degrees. By my leaving earth, I have lost no enjoyment, not only because of recompense and enjoyment of a higher nature; but also because all kinds of enjoyments are here in an eminent and divine manner. Thy land, O Emmanuel, is stored with all manner of precious things, new and old, which thou hadst prepared for thy chosen before all ages. All the joys and delights which I met with in time, were as so many light essays and small preludes of these substantial and enduring pleasures; all have been slight foretastes of this superabounding harvest of eternity; what was then in drops, is now in oceans, for I am entered for ever into the fountain of all fulness and satisfaction; and what sweetness before I experienced feebly and in part, I find now in the most evident, sublime, and vigorous manner; even my most refined enjoyments of thy blessed Self, were but low, childish motions, arising from shallow improper apprehensions, raised by the contraction of a multitude of borrowed ideas, extracted from lower objects, which indeed were surpassingly glorious and sweet for the time, filling mortality almost above its measure, appearing childhood-glory fallen down on grace's country. But oh the vast difference betwixt mortality and immortality! who can but smile at his former apprehensions? No wonder earthly stupid creatures apprehend this unspeakable glory in a stupid earthly manner. All this

extraordinary glory will appear above what "eye hath seen, the ear hath heard," or mind can imagine, unto the mind that hath known this more by faith than sight, more by certain report

than evident experience: for what can the mortal imagine higher, than by the sweet outletting of the glory and desire of men and angels, to be filled and overfilled “with joy unspeakable, and full of glory?" 1 Pet. i. 8. But a drop that would overfill a vessel of the narrowest size, would be as just nothing to one of the capacity of many worlds. Yet what delight and admiration, to look back and consider, how my Lord made bits of half dead clay to be enraptured with the highest objects, far above the reach of an earthly, mortal condition! but creatures of all conditions are enamoured, satisfied, and overcome when once thou beginnest, in the least, to discover thy matchless loveliness. What delights, to conceive bits of childish nothings enamoured with thee whom they never saw! and chanting forth their songs of praises in the midst of the saddest dispensations, which were able to torment, bear down, and crush low feeble mortality! Oh what joy to consider, with the same eye, my converse sometimes with thee in time, and now in eternity! and to parallel them together! how excellently does the espousing agree with the marriage! how nobly does walking with thee by faith, usher in the personal following of thee "whithersoever thou goest!" I find thy dealing to the saints in time, is a mystery above the reach of nature in its highest pitch, as well as thy way with them in eternity. Little did, or would the world consider, what a golden happiness I had, in the days of my pilgrimage, in thy fellowship: the choicest of their religion was a formal outside homage they mocked thee with; but a

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familiar converse with thee, was a thing they had no experience of: they worshipped thee as a dumb idol; for no mutual intercourse did they know, or desire: thou wast near in their mouth," but "far from their reins," Jer. xii. 2. Oh the golden hours I have had in thy fellowship, within the tents of sorrow, in absence! eternity cannot cancel the memory of thy surpassing kindness to me, in my low and despicable condition. I have most sensibly found thy strengthening, cheering presence, in all afflictions and difficulties; I found thee another manner of God, than the foolish world imagined thee to be, even a present help in time of trouble, Psa. xlvi. 1; and who gave ear to my prayers, and answered them speedily, both by the influences of thy Spirit on my heart, and thy dispensations. Though then I was a child, yet didst thou teach me to discern betwixt thy frownings, and thy smiles, the light of thy countenance lifted up, and the turning away of thy face; thou madest thyself familiar unto me, so that I approached unto thee, in all exigencies, as unto a near and intimate friend, of whose kindness and help I was persuaded, and trusted accordingly: I depended and trusted on thee, as a Father, casting all my cares upon thee; so that I was careful for nothing. I learned to know my duty, and the way of its performance, and committed the event of all to my Lord and Sovereign absolutely, without the least reservation; being persuaded that he would completely fulfil all things fully committed unto him, because he had promised; and would not make them ashamed, who placed their confidence in him.

And now I may testify before the whole creation, that thou hast been better to me, in my pilgrimage, than I could imagine, or desire; and that the lot thou didst provide for me, in time, has been best for me: I would not for ten thousand worlds it had been otherwise, as to the smallest dispensation: the most cross and ruinlike dispensations, as to sense, have been the sweetest; having had the noblest effects, and nearest manifestations of thy love and sweetness accompanying them. If any of them have proved bitter and disadvantageous, it was because I brought them on my own head, by my sacrilegious boldness, in disposing of myself and what concerned me, without his approbation and consent: yet, even these he turned to my good ; his power being so transcendently excellent, as to bring light out of darkness; and his love being so boundless to those whom he had chosen from eternity, that he would suffer no harm to befall them, but make all things to contribute to their good. Oh, can we fail to wonder at, and rejoice in the incomparable condescension, wisdom, and excellence of our Lord, who has contrived and effected our eternal happiness, after so stupendous a manner! Could we ruin ourselves, since it was his will to save? Could we in the least stand in the way of our happiness, since it was his sovereign eternal pleasure to make us as happy as can be? Oh eternal astonishment! the more we have undone ourselves, the more he has made us happy; the more we have degraded ourselves, the higher has he exalted us. Men and angels, could you have found out such a way to manifest

69. Praises to Jehovah, for the ac

complishment of his

promises to his peo

ple, and of his threat

enings against the

the glory and excellence of free grace? Is it not here manifested in the highest manner? Is it not an eternal question, men and angels, whether the excellence of our Wellbeloved manifested, or lying hid, be more astonishing? wicked. But sure each of them is an everlasting wonder, which would plunge ever so many worlds in an ocean of never-ending astonishment: one ray of his Divine excellence, now immediately beheld, doth implicitly discover what more and more eternally may be seen. What then should be our immortal exercise, but to bend all our faculties to search, and look in, and admire, and flame in love, and extol the transcendent excellences of Him that sits upon the throne, and the Lamb, throughout all ages? JEHOVAH, altogether excellent, lovely JEHOVAH, is a depth we have for ever lost ourselves in! What are we, men and angels, that we should set Him on high? What contribute we to the declaration of his infinite glory? Though we should wear out, to a period, endless eternity with our incessant hallelujahs, could we, bits of nothing, conceive in the least this infinite One? Did he not bow and humble himself infinitely below himself, that he may be apprehended, as he is, by our finite capacities, with his uncreated loveliness and sweetness? It is strange he should satisfy nothings with all his fulness! this is a mystery, a wonder! nothing but wonders upon wonders! every preceding act is the admiration of the following, and so throughout eternity. What stretchings of capacities! what bending of all the faculties! Oh the beauty,