fute the cavils of all our present unbelievers! and how joyfully shall I praise that God and Saviour that gave his church. so clear a light to guide them through this darksome world, and so sure a promise to support them till they came to life eternal! How joyfully shall I bless him that by that immortal seed did regenerate me to the hopes of glory, and that ruled me by so holy and just a law!

VI. In that world of light I shall better understand God's present and past works of providence, by which he ordereth the matters of this world: the wisdom and goodness of them is little understood in little parcels; it is the union and harmony of all the parts which showeth the beauty of them, when the single parcels seem deformed, or are not understood. And no one can see the whole together but God, and they that see it in the light of his celestial glory: it is a prospect of that end, by which we have here any true understanding of such parcels as we see. Then I shall know clearly why, or to what use, God prospered the wicked, and tried the righteous by so many afflictions: I shall know why he set up the ungodly, and put the humble under their feet; why he permitted so much ignorance, ungodliness, pride, lust, oppression, persecution, falsehood, deceit, and other sins in the world: I shall know why the faithful are so few; and why so many kingdoms of the world are left in heathenism, Mahometanism, and infidelity. The strange permissions which now so puzzle me, and are the matter of my astonishment, shall all be then as clear as day I shall know why God disposed of me as he did through all my life; and why I suffered what I did; and how many great deliverances I had, which I understood not here, and how they were accomplished. All our misinterpretations of God's works and permissions will be then rectified and all our controversies about them, which Satan hath made so great advantage of, (by a pretended zeal for some truths of God,) will then be reconciled, and at an end and all the works of Divine Providence, from the beginning of the world, will then appear a most delectable, beauteous frame.

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VII. And among all these works, I shall specially know more the nature and excellency of God's mercies and gifts of love, which here we too unthankfully undervalued and made light of. The special works of love should be the matter of our most constant, sweet, and serious thoughts, and the fuel of our constant love and gratitude: the lively sense of love and mercy maketh

lively Christians, abounding in love to God, and mercy to others but the enemy of God and man most laboureth to obscure, diminish, and disgrace God's love and mercies to us, or to make us disrelish them, that they may be unfruitful, as to their excellent ends and uses. Little do most Christians know how much they wrong God and themselves, and how much they lose by the diminutive, poor thoughts which they have of God's mercies ingratitude is a grievous misery to the sinner, as gratitude is a very pleasant work. Many a thousand mercies we now receive, which we greatly undervalue. But when I come to the state and work of perfect gratitude, I shall have a more perfect knowledge of all the mercies which ever I received in my life, and which my neighbours, and friends, and God's church, and the world, did ever receive: for though the thing be past, the use of it is not past. Mercies remembered must be the matter of our everlasting thanks: and we cannot be perfectly thankful for them, without a perfect knowledge of them: the worth of a Christ, and all his grace, the worth of the gospel, the worth of our church privileges, and all God's ordinances, the worth of our books and friends, and helps of our life and health, and all conveniences, will be better understood in heaven than the most holy and thankful Christian here understandeth them. VIII. And it will be some addition to my future happiness, that I shall then be much better acquainted with myself; both with my nature, and with my sin and grace. I shall then better know the nature of a soul, and its formal faculties (three in one): I shall know the nature and way of its operations, and how far its acts are simple, or compound, or organical. I shall know how far memory, fancy, and sense, internal and external, belong to the rational soul, and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one; and what senses will perish, and what not. I shall know how the soul doth act upon itself, and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep, in apoplexies, and in the womb. I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than fire; and whether it be of the same essence with the soul (sensitive or rational); and whether fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance of all spirits, diversely specified by the forms, (mental, sensitive, and vegetative,) or whether it be as a body or vehicle to spirits, or rather a nature made for the copulation of spirits and bodies, and the operation of the former on the latter, as between both: and whether fire (and of what sort) be the active forma telluris, and of other globes:

I shall know how far souls are one, and yet many, and how they are individuate; and whether their quantitas discreta, in being numerically many, do prove that they have any quantitatem continuam, and whether they are a purer sort of bodies, as the Greek fathers, Tertullian, and others, thought, and what immateriality signifieth; and what substantiality of spirits; and how substantia and materia differ; and how far they are penetrable and indivisible; and whether a soul be properly pars; and whether individual souls are parts of any common soul; and how far the individuation doth continue; and whether, separated from the body, they operate in and by any other vehicle, or without, and how; and whether they take with them any of the fiery nature, as a vehicle, or as a constitutive part. I shall know how God produceth souls; and how his production by emanation or creation does consist with generation; and how forms are multiplied; and what causality the parent's soul hath to the production of the child's; whether by communication of substance, or only by disposing the recipient matter. I shall know whether all souls came from Adam's own substantiality; and whether there be more substance in all than in that one; and whether one substance cause more by generation; or whether it be so as to the souls of brutes; or whether any anima communis inform many organical bodies of the brutes, as the sun lighteth many candles which are individuate by matter to which (as parts of one) they variously are contracted, and on which they operate; and whether they were individuate in preexistence, or shall be individuate after separation : I shall know how far the semen in generation is animated; and how the animated semina of two make one; and if animated, what becomes of the anima seminis perditi, and of an abortive; and whether the body be animated as vegetative or sensitive before the entrance of the rational soul; or rather the same soul which in its faculty is rational, being one with the sensitive and vegetative, be the constitutive form of the first animated body, and the fabricator of its own domicilium. I shall know how far the soul is receptive, and what the causa finalis doth to it; and what each object is to the constitution or production of the act; yea, and what an act is, and what a habit; and how a soul, acting or habited, differeth from itself not acting or habited; and how its acts are many, and yet but one; or its faculties at least. Many other such difficulties will all be solved, which now philo

sophers contend about in the dark, and pass but under doubtful conjectures; or, at least, are known to very few.

And I shall know how God's Spirit operateth on souls; and how it is sent from Christ's human nature to work on man; and whether grace be properly, or only metaphorically, called a nature (a new nature, a divine nature) in us. I shall know what free-will is, and how man's will can be the first determiner of any act of its own in specie morali (good or evil) without being such a causa prima, as none but God can be: and so how far free acts are necessitated or not. I shall know what power the intellect hath on the will, and the will on the intellect; and what power the sense and fancy hath on either; and what any intellectus agens doth; whether it be to our intellection as the sun is to our sight. I shall know what is meant by the degrees of acts and habits in the soul; and whether there be divers degrees of substantiality, or of the virtus vel facultas formalis of several souls: I shall know better the difference of habits called acquired and infused; and what common grace is, and what it doth; and what nature can do of itself, or by common grace, without that which is proper to the justified; and how far any degrees of grace are lost.

I shall know what measure of grace I had myself; and how far I was mistaken in myself; and what acts were sincere; and how much that was not sound was mixed; and what was of myself and sin.

I shall know much more of my sins than here I ever knew, the number and the greatness of them; that so I may know, with greatest thankfulness and love, how much I am beholden to pardoning and healing grace.

Yea, I shall know more of my body, as it was the habitation of my soul, or the organical matter on which unitedly it worked. I shall know how far it helped or hindered me; and what were all those obscure diseases that puzzled all the physicians, and myself; and how marvellously God sustained, preserved, and oft delivered me; and what of my actions was to be imputed to the body, and what of them to the soul.

IX. And every fellow-creature, which I am concerned to know, I shall know far better than now I do, both things and persons: the good and bad, the sincere and the hypocrites, will be there discerned: and many an action that here went for honourable, covered or coloured with wit or worldly advantages,

or false pretences, will then be found to be odious and unjust : and wickedness will be flattered or extenuated no more: and many a good and holy work which false men, through wickedness and worldly interest, reproached as some odious crime, will there be justified, honoured, and rewarded. All sciences are there perfect, without our ambiguous terms, or imperfect axioms, and rules of art.

X. And, lastly, I shall better know from what enemies, what sins, what dangers, I was here delivered: what contrivances and malicious endeavours of Satan and his instruments God defeated; how many snares I escaped: and I shall better know how great my deliverance is by Christ from the wrath to come. Though we shall not know hell by painful sense, we shall know it so far as is necessary to fill us with gratitude to our Redeemer: yea, we shall know much of it far better than the damned spirits that feel it. For we shall know, by sweet and full fruition, what the joy and blessedness is which they have lost; when they have no such kind of knowledge of it.

All this knowledge will be thus advanced to my glorified soul beyond what I can here conceive in flesh and is it not then far better to be with Christ?

IV. The constitutive reasons from the state of my will.

Sect. 1. But it is the will that is to the soul what the heart is to the body: as it is the prime seat of morality, so is it the chief seat of felicity. My greatest evil is there; and my greatest subjective good will be there. Satan did most against it, and God will do most for it. And will it not be better to be with Christ than here?

1. It will not there be tied to a body of cross interests and inclinations, which is now the greatest snare and enemy to my soul; which is still drawing my love, and care, and fears, and sorrows, to and for itself, and turning them from my highest interest. How great a deliverance will it be to be freed from the temptations, and the inordinate love, and cares, and fears for this corruptible flesh!

2. My will shall not there be tempted by a world of inferior good, which is the bait and provision for the flesh, where meat, and sleep, and possessions, house, lands, and friends, are all become my snares and danger. God's mercies will not be made there the tempter's instruments. I shall not there have the flatteries or frowns, promises or threatenings, of the tyrants of the