166 A GLANCE OF UEAVEN.
common illumination to understand and discover things, and a doctrinal gift to unfold things for others, and not for themselves. For themselves they scorn them in their hearts, and in their lives and conversations, and they will speak as much when it comes to self-denial in preferment, in pleasures, in anything that is gainful. Tusli ! tell him what ho hath taught, or what he knows out of the hook of God, he cares not, he knows them only hy a common light ; but for a particular heavenly light with application and taste to himself, springing from an alteration by the Spirit, he never knows them so. Therefore content not thyself with a common light, for together with our understanding God alters the taste of the whole soul ; he gives a new eye, a new ear, to see and hear to purpose, and a new heart to conceive things in another manner than he did before.
But you will ask, How can a godly man know them at all, seeing ' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,' &c. '?
I answer, first, the things of another life, as we see here, are hioim by negation, as God is, by way of removing imperfections. The natural eye sees them not, nor the natural ear hears them not, &c. No ; nor the spiritual eye nor ear in a full measure. So things transcendent, that are above the reach of man, are described in the Scriptures by the way of denial, which is one good way of knowledge.
That ' ye may know the love of God that is above knowledge,' saith the apostle, Eph. iii. 19 ; that ye may know it more and more. But it is above all knowledge in regard of the perfection of it. As a man may see the sea, but he cannot comprehend the sea. He may be much delighted in seeing the sea, but he sees neither the bottom nor the banks ; he can- not comprehend such a vast body. He may see the heavens, but he can- not comprehend them. So a man may know the things when they are revealed, but he cannot comprehend them ; apprehension is one thing, and comprehension is another. There may be apprehension in a poor degree, suitable to the capacity of the soul here ; but, alas ! * it is far from the comprehension that we shall have in heaven. That is one way of knowing them, by way of negation and denial of imperfections to them.
And then, secondhj, they are known, as we call it, by way of eminence ; that is, by comparing them with other things, and preferring them before all other excellencies whatsoever ; as we may see the sun in water by resemblance. For God borrows from nature terms to set out grace and glory, because God will speak in our language. For they are called a ' kingdom' and a ' feast,' and a ' crown' by way of comparison. Shallow men think there is a great deal in a kingdom ; and indeed so there is, if there were no other. There is great matters in a ' crown,' in ' the feasts' of kings, and the like. But alas ! these be shadows ; and there is no rhe- toric or amplification in this, to say they be shadows. A shadow is as much in proportion to the body as these are to eternal good things. The true reality of things are in the things of another world, for eternity. If we talk of a kingdom, let us talk of that in heaven ; if of a crown, of that wherewith the saints are crowned in heaven. If we talk of riches, they are those that make a man eternally rich ; that he shall carry with him when he goes out of the world. What riches are those that a man shall outlive, and die a beggar, and not have a drop to comfort him, as we see Dives in hell had not? Luke xvi. 19, seq. Here are riches indeed. So if we talk of beauty, it is the image of God that sets a beauty on the soul, that makes a man lovely in the eye of God. True beauty is to be * Cf. footnote, page 163.— Q.
A GLANCE OF HEAVEN. 167
like God. And to be born anew to that glorious condition is the birth and inheritance. All these poor things are but acting a part upon a stage for a while, as the proudest creature of all that is invested in thcui will judge ere long ; none better judges than they. This is one way of knowing the things of the gospel, by naming of them in our own language. As if a man go into a foreign country, he must learn that language, or else hold his peace : so God is forced to speak in our own language, to tell us of gloiy and happiness to come, under the name of crowns and kingdoms, and riches here. If God should set them out in their own lustre, we could not conceive of them.
But, thinlh/, the most comfortable way whereby God's people know the things of heaven, and of the life to come, is in regard of some taste; for there is nothing in heaven but God's children have a taste of it before they come there in some measure. They have a taste of the communion that is in heaven, in the communion they have on earth : they have a taste of that eternal Sabbath, by some relish they have of holy exercises in these Christian Sabbaths. A Christian is as much in heaven as he can be, when he sanctifies the holy Sabbath, speaking to God in the congregation by prayer, and hearing God speak to him in the preaching of the word. That peace that we shall have in heaven, which is a peace uninterrupted, with- out any disturbance, it is understood by that sweet peace of conscience here ' that passeth all understanding,' Eph. iii. 19. We may know, there- fore, what the sight of Christ face to face will be, by the sight we have of Christ now in the word and promises. If it so transform and aifect us, that sight that we have by knowledge and faith here, what will those sights do ? So that by a grape we may know what Canaan is : as the spies, they brought of the grapes of Canaan into the desert. We may know by this little taste what those excellent things are.