Owen - BV4501 O84 1844

130 OP SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. eration. 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 that he were told he should receive that in lieu of them which is more excel- lent, whereofhe hath no experience, nor can understand of what nature it is 2 Whenthe 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 l The perfection, of our present graces, which are here weak, and interrupted in their operations, is a principal , eminency 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 towards 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 hath no comfort from what he doth believe ; if afterwards, throughsupplies of grace, he hath a mighty prevailing evidence of the things believed, is filled with comfort and assurance ; this is not by a faith or grace of ano- ther kind fromwhat he had before, but by the same faith, raised to an higher degree of perfection. When our Saviour cured the blind man, and gave him his sight, (Mark viii.) at first he saw all things obscurely and imperfectly ; he saw men, as trees walking, ver. 24 ; "but on another application of virtue to him, he saw all things clearly ver. 25. It was not a sight of another kind whichhe then received from what hehad at first, only its imperfection, whereby he sawmen like trees, walking, was taken away. Nor will our perfect vision of things above, be a grace absolutely of ano- ther kind from the light of faith which we here enjoy, only what is imperfect in it will be done away, and it

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=