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from chamber to chamber; say to it, Here must I lodge, here must I live, here must I love, and be loved. I must shortly be one of this heavenly choir, I shall then be better skilled in the music; among this blessed company must I take my place; my tears will then be wiped away; there it is that trouble and lamentation cease, and the voice of sorrow is not heard. O when I look upon this glorious place what a dungeon methinks is earth! O what a difference betwixt a man feeble, pained, groaning, dying, rotting in the grave, and one of these triumphant, blessed, shining saints! "shall I drink then of the river of pleasure, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. For the Lord will create a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered; we shall be glad and rejoice for ever in that which he creates; for he will create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy; and he will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in his people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying; there shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man, that hath not filled his days."

Why do I not then arise from the dust, and lay aside my sad complaints, and cease my mourning? Why do I not trample down vain delights, and feed upon the foreseen delights of glory? Why is not my life a continual joy and the favour of Heaven perpetually upon my spirit?

I do not place any flat necessity in thy acting all the forementioned affections in this order at one time, or in one duty perhaps thou mayest sometime feel some one of thy affections more flat than the rest, and so to have more need of exciting; or thou mayest find one stirring more than the rest, and so think it more seasonable to help it forward; or if thy time be short, thou mayest work upon one affection one day, and upon another the next, as thou findest cause; all this I leave to thy own prudence.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME ADVANTAGES AND HELPS FOR RAISING THE SOUL BY MEDITATION.

THE next part of this directory is to show you what advantages you should take, and what helps you should use, to make your meditations of heaven more quickening, and to make you taste the sweetness that is therein. For this is the main work, that you may not stick in a bare thinking, but may have the lively sense of all upon your hearts and this you will find to be the most difficult part of the work. It is easier to think of heaven a

whole day than to be lively and affectionate in those thoughts one quarter of an hour. Therefore let us yet a little farther consider what may be done to make your thoughts of heaven piercing, affecting thoughts.

It will be a point of spiritual prudence, and a singular help to the farthering of faith, to call in our senses to its assistance: if we can make us friends of those usual enemies, and make them instruments of raising us to God, which are the usual means of drawing us from God, we shall perform a very excellent work. Sure it is both possible and lawful to do something in this kind; for God would not have given us either senses themselves, or their usual objects, if they might not have been serviceable to his own praise, and helps to raise us to the apprehension of higher things: and it is very considerable how the Holy Ghost doth condescend, in the phrase of Scripture, in bringing things down to the reach of sense; how it sets forth the excel lences of spiritual things in words that are borrowed from the objects of sense. Doubtless, if such expressions had not been best, and to us necessary, the Holy Ghost would not have so frequently used them: he that will speak to man's understanding, must speak in man's language, and speak that which he is capable to conceive.

1. Go to then; when thou settest thyself to meditate on the joys above, think on them boldly as Scripture hath expressed them; bring down thy conceivings to

the reach of sense. Excellence, without familiarity, doth more amaze than delight us; but love and joy are promoted by familiar acquaintance: when we go about to think of God and glory without these spectacles we are lost, and have nothing to fix our thoughts upon; we set God and heaven so far from us that our thoughts are strange, and we look at them as things beyond our reach, and are ready to say that which is above is nothing to us: to conceive no more of God and glory but that we cannot conceive them; and to apprehend no more but that they are past apprehension, will produce no more love but this, to acknowledge that they are so far above us that we cannot love them; and no more joy but this, that they are above our rejoicing. And therefore put Christ no farther from you than he hath put himself, lest the Divine nature be again inaccessible. Think of Christ as in our own nature glorified; think of our fellow saints as men there perfected; think of the city and state as the Spirit hath expressed it, only with caution. Suppose thou wert now beholding this city of God, and that thou hadst been a companion with John in his survey of its glory, and hadst seen the thrones, the majesty, the heavenly hosts, the shining splendour, which he saw: draw as strong suppositions as may be from thy sense for the helping of thy affections it is lawful to suppose we did see for the present that which God hath in prophecies revealed, and which we must really see in more unspeakable brightness before long. Suppose, therefore, with thyself thou hadst been that apostle's fellow traveller into the celestial kingdom, and that thou hadst seen all the saints in their white robes, with palms in their hands: suppose thou hadst heard those songs of Moses and of the Lamb; or didst even now hear them praising and glorifying the living God: if thou hadst seen these things indeed in what a rapture wouldst thou have been! And the more seriously thou puttest this supposition to thyself, the more will the meditation elevate thy heart.

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I would not have thee, as the Papists, draw them in pictures, nor use such ways to represent them. This, as it is a course forbidden by God, so it would but se

duce and draw down thy heart: but get the liveliest picture of them in thy mind that possibly thou canst; meditate on them, as if thou wert all the while beholding them, and as if thou wert even hearing the hallelujahs; till thou canst say, Methinks I see a glimpse of the glory! Methinks I hear the shouts of joy and praise! Methinks I even stand by Abraham and David, Peter and Paul, and more of these triumphing souls! Methinks I see the Son of God appearing in the clouds, and the world standing at his bar to receive their doom! Methinks I hear him say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father;" and see "them go rejoicing into the joy of their Lord!" My very dreams of these things have deeply affected me; and should not these just suppositions affect me much more? What if I had seen with Paul those unutterable things; should I not have been exalted (and that perhaps above measure) as well as he? What if I had stood in the room of Stephen, and seen heaven opened, and Christ sitting at the right hand of God? Surely, that one sight was worth the suffering his storm of stones. O that I might but

see what he did see, though I also suffered what he did suffer! What if I had seen such a sight as Micaiah saw? "The Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left." Why, these men of God did see such things; and I shall shortly see far more than ever they saw, till they were loosed from the flesh, as I must be. And thus you see how the familiar conceiving of the state of blessedness, as the Spirit hath in a condescending language expressed it, and our strong suppositions raised from our bodily senses will farther our affections in this heavenly work.

2. There is yet another way by which we may make our senses serviceable to us, and that is, by comparing the objects of sense with the objects of faith; and so forcing sense to afford us that medium from whence we may conclude the transcendent worth of glory, by arguing from sensitive delights as from the less to the greater. And here, for your farther assistance, I shall furnish you with some of these comparative arguments. And 1. You must strongly argue with your hearts

from the corrupt delights of sensual men. Think, then, with yourselves when you would be sensible of the joys above is it such a delight to a sinner to live with God? Hath a drunkard such delight in his cups and companions that the very fears of damnation will not make him forsake them? Sure, then, there are high delights with God! If the way to hell can afford such pleasure, what are the pleasures of the saints in heaven?

2. Compare also the delights above with the lawful delights of sense. Think with thyself, How sweet is food to my taste when I am hungry! especially, as Isaac said, "that which my soul loveth." What delight hath the taste in some pleasant fruits, in some well relished meats! O what delight then must my soul have in feeding upon Christ, the living bread! and in eating with him at his table in his kingdom! How pleasant is drink in the extremity of thirst! Then how delightful will it be to my soul "to drink of that fountain of living water which whoso drinks shall thirst no more!"

3. Compare also the delights above with the delights that are found in natural knowledge. This is far beyond the delights of sense, and the delights of heaven are farther beyond it. Think, then, can an Archimedes be so taken up with his mathematical invention, that the threats of death cannot take him off? Should I not much more be taken up with the delights of glory, and die with these contemplations fresh upon my soul; especially when my death will perfect my delights? But those of Archimedes die with him. What a pleasure is it to dive into the secrets of nature! to find out the mysteries of arts and sciences! If we make but any new discovery in one of these, what singular pleasure do we find therein! Think, then, what high delights there are in the knowledge of God and Christ! If the face of human learning be so beautiful that sensual pleasures are to it but base and brutish; how beautiful then is the face of God! When we light on some choice and learned book, how are we taken with it! we could read and study it day and night; we can leave meat, and drink, and sleep, to read it; what delights then are there at God's right hand, where we shall know in a moment more than any mortal can know!

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