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upon the first resurrection, to see the appointed time of Christ, their 
Redeemer, reigning upon earth; to become subjects to this heavenly 
kingdom, and then, being sufficiently purified, at the final day of judgment, 
in a second resurrection, to mount up with the Lord to the third heaven, 
where “ God sits on his throne, and this is the habitation of his glory.” It 
is then “ that Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and the 
Son himself will be subject to the Father, that God may be all in all.” 
1 Cor. xv. 24.) 
It is matter of wonder to us now on earth, that the blessed Son of God, 
who is one with the Father, should stoop so low as to unite himself to a 
mortal nature, that he should become a poor despicable man, and pass 
through a life of sufferings and sorrows, and die an accursed death, to 
redeem us from guilt and deserved misery: but when we shall see him in 
his native glory and lustre, his acquired dignities, and all the honours of 
heaven heaped upon him, it will raise our wonder high, to think that such 
a one should once humble himself to the death of the cross, the death of the 
vilest slave, that he might save our souls from dying; that he should pour 
out his own blood to wash off the stains of millions of sins, that we might 
appear righteous before a God of holiness. Then shall the multitude of the 
saved join in that song, To him that loved us , and washed us from our sins 
in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever. Rev. i. 5, 6. Worthy is 
the Lamb that was stain to receive power , and riches , and honour, for thou 
hast redeemed us with thy blood from every hindred, tribe, and nation. 
Rev. v. 12. 
When we see a train of human pomp and grandeur, and long ranks of 
shining garments and equipage, it is ready to dazzle our eyes, and attract 
our hearts: vain pomp, and poor equipage, all this, when compared with 
the triumph of our blessed Lord, at his appearance with an endless army 
of his holy ones; where every saint shall be vested (not in silks and gold) 
but in robes of refined light, outshining the sun, such as Christ himself 
wore in the mount of transfiguration. Millions of suns in one firmament 
of glory. 
It is in the third heaven, where reigns the Father and the Son, 
where all the celestial hierarchies, and the innumerable hosts of angels, are 
represented as perpetually surrounding the seat of God with hallelujahs and 
hymns of praise. This is that presence of God which some of the divines 
call his glorious, and others his majestic, presence. He is indeed as 
