There is nothing else that will ‘satisfy the eye with seeing.’  The vision of God, even in that incipient and imperfect form which is possible upon earth, is the one thing that will calm our distractions, that will supply our needs, that will lift our lives to a level of serene power and blessedness, unattainable by any other way.  Such a sight will dim all the dazzling illusions of earth, as, when the sun leaps into the heavens, the stars hide their faces and faint into invisibility.  It will make us lords of ourselves, masters of the world, kings over time and sense and the universe.  Everything will be different when ’earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.’  That is what is possible for a Christian holding fast by Jesus Christ, and in Him having communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Brethren, I venture to say no word about the blessedness of that future.  Heaven’s golden gates keep their secret well.  Even the purest joys of earth, about which poets have sung for untold centuries, after all singing need to be tasted before they are conceived of; and all our imaginings about the blessedness yonder is but like what a chrysalis might dream in its tomb as to the life of the radiant winged creature which it would one day become.  Let us be content to be ignorant, and believe with confidence that we shall find that the vision of God is the heaven of heavens.

We shall owe that eternal vision to the eternal Revealer; for, as I believe, Scripture teaches us that it is only in Him that the glorified saints see the Father, as it is only in Him that here on earth we have the vision of God.  That sight is not, like the bodily sense to which it is compared, a far-off perception of an ungrasped brightness, but it is the actual possession of what we behold.  We see God when we have God.  When we have God we have enough.

But I dare not close without one other word.  There is a vision of God possible to an impure heart, in which there is no blessedness.  There comes a day in which ’they shall call upon the rocks to fall and cover them from the face of Him that sits upon the throne.’  The alternative is before each of us, dear friends—­either ’every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him’; or, ’I shall behold Thy face in righteousness.  I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.’  If we cry, ’Create a clean heart in me, O God!’ He will answer, ’I will give you a new heart, and take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will pour clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.’

THE SEVENTH BEATITUDE

     ’Blessed are the peacemakers:  for they shall be called the children
     of God.’  MATT. v. 9.