Religion & morality > Human nature in its fourfold state

I Head V. The Saints Admission into the Kingdom. 395
and upon the other everlasting misery. Now our Lord
bids the worst of sinners, who hear the gospel, Come; but
the most part will not come unto him. Some few, whose
hearts are touched by his spirit, do embrace the call, and
their souls within them say, “ Behold, we come unto thee
they give themselves to the Lord, forsake the world and
| their lusts for him; they bear his yoke, and cast it not off,
i no not in the heat of the day, when the weight of it, per¬
haps, makes them sweat the blood out of their bodies. Be¬
hold the fools! saith the carnal world, whither are they
going ? But stay a little, O foolish world! From the same
mouth, whence they had the call they are now following,
another call shall come which shall make amends for all.
“ Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom.”
The saints shall find an inexpressible sweetness in this
call, to come. (1.) Hereby Jesus Christ shews his desire
of their society in the upper house, that they may be ever
with him there. Thus he will open his heart unto them,
as sometimes he did to his Father concerning them, saying,
“ Father, I will that they—be with me, where I am,”
John xvii. 24?. Now the travail of his soul stands before
the throne, not only the souls, but the bodies he has re¬
deemed ; and they must come, for he roust be completely
satisfied. (2.) Hereby they are solemnly invited to the
marriage supper of the Lamb. They were invited to the
lower table by the voice of the servants, and the secret
workings of the Spirit within them ; and they came and
did partake of the feast of divine communications in the
lower house: but Jesus Christ in person shall invite them,
before all the world, to the higher table. (3.) By this he
admits them into the mansions of glory. The keys of hea¬
ven hang at the girdle of our royal Mediator. All power
in heaven is given to him, (Matth. xxviii. 18.), and none
get in thither but whom he admits. When they were liv¬
ing on earth, with the rest of the world, he opened the
everlasting doors of their hearts, entered into them him¬
self, and shut them again ; so as sin could never re-enter,
to reign there as formerly: and now he opens heaven’s
doors to them, draws his doves into the ark, and shuts
them in there; so as the law, death and hell, can never
get them out again. The saints in this life were still
labouring to enter into that rest; but Satan was always