thereupon. Thus Elihu in Job xxxv. 10. "None faith, Where

is God my makers?" And David, in Pfal. cxlix. 2. "Let "Ifrael rejoice in his Makers:" in both places the word is plu ral. The confultation here is only amongst the divine Perfons, no angels are called to this council table, the whole matter was to be conducted by the wiidom, and effected by the power of God; and therefore there was no need to confult with any but himself, the wisdom of angels being from him: but this great council fhews what an excellent creature was now to be produced, and the excellency of that creature man, was principally in his foul; for the bodies of other creatures, which were made by the word of his command, are as beautiful, elegant, and neat as the body of man; yea, and in fome refpects more excellent. The foul then was that rare piece which God in fo condescending an expreffion tells us was created with the deliberation of the Godhead; thofe great and excellent Perfons laid their heads, as it were, together to project its being.

And by the way, this may fmartly check the pride and arrogance of fouls, who dare take it upon them to teach God, as murmurs at his difpofals of us. Shall that foul which is the product of his wisdom and counsel, dare to instruct or counsel its Maker? But that by the by. You fee there is a tranfcendent dignity and worth in the foul of man above all other beings in the world, by the peculiar way of its production into the number of created beings: no wife man deliberates long, or calls a council about ordinary matters, much lefs the Allwife God.

2. The foul hath in itself an intrinfic worth and excellency, worthy of that divine original whence it fprang: view it in its noble faculties, and admirable powers, and it will appear to be a creature upon which God hath laid out the riches of his wif dom and power.

There you fhall find a mind fufceptive of all light, both na tural and ipiritual, fhining as the candle of God in the inner man, clofing with truth, as the iron doth with the attractive loadstone, a fhop in which all arts and sciences are laboured and formed: what are all the famous libraries and monuments of learning, but fo many fyftems of thoughts laboured and perfected in the active inquifitive minds of men? Truth is its natural and delectable object, it pursues eagerly after it, and even fpends itself and the body too in the chafe and profecution of truth; when it lies deep, as a fubterranean treasure *, the mind fends out innu

*Veritas in puteo, i, e, Truth in the well.

merable thoughts, reinforcing each other in thick fucceffions, to dig for, and compass that invaluable treasure; if it be disguised by misrepresentations and vulgar prejudice, and trampled in the dirt under that disguise, there is an ability in the mind to discern it by fome lines and features, which are all well known to it, and both own, honour, and vindicate it under all that dirt and obloquy, with more respect than a man will take up a piece of gold, or a fparkling diamond out of the mire: it fearches after it by many painful deductions of reason, and † triumphs more in the discovery of it, than in all earthly treasures; no gratification of fenfe like that of the mind, when it grafps its prey for which it hunted.

The mind paffes through all the works of creation, it views the several creatures on earth, confiders the fabric, use, and beauty of animals, the fignatures of plants penetrating thereby into their nature and virtues: it views the vast ocean, and the large train of caufes laid together in all these things, for the good of man, by God, whose name it reads in the most diminutive creature it beholds on earth.

It can, in a moment, mount itself from earth to heaven, view the face thereof, describe the motions of the fun in the ecliptic, calculate tables for the motions of the planets and fixed stars, invent convenient cycles for the computation of time, foretel, at a great distance, the difmal eclipfes of the fun and moon to the very digit, and the portentous conjunctions of the planets, to the very minute of their ingrefs: Thefe are the pleasant employments of the Understanding.

But there is a higher game at which this eagle plays, it reckons itself all this while employed as much beneath its capacity, as Domitian in catching flies; though these be lawful and pleafant exercises, when it hath leifure for them, yet it is fitted for a much nobler exercife, even to penetrate the glorious myfteries of redemption, to trace redeeming love through all the aftonishing methods, and manifold difcoveries of it; and yet higher than all this, it is capable of an imediate fight, or facial vision of the bleffed God, fhort of which it receives no pleafure that is fully agreeable to its noble power and infinite appetite.

View its Will, and you fhall find it like a queen upon the throne of the foul, fwaying the fceptre of liberty in her hand, Fff 2

+ Archimedes, when he made a valuable discovery of a new truth, leapt out of the bath for joy, crying, Lhave found it, I have found it.

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fas one expreffeth it) with all the affections waiting and attending upon her. No tyrant can force it, no torment can wrest the golden fceptre of liberty out of its hand, the keys of all the chambers of the foul hang at its girdle, thefe it delivers to Chrift in the day of his power; victorious grace fweetly determines it by gaining its confent, but commits no violence upon it. Got accepts its offering, though full of imperfections; but no fervice is accepted without it, how excellent foever be the matter of it, View the confcience and thoughts with their felf reflective abilities, wherein the foul retires into itself, and fits concealed from all eyes but his that made it, judging its own actions, and cenfuring its eftate; viewing its face in its own glafs, and correc. ting the indecencies it discovers there: things of greatest moinent and importance are filently tranfacted in its council chamber betwixt the foul and God; fo remote from the knowledge of all creatures, that neither angels, devils, or men, can know what is doing there, but by uncertain guess, or revelation from Godt: here it impleads, condemos, and acquits itself as at a privy feffion, with respect of the judgment of the great day; here it meets with the belt of comforts, and with the worlt of

terrors.

Take a furvey of irs paffions and affections, and you will find them admirable: fee how they are placed by divine wildom in the foul, fome for defence and fafery, others for delight and pleasure. Anger actuates the spirits, and rouzeth its courage, enabling it to break through difficulties: Fear keeps centinél, watching upon all dangers that approach us: Hope foreftals the good, and anticipates the joys of the next life, and thereby fupports and ftrengthens the foul under ali the discouragements and preffures of the prefent life: Love unites us to the chiefest "good" He that dwelleth in love, dwells in God, and God in *him: " Zeal is the dagger which love draws in God's caufe and quarrel, to fecure itfelt from fin, and reftify its refentments of God's difhonour.

O what a divine fpark is the foul of man t well might Christ prefer it in dignity to the whole world.

3. The worth of a foul may be gathered and difcerned from its fubjective capacity and hability both of grace and glory. It is capable of all the graces of the Spirit, of being filled with the fuldefs of God, Eph. ii. 19. to live to God here, and with God

Culverwell.

+ 1 Cor. ii. Tia

† Rom. ii. 15. 2 Cor. i. 12.

for ever. What excellent graces do adorn fome fouls? How are all the rooms richly hanged with divine and costly hangings, that God may dwell in them! This makes it like the carved works of the temple, overlaid with pure gold; here is glory upon glory, a new creation upon the old; in the innermost pants of fome fouls is a fpiritual altar-erected with this infcription, Holiness to the Lord: here the foul offers up itself to God in the facred flames of love, and here it facrifices its wile affections, devoting them to deftruction, to the glory of its God: here God walks with delight, even a delight beyond what he takes in all the stately structures and magnificent adorned temples in the whole world, Jfa. xvi. 1, 2.

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No other foul befides man's is marriageable to Chrift, sorcapable of espousals to the King of glory: they were not defigned, and therefore not endued with a capacity for fuch an honour as his but fuch a capacity hath every foul, even the meaneft on earth, and fuch honour have all his faints: others may, but they are betrothed to Christ in this world, 2 Cor. xi. 2. and shall be prefented without spot before him in the world to come, Eph. v. 27.

It is now a lovely and excellent creature in its naked natural state, much more beautiful and excellent in its fanctified and gracious ftate: but what fhall we fay, or how fhall we conceive of-it, when all spots of fin are perfectly washed off its beautiful face in heaven, and the glory of the Lord is rifen upon it! when its filthy garments are taken away, and the pure robes of perfect holiness, as well as righteoufaefs, fuperinduced upon this excellent creature! If the imperfect beauty of it, begun in fanc tification, enamoured its Saviour, and made him say, “Thou haft • ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one of the

chains of thy neck; "what will its beauty, and his delight in it be in the fate of perfect glorification! As we imagine the circles in the heavens to be vailly greater than thofe we view upon the globe; fo muft we imagine in the cafe before us.

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4. The preparations God makes for fouls in heaven, fpeak their great worth and value. When you lift up your eyes to heaven, and behold that befpangled azure canopy befet and inJaid with fo many golden ftuds and sparkling gems, you fee but the floor or pavement of that place which God hath prepared for fome fouls. He furnished this world for us before he put us into it; but, as delightful and beautiful as it is, it is no more to be compared with the Father's houfe in heaven, than the smallest ruined chapel your eyes ever beheld, is to be compared with Solomon's temple, when it stood in all its shining glory.

When you see a stately and magnificent structure built, richest hangings and furniture prepared to adorn it, you conclude fome great perfons are to come thither: fuch preparations speak the quality of the guests.

Now heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, the palace of the great King, the presence-chamber of the Godhead, is prepared, not only by God's decree and Chrift's death; but by his afcenfion thither in our names, and as our forerunner, for all renewed and redeemed fouls. John xiv. 2. "In my Father's house are many manfions; if it were not fo, I would have told "you: I go to prepare a place for you."

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And, where is the place prepared for them, but in his Father's house? The fame place, the very fame house where the Father, Son and Spirit themselves do dwell: fuch is the love of Christ to fouls, that he will not dwell in one house, and they in another; but, as he fpeaks, John xii. 26. " Where I am, there shall my fervant alfo be." There is room enough in the Father's houfe for Christ and all the fouls he redeemed to live and dwell together for evermore. His afcenfion thither was in the capacity of a common or public person, to take livery and feifin of those many manfions for them, which are to be filled with their inhabitants, as they come thither in their respective times and orders.

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5. The great price with which they were redeemed and purchased, speaks their dignity and value. No wife man will purchase a trifle at a great price, much less the most wife God. Now, the redemption of every foul stood in no less than the most precious blood of the Lord Jefus Chrift, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. "know (faith the apostle there) that we were not redeemed "with corruptible things as filver and gold, but with the "precious blood of Chrift, as a lamb without blemish or fpot." All the gold and filver in the world was no ransom for one foul; nay, all the blood of the creatures, had it been fhed as a facrifice to the glory of justice, or even the blood which is most dear to us, as being derived from our own; I mean, the blood of our dear children, even of our first-born, the beginning of our ftrength, which ufually have the ftrength of affection: I fay, none of this could purchase a pardon for the smallest fin that ever any foul committed, much lefs was it able to purchase the foul itself, Mic. vi. 6, 7. “Thousands of rams, and ten thou"fand rivers of oil," or our first-born, are no ransom to God for the fin of the foul. It is only the precious blood of Chrift that is a just random or counter-price, as it is called, Mat. xx. 28.