Are not these therefore strong desires?  Is there not life and mettle in them?  Have they not in them power to loose the bands of nature, and to harden the soul against sorrow?  Flow they not, think you, from faith of the finest sort, and are they not bred in the bosom of a truly mortified soul?  Are these the effect of a purblind spirit?  Are they not rather the fruits of an eagle-eyed confidence?  Oh, these desires! they are peculiar to the righteous.

Christ in glory is worth the being with.  If the man out of whom the Lord Jesus cast a legion, prayed that he might be with him notwithstanding all the trials that attended him in this life, how can it be but that a righteous man must desire to be with him, now he is in glory?

To see Jesus Christ, to see him as he is, to see him as he is in glory, is a sight that is worth going from relations and out of the body and through the jaws of death to see; for this is to see him Head over all, to see him possessed of heaven for his church, to see him preparing mansion-houses for those his poor ones that are now by his enemies kicked to and fro like footballs in the world:  and is not this a blessed sight?

Secondly, I have a desire to be with him, to see myself with him; this is more blessed still:  for a man to see himself in glory, this is a sight worth seeing.

Sometimes I look upon myself and say, Where am I now? and do quickly return answer to myself again, Why, I am in an evil world, a great way from heaven, in a sinful body, among devils and wicked men; sometimes benighted, sometimes beguiled, sometimes fearing, sometimes hoping, sometimes breathing, sometimes dying.  But then I turn the tables, and say, But where shall I be shortly?  Where shall I see myself anon, after a few more times have passed over me?  And when I can but answer this question thus:  I shall see myself with Jesus Christ; this yields glory, even glory to one’s spirit now.

Thirdly, I have a desire to be with Christ:  there the spirits of the just are perfected; there the spirits of the righteous are as full as they can hold.  A sight of Jesus in the word; some know how it will change them from glory to glory.  But how then shall we be changed and filled, when we shall see him as he is?  “When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Moses and Elias appeared to Peter and James and John, at the transfiguration of Christ, “in glory.”  Hew so?  Why, they had been in the heavens, and came thence with some of the glories of heaven upon them.  Gild a bit of wood, yea, gild it seven times over, and it must not be compared, in difference from wood which is not gilt, with the soul that but a little while has been dipt in glory.

Glory is a strange thing to men that are on this side of heaven; it is that which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man:  only the Christian has a word and Spirit that at times give a little of the glimmering thereof unto him.