(7.) Seventhly, To provoke you to labour after higher degrees of holiness, consider that the more holy any person is, the more the Lord will reveal and manifest himself, and his mind and will, unto him, John xiv. 21, 23; Hosea vi. 3. Ezekiel was a man of eminent holi- ness, and a man that had glorious visions, and deep mysteries, and rare discoveries of God, and of the great things that should be brought about in the latter days, discovered to him. And Daniel was a man of very great holiness : and oh, what secrets and mysteries did God reveal to him ! 1 Many of those gi-eat and glorious things which concerns the destruction of the four last monarchies, and the growth, increase, exal- tation, flourishing, durable, invincible, and unconquerable estate of his own kingdom, was discovered to him. Among all the apostles, Paul was a man of the greatest holiness, and of all the apostles Paul had the most glorious revelations and discoveries of God manifested to him, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4. Witness those glorious revelations that he had when he was caught up into the third heaven, into paradise, and heard un- speakable words, or wordless words — prjfxara apprjra — such as words were too weak to utter, such as was not possible for man to utter, and that, either because they transcended man's capacity in this life, or else because the apostle was forbidden to utter them ; they being revealed to him, not for the public use of the church, but only for his particu- lar encouragement, that so he might be the better able to encounter ■with all the hardships, difficulties, dangers, and deaths that should at- tend him in the conscientious discharge of his ministerial work. Some of the ancients are of opinion that he saw God's essence ; for, say they, other things in heaven might have been uttered, but the essence of God is so great and so glorious a thing, that no man or angel can utter it or declare it. _ But here I must crave leave to enter my dissent, for the Scripture is express in this, that no man hath thus ever seen the Lord at any time, John i. 18 ; 1 Tim. vi. 16 ; 1 John iv, 12 ; and that no man can thus see the Lord and live. And as great a favourite of heaven as Moses was, yet he could only see the back parts of God, he could only behold some lower representations of God. Others say, that he heard the heavenly singing of angels and blessed spirits, which was so sweet, so excellent and glorious, that no mortal man was able to utter it, and this of the two is most probable ; but no man is bound to make this opinion an article of his faith. This, I think, we may safely conclude, that in this rapture, besides the con- templation of celestial mysteries, he felt such unspeakable delight and pleasure, that was either like to that, or exceeding that, which Adam took in the terrestrial paradise. Doubtless, the apostle did see and hear * See ii., It., vii., viii,, ix, x., xi., xii. chapterg of Daniel.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OP HOLINESS. 355
such excellent and glorious things, as was impossible for the tongue of any mortal man to express or utter. And so John was a man of most rare holiness, and Christ reveals to him the general estate of his church, and all that should befall his people, and that from John's time unto his second coming. Christ gives John a true representa- tion of aR the troubles, trials, changes, mercies, and glories that in all times, and in all ages and places, should attend his church, until he come in all his glory. About sixty years after Christ's ascension,! Christ comes to John and opens his heart, and unbosoms his soul, and makes known to him all that care, that love, that tenderness, that kindness, and that sweetness that he would exercise towards his church, from that very time to the end of the world. Christ tells John, that though he had been absent and seemingly silent for about threescore years, that yet he was not so taken up with the delights, contents, and glory of heaven, as that he did not care what became of his church on earth. Oh, no ! And therefore he opens his choicest secrets, and makes known the most hidden and glorious mysteries to John, that ever was made known to any man. As there was none that had so much of the heart of Christ as John, so there was none that had so much of the ear of Christ as John. Christ singles out his servant John from all the men in the world, and makes known to him all the happy providences, and all the sad occurrences that were to come upon the followers of the Lamb, that so they might know what to pray for, and what to sit for, and what to wait for ; also he declares to John all that wrath and vengeance, all that desolation and destruction that should come upon the false prophet, and the beast, and upon all that wondered after them, and that were worshippers of them, and that had received their marks, either in their foreheads or in their hands. We read of holy Polycarpus, that as he lay in his bed he saw in a vision the bed set on fire under his head ; and thus God did forewarn him, and manifest to him, what manner of death he should die, and accordingly it fell out, for he was burnt for the cause of Christ, and rejoicingly sealed to the truth with his blood. Mr John Huss was a man eminent in holiness, — he was born in Prague, in Bohemia, and was pastor of the church of Bethlehem — his name, Huss, in the Bohemian language, signifies a goose ; at his martyrdom, he told them, that if they roasted him in the fire, out of the ashes of the goose, a hundred years after, God would raise up a swan in Germany that should carry the cause on for which he suffered, and whose singings would affright all those vultures, which was exactly fulfilled in Luther — whose name in the Bohemian language signifies a swan — for God raised him up as a famous instrument in his hand, who carried on that glorious cause with mighty success ; and upon his death the Bohemians under Ziska rose in arms, and had most admirable success against the emperor and the Papists. Luther was a man of great holiness, and being one time more than ordinarily earnest with God in prayer, he came down to his friends, and told them with a very great confidence, that it should go well with
^ It is the general opinion of the learned, that this book of the Kevelation was penned about the latter end of the reign of Domitian the emperor, which was about sixty years after Christ's ascension.
356 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14,