VeR. 6, 7.] SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. 229
be at a distance from God, nor God at a distance from ns ; but we shall still enjoy his company, lauding and praising his name. Here we are learners, there practisers. We shall then have a clearer sight of his excellencies, and a fuller sense of his benefits, and accordingly offer up to him the continual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
3. It is a rest for the whole person, soul and body both, but in their order. This I note, lest you should interpret this rest of their quiet abode in the grave, as it is sometimes understood . Isa. lvii. 2, ' They shall rest in their beds ; ' when the righteous are taken from the tumults of the world, and the evils that ensue after their death. Death is a sleep and quiet repose. But this is not meant of death, but of glory ; the rest of the body in the grave is common to the wicked . Now, as their bodies are laid down to rest in the grave as in a bed, there to sleep quietly until the general resurrection, so their souls pass into a place of rest and bliss. The soul first entereth into rest. When men come first into the world, the body is first framed, and the soul cometh after ; for this lower region is properly the place of bodies ; therefore reason requireth that the body, which is a citizen of the world, should first be framed, that it may be a fit receptacle for the soul, which is a stranger, and cometh from the region of spirits, which is above. But when we must remove into those heavenly habitations, then it is quite otherwise ; for then the soul, as a native of that place, is presently admitted, but the body, as a stranger, is forced to reside in the grave till the day of judgment, and then our bodies also are admitted into heaven ; this is the law of all private persons. Indeed Christ, who is the head of the church, is not subject to it ; his body as well as his human spirit was made a denizen of heaven as soon as he ascended. He entered not there as a private citizen, but as king and lord of the heavenly Jerusalem, and therefore carried both body and soul along with him. But as to us, the soul goeth first there as to its proper seat, and after the final judgment both soul and body. There- fore the apostle saith, ' To give you that are troubled rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.' Then shall our reward be full. But that you may not think that this rest only implieth the sleep of death, and our quiet abode in the grave till we be awakened at the last day, I shall prove to you — (1.) That the souls of the faithful enter into a blissful estate as soon as they depart out of the body ; (2.) What will be the condition of the body in the resurrection.
[1.] That souls as soon as they flit out of the body are at rest with the Lord. There are a sort of men so drowned in sense that they cannot believe things to come. Some question the immortality of the soul ; others assert the sleep of it, because they imagine it to be so tied to the body as that it cannot exercise its functions and operations with- out it ; but that is a groundless error.
(1.) If death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ, surely the soul, notwithstanding death, is capable of showing love to God, and enjoying the fruits of his love to us : Rom. viii. 38, 39, ' I am persuaded that neither death nor life, &c shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Take it for our love to God, or God's love to us ; it is our happiness to love
230 SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. [SeR. IV.
God, and be beloved of him. If death cannot vacate this or make it to cease, separate souls may love God, and enjoy the fruits of his love to them.
(2.) If the souls of the saints, as soon as they are loosed from the body, be with God and Christ, then they are in a state of bliss : Phil. i. 23, ' I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better.' How could that be 7ro\\o) fiaXkov Kpelaaov, by much far the better, if the soul were deprived of all sense and feeling, and did remain in a dead sleepy state ? Is it not better for a gracious man to wake than to sleep? to be hard at work for God than to be idle and sit still? to use our powers and faculties than to lie in a senseless condition ? "What profit is it to be with the Lord and not enjoy his company? It is better to have our present love, knowledge, service, tastes, and experiences, than to lie in a stupid lethargy without all understanding and spiritual sense. It would be a loss to Paul if his body should lie rotting in the grave, and his soul without all fruition of God. What can be imagined to be that preponderating happiness which should sway his choice ? Is it to be eased of present labours and sufferings ? But God's people, who have resigned themselves to God, are wont to value their present service and enjoyment of God, though accompanied with great labours and afflictions. Surely Paul would never be in a strait if he were to be reduced upon his dissolution into a condition of stupid sleep, without any capacity of glorifying or enjoying God. God's people are wont to prefer the most afflicted condition with God's pre- sence before the greatest contentments with his absence : ' If thou go not up with us, carry us not hence.' Better be with God in the wil- derness than in Canaan without him. But so they are : 2 Cor. v. i. ' We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' Surely if the soul sleep till the resurrection, they should not say, When this house is dissolved ; but, When this house is raised, and this tabernacle is restored. When the saints desire to part with the body, it is not for want of love to the body, but out of love to their souls ; they would wish mortality were swallowed up of life, that the body might go along with the soul into glory. So ver. 8, ' We are willing to be absent from the body, that we may be present with the Lord ; ' implying that as soon as the one is effected and brought about, the other taketh place ; otherwise more absent when out of the body.