of God? What calamity or mifery is there, in which this love cannot hold my head, and keep it from aking? To be loved of God, is to be fed with the richest stream, and to live upon Milk and Honey. If God laid down his life for his enemies, What will he not do for his friends? When I was his enemy, God feemed to love me more than he did himself, and now that I am his friend, Shall I think he will love me lefs than an enemy? How should I rejoyce to have fuch a friend as Jonathan was? but alas! What is this friendship to Gods love! All humane friendfhip is perfect perfidiousness, in comparison of Gods friendship: God fo loves his friends, that he knows not how to be feparated from them 5 if God had no other place to move in but Heaven, he would leave that Heaven, and come down and joyn himself to those, whom by his Spirit he hath adopted into the number of his friends; fo great, fo immenfe is his love to them. He that is a friend of God, becomes Gods individual Companion. What a favour would it have been counted, if the Son of God, when he was on Earth, would have joyned himself to one particular man, and would have never departed from him? What a priviledge then muft it be, for one who is Gods friend, to have the Divinity always prefent with him, not only as a Companion, but as an Inhabitant, for he dwells in us by his Spirit: Did ever any Father love his Son fo, as never to part company? Did ever any Mother love her Child, as never to fuf fer it to go from her Arms? But God is conti nually embracing his friends. Among men, a Father cannot be always there where his Son is, but God knows not how to be from him, that is his friend; and though God be in all crea tures by his Effence, Prefence, and Power, yet that is, because he is God; with a gracious Soul he is, because that Soul is his friend; and if God were not immenfe and infinite, and could not be with his other creatures, yet he would be with fuch a Soul with whom he is one Spirit; and if he could forget things, yet he could not forget fuch a Soul, or lay afide the thoughts of his profperity and welfare; and if he could for fake his other creatures, yet he could not forfake fuch a Soul, but would work always fome good or other in her for Gods love being strong, it's always active, and where God bears a good will to a Soul, he cannot but communicate goodness to her. And, shall I, after all this, repine, because I am not a Favourite of Kings and Princes, when, I have God for my conftant guide and affociate? How shall I stand amaz'd at the strangeness of the favour? if God should charge all the Angels of Heaven, all the ten thousand times ten thoufand Spirits which wait upon him, to go and attend fuch a man with all the Grandeur and Majefty imaginable; yet what is all this but a defart to Gods fociety? in having him for my afso ciate, I enjoy more Dignity, more Majesty, more Pomp and Glory, than if I had all the Armies of Heaven waiting upon me; and can I think God is always with me, and will not provide for me? If I fhould neglect all things in the World, and mind nothing but the things of God, and my Fathers bufinefs, I might be confident that he would feed me, and fupport me, because fo great, fo good, fo Almighty, fo kind a Friend could not fee me perish. The Son of God hath not honoured any Angel with the name of Brother, and yet if I am united to him by Grace, and by his Spirit, I enjoy this priviledge; and as Mothers love thofe Children moft, for which they have fuffered and endured moft; fo I may be confident, that God loves me most fervently, because he hath fuffered for me on the Crofs, and endured most bitter Tortures and Agonies for me. How may I exult? How may I triumph in this love? O my God! the Angels, for the least drop of that Grace, thou haft bestowed on them, are more beholden to thee, than all other creatures, for all their natural gifts, and for the Creation of the whole World: but for the leaft degree of Grace thou haft conferred on me, I am more beholden to thee, than all the Angels in Heaven; for that I might live by Grace, thou deliver'dft thine own Son, the Son of thy Bofom, the brightness of his Fathers Glory, to be crucified, and to die for me, which is more Gg3 than than thou haft done for all the Angels in Hea ven; and thus thou haft obliged me more than thou haft done the Heavenly Cherubins and Seraphins. Farewel, ungrateful treacherous World! I have feen enough of thy deceitful Prefents. I'll follow thy weak judgment no longer, I'll efteem no riches, but what my Saviour hath counted fo: In following him I cannot erre; felf-denial and doing the will of God, were the Treasures he ftudied to be Mafter of; Why should not I judge that to be Riches, which God hath judged fo? Why should not my mind agree with the Verdict of the moft High? Nay, when God doth love me fo entirely, Why fhould not I for love of him conform my understanding to his judgment? I fee, thofe that love the World, at the fame time confefs, that they ought to love the everlafting Riches more; for, if the fading things deferve their love, things permanent and folid, and eternal, ought to be loved much more. I will not think much of Afflictions now, for I find that God by them, would make me weary of my fondnefs to perishable trafh, and elevate and raise my Soul, to embrace thofe Treafures, which neither Men nor Devils can fteal away. Phy ficians, I fee, when they would cure a fick man, make him ficker than he is, by enjoyning him abftinence, by Aduftions, by Vomitives, by putting him to greater torments. I know my Soul Soul is fick, God would make it perfectly well; but fuch is my sickness, that God must put me to pain, and anguish, and great trouble, before I can be well; my Heart is all flint, but when this ftone is ftruck fufficiently, it will then fend forth Holy Fire; when my Flesh is weak, my Strength will retire more CO to my Mind, and Understanding, and I fhall be fitter for Heaven. The glorified Bodies of Saints, in the last day, will be the more fplendid and illuftrious, the more they have been afflicted, and tortured here, and fhine the more, the more difmal the Dungeon was they were kept in, during their abode in this Valley of Tears. Why fhould I weep, when God takes away from me the cause of weeping? How many thousands are now weeping in Hell, because they enjoy'd fo much of the worlds comforts, and made them occafions of affronting their Creator? Shall I count that loss, which is my gain, and call my want of Riches, a misfortune, when it is the greatest remedy to fit my Soul for Heaven? What impudence is it in me, to defire that of God, which I ought to hate, at the moft, love but with fear and trembling? What inhumanity to my self is it, to beg poifon of the Father of Lights, and to murmur that he gives me not that Viper, which will fting me into endless tortures ? My love of the world is Adultery, and fhall I defire that wherewith I have committed Adultery? Is it Gg 4 not |