Jesus and the resurrection justified by witnesses in heaven and in earth in two parts : the first shewing that Jesus is the Son of God, the second that in him we have eternall life / by Symon Patrick ...

IV.

And if we mark the words of S. John, who speaks this more fully, and tells us, in the place before named, we shall see him AS HE IS, (which he makes the reason and cause of our being like him,) they will imbolden us still to seek into a farther meaning of this phrase. And since we can enjoy nothing without a knowledg of it preceding, we are to understand, that to see God as he is, will be to have our minds filled with a know∣ledg of him, so clear, so distinct and strong, that it will even turn us into his own Nature, Life, and Bliss. We shall not behold, that is, know him, as we do now, by similitudes, resemblances, and expressions borrowed from other things, (which is all our natures are here able to bear;) but by a clear notion of him formed in our minds; wherein our hearts will be infinitely pleased, and feel his happiness come flowing into them.

My meaning may be thus explained: As it is an imperfect sight of a man which we have in a Picture, though drawn by the most curious hand and strongest fan∣cy; and the man himself, if he stand be∣fore a Looking-glass, will in a moment draw an Image more like him, then the skilfullest Artist can delineate all his life long, especially if he never saw the per∣son, but onely had a description of him in a book or by report: just such is the sight or knowledg that we have of God in this world, either by his Word, or by his Works, or by the Idea's of our own mind; a very imperfect thing, and much like the picture of a person which we never yet had before our eyes. But hereafter, when he will be pleased to appear, to give us a more immediate sight of him, without these helps, and pre∣sent himself to our mind as the face to a glass; this will be to know him indeed, and to see him as he is. Now as the sight of a Friend, when he presents himself to the eye, doth marvellously refresh and comfort us; and there is a sense of plea∣sure imparted to us in the very beholding a rare beauty, which we are not like perhaps to see any more: so this Seeing

God is no barren thing, but instantly in∣fuses the highest satisfaction and delight into pure hearts; who by knowing his blessed Nature, will find it imprinting it self (as it were) upon them, and ma∣king every one of them to be the blessed Image of it. Look what God is, that they by the sight of him shall be: He will dwell in them, as the image of a thing does in the glass: And they shall be possessed of him, of his life, of his joys, by having a sensible perception of the Wisedom, the Goodness, the Purity, and all the other Perfections that shine in himself.