Matthew Mead · 4 of 7

A Name in Heaven. · APPLICATION.

The First Use, shall be for Examination. Is a Name written in Heaven, the truest Cause of Rejoycing? Then let us see what Cause of Rejoycing we may have in our selves upon this Account. The Apostle’s Counsel is plainly to this Purpose, Gal. vi. 4, Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoycing in himself, and not in another.

You have heard, That there can be no true Cause of Joy in the Heart, but a Name written in Heaven.

You have (Madam) set this Day apart for an Anniversary of Rejoycing in the Birth, and Life, and Hope of your Pleasant and Tender Son; and you do well: But doth your Joy begin here? or is God the beginning of it? Is a Name in Heaven the chief Ground of your Joy?

Quest. But you will Reply, Who can say his Name is written in Heaven? Who hath thus far known the Mind of the Lord? To whom hath he at any time opened the Sealed Book of his Secret Decrees? Was ever any Man admitted into the Regions above, to search the Eternal Records of the Divine Purpose?

Answ. Surely, No: But yet let me, in Answer to this, lay down Two Conclusions.

1. The Knowledge of this, That our Names are written in Heaven, is attainable: Why else are we commanded to make our Calling and Election sure? Wou’d the Lord Christ have call’d upon us to rejoyce, because our Names are written in Heaven, if it were a thing that cou’d not be known? Surely therefore it is no such Secret, as lies out of the reach of Faith’s Attainment.

Indeed, to Wicked, Unbelieving, and Impenitent Sinners, the Knowledge of this is impossible. How can a Man who forsakes God, know that his Name is written in Heaven, when God says, They that forsake him, their Names shall be written in the Earth? But Believers may attain to the Knowledge of this.

2. As the Knowledge of it is attainable, so it is evident from Scripture Instance, that many have attained to it: God hath sometimes unsealed the Book of his Decrees, and held it open to the Believing Eye; so that the Soul hath been inabled to read its Interest in Divine Love, by the Spiritual Opticks of Faith; For Faith is the Evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1. Faith can make its passage trough all the Obstructions that lie in the way between a Soul at home in the Body, and an absent God; for that is the case of every Incarnate Christian. The Soul is as yet wrapt up in gross Matter, imprison’d in Flesh, and confined to an abode in a tabernacle of Clay; and therefore distanced from God, and utterly uncapable of any farther Converse and Communion with him, than what is attainable by the Mediation of Faith.

Now Faith enters within the Vail, removes the Soul out of the Valleys of Sense, and sets it upon the highest Ground of Gospel-Consolation, that it may stand at the fairest advantage to get a Prospect into the Glory of the other World. Faith draws infallible Conclusions of the Goodness of its State, from the immutable Decrees of Electing Love: What else made Job say, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth; and that though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for my self? Job xix. 25, 26, 27.

And what made St. Paul glory in the Lord Christ, crying out, Who loved me, and gave himself for me? Gal. ii. 20. And what made the Church say, with so much confidence, I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine? Cantic. vi. 3.

Ques. But the great Question is, How shall a Man be able to know, that his Name is written in Heaven?

Answ. There are certain Discoveries of this in a Man’s self; which if we attend to, we may have a sure Proof and Witness of.

1. Effectual Calling is a sure Proof of this: If the Call of God hath took hold of our Hearts, then our Names are written in Heaven. There is an inseparable Connexion between Election and Vocation; and therefore, when the Apostle bids us give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure; though Election is before Calling (the one being an Immanent Act of God in Eternity; the other a Transient Act of God in Time), yet the Apostle puts the making our Calling sure, in the first place; because a Man can never be sure he is Elected, till he is first Called.

Now then, if ye wou;d know whether your Names are written in Heaven; satisfie your selves in this, That the Call of God hath took effectual hold of your Hearts. Hath it brought your Souls off from everything below Christ, wholly to follow Christ? It is said, when Christ called Peter and Andrew, they presently left their Nets, and followed him, Matth. iv. 18, 19. Every Man hath his Nets, somewhat that his Soul is entangled in, till the Call of God take hold of him. Can you now, with Peter, when God calls; lay aside your Nets to follow him?

For it is not every Call, that will witness the Truth of our Election: There is an External Call of the Word, that is ineffectual, it prevails not upon the Sinner’s Heart, he turns a deaf Ear upon it; this Call leaves Sinners as it finds them, in their sins and lusts, Matth. xx. 16.

But then there is an Internal Call; when Word and Spirit go together, and work together, to bring the Soul off from Sin, and Lust, and Self, and World, and all to Jesus Christ, to live upon him as its Portion, and conform to Him as its Pattern. Now if thou art thus Called, then is thy Name written in Heaven: And therefore ye may’st go and rejoyce indeed; for if any in the World hath cause, thou hast.

2. If the Law of God be written in thy Heart, then thy Name is written in Heaven. It is one of the great Promises of the New Covenant, That God will write his Law in our Hearts, Heb. viii. 10.

Quest. Now you will say, What is this Law of God?

Answ. It is the Law of Love, the Law of Holiness, a Law that takes in all the Duties that God requires of us, a Law of Universal Obedience: Psal. xl. 8. Thy Law is in my Heart; it is a Law that comprehends the whole Rule of the New Creature. The Law Within is a Counterpart of the Law Without; so that, look whatever the Word of God commands, the Soul is enabled to perform, when this Law is written in the Heart.

Quest. When is God said to write his Law in the Heart?

Answ. When He doth powerfully impress a Divine Principle of Grace, by his Holy Spirit, in the Heart. Believers are said to be the Epistle of Christ, written not with Ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God, 2 Cor. iii. 3. An Epistle, is nothing else but a Paper, with the Mind of a Man written in it, and sent to another: Believers, are the Epistle of the Living God; there his Mind, and Will, and Law is written, not in Tables of Stone, but in the fleshly Tables of the Heart.

So that if the Law of God be written in your Heart, then may you know that your Name is written in Heaven.

Converting Grace in the Heart, is the best Comment upon the Election of God; without which, the Eternal Decree concerning us, can never be read with Clearness, nor understood with Comfort. The Decree travails and brings forth, in a work of Grace in the Heart: The Mind of God, concerning our Eternal Condition, is best known by a sound Conversion; for there he speaks plainly; that Fountain of Love which ran under Ground before, now bubbles up, and breaks forth. In Election, God spake within Himself; but in Conversion, God speaks to the Soul: In Election, God wrote our Names in Heaven secretly; but in Conversion, we see them written there openly.

A Work of Grace in the Heart, carries in it a Four-fold Witness:

1. That we are the Objects of God’s Election.

2. That Sin is Pardoned through Christ’s Satisfaction.

3. That God is Reconciled by Christ’s Intercession.

4. That we are Secure, as to Eternal Salvation.

And the least of these is worth a whole World. Who would not be willing to know himself the Chosen of God? Who would not be glad to see Sin Pardoned? Who would not rejoice in a Friendship with God, whose Wrath burns to the lowest Hell? Who would not triumph, in an Assurance of being Saved for Ever? Now if Grace be wrought in thy Heart, this is thy Privilege, and may’st say, with Tamar, Gen. xxxviii. 25. Whose this Staff, and this Signet, and these Bracelets are, his am I. and thou may’st rejoyce in hope of Glory. No better Witness of our Names written in Heaven, than the Image of God engraven in the Heart: Say not, Who shall ascend to Heaven? &c. Rom. x. 6.

As Sinners need not descend into the Deep, to search for Hell, to see if their Names be written, by the Wrath and Vengeance of God, in Eternal Misery: No, they may find it nearer home; there is an Hell within them; there is the Stench and Filth of Hell, in their vile Affections; the Smoak and Flames of Hell, are in their burning and raging Lusts; the Darkness of Hell, in their blind Minds; and sometimes the Torments of Hell, in their guilty and self-revenging Consciences, that Worm that never dies, Mark ix. 44. So may Believers find a Heaven in their own Souls, a Heaven of Light, of Love, of Holiness, of Joy and Praise; the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

3. If true Faith be wrought in thy Heart, then is thy Name written in Heaven. 1 John v. 10. He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself. Faith is a sure Fruit of Electing Love: As many as were ordained to Eternal Life, believed, Acts xiii. 48. God doth not (you see from hence) Elect us because we Believe, (Election upon Faith foreseen, is an Arminian Dream) but we Believe because we are Elected.; it is some of the first-fruits which Eternal Love brings forth in the Heart; final Unbelief, is a sad Witness of a reprobated State: So says our Lord Christ, Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, John x. 26.

Wou’d you know then whether your Name be written in Heaven? Then see what Faith is wrought in your Heart. Have ye ever truly closed with the Lord Jesus Christ? Do ye heartily embrace Him, upon the Terms He is offered in the Gospel? Can ye venture your Souls, your Salvation, your Eternal All, upon the single bottom of a Redeemer’s Righteousness? Have you ever made actual Application of the Blood and Righteousness of Christ to your own Consciences, to take off that Guilt of Sin whereby your Souls stand Bound-over to Wrath and Damnation? This is Faith of the Operation of God; and where-ever this Faith is found in the Heart, the Name of that Man, that Woman, is found in Heaven: And therefore well may the Apostle say, In whom believing, ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of Glory, 1 Pet. i. 8.

4. If the Father’s Name be written in your Foreheads, then are our Names written in Heaven. In Rev. xiv: 1. it is said of those who stood with the Lamb upon Mount-Sion, That the Father’s Name was written in their Foreheads.

The Name of God is written in the Forehead, when we openly confess the Truths of God, and are not ashamed of Religion, nor ashamed to own God, and his Ways, and Ordinances, and People, in the midst of a Profane, Scoffing, and Adulterous Generation. Now says our Lord Christ, He who confesses me before men, (that’s the Name of Christ written in the Forehead) him will I confess before my Father; that is, he shall have a Name written in Heaven.

Now where is the Name of God written? Do ye Repine at Difficulties, Shrink at Sufferings, Blush at being counted Religious? Are you Ashamed of Christ, his Ways, his Name, his People? why if so, his Name is not in your Foreheads.

Or can you lift up your Heads, and shew your Faces, in the Cause of Christ? It should be thus, God is not ashamed to be called our God, Heb. xi. 16. And will you be ashamed to be called his Children, his Saints, his Witnesses? Moses was not, when he esteemed the reproaches of Christ greater riches than theTtreasures of Egypt, Heb. xi. 26. He had the Father’s name in his Forehead.

5. If your great Work be, is to lay up treasure in Heaven, then your Names are written in Heaven. This is the Counsel of the Blessed Jesus, Matth. vi. 20. Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven: and Luke xii. 33. Provide your selves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not.

The Treasures of most Men are Perishing, Earthly Treasures, canker’d and Moth-eaten Treasures, Treasures of Vanity.

Christians! Where is your Treasure? Is it in this World, or the next? Is it in present Vanities, or future Glory? Is it in present Contentments, or in Everlasting Inheritance? Is it in Corn, and Wine, and Oil; or is it in the Light of God’s Countenance? Is it in Profits, Pleasures, and Honours; or is it in Grace and Glory? Do ye build, and plant, and sow in the other World, that hereafter ye may reap an Eternal Harvest of Blessedness? If so, then are your Names written in Heaven.

6. If your Conversations are in Heaven, then are your Names written in Heaven, Phil. iii. 20. Our Conversation is in Heaven. Many profess Hope of Heaven, but their Conversations are in the mean while upon the Earth: like that foolish Actor, that whilst his Eyes were fix’d upon the Earth, cry’d, O Heavens! they savour only Earthly Things; Earthly Profits, Earthly Comforts, Earthly Vanities.

Let a Man’s Profession be never so Heavenly, his Prayers and Duties never so Heavenly; yet if they are over-topp’d by an Earthly Conversation, that Man’s Religion is vain. The Scripture says expressly, If any man love the World, the love of the Father is not in him, 1 John ii. 15.

Never talk of a Name in Heaven, so long as your Hearts are buried in the Earth: Where your Hearts are, there your Names are: If your Hearts are Earthly, your Names are in the Earth, Carnal, Worldly, Sensual, Enemy to God, that is thy Name, and the Scripture gives thee no other, Jam. iv. 4, He that is a friend of the world, is the enemy of God.

Now what is your Life? How do ye live? Do ye live by Sense, or do ye live by Faith? Do ye live upon the Creatures, or upon the Promises?

It is said of the Vertuous Woman, Prov. xxxi. 14, that she fetcheth her food from far. So doth the true Believer; he uses the Blessings of the Creature, but he lives upon the Blessings of the Covenant.

From far.] That is, far out of the sight and ken of the Natural Eye: for it is Bread the World knows not of. The Natural Man is blind, and cannot see afar off. God hath set the world in their hearts, Eccles. iii. 11. They are strangers to this Joy.

From far.] A man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesseth, Luke xii. 15. His Life is hid with Christ in God, Col. iii. 3; and from thence are the Comforts of his Life. He fetches his food from far: It is God in Christ, and the Glories of the other World that are the Bread of his Soul.

Do ye fetch your Food from far, or nearer home? Are you fed by Sense, with what is next; or doth Faith feed you, with Clusters fetch’d from the Holy-Land? Do ye serve Flesh, Lust, and Sins, and Times, (which is the basest Thraldom) or do ye serve God, and Christ, whose service is perfect freedom? Rom. vi. 16; His ye are whom ye serve. The Apostle Paul will tell you whom he serves; The Lord whom I serve in my spirit, Rom. i. 9. Forgetting the things behind, I press towards the mark, Phil. iii. 13. Outward Privileges, Carnal Contentments, Perishing Hopes, these were once the things before him; but now he hath turn’d about, and set his face the other way, and left them all behind him.

I press forward towards the mark. He is now ascending upon the wings of Faith and Love, above this Dung and Darkness, to the Regions of Light and Glory

If your Conversation be in Heaven, it is thus with you in one degree or other. Heavenly Concernments are your Work, and Heavenly Comforts are your Support. It is not the Fig-tree blossoms, nor the Olive’s labour, Hab. iii. 17, that can comfort and glad you; but it is Fruit from the Tree of Life, in the midst of the Paradise of God, that feeds you.

If thus your Conversation be in Heaven, then is your Name written in Heaven.

The next Use shall be by way of Exhortation.

IS a Name written in Heaven the highest Cause of Rejoycing? And can you, upon examination, find that your Names are written there? Oh, then set your Selah upon this Mercy! Fix your Heart, your Joy, your Thankfulness upon this Privilege. Other things you may rejoyce in, in their place, and by the by; but here your Joy should be fixed. See how the Apostle breaks out into Thanksgiving for this, Ephes. i. 3, 4, 5, 6.

Ver. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.

Ver. 4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world; that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Ver. 5. Having predestinated us to the adoption of Children, by Jesus Christ, to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Ver. 6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.

His Heart dwells in triumph upon this Mercy; and so should ours also; the Lord Christ, here in the Text, commands it; Rejoyce, because your Names are written in Heaven.

Now give me leave to propound to you Six Considerations, which are very proper Motives to stir up your Hearts to the Practice of this Duty.

Consider (1.), There is no Name like this.

1. It is an Honourable Name: Isa. xliii. 4, Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been Honourable.

If God poureth Contempt upon the Creature, it must needs be vile and base: God is the true Fountain of Honour; if he puts Honour upon us, it is the truest Honour in the World.

2. It is a better Name than that of Sons and Daughters: Isa. lvi. 4, 5. Thus saith the Lord to the Eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and chuse the things that please me, and take hold of my Covenant; to them will I give in my house a place, and a name better than of Sons and Daughters. Though they have no Children, yet they shall be my Children; though they are without a Name in the World, yet they shall have a Name in my House.

Your Honour Rejoyces in the Name of a Son, this Day; and you do well: God forbid that I should make your Rejoycing void: Nay to encourage it, let me tell Your Honour, That God takes it kindly, that you own him, in the Mercies and Blessings of Providence. But I am, in Duty, to mind you of a better Name than that of Sons and Daughters; and this is it, to have a Name written in Heaven. To have a Child from God, is an inferiour Name to this of being call’d a Child of God. Solomon saith, If a Man beget an hundred Children, and live many years, and his soul be not filled with good, I say, that an untimely birth is better than he, Eccles. vi. 3.

3. It is a Durable and Lasting Name. A name in the world may be lost:

The Wicked may Defame it.

Wickedness may Corrupt it.

God may Blast it: Thou hast put out their name for ever and ever, Psal. ix. 5.

Time may eat it out of the Records of Honour.

But a Name written in Heaven, is a durable Name, it can never be blotted out: I will give them an everlasting Name, that shall never be cut off, Isa. lvi. 5. As the Inheritance is Incorruptible, so the Title is Unalterable, and the Heir Immortal.

Consider, (2.) A Name written in Heaven, is a Blessing that sweetens all our other Blessings. This Land is mine, and these Riches are mine, and this Child is mine, and this Honour is mine: yea, and God is mine, and Christ is mine, and the white Stone and the new Name is mine, and Heaven and Eternal Life is mine: Ay, this, this sweetens all.

What if you could be supposed to enjoy all Outward Blessings imaginable? the fairest Estate, the highest Honours, the sweetest Children, the richest Pleasures; yet in the midst of all these, if Conscience should secretly gripe you within, and tell you ye are Strangers and Enemies to God, ye have no part in Christ, no portion in his Death, your Names are blotted out of the Book of Life, ye are Children of God’s Curse: Oh, what a Heart-sinking would this cause, under all your Fruitions! This one thing left in doubt, I know not what will become of my Soul to Eternity, is enough to bring us into Streights, in the midst of all our Sufficiencies, Job xx. 22, to soure all our Possessions, and to make the face of all our Enjoyments look dim and unpleasant.

Consider, (3.) This is that which gives confidence and comfort in Death, and makes us strong to grapple with that King of Terrors.

What is it which makes even Believers themselves (many of them) shrink at the thoughts Death? Why it is want of Evidence, they have never seen their Names written in the Book of Life. The sight of this, by Faith, makes the Soul triumph over Death, and despise the Grave, and say with Simeon, Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Luke ii. 29, 30.

We know, (saith the Apostle, 2 Cor. v. 1.) that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

This we know, and are assured of; Well, and what is the fruit of this Assurance? He tells you, in the 2d and 4th Verses: In this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

What is Death, to the assured Believer, but a speedy Conveyance to the Possession of that Glory which Divine Love has Intitled him to from Everlasting?

Consider, (4.) Herein Joy can never run into Excess: In temporal things it may; it is possible and common to rejoice and delight in Outward Mercies too much; for they are every way disproportionable to the vast Capacity of the Soul; as unable to fill it, as the dim Light of a Candle is to give Day to the World, in the absence of the Sun.

Hear what the Prophet says in the Case, Isa. xxviii. 20, The bed is too short for a man to stretch himself upon it, and the covering too narrow for a man to wrap himself in it.

How unsuitable is a short Bed for a long Body! so are perishing Comforts to an Immortal Soul. And from hence it is that the Apostle adviseth, (in 1 Cor. vii. 30.) That they that rejoyce, should be as though they rejoyced not; that is, in worldly things. But in Spiritual and Eternal Concerns, Joy cannot exceed; for infinite Blessedness calls for infinite Joy and Delight.

Consider, (5.) This will be a lasting and perpetuated Joy. Therefore it is congruous and equal that we now Rejoyce in that which shall be our Joy for Ever. Other Joys have their Periods and Intermissions, their Terms, and Vacations; they ebb and flow, blossom and wither; a Fit of Sickness, or a pang of Conscience, extinguishes all: but this Joy is abiding; Your joy shall no man take from you, John xvi. 22.

It is true, That the Children of God have many causes of sorrow, if they look inward; strong Corruptions, hard Hearts, weak Graces, many Temptations: But yet in God they have continual cause of Rejoycing.

A Name in Heaven, is an induring ground of Comfort; not like these transient Shadows. Can Stability be moved, or Eternity expire?

Nothing is Matter of lasting Joy, but that Good which is commensurate in Duration to the Soul that is to be satisfy’d with it.

The Times we live in are changeable and uncomposed; the hatreds of Religion great; we see Distractions at Home, Distresses abroad; the Lord is shaking Heaven and Earth, Church and State: Our Experience tells us how mutable are the Wills, how fickle the Favours, how sudden the Frowns of Men; how vain the Hopes, how unsuitable the Delights, which are drawn out of broken Cisterns; how full of Dross and Dregs the most refined Comforts and Contents of the World are. Nothing can be an enduring Joy, but this, which our Lord Christ propounds in the Text, as Matter of Joy.

Who would not therefore retire from the Noise of Laughter, from the Courtships of flattering Gallants, the Clutter and Vain-glory of a distracted World, to solace his Soul in the Joys and Delights of the World to come?

Consider, (6.) What Heaven is; and that will raise your Hearts to glory in this Privilege, of a Name written in Heaven.

1. Heaven is the Habitation of the Great God, where He dwells in his Infinite Glory. So that a Name written in Heaven, imports our future Inheritance of that Glory; according to that of the Apostle, Col. iii. 4. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory.

2. Heaven is a freedom from all Evil both of Sin and Suffering; so that a Name in Heaven, intitles us to a blessed Redemption from all Evil.

There is no Sin there. Grace weakens Sin, but it is Glory that abolishes it. Old Adam shall there be put off, never to be put on again. The Lord Christ will present his Church, in that day, faultless before the throne of his glory, with exceeding joy, Jude ver. 24.

There is no Affliction there: Sin and Sorrow came in together, and they shall go out together. There the Shunamite’s Son complains no more of his aching head, nor Mephibosheth of his lame feet. There Job’s blotches are perfectly cured, and Lazarus’s sores are all dried up.

3. Heaven is a Place of all Perfection. So that a Name written in Heaven, intitles us to a Perfection of State, which we cannot hope for in this World: Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect, Phil. iii. 12.

All Perfection is above.

There is perfection of Faculties: The Understanding shall be elevated by the Light of Glory, into the Vision of God, 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

The Nature of God, the Mystery of Three in One, the Union of Two Natures in One Person, the Course of God’s Decrees, and Providence; these are the Deeps of God, and at present, there is Darkness upon the face of these Deeps; but there the glorified Eye shall see all.

The Will shall There be perfectly Holy, and swallowed up into the Will of God.

There is Perfection of Privileges; perfect Union and Communion. Here we lay hold of Christ; but There we shall have full Possession: Here we hang upon him, but There we shall dwell in his Embraces.

There is Perfection of Graces: Here the Children of God have Perfection of Parts, but not of Degrees.

Holiness in the best Saint Here, is mixed with some Dregs of Flesh and Defilement; but There it shall be compleat; we shall appear not having spot or wrinkle, Ephes. v. 27.

Love shall There be Perfect: Here we are either weary of the Act, or apt to make a change of the Object of our Love, ever and anon swerving and starting aside to the Creature; but then we shall act Love without ceasing, upon one and the same Object, without changing. There shall be an Eternal Solace and Complacency in God.

4. Heaven is the Abstract of all Blessedness, the Sum of all Felicity. Reckon up all Comforts and Pleasures, and Satisfactions, and Delights, and Happinesses, and put them all together, and then separate from them Finiteness and Imperfection, and that is Heaven.

So that a Name written in Heaven, imports our future Fruition of all Blessedness. Yet a little while, and ye shall be let into all this.

All the Objects of Joy which are scattered among the Creatures, are everlastingly heap’d up in Heaven: So that say what it is you delight and joy in, and I will shew it you there.

Is it Wealth? Why there are unsearchable Riches in Heaven,” Ephes. iii. 8. durable Riches, Prov. viii. 18. Unsearchable, and therefore without Bottom and without Bound: Durable, and therefore without End.

Do ye delight in Honour and Dignity? Why in Heaven, the Glory of the Great God Himself shall be put upon you, Col. iii. 4.

St. John tells us, It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, 1 John iii. 2. Such honour have all his Saints, Psalm cxlix. 9.

Is it Pleasure you delight in? Why in Heaven there are Rivers of Pleasures, Psal. xxxvi. 8. In thy presence is fulness of Joy; at thy right-hand there are Pleasures for evermore, Psalm xvi. 11.

Do ye delight in Feasting? Why in Heaven there is Plenty and Variety, Fulness without Satiety; Bread of Life, the Tree of Life, the Fountain of Life.

Do ye delight in Musick? (it is not fit that such a Feast should be without it:) In Heaven the Saints and Angels are in one Concord, singing eternal Halelujah’s to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever.

Do you delight in stately and magnificent Structures? Why in Heaven is a house not made with hands, 2 Cor. v. 1. This is a City, whose walls are jaspar, whose foundations are precious-stones, whose gates are pearl, whose streets are pure gold, Rev. xxi. 18, 19, 21. whose Builder and Maker is God, 2 Cor. v. 1.

Thus you see Heaven is the Comprehension of all Good, the Abstract of all Felicity. And your Name is written upon all this; it is all yours, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22. All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours.

Ministers are yours, to Instruct you.

The World is yours, to Supply you.

Life is yours, to Prepare you for Heaven.

Death is yours, to Convey you to Heaven.

Things present are yours, to Support you in the Way.

Things to come are yours, to Reward you in the End.

What then remaineth? but as David adviseth, Be glad in the Lord, and rejoyce, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart, Psalm xxxii. 11.

Whatever ye enjoy in the World, yet let your Joy be in God. Have ye Riches, Honours, Pleasures, Children, Health, Beauty, Parts? &c. Notwithstanding, in this rejoyce not; but rather rejoyce, because your Names are written in Heaven.