A GLANCE OF HEAVEN. 177
Use 1. If tliis be so, let 21s not feed ourselves with vain hopes. There are none of us but we desire, at least we pretend that we desire, heaven; but most men conceive it only as a place free from trouble and annoyance ; and they are goodly things they hear of, kingdoms, crowns, and the like. But except thou have a holy, gracious heart, and desirest heaven that thou mayest be free from sin, and to have communion with Christ and his saints, to have the image of God, the divine nature perfect in thee, thou art an hypocrite, thou earnest a presumptuous conceit of these things ; thy hope will delude thee ; it is a false hope. * Every one that hath this hope purgeth himself,' 1 John iii. 3. Every one, he excludes none. Dost thou defile thyself, and live in sinful courses, and hast thou this hope ? Thou hast a hope, but it is not this hope ; for every one that hath this hope purgeth himself. No, no ; however in time of peace, and pleasure, and contentment that God follows thee with in this world, thou hast a vain hope; yet in a little trouble, or sickness, &c., thy own conscience will tell thee another place is provided for thee, a place of torment, that neither ' eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive' the misery of it. There is not the greatest man living, when he is troubled, if he be a sinful man, whose greatness can content him. All his honour and friends cannot pacify that poor conscience of his. But death, ' the king of fears,' will afli-ight him. He thinks, I have some trouble in this world, but there is worse that remains ; things that he is not able to conceive of. Let us not therefore delude ourselves. There is nothing will stand out but the new creature, that we find a change wrought by the Spirit of God. Then we may without presumption hope for the good things which neither ' eye hath seen,' &c.
Use 2. Again, we see in the second place GocVs mercy to us ; the quali- fication is uithin us, that u-e need not go far to know what our evidence is. Satan abuseth many poor Christians. Oh I am not elected, I am not the child of God ! Whither goest thou, man ? Dost thou break into heaven '? When thou carriest a soul in thy breast, and in that soul the affection of love ; how is that set ? Whither is thy love carried, and thy delight, and joy, those afiections that spring from love ? Thy evidence is in thine own heart. Our title is by faith in Christ. His righteousness gives us title to heaven. But how knowest thou that thou pretendcst a just title ? Thou hast the evidence in thy heart. What is the bent of thy soul ? Whither is the point of it set ? Which way goeth that ? Dost thou love God, and divine things, and delight in them ? Then thou mayest assure thj'self that those things belong to thee, as verily as the Scriptures are the word of God, and God a God of truth. When thou findest the love of God in thy heart, that thy heart is taught by his Spirit to love him, then surely thou mayest say, Oh blessed be God that hath kindled this holy fire in my heart. Now I know that ' neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, those excellent things that are laid up for me.'
THE END OF THE SECOND SEEMON.
THE THIRD SERMON.
Eye hath not seen, &c. — 1 Cok. II. 9.
Saint Paul, as we heard before, gives a reason in these words, why the * princes of this world ' (not only the great men, that ofttimes are not the
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178 A GLANCE OF HEAVEN.
greatest clerks,- but the learned men of the world, princes for knowledge), why they were ignorant of the mysteries of the gospel.
Now the fourth is the disposition of those for whom ho doth all this ; the quality he infuseth into them, they are such as ' love him.'
1. lie hath prepared them, before all eterniti/. He prepared happiness for us before we were ; nay, before the world was. As he prepared for Adam a paradise before he was ; he created him, and then brought him into paradise : so he prepared for us a kingdom with himself in heaven, a blessed estate before we were ; i. e., in election, before the heavens were. And then in creation he prepared the blessed place of the happy souls of happy persons hereafter, where he himself is. He prepared it for himself, and for all those that he means to set his love upon from the beginning to the end.
2. And then, secoudhj, he prepared them more effectnally in time. He prepared these things when Christ came in the flesh, and wrought all things for us, in whom we have all. Of these things thus prepared he saith, ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard them,' &c. In what sense it is meant we heard before. Now take the whole of the matter; the meaning is, the matters of grace, the kiiif/dom of grace, and the kim/dom of glori/, theij are but one. For (to add this by the way) the kingdom of heaven in the gospel includes three things.