It was a privilege (v/ho would not have longed to partake of it?) to have seen Him with our bodily eyes in. the days of his flesh, as did the apostles and other his disciples. Howbeit he was not then glorified himself in the manifestation of his glory ; nor they who saw him, m
384 THE GLORY OF CHRIST.
the change or transformation of their nature. How great this privi- lege was, himself declares unto those that so saw him, Matt. xiii. 1 7, " Verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see ; " whereunto we shall speak immediately. And if this were so excellent a privilege as that we cannot but congratulate them by whom it was enjoyed, how excellent, how glorious will it be, when with these eyes of ours, gloriously puri- fied and strengthened beyond those of Stephen, we shall behold Christ himself immediately in the fulness of his glory ! He alone perfectly understands the greatness and excellency hereof, who prayed his Father that those who " believe in him may be where he is, so to behold his glory."
These are some of the grounds of this first difference between our beholding the glory of Christ by faith here, and by immediate vision hereafter. Hence the one is weak, imperfect, obscure, reflexive ; the other direct, immediate, even, and constant ; — and we may stay a little in the contemplation of these things.
This view of the glory of Christ which we have now spoken unto, is that which we are breathing and panting after ; that which the Lord Christ prays that we may arrive unto ; that which the apostle testifies to be our best;— the best thing or state which our nature is capable of, — that which brings eternal rest and satisfaction unto our souls.
Here our souls are burdened with innumerable infirmities, and our faith is clogged in its operations by ignorance and darkness. This makes our best estate and highest attainments to be accompanied with groans for deliverance : " We which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop- tion, to wit, the redemption of our body," Rom. viii. 23. Yea, whilst we are in this tabernacle, we groan earnestly, as being burdened, be- cause we are not " absent from the body, and present with the Lord," 2 Cor. V. 2, 4, 8. The more we grow in faith and spiritual light, the more sensible are we of our present burdens, and the more vehemently do we groan for deliverance into the perfect liberty of the sons of God. This is the posture of their minds who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit in the most eminent degree. The nearer any one is to lieaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there. For the more frequent and steady are our views of him by faith, the more do we long and groan for the removal of all obstruc- tions and interpositions in our so doing. Now groaning is [the expres- sion of] a vehement deshe, mixed -with sorrow, for the present want of what is desired. The desire hath sorrow, and that soitow hath joy and refreshment in it ; — like a shower that falls on a man in a garden in the spring; it wets him, but withal refresheth him with the savour it causeth in the flowers and herbs of the garden where
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FAITH AND SIGHT OF IT. 385
lie is. And this groaning, which, when it is constant and habitual, is one of the choicest effects of faith in this Hfe, respects what we would be delivered from, and what we would attain unto. The first is expressed, Rom, vii. 24, the other in the places now mentioned. And this frame, with an intermixture of some sighs from weariness by the troubles, sorrows, pains, sicknesses of this life, is the best we can here attain unto.
Alas ! we cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts ; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect. Commonly they issue in a gToan or a sigh : Oh ! when shall we come unto him? when shall we be ever with him? when shall we see him as he is? And if at any time he begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of his glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds. But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world, — a trouble which, I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; j^ea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.
The heart of a believer affected with the glory of Christ, is like the needle touched with the loadstone. It can no longer be quiet, no longer be satisfied in a distance from him. It is put into a continual motion towards him. This motion, indeed, is weak and tremulous. Pantings, breathings, sighings, gToanings in prayer, in meditations, in the secret recesses of our minds, are the life of it. However, it is con- tinually pressing towards him. But it obtains not its point, it comes not to its centre and rest, in this world.