Doct 2. That faith is for earth, and sight is for heaven.
So the apostle sorteth these two. Here we believe in God, and there we see him as he is. As soon as we are reconciled to him, God will not admit us into his immediate presence ; as Absalom, when he had leave to return, yet he could not see the king's face, 2 Sam. xiv. 24. So God causeth us to stay a while in the world ere we come before him in his heaveifly temple.
1. Because now we are in our minority, and all things are by degrees carried on towards their state of perfection ; as an infant doth not pre- sently commence into the stature of a man. In the course of nature there is an orderly progress from an imperfect state to a perfect. The dispensations of God to the church. Gal. iv. And the apostle compareth our estate in glory and our estate by grace to childhood and manly age, 1 Cor. xiii. 11, 12. Our words, inclinations, affections, are quite
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changed in the compass of a few years, so as we neither say, nor desire, nor understand anything as some years before we did. So it is with this and the next life : now our vision is very dark and imperfect, looking upon things when they are showed us as tlirongh a glass, on purpose to give us a glimpse of them ; but when we come to heaven, we shall see perfectly, as we see a person or thing that is before our eyes.
2. We are now upon our trial, but then we are in termino, in our final state ; now we are in our way, but then we are in our country. There- fore now we walk by faith, but then by sight ; God would not give us our reward here. A trial cannot be made in a state of sense, but in a state of faith : we are justified by faith ; we live by faith ; we walk by faith. This state of faith requireth that the manner of that dispen- sation by which God governeth the world should neither be too sen- sible and clear, nor too obscure and dark, but a middle thing, as the daybreak or twilight is between the light of the day and the darkness of the night ; that as the world is a middle place between heaven and hell, so it shoidd have somewhat of either. If all things were too clear and liable to sense, we should not need faith ; if too obscure, we should wholly lose faith ; therefore it is neither night nor day, but towards the evening. If the godly should be presently admitted to their happi- ness, and have all things according to heart's desire, it would make religion too sensible a thing, not fit for that kind of government which God will now exercise in the world : Heb. vi, 12, ' But followers of them who through faith and patience have inherited the promises ;' and James i. 12, ' Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.' Every man must be tried, and approved faithful upon trial, and then God will admit him into his presence.
3. There is no congruity between our present state and the beatifi- cal vision ; the place is not fit, nor the persons.
[1.] The place is not fit, because it is full of changes. Here time and chance happeneth to all, and there is a continual succession of night and day, calm and tempest, winter and summer. There is neither all evil nor only evil, not all good nor all blessing, but a mixture of either. The world to come is either all evil or all good. This is a fit place for our exercise, but not for our enjoyments. Here is the patience of the saints, but there is the reward of the saints. It is a fit place to get an interest in, but not a possession. It is God's foot- stool, but not his throne, Isa. Ixvi. 1. Now he will not immediately show himself to us till we come before the throne of his glory. He manifesteth himself to the blessed spirits as a king sitting in his royal robes upon his throne, but the church is but his foot-stool ; as he fill- eth the upper part of the world with his glorious presence, so the lower part with his powerful presence. This is a place wherein God will show his bounty to all his creatures, a common inn and receptacle for sons and bastards, a place given to the children of men, but the heaven of heavens he hath reserved for himself and his people, Ps. cxv. 16.
[2.] The persons are not fit. Our souls are not yet enough purified
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to see God, Mat. v. 8 ; 1 John iii. 3. Till sin be done away, which will not be till death, we are unmeet for his presence. When Christ will present us to God, he will present us faultless before the presence of his glory, Jude 28. Our bodies also are not fit till we have passed the gulf of death. We are not able to bear eternal happiness. Old bottles will not hold the new wine of glory ; a mortal creature is not capable of the glorious presence of God, and cannot endure the splen- dour of it : Mat. xii. 6, ' They fell on their faces, and were sore afraid.' Upon any manifestation of God the saints hide themselves: Elijah wrapt his face in a mantle ; Moses himself, when God gave the law, trembled exceedingly.