place, and bleffed with the fociety of angels there. What I will venture to fay of it, fhall be comprifed in three things. ift, The faints in heaven fhall have the glorious prefence of God, and of the Lamb: God himself shall be with them, Rev. xxi. 3. And they fhall ever be with the Lord. God is every-where prefent, in refpect of his effence; the faints militant have his fpecial gracious prefence: but in heaven they have his glorious prefence. There they are brought near to the throne of the great King, and stand before him, where he fhews his inconceivable glory. There they have the tabernacle of God, on which the cloud of glory refts, the all glorious human nature of Chrift, wherein the fulness of the Godhead dwells, not vailed as in the days of his humiliation, but fhining through that blessed flesh, (that all the faints may behold his glory) and making that body more glorious than a thousand funs: fo that the city has no need of the fun, nor of the moon, but the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, (properly, the candle thereof) Rev. xxi. 23. i. e. The Lamb is the luminary, or luminous body, which gives light to the city; as the fun and moon now give light to the world, or as a candle lightens a dark room: and the light proceeding from that glorious luminary, for the city is the glory of God. Sometime that candle burnt very dim, it was hid under a bushel, in the time of his humiliation; but that, now and then, it darted out fome rays of this light, which dazzled the eyes of the fpectators: but now it is fet on high, in the city of God, where it fhines, and fhall fhine for ever, in perfection of glory. It was fometimes laid afide, as a stone difallowed of the builders: but now it is, and for ever will be, the light or luminary of that city; and that, like unto a stone most precious, even like a jafper fone. clear as cryftal, ver. 11. Who can conceive the happiness of the faints, in the prefencechamber of the great King, where he fits in his chair of fate, making his glory eminently to appear in the man Chrift? His gracious prefence makes a mighty change upon the faints in this world: his glorious prefence in heaven then inuft needs fcrew up their graces to their perfection, and elevate their capacities. The faints do experience, that the prefence of God now with them in his grace, can make a little heaven of a fort of hell: how great then muft the glory of heaven be, by his prefence there in his glory! If a candle, in fome fort, beautifies a cottage or prifon, how will the fhining fun beautify a palace or paradife! The gracious prefence of God made a wilderness lightfom to Mofes, the valley of the fhadow of death to David, a fiery furnace to the three children: what a ravishing beauty fhall then arife from the fun of righteoufnefs, fhining in his meridian brightness on the street of the city laid with pure gold? This glorious prefence of God in heaven will put a glory on the faints themfelves. The pleafant garden hath no beauty, when the darkness of the night fits down on it; but the fhining fun puts a glory on the blackeft mountains: fo thefe whe State IV. who are now as bottles in the fmeak, when fet in the glorious prefence of God, will be glorious both in foul and body. 2dly, The faints in heaven fhall have the full enjoyment of God and of the Lamb.. This is it that perfectly Satisfies the rational creature; and here is the faints everlasting reft. This will make up all their wants, and fill the delires of their fouls, which after all here obtained, ftill cry, Give give, not without fome anxiety; because though they do enjoy God, yet they do not enjoy him fully. As to the way and manner of this enjoyment, our Lord tells us, John xvii. 3. "This is "life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and "Jefus Chrift whom thou haft fent." Now there are two ways, how a defirable object is known moft perfectly and fatisfyingly; the one'is by fight, the other by experience: fight fatisfies the understanding, and experience fatisfies the will. Accordingly one may fay, that the faints enjoy God and the Lamb in heaven, (1.) By an intuitive knowledge. (2.) By an experimental knowledge, both of them perfect, I mean, in refpect of the capacity of the creature; for otherwife a creature's perfect knowledge of an infinite Being is impoffible. The faints below enjoy God, in that knowledge they have of him by report, from his his holy word which they believe; they fee him likewife darkly in the glafs of ordinances, which do, as it were, reprefent the bridegroom's picture, or fhadow, while he is abfent: they have alfofome experimental knowledge of him, they taste that God is good, and that the Lord is gracious. But the faints above fhall not need a good report of the King, they fhall fee himself; therefore faith ceafeth: they will behold his own face; therefore ordinances are no more; there is no need of a glåfs: they fhall drink, and drink abundantly of that whereof they have tafted; and fo hope ceaseth, for they are at the utmost bounds of their defires. 1. The faints in heaven fhall enjoy God and the Lamb, by fight, and that in a most perfect manner, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. For now we fee through a glafs darkly; but then face to face. Here our fight is but mediate, as by a glass, in which we see not things themselves, but the images of things: but there we fhall have an immediate view of God and the Lamb. Here our knowledge is but obfcure; there it shall be clear without the least mixture of darkness. The Lord doth now converfe with his faints, through the latteffes of ordinances: but then fhall they be in the presence-chamber with him. There is a vail now on the glorious face, as to us: but when we come to the upper house, that vail, through which fome rays of beauty are now darted, will be found entirely taken off; and then thall glorious excellencies and perfections, not feen in him by mortals, be clearly difcovered, for we fhall fee his face, Rev. xxii. 4. The phrafe feems to be borrowed from the honour put on fome in the courts of monarchs, to be attendants on the king's perfon. We read, Jer. liii. 25. of feven men of them that were (Heb. Seers of the king's face, i. e. as we read it) near the king's perfan. O unfpeakable glory! the great King keeps his court in hea ven; and the faints fhall all be his courtiers, ever near the King's perfon, feeing his face. The throne of God and of the Lamb fhall be in it, and his fervants fhall ferve him, and they shall fee his face, Rev. xxii. 3.4. (1) They fhall fee Jefus Chrift with their bodily eyes, fince he will never lay afide the human nature. They will always behold that glorious bleffed body, which is perfonally united to the divine nature, and exalted far above principalities and powers, and every name that is named. There we will fee, with our eyes, that very body, which was born of Mary at Bethlehem, and crucified at Jerufalem betwixt two thieves; that bleffed head that was crowned with thorns; the face that was fpit upon; the hands and feet that were nailed to the crofs; all thining with unconceivable glory. The glory of the man Chrift will attract the eyes of all the faints, and he will be for ever admired in all them that believe, 2 Theff. i. 10. Were each flar, in the heavens, fhining as the fun in its meridian brightness, and the light of the fun fo increafed, as the ftars, in that case, fhould bear the fame proportion to the fun, in point of light, that they do now; it might poffibly be fome faint refemblance of the glory of the man Chrift, in comparison with that of the faints; for though the faints shall shine forth as the fun yet not they, but the Lamb thall be the light of the city. The wife men fell down, and worshipped him, when they faw him a young child, with Mary his mother, in the house. But O! what a ravishing fight will it be to fee him in his kingdom on his throne, at the Father's right hand! The Word was made flesh, (John i. 14.) and the glory of God fhall fhine through that flesh, and the joys of heaven fpring out from it, unto the faints, who fhall fee and enjoy God. in Chrift. For fince the union betwixt Chrift and the faints is never diffolved but they continue his members for ever; and the members cannot draw their life, but from their Head; feeing that which is dependent on the head, as to the vital influence, is no member: therefore Jefus Chrift will remain the everlasting bond of union betwixt God and the faints; from whence their eternal life fhall fpring, John xvii. 2,3."Thou haft given him power over all fleth, that he thould give "eternal life to as many as thou haft given him. And this is life eter❝nal, that they might know thee the only true God, &c. Ver 22, 23. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that << they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, "that they may be made perfect in one." Wherefore the immediate enjoyment of God in heaven is to be understood, in respect of the laying afide of word and facraments, and fuch external means, as we enjoy God by in this world; but not, as if the faints fhould then caft off their dependence on their Head for vital influences: nay, "the "Lamb which is in the midft of the throne, fhall feed them, and fhall "lead them untò living fountains of waters," Rev. vii. 17. Now when we fhall behold him, who died for us, that we might live for evermore, whofe matchlefs love made him fwim through the 292 Red Red-fea, of God's wrath, to make a path in the midft of it for us, by which we might pafs fafely to Canaan's land: then we will fee what a glorious One he was, who fuffered all this for us; what entertainment he had in the upper-house; what hallelujahs of angels could not hinder him to hear the groans of a perfhing multitude on earth, and to come down for their help: and what a glory he laid afide for us. Then will we be more "able to comprehend with all faints, what is the "breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth: and to know the love "of Chrift, which paffeth knowledge," Eph.iii. 19. When the faints fhall remember, that the waters of wrath he was plunged into, are the wells of falvation from whence they draw all their joy; that they have got the cup of falvation, in exchange of the cup of wrath his Father gave him to drink, which his finlefs human nature fhivered at: how will their hearts leap within them, burn with feraphick love, like coals of juniper, and the arch of heaven ring with their fongs of falvation? The Jews celebrating the feaft of tabernacles, (which was the most joyful of all their feafts, and lafted feven days) went once every day about the altar, finging hofanna, with their myrtle, palm and willow-branches in their hand, (the two former figns of victory, the laft of chastity) in the mean time bending their boughs towards the altar. When the faints are prefented as a chafte virgin to Chrift, and as conquerors have got their palms in their hands, how joyfully will they compafs the altar evermore; and fing their hofannas, (or rather their hallelujahs) about it, bending their palms towards it, acknowledging themfelves to owe all unto the Lanib that was flain, and redeemed them with his blood! and to this agrees what John faw, Rev. vii 9, 10. "A great multitude-ftood before the throne, and "before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palins in their "hands: and cried with a loud voice, faying, Salvation to our God "which fitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” (2.) They fhall fee God, Matth. v. 8. They will be happy in feeing the Father, Son, and holy Ghoft (not with their bodily eyes, in refpect of which God is invifible 1 Tim. i 17. but) with the eyes of their un derstanding; being bleft with the most perfect, full, and clear know. ledge of God and divine things, which the creature is capable of. This is called the beatifick vifion, and is the perfection of the understanding, the utmoft term thereof. It is but an obscure delineation of the glory of God, that mortals can have on earth; a fight, as it were of his back part, Exod. xxxiii. 23. But there they will fee his face, Rev. xxii. 4. They fhall fee him in the fulness of his glory, and behold him xedly; whereas it is but a paffing view they can have of him here, Exod. xxxiv. 6. There is a valt difference betwixt the fight of a king in his night-clothes, quickly paffing by us; and a fixed leifure view of him fitting on his throne in his royal robes, his crown on his head, and his feptre in his hand: fuch a difference will there be, between the greatest manifestation of God that ever a faint had on earth; and the difplay of his glory that fhall be feen in heaven. There the faints fhall 1 309 fhall eternally, without interruption, feed their eyes upon him, and be ever viewing his glorious perfections. And as their bodily eyes fhall be strengthened and fitted, to behold the glorious majesty of the man Chrift; as eagles gaze on the fun, without being blinded thereby : fo their minds fhall have fuch an elevation, as will fit them to fee God in his glory their capacities thall be enlarged, according to the measure in which he thall be pleased to communicate himself unto them for their compleat happiness. This blifsful fight of God, being quite above our prefent capacities, we must needs be much in the dark about it. But it seems to be fomething elfe, than the fight of that glory, which we will fee with our bodily eyes, in the faints and in the man Chrift, or any other fplendor or refulgence from the Godhead what foever: for no created thing can be our chief good and happiness, nor fully fatisfy our fouls; and it is plain, that these things are fomewhat different from God himself. Therefore I conceive, that the fouls of the faints thall fee God himfelf: fo the fcriptures teach us, that we fhall fee face to face, and know even as we are known, 1 Cor xiii. 12. And that we shall fee him as he is, 1 John iii. 12. Howbeit the faints can never have an adequate conception of God; they cannot comprehend that which is infinite. They may touch the mountain, but cannot grafp it in their arms. They cannot with one glance of their eye, behold what grows on every fide: but the divine perfections will be an unbounded field, in which the glorified fhall walk eternally, feeing more and more of God: fince they can never come to the end of that which is infinite. They may bring their veffels to this ocean every moment, and fill them with new waters. What a ravifling fight would it be, to fee all the perfections, and lovely qualities, that are scattered here and there among the creatures, gathered together into one! but even fuch a fight would be infinitely below this blissful fight the faints fhall have in heaven. For they fhall fee God, in whom all thefe perfections fhall eminently appear, with infinitely more; whereof there is no veftige to be found in the creature. Inn fhall they fee every thing defirable, and nothing but what is defirable. Then fhall they be perfectly fatisfied, as to the love of God towards them, which they are now ready to question on every turn. They will be no more fet to perfuade themselves of it, by marks, figns, and. teftimonies: they will have an intuitive knowledge of it. They fhall (with the profoundelt reverence be it fpoken) look into the heart of God, and there fee the love he bore to them from all eternity, and. the love and good-will he will bear to them for evermore. The glorified fhall have a moft clear and diftinct understanding of divine truths, for in his light we shall see light, Pfal. xxxvi. 9. The light of glory will be a compleat commentary on the Bible, and loofe all the hard and knotty queftions in divinity. There is no joy on earth, comparable to that which arifeth from the difcovery of truth; no difcovery of truth comparable to the difcovery of feripture-truth, made by tha |