of heavenly honour with thee, our God, and thy holy angels. Thou wouldst die for a while, that we might live eternally.

Pause here awhile, O my soul, and do not wish to change thy thoughts; neither earth nor heaven can yield thee any of higher concernment, of greater comfort; only, withal, behold the glorious person of that thy blessed Mediator, after his victories over death and hell, sitting triumphant in all the majesty of heaven, adored by all those millions of celestial spirits, in his glorified humanity; and enjoy (what thou mayest) the vision of him by faith, till thou shalt be everlastingly blessed with a clear and present intuition. Long after that day, and be ever careful, in the mean time, to make thyself ready for such infinite happiness.

VII. And now, O my soul, having left below thee all the trivial vanities of earth, and fixed thyself, so far as thy weak eyes will allow thee, upon thy God and Saviour, in his almighty works and most glorious attributes, it will be time for thee, and will not a little conduce to thy further address towards blessedness, to fasten thyself upon the sight of the happy estate of the saints above, who are gone before thee to their bliss, and have, through God's mercy, comfortably obtained that which thou aspirest unto. Thou who wert guided by their example, be likewise encouraged by their success. Thou art yet a traveller, they comprehensors. Thou art panting towards that rest, which they most happily enjoy. Thou art sweating under the cross, while they sit crowned in a heavenly magnificence. See the place *Those who have attained knowledge.

wherein they are, the heaven of heavens, the paradise of God; infinitely resplendent, infinitely delectable; such as no eye can behold, and not be blessed. Shouldst thou set thy tabernacle in the midst of the sun, thou couldst not but be encompassed with marvellous light; yet even there it would be but as midnight with thee, in comparison of those irradiations of glory which shine forth above in that imperial region; for thy God is the sun there. By how much, therefore, those Divine rays of his exceed the brightest beams of his creature, so much doth the beauty of that heaven of the blessed surpass the created light of this inferior and starry firmament, Rev. xxi. 23. Even the very place contributes not a little to our joy or misery: it is hard to be merry in a jail; and the great Persian monarch thought it very improper for a courtier to be of a sad countenance within the verge of so great a royalty, Neh. ii. 2. The very devils conceive horror at the apprehension of the place of their torment, and can beseech the overruling power of thy Saviour not to command them to go out into the deep, Luke viii. 31. No man can be so senseless as to think there can be more dreadfulness in the place of those infernal tortures, than there is pleasure and joy in the height of that sphere of blessedness; since we know we have to do with a God who delights more in the prosperity of his saints, than in the punishment and misery of his enemies. How canst thou then, O my soul, fail to be wholly taken up with the sight of that celestial Jerusalem, the beauteous city of thy God, the blessed mansions of glorified spirits! Surely, if earth could have yielded any thing more fair

and estimable than gold, pearls, precious stones, it should have been borrowed, to represent these supernal habitations. But, alas, the lustre of these base materials doth but darken the resplendence of those Divine excellences. With what contempt now dost thou look down upon those muddy foundations of earth, which the low spirits of worldlings are wont to admire! And how feelingly dost thou bless and emulate the spirits of just men made perfect, who are honoured with so blissful a habitation! Heb. xii. 23.

But what were the place, O my soul, how goodly and glorious soever in itself, if it were not for the presence of Him whose being there makes it heaven? Lo, there the throne of that heavenly Majesty, which filling and comprehending the large circumference of this whole, both lower and superior world, yet there keeps and manifests his state, with the infinite magnificence of the King of eternal glory. There he, in an ineffable manner, communicates himself to blessed spirits, both angels and men. And that very vision is no less to them than beatifical. Surely, were the place a thousand degrees lower in beauty and perfection than it is, yet that presence would render it celestial. The residence of the king was wont to turn the meanest village or castle into a court. The sweet singer of Israel saw this of old, and could say, "In thy presence is fulness of joy; and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” It is not so in these earthly and finite excellences. A man may see mountains of treasure, and be never a whit the richer; and may be the witness, and agent too, in another's honour, (as Haman

was of Mordecai's,) and be so much more miserable; or may view the pomp and splendour of mighty princes, and be yet still a beggar. But the infinite graces of that heavenly King are so communicative, that no man can see him, but must be transformed into the likeness of his glory.

VIII. Even thy weak and imperfect vision of such heavenly objects, O my soul, are enough to lay a foundation of thy blessedness; and how can there fail to be raised thence, as a further degree towards it, a sweet complacency of heart in an appropriation of what thou seest, without which nothing can make thee happy! Let the sun shine ever so bright, what is this to thee if thou be blind? Be the God of heaven ever so glorious, yet if he be not thy God;-be the Saviour of the world ever so merciful, yet if he be not merciful to thee;-be the heaven ever so full of beauty and majesty, yet if thou have not thy portion in that inheritance of the spirits in light-so far will it be from yielding thee comfort, that it will make a further addition to thy torment. What an aggravation of misery will it be to those who were children of the kingdom, that, from the utter darkness whereinto they are cast, they shall see aliens come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, Matt. viii. 11. Cease not then, O my soul, till by a sure and indefeasible* application, thou hast brought all these home to thyself; and canst look upon the great God of heaven, the gracious Redeemer of the world, the glory of that *Not to be cut off, irrevocable.

celestial paradise, as thine own.

Let it be thy

bold ambition and holy curiosity, to find thy name enrolled in that eternal register of heaven. And if there be any one room in the many mansions of that celestial Jerusalem, lower and less resplendent than another, thither do thou find thyself (through the great mercy of thy God) happily designed. It must be the work of thy faith, that must do it: that divine grace it is, the power whereof can either fetch down heaven to thee, or carry thee beforehand up to thy heaven; and not only affix thee to thy God and Saviour, but unite thee to him, and (which is yet more) ascertain thee of so blessed a union.

Neither can it be, but that from this sense of appropriation there must necessarily follow a marvellous contentment and complacency in the assurance of so happy an interest. Lord, how do I see poor worldlings please themselves in the conceit of their miserable properties! One thinks, Is not this my great Babylon which I have built? Dan. iv. 30. Another, Are not these my rich mines? Another, Is not this my royal and adored magnificence? And how are those unstable minds transported with the opinion of these great (but indeed worthless) peculiarities; which after some little time moulder with them into dust! How canst thou then but be pleasingly affected, O my soul, with the comfortable sense of having a God, a Saviour, and heaven of thine own! For in these spiritual and heavenly felicities, our right is not partial and divided, as it commonly is in secular inheritances; so as that every one hath his share distinguished from the rest, and parcelled out of the whole; but here each one hath