[2.] The greatness of your engagement to all the persons of the Godhead.
(1.) To God the Father. Admire the love of God, that poor worms should be so exalted, that a clod of earth should shine as the sun, that those dark and impure souls of ours should be purified and glorified. God could not satisfy himself with temporal kindness, with loving us for a while, but he must love us for ever . Ps. ciii. 17, ' The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear him.' From eternity to eternity God is God and our God. Nay, and small things would not content him, but we must be interested in a complete blessedness : 1 John iii. 1, 2, ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ! Beloved, now are we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' Oh ! we should often work this upon our hearts, the great love of God in predestinating us to such a glory. There is a great deal of mercy laid out upon us during our pilgrimage, but more laid up for us : Ps. xxxi. 19, ' Oh ! how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee ! ' Oh ! the greatness of love. Infinite mercy sets itself a-work, to see what it can do for man, a poor wretched creature, a thing of yesterday, a rebel, an enemy to God. Think of it we may, but we cannot express it to the full. The least of God's mercies is more than we can acknowledge, and deserves praise ; much more this full portion, for here God sets himself to make a creature as happy as it is capable. The Lord hath gone to the utmost in nothing but his love ; he never showed so much of his wisdom and power, but he could show more ; but he hath no greater thing to give us than himself and his Christ, he cannot love us more ; there can be no more done, there can be no higher happiness than the eternal enjoyment of himself. All the promises of the word come short of what you shall enjoy. That which Paul saw and heard in heaven
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in his ecstasy, were apprjra pij/xara, ' words that could not be uttered,' 2 Cor. xii. 4. The scriptures, that are sufficient to make the man of God perfect here, profess an insufficiency, weakness, and imperfec- tion when they come to speak of heaven and the glory of it : 1 Cor. xiii. 9, ' For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,' is spoken with respect to heaven and happiness to come ; there the scripture can speak but in part, there are no words nor notions in the workl sufficient to express what God hath provided, and we have not ears to hear it, All the notions now we have of things must be taken from wliat is obvious to sense and present apprehension ; and therefore certainly, because heaven surpasseth all that hath been, we cannot apprehend the glory of it. The scripture leaves it rather to be admired in silence , there are joys unspeakable ; there is no language intelligible to us that is fit to represent heaven. Oh ! then, admire the love of God the Father, that hath provided such great things for us.
(2.) Consider how deeply we are engaged to Jesus Christ. To deliver us from wrath to come, he himself was made a curse, and tasted the vinegar and gall : Gal. iii. 13, ' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.'' Something he suffered that answered wrath to come. In hell there is poena damni, and poena sensus, the loss, the pain and sense of God's wrath. The Lord Christ had for awhile the suspension of the joys and actual consolation of his divine nature, a loss that cannot be imagined : Mat. xxiii. 46, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' there is his loss. Then he had an actual feeling of the wrath of God ; therefore he saith, Mat. xxvii. 38, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;' there was his sense of pain. He was forsaken that we might not be separated from God for ever, and his soul was heavy to the death that we might not be cast into eternal burnings. Then for the positive part, that we might have everlasting glory, Christ left his heaven that we might enjoy ours ; he came from heaven, and is gone to heaven again, and will come from heaven the second time, and all to bring us thither with the more triumph ; so that going and coming, coming and going, he is still ours. He came at first out of the bosom of God, to estabUsli the merit, and pay the price for our glor3^ God sold it not at an easy rate ; the blood and agonies and shame of the Son of God must go for our glory ; it was no easy matter to bring sinful creatures so near to God. The Lord would not so much as treat with apostate angels ; when once they were sinners, they were no more to remain in his presence, nor to come near him, but they were cast out of heaven. The door was shut against sinning creatures, but Christ came to open it. Christ came to open paradise that was guarded with a flaming sword ; he caught the blow, that we might have communion with God, and therefore he sueth it out as the fruit of his sufferings. When Christ was about to die, he made his last will and testament. Heaven was his by purchase, to bestow upon all his heirs. He had bought it at a dear rate, therefore now he shows what he would do with it : John xvii. 24, ' Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me may be where I am, that they may behold my glory.' And then he is gone to heaven again as our harbinger, to prepare a place for us : John xiv. 2, ' I go to prepare a place for you,' to take up mansions and rooms for us in his Father's