An edited extract from A Prospect of Heaven, one of the works included in The Select Works of Thomas Case. Case (1598-1682) was a noted Puritan.
The saints shall know God to perfection, though not to infinity; they shall see Him so as to reposes themselves in Him with full complacency and delight, so that they shall say they have enough. In this life, some of the saints have had such manifestations of God as have made them weep as bitterly as ever anyone under desertion did, crying out, Lord, withdraw Thy glory, else the vessel will split and I shall dishonour God.
It may justly be a wonder to the saints in the other world how it should be otherwise – a wonder that a created, finite mind should be able to bear the weight of glory which fills the infinite Object of their worship and not be destroyed by its immensity. This is especially so since we read of the very angels themselves, who in a vision of a somewhat inferior nature to the exceeding brightness of that face-to-face vision in glory, are said to veil their faces and their feet: their faces, as having their eyes dazzled with the exceeding brightness of His glorious appearance; and their feet, as abashed in the apprehension of their own meanness and imperfection in comparison with God’s incomparable and incomprehensible perfections.
In order to a full reception of these manifestations of God, which shall be granted in heaven, we learn from the Scriptures that the glorified understanding shall be adorned with a six-fold perfection: 1. Spirituality. 2. Clarity. 3. Capacity. 4. Sanctity. 5. Strength. 6. Fixedness.
1. Spirituality. The understanding shall be made spiritual.
Spiritual it is now – as spiritual is the opposite of bodily, though not as spiritual is opposed to natural. The soul is now forced to cater for a body of flesh, to provide things that are necessary for the sustenance of the animal life; it busies itself to satisfy the appetites of hunger and thirst etc. If it can redeem a few hours for actions more appropriate to it, it is so clogged, so pressed down, with the body’s infirmities that it soon drops down to the earth and is drawn aside to attend to the “irrelevancies” of this present life. But when it shall be joined to a spiritual body, itself having been glorified, then it shall be wholly taken up with objects spiritual and heavenly; it will be made, as it were, to have the same nature – elevated by the light of glory, to the vision of God.
2. Clarity. By virtue of this supernatural illumination by God, the understanding shall be brightened and cleared.
There are now many spots and stains on the mirror of the understanding, by which the soul is defiled. The breath of the world, and the steam of corruptions from within, do so sully this crystal glass that it cannot receive into it the beams of light which shine on it. The more impurity the dimmer the vision: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). Now in glory all these stains and spots shall be perfectly wiped off, and the vessel shall be made a clear glass, to receive and contain the glorious rays of divine excellence, which shine into it. Hence divines call this vision of God a clear, distinct and perfect sight of God; it is not as if the blessed ones did see all that is in the essence of God, but as opposed to our present dim, obstructed vision (1 Cor 13:12), so that it perfectly takes in, without the least obstruction or diminution, what God’s will is pleased to reveal.
3. Capacity. In glory, the understanding shall be extended to have a vast capacity.
Now the understanding is large; there is no bounding or limiting of it; it is higher than the heavens, deeper than the sea, and wider than the world. But in glory, the understanding shall be widened, to a much greater capacity, to take in, not the little things of the creature only, but the infinite God – I do not say infinitely. It is worth comparing those two expressions of the beatific vision: the one, where it is said that the “angels do always behold the face” of God (Mt 18:10); the other, where the angels and saints – the number of whom is said to be ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands – are described as surrounding God’s throne (Rev 5:11). Compare them together; they always behold the face of God, and yet are round about; and it hints to us this blessed notion: God has no back parts in heaven. To the blessed inhabitants there, God is all face, and they are always beholding it. How should not so resplendent an Object confound the understanding with its immense splendour and glory, unless the Object itself sustains and nourishes the understanding!
4. Sanctity. The understanding shall be made perfect in holiness.
In the state of separation, the spirits of just men are perfect (Heb 12:23), and surely the soul loses nothing of its sanctity by being united to the body in glory. Now of all God’s qualities, none more capacitates the soul for the vision of Him than holiness. Note that holiness is called “the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). Holiness assimilates unto God; and the perfection and the delight of sight are founded in conformity to Him; “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. According to the purity of the heart is the vision of God. What a glorious sight of God will that be which the perfection of holiness shall advance the soul unto, when the glorious object shall both enlarge and purify the understanding.
5. Strength. The vision of God fortifies the understanding.
In nature, the more vehement and intense the object, the more it hurts and crushes the sense. The vision of God, though under a veil, did undo the prophet Isaiah. Holy Daniel’s vision, though but a vision, left him without strength (Dan 10:7,8). John’s vision, though but the darker side of the beatific sight of God, almost slew him outright for a time: “I fell at His feet as dead” (Rev 1:17). The souls of the blessed in heaven are set beyond all fear of such a surprise of glory; while God fills their understanding, He also sustains and perfects it, by means whereof the understanding shall never be weary of its object, but shall behold it with fresh vigour and delight.
6. Fixedness. In the state of grace, the mind is exceedingly slippery, like that of little children, whose minds cannot settle.
We lie on spiritual objects, as upon a bank of ice, where we slide and slide and never stop sliding till we are in the dirt. This happens because of those mixtures of impurity which are in these natural minds of ours; the objects are pure and simple, but the understanding is woefully clogged with “superfluity of naughtiness” (Jas 1:21); hence the instability that is in the understanding; it is like the sea itself. But now in glory all that mixture is abolished, so that there is nothing remaining to divert or distract the understanding. The Object shall unite the faculty to itself. O blessed and blessed-making vision! Glorious things are spoken of thee, O vision of God! Truly beatific for ever! Truly “eye hath not seen . . . the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”.