Use. Therefore ive should take them thankfully at GocVs hands. ' In all things be thankful,' 1 Thes. v. 18. ' In all things rejoice,' Phil. iv. 4. Because evil, though it be grevious for the time, yet it hath 'the quiet fruit of righteousness,' Heb. xii. 11. It quiets the soul after in that good we have by it. There are divers good things that we never have but by evil. There was never man yet could say he had patience but by suflering. So things present, whether they are good or ill, they are ours, to help us in the state of grace, and to fit us for the state of glory. But^ the most diffi- culty is in
' Things to come.'
14 A christian's portion ; or,
For what assurance have we of things to come ? Yet ' things to come are ours,' whether they be good or evil.
For good. The remainder of our life, that is ours to do good in. Death is to come, and that is ours. And judgment, that is ours ; for our Brother, our Head, our Saviour, and our Husband, ho shall be our judge, 1 Cor. vi. 2 ; and at the day of judgment, ' v;o shall judge the world.' And then after judgment heaven is ours ; immortality and eternity is ours ; com- munion with the blessed company in heaven is ours. ' All is ours ' then.
Indeed, the best is to come ; for if we had nothing but what we have in this world, ' we were of all men most miserable,' 1 Cor. xv. 19. Alas ! what have we, if things present only are ours ? But the best is behind. That for which Christ came into the world is behind. That which he en- joys in heaven is ours. He will take his spouse where himself is, into his own house, and he will finish the marriage, which is begun in contract, and then ' we shall be for ever with the Lord,' 1 Thes. iv. 17. ' The things to come ' are the main things, that which our faith lays hold on. That which we raise ourselves and comfort ourselves by, are especially the things to come, especially the promises of happiness and glory, and exemption and freedom from all ill. Whatsoever is to come is ours, and ours for eternity. Indeed, here I am swallowed up ; I cannot unfold to you what is oars in that sense. For ' if neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath prepared for his children in this world,' 1 Cor. ii. 9, that peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost, how can we conceive here of that glory that is to come ? Indeed, it is to be in heaven to conceive of it. It is a part of heaven to linow them ; and therefore the full knowledge of them it is deferred for that time till we come there.
And evil things to come are ours also. They cannot do us harm, they cannot ' separate us from Christ,' Rom. viii. 35. Nothing for the time to come shall be prejudicial, to unloose that blessed union that is between our soul and Christ ; as St Paul, Rom. viii., in that heavenly discourse of his, towards the latter end of the chapter, Rom. viii. 38, 39, saith triumphantly and divinely, ' Nothing shall separate us from Christ ; neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come.' We have the word of God for it, ' that nothing to come shall hinder us.' Whatsoever is to come, be it never so ill, it shall further us, as the apostle saith in the same chapter : Rom. viii. 28, ' All things shall work together for the best to them that love God.' Therefore, if nothing to come can hinder us, and all things that are to come shall further us, then all things to come must be ours. In 1 Pet. i. 5, ' We are kept by the power of God, through faith, to sal- vation.' Salvation is laid up for us, and we are kept through faith, by the power of God, to salvation. Therefore all things to come are ours.
It is a great comfort that nothing shall separate us ; no, not death itself. But this text affords an exuberancy of comfort above that, that death is ours ; and in being so, it shall not only not separate us from Christ, though it separate soul and body, but join us to him.
I beseech you, take it as a notion that may help against the terror of that doleful separation of soul and body. It parts two old friends, but it joins better friends together, the soul and Christ.
Farther, all things to come are ours ; even all things in the largest sense, the bitterest of all things.
The very judgment of the wicked, and the eternal sentencing of them, is the church's. Why ? It adds a lustre to God's mercy in advancing his
A christian's CHARTEPv. 15
own, as it is Eom. ix. 23. God magnifies bis mercy to 'the vessels of mercy,' by punishing a company of reprobates, in whom he hath no delight, by reason of their sins. His mercy appears much by that, even by the eternal sentence and punishment of wicked men. So all serves to set out the glory and excellency of God's people.