glorious, and in the univerfal ruin, receives no detriment: when all human power and policy will be extinct; concealed piety and perfecuted virtue, will again appear, and be owned as His by the Lord of Hofts, in that day when he maketh up his jewels.

I will love thee therefore, O Lord, my ftrength; yea, I will love thee: and it ever thall be my heart's defire, that my foul may behold by faith in its felf, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, able and ready to change it into the fame image from glory to glory, reflected upon, and conveyed to it by the Spirit of the Lord. May my portion here be this bleffed transforming union, that I may be made partaker of the divine nature, by impreffions from it (24.) I fhall then have

all

(24.) The expreffion partaker of the divine nature by impreffions from it, may, perhaps, be thought by fome readers, to approach to vifion; and to contradict my own opinion before delivered, in relation to this fubject: let me obferve then, that by impression, I here mean no more, than bright beams of light caft upon the foul by the prefent Deity; as he fits all power, all knowledge, in the heart, and difpenfes fuch rays of wif dom to the pious petitioner, as are fufficient to procure a lafting fenfe of spiritual heavenly things. God is not only in heaven. He dwelleth indeed in the heaven of heavens after the moft glorious manner, as the High and Lofty One, and by fome fplendid appearance, manifefts a prefence to the fenfes of the bleffed fpirits *; but

as

* As to the expreffion juft now used, to wit, that this infinite Spirit manifefts himfelf to the fenfes of his bleffed

fubjects,

all I wifh, and all I want. With a fettled indifference I fhall then look upon the higheft advantages of this world. I fhall have nothing

X 3

as he is an infinite Spirit, diffufed thro' all things, filling as well as containing them, feeing and knowing all even

fubjects it may be asked how this can be the eye behold what is infinite and invisible?

the

can

The answer is this, that although God's effence be invisible, yet there is a glory, the train and attendance of his effence, which exhibits a bodily and fenfible vifion of God. He decketh himself with light as with a garment. This is the dwelling of his effence. He dwelleth in light that is unapproachable.

We must diftinguish then between the effential and the majeftatic prefence of God. The majeftatic prefence is the difcovery of his effential prefence in a determinate place by a magnificent luminous appearance; and this the apoftle calls the excellent glory · megaloprepous doxes. This glory appeared on Mount Sinai fix days together. It refted and dwelt in the fanctuary. It filled the house. Mofes faw its back parts, that is, a fmall meafure and fcantling of it, in proportion to the weaknefs of his mor

tal

eyes: but, in the other world, when martals fall have put on immortality, and our bodies fhall be invefted with the new powers of fpirituality and incorruption, then face to face: we fhall be able to fee the whole luftre of divine Majefty as familiarly as one man beholdeth the face of another.*

There

* As grateful objects of fense make up a great part of human delectation; may we not fuppofe, that this glory of God, accommodated to our fenfes, will produce a more ravishing and tranfcendent delight, than all the objects in nature are capable of producing?

nothing to hope or to fear. The will of God will be to me unmixed felicity.

52. Such

the moft fecret things; for, His eyes, (to fpeak after a popular manner) are ten thousand times brighter than the fun, beholding all the ways of men, and confidering the moft fecret paths; knowing all things e're ever they were created, and looking upon all things after they were perfected; it follows, that fince nothing can exclude the prefence of this infinite Spirit; then, in Him we live, move, and have our being: He is not far from any of us; but altho' he is above all, yet he is through all, and

There are two ways then, (as an excellent one obferves) of feeing God, to wit, by intelligence, and, in fome manner, by fenfe: but we must not imagine that these two make up the beatific vifion. There is a cause of more importance to beatitude. The fight and contemplation of the divine glories is our act; but the act of God is the communication of them. This makes the faints perfectly blefed. By the communication of the divine glories, we come to be, not bare fpectators, but, theias koinonoi phufeos, partakers of the divine nature.

As we are more obliged, (fays the writer I have mentioned) to the fun (who is the cheer and vigor of nature, and the very life of all animal and vegetable beings), for his influences than for his fight:fo are the heavenly inhabitants much more obliged to God for their receptions from him as the fountain of life and wisdom, than for the fight and contemplation of him as the fubject of perfection. This illuftrates the matter; and we may fay, there is a third way of feeing God, to wit, in the enjoyment of him, the beamings of his favor, and the effufions of his love, paffing thro' the whole man, and producing an intimate fenfation of him both in body and foul, and filling both with an unconceivable and endless delectation. This is feeing God as he is.

tion in a

52. Such was the foliloquy I fpoke, as I A meditagazed on the skeleton of John Orton; and just closet. as I had ended, the boys brought in the wild turkey, which they had very ingeniously roafted, and with fome of Mrs. Burcot's fine ale and bread, I had an excellent fupper. The bones of the penitent Orton I removed to a hole I had ordered my lad to dig for them; the skull excepted, which I kept, and still keep on my table, for a memento mori; and that I may never forget the good leffon, which the percipient who once refided in it, had given. It is often the subject of my meditation. When I am alone of an evening, in my closet, which is often my cafe, I have the skull of John Orton before me, and as I fmoak a philofophic pipe, with my eyes faftened on it, I learn more from the folemn object, than I could from the most philofophical and laboured fpeculations. What a wild and hot head once: how cold and still now; poor skull, I fay: and what was the end of all thy daring frolics and gambols thy licentiousness and impiety? - A fevere and bitter repentance. In piety and goodness John Orton found at last that happi

X 4

and in us all; within us, as well as without us; and therefore, in the hearts of the faithful, he must be confidered, as an immenfe, intellectual, pure light, ready to enlighten and enliven them, and to fhed forth the bright beams of his love upon them. I imagine this illustrates the thing. To me it seems reason.

An inventory of the

ton.

happiness the world could not give him. There is no real felicity for man, but in reforming all his errors and vices, and entring upon a ftrict and conftant courfe of virtue. This only makes life comfortable; renders death ferene and peaceful; and fecures eternal joy and bleffedness hereafter. Such are the leffons I extract from the full of John Orton. 53. When I had fupped, I went about, gords of to fee what things Mr. Orton had left behind John Or him in his little cottage, and I found a field bed-stead large enough for two, with a mattrafs, filk blankets, quilt, and cotton curtains; two oak ftools, and a strong fquare table of the fame wood. An oak fettee, on which his bones lay; a filver lamp to burn oil in; a tinder-box and matches; a cafe of razors; fix handfome knives and forks in a cafe; half a dozen china plates, two china difhes; and two pint mugs of the fame ware; half a dozen drinking-glaffes, a large copper kettle, a brass skillet, two filver fpoons, and a filver ladle; in a cheft were cloaths and linnen, fhoes and stockings, and various useful matters. There were pens, ink, and paper in a writing-defk, and half a fcore guineas; and on a fhelf over it, a dozen good books; three of which were, a large English bible, Thomas a Kempis, and Sir Walter Raleigh's history of the world: under the fhelf hung a plain gold watch, and a large ring fun-dial. In a dark

clofet,