to Meditations and Difcourfes not relieve or ftrengthen it at all. Wherefore we have no way to .take into our minds any true Spiritual Apprehenfions of the Nature of Immediate Vifion, or what it is to fee the Glory of Chrift in Heaven, but by that View which we have by Faith in this life of the fame Glory. Whatever other· wife falls into our Minds, is but conjecture and imagination ; Such as are the Contemplations of . moft about Heavenly things. · I have feen and read fomewhat of the Writings of Learned Men, concerning the j!ate of future glo~y ; fome of them.are filled with excellent nr;tions of7ruth,and Elegancy of Speech, whereby they cannot but much affect the minds of them who du- , ly confider what they fay. But I know not we11 whence it comes to pafs, many complain, that in reading of fuch difcourfes they are like a man who behold his ruztural face in a Glafs, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was; as one of old cornplained to the fame purpofe upan his perufal of Plato's contemplations about the Immortality of the Soul. The things fpoken do not abide, nor Incorporate with our minds. They Eleafe and refrefh for a little while, like a ihowr of Rain in a dry Seafon, that foaketh not unto the Roots of things ; the power or them cloth not enter into us. Is .it not all from hence, that their rtotions of future things are not educed out of the Experience which we have of the Beginnings of them in this V\1 orld ; without which, they can .- make no permanent aboad in our minds, nor continue any Influence upon our Affections? yea,the Soul is diftnrbed, not edified, in all Contemplation! offutu~e Glorb ~hen things are propofed un~ . ro
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