The saints everlasting rest

9. Compare also the glory of the heavenly kingdom, with the glory of the church on earth, and of Christ in his state of humiliation; and you may easily conclude, if Christ standing in the room of sinners, was so wonderful in excellencies, what is Christ at the Father's right hand? And if the church, under her sins and enemies, hath so much beauty; she will have much more at the marriage of the Lamb. How wonderful was the Son of GOD in the form of a servant! When he is born, the heavens must proclaim him by miracles; a new star must appear in the firmament, and fetch men from remote parts of the world to worship him in a manger; the angels and heavenly host must declare his nativity, and solemnize it with praising and glorifying GOD: when he sets upon his office, his whole life is a wonder; water turned into wine, thousands fed with five loaves and two fishes, the lepers cleansed, the sick healed, the lame restored, the blind receive their sight, the dead raised: if we had seen all this, should we not have thought it wonderful? The most desperate diseases cured with a touch, with a word; the blind eyes with a little clay and spittle; the devils departing by legions at command; the winds and the seas obeying his word: are not all these wonderful? Think then, how wonderful is his celestial glory! If there be such cutting down of boughs, and spreading of garments, and crying, hosanna, to one that comes into Jerusalem riding on an ass; what will there be when he comes with his angels in his glory? If they that hear him preach the gospel of the kingdom, have their hearts turned within them, that they turn and say, Never man spake like this man; then sure they that behold ⟨p. 366⟩his majesty in his kingdom, will say, There was never glory like this glory. If when his enemies come to apprehend him, the word of his mouth doth cast them all to the ground; if when he is dying, the earth must tremble, the veil of the temple rend, the sun in the firmament hide its face, and the dead bodies of the saints arise: O what a day will it be, when he will once more shake, not the earth only, but the heavens also, and remove the things that are shaken! when this sun shall be taken out of the firmament, and be everlastingly darkened with the brightness of his glory! when the dead must all rise and stand before him;