possession do! How oft have we read and heard of the dying saints, who, when they had scarce strength and life to express them, have been as full of joy as their hearts could hold! And when their bodies have been under the extremities of their sickness, yea, ready to feel the pangs of death, have yet had so much of heaven in their spirits that their joy hath far surpassed their sorrows! And if a spark of this fire be so glorious, and that in the midst of the sea of adversity, what then is that sun of glory itself?

9. Compare also the glory of the heavenly kingdom with the glory of the Church on earth, and of Christ in his state of humiliation; and you may easily conclude, if Christ, standing in the room of sinners, was so wonderful in excellences, what is Christ at the Father's right hand! And if the Church, under her sins and enemies, hath so much beauty, she will have much more at the marriage of the Lamb. How wonderful was the Son of God in the form of a servant! When he is born, the heavens must proclaim him by miracles; a new star must appear in the firmament, and fetch men from remote parts of the world to worship him in a manger; the angels and heavenly host must declare his nativity, and solemnize it with praising and glorifying God; when he sets upon his office, his whole life is a wonder; water turned into wine, thousands fed with five loaves and two fishes, the lepers cleansed, the sick healed, the lame restored, the blind receive their sight, the dead raised if we had seen all this should we not have thought it wonderful? The most desperate diseases cured with a touch, with a word; the blind eyes with a little clay and spittle; the devils departing by legions at command; the winds and the sea obeying his word; are not all these wonderful? Think then how wonderful is his celestial glory! If there be such cutting down of boughs, and spreading of garments, and crying, Hosanna, to one that comes into Jerusalem riding on an ass, what will there be when he comes with his angels in his glory? If they that hear him preach the Gospel of the kingdom have their hearts turned within them, that they turn and say, "Never man spake like this man:" then sure they that behold his majesty in his

kingdom, will say, "There was never glory like this glory." If when his enemies come to apprehend him, the word of his mouth doth cast them all to the ground; if when he is dying, the earth must tremble, the veil of the temple rend, the sun in the firmament hide its face, and the dead bodies of the saints arise: O what a day will it be when he will once more shake, not the earth only, but the heavens also, and remove the things that are shaken! when this sun shall be taken out of the firmament, and be everlastingly darkened with the brightness of his glory! when the dead must all rise and stand before him; and "all shall acknowledge him to be the Son of God, and every tongue confess him to be Lord and King!" If when he riseth again the grave and death have lost their power, and the angels of heaven must roll away the stone, and astonish the watchmen till they are as dead men, and send the tidings to his dejected disciples; if the bolted doors cannot keep him out; if the sea be as firm ground for him to walk on; if he can ascend to heaven in the sight of his disciples, and send the angels to forbid them gazing after him: O what power, and dominion, and glory then is he now possessed of! and must we ever possess with him!

Yet think farther, are his very servants enabled to do such miracles when he is gone from them? Can a few poor fishermen and tent-makers cure the lame, and blind, and sick? open prisons, destroy the disobedient, and raise the dead? O then what a world will that be where every one can do greater works than these! It were much to have the devils subject to us; but more to have our names written in the Book of Life. If the very preaching of the Gospel be accompanied with such power that it will pierce the heart, and discover its secrets, bring down the proud, and make the stony sinner tremble; if it can make men burn their books, sell their lands, bring in the price, and lay it down at the preacher's feet; if it can make the spirit of princes stoop, and the kings of the earth resign their crowns, and do their homage to Jesus Christ; if it can subdue kingdoms, and convert thousands, and turn the world thus upside down; if the very mention of the judgment and life to come can make the judge on the bench to tremble,

what then is the glory of the kingdom itself? What an absolute dominion have Christ and his saints! And if they have this power and honour in the day of their abasement, what will they have in their full advancement?

10. Compare the mercies thou shalt have above with the mercies which Christ hath here bestowed on thy soul; and the glorious change which thou shalt have at last, with the gracious change which the Spirit has wrought on thy heart. Compare the comforts of thy glorification with the comforts of thy sanctification. There is not the smallest grace in thee which is genuine, but is of greater worth than the riches of the Indies; nor a hearty desire and groan after Christ, but is more to be valued than the kingdoms of the world; a renewed nature is the very image of God: Scripture calleth it, "Christ dwelling in us," and "the Spirit of God dwelling in us:" it is a beam from the face of God himself; it is the seed of God remaining in us; it is the only inherent beauty of the rational soul; it ennobleth man above all nobility; it fitteth him to understand his Maker's pleasure, to do his will, and to receive his glory think then with thyself, if" this grain of mustard seed" be so precious, what is "the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God?" If a spark of life be so much, how glorious then is the fountain and end of this life! If we are even now said "to be like God, and to bear his image, and to be holy as he is holy;" sure we shall then be much liker God when we are perfectly holy, and without blemish. Is the desire of heaven so precious a thing! what then is the thing itself? Is love so excellent! what then is the beloved? Is our joy in foreseeing and believing so sweet! what will be the joy in the full possession? O the delight that a Christian hath in the lively exercise of some of these affections! What good doth it to his very heart when he can feelingly say, He loves his Lord! Yea, even those troubling passions of sorrow and fear are yet delightful, when they are rightly exercised: how glad is a poor Christian when he feeleth his heart melt, and when the thoughts of sinful unkindness will dissolve it! Even this sorrow doth yield him matter of

joy: O what will it then be, when we shall do nothing but know God, and love, and rejoice, and praise, and all this in the highest perfection! What a comfort is it to my doubting soul when I have a little assurance of the sincerity of my graces! How much more will it comfort me, to find that the Spirit hath safely conducted me, and left me in the arms of Jesus! What a change was it that the Spirit made upon my soul when he first "turned me from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God!" To be taken from that horrid state of nature, wherein myself and my actions were loathsome to God, and the sentence of death was passed upon me, and the Almighty took me for his utter enemy; and to be presently numbered among his saints, and called his friend, his servant, his son, and the sentence revoked which was gone forth; O what a change was this? To be taken from that state wherin I was born, and had lived so many years, and if I had so died I had been damned for ever; and to be justified from all these crimes, and freed from all these plagues, and put into the title of an heir of heaven; O what an astonishing change was this! How much greater will that glorious change then be! beyond expressing! beyond conceiving! How oft, when I have thought of this change in my regeneration, have I cried out, O blessed day! and blessed be the Lord that I ever saw it! How then shall I cry out in heaven, O blessed eternity! and blessed be the Lord that brought me to it! Was the mercy of my conversion so exceeding great that the angels of God did rejoice to see it? Sure then the mercy of my salvation will be so great that the same angels will congratulate my felicity. This grace is but a spark that is raked up in the ashes; it is covered with flesh from the sight of the world; but my everlasting glory will not "be under a bushel, but upon a hill, even upon Sion, the mount of God."

CHAPTER IX.

HOW TO MANAGE AND WATCH OVER THE HEART THROUGH THE WHOLE WORK.

THE last part of this directory is to guide you in managing your hearts through this work, and to show you wherein you had need to be exceeding watchful. I have showed you before what must be done with your hearts in your preparations to the work, and in your setting upon it: I shall now show it you, in respect of the time of the performance. Our chief work will here be to discover to you the danger, and that will direct you to the remedy. Let me therefore acquaint you beforehand, that whenever you set upon this heavenly employment, you shall find your own hearts your greatest hinderers, and they will prove false to you in one or all of these four degrees: First, they will hold off, that you will hardly get them to the work; or else they will betray you by their idleness in the work, pretending to do it when they do it not; or they will interrupt the work, by their frequent excursions, and turning aside to every object; or they will spoil the work by cutting it short, and be gone before you have done any good at it. Therefore I forewarn you, as you value the invaluable comfort of this work, faithfully resist these four dangerous evils.

1. Thou shalt find thy heart as backward to this, as to any work in the world.' O what excuses it will make ! what evasions it will find out! and what delays, when it is never so much convinced! Either it will question, whether it be a duty or not! or, if it be so to others, yet whether it be so to thee? It will take up any thing like reason to plead against it; or, if thy heart have nothing against the work, then it will trifle away the time in delays, and promise this day and the next, but still keep off; or lastly, if thou wilt not be so baffled with excuses or delays, thy heart will give thee a flat denial, and oppose its own unwillingness to thy reason: thou shalt find it draw back with all the strength it hath. I