374 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XII. 14.
faithful prophets of the Lord, as the ambassadors of God, they shall be highly interested in the favour of God, and as nobly be rewarded by God. I might produce several other scriptures that sound to the same purpose as these seven do, but enough is as good as a feast ; as that Mark vi. 20 ; John xiv. 2 ; Mat. xx. 20-24.
I shall, therefore, in the second place come to the reasons that may further evidence and confirm this great truth — viz., that there shall be different degrees of glory in heaven. Among many other reasons that might be given, I shall only give you these five.
[1.] First, There are diversities of degrees of angels in heaven. There are cherubims and seraphims, and there are angels and archangels. Now the cherubims and seraphims are a lower rank and order of angels, and the archangels are a higher rank and order of angels. And the apostle speaks clearly of several ranks and orders of invisible creatures in that Col. i. 16. Here you have an enumeration of thrones, domin- ions, principalities, and powers ; and so in that Eph. i. 21, 'Far above all principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion.' These prin- cipalities and powers are the blessed angels that minister before the Lord, and that are subordinate unto one another ; and here they are reckoned up by ascending, power is above principality, and might above power, and dominion above might. To define those orders and degrees of angels with which God is environed, is a work too high and hard for me, and though the Papists and several schoolmen are so bold as to define their particular offices and orders, yet I dare not be wise above what is written. Where the Scripture is silent, I love to be silent, and where the Scripture hath no tongue, there I desire to have no ears.^ There is an order in hell, an order among the devils, and therefore you read in three scriptures of the prince of devils,^ and so much also that expression imports that you have in that Mat. xxv. 41, ' The devil and his angels,' which intimates a prince among those un- clean and damned spirits. Now shall there be order in hell and con- fusion in heaven ? Shall there be order among the evil angels, and shall there not much more be order among the good angels ? Cer- tainly that God that is the God of order, and that hath made all things in order, and that to this day keeps all things in order here below, will never suffer the least disorder and confusion to be among those princes of glory that stand continually before him. He that denies order in heaven, denies heaven to be heaven, and he that grants order in heaven, grants degrees of glory in heaven. Though there is no difference be- tween the angels in natura angelica, the angelical nature being alike in all, yet in officio, in office, there is a great deal of difference in the glory of the angels, for God employs some of the heavenly host in more high, noble, and excellent services than others, and answerable there- unto shall their reward be. Though all angels shall share alike in the essential and substantial glory of heaven, yet there is an additional glory, an accidentals glory, an overplus of glory, that shall be con- ferred upon the angels, answerable to the several and various services
^ Dionysius Areopagita, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, &c.
* Mat. ix. 34, and xii. 34 ; Mark iii. 22. The very supposition of order Bupposeth inequality and disproportion. " ' In its accidents,' = accompaniments. — G.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 375
tbat they have managed and engaged in. Now the Scripture tells us plainly that ' in heaven we shall be like to the angels/ Mat. xxii. 30 ; and therefore if there be degrees of angels, and if the angels in heaven shall have a different glory and reward, according to the work in which they have been employed, then the glory of the saints in respect of de- grees shall be different also. But,
[2.] Secondly, There are degrees of torments in hell, and therefore, hy the rule of contraries, there shall he degrees of glory in heaven. Now that there are degrees of torments in hell is most evident from several plain scriptures, as from that Mat. x. 14, 15, ' And who- soever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.' Sodom and Gomorrah shall have an easier and cooler hell than such cities shall have that have contemned the tenders of grace, and the offers of mercy. 1 It is very observable, that the punishments that God in tliis life hath inflicted upon the Jews for their contempt of Christ, and his everlasting gospel, have been more terrible than his raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah: for on a sudden, and in a moment, God consumed them, and burnt them up ; but God hath for above this sixteen hundred years been a-raining hell out of heaven upon the Jews ; he hath for a long time vexed them with all manner of adversity, and to this very day he hath made them, all the world over, a spectacle of his dreadful severity ; but all those plagues and punishments that the Jews have been and still are under, are but flea-bitings and scratches on the hand, to those dreadful and amazing judgments that God, in the great day of account, wUl inflict upon all Christ's refusers and gospel-despisers. And so chap, xi, 20-23, ' Then began he to ujjbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not : woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted up to heaven, shalt be brought down to hell ; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.' The more mercy hath been upon the bare knee entreating sinners to repent, the more earnest the Lord Jesus hath been in wooing sinners to believe on him, and to resign up themselves wholly and only to him, the more clearly and sweetly the everlasting gospel hath soimded in sinners' ears, and the more near, and the more often heaven hath been brought to sinners' doors, and yet they have bid defiance to all, and hardened themselves in their sins, with the greater violence and with the more dreadful vengeance shall such be plunged into the lowest hell. And so in that Mat. xxiii. 14, ' Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers ; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.' Hypocrites shall be double damned ; the hottest and the darkest place in hell is