II. I shall show what that gain is which blessed spirits departed do enjoy. I confess we should rather labour to obtain it than scrupulously to define it. When we get up thither, we shall understand it better.
Here I shall show you — (1.) What this blessed state is ; (2.) The comfortable adjuncts of it; (3.) That we lose nothing but what is made up.
1. What it is.
[1.] Privatively.
(1.) A freedom from all misery. Death is a haven of rest after storms and tempests : Rev. xiv. 13, ' Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ; they rest from their labour.' Here the church's name is ' 0 thou afflic- ted and tossed with tempests ! ' but there is our haven. Here, alas ! are tossings and shakings : Job xiv. 1, ' Man, that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.' It is well they are few, because so full of trouble. A tired man would fain go to rest. Nay, it is for our
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profit that there are troubles (it being so natural to us to be led by sense), to imbitter our present estate ; but there are no more then : here there are not only outward afflictions, molestations, death of friends and dear relations, sorrow, crying, sighing, pains ; but then ' God will wipe away all tears from our eyes/ Rev. xxi. 21. But also there are inward troubles by reason of doubts, temptations, corruptions, defects, and weaknesses. How many cloudy days doth a christian pass over in the world ! What damps of heart, conflicts with Satan ! But there we enter into our master's joy, Mat. xxv. 21. There is no serpent in the upper paradise.
(2.) Freedom from sin : then sin shall be wholly subdued when they die, for death is the last enemy, 1 Cor. xv. 26. If sin continued after death, death would not be the last enemy. There we are brought to God as a proof of Christ's death : Eph. v. 27, ' That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish ; ' Jude 24, ' And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory ; ' Col. i. 22, ' To present you holy, and unblamable, and unreprovable, in his sight.' Alas ! what a trouble have we with sin ! Rom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' If any man had cause to complain of afflictions, Paul had ; in perils often, whipped, scourged, imprisoned, stoned. Oh, but this body of death ! His lusts troubled him more than scourges, and this captivity to the law of sin more than prisons. We are sinning here while others glorify God. Here we are born in sin, and after the new birth much corrup- tion still remains in us. Dejectum, non ejectum ; sin is cast down, not cast out. But death works a perfect cure ; it puts off all our sins at once.
[2.] Positively.
(1.) The vision of God : 1 Cor. xiii. 12, ' But now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face : now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known ; ' 1 John iii. 2, ' But we know when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' Here we know little of him, only his track, shadow, picture ; but there face to face. In the church there is only hearing of him by the ear, but in heaven there will be seeing. Now we know God only by hearsay, but see him not ; still to Oelov is atcaraXrjTrTov, the divine nature is incomprehensible ; angels clap their wings, and cover their faces. Finite cannot comprehend infinite, no more than a cockle-shell can the ocean.
(2.) The full fruition of God. Here, 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory ; ' but there much more : 1 John iii. 2, ' We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is ; ' by it we become like him. In a stamp impressed, the wax receiveth only the form and figure, without any real quality, as a golden seal leaveth no tincture of gold, nor a brazen seal the property of brass. In a glass, besides figure and proportion, there is a representation of motion, but no other real qualities. But here, as iron in the fire seeni- eth to be fire, we are like him in holiness and happiness. There is in God to fxaicdpLov kcu to ayaOov, happiness and holiness ; these are communicated to us.
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(1st.) In holiness; we love him everlastingly, as God loveth himself. Moses, by conversing with God, his face shone. We love little because we know little. To love God out of a participation of the same nature, the lowest is to love him out of interest, the highest out of a principle of holiness ; not because good and bountiful, but because holy. "While sight is weak, holiness is weak ; and while holiness is weak, love is imperfect ; for holiness is nothing in effect but love. We wander after other things, but this love is expressed by receiving, delighting, lauding, praising him for evermore.