!5uch a capacity hath every soul, even the meanest on earth, and such honour have all his saints : others may be, but they are be- trothed to Christ in this world, 2 Cor. xi. 2. ar.d shall be presented without spot before him in the world to come, Eph. v. 27.
It is now a lovely and excellent creature in its naked, natural state ; much more beautiful and excellent in its sanctified and gra- cious state : but what shall we say, or how shall we conceive of it, when all spots of sin are perfectly washed off its beautiful face in heaven, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon it ! when its filthy garments are taken away, and the pure robes of perfect holiness, as well as righteousness, superinduced upon this excellent creature ! If the imperfect beauty of it, begun in sanctification, enamoured its Saviour, and made him say, " Thou hast ravished my heart with " one of thine eyes, with one of the chains of thy neck ;'*' what will its beauty, and his delight in it be in the state of perfect glorifica- tion ! As we imagine the circles in the heavens to be vastly greater than those we view upon the globe, so must we imagine in the case before us.
4. The preparations God makes for souls in heaven, speak their great worth and value. When you lift up your eyes to heaven, and behold that spangled azure canopy beset and inlaid with so many golden studs and sparkling gems, you see but the floor or pavement of that place which God hath prepared for some souls. He furnished this world for us before he put us into it ; but, as de- lightful and beautiful as it is, it is no more to be compared with the Father's house in heaven, than the smallest ruined chapel your eyes ever beheld, is to be compared Avith Solomon's temple, when it stood in all its shining glory.
When you see a stately and magnificent structure built, richest hangings and furniture prepared to adorn it, you conclude some great persons are to come thither: such preparations speak the quality of the guests.
Now heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, the palace of the great King, the presence-chamber of the Godhead, is prepared, not only by God's decree and Christ's death ; but by his ascension thither in our names, and as our forerunner, for all renewed and redeemed souls. John xiv. 2. " In my Father's house are many mansions ; " if it were not so I would have told you : I go to prepare a place " for you."
And, where is the place prepared for them, but in his Father's house ? The same place, the very same house where the Father, Son, and Spirit themselves do dwell : such is the love of Christ to souls, that he will not dwell in one house, and they in another ; but, as he speaks, John xii. 26. " Where I am, there shall my " servant also be." There is room enough in the Father's house
160 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MA^T.
for Christ and all the souls he redeemed to live and dwell together for evermore. His ascension thither was in the capacity of a com- mon or public person, to take livery and seisin of those many man- sions for them, which are to be filled with their inhabitants, as they come thither in their respective times and orders.
5. The great pric^ with which they were redeemed and pur* chased, speaks their dignity and value. No wise man will purchase a trifle at a great price, much less the most wise God. Now the redemption of every soul stood in no less than the most precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. " You know " (saith the apostle there) that we were not redeemed with corrup-
" tible things as silver and gold, ^but with the precious blood
" of Christ, as a lamb without blemish or spot.'' All the gold and silver in the world was no ransom for one soul ; nay, all the blood of the creatures, had it been shed as a sacrifice to the glory of jus- tice, or even the blood which is most dear to us, as being derived from our own; I mean, the blood of our dear children, even of our first-born, the beginning of our strength, which usually has the strength of affection : I say, none of these could purchase a pardon for the smallest sin that ever any soul committed, much less was it able to purchase the soul itself, Mic. vi. 6, 7. *' Thousands of " rams, and ten thousand rivers of oil," or our first-horn^ are no ransom to God yor the sin of the soul. It is only the precious blood of Christ that is a just ransom or counter-price, as it is called, Matth. xx. 28.
Now, who can compute the value of that blood .? Such was the worth of the blood of Christ, which, by the communication of pro- perties, is truly stiled the blood of God, that one drop of it is above the estimations of men and angels ; and yet, before the soul of the meanest man or woman in the world could be redeemed, every drop of his blood must be shed ; for no less than his death could be a price for our souls. Hence then we evidently discern an invaluable worth in souls : A whole kingdom is taxed, when a king is to be ransomed ; the delight and darling of God's soul must die, when our souls are to be redeemed. O the worth of souls !
6. This evidences the transcendent dignity and worth of souls, that eternity is stampt upon their actions, and theirs only, of all the beings in this world. The acts of souls are immortal as their na- ture is ; whereas the actions of other animals, having neither moral goodness nor moral evil in them, pass away as their beings do.
The apostle therefore, in Gal. vi. 7. compares the actions of men in this world to seed Sown, and tells us of everlasting fruits we shall reap from them in the next life ; they have the same respect to a future accoimt that seed hath to the harvest ; " He that soweth
A TEEATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 161
*' iniquity shall reap vanity," i. e. everlasting disappointment and misery, Prov. xxii. 8. and " they that now sow in tears, shall then "' reap in joy,'' Prov. xxvi. 5. Every gracious action is the seed of joy, and every sinful action the seed of sorrow ; and this makes the great difference betwixt the actions of a rational soul, and those done by beasts : and if it were not so, man would then be wholly swayed by sense and j)resent things, as the beasts are, and all reli- gion would vanish with this distinction of actions.
Our actions are considerable two ways, physically and morally ; in the first sense they are transient, in the last permanent ; a v/ord is past as soon as spoken, but yet it must and will be recalled and brought into the judgment of the great day, Mat. xii. 36. What- ever therefore a man shall speak, think, or do, once spoken, thought, or done, it becomes eternal, and abides for ever. Now, what is it that puts so great a difference betwixt human and brutal actions, but the excellent nature of the reasonable soul ? It is this which stamps immortality upon human actions, and is at once a clear proof both of the immortality and dignity of the soul of man above all other creatures in this world.