ing to their enlarged capacities. As when bottles of different sizes are filled, some contain more, others less; yet all of them have what they can contain. The glorified shall have all in God, for the satisfaction of all their desires. No created thing can afford satisfaction to all our desires: clothes may warm us, but they cannot feed us; the light is comfortable, but cannot nourish us. But in God we shall have all our desires, and shall desire nothing without him. They shall be the happy ones that desire nothing but what is truly desirable; and withal have all they desire. God will be all in all to the saints: he will be their life, health, riches, honour, peace, and all good things. He will communicate himself freely to them: the door of access to him shall never be shut again for one moment. They may, when they will taste of the fruit of the tree of life, for they will find it on each side of the river, Rev. xxii. 2. There will be no vail betwixt God and them, to be drawn aside; but his fulness shall ever stand open to them. No door to knock at in heaven; no asking to go before receiving; the Lord will allow his people an unrestrained familiarity with himself there.

Now they are in part made partakers of the divine nature; but then they shall perfectly partake of it; that is to say, God will communicate to them his own image, make all his goodness not only pass before them; but pass into them, and stamp the image of all his own perfections upon them so far as the creature is capable to receive the same; from whence shall result a perfect likeness to him in all things in or about them, which completes the happiness of the creature. And this is what the Psalimst seems to have had in view, Psal. xvii. 15, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness:" the perfection of God's image, following upon the beatific vision. And so says John, 1 John iii. 2. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Hence there shall be a most close and intimate union betwixt God and the saints: God shall be in them, and they in God, in the way of a glorious and most perfect union; for then shall they dwell in love made perfect. "God is love and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him,” 1 John iv. 16. How will the saints knit with God, and he with them, when he shall see nothing in them but his own image! when their love shall arrive at its perfection, no nature but the divine nature being left in them, and all imperfections swallowed up in that glorious transformation into the likeness of God! their love to the Lord being purged from the dross of self-love, shall be most pure, so as they will love nothing but God, and in God. It shall be no

more faint and languishing, but burn like coals of juniper. It will be a light without darkness, a flaming fire without smoke. As the live coal when all the moisture is gone out of it, is all fire, so will the saints be all love, when they come to the full enjoyment of God in heaven, by intuitive and experimental knowledge of him by sight and full participation of the divine goodness.

Lastly, From this glorious presence and enjoyment shall arise an unspeakable joy, which the saints shall be filled with. "In thy presence is fulness of joy," Psal. xvi. 11. The saints sometimes enjoy God in the world, when their eyes being held that they cannot perceive it, they have not the comfort of the enjoyment; but then all mistakes being removed, they shall not only enjoy God, but rest in the enjoyment with inexpressible joy and satisfaction. The desire of earthly things breeds torment, and the enjoyment of them often ends in loathing. But though the glorified saints shall ever desire more and more of God, their desires shall not be mixt with the least anxiety, since the fulness of the Godhead stands always open to them; therefore they shall hunger no more, they shall not have the least uneasiness in their eternal appetite after the hidden manna; neither shall continued enjoyment breed loathing: they shall never think they have too much; therefore it is added, "Neither shall the sun light upon them, nor any heat," Rev. vii. 16. The enjoyment of God and the Lamb, will be ever fresh and new to them, through the ages of eternity; for they shall drink of fountains of living waters, where new waters are continually springing up in abundance, ver. 17. They shall eat of the tree of life, which for variety, affords twelve manner of fruits; and these always new and fresh, for it yields every month, Rev. xxii. 2. Their joy shall be pure and unmixed, without any dregs of sorrow; not slight and momentary, but solid and everlasting, without interruption. They will enter into joy, Matth. xxv. 21, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." The expression is somewhat unusual, and brings me in mind of that word of our suffering Redeemer, Mark xiv. 34, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death." His soul was beset with sorrows, as the word there used will bear, the floods of sorrow went round about him, encompassing him on every hand; whithersoever he turned his eyes, sorrow was before him; it sprang in upon him from heaven, earth, and hell, all at once: thus was he entered unto sorrow, and therefore saith Psal. Ixix. 2, I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.' Now wherefore all this, but that his own might enter into joy? Joy sometimes enters into us now, with much ado to get access,

while we are encompassed with sorrows: but then joy shall not only enter into us, but we shall enter into it and swim for ever in an ocean of joy, where we will see nothing but joy, whithersoever we turn our eyes. The presence and enjoyment of God and the Lamb, will satisfy us with pleasures for evermore: and the glory of our souls and bodies arising from thence, will afford us everlasting delight. The spirit of heaviness, how closely soever it cleaves to any of the saints now, shall drop off then: their weeping shall be turned into songs of joy, and bottles of tears shall issue in rivers of pleasures. Happy they who now sow in tears, which shall spring up in joy in heaven, and bow their heads there with a weight of glory upon them.

Thus far of the Society in this kingdom of the saints. X. In the last place, The kingdom shall endure for ever. As every thing in it is eternal, so the saints shall have an undoubted certainty and full assurance of the eternal duration of the same. This is a necessary ingredient in perfect happiness; for the least uncertainty, as to the continuance of any good with one, is not without some fear, anxiety, and torment; and therefore is utterly inconsistent with perfect happiness. But the glorified shall never have fear, nor cause of fear of any loss: "they shall be ever with the Lord," 1 Thess. iv. 17. They shall all attain the full persuasion that nothing shall be able to separate them from the love of God, nor from the full enjoyment of him for ever. The inheritance reserved in heaven is incorruptible; it hath no principle of corruption in itself, to make it liable to decay, but endures for evermore. It is undefiled; nothing from without can mar its beauty, nor is there any thing in itself to offend those who enjoy it: And therefore it fadeth not away, but ever remains in its native lustre and primitive beauty, 1 Pet. i. 4. Hitherto of the nature of the kingdom of heaven.

SECONDLY, Proceed we now to speak of the admission of the saints into this their kingdom: where I shall briefly touch upon two things, (1.) The formal admission, in the call unto them from the Judge, to come to their kingdom. (2.) The quality in which they are admitted and introduced to it.

I. Their admission, the text shows to be by a voice from the throne; the King calling to them from the throne, before angels and men to come to their kingdom. Come, and Go, are but short words, but they will be such as will afford matter of thought to all mankind, through the ages of eternity, since upon the one depends everlasting happiness, and upon the other everlasting misery. Now our Lord bids the worst of sinners, who hear the gospel, Come: but the most part will

not come unto him. Some few whose hearts are touched by his Spirit do embrace the call, and their souls within them say, "Behold we come unto thee." They give themselves to the Lord, forsake the world and their lusts for him, they bear his yoke, and cast it not off, no not in the heat of the day, when the weight of it (perhaps) makes them sweat the blood out of their bodies. Behold the fools! saith the carnal world, whither are they going? But stay a little, O foolish world! From the same mouth whence they had the call they are now following, another call shall come, which will make amends for all. "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom."

The saints shall find an inexpressible sweetness in this call to come. (1.) Hereby Jesus Christ shows his desire of their society in the upper house, that they may be ever with him there. Thus he will open his heart unto them, as sometimes he did to his Father concerning them saying, "Father I will that they "be with me, where I am," John xvii. 24. Now the travel of his soul stands before the throne, not only the souls, but the bodies he has redeemed; and they must come, for he must be completely satisfied. (2.) Hereby they are solemnly invited to the marriage-supper of the Lamb. They were invited to the lower table, by the voice of the servants, and the secret workings of the Spirit with them, and they came and did partake of the feast of divine communications in the lower house: but Jesus Christ in person shall invite them before all the world to the higher table. (3.) By this he admits them into the mansions of glory. The keys of heaven hang at the girdle of our royal Mediator: All power in heaven is given to him, (Matth. xxviii. 18,) and none get in thither, but whom he admits. When they were living on earth with the rest of the world, he opened the everlasting doors of their hearts, entered into them himself, and shut them again, so as sin could never re-enter to reign there as formerly; and now he opens heaven's doors to them, draws his doves into the ark, and shuts them in there, so as the law, death, and hell can never get them out again. The saints in this life were still labouring to enter into that rest, but Satan was always pulling them back, their corruption always drawing them down, in so much that they have sometimes been left to hang by a hair of a promise (if I may be allowed the expression) not without fears of falling into the lake of fire: but now Christ gives the word for their admission, they are brought in and put beyond all hazard. Lastly, Thus he speaks to them as the person introducing them into the kingdom, into the presence chamber of the great King, and

unto the throne. Jesus Christ is the great Secretary of heaven, whose it is to bring the saints into the gracious presence of God, and to whom alone it belongs to bring them into the glorious presence of God in heaven. Truly heaven would be a strange place to them, if Jesus was not there; but the Son will introduce his brethren into his Father's kingdom, they shall go in with him to the marriage, Matth. xxv. 10.

II. Let us consider in what quality they are introduced by him.

FIRST, He brings them in as " the blessed of his Father:" so runs the call from the throne, "Come ye blessed of my Father." It is Christ's Father's house they are come into; therefore he puts them in mind that they are blessed of his Father: dear to the Father, as well as to himself. This is it that makes heaven home to them, namely, that it is Christ's Father's house, where we may be assured of welcome, being married to the Son, and being his Father's choice for that very end. He brings them in for his Father's sake, as well as for his own: they are the blessed of his Father, who, as he is the fountain of the Deity, is also the fountain of all blessings conferred on the children of men. They are these to whom God designed well from eternity. They were blessed in the eternal purpose of God, being elected to everlasting life: at the opening of the book of life, their names were found written therein. So that bringing them to the kingdom, he doth but bring them to what the Father from all eternity designed for them: being saved by the Son, they are "saved according to his (i. e. the Father's) purpose," 2 Tim. i. 9. They are these to whom the Father has spoken well. He spoke well to them in his word, which must now receive its full accomplishment. They had his promise of the kingdom, lived and died in the faith of it; and now they come to receive the thing promised. Unto them he has done well. A gift is often called in scripture a blessing; and God's blessing is ever real, like Isaac's blessing, by which Jacob became his heir. They were all by grace justified, sanctified, and made to persevere unto the end: now they are raised up in glory, and being tried, stand in the judgment. What remains then but that God crown his own work of in them, in giving them their kingdom, in the full enjoyment of himself for ever? Finally, They are these whom God has consecrated; the which also is a scripture notion of blessing, 1 Cor. x. 16. God set them apart for himself, to be kings and priests unto him; and the Mediator introduceth them as such to their kingdom and priesthood.

grace

SECONDLY, Christ introduceth them as heirs of the kingdom,