Page:Best-match, or, The incomparable marriage between the Creator & the creature.pdf/12

( 12 ) We told you how this match was concluded and compleated by Chriſt; and now we ſay, there is a ſtated duty and time for the concluding thereof: and upon this head we may remark,

1ſt. That there is a twofold day we are to con- ſider in this marriage, namely, the day of eſpouſals on earth, and the day of conſummation in heaven; and we may compare theſe two together in a few words, 1. The day of eſpouſals here is uſhered in With a very dark morning, or rather an evening, upon the bride’s part, with the wrath of God, and the law. As it was ſaid, “The evening and the morning was the day;” ſo, in this contract, the evening of legal terrors, at leaſt ſome humiliation, uſhers in the morning: But as to the conſummation, there is a great deal of glory before it, the ſoul be- ing taken to heaven already, and the body ſleeping ſweetly in the grave, a bed where the Bridegroom lay three days before her. 2. In the day of eſpou- ſals, when the perſon gets a victory over corruption, and finds little ſtirring of it, no ſenſible working of it, yet there is a party within, at the ſame time, that oppoſe the match, and which will afterwards get out its head, and will be ſiill aſſaulting the believer, while he is on earth: But, in the day of conſum- mation, there is no ſuch thing; no enemy, no ſin, no corruption; but the whole ſoul goes out wholly upon the Bridegroom. 3. The eſpouſals are carried on ſecretly; it may be, the perſon is fitting at your ſide, and you do not ſee, nor know when Chriſt is making up the match; or, perhaps, on his knees at home, there is a ſecret tranſacton: But the con- ſummation will be before millions of angels, millions of ſaints, millions of ſpectaions. Here is a great dif- ference; after the day of eſpouſals is over, the bride may give in any qaint look to her old lovers, looking back to Egypt departing from her huſband, doubting