Look Up to God
Direction VI. Look up to God, who is the glory of heaven, and the light, and life, and joy of souls, and believe that you are going to see his face, and to live in the perfect, everlasting fruition of his fullest love among the glorified. If it be delectable here to know his works, what will it be to see the cause of all? All creatures in heaven and earth conjoined, can never afford such content and joy to holy souls, as God alone! Oh if we knew him whom we must there behold, how weary should we be of this dungeon of mortality! and how fervently should we long to see his face! The chicken that comes out of the shell, or the infant that newly comes out of the womb, into this illuminated world of human converse, receives not such a joyful change, as the soul that is newly loosed from the flesh, and passes from this mortal life to God.
One sight of God by a blessed soul, is worth more than all the kingdoms of the earth. It is pleasant to the eyes to behold the sun; but the sun is darkness and useless compared to his glory. "And the city had no need of the sun, nor of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof," Revelation 21:23. "And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads: and there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, nor light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever," Revelation 22:3-5.
If David in the wilderness so impatiently thirsted to appear before God in his sanctuary at Jerusalem, Psalm 42, then how earnestly should we long to see his glory in the heavenly Jerusalem! The glimpse of his back parts, was as much as Moses might behold, Exodus 34, yet that much put a shining glory upon his face, verse 9 and 30. The sight that Stephen had when men were ready to stone him, was a delectable sight, Acts 7:55, 56. The glimpse of Christ in his transfiguration ravished the three apostles that beheld it, Matthew 17:2, 6. Paul's vision which rapt him up into the third heavens, did advance him above the rest of mankind!
But our beatific sight of the glory of God, will very far excel all this. When our perfected bodies shall have the perfect glorious body of Christ to see, and our perfected souls shall have the God of truth, the most perfect uncreated light to know, what more is a created understanding capable of? And yet this is not the top of our felicity; for the understanding is but the passage to the heart or will, and truth is but subservient to goodness: and therefore though the understanding be capable of no more than the beatific vision, yet the man is capable of more; even of receiving the fullest communications of God's love, and feeling it poured out upon the heart, and living in the returns of perfect love; and in this intercourse of love will be our highest joys, and this is the top of our heavenly felicity. Oh that God would make us foreknow by a lively faith, what it is to behold him in his glory, and to dwell in perfect love and joy, and then death would no more be able to dismay us, nor should we be unwilling of such a blessed change! But having spoken of this so largely in my "Saints' Rest," I must stop here, and refer you thither.
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