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and vision having like effects, we are companions in love, and associates in work! and are assimilated to the glorious object we behold. And, 4. Since in the smiles of thy countenance I shall find my eternal heaven, how should I esteem thy favour above life, and ardently breathe after communion with thee below! I may dwell in any country here, and neither know nor be known of the king; but so I cannot in thy land, O Immanuel! for unless I know and be known personally to the King, I will not have one known face in all the world of spirits!

XV.

THE ETERNAL SABBATH.

HOW is it that I, who pretend to love thee, should ever be wearied with a Sabbath-day's devotion? If the body is fatigued, or the spirits exhausted, how shall I stand under much intenser ardours, through eternity itself? What say ye, ye adorers round the throne? do ye never long to rest from your divine employment? "O poor mortal! how ignorant art thou of our frame, our faculties, our felicity and strength! The rest thou speakest of would be our torment; an intermission of praise would pierce us with the severest pangs of anguish. Didst thou see him as we do, thou wouldst wholly melt in admiration, dissolve in love, and pour forth in praise, and never cease, and never tire through eternity itself."

O Father of lights! pity my darkness, and enlighten me! O fountain of life! pity my deadness, and enliven me! While I call in mine own experience to

convince me,that the saints in glory never are fatigued or dulled in their divine exercises, have not I had some happy moments, of which I did not weary? Now, when in my best frames, I have found it so for a short while, but corruption and infirmity daily distressing me altered all, else I should have found it so for a long time. But in heaven the spiritual frame is fixed, and infirmity and corruption are no more; therefore, with equal ease and vigor I will worship God through eternity, as I would one hour on earth. Well may the fire of love continually burn in heaven, having fresh fuel added to it by the hand of God; ̧ well may my soul follow hard after thee, being upheld by the arm of thine Omnipotence. Then to worship at thy throne shall be both the business and the bliss of my eternity. When once I have tasted what it is to rest in the bosom of God, to drink the spiced wine of bliss, to hold communion in the holy of holies, and to worship at the highest throne, then all created beings. joined together will not drive me one moment from my dear enjoyment and divine employ! Roll on, thou longed-for day, when I shall mourn no more over fecble nature, and the short-lived frame, a hiding Jesus and imperfect love; but rise to ardors only known above, and, full of heaven, go wholly out on God.

XVI.

INDIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD.

IT is a certain truth that countenances are somcthing a-kin to climates; hence the visages of some reveal their country: even so my soul has but a dusky colour, an earthly hue, because earth engrosses all my thoughts, my cares and concern. O how little converse have I with the unseen world! how little communion with God! One step into the future world will render this as if it had never been, and my first step may be it, since I walk on the frontiers of each world. Because this world will cheat me, shall I cheat myself? It will be a costly pledge, to give it my soul till I yield my body to its bowels. Wherein shall the expectant of glory excel others, if his causes and cures of joy and grief are the same? Should one who would fain be conversant about a world to come, so much concern himself with wind and vanity, dust and ashes? Bags of white and yellow dust may bring me to court here, but the whole world on my back, will not procure me entrance into the palace of the King Eternal. When arrived at the seats of bliss, it will not matter whether my journey was in the fair day of prosperity and fame, or in the tempestuous day of affliction and disgrace. Both are forgotten in glory. But if I love God, I will long to be with him, for I shall never get my fill of love in a foreign land. Well, death is fast approaching, and the wondrous hour that divides Jordan. Both deliver me from the howling desart, and possess me of the land of promise. Under such a prospect, well may I with cheerfulness give up the ghost, saying, Into thy hand I commit my spirit.

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XVII.

THE DISEMBODIED SAINT.

1765.

WHITHER, dear angels, whither do ye carry my soul just disembodied? "Commissioned from thy Father's throne, we come to carry thee safe into his immediate presence." What dismal howling is that I hear behind us? "It is the last yells of hell's old lion, at thy safe escape."-Ah! where am I now? what wonders rise around me! what fragrance meets me from the mountains of myrrh, from the hills of frankincense! I hear the voice of my beloved; sacred guardians, let me leave you, and fly into his arms! Am I he who lately lay tumbling and tossing on a deathbed, who now walk in beds of roses, and on banks of bliss? Am I he who a little ago had none around his bed, but weeping friends, and concerned spectators, who now am surrounded with song, entranced with harmony, and ravished with delights? Am I, who lately lay struggling with the pangs, and trembling at the approach of dissolution, now above the reach of fear, and stroke of death?

But, O thou Majesty of heaven! I blush at my very entrance into thy courts, that I have been such a stranger here. Enoch, the divine Enoch, is a wonder in the upper world, he had so much of God with him on earth, he brought so much of heaven with him to heaven; he came not from earth to heaven, but from one heaven to another. What precious time and sweet meditation have'I wasted on toys and trifles,and despised the joy of angels and the work of heaven! Where

are all the things of time now, which could once dispute the possession of my heart with God? Why did not thy perfections feast my meditations? why did not thy love attract, constrain mine? why did not the joys of heaven drown the fanciful joys, and dissipate the imaginary sorrows of the world? why did I prostitute the temple of my soul to the idols of time? why permit the world and self a place in that temple which the Godhead is to inhabit for ever? There are none before the throne but supreme lovers of God, a name I dare not claim; then, let me retire to the outmost confines of the land of bliss, as unworthy to be nearer. Ah! no; at thy throne I will dwell for ever, and glow in ardors, and dissolve in love. And the sacred spark, which sin and satan, the world and self, smothered while below, shall burn a flame intense and strong through everlasting day.

SHALL I chaunt, or shall I complain? Even my complaints praise thee; it is thy kindness opens my mouth. Had I been thrown into hell, my revenge had been against the throne of God; but while I find myself in the arms of bliss, with what language shall I condemn my conduct in time! Was I content to have dwelt on the other side of Jordan for ever? to put up with a fool's paradise for eternity! O! why did not my soul go out more after God? why did not my love center on him alone? how could I treat my best, my heavenly friend, worse than a common traveller! My house received the one, but my heart bolted out the other! How mean was mine esteem of the fairest one that ever angels saw, or seraphs sung! O that ever trifling avocations should have

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