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sent themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them; Job. i. 6 and the wicked's eyes shall see him, whom they have pierced: Zech. xii. 10: we see so much of God, in the way of our bliss, as we enjoy.. I know not how the eye, in these spiritual objects, betwixt which and us there is a gracious relation, hath a certain kind of applicatory faculty, which, in these material things, it wanteth. "O taste and see," saith the psalmist, "how sweet the Lord is;" as if our sight were more inwardly apprehensive of heavenly pleasures, than our most sensible gustation.

In these bodily objects, either there is no operation upon the sense, or to no purpose. The eye is never the warmer, for seeing a fire afar off: nor the colder, for beholding ice; we are no whit the richer, for seeing heaps of treasure; nor the fairer, for viewing another's beauty. But, such a powerful and glorious influence there is of God into our spiritual senses, that we cannot see him, by the eye of our faith here, and not be the happier; we cannot see him above, by the eye of our separated souls, and not be perfectly glorious: and the one of these doth necessarily make way for the other; for, what is grace here, but glory begun? and what is glory above, but grace perfected?

Whosoever therefore here, hath pitched the eye of his faith upon the Invisible, doth but continue his prospect, when he comes to heaven. The place is changed: the object is the same; the act, more complete. As then, we do ever look to have our eyes blessed with the perpetual vision of God, in the highest heavens; let us acquaint them, beforehand, with the constant and continual sight of him, in this vale of mortality.

2. No sooner have our eyes been thus lifted up above the hills, to the sight of the Invisible: than they must be instantly cast down, and turned inwards, to see our own wretchedness; how weak and poor we are; how frail; how vain and momentary: how destitute of all good; how obnoxious to all sin and misery. Contrarieties make all things better discerned. And, surely, however it be commonly seen, that the nearness of the object is a hindrance to the sight; yet here, the more closely we behold our own condition, the more clearly we shall discern, and the Div.-No. XXXVII.

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more fully shall we be convinced of this unpleasing truth. It is not for us to look back, like the heirs of some decayed house, at what we were: whoever was the better for a past happiness?

(1.) Alas, what are we now? miserable dust and ashes; earth, at the best; at the worst, hell. Our being is vanity; our substance, corruption: our life is but a blast; our flesh worms-meat: our beginning, impotent above all creatures; (even worms can crawl forward so soon as they are, so cannot we;) our continuance, short and troublesome; our end, grievous: who can assure himself of one minute of time, of one dram of contentment?

(2.) But, woe is me! other creatures are frail too: none, but man, is sinful. Our soul is not more excellent, than this tainture of it is odious and deadly. Our composition lays us open to mortality; but our sin exposes us to the eternal wrath of God, and, the issue of it, eternal damnation. The grave waits for us, as men; hell, as sinners. Beasts compare with us, in our being; in our sinning, devils insult over us.

(3.) And now, since the spring is foul, how can the streams be clear? Alas, what act of ours is free from this woeful pollution? Who eats, or drinks, or sleeps, or moves, or talks, or thinks, or hears, or prays, without it? Even he that was blessed with the sight of the third heaven, as tired with this clog, would say, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Blessed apostle, if thou wert so sensible of thy indwelling corruptions, who knewest nothing by thyself; how must our hearts needs rend with shame and sorrow, who are guilty of so many thousand transgressions, which our impotence can neither avoid nor expiate! How justly do we fear God, since we have deserved to be under so deep a condemnation!

II. Thus, therefore, when a man shall have stedfastly fixed his eyes upon the dread majesty of an ever-present God, and upon the deplored wretchedness of his own condition, he shall be in a meet capacity to receive this holy fear, whereof we treat. Neither indeed is it possible, for him, to see that all-glorious presence; and not presently thereupon, find himself affected with a trembling kind of

awfulness: neither can he look upon his own vileness, without an humble and bashful dejection of soul: but, when he shall see both these, at once; and compare his own shameful estate, with the dreadful incomprehensible majesty of the great God; his own impotence, with that almighty power; his own sinfulness, with that infinite purity and justice; his own misery, with the glory of that immense mercy: how can he choose, but be wholly possessed, with a devout shivering and religious astonishment? The heart then, thus tempered with the high thoughts of God, and the humble conceits of ourselves, is fit for the impression of this fear; which is no other, than an AWFUL DISPOSITION OF THE SOUL TO GOD.

Wherein there is a double stamp, or signature: the one, is an inward adoration of the majesty seen and acknowledged; the other, a tender and filial care of being secretly approved of God; and of avoiding the displeasure and offence of that God whom we so adore. The first, is a continual bowing the knees of our hearts to that great and holy God: both inwardly blessing and praising him, in all his divine attributes, in his infinite power, wisdom, justice, mercy, and truth and humbly submitting and resigning ourselves wholly to his divine pleasure in all things, whether for his disposing or chastising.

1. All true adoration begins from within. Even the soul hath the same parts and postures with the body: as, therefore, it hath eyes to see; so it hath a tongue to speak unto, and a knee to bend unto the majesty of the Almighty. Shortly then; we shall inwardly adore the God of heaven, when our hearts are wrought to be awfully affected to the acknowledgment, chiefly of his infinite greatness and infinite goodness. And this shall be best done, by the consideration of the effects of both. Even in meaner matters, we cannot attain to the knowledge of things, by their causes; but are glad to take up with this secondary information: how much more, in the highest of all causes; in whom there is nothing, but transcendency and infiniteness!

(1) We shall therefore most feelingly adore the infinite greatness of God, upon representing unto ourselves, the wonderful work of his Creation; and his infinite good

ness, in the no less wonderful work of our Redemption. "For," as the great Doctor of the Gentiles most divinely says, "the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen; being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and godhead." Rom. i. 20. Even so, O God, if we cannot see thee, we cannot but see the world, that thou hast made; and, in that, we see some glimpses of thee. When we behold some goodly pile of building, or some admirable picture, or some rarelyartificial engine, our first question uses to be, "Who made it?" and we judge of and admire the skill of the workman, by the excellent contrivance of the work: how can we do otherwise, in this mighty and goodly frame of thy universe? Lord, what a world is this of thine, which we see ! What a vast, what a beautiful fabric is this, above and about us! Lo, thou, that madest such a heaven, canst thou be other than infinitely glorious? O the power and wisdom of such a Creator! every star is a world alone: the least of those globes of light, are far greater than this our whole inferior world of earth and waters, which we think scarce measurable; and what a world of these lightsome worlds hast thou marshalled together, in that one firmament! and yet what room hast thou left, in that large contignation, for more! so as the vacant space, betwixt one star and another, is more in extent, than that which is filled. In how exact a regularity do these celestial bodies move, ever since their first setting forth: without all variation of the time or place of their rising or setting; without all change of their influences! In what point and minute, Adam's new created eyes saw them begin and shut up their diurnal motions, we, his late posterity, upon that same day and in the same climate, find them still: how have they looked upon their spectators, in millions of changed generations; and are still where they were, looking still for more! But, above the rest, who can but be astonished at that constant miracle of nature, the glorious sun; by whose beams, all the higher and lower world is illuminated; and by whose sole benefit, we have use of our eyes? O God, what were the world, without it, but a vast and sullen dungeon of confusion and horror; and, with it, what a theatre of beauty and wonder! what a sad season is our

midnight, by reason of his farthest absence! and yet, even then, some glimpses of emanations, and remainders of that hidden light, diffuse themselves through the air and forbid the darkness to be absolute. O what a hell were utter darkness! what a reviving and glorious spectacle it is, when the morning opens the curtains of heaven, and shews the rising majesty of that great ruler of the day, which too many eyes have seen with adoration; never any saw, without wonder and benediction. And if thy creature be such, what, oh, what art thou, that hast made it? As for that other faithful witness in heaven, what a clear and lasting testimony doth it give to all beholders, of thine omnipotence? Always, and yet never changing: still uniform in her constant variations, still regular in the multiplicity of her movings.

And O God, what a train doth that great queen of heaven, by thine appointment, draw after her! no less than this vast element of waters, so many thousand miles distant from her sphere. She moves in heaven: the sea follows her in this inferior orb, and measures his paces by hers. How deep, how spacious, how restlessly turbulent is that liquid body! and how tamed and confined by thine almightiness! How justly didst thou expostulate with thy people of old, by thy prophet Jeremiah; "Fear ye not me, saith the Lord; will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bounds of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and, though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? Jer. v. 22.

And, what a stupendous work of omnipotence is it, that thou, O God, hast hanged up this huge globe of water and earth, in the midst of a yielding air, without any stay or foundation, save thine own eternal decree! How wonderful art thou in thy mighty winds, which, whence they come, and whither they go, thou only knowest; in thy dreadful thunder and lightnings; in thy threatening comets, and other fiery exhalations! With what marvellous variety of creatures hast thou peopled all these thy roomy elements; all of several kinds, fashions, natures, dispositions, uses; and yet all their innumerable motions, actions, events, are predetermined and over-ruled by

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