208 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. tures, make them capable' of inconceivably more joy than any on earth is capable of. And as we shall have sense in exaltation as to power and act,'so shall we have sensible objects. God himself delighteth in all his works, and so shall we We must not, on pretense of taking the heavenly Jerusalem to be merely spiritual, deprive ourselves of all the sensible ideas of it' which God's description offereth to us. Light is sensible ; Christ glorified there is sensible Moses and Elias were sensible to Peter, James, and John. Lazarus and Abraham were sensible to the man in hell; Luke xvi. Stephen saw heaven open, and Christ sitting at the right hand of God. And all eyes shall see him at his glorious return. Heavenly,glory is not enjoyed only by mere thinking and knowing, nor as in a dream, but by the most eminent intellectual sensation, exalted and invigorated. 6. Say not then, Omy soul, that this kingdom of glory is so far above thee, that thou canst have no idea of it. Think not that it is therefore unmeet for thy desiring and joyful hopes, because thou canst not knowwhat it is. Hast thou no conception of the differ- ence between light and darkness ? If thou hadst been but one year kept in absolute darkness, wouldest thou.have no desiring thought of light? The blind think themselves halfdead while theyare alive. Indeed, the faculty and Object must be suitable: light may be too great for our weakeyes, as heat may be torment in an unsuitable degree; but when our souls are perfected, theywill be suitable re- cipients ofa more glorious,light than we can here endure. Moses is not there covered in a cleft of the rock, because he could see but as the back part of God's glory. We must see here but as in a glass, but there as face to face. Though these organicat eyes, as spectacles, shall be laid by, we shall have media more perfect, suitable to our perfect state. And as I can think of heaven as a region of glorious light, so can I think of it as á place and state of life and love. I know somewhat of the difference of life and death, and that a living dog is better than a deadlion. And I have felt whatit is to love my friends, and thence to desire their new communion as -my delight and can I then have no idea of that world, where life, light and joyful love are the very element of souls, as water is to the fishes? And as I can have some idea of that state in general, so may 1 of the' state of the perfected spirits of the just which are there. They are connatural to their proper element. They are essential created life, light and love. And they want not substance to be the basis of those formal powers, nor objects on which to exercise them. Think not, then, that heaven is so far inconceivable, as not by any idea to be' thought of. Ifwe have no conception of it, we
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