John Flavel · 15 of 34

Sermon 5. Heb. 12:23 · Part 1

-- Kai pneumasi dikaioon teteleioomenoon. – And to the spirits of just men made perfect.

The particular scope of this context falls in with the general design of the whole gospel, which is to persuade men to a life of holiness. The matter of the exhortation is most weighty, and the arguments enforcing it most powerful: He does not talk, but dispute; he does not say, but prove, that greater and more powerful engagements unto holiness lie upon those who live under the gospel, than upon the people who lived under the law. And thus the argument lies in this context.

If God, at the delivering of the law upon mount Sinai, strictly enjoined, and required so great purity and holiness in that people, signified by the ceremonies of two days preparation, the washing of their clothes, abstinence from conjugal society, &c. Exod. xix. 10. much more does he require, and expect it in us, who are come under a much more excellent and heavenly dispensation than theirs was.

To make good the sequel, he compares the legal and evangelical dispensations in many particulars, ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. giving the gospel the preference throughout the whole comparison.

Hence the privileges of the New-Testament believers are stated, both negatively and positively.

1. Negatively, By showing what we are exempted from.

2. Positively, Showing what we are to come unto.

1. Negatively, What we are exempted, or freed from; ver. 18, 19, 20, 21. "We are not come unto the mount that might be "touched," &c.

The sum of all is this, that the promulgation of the law was accompanied with amazing dread and terror. For, after Moses, by command from God, had sanctified the mount, and set rails about it, that neither priest nor people, man nor beast, might touch the very borders of it, lest they die; the Lord descended in fire upon the top of the mountain the third day, in the morning, with most terrible tokens of divine majesty, to wit, with thunderings, lightnings, dark clouds, and the noise of a trumpet, exceeding loud; the mount was covered with smoke, as the smoke of a furnace, and flames mounting up into the midst of heaven, the whole mountain shaking and trembling exceedingly: Out of this horrid tempest the awful voice of God was heard, all the people in the camp trembling, Yea, and Moses himself quaking for fear.

This was the manner of the law’s promulgation: But to such a terrible dispensation as this we are not come, which is the negative part of our privilege.

2. He opens the positive privileges to which we are come.

(1.) "Ye are come, says he, to mount Sion, not the earthly, but the spiritual Sion. Mount Sion was the place celebrated above all the world for the worship of God, Psal. lxxxvi. 7. "All my springs, says God, are in thee." There was the temple, the ark of the covenant, the glory of the Lord dwelling between the cherubims. The priests that attended the service of God had their residence there, as the angels have in heaven. Thither the tribes went up from all quarters of Judea, Psal. lxxxiv. as the children of God now do to heaven, from all quarters of the world. Judea was the best kingdom in the world; Jerusalem the best city in that kingdom; and Sion the most glorious place in that city. Here Christ taught his heavenly doctrine; near to it he finished his glorious work of redemption. Hence the everlasting gospel went forth into all the world: And, on these considerations, it is put to signify the gospel church, or state in this place, and is therefore called the heavenly Jerusalem, in the following words, We do not come to the literal Sion, nor to the earthly Jerusalem; but to the gospel-church, or state, which may be called a heaven upon earth, compared with that literal Jerusalem.

(2.) Ye are come "to an innumerable company of angels." To myriads of angels, a myriad is ten thousand, but myriads in the plural number, and set down indefinitely too, may note many millions of angels: And therefore we fitly render it, "to an innumerable company of angels."

They had the ministry of angels as well as we, thousands of them ministered to the Lord in the dispensation of the law at Sinai, Psal. lxviii. 17. But this notwithstanding, we are come to a much clearer knowledge, both of their present ministry for us on earth, Heb. i. 14. and of our fellowship and equality with them in heaven, Luke xx. 36.

(3.) "Ye are come to the general assembly, and church of the first born, whose names are written (or enrolled) in heaven." This also greatly commends and amplifies the privileges of the New-Testament believers. The church of God in former ages was circumscribed and shut up within the narrow limits of one small kingdom, which was a garden enclosed out of a waste wilderness: But now, by the calling in of the Gentiles, the church is extended far and wide, Eph. iii. 5, 6. It is become a great assembly, comprising the believers of all nations under heaven; and so speaking of them collectively, it is the general convention or assembly, which is also dignified, and ennobled by two illustrious characters, viz. (1.) That it is the church of the firstborn, i. e. consisting of members dignified and privileged above others, as the first born among the Israelites did excel their younger brethren. (2.) That their names are written in heaven, i. e. registered or enrolled in God’s book, as children and heirs of the heavenly inheritance, as the first born in Israel were registered in order to the priesthood, Numb. iii 40, 41.

(4.) Ye are come "to God, the Judge of all." But why to God the Judge? This seems to spoil the harmony, and jar with the other parts of the discourse. No, they are come to God as a righteous Judge, who, as such, will pardon them, 1 John i. 9. Crown them, 2 Tim. iv. 8. and avenge them on all their opt pressing and persecuting enemies, 1 Thes. i. 5, 6, 7.

(5.) "And to the spirits of just men made perfect." A most glorious privilege indeed; in which we are distinctly to consider.

1. The quality of those with whom we are associated or taken into fellowship.

2. The way and manner of our association with them.

1. The quality of those with whom we are associated, or to whom we are said to be come; and they are described by three characters, viz.

(1.) Spirits of men.

(2.) Spirits of just men.

(3.) Spirits of just men perfected, or consummated.

(1.) They are called spirits, that is, immaterial substances, strictly opposed to bodies, which are no way the objects of our exterior senses, neither visible to the eye, or sensible to the touch, which were called properly souls while they animated bodies in this lower world; but now being loosed and separated from them by death, and existing alone in the world above, they are properly and strictly styled spirits.

(2.) They are the spirits of just men. Man may be termed just two ways, (1.) By a full discharge and acquittance from the guilt of all his sins, and so believers are just men, even while they live on earth, groaning under other imperfections, Acts xiii. 39.

Or, (2.) By a total freedom from the pollution of any sin. And though in this sense there is not "a just man upon earth that does good, and sinneth not," Eccl. vii 22. yet even in this sense Adam was just before the fall, Eccl. vii. 29. according to his original constitution; and all believers are so in their glorified condition; all sin being perfectly purged out of them, and its existence utterly destroyed in them. On which account,

(a.) They are called the spirits of just men made perfect, or consummate. The word perfect is not here to be understood absolutely, but by way of synecdoche; they are not perfect in every respect, for one part of these just men lies rotting in the grave: but they are perfected, for so much as concerns their spirit; though the flesh perish and lie in dishonour, yet their spirits being once loosed from the body, and freed radically and perfectly from sin, are presently admitted to the facial vision and fruition of God, which is the culminating point (as I may call it) higher than which the spirit of man aspires not; and attaining to this, it is, for so much as concerns itself, made perfect. Even as a body at last lodged in its centre, gravitates no more, but is at perfect rest; so it is with the spirit of man come home to God in glory, it is now consummate, no more need to be done to malice it as perfectly happy as it is capable to be made; which is the first thing to be considered, viz. the quality of those with whom we are associated.

2. The second follows, namely, the way and manner of our association with these blessed spirits of just men, noted in this expression, [we are come.] He says not, we shall come hereafter, when the resurrection had restored our bodies, or after the general judgement; but, we are come to these spirits of just men. The meaning whereof we may take in these three particulars.

(1.) We that live under the gospel-light, are come to a clearer apprehension, sight, and knowledge of the blessed and happy estate of the souls of the righteous after death, than ever they had, or ordinarily could have, who lived under the types and shadows of the law, Eph. iii. 4, 5. And so we are come to them in respect of clearer apprehension.

(2.) We are come to those blessed spirits in our representative, Christ, who has carried our nature into the very midst of them, and whom they all behold with highest admiration and delight. By Christ, who is entered into that holy place where these spirits of just men live, we are come into a near relation with them: for he being the common head, both to them in heaven, and to us on earth, we and they consequentially make but one body or society, Eph. ii. 10. whereupon (notwithstanding the different and remote countries they and we live in) we are said "to sit down with them in heavenly places," Eph. iii. 5. and ii. 6.

(8.) We are come. That is, we are as good as come, or we are upon the matter come; there remains nothing betwixt them and us but a puff of breath, a little space of time, which shortens every moment: We are come to the very borders of their country, and there is nothing to speak of betwixt them and us: And by this expression, we are come, he teacheth us to account and reckon those things as present which so shortly will be present to us, and to look upon them as if they already were, which is the highest and most comfortable life of faith we can live on earth. Hence the note is,

Doct. That righteous and holy souls, once separated from their bodies by death, are immediately perfected in themselves; and associated with others alike perfect in the kingdom of God.

That the spirits of just men at the time of their separation from their bodies do not utterly fail in their beings, nor that they are so prejudiced and wounded by death, that they cannot exert their own proper acts in the absence of the body, has been already cleared in the foregoing parts of this treatise, and will be more fuller cleared from this text.

But the true level and aim of this discourse is at a higher mark, viz. the far more excellent, free, and noble life the souls of the just begin to live immediately after their bodies are dropped off from them by death, at which time they begin to live like themselves, a pleasant, free, and divine life. So much at least is included in the apostle’s epithet in my text, spirits of just men made perfect; and suitable thereto are his words in 1 Cor. xiii. 10, 12. "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall know, even as also I am known."

These two adverbs, now and then, distinguish the twofold state of gracious souls, and show what it is while they are confined in the body, and what it shall be from the time of their emancipation and freedom from that clog of mortality. Now we are imperfect, but then that which is perfect takes place, and that which is imperfect is done away, as the imperfect twilight is done away by the opening of the perfect day.

And it deserves a serious animadversion, that this perfect state does not succeed the imperfect one after a long interval, (as long as betwixt the dissolution and resurrection of the body) but the imperfect state of the soul is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one. The glass is laid by as useless, when we come to see face to face, and eye to eye.

The waters will prove very deep here, too deep for any line of mine to fathom; there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come, a gloom and haziness upon that state: Fain we would, with our creak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge, penetrate this cloud, and dispel this gloom and haziness, but cannot. We think seriously and closely of this great and awful subject, but our thoughts cannot pierce through it: we reinforce those thoughts by a sally, or thick succession of fresh thoughts, and yet all will not do, our thoughts return to us either in confusion, or without the expected success. For alas! how little is it that we know, or can know of our own souls now while they are embodied! much less of their unembodied state. The apostle tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 9. "That eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And another apostle adds, "It does not yet appear what we shall be," 1 John iii. 2.

Yet all this is no discouragement to the search and regular enquiry into the future state; for though reason cannot penetrate these mysteries, yet God has revealed them to us, (though not perfectly) by his Spirit. And though we know not particularly, and circumstantially what we shall be, yet this we know, that "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." And it is our privilege and happiness, that we are come to the spirits of just men made perfect, i. e. to a clearer knowledge of that state than was ordinarily attainable by believers, under former dispensations.

These things premised, I will proceed to open my apprehensions of the separate state of the spirits of just men made perfect, in twelve propositions: whereby, as by so many steps, we may orderly advance as far as safely and warrantably we may, into the knowledge of this great mystery, clearing what afterwards shall remain obscure, in the solution of several questions relating to this subject, and then apply the whole, in several uses of this great point: And the first proposition is this:

Proposition 1. There is a twofold separation of the soul from the body: viz. one mental, the other real: Or,

1. Intellectual, by the mind only.

2. Physical, by the stroke of death.

1. Of intellectual, or mental separation, I am first to speak in this proposition; and it is nothing else but an act of the understanding, or mind, conceiving, or considering the soul and body, as separate and parted from each other, while yet they are united in a personal oneness by the breath of life. This mental separation may, and ought to be frequently and seriously made, before death make the real and actual separation; and the more frequently and seriously we do it, the less of horror and distraction will attend that real and fatal stroke, whenever it shall be given. For hereby we learn to bear it gradually, and, by gentle essays, to acquaint our shoulders with the burden of it. Separation is a word that has much of horror in the very sound, and uses to have much more in the sense and feeling of it, else it would not deserve that title, Job viii. 14. "The kind of terrors," or the most terrible of all terribles: But acquaintance and familiarity abates that horror, and that two ways especially.

(1.) As it is preventive of much guilt.

(2.) As it gains a more inward knowledge of its nature.

(1.) The serious and fixed thoughts of the parting hour, is preventive of much guilt; and the greatest part of the horror of death rises out of the guilt of sin; "The sting of death is sin," 1 Cor. xv. 56. Augustine says, "Nothing more recalls a man from sin, than the frequent meditation of death." I dare not say it is the strongest of all curbs to keep us back from sin, but I am sure it is a very strong one.

Let a soul but seriously meditate what a change death will make shortly upon his person and condition; and the natural effects of such a meditation, through the blessing of God upon it, will be a flatting and quenching of its keen and raging appetite after the ensnaring vanities of this world (which draw men into so much guilt) a conscious fear of sin, and an awakened care of duty. It was once demanded of a very holy man (who spent much more than the ordinary allowance of time in prayer, and searching his own heart) why he so macerated his own body by such frequent and long continued duties! His answer was, O! I must die, I must die! Nothing could separate him from duty, who had already separated his soul from his body, and all this world, by fixed end deep thoughts of death.

(2.) Hereby we gain a more inward knowledge and acquaintance with it, the less it terrifies us. A lion is much more dreadful to him that never saw him, than he is to his keeper who feedeth him every day. A pitched battle is more frightful and scaring to a new-listed soldier, that never took his place in the field before, nor saw the dreadful countenance of an army ready to engage, nor heard the thundering noise of cannon, and volleys of shot, the shouts of armies, and groans of dying men on every side, than it is to an old soldier who has been used to such things. The like we may observe in seamen, who it may be trembled at first, and now can sing in a storm.

Scarce any thing is more necessary for weak and timorous believers to meditate on, than the time of their separation. Our hearts will be apt to start and boggle at the first view of death; but it is good to do by them as men use to do by young colts; ride them up to that which they fright at, and make them smell to it, which is the way to cure them. "Look, as bread, says one, is more necessary than other food, so the meditation of death is more necessary than many other meditations." Every time we change our habitations, we should realise therein our great change: our souls must shortly leave this, and be lodged for a longer season in another mansion. When we put off our clothes at night, we have a fit occasion to consider, that we must strip nearer one of these days, and put off, not our clothes only, but the body that wears them too.

Holy Job had, by frequent thoughts, familiarised death and the grave to himself, and could speak of them as men use to speak of their houses and dearest relations, Job xvii. 14. "I have said to corruption, Thou art my father, to the worm, Thou art my mother and sister." But it needs much grace to bring, and to hold the heart to this work; and therefore Moses begs it of God, Psal. xc. 12. "So teach us to number our days"; and David, Psal. xxxix. 4. "Lord, make me to know my end." Yea, the advantages of it have been acknowledged by men, whose light was less, and diversions more than ours. The Jews, for this use and end, had their sepulchres built beforehand, and that in their gardens of pleasure too, that they might season the delights of life with the frequent thoughts of death, John xix. 41.

Philip of Macedon would be awakened by his page every morning with this sentence, memento te esse mortalem: Remember, O king, that thou art a mortal man. A great emperor of Constantinople, not only at his inauguration, but at his great feasts, ordered a mason to bring two stones before him, and say, "Choose, O emperor, which of the two stones thou wilt for thy tombstone?" Reader, thou wilt find mental separation much easier than real separation: it is easier to think of death, than it is to feel it; and the more we think of it, the less we are like to feel it.

Prop. 2. Actual separation may be considered either in fieri, in the previous pangs, and foregoing agonies of it; or in facto esse, in the last separating stroke, which actually parts the soul and body asunder, lays the body prostrate and dead at the feet of death, and thrusts the soul quite out of its ancient and beloved habitation.

Let it be considered in the previous pangs and forerunning agonies, which commonly make way for this actual dissolution: and to the people of God, this is the worst and bitterest part of death (except those conflicts with Satan, which they sometimes grapple with on a deathbed) which they encounter at that time. There is (says one) no poinard in death itself, like those in the way or prologue to it. I like not to die, (said another) but I care not if I were dead; the end is better than the way. The conflicts and struggles of nature with death are bitter and sharp pains, unknown to men before, whatever pains they have endured: nor can it be expected to be otherwise, seeing the ties and engagements betwixt the soul and body are so strong, as we showed before.

The soul will not easily part with the body, but disputes the possages with Death, from member to member, like resolute soldiers in a stormed garrison, till at last it is forced to yield up the fort royal into the hands of victorious Death, and leave the dearly be loved body a captive to it.

This is the dark side of death to all good men; and though it be not worth naming, in comparison with the dreadful consequences of death to all others, yet in itself it is terrible.

Separation is not natural to the soul which was created with an inclination to the body; it is natural indeed to clasp and embrace, to love and cherish its own body; but to be divided from it, is grievous and preternatural.

The agonies of death are expressed in scripture, by a word which signifies "the travailing pains of a woman", yea, by the sharpest and most acute pains they at that time feel, Acts ii. 24.

And yet all are not handled alike roughly by the hands of death; some are favoured with a desirable euthanasia, gentle and easy death.

It is the privilege of some Christians to have their souls fetched out of their bodies, as it were by a kiss from the mouth of God, as the Jewish Rabbins use to express the manner of Moses’ death. Mr. Bolton felt no pain at his death, but the cold hand of his friend, who asked him what pain he felt. Yea, holy Bayneham in the midst of the flames, professed it was to him as a bed of roses.

Every believer is equally freed from the sting and curse of death; but every one is not equally favoured in the agonies and pains of death.

2. Separation from the body is to be considered in facto esse, i. e. in the result and issue of all those bitter pangs and agonies, which end in the actual dissolution of soul and body. "Death, or actual separation, is nothing else but the dissolving of the tie or loosing of the bond of union betwixt the soul and body." "Some call it the privation of the second act of the soul, that is, its act of informing or enlivening the body." Others, according to the scripture-phrase, the departing of the soul from the body. So Peter stiles it, 2 Pet. i. 15. Meia ten emen exodon, after my departure, i. e. after my death. Augustine calls it the laying down of a heavy burden, provided there be not another burden for the soul to bear afterwards, which will sink it into hell.

In respect of the body, which the soul now forsakes, it is called "the putting off this tabernacle," 2 Pet. i. 14. and, "the dissolving the earthly house or tabernacle," 2 Cor. v. 1.

In respect of the terminus a quo, the place from which the soul removes at death, it is called our departure hence, Phil. i. 23. or

Our weighing anchor, and loosing from this coast or shore, to sail to another.

In respect of the terminus ad quem, the place to which the spirits of the just go at death, it is called our going to, or being with the Lord, Phil. i. 28. To conclude, in respect of that which does most lively resemble and shadow it forth, it is called our falling asleep, Acts vii. 60. our sleeping in Jesus, 1 Thes. iv. 14. This metaphor of sleep must be stretched no farther than the Spirit of God designed in the choice of it, which was not to favour and countenance the fancy of a sleeping soul after death, but to represent its state of placid rest in Jesus’ bosom, if it refer at all to the soul; for I think it most properly respects the body; and then the sepulchres, where the bodies of the saints were laid, got the name of koimetheria, dormitories, or sleeping places.

This is its last farewell to this world, never more to return to a low animal life more. Job vii. 9, 10. "For as the cloud is consumed and vanished away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more: he shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." The soul is no more bound to a body, nor a retainer to the sun, moon, or stars, to meat, drink, and sleep, but is become a free, single, abstracted being, a separate and pure spirit, which the Latins call lemures, manes, ghosts or souls of the dead, and my text, Spirits made perfect; a being much like unto the angels, who are, dunameis asomathous, bodiless beings. An angel, as one speaks, is a perfect soul, a soul is an imperfect angel: I do not say, that upon their separation, they become angels, for they will still remain a distinct species of spirits. Angels have no inclination to bodies, nor were ever fettered with clogs of flesh, as souls were. And by this you see what a vast difference there is betwixt these two considerations of death: how ghastly and affrighting is it in its previous pangs! how lovely and desirable in the issue and result of them! which is but the change of earth for heaven, men for God, sin and misery, for perfection and glory.

Prop. 3. The separation of the soul and body, makes a great and wonderful change upon both, but especially upon the soul.

There is a twofold change made upon man by death, one upon his lady, another upon his soul. The change upon the body is great and visible to every eye. A living body is changed into a dead carcass: a beautiful and comely body into a loathsome spectacle: that which was lately the object of delight and love, is hereby make an abhorrence to all flesh; "Bury my dead out of my sight," Gen. xxiii. 4.

What the sun is to the greater, that the soul is to the lesser world. When the sun shines comfortably, how vegete and cheerful do all things look! how well do they thrive and prosper! the birds sing merrily, the beasts play wantonly, the whole creation enjoyeth a day of light and joy: but when it departs, what a night of horror followeth! how are all things wrapped up in the sable mantle of darkness! or if it but abate its heat, as in winter, the creatures are, as it were, buried in the winding-sheet of winter’s frost and snow: just so is it with the body, when the soul shines pleasantly upon it, or departs from it.

That body which was fed so assiduously, cared for so anxiously, loved so passionately, is now tumbled into a pit, and left to the mercy of crawling worms. The change which judgment made upon that great and flourishing city Nineveh, is a fit emblem to shadow forth that change which death makes upon human bodies: that great and renowned city was once full of people, which thronged the streets thereof; there you might have seen children playing upon the thresholds, beauties showing themselves through the windows, melody sounding in its palaces: but what an alteration was made upon it, the prophet Zephaniah describes, chap. ii. 14. "Flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations; both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it: their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds, for he shall uncover the cedar-work."