are ministers, to bring Christ and his spouse together, we are Paranymphi,^- friends of the bridegi'oom, as it is in the New Testament. Let me entreat you in good earnest, those that have not seriously given up their names to Christ, to be contracted to him, to join with him in good earnest, and to resign all to him in your inward man, in your judgments, and walls, and ailections, and then you shall lind it the most comfortable condition in this world. Indeed, all is nothing to the comfort of this condition, to be in deed and not in outward profession only, in covenant with Christ, to be con- tracted to him. If not, if you will take hberty under the profession of reUgion, to live loosely, to be swearers and filthy persons, to use your tongues as j'ou list,t as if you had made no promise to Christ, as indeed we all have, what will be the confusion of your souls ere long ! Oh that we daUied with rehgion ! that we were entreated to be as we should be by all sweet bonds ! and yet we preferred our own lusts and base affections. This will be the aggravation of hell and damnation itself ; this entreaty of Christ, and the excellent prerogatives and privileges that we have in Christ. And in the mean time we stand more upon our own base courses, and will not leave anything to give up ourselves to Christ. But I mean not to dwell on this point. This is the person, ' the bride.' She is called ' the bride,' and not the wife, because she is only contracted here on earth ; and she is called * the bride,' in opposition to the whore of Babylon in this book, that is, the filthy adulteress, the false church. The true church of Christ is a bride and a wgin ; in heaven she shall be a wife. The false church is a whore. She defiles herself with idolatry and abominations. So partly for distinction from itself in heaven, where it shall be a wife, and partly in opposition to the false church, she is here called a bride.
To come, in the next place, to the desire of the church. How should the church know she is a bride ? This is one way, the desire of the marriage. Where there is a true contract, there is a desire of the marriage, of the consummation of it, a desire of the coming of Christ. In this there are two things considerable.
First, tliat Christ will come.
And then the church hath a desire of this coming. That Christ will come, I need spend no time to prove it, for it is an article of faith, ' He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.' And he will come to make an end of what he hath begun here. He came to redeem our souls. He must, and he will come to redeem our bodies from corruption. He came to be judged and to die for us. He must come to be judge of the quick and dead. He came to contract us, he will come again to marry us and to take us where he is. ' He loved us so, that he came from heaven to earth where we are, to take our nature, that he might be a fit husband, but he will come to take us to himself. We shall enter ' into his chamber, to the palace of the great King,' Ps. xlv. 15. He will come, there is no question of that.
The uneven carriage of things in this world to the eyes of men evinceth so much. You see how it is here with mighty persons that shake off Christ's yoke, how they bear sway, how Satan plays freaks J in opposing Christ ; he rules in the children of pride. This must not alway be so. There must and will be a time when Christ will ' be glorious in his saints.' Now the hfe of Christ in the saints is a ' hidden' life ; there must be a day of reve- lation. And even as it was in Christ's first coming, there was all kind of arguments and witnesses to prove that he should come in the flesh, a choir * That is. from rraoan/Mipiog = brideman. — G. t That is, ' choose.'— G. J iVIisprinted ' reaks.'— G.
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of angels from heaven to witness it ; and on earth, the wise men among the Gentiles ; and among the Jews, old Simeon. There was men and women, all kind of witnesses. So in his ' second coming,' there is all kind of wit- nesses. In this chapter here is Christ, and the angel, and John, and the Spirit, and the spouse, the church in general and every particular soul. Their desu-e of his coming shews that he will come ; for the desires stirred up in the heart by the Holy Ghost, they will not be in vain. The desires of his coming shew that he will come ; for spiritual desires must have their accomplishment. There will be a coming of Christ, there is no question of that.
And the church here desires it. It is the disposition of the church to be carried in her desires to it ; wherein we will shew the ground of this desire, and then the use that we are to make of it.