Let us now, on the other hand, take a little consideration of that vision which we shall have of the same glory in heaven, that we may compare them together.
Vision, or the sight which we shall have of the glory of Christ in heaven, is immediate, direct, intuitive; and therefore steady, even, and constant. And it is so on a double account: — 1. Of the object which shall be proposed unto us; 2. Of the visive jwwer or faculty wherewith we shall be endued : from the imperfection of both which in this world ariseth the imperfection of our ^dew of the glory of Christ by faith, as hath been declared.
1. The object of it will be real and substantial. Christ himself, in his own person, with all his glor}^, shall be continually with us, before us, proposed unto us. We shall no longer have an image, a repre- sentation of him, such as is the delineation of his glory in the Gospel. We " shall see him," saith the apostle, " face to face," 1 Cor. xiii. 12; — which he opposeth unto our seeing him darkly as in a glass, which is the utmost that faith can attain to. " We shall see him as he is,"
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1 John iii. 2 ; — not as now, in an imperfect description of him. As a man sees his neighbour when they stand and converse together face to face, so shall we see the Lord Christ in his glory ; and not as Moses, who had only a transient sight of some parts of the glory of God, when he caused it to pass by him.
There will be use herein of our bodily eyes, as shall be declared. For, as Job says, in our flesh shall we see our Redeemer, and our eyes shall behold him, chap. xix. 25-27. That corporeal sense shall not be restored unto us, and that glorified above what we can con- ceive, but for this gTeat use of the eternal beholding of Christ and his glory. Unto whom is it not a matter of rejoicing, that with the same eyes wherewith they see the tokens and signs of him in the sacrament of the siipper, they shall behold himself immediately in his own person ? But principally, as we shall see immediately, this vision is intellectual. It is not, therefore, the mere human nature of Christ that is the object of it, but his divine person, as that nature subsisteth therein. What is that perfection which we shall have (for that which is perfect must come and do away that which is in part) in the comprehension of the hypostatical union, I understand not ; but this I know, that in the immediate beholding of the person of Christ, we shall see a glory in it a thousand times above what here we can conceive. The excellencies of infinite wisdom, love, and power therein, will be continually before us. And all the glories of the person of Christ which we have before weakly and faintly in- quired into, will be in our sight for evermore.
Hence the ground and cause of our blessedness is, that " we shall ever be with the Lord," 1 Thess. iv. 17, — as himself prays, " that we may be with him where he is, to behold his glory." Here we have some dark views of it ; — we cannot perfectly behold it, until we are with him where he is. Thereon our sight of him will be direct, in- tuitive, and constant.
There is a glory, there will be so, subjectively in us in the behold- ing of this glory of Christ, which is at present incomprehensible. For it doth not jet appear what we ourselves shall be, 1 John iii. 2. Who can declare what a glory it will be in us to behold this glory of Christ ? And how excellent, then, is that glory of Christ itself !
This immediate sight of Christ is that which all the saints of God in this fife do breathe and pant after. Hence are they willing to be dissolved, or " desire to depart, that they may be with Christ," which is best for them, Phil. i. 23. They choose " to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 8 ; or that they may enjoy the inexpressibly longed-for sight of Christ in his glory. Those who do not so long for it, whose souls and minds are not frequently visited with earnest desires after it, unto whom the thoughts of it are
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not their relief in trouble, and their chiefest joy, are carnal, blind, and cannot see afar off. He that is truly spiritual entertains and refresheth himself with thoughts hereof continually.
2. It will be so from that visive power or faculty of beholding the glory of Christ which we shall then receive. Without this we can- not see him as he is. When he was transfigured in the mount, and had on his human nature some reflections of his divine glory, his disciples that were with him were rather amazed than refreshed by it. Matt. xvii. 6. They saw his glory, but spake thereon " they knew not what," Luke ix. 30-33. And the reason hereof was, because no man in this life can have a visive power, either spnitual or cor- poreal, directly and immediately to behold the real glory of Christ.