Thus we have unfolded to you the sealing of the Spirit ; and you see the Spirit of God not only anoints, but seals. Now we should labour to have our hearts thus sealed by the Spirit. Can we desire and never be at quiet till our instruments be sealed, till our acquittances, till our charters be sealed ? and shall we be patient not to have our souls sealed ?
Let us labour by all means to have the image and likeness of Christ stamped upon our souls especially. That is wondrous comfortable when ■ we can find somewhat in us like to Jesus Christ.
To encourage us to this, let us consider, that death and judgment will come, and God will set none at his right hand but his sheep that have his mark. Those that he sets his stamp and image upon, those he will set on the right hand in the day of judgment.
And how comfortably in the hour of death can the soul commend itself to God, when it sees itself stamped and sealed by the Spirit of Christ ! when he can say to Christ, ' Lord Jesus, receive my soul,' Acts vii. 59, that thou hast redeemed by thy blood, that thou hast sealed by thy Spirit, and that thou hast set thine own stamp upon, acknowledge thine own like- ness, though it be not as it should be ; what a comfort, I say, hath the sealed soul at the hour of death ! And so in all other extremities, and in times of trouble and danger, those in whom God sees his own image and likeness, he will own, and to those he will always shew a distinct and respective love in hard times.
What a ditference is between that soul and others in the time of afflic- tion, as in the time of pestilence and war. The soul that is sealed knows that he is marked out for God, for happiness in the world to come, whatso- ever befalls him in this world ; and he knows that God in all confusion of times knows his own seal. Those that are sealed, God hath a special care of, I say. Therefore in Ezek. ix. 6, they are said to be marked in their foreheads ; not that there was any visible mark on them, but it is a phrase to signify what special care God had of his people, specially in times of de- struction : God will as it were set them out in those times, and make special provision for them. Thus Josiah was taken awa}^ from the evil to come ; and Lot was taken out of Sodom when fire and brimstone was to come from heaven ; and Pella, a little village, was delivered when the general destruc- tion came upon Jerusalem (cccc). So that, I say, God hath a special care of his little ones in this life ; and if he take them away, yet their death is precious in his sight. He will not part with them but upon special con- sideration ; he sees if they live it will be worse for them ; he sees it is better for them to be gathered to himself, and to ' the souls of men made perfect in heaven.'*
* Cf. with Catlin's reflections on the death of Sibbes himself. Aj^pendix to Memoir, A. vol i. pp. cxxxix-xli. — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VKR. 22. 461
And as he hath a special care of them in regard of outward miseries and calamities, so in regard of spiritual contagion and infection, as Rev. vii. 3, scq. There God's holy ones were sealed, so many of such a tribe, &c., which is to signify to us, that God hath always some that he will keep and preserve from the universal infection and contagion of Antichrist in the worst times. God hath always a church in the worst times, in the obscurest age of the church, eight or nine hundred years after Christ, especially nine hundred years [after], when Eg;\'ptian darkness had overspread the world, and there ■was little learning and goodness in the world,* God had always sealed ones, marked ones, that he preserved fi-om the danger of dark times ; and so he will always have a care of his own, that they be not led awa}^ with that soul- hurting error, popery ; another manner of mischief than men take it for. The Scripture is more punctual in setting down the danger of those, espe- cially in lighter times of the church, that are carried away with that sin, than any other sin whatsoever ; they have a contrary mark. Those that have the mark of the beast, it is contrary to the mark of Christ : it is far from being the mark and seal of the Spirit, that implicit bloody faith. Theirs is the bloody church, pretend what they will, and they stand out to blood in the defence of all their cruel, superstitious, and bloody decrees. Those persons, I say, that are deeply dyed in popery, that have the mark of the beast, they are in a clean opposite condition to those that are marked with the Spirit, that Christ marks for his.
Let us not fear therefore, I say, if we have the Spirit of God stamped upon us, though in a little measure : if it be true, let us not fear death ; Christ knows his own mark even in death, and out of death. And let us not fear afflictions nor evil times, Christ will know his seal. He hath a book of remembrance for those that are his, Mai. iii. 16 ; for those that moui'n for the sins of the times, and when he gathers his jewels, those shall be his. He will gather his jewels as a man in his house gathers his jewels ; he suifers his luggage to burn in the ftre. So God in common calamities, he suffers luggage, wicked men to go to wi-eck, but he will free his own.