proaches, penuries which men are fubject to in this life. This is a true notion, but much below the nature of that happy state.

Others are yet more highly affected with the words of glory and glorious, and feem to be much ravished with them; but are like men in amaze, or wonderment, that admire fomething that they understand not, and are altogether confounded in their own apprehenfions of it: as if a man should be mightily taken with fuch a fine name as Arabia the happy, and by a blind fervor of mind, fhould defire to go and vifit it, Others rife higher yet, in their apprehenfions of heaven, and look upon it as a holy ftate; but that holiness is negative, viz. a perfect freedom from fin, and all temptations to it and indeed, this is a precious confideration, and that, wherein many a weary foul, finds much reft. But yet, this amounts not to the life of angels; it is a lower confideration of heaven, than what our Saviour here presents us with. The state of the glorified faints, fhall not only be a state of freedom, from temporal pains, or eternal pains, or a freedom from fpiritual pains and imperfections; but a state of perfect pofitive holiness, pure light, ardent love, fpiritual liberty, holy delights; when all created good fhall perfectly vanish, all created love fhall be swallowed up, the foul fhall become of a moft godlike difpofition, fhining forth in the glory that he fhall put upon it, glorying in nothing but the bleffed God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, in his divine image and perfections, and wrapt up intirely into his infinite fulness to all eternity: which hath made me oftimes to nauseate, and indeed to blame the

poor

poor low descriptions of the kingdom of heaven, which I have found in books and fermons, for too dry, yea, and grofs; which defcribe heaven principally as a place, and give it such circumftances of beauty, firmnefs, fecurity, light and fplendor, pleafant fociety, good neighbourhood, as they think will most commend an earthly habitation. True indeed, the Holy Ghoft, in fcripture, is pleafed to condefcend fo far to our weak capacities, as to defcribe that glorious state to us by fuch things, as we beft understand, and are apt to be most taken with, and do most gratify our fenfes in this world; as a kingdom, paradife, a glorious city, a crown, an inheritance, &c. But yet, it is not the will of God, that his enlightened people fhould reft in fuch low notions of eternal life: For in other places, God fpeaks of the state of glory, according to the nature and excellency of it, and not according to the weaknefs of our understanding; and describes it at another rate, calling it the life of angels; and here, the beholding of God (Matt. v. 8.) a coming unto the measure of the ftature of the fulness of Chrift Ephef. iv. 13. God's being all things in us, I Cor. xv. 28. It is called a knowing of God, and of his Son Jefus Chrift, John xvii. 3. In a word, which is as high as can be fpoke, higher indeed than can be perfectly understood, it is called a being like unto God, 1 John iii. 21. We shall be like unto him. But this ufe is not fo much for reproof as it is for information.

2. Here is matter of reproof, yea and of just indignation against the grofs, low, fenfual, earthly life of profeffors, who yet hope to be the children

of

da

of the refurrection, and to be as the angels of God
in heaven. What! hope to be like them then,
and yet altogether unlike them now! I fpeak
not in a paffion, but out of a juft indignation that
I have conceived against myself, and against the
generality even of faints themselves. I am not
going to fpeak of covetousness, commonly fo called;
there is a fin much like to it, which is not indeed
a fingle fin, but an evil and unfeemly temper,
which is earthly mindedness, or minding of earthly
things; or if you will, because I would not be mi-
understood, a living upon the creature, or a
loving of the creature with a diftinct love. Oh!
the infenfible fecrecy, and infuperable power of
this creature-love! I cannot fufficiently exclaim
against it. Why do we fpend noble affections
upon fuch low and empty nothings! Are we
called with fuch a high calling, think you, that
our conversation fhould be fo low? Is the fulness
of the fountain your's, and do ye yet delight to fit
down by, and bathe yourselves in the fhallow
ftreams? Is your life hid with Christ in God?
Why then do converfe as if
you
life was
your
bound up in the creature? Have you laid up your
treafure in the bleffed God? What do
your hearts
then fo far from it? Is your happiness in heaven?
Why then is not your converfation there too? Do
you count it
your blifs to fee God? What then
mean thofe fond and wanton glances that ye caft
upon created comforts, and that unchafte love
which you beftow upon things below? I mean,
not only the bleatings of the sheep, and the lowings of
the oxen, I speak not of the groffer fort of earthly-
mindedness, fenfuality, or covetoufness, but of that

M

more

more refined and hidden creature-love; a loving of friends, relations, health, liberty, life, and that not in God, but with a love diftinct from that love wherewith we love God. To love all these in God, and for his fake, and as flowing from him, and partaking of him, and with the fame love wherewith we love God himself, is allowed us; but to love them with a particular love, as things diftinct from God, to delight in them merely as creatures, and to follow them as if fome good, or happiness, or pleafure, were to be found in them diftinct from what is in God; this is a branch of fpiritual adultery, I had almost faid idolatry. To tafte a sweetness in the creature, and to fee a beauty and goodnefs in it, is our duty; but then it must be the sweetness of God in it, and the goodness of God which we ought alone to taste and fee in it. As we fay, Uxor fplendet radiis mariti, the wife fhines with the rays of her hufband; fo, more truly, every creature shines but by a borrowed light; and commends unto us the goodness, and fweetnefs, and fulness of the bleffed Creator. You have heard that the glorified fouls fhall live upon God alone, entirely, wholly, eternally; and fhould not the lefs glorious fouls, I mean gracious fouls, do fo too, in fome degree? Yea even we who are upon earth, and do yet ufe creatures, fhould behold all the fcattered beams of goodness, sweetness, perfection that are in these creatures, all united and gathered up in God, and fo feed upon them only in God, and upon God in all them. It is the character of wicked and godlefs men that they fet up, and drive a trade for themselves; live in a way diftinct from God, as

though

very

though they had no dependance upon him, they love the world with a predominant love; they enjoy creature-comforts in a gross, unfpiritual manner; they dwell upon the dark fide of their mercies; they treasure up riches, not only in their chefts, but in their hearts; they feed upon the creature, not only with their bodies, but their fouls feed upon them: and thus, in a word, they live without God in the world. All this is no wonder, for that which is of the earth must needs be earthly, John iii. 31. But is it not a monftrous thing, that a heavenly soul should feed upon earthly trash? I fpeak without any hyperbole; the famous king of Babylon, forfaking the fociety of men, and herding himself with the beafts of the earth, and eating grafs with the oxen, was not so abfurd a thing, nor half fo monftrous or unfeemly as the children of the most high God, forfaking the true bread of fouls, and feeding upon the low fare of carnal men, even created sweetness, worldly goods. Nay, a glorious ftar falling from its own fphere, and choaking itself in the duft, would not be fuch an eminent piece of baseness; for what is faid of the true God in one fenfe, John iii. 31. is true of the truly godly in this sense, He that cometh from heaven is above all; i. e. above all things that are below God himself.

3. Shall this life of angels be also the life of faints? This This may then ferve as a powerful confideration to mortify in us the love of this animal life, to make us weary of this low kind of living, and quicken us to long after fo bleffed a change. Well might the apostle fay indeed, that to die was gain, Phil. i. 21. For, is not this gain, to exchange