Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

II. Let us consider in what quality they are introduced by him.

First, He brings them in as the blessed of his Father: so runs the call from the throne, Come ye blessed of my Father, &c. It is Christ's Father's house they are to come into: therefore he puts them in mind, that they are blessed of his Father; dear to the Father, as ⟨p. 315⟩well as to himself. This is it that makes heaven home to them; namely, that it is Christ's Father's house, where we may be assured of welcome, being married to the Son, and being his Father's choice for that very end. He brings them in for his Father's sake, as well as for his own: they are the blessed of his Father; who, as he is the fountain of the Deity, is also the fountain of all blessings conferred on the children of men. They are these to whom God designed well from eternity. They were blessed in the eternal purpose of God, being elected to everlasting life: at the opening of the book of life, their names are found written therein. So that, bringing them to the kingdom, he doth but bring them to what the Father, from all eternity, designed for them; being saved by the Son, they are saved according to his (i. e. the Father's) purpose, 2 Tim. i. 9. They are these to whom the Father has spoken well. He spake well to them in his word, which must now receive its full accomplishment. They had his promise of the kingdom, lived and died in the faith of it: and now they come to receive the thing promised, Unto them he has done well. A gift is often in scripture called a blessing: and God's blessing is ever real, like Isaac's blessing, by which Jacob became his heir: they were all by grace justified, sanctified, and made to persevere unto the end; now they are raised up in glory, and being tried, stand in the judgment: what remains then, but that God crown his own work of grace in them, in giving them their kingdom, in the full enjoyment of himself for ever? Finally, They are these whom God has consecrated: the which also is a scripture notion of blessing,