much more perfect operations than we have, (whose effects we mortals find here below,) why should I, that find an intellective nature in myself, make any doubt of my more perfect operations when I am dismissed hence, being satisfied that a soul will not lose its simple essence? Either those superior spirits have ethereal bodies to act in (or are such themselves) or not. If they are or have such, why should I doubt of the like, and think that my substance or vehicle will not be according to the region of my abode? If not, why should I think that my departed soul may not know or see without an igneous or ethereal body or vehicle, as well as all those worlds of spirits? And the certainty of apparitions, possessions, and witches, do tell us, not only that there are such inhabitants of other regions, ordinarily invisible to us, but also that we are in the way to that happiness or misery which is in our invisible state.

These things reviewed, (being partly mentioned before,) assuring me that I shall have actual intellection in my separated state, the region, with the objects, but, above all, the Holy Scriptures, will tell me, as much as it is meet that I should here know, what it is that I shall intuitively understand. The apostle (1 Cor. xiii. 10-12.) doth distinguish our knowing in part, and knowing perfectly, knowing as a child, and as a man, knowing darkly and enigmatically, as in a glass, and knowing face to face as we are known. The great question is, when this time of perfection is; whether he mean at death, or at the resurrection. If the observation of Dr. Hammond and Mr. Beverly, in his Great Soul of Man,' hold, that avάsadis in Scripture, when the flesh or body' is not joined with it, signifies that life which the soul doth enter upon immediately after our death, and so that the soul hath that (after living) which is signified by the very word which we translate resurrection, then it will lead men to think that there is less difference between man's state at his first departure, and at his last resurrection, than most think, even than Calvin himself thought. But the difference between our first and last state of after-life or resurrection cannot be now distinctly known. What difference there is now between Enoch, Elias, and those who rose at Christ's resurrection, and the rest of the saints, even the spirits of the perfected just, and whether the first have as much greater glory than the rest, as it is conceived that we shall have at the resurrection above that which immediately followeth death, what mortal man can tell? I am past doubt that flesh and blood (formally so called, and not only ab accidente, as sinful) shall not inherit the kingdom of God, (vid. Hammond in loc.,) but that our natural bodies shall be made spiritual bodies: and how a spiritual body differeth from a spirit or soul, I pretend not well to under

stand, but must stay till God, by experience, or fuller light, inform me. But surely the difference is not like to be so great, as that a soul in flesh shall know in part, and a soul in a spiritual body shall know perfectly, and a soul between both shall not know at all. If it be perfection which we shall have in our spiritual body, it is like that we are nearer to that perfection, in knowledge and felicity, while we are between both, than when we are in the flesh.

And sure a soul that (even Solomon saith) goeth upward, and to God that gave it, is liker to know God than that which is terminated in flesh, and operateth ut forma, according to its capacity and state; and a soul that is with Christ, is liker to know Christ, and the Father in him, than that which is present with the body, and absent from the Lord. What less can the promise of being with him signify?

And, i. As to the kind of knowledge, how excellent and more satisfactory a way will that of intuition, or intellective sense, be, than is our present way of abstraction, similitudes, and signs! What abundance of time, thoughts and labor, doth it cost us now to learn our grammar, our rhetoric and our logic! Our artes loquendi, dicendi and disserendi; to learn our wordy rules and axioms, in metaphysics, physics, &c.! And when we have learned them all, (if all can be learned,) how little the nearer are many to the knowing of the signified realities! We oft get but a set of words to play with, to take up our time, and divert us from the matter; even as carnal men use the creatures which signify God, and are made to lead them up to him, to entangle them, and be the greatest and most pernicious diversion of their souls from God; so do too many learned men do by their organical, signal knowledge. They use it as man do cards, and romances, and plays, to delight their fancies; but they know less of the things that are worth their knowing than many unlearned persons do, as I said before. Had not much of the Athenian learning been then a mere game, for men to play away their precious time at, and to grow proud of, while they were ignorant of saving realities, Christ and his apostles had not so much neglected it as they did, nor Paul so much warned men to take heed of being deceived by that vain kind of philosophy, in which he seemeth to me to have greater respect to the universally esteemed Athenian arts, than, as Dr. Hammond thought, to the mere gnostic pretensions.

This poor, dreaming, signal, artificial knowledge is, 1. Costly. 2. Uncertain. 3. Contenticus. 4. Unsatisfactory, in comparison of intuitive knowledge.

1. It is costly, as to the hard labor and precious time which must be laid out for it, as aforesaid. We grow old in getting us horses, and boots, and spurs, for our journey, and it is well if we

begin it at the last; like a man that would study the new-found planets, and the shape of Saturn's and Jupiter's satellites, and the Viam Lacteam, &c.; and he spends his whole life in getting him the best tubes, or telescopes, and never useth them to his ends; or like one that, instead of learning to write, doth spend his life in getting the best ink, paper and pens; or rather like one that learneth to write and print exactly, and not to understand what any of his words do signify. Men take their spectacles instead of eyes.

2. And when this learning is got, how uncertain are we whether the words have no ambiguity; whether they give us the true notice of the speaker's mind, and of the matter spoken of! As I said before, what penury, and yet redundancy of words, have we; of how various and uncertain signification; changed by custom, or arbitrary design; sometimes by the vulgar use, and sometimes by learned men, that, being conscious of the defectiveness of the speaking art, are still tampering, and attempting to amend it! And some men speak obscurely on purpose to raise in their readers a conceit of their subtle and sublime conceptions. And he that understandeth things most clearly, and speaketh them most plainly, (which are the parts of true learning,) shall have much ado to get the matter out of dark and bewildering uncertainties, and to make others understand both it and him.

3. And hence come the greatest part of the contentions of the world, which are hottest among men that most pretend to wordy knowledge; as in traffic and converse, the more men and business we have to do with, usually the more quarrels and differences we have; so the more of this wordy learning, instead of realities, men pretend to, the more disputes and controversies they make; and the instruments of knowledge prove the instruments of error and contention. And, alas! how many applauded volumes are the snares and troubles of the world! and how great a part of our libraries are vain janglings, and strife of words, and traps for the more ingenious sort, that will not be taken with cards and dice, robbing us of our time, destroying our love, depressing our minds, that should ascend to God, and diverting them from the great and holy things which should be the matter of our thoughts and joys; and filling the church with sects and strife, while every one striveth for the pre minence of his wit and notions, and few strive for holy love, and unity, and good works!

4. And all this while, alas! too many learned men do but lick the outside of the glass, and leave the wine within untasted. To know God and Christ, and heaven and holiness, do give the soul a nourishing and strengthening kind of pleasure, like that of the appetite in its food; but this game at words is but a knowing of images, signs and shadows, and so is but an image and shadow of

true knowledge. It is not that grace which Austin's definition saith, Nemo male utitur; but it is that which the sanctified use well, and the unsanctified are puffed up by, and use to the opposition of truth, the ostentation of a foolish wit, and the deceit of their own souls. And if it be sanctified knowledge, it is but mediate, in order to our knowledge of things thus signified; and it is the real good which contenteth and beatifieth, though the notions may be a subordinate recreation; and intuition feasteth on these realities.

ii. And as to the objects of this intuition, their excellency will be the excellency of our knowledge. 1. I shall know God better. 2. I shall know the universe better. 3. I shall know Christ better. 4. I shall know the church, his body, better, with the holy angels. 5. I shall better know the methods and perfection of the Scripture, and all God's dirigent word and will. 6. I shall know the methods and sense of disposing Providence better. 7. I shall know the divine benefits, which are the fruits of love, better. 8. I shall know myself better. 9. I shall better know every fellowcreature, which I am concerned to know. 10. And I shall better know all that evil, sin, Satan, and misery, from which I am delivered.

1. Aquinas, and many others, took it for the chief, natural proof of the soul's immortality, that man, by nature, desireth not only to know effects, and second causes, but to rise up to the knowledge of the first cause; and, therefore, was made for such knowledge in the state of his perfection; but grace hath much more of this desire than nature. Not that we must not be content to be without a great deal of knowledge, which would be unmeet for us, useless, troublesome, or dangerous to us; nor must we aspire to that which is above our capacity, and to know the unsearchable things of God; but not to know God, is to know nothing, and to have an understanding worse than none. I presume not to pry into the secrets of the Almighty, nor to pretend to know more of God than, indeed, I do; but O that I might know more of his perfections, of his will, and love, and ways, with that knowledge which is eternal life! Blessed be that love that sent the Son of God from heaven, to reveal him to us in the gospel, as he hath done; but all that hear the same words, and believe them, have not the same degree of light or faith. If an angel from heaven came down on earth to tell us all of God that we would know, and might lawfully desire and ask him, who would not turn his back on libraries, and universities, and learned men, to go and discourse with such a messenger? What travel should I think too far, what cost too great, for one hour's talk with such a messenger? But we must have here but such intimations as will exercise faith, and excite desire, and try us under the

temptations of the world and flesh. The glorious light is the reward of the victory obtained by the conduct of the light of grace. God, in great mercy, even here, beginneth the reward. They that are true to the initial light, and faithfully follow on to know the Lord, do find, usually, such increase of light (not of vain notions, but of quickening and comforting knowledge of God) as greatly encourageth them still on to seek for more. It is very pleasant here to increase in holy knowledge, though it usually bring an increase of malignant opposition, and so of sorrows to the flesh. The pleasure that the mind hath in common knowledge, brings men through a great deal of labor to attain it. How many years' travel over land and sea do some men take, to see and know more of this lower world, though it is little that they bring home, but more acquaintance with sin, and vanity, and vexation! How many more years do thousands spend in the reading multitudes of tedious volumes, that they may know what others knew before them! Printers and booksellers live by our desire of knowledge. What soul, then, on earth, can possibly conceive how great a pleasure it will be for a glorified soul to see the Lord! Though I cannot now conceive what that intuition of God himself will be, and whether it will not be a glorious kind of concluding or abstractive knowledge; whether the glory, which we shall see be only a created appearance of God, or be his very essence, it satisfieth me that it will be as perfect a knowledge as is fit for me to desire; and I shall then desire no more than is fit; and what it is I shall then know by itself, for it is not otherwise to be clearly known. And all the pleasure that I shall have in heaven, in knowing any of the works of God, will be in my beholding God himself, his being, is vital power and action, his wisdom, and his love and goodness, in those works; for he is the life and glory of them all. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

2. And, doubtless, it will be no small part my delight to see and know God's perfect works; I mean the universe itself. I cannot say that I shall have so large a capacity as to comprehend all the world, or know it perfectly, and with an adequate knowledge; but I shall know it in such perfection as is suitable to my capacity. It is exceeding pleasant to know the least particles of the works of God. With what diligence and delight have men endeavored to anatomize a body, yea, a small part of a ca.cass, and to know and describe poor worms and insects, plants and minerals! and no man ever yet perfectly knew the least of then all. No herbalist or physician ever yet knew the nature and uses of any one herb with an adequate knowledge. With what delight and diligence are physical searches carried on in the world, though still we are all but groping in the dark, and ignorant of many things for one that