The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded #3 — John Owen

The Danger of Earthly-Mindedness

THE GRACE AND DUTY OF BEING SPIRITUALLY MINDED BY DR. JOHN OWEN CONTINUED, TAPE THREE. And this lies the great danger of multitudes at this present season. For let men profess what they will. Under the power of this frame their eternal state is in hazard every moment, and persons are engaged in it in great variety of degrees, and we may cast them under two heads first.

Some do not at all understand that these things are amiss with them, or that they are much to be blamed. They plead, as was before observed, that they are all lawful things, which their hearts do cleave to, and which it is their duty to take care of and regard.

May they not delight in their own relations, especially at such a time when others break and cancel all duties and bonds of relation in the service of and provision they make for their lusts? May they not be careful in good and honest ways of diligence about the things of the world, when the most either lavish their time away in the pursuit of bestial lusts, or heap them up by deceit and oppression?

May they not contrive for the promotion of their children in the world, to add the other hundred or thousand pounds to their advancement, that they may be in as good condition as others, seeing he is worse than an infidel who provides not for his own family?

By such reasonings and secret thoughts do many justify themselves in their earthly mindedness, and so fixed they are in the approbation of themselves, that if you urge them to their duty, you shall lose their acquaintance, if they do not become your enemies for telling them the truth.

Yea, they will avoid one duty that lies not against their earthly interest, because it leads to another. They will not engage in religious assemblies, or be constant to their duty in them, for fear duties of charity should be required of them, or expected from them.

On what grounds such persons can satisfy themselves that they are spiritually minded, I don't know. I shall leave only one rule with persons that are thus minded. Where our love to the world has prevailed, by its reasonings, pleas, and pretenses, to take away our fear and jealousy over our own hearts, lest we should inordinately love it, it is assuredly predominant in us.

Mortification Requires Heavenly Affections

Secondly, others are sensible of the evil of their hearts, at least are jealous and afraid, lest it should be found that their hearts do cleave inordinately unto these things. Hence they endeavor to contend against this evil, sometimes by forcing themselves to such acts of piety or charity, as are contrary to that frame, and sometimes by laboring a change of the frame itself, especially they will do so when God is pleased to awaken them by trials and afflictions, such as write vanity and emptiness on all earthly enjoyments.

But for the most part they strive not lawfully, and so obtain not what they seem to aim at. This disease with many is mortal, and will not be thoroughly cured in any but by the due exercise of this part of spiritual mindedness.

There are other duties required also to the same end, namely of the mortification of our desires and affections to earthly things. But without this, or a fixed contemplation on the desirableness, beauty, and glory of heavenly things, it will not be attained.

Further to offence the truth of this, we may observe these two things first. If by any means a man do seem to have taken off his heart from the love of present things, and be not at the same time taken up with the love of the things that are heavenly, his seeming mortification is of no advantage to him.

So persons frequently, though discontent, disappointments, or dissatisfaction with relations, or mere natural weariness, have left the world, the affairs, and cares of it, as to their wanted conversations in it, and have betaken themselves to monasteries, convents, or other retirements, suiting their principles, without any advantage to their souls.

Secondly, God is no such severe Lord and Master as to require us to take off our affections from and mortify them to those things which the law of our nature makes dear to us as wives, children, houses, lands, and possessions, and not propose to us some of that is incomparably more excellent to fix them upon.

So he invites the elect of the Gentiles to Christ. Psalm 45 10. Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house, that is, come into the faith of Abraham, who forsook his country, and his father's house, to follow God, whithersoever he pleased.

But he proposes this for their encouragement. Verse 11. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him. The love of the great king is an abundant, satisfactory recompense for parting with all things in this world.

So when Abraham's servant was sent to take Rebekah for a wife to Isaac, he required that she should immediately leave father and mother, brothers, and all enjoyments, and go along with him. But with this, that she might know herself to be no loser by it.

He not only assured her of the greatness of his master, but also at present he gave her jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment. Genesis 24, 53. And when our Savior requires that we should part with all for his sake in the gospel, he promises a hundredfold in lieu of them, even in this life, namely, in an interest in things spiritual and heavenly.

Therefore, without an assiduous meditation on heavenly things as a better, more noble, and suitable object for our affections to be fixed on, we can never be freed in a new manner from an inordinate love of the things here below.

It is sad to see some professors who will keep up spiritual duties in churches and in their families, who will speak in discourse of spiritual things, and keep themselves from the open excesses of the world, yet when they come to be tried by such duties as entrench on their love and adherence to earthly things, quickly manifest how remote they are from being spiritually minded in a due manner.

Were they to be tried as our Savior tried the young man who made such a profession of as conscientious in religious conversation, Go, sell what thou hast, give to the poor, and follow me. Something might be pleaded in excuse for their targiversation, but alas, they will decline their duty when they are not touched to the hundredth part of their enjoyments.

I bless God I speak not thus of many of my own knowledge, and may say with the apostle to the most to whom I usually speak in this manner,. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.

Hebrews 6, 9. Ye, the same testimony may be given of many in this city, which the same apostle gives to the churches of Macedonia. 2 Corinthians 8, 1 -3. Understand, the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction and abundance of their joy in their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality.

For to their power, and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves. There has been nothing done amongst us that may or can be boasted of, yet considering all circumstances that may be, there have not been more instances of true evangelical charity in any age or place for these many years.

For them who have been but useful and helpful in this, O Lord, remember them for their good, and spare them according to the multitude of its mercies. It is true they have not, many of them, founded colleges, built hospitals, or raised works of state and magnificence.

For very many of them are such as whose deep poverty comparatively has abounded to the riches of their liberality. The backs and bellies of multitudes of the poor and needy servants of Christ have been warmed and refreshed by them, blessing God for them.

Thanks be unto God, saith the apostle in this case, for his unspeakable gift. 2 Corinthians 9 .15. Blessed be God, who has not left the gospel without this glory, nor the profession of it without this evidence of its power and efficacy.

Yea, God has exalted the glory of persecutions and afflictions for many, since they that have lost much of their enjoyments by them, and have all endangered continually, have abounded in duties of charity beyond what they did in the days of their fullness and prosperity.

So out of the eater there has come forth meat. And if the world did but know what fruits, in a way of charity and bounty, to the praise of God and glory of the gospel, have been occasioned by their making many poor, it would abate of their satisfaction in their successes.

But with many it is not so. Their minds are so full of earthly things, so cleaved to them in their affections, that no sense of duty, no example of others, no concernment for the glory of God or the gospel, can make any impressions on them.

If there be yet in them so much life and light of graces to design a deliverance from this woeful condition, the means insisted on must be made use of. Especially this advice is needful to those who are rich, who of large possessions are abound in the goods of this world.

The poor, the afflicted, the sorrowful, are prompted from their outward circumstances, as well as excited by inward grace, frequently to remember and to think of the things above in which lies their only reserve and relief against the trouble and urgency of their present condition.

But the enjoyment of these things in abundance is accompanied with a twofold evil, lying directly contrary to this duty, a desire of increase and adding thereunto. Earthly enjoyments enlarge men's earthly desires, and the love of them grows with their income.

A moderate stock of water, sufficient for our use, may be kept within ordinary banks. But if a flood be turned into them, they know no bounds, but overflow all about them. The increase of wealth enriches and enlarges the desire of men after them, beyond all bounds of wisdom, sobriety, or safety.

He that labors hard for his daily bread has seldom such earnest or vehement desires of an addition to what he has, as many have who already have more than they know how to use or almost what to do with.

This must have more, and the last advantage serves for nothing but to stir them up to look out for another. And yet such men would, on other accounts, be esteemed good Christians and spiritually minded, as all good Christians are.

They draw the heart to value and esteem them, as those which bring in their satisfaction and make them to differ from those whom they see to be poor and miserable. Now these things are contrary unto, in where they are habitually prevalent, inconsistent utterly with being spiritually minded.

Nor is it possible that any who in the least degree are under their power can ever attain deliverance unless their thoughts are fixed on, and their minds thereby possessed, with due apprehensions of invisible things and eternal glory.

Right Notions of Future Glory

These are some few of those many advantages which we may obtain by fixing our thoughts and meditations, and by this our affections on the things that are above. And there are some things which make me willing to give some few directions for the practice of this duty.

For whatever else we are and do, we neither are nor can be truly spiritually minded, whereon life and peace depend, unless we do really exercise our thoughts to meditations of things above. Without it all our religion is but vain.

And as I fear men are generally lacking and defective in this in point of practice, so I do also that many, through the darkness of their minds, the weakness of their intellectual ability, and ignorance of the nature of all things unseen, do seldom set themselves to the contemplation of them.

I shall, therefore, give some few directions for the practice of this duty. Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded. Chapter Six. DIRECTIONS TO THE EXERCISE OF OUR THOUGHTS ON THINGS ABOVE, THINGS FUTURE, INVISIBLE AND ETERNAL, ON GOD HIMSELF, WITH THE DIFFICULTIES OF IT, AND OPPOSITIONS TO IT, IN THE WAY OF THEIR REMOVAL, RIGHT NOTIONS OF FUTURE GLORY STATED.

We have treated in general before, of the proper objects of our spiritual thoughts as to our present duty. That which we were last engaged in is, in a special instance, in heavenly things, things future and invisible, with the fountain and spring of them all in Christ, in God Himself.

And because men generally are unskilled in this, and great difficulties arise in the way of the discharge of this part of the duty in hand, I shall give some special directions concerning it. First, possess your minds with right notions and apprehensions of things above, and of the state of future glory.

We are in this duty to look at the things which are not seen. 2 Corinthians 4 .18. It is by faith only in which we have a prospect of them, for we walk by faith and not by sight. And faith can give us no interest in them unless we have due apprehensions of them.

For it does but assent and cleave to the truth of what is proposed to it. And the greatest part of mankind do both deceive themselves and feed on ashes in this manner. They fancy a future state which hath no foundation but in their own imaginations.

Therefore the apostle directing us to seek and mind the things that are above, adds for the guidance of our thoughts the consideration of the principal concernment of them, where Christ sits on the right hand of God.

Colossians 3 .1 -2. He would lead us into distinct apprehensions of those heavenly things, especially of the presence of Christ in its exaltation and glory. Therefore the true notion of the things which we are to possess our minds with may here be considered.

First, all that have an apprehension of a future state of happiness do agree in this manner, that it contains in it, or is accompanied with, a deliverance and freedom from all that is evil. But in what is so they are not agreed.

Many esteem only those things that are grievous, troublesome, wasting, and destructive to nature to be so. That is, what is penal in pain, sickness, sorrow, loss, poverty, with all kinds of outward troubles, and death itself are evil.

Therefore they suppose that the future state of blessedness will free them from all these things if they can attain to it. This they will lay in the balance against the troubles of life, and sometimes it may be against the pleasures of it which they must forego.

A person's profane and profligate will, in words at least, profess that heaven will give them rest from all their troubles. But it is no place of rest for such persons. To all others also, to believers themselves, these things are evil, such as they expect a deliverance from in heaven and glory.

And there is no doubt, but it is lawful for us and me that we should contemplate on them as those which will give us a deliverance from all outward troubles, death itself, and all that leads thereto. Heaven has promised us rest to them that are troubled, 2 Thessalonians 1 .7.

It is our duty, under all our sufferings, reproaches, persecutions, troubles, and sorrows, to raise up our minds to the contemplation of that state in which we shall be freed from all. It is the blessed notion of heaven that God shall therein wipe away all tears from our eyes.

Revelation 7 .17. A remove far from us all causes of sorrow, and it would be to our advantage if we did accustom our minds more to this kind of relief than we do. If upon the incursion of fears, dangers, sorrows, we did more readily retreat to thoughts of that state in which we shall be freed from them all, even this most inferior consideration of it would render the thoughts of it more familiar, and the thing itself more useful to us.

Much better it were than on such occasions to be exercised with heartless complaints, uncertain hopes, and fruitless contrivances. But there is that which, to them who are truly spiritually minded, hath more evil in it than all these things together, and that is sin.

Heaven is a state of deliverance from sin, from all sin, and all the causes, concomitments, and effects of it. He is no true believer to whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow, and trouble. Other things, as the loss of dear relations or extraordinary pains, may make deeper impressions on the mind by its natural affections, if some seasons than ever our sins did at any one time in any one instance.

So a man may have a great trouble and sense of pain by a fit of the toothache, which will be gone in an hour, than in a hectic fever or consumption, which will assuredly take away his life. But take in the whole course of our lives, and all the actings of our souls, in spiritual judgment as well as in natural affection, and I do not understand how a man can be a sincere believer to whom sin is not the greatest burden and sorrow.

Therefore in the first place it belongs to the true notion of heaven that it is a state in which we shall be eternally freed from sin and all the concernments of it, but only through the exaltation of the glory of God's grace in Christ by the pardon of it.

He that truly hates sin and abhors it, whose principal desire and design of life is to be freed from it so far as it is possible, who walks in self-abasement through a sense of as many disappointments when he hopes it should act in him no more, cannot, as I judge, but frequently betake himself for refreshment to thoughts of that state in which he shall be freed from it and triumph over it to eternity.

This is a notion of heaven that is easily apprehended and fixed on the mind, in which we may dwell on unto the great advantage and satisfaction of our souls. Frequent thoughts and meditations on heaven under this notion do argue a man to be spiritually minded, for it is a convincing evidence that sin is a burden to him, that he longs to be delivered from it and all its consequences, that no thoughts are more welcome to him than those of that state in which sin shall be no more.

And all men are troubled about their sins, and would desirously be freed from them, so far as they perplex their minds and make their consciences uneasy. Yet if they are not much in the prospect of this relief, if they find not refreshment in it, I fear their trouble is not such as it ought to be.

Therefore when men can so wrangle and wrestle with their convictions of sin, and yet take up the best of their relief in hopes that it will be better with them at some time or other in this world, without longing desires after that state in which sin shall be no more, they give no evidence that they are spiritually minded.

It is quite otherwise with sincere believers in the exercise of this duty, that consideration of the grace and love of God, of the blood of Christ, of the purity and holiness of that good spirit that dwells in them, of the light, grace, and mercy which they have attained through the promises of the gospel, are those which make the remainders of sin most grievous and burdensome to them.

This is that which even breaks their hearts and makes some of them go mourning all the day long. Namely, that anything of that which alone God hates should be found in them, or be remaining with them.

It is in this condition and evidence that they are spiritually minded, if together with watchful endeavors for the universal mortification of sin and utter excision of it, both root and branch, they constantly add these thoughts of that blessed estate in which they shall be absolutely and eternally freed from all sin, with refreshment, delight, and complacency.

These things belong to our direction for the fixing of our thoughts and meditations on things above. This the meanest and weakest person who has the least spark of sincerity and grace is capable of apprehending and able to practice, and it is that which the sense they have of the evil of sin will put them on every day, if they shut not their eyes against the light of the refreshment that is in it.

Let them who cannot rise in their minds to fixed and stable thoughts of any other notion of these invisible things dwell on this consideration of them, in which they will find no small spiritual advantage and refreshment to their souls.

Competing Visions of Heavenly Blessedness

Secondly, as to the positive part of this glorious future state, the thoughts and apprehensions of men are very various, and that we may know as well what to avoid as what to embrace, we shall a little reflect on some of them.

First, many are able to entertain no rational conceptions about a future state of blessedness and glory, no notions in which either faith or reason is concerned. Imagination they have of something that is great and glorious, but what it is they know not.

No wonder such persons have no delight in, no use of thoughts of heaven. When their imaginations have fluctuated up and down in all uncertainties for a while, they are swallowed up in nothing. Glorious and therefore desirable, they take it for granted that it must be.

But nothing can be so to them but what is suitable to their present dispositions, inclinations, and principles. And hereof there is nothing in the true spiritual glory of heaven or in the eternal enjoyment of God.

These things are not suited to the will of their minds and of their flesh, and therefore they cannot rise up unto any constant desires of them. Hence to please themselves they begin to imagine what is not, but whereas what is truly heaven pleases them not.

And what does please them is not heaven nor there to be found. They seldom or never endeavor in good earnest to exercise their thoughts about it. It were well if darkness and ignorance of the true nature of the future state and eternal glory did not exceedingly prejudice believers themselves as to their delight in them and meditations about them.

They have nothing fixed or stated in their minds which they can betake themselves to in their thoughts when they would contemplate about them. And by the way, whatever doth divert the minds of men from the power and life of spiritual worship, as do all pompous solemnities in the performance of it, does greatly hinder them as to right conceptions of a future state.

There was a promise of eternal life given to saints under the Old Testament. But whereas they were obliged to a worship that was carnal and outwardly pompous, they never had clear and distinct apprehensions of the future state of glory, for life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel.

Wherefore, although no man living can see or find out the infinite riches of eternal glory, yet it is a duty of all to be acquainted with the nature of it in general, so as that they may have fixed thoughts of it, love to it, earnest desires after it, all under its own true and proper notion.

Secondly, so great a part of mankind as the Mohammedans, to whom God has given all the principal and most desirable parts of the world to inhabit and possess, do conceive the state of future blessedness to consist in the full satisfaction of their sensual lusts and pleasures.

And evidence of this is that the religion which they profess has no power or efficacy on their minds to change them from the love of sin, or from the place in their happiness in fulfilling the desires of the flesh.

It does not at all enlighten their minds to discern a beauty in spiritual things, nor excite their affections to the love of them, nor free the soul to look after blessedness in such things as alone are suited to its rational constitution.

For if it did, it would place their happiness and blessedness in them. Therefore it is nothing but an artifice of the God of this world to blind the eyes of man to their eternal destruction. Thirdly, some of the philosophers of old did attain an apprehension that the blessedness of man in another world does consist in the full satisfaction in the goodness and beauty of the divine nature.

And there is a truth in this notion, which contemplative men have adorned with excellent and rational discourses, and a number who have been and are learned among Christians have greatly improved this truth by the light of the Scripture.

From reason they take up with thoughts of the goodness, the amiableness, the self-sufficiency and the all-sufficient satisfactoriness of the infinite perfections of the divine nature. These things shine in themselves with such a glorious light, that there is no more required to a perception of them, but that men do not willfully shut their eyes against it through bestial sensuality and love of sin.

From reason also do they frame their conceptions concerning the capacity of the souls of man for the immediate enjoyment of God, and what is suited in this to their utmost blessedness. No more is required to these things, but a due consideration of the nature of God in man, with our relation to him, and dependence on him.

By the light of the Scripture they frame these things into that which they call the beatifical vision, in which they intend all the ways in which God, in the highest and immediate instances, can and doth communicate of himself to the souls of man, and the utmost elevation of their intellectual capacities to receive those communications.

It is such an intellectual apprehension of the divine nature and perfections, with ineffable love, it gives the soul the utmost rest and blessedness which its capacities can extend to. These things are so, and they have been by many both piously and elegantly illustrated.

However, they are above the capacities of ordinary Christians. They know not how to manage them in their minds, nor exercise their thoughts about them. They cannot reduce them to present usefulness, nor make them subservient to the exercise and increase of grace.

And the truth is, the Scripture gives us another notion of heaven and glory, not contrary to this, not inconsistent with it, but more suited to the faith and experience of believers, and which alone can convey a true and useful sense of these things to our minds.

This therefore is diligently to be inquired into, and firmly stated in our thoughts and affections. Fourthly, the principal notion which the Scripture gives us of the state of heavenly blessedness, and which the meanest believers are capable of improving in daily practice, is that faith shall be turned into sight, and grace into glory.

We walk by faith and not by sight, saith the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 5 .7. Therefore this is the difference between our present and our future state, that sight hereafter shall supply the room of faith, 1 John 3 .2.

And if sight come into the place of faith, then the object of that sight must be the same with the present object of our faith. So the Apostle informs us in 1 Corinthians 13 .9, 10, and 12,. We know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Though things which we now see darkly is in a glass, we shall have an immediate sight and full comprehension of.

For that which is perfect must come and do away that which is in part. What then is the principal present object of faith, as it is evangelical, and to whose room sight must succeed? Is it not the manifestation of the glory of the infinite wisdom, grace, love, kindness and power of God in Christ, the revelation of the eternal counsels of His will, and the ways of their accomplishment, to the eternal salvation of the church in and by Him, with the glorious exaltation of Christ Himself?

Therefore in the full satisfactory representation of these things to our souls, received by sight, or a direct immediate intuition of them, does the glory of heaven principally consist. We behold them now darkly, as in a glass, that is, the utmost which by faith we can attain to in heaven, they shall be openly and fully displayed.

The infinite incomprehensible excellencies of the divine nature are not proposed in Scripture as the immediate object of our faith, nor shall they be so to sight in heaven. The manifestation of them in Christ is the immediate object of our faith here, and shall be our sight hereafter.

Only through this manifestation of them we are led, even by faith, ultimately, to acquiesce in them, as we shall in heaven be led by love perfectly to adhere to them with delight ineffable. This is our immediate objective glory in heaven.

We hope for no other, and this, if God will, I shall shortly more fully explain. Whoever lives in the exercise of faith, and has any experience of the life, power and heavenly things, to whom they are a spring of grace and consolation, they are able to meditate on the glory of them in their full enjoyment.

Think much of heaven, as that which will give you a perfect view and comprehension of the wisdom and love and grace of God in Christ, with those other things which shall be immediately declared. Some, perhaps, will be ready to say that if this be heaven they can see no great glory in it, no such beauty as from which it should be desired.

It may be so, for some have no instrument to take a view of invisible things but carnal imaginations. Some have no light, no principle, no disposition of mind or soul in which these things are either acceptable or suitable.

Some will go no further in the consideration of the divine excellencies of God and the faculties and actings of our souls and reason will guide them, which may be of use. But we look for no other heaven.

We desire none but what we are led to and prepared for by the light of the gospel, that which shall perfect all the beginnings of God's grace in us, that which shall be quite of another nature and destructive of them.

We value not that heaven which is equally suited to the desires and inclinations of the worst of men as well as of the best, for we know that they who like not grace here neither do nor can like that which is glory hereafter.

No man who is not acquainted experimentally of some measure with the life, power and evidence of faith here has any other heaven in his aim but what is erected in his own imagination. The glory of heaven which the gospel prepares us for, which faith leads and conducts us to, which the soul of believers long after, is that which will give full rest, satisfaction and complacency, is a full, open, perfect manifestation of the glory of the wisdom, goodness and love of God in Christ and his person and mediation, with a revelation of all his counsels concerning them and the communication of their effects unto us.

He that likes it not, to whom it is not desirable, may betake himself to Mohammed's paradise or the philosopher's speculations. In the gospel heaven he has no interest. These are the things which we see now darkly as in a glass by faith, and the view of them are our souls gradually changed into the likeness of God, and the comprehension of them is that which shall give us our utmost conformity and likeness to him in which our natures are capable.

In the sense and experience of their reality and goodness given us by the Holy Ghost do all our spiritual consolations and joys consist. The effects produced by them in our souls are the first fruits of glory.

Our light, sense, experience and enjoyment of these things, however weak and frequently interrupted, our apprehensions of them, however dark and obscure, are the only means in which we are made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

To have the eternal glory of God in Christ, with all the fruits of his wisdom and love, whilst we are ourselves under the full partition of the effects of them, immediately, directly revealed, proposed, made known unto us in a divine and glorious light, our souls being furnished with the capacity to behold and perfectly comprehend them, this is a heaven which, according to God's promise, we look for.

But, as was said, these things shall be elsewhere more fully treated of. It is true that there are a number of other things in particular that belong to the state of glory, but what we have mentioned is a fountain and spring of them all.

We can never have an immediate enjoyment of God in the immensity of his nature, nor can any created understanding conceive any such thing. God's communications of himself to us and our enjoyment of him shall be in and by the manifestation of his glory in Christ.

He who can see no glory, who is sensible of no blessedness in these things, is a stranger unto that heaven which the Scripture reveals and which faith leads to. It may be inquired, what is the subjective glory, or what change is to be wrought in ourselves that we may enjoy this glory?

Now, that consists principally, as to our souls, in the perfection of all grace which is initially wrought and subjectively resides in us in this world. The grace which we have here shall not be done away as to its essence and nature, though somewhat of it shall cease as to the manner of its operation.

What soul could think with joy of going to heaven, if thereby he must lose all his present light, faith, and love of God, though he be told that he should receive that in lieu of them which is more excellent, and which he has no experience, nor can understand of what nature it is?

When the saints enter into rest, their good works do follow them. And how can they do so if their grace do not accompany them from whence they proceed? The perfection of our present graces, which are here weak and interrupted in their operations, is a principal imminency of the state of glory.

Faith shall be heightened into vision, as was proved before, which doth not destroy its nature, but cause it to cease as to its manner of operation toward things invisible. If a man have a weak, small faith in this life, with little evidence and no assurance, so that he doubts of all things, questions all things, and has no comfort from what he doth believe, if afterward, through supplies of grace, he has a mighty prevailing evidence of the things believed, is filled with comfort and assurance, this is not by a faith or grace of another kind than what he had before, but by the same faith raised to a higher degree of perfection.

When our Saviour cured a blind man, and gave him his sight, Mark 8, at first he saw all things obscuredly and imperfectly, he saw him in his trees walking, verse 24. But on another application of virtue to him, he saw every man clearly, verse 25.

It was not a sight of another, which he then received, and which he had at first, only its imperfection, in which he saw him in his trees walking, was taken away. Nor will our perfect vision of things above be a grace absolutely of another kind, from the light of faith which we here enjoy.

Only what is imperfect in it will be done away, and it will be made fit for the present enjoyment of things here in a distance, and invisible. Love shall have its perfection also, and the least alteration in its manner of operation, of any grace whatever.

And there is nothing that should more excite us to labour after a growth in love to God and Christ than this, that it shall to all eternity be the same in its nature, and in its operations. Only both the one and the other shall be made absolutely perfect.