Religion & morality > Human nature in its four-fold state ... in several practical discourses

Head V, God and the Lamb. 535
je£t is known moft perfe&ly and fatisfyingly • the
one is by Sight, the othet by Experience: Sight
fatisfies the Underftanding, and Experience fatif-
fies the Will. Accordingly one may fay, that the
Saints enjoy God and the Lamb in Heaven, (i.) By
an intuitive Knowledge. (2.) By an experimental
Knowledge, both of them perfect, I mean, in re-
fpeft of the Capacity of the Creature; for other-
wife a Creature’s perfeft Knowledge of an infinite
Being is impoflible. The Saints below enjoy God,
in that Knowledge they have of him by Report,
from his holy Word, which they believe ; they
fee him likewife darkly in the Glafs of Ordinances,
which do, as it were, reprefent the Bridegroom’s
Pifture, or Shadow, while he is abfent : They have
alfo fome experimental Knowledge of him, they
tafte that God is good, and that the Lord is gra¬
cious. But the Saints above fhall not need a good
Report of the King ; they lhall fee himfelf ,• there¬
fore Faith ceafeth : They’ll behold his own Face ;
therefore Ordinances are no more, there’s no Need
of a Glafs. They lhall drink, and drink abun¬
dantly of that, whereof they have tailed; and fo
Hope ceafeth, for they are at the utmoft Bounds of
their Defires.
I. The Saints in Heaven lhall enjoy God and
the Lamb, by Sight, and that in a moft perfect
Manner, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. For now we fee through a
Glafs darkly; hut then Face to Face. Here our Sight
is but mediate, as by a Glafs, in which we fee
not Things themfelves, but the Images of Things :
But there we lhall have an immediate View of God
and the Lamb. Here our Knowledge is but ob-
icure ; there it lhall be clear without the leaft
Mixtute of Darknefs. The Lord doth not con-
verfc