The works of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D. D. in nine volumes (volume 1 of 9)

Death and life are two words of a solemn and important sound. They carry so much of force and moment in them, as must awaken mankind to attention; and therefore the Spirit of God often uses them as metaphors, to express things unseen and spiritual, and to describe the state both of saints and sinners: So that all who are alive on the face of the earth, in the language of scripture, are said to be dead too, but in different senses. Those who are in a state of nature, and under the power of sin, unpardoned and unsanctified, are dead in trespasses and sins; yet they live the life of brutes in the lusts of the flesh, or the life of devils in the lusts of the mind; Eph. ii. 1, 2. Those who are recovered from the fall, and brought into a state of grace by the gospel of Christ, are said to be dead also; that is, they are dead to sin; Rom. vi. 11. and they are crucified, and so dead to the world; Gal. vi. 14. The delights of sin are hateful to them, so that they allure them not to forsake their God; and the lawful enjoyments of life are so far tasteless to the saints, in comparison of the things of heaven, that they have much less influence, than once they had, to tempt them away from God, and from the practice of holiness.

It is in this sense the christian Colossians are said to be dead in my text. But they have another, a new life, and that of a different kind; such as is mentioned in this verse, and which is hid with Christ in God; and it is this hidden life shall be the chief subject of my discourse.

These latter words of the text afford two plain and easy propositions or doctrines.

I. That the life of a christian is a hidden life.—II. That it is hid with Christ in God. Let us meditate on them in order.

Doctrine I. A christian’s life is a hidden life.—Here we shall, First, Consider what is this life, which is said to be hidden. And, Secondly, In what respects it is so.

First, What is this life of a christian which is said to be hidden?

Not the animal life, whereby he eats, drinks, sleeps, moves and walks; this is visible enough to all about him. Not the civil life, as he stands in relation to other men in the world, whether as a son, as a father, a master, or a servant, a trader, a labourer, or an officer in the state: For all these are public, and seen of men.

But the hidden life is that whereby he is a christian indeed; his spiritual life, wherein he is devoted to God, and lives to the purposes of heaven and eternity. And this is the same life, which, in other parts of scripture, is called eternal; for the life of grace survives the grave, and is prolonged into glory. The same life of piety and inward pleasure, which begins on earth, is fulfilled in heaven; and it may be called the spiritual, or the eternal life, according to different respects; for it is the same continued life acting in different stations or places, and running through time and eternity; 1 John v. 11, 12. Eternal life is in the Son, and he that hath the Son, hath this life; it is begun in him, he is already possessed of it in some degree.

As the life of the child is the same with that of the full-grown man; as the same vital principles and powers run through the several successive stages of infancy, youth and manhood; so the divine life of a saint, begun on earth, runs through this world, through death, and the separate state of souls; it appears in full-grown perfection, in the final heaven, when the whole saint shall stand complete in glory. Thus the spiritual life of a christian is eternal life begun; and eternal life is the spiritual life made perfect.

If we would describe this life in short, it may be represented thus: It is a life of faith, holiness and peace; a life of faith, or dependance upon God for all that we want; a life of holiness, rendering back again to God, in a way of honour and service, whatsoever we receive from him in a way of mercy; and a life of peace in the comfortable sense of the favour of God, and our acceptance with him through Jesus Christ. All these begin on earth, and in this sense faith itself, as well as peace and holiness, shall abide in heaven: we shall for ever be dependants, for ever happy and for ever holy.

In a state of nature the man lived such a sinful and carnal life, that was more properly called death; but when he becomes a believer, a true christian, he is new created; 2 Cor. v. 17. hew-born; John iii. 3, raised from the dead, and quickened to a new life; Eph. ii. 1, 5. which is called being risen with Christ, in the verses before my text; Col. iii. 1. And this very spiritual life, as the effect of our symbolical resurrection with Christ, is the subject of several verses of the 6th chapter to the Romans, whence I cannot but infer the same to be designed here, viz. that the christian who is dead to sin, is risen with Christ, and alive to God; as Rom. vi. 11. All the life that he lived before, with all the shew and bravery of it, with all the bustle and business, the entertainments and delights of it, was but a mere dream, a fancy, the picture of life, a shadow and emptiness, and but little above the brutes that perish. Now he lives a real, a substantial, a divine life, a-kin to God and angels, and quite of a different nature from what the men of this world live.

There is this difference indeed which the scripture makes between the spiritual life and the eternal. The first chiefly respects the operations of the soul, for the life of the body is not immortal here: the second includes soul and body too, for both shall possess immortality hereafter. The first is attended with many difficulties and sorrows; the second is all ease and pleasure. The first is represented as the labour and service: the last, as the great, though unmerited, reward; Gal. vi. 8. He that soweth to the Spirit, and fulfils the duties of the spiritual life, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. The one is the life of holiness and inward peace, though mingled with many defects, and surrounded with a thousand disadvantages and trials: the other, is the same life of holiness and peace, having surmounted every difficulty, shining and exulting in full joy and glory.

Secondly, We come to consider, in what respect this life may be called a hidden life.

And here I shall distinguish that part of it, which is more usually called the spiritual life, and is exercised in this world, from that which is more frequently called life eternal, and belongs rather to the world to come: and then I shall make distinct inferences from the consideration of each.

Now let us consider wherein the spiritual life is said to be hidden.

I. The acts and exercises of it are secret and unknown to the public world. The saint is much engaged in the important and hidden concerns of his divine life; and his converse is with God and Christ, who dwell in the world of invisibles.

Who knows the secret transactions between God and the soul of a christian, when he first entered into covenant with God, through Christ the Mediator, and began this happy life? Who can tell the inward workings of his spirit towards Jesus Christ his Lord in the first efforts of his faith, and embraces of our Saviour? Who was acquainted with the secret sorrows of his soul, when he was first set a mourning for his past sins, and humbled himself in bitterness before God; Or who can express the surprizing delight, and secret satisfaction he felt at heart, when God communicated to him the first lively hope of forgiveness and divine salvation? O the unknown joys of such an hour which some christians have experienced, when a divine beam of light shone into their souls, and revealed Jesus Christ within them, as St. Paul speaks: when they saw his all-sufficiency of righteousness and grace, to answer their infinite necessities; and when they durst believe in him as their Saviour!

And as the beginnings of this life are hidden from the world, so the exercises and progress of it are a secret too. While the world is following after idols and vanity, the christian, in his retired chamber, breathes after his God and his Redeemer, and gives a loose to his warmest affections, in the pursuit of his Almighty Friend, and his best beloved. While the men of this world are vexing their spirits, and fretting under present disappointments, he dwells in a lonesome corner, mourning for his sins and follies. And at another time, while the children of vanity grow proud in public, and boast of their large possessions, and inheritances, he rejoices in secret, in the hope of glory, and takes divine delight in the fore-thought of his better inheritance among the saints: his conversation is in heaven; Phil. iii. 20.

I might run through all the exercises of the sanctified affections, and the various parts of the divine worship, and of the conduct of a saint among the children of men. With what humble fear does he entertain the mention of the name of God? With what deep self-abasement, and inward adoration? At the presence of sin how is his anger stirred? and his holy watchfulness when temptations appear? how does he labour and wrestle, fight and strive, lest he be overcome by the secret enemies of his soul? And as his bitterness of heart is unknown to the world, so a stranger intermeddles not with his joy; Prov. xiv. 10. He feeds on the same provision which his Lord Jesus did on earth, for it his meat and his drink to do the will of his Father which is in heaven; This is a feast to the christian, which the world knows not of; John iv. 32, 34.

II. The springs and principles of this life are hidden and unknown to the world; and therefore the world esteems many of the actions of a true christian very strange and unaccountable things, as we shall shew afterward, because they see not the springs of them.

The word of God, or the gospel, with all the hidden treasures of it, is the chief instrument, or means, whereby this divine life is wrought and supported in the soul. The true christian beholds the purity of God in the precepts; he reads grace, heaven, and glory, in the promises; he sees the words of the bible in a divine light, and feeds sweetly on the hidden blessings of scripture, deriving life, and nourishment, and joy from it; whereas the carnal world go not far beyond the letters and syllables. The gospel, which is all light and glory to a saint, is hidden to them that are lost; 2 Cor. iv. 3. This same gospel is written in the heart of a christian, and is the principle of his life there. This is immortal and incorruptible, the seed of the word abiding in the heart; the image of the eternal God, drawn out in such characters as our nature can bear: For the written word is a transcript of God’s holiness; and when it is inwrought into all the powers of a believing soul, it becomes a vital principle within him for ever. A believer is, as it were, cast in the very mould of the gospel; so the word signifies; Rom. vi. 17. This is the word hidden in the heart, that secures the saint from sin; Ps. cxix. 11.

The motives and springs that awaken a christian to keep up, and maintain this spiritual life, are things hidden from the eyes of the world; things eternal and invisible, 2 Cor. iv. 18. While we look not at the things that are seen, that are temporal; but at the things that are unseen, and eternal; we then count the joys or sorrows of this world, things of little importance; then we live like christians, and the life of our Lord Jesus is manifested, or copied out, in our lives; as ver. 10, 11.

The habits of grace and holiness in the hearts of believers, whence all the actions of the spiritual life proceed, are secret and hidden. Who knows how they were wrought at first? how this heavenly breath, this divine life was infused, which changed a dead sinner into a living saint? Our Saviour himself compares this work of the Spirit to the wind; John iii. 8. We hear the sound, we feel and see the effects of it, but we know not whence it comes, nor whither it goes; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Who can describe those secret and almighty influences of the blessed Spirit on the mind and will of man, which work with such a sovereign, and yet such a gentle, and con-natural agency, that the believer himself hardly knows it, but by the gracious effects of it, and the blessed alterations wrought in his soul.

It is this glorious Agent, this Creator, this blessed Spirit, who is the uncreated principle of this life. The Spirit, as proceeding from our Lord Jesus Christ, begun this life at first in the soul: and the same glorious unseen power carries it on through all difficulties and oppositions, and will fulfil it in glory.

I must add also, that Christ himself, who is said to be our life in the verse following my text, is at present hidden from us; he dwells in the unseen world, and the heavens must receive him till the restitution of all things; Acts iii. 21. Christ Jesus is the bread from heaven; John vi. 32, 33. by which the believer is nourished; he is the hidden manna, the divine food of souls: It is upon him the christian lives daily and hourly; it is upon the blood of the Lamb, which is carried up to the mercy-seat, that the believer lives for pardon and peace with God: It is upon the righteousness of his Lord and Head, that he lives for his everlasting acceptance before the throne; it is upon the grace and strength of Christ, that he rests and depends all the day, when he is called forth to encounter the boldest temptations, to fulfil the most difficult duties, or to sustain the heaviest strokes of a painful providence. “Surely, saith the saint, in the Lord alone have I righteousness and strength; Is. xlv. 24. In the Lord my Saviour, whom the world sees not; but I see him by the eye of faith.”

I shall enlarge farther on this subject under the second doctrine.

Thus, whether we consider the spiritual acts and exercises of this christian life, or the springs and principles of it, still we shall find it has just reason to be called a secret, or a hidden life.

Before I proceed, I shall lay down these two cautions:

1st Caution. Though it is a hidden life, yet I entreat my christian friends, that they would not suffer it to be such a secret, as to be unknown to themselves. God has ordained it to be hidden, not that it might always be unknown to you, but that you might search after it with diligence; and that when you find yourselves possessed of it, you might rejoice in the evidences of your life and his love. Be not satisfied then, O ye professors of the gospel! until you have searched and found this divine life within you. What a poor life must that christian live, who goes from day to day, and from year to year, and still complains, I know not whether I am alive or no!

Labour, therefore, after self-acquaintance, since God has been pleased in his word, to furnish us with sufficient means to find out our estate; 1 John v. 17. These things I write unto you, says the apostle, that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God, and that ye may know that ye believe. It is a dishonour to the gospel of Christ, to abide always in darkness and doubtings, and to rest contented in so uncomfortable a frame. We are told in Rev. ii. 17. that those whose life is supported by this hidden manna, have also a white stone given them, with a new name in it, which no man knows, save he that receives it: that is, they have divine absolution and pardon of their sins, which was represented heretofore, in some courts of judicature, by the gift of a white stone; but surely, if my own name were written in it, I would use my utmost endeavours to read the inscription myself, though it may be a secret to the rest of mankind; then my God and Saviour shall have the honour of his pardoning love, and then my soul shall enjoy the consolation.

2d Caution. Though it be a hidden life in the sacred operations and the springs of it, yet the world ought to see the blessed effects of it. We must hold forth to men the word of life; Phil. ii. 16. Let the world see that we live to God, and that by the secret power of his word in the gospel.

The christian life is no fantastic and visionary matter, that consists in warm imaginations, and pretences to inward light and rapture; it is a real change of heart and practice, from sin to holiness, and a turn of soul from earth toward heaven. It has been dressed up, indeed, like enthusiastic foolery, by the impious wits of men, and painted for a subject of ridicule and reproach. Thus the saints and holy martyrs have been clad in a fool’s-coat, or a bear’s-skin, but they are still men, and wise men too; they have been dressed up like devils, but they are still the sons of God. So secret piety has solid reason and scripture still on its side, whatever silly scandals have been cast upon it; there is no cause, therefore, to be ashamed of professing it. There is nothing in all the christian life, that a man needs to blush at. We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, knavery, and uncleanness, when we began to be christians; 2 Cor. iv. 2. It is our glory that we are alive to God, and we should be ashamed of nothing that either exercises or maintains this life. None of the duties of worship, none of the practices of godliness, that render religion honourable among men, and make God our Saviour appear glorious in the world, should be neglected by us, whenever we are called to practise or profess them.

The effects of this hidden life should not all be secret, though the springs of it are so; for christians are commanded to make their light shine before men, that others may glorify their Father which is in heaven; Mat. v. 14, 15, 16. The lights of the world must not place themselves under a bushel, and be contented to shine there useless and alone; we must give honour to God in public. And though we are commanded to practise such secrecy and self-denial in our deeds of charity, as may secure us from all ostentation and pride, yet we must sometimes make it appear too, that we do good to men, that christianity may have the glory of it. We must feed the hungry, we must clothe the naked, we must love all men, even our enemies, and discover to the world that we are christians, by noble and sublime practices of every virtue and every duty, as far as it is possible, even by the best works, to discover inward religion.

[This sermon may be divided here.]

I proceed now to draw some inferences from the hidden nature of the spiritual life.

I. And my first inference would teach you not to rest satisfied with any externals: for they who put forth no other acts of life, but what the world sees, are no true christians.

We eat, we drink, and sleep; that is the life of nature; we buy and sell, we labour and converse; that is the civil life; we trifle, visit, tattle, flutter, and rove among a hundred impertinencies, without any formed, or settled design what we live for; that is the idle life; and it is the kindest name that I can bestow upon it. We learn our creed, we go to church, we say our prayers, and read chapters or sermons; these are the outward forms of the religious life. And is this all? Have we no daily secret exercises of the soul in retirement and converse with God? No time spent with our own hearts? Are we never busied, in some hidden corner, about the affairs of eternity; Are there no seasons allotted for prayer, for meditation, for reading in secret, and self-enquiries? Nothing to do with God alone in a whole day together? Surely this can never be the life of a christian?

Remember, O man, there is nothing of all the labours or services, the acts of zeal or devotion, that thou canst practise in public, but a subtle hypocrite may so nearly imitate the same, that it will be hard to discover the difference. There is nothing of all these outward forms, therefore, that can safely and infallibly distinguish thee from a hypocrite and false professor; for the same actions may proceed from inward motions and principles widely different. If you would obtain any evidence that you are a christian indeed, you must make it appear to your own conscience by the exercises of the hidden life, and the secret transactions between God and your soul. He was not a Jew of old, who was one outwardly in the letter only; nor is he a christian, who has mere outward forms; but a Jew or a christian, in the sight of God, is such a one as hath the religion in his heart, and in spirit, whose praise is not of men, but of God? Rom. ii. 28, 29.

II. Inference. The life of a saint is a matter of wonder to the sinful world; for they know not what he lives upon. The sons of ambition follow after grandeur and power; the animals of pleasure pursue all the luxuries of sense; the miser hunts after money, and is ever digging for gold. It is visible enough what these wise men live upon. But the christian, who lives in the power and glory of the divine life, seeks after none of these, any farther than as duty leads him, and the supports and conveniencies of life are needful, in the present state of his habitation in the flesh. The sinner wonders what it is the saint aims at, while he neglects the tempting idols that himself adores, and despises the gilded vanities of a court, and abhors the guilty scenes of a voluptuous life. Christ and his children are, and will be, signs and wonders to the age they live in; Is. viii. 18. compared with Heb. ii. 13.

The men of this world wonder what a christian can have to say to God in so many retiring hours as he appoints for that end; what strange business he can employ himself in; how he can lay out so much time in affairs, which the carnal mind has no notion of. On the other hand, the saint, when he is in a lively frame, thinks that all the intervals of his civil life, and all the vacant seasons that he can find between the necessary duties of his worldly station, are all little enough to transact affairs of such awful importance as he has to do with God, and little enough to enjoy those secret pleasures, which the stranger is unacquainted with. The children of God pray to their heavenly Father in secret, and they feel unknown refreshment and delight in it; and they are well assured, that their Father who seeth in secret will hereafter reward them openly; Mat. vi. 6.

It is no wonder, that the profane world reproaches true christians as dull, lifeless creatures, animals that have neither soul nor spirit in them, because they do not see them run to the same excess in things of the lower life. Alas! they know not that the life of a christian is on high; they see it not, for it is hidden; and therefore they wonder we are not busily engaged in the same practices and pursuits as they are; 1 Pet. iv. 4. They think it strange that we run not to the same excess of riot. The world sees nothing of our inward labour and strife against flesh and self, our sacred contest for the prize of glory; they know nothing of our earnest enquiries after an absent God, and a hidden Saviour; and least of all do they know the holy joys, and retired pleasures of a christian, because these are things which are seldom communicated to others; and therefore the world grows bold to call religion a melancholy thing, and the christian a mere mope. But the soul who lives above, who lives within sight of the world of invisibles, can despise the reproach of sinners.

III. Inference. See the reason why christians have not their passions so much engaged in things of this life as other men have, because their chief concern is about their better life, which is hidden and unseen. They can look upon fine equipages, gay clothes, and rich appearances in the world, without envy; they can survey large estates, and see many thousands gotten in haste by those that resolve to be rich, and yet not let loose one covetous wish upon them; they have a God whom they worship in secret, and trust his blessing to make them sufficiently rich in the way of diligence in their stations: they hope they shall have blessings mingled with their mean estate, and no sorrows added to their wealth.

They can find themselves exalted by providence to high stations in the world, and not to be puffed up in countenance, nor swell at heart. If they are but watchful to keep their divine life vigorous they will distinguish themselves as christians, even in scarlet and gold, and that by a glorious humility. They know that all their advancements on earth are but mean and despicable things, in comparison of their highest hopes, and their promised crown in heaven. They can meet threatening danger, diseases, and deaths, without those terrors that overwhelm the carnal sinner; for their better life shall never die. They can sustain losses, and sink in the world, when it comes by the mere providence of God, without their own culpable folly, and bear it with a humble resignation of spirit, and with much inward serenity and peace; for the things which they have lost, were not their life; all these were visible, but their life is hidden; Phil. iv. 12. I know how to be abased, and how to be exalted; I know how to abound, and to suffer want; I can do all these things through Christ strengthening me: Christ, who is the principle of my inward life. O! that the christians of our day had more of this sublime conduct, more of these noble evidences of the life of christianity.

IV. Inference. How vain and needless a thing is it for a christian to affect popularity and to set up for a shew in this world. How vain is it for him to be impatient to appear and shine among men, for he has honours and treasures, joys and glories, that are incomparably greater, and yet a secret to the world. A christian’s true life is hidden, and he should not be too fond of public and gay appearances. The apostle Peter gives advice how the christian women should behave themselves not as the rest of the world do, who set themselves forth to public shew, with many ornaments of gold and pearl; but the believer should adorn herself with modesty, and with every grace, in the hidden man of the heart; 1 Pet. iii. 4.

How unreasonable is it for us who profess the christian life to be cast down, if we are confined to an obscure station in the world! Was not the Lord of glory, when he came down on earth to give us a pattern of the spiritual life, content to be obscure for thirty years together! Was he not unknown to men, but as a common carpenter, or a poor carpenter’s son! And in those four years of appearance which he made as a preacher, how mean, how contemptible were the circumstances of life which he chose? And shall we be impatient and fretful under the same humbled estate? Do we dislike so divine a precedent? Must we, like mushrooms of the earth, be exalted, and grow fond of making a public figure, when the King of heaven was so poor and lowly? We lose public honour and applause indeed, but perhaps our hidden life thrives the better for it, when we resist the charms of grandeur.

Besides, this is not a christian’s time for appearing, whilst Christ himself is absent and unseen. The believer’s shining-time is not yet come; but the marriage-day of the Lamb is hastening, and the bride is making herself ready. The general resurrection is our great shining-day: When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory: Col. iii. 4. and the christian is content to stay for his robes of light, and his public honours, till the dawn of that glorious morning. Nor shall we dare to be censorious of those who make a poor figure, and but mean appearance in the world; perhaps they are some of Christ’s hidden ones; they promise but little, and shew but little, either wit or parts, prudence or power, skill or influence; and perhaps they have but little too; but they know God, they trust in Christ, they live a divine life, and have glorious communications from heaven in secret daily, they make daily visits to the court of glory, and are visited by condescending grace. You see in all these instances, that popularity and shew are not at all necessary for a christian.

V. Inference. How exceeding difficult is it for those who are exalted to great and public stations in the world to maintain lively christianity! They have need of great and uncommon degrees of grace to maintain this hidden life. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! These are our Saviour’s own words; Mark x. 23. and he gave this reason for it, ver. 24. because it is so hard for those that have riches, not to trust in them, not to live entirely upon them, and make them their very life.

How hard is it for men in high posts of honour, to take due care that their graces thrive, while they are all day engaged, either in the fatigues of office, in state and pomp of their own, or in everlasting attendances on the will of some superior; so that they have few moments in a day, wherein they are capable of retiring, and holding any converse with themselves or with heaven. But O! how pleasant is it to such as are advanced in the providence of God, and have a value for their hidden life, to steal an hour of retirement from the burden of their public cares! How sweet is the recovery of a few minutes, and how well filled up with active devotion! The secret life of a christian grows much in the closet, and without a retreat from the world it cannot grow. Abandon the secret chamber, and the spiritual life will decay: Doubtless many of you can witness that you have found it so; and your own mournful experience echoes to the words of our ministry in this point.

There was an ancient philosopher, who, when he had lost his riches in a storm at sea, gave thanks to providence, under a heathen name; “I thank thee, fortune, that hast now forced me to retire, and to live within my cloak;” that is, upon the supports of philosophy, in meaner circumstances of life. How much more should the christian be pleased with a private station, who has the supports of the gospel to live upon, and to sweeten his retirements! How cautious should christians be, therefore, of the management of all the public affairs of their civil life, lest they do any that should hurt their secret or religious life! We should be still enquiring, “Will such sort of company to which I am now invited; such a gainful trade which I am ready to engage in; such a course of life which now lies before me; tempt me to neglect my secret converse with God? Does it begin to alienate my heart from heaven, and things unseen? then let me suspect and fear it.” Be afraid, christians, of what grieves the blessed Spirit of Christ, who is the principle of your life and may provoke him to retire from you. Be diligent in such enquiries, be very watchful and jealous of every thing that would call your thoughts outward, and keep them too long abroad. Christians should live much at home, for theirs is a hidden life.

VI. Inference. We may see here divine wisdom in contriving the ordinances of the gospel, with such plainness, and such simplicity, as best serves to promote the hidden life of a christian. Pomp and ceremony, gilded and sparkling ornaments, are ready to call the soul abroad, to employ it in the senses, and divert it from that spiritual improvement, which the secret life of a christian requires, and which gospel-institutions were designed for.

You see in the heathen world, and you see in popish countries, that the gay splendours of worship tempt the hearts of the worshippers to rest in forms, and to forget God; and we may fear the greatest part of the people lay under the same danger in the days of Judaism. I grant indeed, that where pompous and glittering rites of religion are of special divine appointment, and were designed to typify the future glories of a more spiritual church and worship; there they might hope for divine aids to lead their minds onward beyond the type, to those designed glories. But carnal worshippers are the bulk of any sect or profession. All mankind, by nature, is ready to take up with the forms of godliness, and neglect the secret power. We naturally pay too much reverence to shining formalities and empty shews. Set a christian to read the most spiritual parts of gospel, on one page of the bible, and let some scene of the history be finely graven, and painted on the opposite side; his holy meditations will be endangered by his eyes, fair figures and colours attract the sight, and tempt the soul off from refined devotion.

I cannot think it any advantage to christian worship, to have churches well adorned by the statuary and the painter; nor can gay altar-pieces improve the communion service. While gaudy glittering images attract and entertain the outward sense, the soul is too much attached to the animal, to keep itself at a distance; while the sight is regaled and feasted, the sermon runs to waste, and the hidden life withers and starves. When the ear is soothed with a variety of fine harmony, the soul is too often allured away from spiritual worship, even though a divine song attend the music. Our Saviour therefore, in much wisdom, and in much mercy, has appointed blessed ordinances for his church, with such plainness and simplicity, as may administer most support and nourishment to the secret life. Thus I have finished the remarks on the hidden life of a christian, considered as to its spiritual exercises in this present world.

I proceed to consider, in what respects this life is hidden, as it is more usually called eternal life, or to be exercised and enjoyed in heaven.

And here we must confess, that we are much at a loss to say any thing more than the scripture hath said before us. Life and immortality, indeed, are brought to light by the gospel of Christ, in far brighter measures than the former ages and dispensations were acquainted with; 1 Tim. i. 10. But still, what the apostle says concerning all the blessings of the gospel, we may repeat emphatically concerning heaven, that eye hath not seen, that ear hath not heard, that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive; nor indeed hath God himself revealed but a very small part of the things he hath prepared, in the future world, for them that love him; 1 Cor. ix. 10. It doth not yet appear what we shall be; the glory of that state is yet a great secret to us; 1 John iii. 2. We know much better what it is not, than what it is: we can define it best by negatives. Absence from the weaknesses, sins, and sorrows of this life, is our best and largest account of it, whether we speak of the separate state, or the heaven of the resurrection.

The veil of flesh and blood divides us from the world of spirits; we know not the manner of their life in the state of separation: we are at an utter loss as to their stations and residences; what relation they bear to any part of this material creation; whether they dwell in thin airy vehicles, and are inhabitants of some starry world, or planetary region; or whether they subsist in their pure intellectual nature, and have nothing to do with any thing corporeal, till their dust be recalled to life. We are unacquainted with the laws by which they are governed, and the methods of their converse: we know little of the businesses they are employed in, those glorious services for their God and their Saviour, in which they are favoured with assistant angels; and little are we acquainted with their joys, which are unspeakable and full of glory. The very language of that world, is neither to be spoken nor understood by us; St. Paul heard some of the words of it, and had a faint glimpse of the sense of them; but he could not repeat them again to mortal ears; nor had he power, nor leave to tell us the meaning of them; 2 Cor. xii. 4. For, whether he was in the body, at that time, or out of the body, he himself was not able to determine.

And as for the heaven of the resurrection; what sort of bodies shall be raised from the dust, for perfect spirits to dwell in, is as great a secret. A spiritual body is a mystery to the wisest divines and philosophers; where our habitation shall be, and what our special employment through the endless ages of immortality, are among the hidden unsearchables. The most that we know, is, that we shall be made like to Christ, and we shall be where he is, to behold his glory; 1 John iii. 2. and John xvii. 24.

If the eternal life of the saints be so much a secret at present, we may draw these two or three inferences from it.

I. Inference. How necessary is it for a christian to keep faith awake and lively, that he may maintain his acquaintance with the spiritual and unseen world! It is faith that converses with invisibles: faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen; Heb. xi. 1. It is faith that deals in hidden traffic, and grows rich in treasures that are out of sight. It is by faith in the Son of God, we live this spiritual life, by faith in an absent Saviour; Gal. ii. 20. Whom having not seen we love; and though we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice; 1 Pet. i. 8. Let the christian, therefore, maintain a holy jealousy, lest too much converse with the things of sense, dull the eye of his faith, or weaken the hand of it. Let him put his faith into perpetual exercise, that he may live within the view of those glories that are hidden from sense; that he may keep his hold of eternal life; that he may support his hopes, and secure his joys. Until we can live by sight, let us walk by faith; 2 Cor. v. 7.

Though the life of heaven be hidden, yet so much of it is revealed as to give faith leave to lay hold of it; and yet not so much, as to make the hand of faith needless. It is brought down by our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, within the view of faith, that we might live in expectation of it, and be animated to the glorious pursuit; but it is not brought within the reach of sense, for we are now in a state of trial; and this is not the proper time nor place for sight and enjoyment.

II. Inference. How little is death to be dreaded by a believer, since it will bring the soul to the full possession of its hidden life in heaven! It is a dark valley that divides between this world and the next; but it is all a region of light and blessedness beyond it. We are now borderers on the eternal world, and we know but too little of that invisible country. Approaching death opens the gates to us, and begins to give our holy curiosity some secret satisfaction; and yet how we shrink backward when that glorious unknown city is opening upon us! and are ready to beg and pray that the gates might be closed again: “O! for a little more time, a little longer continuance in this lower visible world!” This is the language of the fearful believer: But it is better to have our christian courage wrought up to a divine height, and to say, “Open ye everlasting gates, and be ye lift up, O ye immortal doors, that we may enter into the place where the King of Glory is.” There we shall see God, the great unknown, and rejoice in his overflowing love. We shall see him not as we do on earth, darkly, through the glass of ordinances; but inferior spirits shall converse with the Supreme Spirit, as bodies do with bodies; that is face to face; 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

There shall we behold Christ our Lord in the dignity of his character as Mediator, in the glory of his kingdom, and the all-sufficiency of his godhead; and we shall be for ever with him. There shall we see millions of blessed spirits, who have lived the same hidden life as we do, and passed through this vale of tears, with the same attending difficulties and sorrows, and by the same divine assistances. They were unknown, and covered with dust as we are, while they dwelt in flesh, but they appear all-glorious and well known in the world of spirits, and exult in open and immortal light: We shall see them, and we shall triumph with them in that day; we shall learn their language, and taste their joys: we shall be partakers of the same glory, which Christ our life, diffuses all around him, on the blessed inhabitants of that intellectual world.

III. Inference. How glorious is the difference between the two parts of the christian’s life, viz. the spiritual life on earth, and the perfection of eternal life in heaven; when all that is now hidden shall be revealed before men and angels! Come now, and let us take occasion from this discourse, to let loose our meditations one stage beyond death and the separate state, even to the morning of the resurrection, and the full and public assembly of all the saints. O what an illustrious appearance! What a numerous and noble army of new creatures! Creatures that were hidden in this world among the common herd of mankind, and their bodies hidden in the grave, and mingled with common dust, rising all at once, at the sound of a trumpet, into public light and glory; the same persons, indeed, that once inhabited mortality, but in far different equipage and array. The christian, on earth, is like the rough diamond among the common pebbles of the shore; in the resurrection-day the diamond is cut and polished, and set in a tablet of gold. All that inward worth and lustre of holiness and grace, which are now hidden, shall be then visible and public before the eyes of the whole creation. Then the saints shall be known by their shining, in the day when the Lord makes up his jewels; Mal. iii. 17. When the spirits of the just made perfect in all the beauties of holiness, shall return to their former mansions, and become men again; when their bodies are raised from the dust, in the likeness of the body of our blessed Lord, how shall all the saints shine in the kingdom of their Father, though in the kingdoms of this world they were obscure and undistinguished! They shall appear, in that day, as the meridian sun breaking from a long and dark eclipse; and the sun is too bright a being to be unknown; Mat. xiii. 43.

What is there in a poor saint here, that discovers what he shall be hereafter? How mean his appearance now! how magnificent in that day? What was there in Lazarus on the dung-hill, when the dogs licked his sores, that could lead us to any thought what he should be in the bosom of Abraham? What is there in the martyrs and confessors, described in Heb. xi. those holy men, with their sheep-skins, and their goat-skins upon them, wandering in deserts, and hidden in dens and caves of the earth? What was there in these poor and miserable spectacles that looks like a saint in glory? or that could give us any intimation what they shall be in the great rising day?

Now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be; 1 John iii. 2. We can shew no pattern of it here below. Shall we go to the palaces of eastern princes, and borrow their crowns and sparkling attire, to shew how the saints are drest in heaven? Shall we take their marble pillars, their roofs of cedar, their costly furniture of purple and gold, to describe the mansions of immortality? Shall we attend the chariot of some Roman general, with all the ensigns of victory, leading on his legions to triumph, and fetch robes of honour, and branches of palm to describe that triumphant army of christian conquerors? The scripture makes use of these resemblances, indeed, in great condescension, to represent the glories of that day, because they are the brightest things we know on earth. But they sink as far below the splendours of the resurrection, as earth is below heaven, or time is shorter than eternity.

What is all the dead lustre of metals, and silks, and shining stones, to the living rays of divine grace springing up, and shooting into full glory? Faith into sight, hope into enjoyment, patience into joy and victory, and love into its own perfection? Then all the hidden virtues and graces of the saints, shall appear like the stars at midnight, in an uncloudy sky. Then shall it be made known to all the world, these were the men that wept and prayed in secret; it shall be published then in the great assembly, these were the persons who wrestled hard with their secret sins, that sought the face of God, and his strength, in their private chambers, and they are made more than overcomers through him that hath loved them. The poor trembling christian who lived this hidden and divine life, but scarce knew it himself nor durst appear among the churches on earth, shall lift up his head, and rejoice amidst the church triumphant; and the hidden seed of grace, that was watered with so many secret tears, shall spring up into a rich and illustrious harvest. This is the day which shall bring to light a thousand works of hidden piety, for the eternal honour of Christ and the saints; as well as the hidden things of darkness, to the sinners’ everlasting confusion; Mat. xxv. and 1 Cor. iv. 5.

Thus the spiritual life of christians, which was concealed in this world, shall appear in the other in full brightness; and they themselves shall be amazed to see what divine honours Jesus the Judge shall cast upon their poor secret services and sufferings.

But in what supreme glory shall their life display itself, when both parts of the human compound are rejoined after so long a separation! This is life eternal indeed, and joy unspeakable. How gloriously shall the perfections and honours, both of body and mind, unfold themselves, and rise far above all that they heard, or saw, or could conceive! Each of them surprized, like the queen of Sheba in the court of Solomon, shall confess with thankful astonishment and joy, that not one half of it was told them, even in the word of God. “And was this the crown,” shall the christian say, “for which I fought on earth at so poor and feeble a rate? And was this the prize for which I ran with a pace so slow and lazy? And were these the glories which I sought with so cold and indifferent a zeal in yonder world? O shameful indifference! O surprizing glories! O undeserved prize and crown! Had I imagined how bright the blessing was, which lay hidden in the promise, surely all my powers had been animated to a warmer pursuit. Could I have seen what I ought to have believed; had I but taken in all that was told me concerning this glorious and eternal life, surely I would have ventured through many deaths to secure the possession of it. O guilty negligence! and criminal unbelief! But thy sovereign mercy, O my God, has pardoned both, and made me possessor of the fair inheritance. Behold, I bow at thy feet for ever, and adore the riches of overflowing grace.” Amen.