels have, in this text we have an intimation, what their state and condition is, Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly.

In our handling of these words, these shall be our two parts; of whom these words are spoken, and then of what; first, what is positively said, and then, what is consequently inferred; what proposed, and what concluded; what of the angels, and then what of us, who shall be like the angels. In the first, the persons of whom these words are spoken, because, though our interpreters vary in opinions, yet even from their various opinions, there arise good instructions, we shall rather problematically inquire, than dogmatically establish, first, whether these words were spoken of angels, or no; whether this word angel, in this text, be not (as it is in many other places of Scriptures, and in the nature of the world itself) communicable to other servants, and other messengers than those, whom ordinarily we intend, when we say angels; and then secondly, if the words be spoken of angels, then, whether of good or bad angels, of those which stand now, or those which fell at first; and again, if of those that stand, then what degree of perfection they have, and what that which we use to call their confirmation, is, how it accrues to them, and how it works in them, if even of them it be said, Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly. In our second part, what was inferred upon these premises, what was concluded out of these propositions, what reflected upon us, by this assimilation of ours to the angels, because it is a matter of much weight, we shall first, in our entrance into that part, consider the weight of the testimony, in the person that gives it;

2 Rev. xx. 5.

3 1 Cor. 15.

Luke xx. 36.

for it is not Job himself that speaks these words; it is but one of his friends; but Eliphaz, but the Temanite, a Gentile, a stranger from the covenant and the church of God, and yet his words are part of the word of God. And then for the matter that is inferred, from our assimilation to the state of angels, will be fairly collected, that if those angels stand, but by the support of grace, and not by anything inseparably inhering in their nature, when we are at our best, in heaven, we shall do but so neither; much less whilst we are upon earth, have we in us any impossibility of falling, by anything already done for us; our standing is merely from the grace of God, and therefore let no man ascribe anything to himself; and Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall; for God hath done no more for the best of us, here nor hereafter, than for those angels, and of them we hear here, He put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly.

First then, for our first disquisition, in our first part, de quibus, the persons of whom these words are spoken. Amongst all our expositors of this book of Job, (which are very many) and amongst all authors, ancient and modern, which have had occasion in their sermons and tractates to reflect upon this text, (which are many more, infinite) I have never observed more than one, that denies these words to be spoken of angels, or that there is any mention, any intention, any intimation of angels, in these words. And, (which is the greater wonder) this one single man, who thus departs from all, and prefers himself above all, is no Jesuit neither; it is but a Capuchin, but Bolduc upon this book of Job, and yet he adventures to say, That that person of whom it is said in this text, He put no trust in his servants, and he charged his angels with folly, is not God; and that they of whom it is said, He trusted not his servants, and his angels he charged with folly, are not angels; but that all that Eliphaz intended in all this passage of Job, was no more but this, that no great person must trust in any kind of greatness, particularly not in great retinues, and dependencies, of many servants, and powerful instruments, for that was Job's own case, and yet he lost them all. The doctrine truly is good; neither should I suddenly condemn his singularity, if it were well grounded. For, though in the exposition of Scriptures, singularity always carry a suspicion