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thou by earthly, carnal rules; and yet such a noble creature as a saint? Never entertain such fancies: the saints walk as Christ walked, he is their Forerunner and Captain.

The difference between a saint and a worldling may, in some manner, be apprehended from what we have spoken. Ask seriously of yourselves such questions; reflect upon your way of walking; see what is the constant frame of your heart, and what your heart affects most; what you have been, and what you are aiming at, and seeking most; what you rejoice most in; what the thoughts and intentions of your heart run out most upon. O sirs, be not beguiled in so weighty a concernment: if you err here, you are eternally undone. It is Satan's great endeavour to hinder you from considering yourselves, or your condition; he delights to see you pass away your time in considering your natural abilities, your corporeal endowments, your estate in the world, etc. But he is afraid lest you consider your spiritual estate, how it stands betwixt God and you; whether you be on friendly terms with him or not: if not, how you may attain unto a near fellowship; and how you may keep yourself in his love and favour, and grow more and more familiar with him: he loves and endeavours to divert your mind off eternal concernments to temporal. But, sirs, ought you not to give eternity the first place, the first, and flower, and choice, and might of all your endeavours? Make sure work in so great, great a matter: thy eternal well, or woe, is upon the wheels, man; what shall be your lot throughout endless ages, is a concernment above all you can

conceive or endeavour. Knowest thou not how the matter stands? Is not the time short thou hast to prepare? Is not thy life most uncertain? Is not the work of salvation a great, a long, a difficult work? Is it not most ordinary, that men die as they live; and most certain, that their eternal condition is as they die? Knowest thou not, that it is written, “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts?"—"Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” Heb. iii. 7,8; Prov. xxvii. 1. Come, oh come, and embrace so friendly a call. Have you any excuse? Are you about any business of such concernment? Is any succeeding hour better than now? Does not thine heart draw on a new degree of hardness? Why then, fall to work in good earnest, as for life and death: make sure work, build not upon sand, but on the rock: never rest till you have Christ indeed, and not some fancy in his place; be sure you get an interest in him: never think yourself right, until you have a familiar and lively

fellowship with the Father and the Son;” until there be mutual communications of love betwixt Christ and you; until you have heartily, and for ever, given yourself wholly over to him, and taken him wholly over to you, to be your King, Priest, and Prophet, to be your all and only One; until you be enamoured with his matchless beauty, overcome with his surpassing sweetness; until earth, in its best condition, be an empty nothing, and vanity in your eyes; until heaven become your native country, where heart, and love, and all do lie; so that it shall be as natural for you to be heavenly-minded, as for earth-worms to

be earthly. Oh then! we shall greet you, by the excellent and princely name of saints. Oh then! you shall be no more beasts, but creatures of a high seraphic nature, the sons and favourites of the high and lofty One; the princes and heirs of heaven, and earth, and all things; for then "all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's," 1 Cor iii. 21-23.

A SOLILOQUY TO GOD, PRAYERWAYS.

DISPATCH, O Wellbeloved, and hasten the day of our eternal marriage; put time and days out of the way. Great things hast thou to do, before thou descend visibly to this lower world: thou hast been making great dispatch since thou hast ascended; and still the nearer thy second coming, thou still hastenest thy work the more. These few years immediately preceding, how hast thou put many and great things through thy hand! and now thy kingdom is upon the advancing hand, though it seem almost all tottering and decaying. That great and glorious work thou promisedst of old, is just now in the birth, and near the breaking forth: thy grand enemies have begun to fall before thee, and have still lost ground; and though now they seem to have the advantage, it is but in appearance. Thou art but making thyself to flee before them, that thou mayest draw them all out after thee; but ere

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ever they shall be aware, thou wilt make thine ambuscadoes to assault them on the rear, and in a trice thou wilt environ them on every side, and give them an irreparable rout. Thou art, O mighty Captain, as it were, retiring thyself, that thou mayest come back on thine enemies with the greater force thou art at the crying out, "Ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:" for behold, thou makest the earth empty, and makest it waste, and turnest it upside down, and scatterest abroad the inhabitants thereof; thou art coming out of thy place, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; for thou shalt rise up, as in Mount Perazim, thou shalt be wroth, as in the valley of Gibeon; that thou mayest do thy work, thy strange work; and bring to pass thy act, thy strange act. At the noise of the tumult, the people shall flee; at the lifting up of thyself, the nations shall be scattered, and their spoil shall be gathered, like the spoiling of the caterpillars; as the running to and fro of locusts, so shalt thou run upon them; for thy sword shall be bathed in heaven, it shall come upon Idumea, and upon the people of thy curse, unto judgment: thy sword shall be filled with blood, and shall be made fat with fatness: for thou hast a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea; and the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks, with the bulls, and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness: for the day of vengeance is in thine heart, and the year of thy redeemed is come. Thou art looking, and there is none to

help; and thou wonderest that there is none to uphold; therefore thine arm shall bring salvation unto thee, and thy fury it shall uphold thee: thou wilt put on righteousness as a breast-plate, as an helmet of salvation upon thine head: and thou shalt put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and shalt be clothed with zeal as a cloak: and thou wilt tread down the people in thine anger, and make them drunk in thy fury; and wilt bring down their strength to the earth. Gird thy sword on thy thigh, O most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth, meekness, and righteousness: and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things: be thou a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. When thou makest inquisition for blood, remember them forget not the cry of the humble, that they may show forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter of Sion: that thou mayest be known by the judgments thou executest, when the wicked is snared in the works of his own hands: let not the needy always be forgotten; oh let not the expectation of the poor perish for ever. Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail; put thine enemies in fear, O Lord, that they may know themselves to be but men. Behold, they travail with iniquity, and have conceived mischief, and have brought forth falsehood: they have made a pit, and digged it; let them fall into the ditch which they have made: let their mischief return upon their own head, and their violent dealing come down upon their own pate. But those that trust in thee, let them rejoice, let

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