(±) Secondly, As in heaven they shall have the clearest knowledge of God, so in heaven they shall have the fullest knowledge of God. Here our knowledge of God is weak, as well as dark, but in heaven it shall be full and complete. ' Here we know but in part; but there we shall know as we are known,' 1 Cor. xiii. 12. As the apostle speaks, here we are able to take in but little of God, either sin or Satan, or else fears, doubts, and scruples, or else the pleasures or profits, the comforts or contents of this wrorld doth so defile the soul, and so fill the soul, that it is able to take in but very little of God. ' How little a portion/ saith Job, ' is heard of him !' Job xxvi. 14. It is but a portion, a little por- tion, that we can conceive of him. The Hebrew is ^°^, shemets, par- ti en lam, a little bit, nay, it is said, *12"1 ¥»C? shemets dabar, particulam verbi, a little piece of a word, or particulam alicnjus, a little piece of something, that we do hear of him. 'I have many things to say unto you,' sai th Christ, ' but ye cannot bear them now,' John xvi. ] 2.3 Man is a poor, Low, weak creature, and is not able to bear an}' great or full discoveries of God. As weak shoulders cannot bear heavy burdens, nor weak sto- machs digest strong meats; no more were they able to bear the revela- tion of many high, spiritual, precious, and glorious truths, that Christ was willing to discover to them. Those that have weak eyes, or that have a blemish in their eyes, cannot discern things aright. Now we have all weak eyes, we have all one blemish or another in our eye, which hinders us from a full sight and knowledge of God, and of his excellency and glory. Oh ! but now in heaven, we shall have a full and perfect knowledge of God; there shall be no sore eyes, no clouds, no mists to hinder us from a full sight of the Sun of righteousness.4 Here our understandings shall be full of the knowledge of God, our minds full of the wisdom of God, our wills full of the righteousness and holi- ness of God, and our affections full of the love and delights of God.
1 Augustine, W>. </<■ spir., .jr. c. lvii. 2 Bernard, Meditat. c. iv.
1 I (or. iii. 1-:? ; Eeb. v. 12-14.
4 Our knowledge of God now is rather negative than positive; we know not so well what God is, as what he is not ; as that he is not a man, as that lie is not changeable, & Now it is ohserved to our hand, ex puris negativis nihil coticluditur, that from pure ueg tivea there can be no certain conclusion made.
1 Peter 1. 4.] a string of pearls. 421
Here we have but weak and shallow apprehensions of God, but there, as Bernard speaks sweetly, Deus implebit animam rationcdem sapii n- tia, concupiscibilem justitia, irascibilem perfecta tranquillitate, God will fill the soul with light of wisdom, the concupiscible faculty with righteousness, the irascible with perfect tranquillity.
If a man did dwell within the body of the sun, surely he would be full of light ; if a man did dwell in the midst of a fountain, surely he would be rilled with that fountain ; so when the saints come to heaven, they shall dwell as it were in the body of the Sun of righteousness; and therefore they cannot be but full of light; they shall dwell in the midst of the fountain of life ; and therefore they shall sure be full of the fountain. But,
(3.) Thirdly, The sight and knowledge that we shall have of God in heaven, will be immediate, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Here our knowledge of God is mediate ; here we see him, but it is either through the glass of his word, or the glass of his works.1 Sometimes through the glass of his word God shews himself; sometimes through the glass of prayer God gives some representation of himself to his people; sometimes through the glass of the Lord's supper he discovers some rays and beams of his glory. All the sight and knowledge that we have of God in this world is through some cdass or other. Now there is a vast difference between seeing an object directly, immediately, and in its own proper colours, and beholding it through a glass. The sight of an object through a glass is very weak and unsatisfying. One direct view of the Lord, one immediate sight of God, will infinitely transcend all those sights and views that we have had in this world, either through the glass of his word, or the glass of his works, either through the glass of ordinances, or the glass of the promises, or the glass of providences, Mat. v. 8. One real direct sight of a friend or relation, doth more cheer, quiet, and satisfy us, than a thousand representations of them in glasses, or by their pictures. In heaven we shall see God face to face, without the interposition of men or means ; and this direct and immediate sight of God, is that which makes heaven to be heaven to the saints. All the glory of heaven would be but a poor low thing in the eye of a saint, had he not a direct and immediate sight of God there. In heaven all mediums shall be removed, all glasses shall be broken, and the glorified saint shall behold God with open face ; all curtains being for ever with- drawn from between God and the soul. Good souls in heaven are like good angels, who are still beholding the face of God, Mat. xviii. 10. As God is still a-looking upon them as the jewels of his crown, so they are still crying and looking upon God as their heaven, yea, as their great all, and that by a direct and immediate act of their souls. But,
(4.) Fourthly and lastly, The sight and knowledge that they shall have of God in heaven, shall be permanent and constant. Now saints have a happy sight of God, and anon they have lost it ; this hour they have a precious sight of God in the mount, and the next hour they have lost this sight. ' Behold, he that should comfort my soul stands afar off,' Lam. i. 16 ; and 'he hath covered himself with a cloud, that our prayers cannot pass through,' Lam. iii. 44. Our visions of God here are
1 God is a supersubstantial substance, an understanding not to be understood, a word never to be spoken. — Dionys. Areop. de divin. Nom c. 1.