THE GREAT MISERY OF THOSE WHO LOSE THE SAINTS’ REST
II. THE AGGRAVATIONS OF THE LOSS OF HEAVEN;
5. Their memories will be large and strong
IF thou, reader, art a stranger to Christ, and to the holy nature and life of his people, who have been described, and shalt live and die in this
condition, let me tell thee, thou shalt never partake of the joys of heaven, nor have the least taste of the saints’ eternal rest. I may say, as Ehud to Eglon, “I have a message to thee from God;” that, as the word of God is true, thou shalt never see the face of God in peace. This sentence I am commanded to pass upon thee; take it as thou wilt, and escape it if thou canst. I know thy humble and hearty subjection to Christ would procure thy escape; he would then acknowledge thee for one of his people, and give thee a portion in the inheritance of his chosen. If this might be the happy success of my message, I should be so far from repining, like Jonah, that the threatenings of God are not executed upon thee, that I should bless
the day that ever God made me so happy a messenger. But if thou end thy days in thy unregenerate state, as sure as the heavens are over thy head, and the earth under thy feet, thou shalt be shut out of the rest of the saints, and receive thy portion in everlasting fire. I expect thou wilt turn upon me and say, When did God show you the book of life, or tell you who they are that shall be saved, and who shut out? I answer, I do not name thee, nor any other; I only conclude it of the unregenerate in general, and of thee, if thou be such a one. Nor do I go about to determine who shall repent, and who shall not; much less, that thou shalt never repent. I had rather show thee what hopes thou hast before thee, if thou wilt not sit still and lose them. I would far rather persuade thee to hearken in time, before the door be shut against thee, than tell thee there is no hope of thy repenting and returning. But, if the foregoing description of the people of God does not agree with the state of thy soul, is it then a hard question whether thou shalt ever be saved? Need I ascend up into heaven to know that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord;” or, that only “the pure in heart shall see God;” or, that “except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God?” Need I go up to heaven to inquire that of Christ which he came down to earth to tell us, and sent his Spirit in his apostles to tell us, and which he and they have left upon record to all the world? And though I know not the secrets of thy heart, and therefore cannot tell thee by name whether it be thy state or not; yet, if thou art but willing and diligent, thou mayest know thyself whether thou art an heir of heaven or not. It is the main thing I desire, that, if thou art yet miserable, thou mayest discern and escape it. But how canst thou escape, if thou neglect Christ and salvation? It is as impossible as for the devils themselves to be saved;
nay, God has more plainly and frequently spoken it in Scripture of such sinners as thou art, than he has of the devils. Methinks a sight of thy case should strike thee with amazement and horror. When Belshazzar “saw the fingers of a man’s hand that wrote upon the wall, his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.” What trembling, then, should seize on thee, who hast the hand of God himself against thee, not in a sentence or two, but in the very scope of the Scriptures, threatening the loss of an everlasting kingdom! Because I would fain have thee lay it to heart, I will show thee,
I. first, the nature of thy loss of heaven; secondly, its aggravations.
1. The glorious personal perfection which the saints enjoy in heaven, is the great loss of the ungodly. They lose that shining luster of the body,
surpassing the brightness of the sun at noon-day. Though the bodies of the wicked will be raised more spiritual than they were upon earth, yet that will only make them capable of the more exquisite torments. They would be glad then if every member were a dead member, that it might not feel the punishment inflicted on it; and if the whole body were a rotten carcass, or might lie down again in the dust. Much more do they want that moral perfection which the blessed partake of; those holy dispositions of mind;
that cheerful readiness to do the will of God; that perfect rectitude of all their actions: instead of these, they have that perverseness of will, that loathing of good, that love to evil, that violence of passion, which they had on earth. It is true, their understandings will be much cleared by the ceasing of former temptations, and experiencing the falsehood of former delusions but they have the same dispositions still, and fain would they commit the same sins, if they could: they want but opportunity. There will be a greater difference between these wretches and the glorified Christian, than there is betwixt a toad and the sun in the firmament. The rich man’s purple and fine linen, and sumptuous fare, did not so exalt him above Lazarus while at his gate, full of sores.
2. They shall have no comfortable relation to God, nor communion with him. “As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,” but said unto him, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways:” so God will abhor to retain them in his household. He will never admit them to the inheritance of his saints, nor endure them to stand in his presence;
but “will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” They are ready now to lay as confident claim to Christ and heaven as if they were sincere, believing saints. The swearer, the drunkard, the whoremonger, the worldling can say, Is not God our Father as well as yours? But when Christ separates his followers from his foes, and his faithful friends from his deceived flatterers, where, then, will be their presumptuous claim? Then they shall find that God is not their Father, because they would not be his people. As they would not consent that God, by his Spirit, should dwell in them, so the tabernacle of wickedness shall have no fellowship with him, nor the wicked inhabit the city of God.
Only they that walked with God here shall live and be happy with him in heaven. Little does the world know what is the loss of that soul who loses God! What a dungeon would the earth be if it had lost the sun! what a
loathsome carrion the body, if it had lost the soul! yet all these are nothing to the loss of God. As the enjoyment of God is the heaven of the saints, so the loss of God is the hell of the ungodly; and as the enjoying of God is the enjoying of all, so the loss of God is the loss of all.
3. They also lose all delightful affections toward God: that transporting