that it is "established in righteousness," so that no weapon which is formed against it, can prosper. Victory is ever the ground of joy; and the Spirit of God is a victorious Spirit. His judgment of the heart is sent forth unto victory. "And before him, mountains shall be made a plain, and every high thing shall be pulled down, till he bring forth the Head-stone with shoutings." To Stephen he was a Spirit of victory against the disputers of the world to the apostles, a spirit of liberty in the prison to all the faithful, a Spirit of joy and glory in the midst of persecutions.

Fifthly, The Spirit not only preserves the heart which he has renewed, but makes it fruitful and abundant in the works of the Lord; and fruitfulness is a ground of rejoicing. Therefore "they which are born of God, can not commit sin; that is, they are not "workers" or artificers, or finishers of iniquity, because they have the seed of God, that is, his Spirit in them, which fitteth them to bring forth fruit unto God: partly by teaching the heart, and casting, as it were, in the mould of the word, fashioning such thoughts, affections, judgments, in the soul, as are answerable to the will and Spirit of God in the word; so that a man can not but set his seal, and say "Amen" to the written law;-partly, by moving, animating, applying, and most sweetly leading the heart unto the obedience of that law, which is thus written therein.

Lastly, Those whom he has thus fitted, he seals up to a final and full redemption by the testimony of their adoption, which is the earnest of their inheritance: and thereby begets a lively hope, an earnest expectation, a confident attendance upon the promises, and an unspeakable peace and security thereupon; by which fruits of faith and hope there is a glorious joy shed abroad in the soul, so full, and so intimately mingled with the same, that it is as possible for a man to annihilate the one, as to take away the other. For according to the evidence of hope, and excellency of the thing hoped for, must needs the joy, therefrom resulting, receive its sweetness and stability.

Then let us not grieve, but love, cherish, honor and obey the Spirit, that we may constantly experience the delight and joy of his various workings and fruits in our hearts. For there is no joy, like joy in the Holy Ghost.

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.-Rev. xxi. 3.

In heaven there will be the closest union, and most inward communion with the blessed God.

1. Union which (what it is more than relation) is not till now complete. Besides relation it must needs import presence: not physical, or local; for so nothing can be nearer God than it is but moral and cordial, by which the holy soul with will and affections, guided by rectified reason and judgment, closes with and embraces him; and he also upon wise fore-laid counsel, and with infinite delight and love, embraceth it: so friends are said to be one (besides their relation as friends) by a union of hearts. A union between God and the creature, as to kind and nature higher than this, and lower than hypostatical or personal union, I understand not, and therefore say nothing of it.

But as to the union here mentioned: as, till the image of God be perfected, it is not completed; so it can not but be perfect then. When the soul is perfectly formed according to God's own heart, and fully participates the Divine likeness, is perfectly like him; that likeness can not but infer the most intimate union that two such natures can admit that is (for nature) a loveunion; such as that which our Saviour mentions, and prays to the Father to perfect, between themselves and all believers, and among believers mutually with one another. Many much trouble themselves about this Scripture; but sure that can be no other than a love-union. For, (1.) it is such a union as Christians are capable of among themselves; for surely he would never pray that they might be one with a union whereof they are not capable. (2.) It is such a union as may be made visible to the world. Whence it is an obvious corollary, that the union between the Father and the Son, there spoken of as the pattern of this, is not their union or oneness in essence, (though it be a most acknowledged thing, that there is such an essential union between them ;) for who can conceive that saints should be one among themselves, and with the Father and the Son, with such a union as the Father and the Son are one themselves, if the essential union between Father and Son were the union here spoken

of: but the exemplary or pattern union, here mentioned between the Father and Son, is but a union in mind, in love, in design, and interest; wherein he prays, that saints on earth might visibly be one with 'them also, that the world might believe. It is yet a rich pleasure that springs up to glorified saints from that love-union (now perfected) between the blessed God and them. It is mentioned and shadowed in Scripture, under the name and notion of marriage-union, in which the greatest mutual complacency is always supposed a necessary ingredient. To be thus joined to the Lord, and made as it were one spirit with him; for the eternal God to cleave in love to a nothingcreature, as his likeness upon it engages him to do; is this no pleasure, or a mean one?

2. Communion: unto which that union is fundamental, and introductive; and which follows it upon the same ground, from a natural propensity of like to like. There is nothing to hinder God and the holy soul of the most inward fruitions and enjoyments; no animosity, no strangeness, no unsuitableness on either part. Here the glorified spirits of the just have liberty to solace. themselves amidst the rivers of pleasure at God's right hand, without check or restraint. They are pure, and these pure. They touch nothing that can defile, they defile nothing they can touch. They are not now forbidden the nearest approaches to the once inaccessible Majesty; there is no holy of holies into which they may not enter, no door locked up against them. They may have free admission into the innermost secret of the Divine presence, and pour forth themselves in the most liberal effusions of love and joy: as they must be the eternal subjects of those infinitely richer communications from God, even of immense and boundless love and goodness. Do not debase this pleasure by low thoughts, nor frame too daring, positive apprehensions of it. It is yet a secret to us. The eternal converses of the King of glory with glorified spirits, are only known to himself and them. That expression, (which we so often meet in our way,) "It doth not yet appear what we shall be,” seems left on purpose to check a too curious and prying inquisitiveness into these unrevealed things. The great God will have his reserves of glory, of love, of pleasure for that future state. Let him alone a while, with those who are already received into those mansions of glory, those everlasting habitations: he will find a

time for those that are yet pilgrims and wandering exiles, to ascend and enter too. In the mean time, what we know of this communion may be gathered up into this general account, the reciprocation of loves; the flowing and reflowing of everlasting love, between the blessed soul and its infinitely blessed God; its egress towards him, his illapses into it. Unto such pleasure doth likeness to God dispose and qualify: you can no way consider it, but it appears a most pleasurable, satisfying thing.

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.—Is. vi. 1.

I saw.

Observe the freedom of God in his choice of men, to be near him and know him. And in the measuring out of the degrees of discovery unto those men differently, some had extraordinary revelations; and though prophetic visions now cease, yet there are certainly higher and clearer coruscations of God upon some souls, than upon many others; who yet are children of light, and partake of a measure of that light shining within them. Thus we are not carvers and choosers, and, therefore, are not peremptorily to desire any thing in kind or measure that is singular; that were pride and folly. But above all things we are to esteem, and submissively to desire, still more and more knowledge of God, and humbly to wait and keep open the passage of light; not to close the windows, not to be indulgent to any known sin or impure affection; that will soon obstruct it. Into a filthy soul, wisdom will not enter.

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord on his throne. There is another king named here, to denote the time by, but he was a diseased and a dying king, who lived some years a leper, and then died. Men may speak in a court style of vain wishes, O King, live for ever; but this king here on the throne, is indeed THE KING IMMORTAL, the everliving God.

God measures and proportions all his means to their ends. When he calls men to high services, he furnishes them with suitable preparations and enablements. Thus here with the prophet he was to denounce heavy things against his own nation, a proud, stubborn people; to deal boldly and freely with

the highest, yea, with the king himself; and he is prepared by a vision of God. What can a man fear after that? All regal majesty and pomp look petty and poor after that sight. Two kings together on their thrones in royal robes (1 Kings xxii.) did no whit astonish him who had seen a greater. I saw, says Micaiah, the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by. Much like this is the vision of Isaiah here before us.

Eyes dazzled with the sun, see not the glittering drops of dew on the earth; and those are quickly gone, with all their faint and fading glory, to a soul taken with the contemplation of God. How meanly do they spend their days, who bestow them on counting money, or courting little earthly idols in ambition or love! From how high a stand does he look down on those, who looks on God, and admires his greatness, wonders at what he sees, and still seeks after more! These two are, therefore, joined together, beholding the beauty of the Lord, and inquiring in his temple. Psalm xxvii. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

Having made peace through the blood of his cross.-Col. i. 20.

THE apostle takes it for granted that the work of peace and reconciliation is accomplished. He does not, therefore, apply himself to prove that mankind is reconciled to God, but to present to our view the very method of reconciliation. Now, to reconcile is nothing else than to renew a friendship broken asunder by some grievous offense, and so to restore the parties at enmity to their former concord. That is, to make peace. And this, notwithstanding the fall of man, and the hatred of sin on God's part, it pleased God to accomplish through the blood of his cross, that is, through the blood shed on the cross; or, through that bitter and bloody death which Christ endured on the cross. Two things, then, are here to be considered:

I. Why God willed peace and reconciliation should be made through the blood and death of his Son.

II. Why by the death of the cross.