they fee cleareft, fee only through a Glass darkly. Were thefe things lefs Excellent, we fhould be better able to difcern, and to defcribe them: but then, in proportion as they came more within our Comprehenfion, they would in their own Nature be lefs worthy of our Love. For God hath fet Bounds to the Faculties of our Mind, as well as to the Organs of our Sight; and, in both Cafes, made fome Objects, of which we have no juft and adequate Perception. Now this comes to pass, not from the Smallness, but the exceeding Greatness, not from the Darkness, but the too ftrong and dazling Light, of the thing we would be glad to fee. We must therefore look upon the things not feen, as the more defirable, upon that very confideration. It is with Thefe, as with God himself; Their Glory is not to be approached by any Man; not by any in the prefent Condition, and while we carry thofe Defects about us, which the Wisdom of Him that made us, hath thought fit for Souls incumbred with Flesh and Blood. We must wait with Patience for that happy Change, which fhall clear and take off the Darkness of our Glafs; bring us nearer, and acquaint us intimately well with thofe Glories, which to have brought down to our Capacity, in the profpect here, had been to abate our Happiness, in the Enjoyment hereafter. And we have reafon to be content with that little of them in comparison, which may be feen at prefent; Since they, who murmur for want of more, do in effect repine at being Men; than which nothing can be more impious. They find fault, that God defigns to make them happier than they can ask or think, than which nothing can be more ungrateful and abfurd. Efpecially, if the little we do or may know, be fo wifely fuited to our Circumftances, that nothing needful, either to our Duty, or our Intereft, is wanting. And, that fuch is the Cafe in this matter, I fhall briefly endeavour to make plain, by confidering, I 2. Se and Value of that Happiness. It being with this, as with the Nature of God himself, that the Perfection and Excellence of the thing is chiefly reprefented in negative Terms; because, as hath been often faid already, the pofitive Defcription of fo noble a Bliss is at prefent too exalted a Subject for our Underftandings. Thefe, employing themselves upon things fuitable to a State of Frailty and Mortality, and being acted upon by Impreffions of Senfe, are forced to judge of, and do moft easily apprehend, thofe Privileges, by Comparifons. Thus the Importunity of our Wants is fo preffing, and the Labour and Anxiety for fupplying them fo perpetual a Burthen, that it could not but be a proper Method of recommending Heaven, by saying, that the Bleffed Above do neither hunger nor thirst any more. The Calamities that embitter our Lives are fo various, the Paffions that disorder and difquiet our Minds, fo tumultuous and violent, that a Deliverance from these is a Mercy moft fenfible to Men, who groan under fuch burthen and flavery; and therefore it may well make us in love with thofe Regions of Tranquillity, that there Tears shall be wiped away from all Rev. vii. 16. xxi. 4. eyes, and there fhall be no more forrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, because the former things are paffed away. The Poffeffions of this World are fo flippery a Tenure, and our own Continuance in it fo fhort, and fo uncertain; that it must needs affect us, to confider, how great a difference to our Advantage there is, in a Crown incorruptible; a Treafure and Inheritance that fadeth not away: Bags that wax not old: True Riches, which the Ruft corrupteth not, • and the Thief cannot approach: Afoy that no man taketh from us; a continuing City, everlafting Habitations; and when the earthly Houfe of this Tabernacle, the Body, fall 1 Cor. ix. 25. I Pet. i. iv. Luke xii. 33. Heb. xiii. 14. be be diffolved, a Building of God; a House not made with bands, eternal in the HeaA new and better Cloathing for our Souls, which out-wears Time it felf, and, fwallows up Mortality in Life. vens. 2 Cor. v. 1, 4. Now, when the Condition of glorified Saints is in this manner reprefented to us; we are not from hence by any means to fuppofe, that the utmost of their Happiness consists in a mere State of Ease and Indolence. But, because the Dangers and the Miferies, the Fears and Frailties, the Sorrows and Sufferings, of this present Life are, in a greater or lefs degree, the Lot and Burthen common to all Mankind; an entire Deliverance from, and standing clear out of the reach of these, is a Defcription, that comes nearest home to the Feeling of every Man, and fuch as his own Circumstances, when confidered, teach him to make a true Estimate of. By thefe alone we are fecure of a State after Death, infinitely to be preferr'd before that, of which we are apt to be now fo inordinately fond. But the Scripture does not rest here. It mentions, as I have formerly obferved, many Ingredients of that Blifs hereafter. But none more comprehenfive, none more defirable, than That, which I have propounded for the Subject of my Epifle for the Innocents Day. II. Second Head; And which is expreffed by the Apostle in these Words, We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall fee him as be is. In fpeaking to which, I fhall very briefly enquire, 1. What is meant by Seeing God as he is. 2. How this gives us an Affurance of being like him: And 3. Wherein that Likeness, so far as at prefent we know of it, may be supposed to confist. Matth. v. 8. 1. That the Seeing of God implies very great Bliss, no doubt can be made by Heb. xiv. 4. any, who recollect, that Good Men are pro its Luftre. Hereby we are taught to expect a full Degree of Evidence, that will exclude all manner of doubt or diffatisfaction; as the highest Certainty is that, which comes from feeing with our own Eyes. Hereby the most tranfporting Joy that can be, as now thofe Objects move and affect us more, which are perceived by Sight, than by any other Senfe. Hereby, in a Word, all the Advantage that our Nature, when moft exalted, can have, to capacitate it for larger Happiness, and all the Happiness we can enjoy, when fitted up for Enjoyment, to gratify and fill all those Capacities. And, if the Men on Earth do, by long Time and Travel, from the imperfect Discovery of fome beloved Truth, feel a Satisfaction, to which all the Pleasures of the moft indulgent Epicure are as nothing What can we think muft be the Joy, the Gaiety, the Triumphs, of thofe Souls, who fee, in God, the Truth and Excellencies of all Things, as in their common Source and Centre? who behold the fair Beauty of the Lord, continually feeing all that is lovely, and loving all they fee, and poffeffing all they love; and being wrought themselves into the most intimate Union with, the most defirable Refemblance of the adorable Perfections of Him, who is thus, in Himself, and to Them, All in All? For that's the next Thing I promised to enquire into, the Confequence of, or at least the Happiness concomitant with, this Vifion of God, implied in those Words of St. John, before us, We know that we shall be like him, for we fhall fee him as he is. The meaning of these may either be, that there is a neceffity of our being made like God, in order to our attaining to fuch a fight of him in the next Life, as hath already been explained: Or elfe, That the being admitted to fuch a Sight of God, will have this certain Effect, of drawing us to a nearer refemblance of Him, than it is poffible for us, at present, to to come up to. Concerning each of these I shall speak very briefly. Wifd. ix. 15. First, We may depend upon being like God hereafter, because he hath promised such a Sight of Himfelf to us, as that Likeness is a neceffary Preparation for. The Wiseman hath obferved most truly, that the corruptible Body presses upon the Soul, and this earthly Tabernacle weigheth down the Mind, distracted with many Thoughts. The Knowledge Men arrive to in this Condition, does, for the greatest part, depend upon fenfible Images; and we find it exceeding hard, fo to abftract our Thoughts from Matter, as to difcourfe, with any Accuracy, of things, which are not thus represented to our Minds. Hence, as I took notice, it comes to pass, that these things are chiefly known to us by Negatives; feparating from our Idea of them fome of thofe Imperfections, which we find and feel in others of a groffer Substance; and aiming at fome tolerable Perception of them, by Figures and Refemblances, borrowed from fuch as are moft familiar to us. To give us therefore a Capacity of knowing God, our Minds must be put into another Frame, our Faculties exalted, and the Objects we contemplate imparted to us, after a way different from what they now are. This we have ground to infer, from the Condition of our Souls at prefent, that they hereafter will fee and understand after another manner, though we cannot determine precifely, what particular manner that shall be. And, as it is with the Knowledge of these things, so we may rationally conclude it to be, with regard to the Relifh of, and Satisfaction from them. To heighten this, it is requifite that thofe Difficulties and laborious Methods, thofe very flow and painful advances be removed, which now are fuch Checks to our Studies of this kind, and render them fo dry and difcouraging, to the greater part of Mankind. N And |