John Flavel · 22 of 34

Sermon 5. Heb. 12:23 · Part 8

Arg. 4. And as the dolorous parting hour evidences it, so does the joy with which it receives it again at the resurrection. If it part from it so heavily, and meet it again with joy unspeakable; sure, then, it still retains much love for it, and desires to re-espoused to it in the interval. Now, that its meeting in the resurrection is a day of joy to the soul, is evident, because it is called the time of refreshment, Acts iii. 19. and they awake with singing out of the dust, Isa xxvi. 19. If the direct and immediate scope of the prophet points not (as some think it does) at the resurrection, yet it is allowed by all to be a very lively allusion to it, which is sufficient for my purpose: And, indeed, none that understand and believe the design, and business of that day, can possibly doubt but there was reason enough to call it a time of refreshment, a singing morning; for the souls of the righteous come from heaven with Christ, and the whole host of shouting angels, not to be spectators only, but the subjects of that day’s triumph: They come to re-assume, and be re espoused to their own bodies, this being the appointed time for God to vindicate and rescue them from the tyrannical power of the grave, to endow them with spiritual qualities, at the second marriage to their souls, that in both parts they may be completely happy. O the joyful clashings, and dear embraces, between them! who but themselves, can understand? And, by the way, this removes the objection before mentioned, of the miseries and prejudices the soul suffered in this world, in, and from the body; for now it receives it a spiritual body, (i. e.) so subdued to, and fitted for the use of the spirit, as never to impede, clog, or obstruct its motions and inclinations any more, 1 Cor. xv. 44. In this hope it parted from it, and with this consolation it now receives it again.

Arg. 5. There are many scriptures which very much favour, if they do not positively conclude for the soul’s inclination to, and desire to be re-united with its own body, even while it is in the state of its single glorification in heaven: Certainly our souls leave not their bodies at death, as the ostrich does her egg in the sand, without any further regard to it, or concernment for it; but they are represented as crying to God to remember, avenge, and vindicate them, Rev. vi. 10, 11. "How long, Lord, how long " wilt thou not avenge our blood?’, Our blood, speaks both the continued relation, and the suitable affection they have to their absent bodies.

And to the same sense a judicious and learned pen expounds that place, Job, xiv. 11. (which is commonly, but I know not how fitly accommodated to another purpose) "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come." Which words, by a diligent comparison, of the context, appears to have this for their proper scope and sense.

‘Job in the former verse had expressed his confidence by way of petition, that at a set and appointed time God would remember him so as to recall him out of the grave; and now, minded to speak out more fully, puts the question to himself, If a man die, shall be live again?’ and thus answers it, ‘All the days of my appointed time, (that is, of the appointed time which he mentioned before, when God should revive him out of the dust) ‘will I wait till my change come;’ that is, that glorious change, when the ‘corruption of a loathsome grave should be exchanged for immortal glory: Which he amplifies, and utters more expressly, ver. 15. Thou shalt call, and I will answer; thou shalt have a desire to the works of thy hands:’ Thou wilt not always forget to restore and perfect thine own creature. And surely this waiting is not the act of his inanimate sleeping dust, but of that part which should be capable of such an action: q. d. I, in that part which shall be still alive, shall patiently wait the appointed time of reviving me in that part also, which death and the grave shall insult over in a temporary triumph in the mean time.’

Upon these grounds I think the inclination of the separated spirits of the just to their own bodies to be a justifiable opinion. As for the damned, we have no reason to think such a re-union to be desirable to them; for alas, it will be but the increase and aggravation of their torments; which consideration is sufficient to overpower and stifle the inclination of nature, and make the very thoughts of it horrid and dreadful. To what end (as the prophet speaks in another case) is it for them to desire that day? It will be a day of darkness and gloominess to them; re-union being designed to complete the happiness of the one, and the misery of the other.

But before I take off my hand, and dismiss this question, I must remember that I am a debtor to two objections.

Object. 1. The soul can both live and act separate from the body, it needs it not; and if it do not want, with should it desire it?

Sol. The life and actings of the glorified are considerable two wars, (1.) Singly and abstractedly for the life and action of one part: And so we confess the soul lives happily, and acts forth its own popovers freely in the state of separation. (2.) Personally, or consecrately, as it is the life and action of the whole man, and so it does both need and desire the conjunction or re-union of the body, for the body is not only a part or Christ’s purchase, as well as the soul, and to have its own glory, as well as it, but it is also a constitutive part of a complete glorified person; and so considered, the saints are not perfectly happy till this re-union be effected, which is the true ground and reason of this its desire.

Object. 2. But this hypothesis seems to thwart the account given in scripture of the rest, and placid state of separate souls: far look, as bodies which gravitate and propend do not rest, so neither do souls which incline arid desires

Sol. There is a vast difference between the tendencies, and propensions of souls in the way to glory, and in glory: We that are absent from the Lord, can find no rest in the way; but those that are with the Lord can rest in Jesus, and yet wait without anxiety, of self-torturing impatience for the accomplishment of the promises to their absent bodies, Rev. vi. 10, 11.

Corollary. Let this provoke all to get sanctified souls, to rule and use these their bodies now for God. This will abundantly sweeten their parting at death, and their meeting again at the resurrection of the just; else their parting will be doleful, and their next meeting dreadful. And so much for the doctrine of separation.

The Uses of the Point

Our way is now open to the improvement and use of this excellent subject and doctrine of separation; and certainly it affords as rich an entertainment for our affections, as for our minds, in the following uses; of which the first will be for our information in six practical inferences.

Inf. 1. If this be the life and state of gracious souls after their separation from the body, Then holy persons ought not to entertain dismal and terrifying thoughts of their own dissolution.

The apprehensions and thoughts of death should have a peculiar pleasantness in the minds of believers. You have heard into what a blessed presence and communion death introduces your souls; how it leads you out of a body of sin, a world of sorrows, the society of imperfect saints, to an innumerable company of angels. and to the spirits of just men made perfect, to that lovely mount Sion, to the heavenly sanctuary, to the blessed visions of the face of God. Oh! methinks there has been enough said, to make all the souls, in whom the well-grounded hopes of the life of glory are found, to cry out with the apostle, "We are confident, I say, yea, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 8.

When good Musculus drew near his end, how sweet and pleasant was this meditation to his soul! Hear his swan-like song:

Nil superest, vitae frigus praccordia captat; Sed, tu Christe, mihi vita perennis ades: Quid trepidas anima, ad sedes abitura quietis? En tibi ductor adest angelus ille tuus. Linque domum hanc miseram, nunc in sua fata ruentem Quam tibi fida Dei dextera restituet. Peccasti? Scio, sed Christus credentibus in se Peccata expurgat sanguine cuncta suo Horribilis mors est? Fateor, sed prosima vita est, Ad quam te Christi gratia certa vocat. Praesto est de Satana, peccato et morte triumphans Christus; ad hunc igitur laeta alacrisque migra.

Which may be thus translated.

Cold death my heart invade, my life does fly: O, Christ, my everlasting life draw nigh. Why quiverest thou, my soul, within my breast? Thine angel’s come, to lead thee to thy rest. Quit cheerfully this drooping, house of clay; God will restore it in the appointed day. Hast sinn’d? I know it, let not that be urg’d; For Christ, thy sins, with his own blood hash purg’d. Is death affrighting? True, but yet withal, Consider, Christ through death to life does call. He triumphs over Satan, sin, and death; Therefore with joy resign thy dying breath.

Much in the same cheerful frame was the heart of dying Bullinger, when his mournful friends expressed their sense of the loss they should sustain by his removal. "Why, said he, if God will make any further use of my labours in the ministry, he will renew my strength, and I will gladly serve him: but if he please (as I desire he would) to call me hence, I am ready to obey his will; and nothing more pleasant can befall me, than to leave this sinful and miserable world to go to my Saviour Christ. O that all, who are out of the danger of death, were thus got out of the thread of death too.

Let them only tremble and be convulsed at the thoughts, and sight of death, whose souls must fall into the hauls of a sin-revenging God by the stroke of death; who are to breathe out their last hope with their last breath. Death is yours, says the apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 22. your friend, your privilege, your passage to heaven; it is your ignorance of it, which breeds your fears about it.

Inf. 2. Gather from hence, the absolute, indispensable necessity of your union with Christ, before you dissolution by death.

Woe to that soul which shall be separated from its body before it be united with Christ. None but the spirits of just men are made perfect at death. Righteous souls are the only qualified subjects of blessedness.

It is true, every soul has a natural capacity of happiness, but gracious souls only have an actual meetness for glory. The scriptures tell us in the plainest words, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord", Heb. xii. 14. that "except we be regenerate, and born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God", John iii. 3. You make the greatest adventure that ever was made by man; indeed, an adventure infinitely too great for any man to make, when you shoot the gulf of vast eternity upon terms of hazard and uncertainty.

What think you, reader? Dare you adventure your soul and eternal happiness upon it, that the work of regeneration and sanctification, that very same work of grace, on which the Spirit of God has placed all your hopes of heaven in these scriptures, is truly wrought by him in your soul? Consider it well, pause upon it again and again before you go forth. Should a mistake be committed here, (and nothing is more easy or common, all the world over, than such mistakes) you are irrecoverably gone. This venture can be made but once, and the miscarriage is never to be retrieved afterwards; you have not another soul to adventure, nor a second adventure to make of this. Well might the apostle Peter call for all diligence to make our calling and our election sure: That can never be made too sure, which is so invaluable in its worth, and to be but once adventured.

Inf. 3. How prejudicial is it to dying men to be then incumbered, diverted, and distracted about earthly concernments, when the time of their departure is at hand.

The business and employment of dying persons is of so vast importance and weight, that every moment of their time needs to be carefully saved and applied to this their present and most important concern. How well soever you have improved the time of life, believe it, you will find work enough upon your hand at death. Dying hours will be found to be busy and laborious hours, even to the most painful, serious, and industrious souls, whose life has been mostly spent in preparations for death. Leave not the proper business of other days to that day, for that day will have business enough of its own. Sufficient for that day are the labours thereof.

Let a few considerations be pondered, to clear and confirm this inference.

Consid. 1. The business and employment of dying persons, is of the most serious, awful, and solemn nature and importance; it is their last preparatory work on earth, to their immediate appearance before God their judge, Heb. ix. 27. It is their shooting the gulf into eternity, and leaving this world, and all their acquaintance and interests therein for ever, Isa. xxviii. 11. It is therefore a work by itself to die, a work requiring the most intense, deep, and undisturbed exercises of all the abilities and graces of the inner man; and all little enough.

Consid. 2. Time is exceeding precious with dying men; the last sand is ready to fall, and therefore not to be wasted, as it was wont to be. When we had a fair prospect of many years before us, we made little account of an hour or a day; but now one of those hours, which we so carelessly lavished away, is of more value than all this world to us, especially if the whole weight of eternity should hang upon it, (as oftentimes it does) then the loss of that portion of time, is the loss of soul, body, and hope for evermore.

Consid. 3. Much of that little precious time of departing souls will be unavoidably taken up, and employed about the inexcusable pressing calls and necessities of distressed nature; all that you can do for your souls must then be done only by fits and snatches, in the midst of many disturbances, and frequent interruptions: So that it is rarely found, that a dying man can pursue a serious meditation with calm and fixed thoughts: for besides the pains and faintings of the body, the abilities of the mind usually fall. Here also they fall into a sad dilemma; if they do not with the utmost intention of mind fix their hearts and thoughts on Christ, they lose their comfort, if godly, and their souls, if ungodly; and if they do, friends and physicians assure them they will destroy their bodies. These are the straits of men bordering close upon eternity; they must hastily catch a few moments in the intervals of pain, and then are put by all again.

Consid. 4. There is no man living but has something to do for his own soul in a dying hour, and something for others also.

Suppose the best that can be supposed, that the soul be in real union with Christ, and that union be also clear: yet it is seldom found but there are some assaults of Satan: Or if not, yet how many relations and friends need our experiences and counsels at such a time? How many things shall we have to do after our great and main work is done? And others leave a great deal more to do, though as safe as the former. O the knots and objections that are then to be dissolved and answered! The usual onsets and assaults of Satan that are then to be resisted! And yet most dying persons have much more upon their hands than either of the former. The whole work of repentance and faith is to do, when time is even done.

Consid. 5. Few, yea, very few, are found furnished with wisdom, experience, and faithfulness, to give dying persons any considerable assistance in soul affairs. It may be there may be found among the visitants of the sick, now and then, a person who has a word of wisdom in his heart; but then either he wants opportunity or courage and faithfulness to do the part of a true spiritual friend. Elihu describes the person so qualified as he ought for this work, Job xxx. 23, 24. and calls him, One among a thousand. Some are too close and reserved, others too trifling and impertinent; some are willing, but want ability; others are abler but want faithfulness; some cut too deep by uncharitable censoriousness; others skin over the wound too lightly, speaking peace where God and conscience speak none: So that little help is to be expected.

Consid. 6. How much therefore does it deserve to be lamented, that where there is so much to do, so little time to do it, and so few to help in the best improvement of it, all should be lost as to their souls by earthly incumbrances and worldly affairs, which might have been done sooner and better in a more proper season! O, therefore, let no persuade all men to take heed of bringing the proper business of healthful days to their sick-bed.

Inf. 4. What an excellent creature is the soul of man, which is capable, not only of such preparations for God, while it is in the body, but of such sights and enjoyments of God, when it lives without a body.

Here the Spirit of God works upon it, in the way of grace and sanctification, Eph. 2:10. The scope and design of this his workmanship, is to qualify and make us latent for the life of heaven, 2 Cor. 6:5. For this selfsame thing, or purpose, our souls are wrought, or moulded by Bruce, into quite another frame and temper, than that which nature gave them; and when he has wrought out and finished all that he intends to be wrought in the way of sanctification, then shall it be called up to the highest enjoyments and employments for ever, that a creature is susceptible of.

Here the dignity of the soul appears, that no other creature in this world, beside it, has a natural capacity, either to be sanctified inherently in this world, or glorified everlastingly in the world to come; to be transformed into the image, and filled with the joy of the Lord. There are myriads of other souls in this world, beside ours, but to none of them is the Spirit of sanctification sent, but only to ours: The souls of animals serve only to move the dull and sluggish matter, and take in for a few days the sensitive pleasures of the creation, and so expire, having no natural capacity of, or designation for any higher employment or enjoyment.

And it deserves a most serious animadversion, that this cast capacity of the soul for eternal blessedness, must of necessity make it capable of so much the more misery and self-torment, if at last it fail of that blessedness: For it is apparent they do not perish because they are incapable, but because they are unwilling; not because their souls wanted any natural faculty that others have, but because they would not open those they have, to receive Christ in the way of faith and obedience, as others did.

Think upon this you that live only to eat, and drink, and sleep, and play, as the birds and beasts in the field do; What need was there of a reasonable soul for such sensual employments? Do not your noble faculties speak your designation for higher uses? And will not you wish to exchange souls with the most vile and despicable animal in this world, if it were possible to be done? Certainly it were better for you to have no capacity of eternal blessedness (as they have not) if you do not enjoy it; and no capacity of torment beyond this life (as they have not) if you must certainly endure it.

Inf. 5. If our souls and bodies must be separate shortly, how patiently should we bear all lesser separations, that may and will be made, between us and any other enjoyments in this world?

No union is so intimate, strict and dear, as that between our souls and bodies. All your relations and enjoyments in this world, hang looser from your souls than your bodies do: and if it be your duty, patiently and submissively, to suffer a painful parting pull from your bodies; it is doubtless your duty to suffer meekly and patiently a separation from other things, which are but a prelude to it, and a mere shadow of it. It is good to put such cases to ourselves in the midst of our pleasant enjoyments.

I have now many comfortable relatives in the world; wife, children, kindred, and friends, God has made them pleasant to me, but he may bereave me of all these. Does not providence ring such changes all the world over? Are not all kingdoms, cities, and towns, full of the sighs and lamentations of widows, orphans, and friends bereaved of their pleasant and useful relations? But if God will have it so, it is our duty to legend our sorrows, remembering the time is short, 1 Cor. vii. 29. In a few days we must be stript much nearer, even out of our own bodies by death.

God may also separate between me and my health by sickness, so that the pleasure of this world shall be cut off from me; but sickness is not death, though it be a prelude and step towards it; I may well bear this with patience, who must submissively bear sharper pains than these ere long. Yea, and well may I bear this submissively, considering that by such embittering and weaning providences, God is preparing me for a much easier dissolution, than if I should live at ease in the body all my days till death comes to make so great and sudden a change upon me.

God may also separate between me and my liberty by restraint. It has been the lot of the best men that ever were in the world; and if it should be ours also, we should not be much startled at it, considering these bodies of ours must be shortly pent-up in a straiter, darker, and more loathsome place of confinement, than any prison in this world can be. The grave is a darker, place, Job 17:13, and your abode there will be longer, Eccl. xi. 8.

These, and all our other outward enjoyments, are separable things, and it is good thus to alleviate our loss of them.

Inf. 6. How heavenly should the tempers and frames of those souls be who are candidates for heaven, and must be so shortly numbered with the spirits of just men made perfect.

It is reasonable that we all begin to be that which we expect to be for ever; to learn that way of living and conversing, which we believe must be our everlasting life and business in the world to come. Let them that hope to live with angels in heaven, learn to live like angels on earth, in holiness, activity, and ready obedience.

There is the greatest reason that our minds be there, where our souls are to be for ever. A spiritual mind will be found possible, congruous, sweet, and evidential of an interest in that glory, to all those holy souls, who are preparing and designed for it.

1. It is possible, notwithstanding the clogs and entanglements of the body to be heavenly minded. Others have attained it, Phil. iii. 20. Two things make a heavenly conversation possible to men, viz.

(1.) The natural abilities of the mind.

(2.) The gracious principles of the mind.

(1.) The natural abilities of the mind, which can, in a minute’s time, dispatch a nimble messenger to heaven, and mount its thoughts from this to that world in a moment. The power of cogitation is a rich endowment of the soul, such as no other creature on earth is participant of. Though spiritual thoughts be not the natural growth of the soul, yet thoughts capable of being spiritualised are. And without this ability of projecting thoughts, all intercourse must have been cut off.

(2.) The gracious principles implanted in the soul, do actually incline the mind, and mount its thoughts heaven-ward. Yea, this will prove more than a possibility of a conversation in heaven; while saints tabernacle on earth, in bodies of flesh, it will almost prove an impossibility that it should be otherwise, for these spiritual principles setting the bent and tendency of the heart heavenward, we must act against the very law of our new nature, when we place our affections elsewhere.

2. A mind in heaven is most congruous, decorous, and comely for those that are the enrolled inhabitants of that heavenly city. Where should a Christian’s love be, but where his Lord is! Our hearts and our homes do not use to be long asunder. It becomes you so to think, and so to speak now, as those who make account to be shortly singing hallelujahs before the throne.

3. It is most sweet and delightful: no pleasure in this world is comparable to this pleasure; Rom. viii. 6. "To be spiritually minded is life and peace." It is a young heaven born in the soul in its way thither.

4. To conclude: It is evidential of your interest in it: an agreeable frame is the surest title, Col. iii. 1, 2. Mat. vi. 21. If heaven attract your minds now, it will centre them for ever.

Use 2. This doctiine of the separation of the spirits of the just from their bodies, as it lies before you in this discourse affords a singular help to all the people of God, to entertain lovely and pleasent thoughts of that day; to make death not only an unregretted, but a most pleasant and desirable thing to their souls.

I know there is a pure, simple, natural fear of death, from which you must not expect to be perfectly freed, by all the arguments in the world. And there is a reverential, artful fear of death, which it would be your prejudice and loss to have destroyed. You will have a natural, and ought to have a reverential fear of death: the one flows from your sensitive, the other from your sanctified nature.

But it is a third sort of fear which does you all the mischief: a fear springing in gracious souls out of the weakness of the graces, and the strength of their unmortified affections: a fear arising partly out of the darkness of our minds, and partly out of the sensuality and earthliness of our hearts; this fear is that which so convulses our souls when death is near, and imbitteres our lives, even while it is at a distance. He that has been overheated in his affections to this world, and overcooled by diversions and temptations, neglects and intermissions, to that world, cannot choose but give an unwilling shrug, if not a frightful screech at the appearance of death.

And this being the sad case of too many, good and upright souls for the main; and there being so few, even among serious Christians, that have attained to that courage and complacence in the thoughts of death, which the apostle speaks of, 2 Cor. v. 8. to be both confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord; I will, from this discourse, furnish them with some special assistance therein. But withal, I must tell you upon what great disadvantages I am here to dispute with your fears; so strong is the current of natural and vicious fear, that except a special hand of God enforce, and set home the arguments that shall be urged, they will be as easily swept away before it, as so many straws by a rapid torrent; nor will it be to any more purpose to oppose my breath to them, than to the tides and waves of the sea.

Moreover, I am fully convinced, by long and often experience, how unsteady and inconstant the frames and tempers of the best hearts are; and that if it be not altogether, yet it is next to an impossibility to fix them in such a temper as this I aim at is. Where is that man to be found, who after the revolutions of many years, and in those years various dispensations of providence without him, altering his condition, and greater variety of temptations within, can yet say, notwithstanding all these various aspects and positions, his heart has still held one steady and invariable tenour and course?

Alas, there be very few (if any) of such a sound and settled temper of mind, whose pulse beats with an even stroke, through all inequalities of condition, alike free and willing at one time as another, to be unclothed of the body, and to be with Christ. This height of faith, and depth of mortification; this strength of love to Christ, and ardour of holy desire, are decrees of grace to which very few attain.