The saints everlasting rest

1. Go to then; when thou settest thyself to meditate on the joys above, think on them boldly as scripture hath expressed them: bring down thy conceivings to the reach of sense. Excellency without familiarity, doth more amaze than delight us; but love and joy are promoted by familiar acquaintance: when we go about to think of GOD and glory without these spectacles, we are lost, and have nothing to fix our thoughts upon; we set GOD and heaven so far from us, that our thoughts are strange, and we look at them as things beyond our reach, and are ready to say, that which is above is nothing to us: to conceive no more of GOD and glory, but that we cannot conceive them; and to apprehend no more, but that they are past apprehension, will produce no more love but this, to acknowledge that they are so far above us that we cannot love them, and no more joy but this, that they are above our rejoicing. And therefore put Christ no further from you, than he hath put himself, lest the divine nature be again inaccessible. Think of Christ as in our own nature glorified; think of our follow-saints as men there perfected; think of the city and state as the Spirit hath expressed it, only with caution. Suppose thou wert now beholding this city of GOD, and that thou hadst been a companion with ⟨p. 356⟩John in his survey of its glory, and hadst seen the thrones, the majesty, the heavenly hosts, the shining splendour which he saw: draw as strong suppositions as may be from thy sense for the helping of thy affections: it is lawful to suppose we did see for the present, that which GOD hath in prophesies revealed, and which, we must really see in more unspeakable brightness before long. Suppose therefore with thyself thou hadst been that apostle's fellow-traveller into the celestial kingdom, and that thou hadst seen all the saints in their white robes, with palms in their hands: suppose thou had heard those songs of Moses, and of the Lamb; or didst even now hear them praising and glorifying the living GOD: if thou hadst seen these things indeed, in what a rapture wouldst thou have been! And the more seriously thou puttest this supposition to thyself, the more will the meditation elevate thy heart.

1. Go to then; when thou settest thyself to meditate on the joys above, think on them boldly as scripture hath expressed them: bring down thy conceivings to the reach of sense. Excellency withou familiarity, doth more amaze than delight us; but love and joy are promoted by familiar acquaintance: when we go about to think of GOD and glory without these spectacles, we are lost, and have nothing to fix our thoughts upon; we set GOD and heaven so far from us, that our thoughts are strange, and we look at them as things beyond our reach, and are ready to say, that which is above is nothing to us: to conceive no more of GOD and glory, but that we cannot conceive them; and to apprehend no more, but that they are past apprehension, will produce no more love but this, to acknowledge that they are so far above us that we cannot love them, and no more joy but this, that they are above our rejoicing. And therefore put Christ no further from you, than he hath put himself, lest the divine nature be again inaccessible. Think of Christ as in our own nature glorified; think of our follow-saints as men there perfected; think of the city and state as the Spirit hath expressed it, only with caution. Suppose thou wert now beholding this city of GOD, and that thou hadst been a companion with