Part 102 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 103 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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[1.] First, There are diversities of degrees of angels in heaven. There are cherubim and seraphim, and there are angels and archangels. Now the cherubim and seraphim are a lower rank and order of angels, and the archangels are a higher rank and order of angels. And the apostle speaks clearly of several ranks and orders of invisible creatures in that Col. 1:16. Here you have an enumeration of thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. And so in Eph. 1:21, "Far above all principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion." These principalities and powers are the blessed angels who minister before the Lord, and who are subordinate unto one another; and here they are reckoned up by ascending: power is above principality, and might above power, and dominion above might. To define those orders and degrees of angels with which God is environed, is a work too high and hard for me, and though the Papists and several schoolmen are so bold as to define their particular offices and orders—yet I dare not be wise above what is written. Where the Scripture is silent—I love to be silent; and where the Scripture has no tongue—there I desire to have no ears. [Mat. 9:34, and 12:34; Mark 3:22. The very supposition of order supposes inequality and disproportion.]
There is an order in HELL, an order among the devils, and therefore you read in three scriptures of the prince of devils, and so much also that expression imports that you have in that Mat. 25:41, "The devil and his angels," which intimates a prince among those unclean and damned spirits. Now shall there be order in hell and confusion in heaven? Shall there be order among the evil angels, and shall there not much more be order among the good angels? Certainly that God who is the God of order, and who has made all things in order, and who to this day keeps all things in order here below—will never allow the least disorder and confusion to be among those princes of glory who stand continually before him. He who denies order in heaven, denies heaven to be heaven; and he who grants order in heaven, grants degrees of glory in heaven. Though there is no difference between the angels in nature—the angelical nature being alike in all—yet in office, there is a great deal of difference in the glory of the angels, for God employs some of the heavenly host in more high, noble, and excellent services than others, and answerable thereunto shall their reward be. Though all angels shall share alike in the essential and substantial glory of heaven—yet there is an additional glory, an overplus of glory, which shall be conferred upon the angels, answerable to the several and various services that they have managed and engaged in.
Now the Scripture tells us plainly that "in heaven we shall be like the angels," Mat. 22:30; and therefore if there be degrees of angels, and if the angels in heaven shall have a different glory and reward, according to the work in which they have been employed, then the glory of the saints in respect of degrees shall be different also. But,
[2.] Secondly, There are degrees of torments in hell, and therefore, by the rule of contraries, there shall be degrees of glory in heaven. Now that there are degrees of torments in hell is most evident from several plain scriptures, as from Mat. 10:14-15, "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town. I assure you: It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town." Sodom and Gomorrah shall have an easier and cooler hell than such cities shall have, which have despised the offers of grace, and the offers of mercy. [Contempt of Christ and his gospel, is worse than sodomy.] It is very observable, that the punishments that God in this life has inflicted upon the Jews for their contempt of Christ, and his everlasting gospel, have been more terrible than his raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah: for suddenly, and in a moment, God consumed them, and burnt Sodom and Gomorrah up. But God has for above this sixteen hundred years been a-raining hell out of heaven upon the Jews; he has for a long time vexed them with all manner of adversity, and to this very day he has made them, all the world over, a spectacle of his dreadful severity. But all those plagues and punishments that the Jews have been and still are under, are but flea-bitings and scratches on the hand—compared to those dreadful and astonishing judgments which God, in the great day of account, will inflict upon all Christ refusers and gospel-despisers! "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." John 3:36
And so chapter 11:20-23, "Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day!" The more mercy has been upon the bare knee entreating sinners to repent, the more earnest the Lord Jesus has been in wooing sinners to believe on him and to resign up themselves wholly and only to him, the more clearly and sweetly the everlasting gospel has sounded in sinners' ears, and the more near, and the more often heaven has been brought to sinners' doors—and yet they have bid defiance to all, and hardened themselves in their sins—with the greater violence and with the more dreadful vengeance shall such be plunged into the lowest hell.
And so in Mat. 23:14, "Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore you shall receive thegreater damnation." Hypocrites shall be double damned; the hottest and the darkest place in hell is reserved for them. "Give him his portion with hypocrites;" for number and weight, there are no torments in hell, compared to the torments of hypocrites. Counterfeit sanctity is double iniquity, and therefore it is but justice that the hypocrite should have double torment.
And so in Luke 12:47, 48, "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants, will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Sins against light and knowledge are sins against the noblest remedy. They waste and wound the conscience most, they most open sinners' mouths to blaspheme against God, and they most harden sinners' hearts in sinning against God; and every way they dare God most, and provoke God most—to strike with an iron rod, and to whip the knowing transgressor, not with rods, but with scorpions.
It is very observable, that the more light and knowledge men sin against in this world—the greater judgments God gives them up to, even in this life, Romans 1:21-23. Oh, how much more, then, will God in the great day give them up to the greatest judgments, who have given themselves up to the greatest sins! Certainly the professors of this age, yes, of this city, whether they go to heaven or hell, will be the greatest debtors that shall be in either place—the one to the free grace of God, and the other to his justice. That those who have most of hell in their mouths, and most of hell in their hearts, and most of hell in their lives—should have most of hell in their souls at last, is but justice.
I shall conclude this second argument with a saying of Augustine, "Look!" says he, "as in heaven one is more glorious than another—just so, in hell one shall be more miserable than another." Now if there be degrees of torments in hell, which I suppose the scriptures but now cited does undeniably prove, then, doubtless, there will be degrees of glory in heaven.
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Part 103 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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