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Fatnefs of his House, and cause us to drink of the Rivers of his Pleasures; he shall not only fill us with his Treafures, enlighten us with his Brightnefs, cloath us with his Honours, and crown us with his Glory; but he himself will become our Meat and our Drink, our Treasure, our Sun and Glory: And if I may fo fpeak, to fatisfy and perfect our Happiness, God fhall as it were diffolve himself into Rivers and Seas of divine and unfpeakable Pleasures. But that I may not be mifunderstood in fuch bold and figurative Language,it fhall fuffice me to say with St.Paul, That God will be in us all in all; that is to fay, that he will dwell and make his Abode in us, in refpect of his Being; and that he will caufe us to feel in us his glorious Prefence as much as a finite and limited Nature, as ours, is capable of. What the Jews have invented of the Manna, which their Fathers fed on in the Wilderness, may juftly be appropriated to Almighty God, as he intends to reveal himself to us in Heaven. For there is no Taste but fhall be fatisfied, no Defire but fhall be fill'd. Moreover, God fhall be our Meat and our Drink, our Light, alfo our Cloathing, and all that we can imagine; in him, and his divine Enjoyments we fhall find beyond all that we can think or defire. The Knowledge of fpiritual and celestial Things, which we attain to here below is like the Breaking of the Day; and that we shall enjoy hereafter, fhall be like that of the Sun,when it fhines in our Meridian. But to speak in the Apostle's Language, Now we know in part, and we prophefy in part; but when that which is perfect shall come,then that which is in part, fhall be done away. For now we fee through a glafs darkly, but then we fhall fee bim Face to Face. Whilft we continue in this Life, God difcovers to us only the Borders of his Wifdom; we cannot underftand much of it. But in the Life to come, he fhall reveal to us the Depths of his glorious Myfteries, into which the Angels themselves defire to pry. In our Understandings, God shall be as a Sun, to enlighten them for ever and ever, and scatter away all

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Mifts of Errors and Miftakes. At prefent our Will hath its Imperfections, and oft-times it rebels against God; but then it shall be perfectly fanctified and reformed according to the Image of God. It fhall burn with an holy Zeal, and with a Love for him. It fhall defire nothing but his Glory, and a Conformity to his holy Will. It shall not only obey God without Refistance, but it fhall fly with an holy Earneftnefs and Speed, to the Performance of his Sacred Commands; whilft we remain in the Fetters of this infirm and finful Flesh, there is always fome Filth and Disorder in our Affections; but when we fhall come to this State of Glory, God will fanctify them in fuch a manner, by his Presence, that they fhall be purer and clearer than the Stars or the Sun-beams; they fhall become celeftial Fires and divine Flames, proceeding from God's Love to us. In a Word, that Being of Beings, who is Perfection itself, that Author and Origin of all Beauty, that Object to exceeding glorious and lovely, fhall ravifh us in fuch a manner, that our Underftandings fhall be continually employed in beholding him; our Wills and Affections in loving and embracing him; and all the Faculties of our Souls fhall labour to be united to him, and to be like him. It fhall be in this manner, that we fhall be made Partakers of the divine Nature. For we muft not fanfie that we fhall be made Partakers of God's infinite Being; for his divine Effence is indivifible, and uncommunicable to the Creature, fo that none but God can enjoy it. But God's Holinefs fhall imprint in our Souls its bleffed and glorious Image, and that of all its wonderful Perfections; when God fhall fhew himfelf to us as he is, he will caufe us to become like him, by producing in us an Impreffion of his divine Countenance.

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It may be you will enquire of me, Whether we fhall fee God, and how we fhall behold him? This Question is fo rich and confiderable, that it deferves to be examined with an holy and religious Application. I am perfuaded, Chriftians, that you will not be dif

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pleafed, not only to hear my Judgment, but that of the holy Scriptures, from whence we draw all our Inftruction, as out of a Fountain. Some imagine that God cannot be feen, neither in this Life, nor in the Life to come. Their Reafons are very ftrong and weighty; for Firft, God is of an invifible Nature. This Attribute is afcribed to him by the facred Writers ; as in the xith. of the Hebrews, the Apostle faith, that Mofes, by Faith, faw him who is invifible. And in the ift Epiftle to Timothy, in the first Chapter he faith, To the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the only wife God, be Honour and Glory for ever and ever, Amen. Secondly, We read in the xxxiiid of Exodus,when Mofes faid to God, I pray thee let me fee thy Glory; God anfwered him, thou canst not fee may Face, for no Man fhall ever fee my Face and live. Thirdly, St. John in the First Chapter of his Gospel speaketh thus; No Man bath feen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the Bofom of the Father, he bath declared him. Laftly, St. Paul feems to remove all Doubt; for he faith, not only That God alone bath Immortality, that he dwell's in a Light unto which no Man can approach, and that no Man bath ever feen him; but he faith more, that no Man can fee bim, Į Tim. vi.

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Others are of a contrary Opinion, That God may. be feen in this Life, but that in the Life to come he shall be seen more perfectly. That which encourageth this Opinion is, that God hath put into the Hearts of all his Children, an earnest Defire of feeing his Face, and that in this Contemplation they place their greateft Happiness and Glory. This was David's Defire, a Man after God's own Heart, in the fourth Pfalm, There be many that fay, who fhall fhew us any Good? Lord, lift thou up the Light of thy Countenance upon us. And in the xliid Pfal. My Soul thirfteth for God, for the living God,when shall I come and appear before God? This is the Defire alfo of the Prophet Afaph in the lxxxviith Pfalm,God of Hofts, caufe thy Face to fhine,and we shall be faved. Secondly, We have heard David fay, I fhall fee

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thy Face in righteousness,I shall be fatisfied,when I awake, with thy likeness, Pfal. xvii. And St. Paul promiseth that we shall fee God Face to Face. And St. John affures us, That we Jhall fee God as he is. Thirdly, In the xiith Chapter of Numbers, God fpeaks in this manner to Aaron and Miriam, who had murmured against their Brother Mofes; If there be a Prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a Vifion, and will speak unto him in a Dream; my fervant Mofes is not fo, who is faithful in all mine Houfe; with bim will I Speak Mouth to Mouth, even apparently, and not in dark Speeches, and the Similitude of the Lord fhall ke bebold. Lastly, We have heard the Voice from Heaven, that reprefents to us the bleffed State of the Glorified, faying, That they shall fee the Face of God.

If it were lawful for me to engage myfelf in fuch an high Meditation, which is above the Capacity of Men an Angels, I fhould declare to you in few Words, how it may be faid that we fhall fee God, and in what manner 'tis impoffible to behold him. But firft, we must take notice of two or three Diftinctions, which being well understood, will remove the principal Difficulties in this Question.

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First, God may be confider'd in three feveral Refpects; as he is in himself, and in his proper Being. 'Tis in this Respect, that our Souls earneftly long for him, and desire to draw near, and be united to him, as to their fovereign Good, and the bottomlefs Fountain of Glory and Happiness. Secondly, As he reveals and discovers himself on Earth, by certain Images and Tokens of his favourable Prefence. Thirdly, As he fhall manifeft himself in Heaven by the glorious Images and divine Marks of his Prefence.

Secondly, We must distinguish the several Kinds of Sight; for there is a Sight of the Body, which looks only upon the Objects, whereof the Images and Species are within the Reach and Capacity of our Eyefight, as are Colour and Light. There is the Sight of the Understanding, which fees and beholds the Things

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that are at a Distance from our Senfes, as the fpiritual and invisible Substances, and the effential Forms of the Body. There is alfo the Sight of Faith, which rifeth yet fomething higher than our Understandings; as 'tis during our Abode here below, when 'tis enlightned with God's divine Grace, it fees and beholds Things which the Eye of the Body never faw, and the fenfual Understandings of Men could never comprehend, as the Myfteries of Chriftian Religion, and the Powers of the World to come.

Laftly, We muft diftinguish the Knowledge of the Understanding, for fometimes 'tis obfcure and confused, at other times 'tis clear and diftinct. Moreover, that Knowledge which is the clearest and the most diftinct is of two Sorts, the one hath Bounds and Limits fuitable to its Subject, that is to fay, fuitable to the Ability and Reach of the Understanding; the other is abfolute, and of the fame Extent as its Object, that is to fay, as the Thing itself which the Understanding looks upon and beholds.

God, as he is in himself, and in his own Effence. and Being, hath never been seen by the Eye of the Body, and fhall never be, neither in this Life, nor in the Life to come; for God is a Spirit, and of an invifible Nature, 1 Tim. vi. In this Refpect St. Paul affirms, That God dwells in a Light which no Man can approach unto, that no Man bath ever feen bim, nor can fee bim, John iii. But this good God, who of himself is invifible, delights to fhew himself to his Creatures in feveral Ways.

Firft, God fhews himself to all Men, in the Works of the Creation of the great World; for as St. Paul faith in the first of the Romans, The invifible Things of God from the Creation of the World are clearly feen, being underflood by the Things that are made, even bis eternal Power and Godhead. Particularly, he hath given the Light, which is as his eldest Daughter, and the first of all outward Productions, and Image and Refemblance of him. For as there is nothing more ample,

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