The saints everlasting rest

O what would we give to know clearly all the profound mysteries in the doctrine of redemption, of justification, of the nature of grace, of the divine attributes! What would we give to see all dark scriptures made plain; to see all seeming contradictions reconciled! Why, when glory hath taken away the veil from our eyes, all this will be known in a moment; we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about doctrine or discipline that now perplex us. The poorest christian is presently there a more perfect divine, than any is here. We are now through our ignorance subject to such mutability, that in points not fundamental, we change as the moon: but when once our ignorance is perfectly healed, then shall we be settled, resolved men; then shall our reproach be taken from us, and we shall never change our judgment more. Our ignorance now doth lead us into error, to the grief of our more knowing brethren, to the disturbing the church's quiet, to the scandalizing ⟨p. 59⟩of others, and weakening ourselves. How many a faithful soul is seduced into error! Loth they are to err, GOD knows; and therefore read and pray, and yet err still. And in lesser and more difficult points, how can it be otherwise?

Can it be expected, that men void of learning and strength of parts, unstudied and untaught, should at the first onset know those truths, which they are almost incapable of knowing at all? When the greatest divines of clearest judgment acknowledge so much difficulty, that they could almost find in their hearts, sometimes to profess them quite beyond their reach. But O that happy approaching day, when error shall vanish away for-ever, when our understanding shall be filled with GOD himself, whose light will leave no darkness in us! His face shall be the scripture, where we shall read the truth: and himself instead of teachers and counsellors, to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with himself. No more error, no more scandal to others, no more disquiet to our own spirits, no more mistaken zeal for falsehood. Many a good man hath here in his mistaken zeal, been a means to deceive and pervert his brethren; and when he sees his own error, cannot again tell how to undeceive them: but there we shall all conspire in one truth, as being one in him who is the truth.