A Body of Practical Divinity

2d, The enjoying God in the Life to come: Man's chief end is to enjoy God for ever; before this plenary Fruition of God in Heaven, there must be something previous and antecedent, and that is, our being in a State of Grace: We must have Conformity to him in Grace, before we can have Communion with him in Glory. Grace and Glory are inter se connexae, linked and chained together; Grace precedes Glory, as the Morning-star ushers in the Sun. God will have us qualified and fitted for a state of Blessedness: Drunkards and Swearers are not fit to enjoy God in Glory, the Lord will not lay such Vipers in his Bosom; only the pure in heart shall see God: We must first be as the King's Daughter, glorious within, before we are clothed with the Robes of Glory: as King Ahasuerus first caused the Virgins to be purified and anointed, and they had their sweet Odours to perfume them, and then they were to stand before the King, Esth. 2.12. so must we, we must have the anointing of God, ⟨p. 11⟩and be perfumed with the Graces of Spirit, those sweet Odours, and then we shall stand before the King of Heaven: now, being thus divinely qualified by Grace, we shall be taken up into the Mount of Vision, and enjoy God for ever. This enjoying God for ever, is nothing else but to be put into a State of Happiness. As the Body cannot have Life, but by having Communion with the Soul, so the Soul cannot have Blessedness, but by having immediate Communion with God. God is the Summum Bonum, the Chief Good; therefore the enjoying of him is the highest Felicity. He is, I say, the Chief Good.

2d, The enjoying God in the Life to come: Man's chief end is to enjoy God for ever; before this plenary Fruition of God in Heaven, there must be something previous and antecedent, and that is, our being in a State of Grace: We must have Conformity to him in Grace, before we can have Communion with him in Glory. Grace and Glory are inter se connexae, link'd and chain'd together; Grace precedes Glory, as the Morning-star ushers in the Sun. God will have us qualified and fitted for a state of Blessedness: Drunkards and Swearers are not fit to enjoy God in Glory, the Lord will not lay such Vipers in his Bosom; only the pure in heart shall see God: We must first be as the King's Daughter, glorious within, before we are cloathed with the Robes of Glory: as King Ahashuerus first caus'd the Virgins to be purified and anointed, and they had their sweet Odours to perfume them, and then they were to stand before the King,