1. With some he employs all his engines, useth all his methods of serpentine subtlety, and casts in his fiery darts, so to disquiet, dis- compose, and deject them, as that they can retain no comfortable views of Christ or his glory. Hence arise fears, doubts, disputes, un- certainties, with various disconsolations. Hereon they cannot appre- hend the love of Christ, nor be sensible of any interest they have therein, or any refreshing persuasions that they are accepted with Mm. If such things sometimes shine and beam into their minds, yet they quickly vanish and disappear. Fears that they are rejected and cast off by him, that he will not receive them here nor hereafter, do come in their place ; hence are they filled with anxieties and despondencies, under which it is impossible they should have any clear view of his glory.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FAITH AND SIGHT OF IT. 405
I know that ignorance, atheism, and obstinate security in sensual sins, do combine to despise all these things. But it is no new thing in the world, that men outwardly professing Christian religion, when they find gain in that godliness, should speak evil of the things which they know not, and corrupt themselves in what they know naturally, as brute beasts.
2. With others he deals after another manner. By various means he seduceth them into a careless security, wherein they promise peace unto themselves without any diligent search into these things. Hereon they live in a general presumption that they shall be saved by Christ, although they know not how. This makes the apostle so earnest in pressing the duty of self-examination on all Christians, 2 Cor. xiii. 5, " Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves : know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates 1 " The rule of self-judging prescribed by him is, whether Christ be in us or no ; and in us he cannot be, vmless he be received by that faith wherewith we behold his glory. For by faith we receive him, and by faith he dwelleth in our hearts, John i. 12; Eph. iii. 17.
This is the principal way of his prevailing in the world. Multi- tudes by his seduction live in great security under the utmost neglect of these things. Security is granted to be an evil destructive of the souls of men ; but then it is supposed to consist only in impenitency for great and open sins : but to be neglective of endeavouring an ex- perience of the power and grace of the gospel in our own souls, under a profession of religion, is no less destructive and pernicious than impenitency in any course of sin.
These and the like obstructions unto faith in its operations being added unto its own imperfections, are another cause whence our view of the gloiy of Christ in this world is weak and unsteady ; so that, for the most part, it doth but transiently affect our minds, and not so fully transform them into liis likeness as otherwise it would.
It is now time to consider that sight which we shall have of the glory of Christ in heaven, in comparison of that which we have here below. Now this is equal, stable, always the same, — without interrup- tion or diversion. And this is evident, both in the causes or means of it, as also in our perfect deliverance from every thing that might be a hinderance in it, or an obstruction unto it.
1. We may consider the state of our minds in glory. The facul- ties of our souls shall then be made perfect, Heb. xii. 23, " The spirits of just men made perfect." (1.) Freed from all the clogs of the ■flesh, and all its influence upon them, and restraint of their powers in their operations. (2.) Perfectly purified from all principles of in- stability and variety, — of all inclinations unto things sensual and car-
406 THE GLORY OF CHRIST.
nal, and all contrivances of self-preservation or advancement, — being wholly transformed into the image of God in spirituality and holi- ness. And to take in the state of our bodies after the resurrection ; even they also, in all their powers and senses, shall be made entirely subservient unto the most spiritual actings of our mmds in their high- est elevation by the light of glory. Hereby shall we be enabled and fitted eternally to abide in the contemplation of the gioiy of Christ with joy and satisfaction. The understanding shall be always per- fected with the vision of God, and the affections cleave inseparably to him ; — which is blessedness.
The very essential faculties of our souls, in that way and manner of working which, by their union with our bodies, they are confined unto, are not able to comprehend and abide constantly in the con- templation of this glory. So that, though our sight of it here be dim and imperfect, and the proposal of it obscure ; yet, from the weakness of our minds, we are forced sometimes to turn aside from what we do discern, as we do our bodily eyes from the beams of the sun when it shines in its brightness. But in this perfect state they are able to behold and delight in this glory constantly with eternal satisfaction.