Imatges de pàgina
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fied wholly and perfectly with the divine image, fhining glorioufly on them, and in them; to which purpofe that of the Pfalmift may be accommodated, Pfal. xvii. ult. When I awake, &c. Well, we cannot be fo fatisfied in this life, it feems; however, though we cannot be so satisfied with it, yet let us not be fatisfied without it, or fatisfied with any thing befides it. Refoive, holy foul, well, if I muft not be fully fatisfied with the image of my heavenly Father till I awake, I will lie down and fall afleep hungry as I am then; for I will not fill my mouth with chaff, nor my foul with the bufks that the fwine eat. But, in the mean time, get what you can of God out of creature-enjoyments.

1. Enjoy all things for God; and that these two ways:

1. Ufe all for him. Thofe riches, honours, interefts, friends, which are clogs upon the heels of others, let them be as heels to you to carry you Heaven-ward; let your fouls be winged with thofe very enjoyments wherewith the wings of others are pinioned; and that which is fuel to their worldly lufts, let it be as fuel to feed and nourish your fpiritual love. To use what we have for God, is the only way of not abufing it. This is one way of enjoying all for God, to ufe all for him; and yet there is something higher in that phrafe of enjoying all for God than this, viz.

2. Value no creature-comfort any further than as it leads to God; and this in a double fenfe too. First, Value things to be good only by this, by their leading you unto God. Perfectum in fuo genere eft menfura reliquorum. Now God, being the fupreme

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fupreme and infinite good, any thing is fo far good as it leads to the enjoyment of him. Now the enjoyment of God is only in being like to him; holiness is his image: fo then every thing is good that tends to fanctification, and to make men partakers of a divine nature. We are usually mistaken in the true notion of good and evil, of mercies and judgments, judging according to the taste, foolish patients do; but God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. Measure all things by the proportion they bear, and the tendency they have to the fupreme good? and call not any thing evit that brings nearer to him, nor any thing good that draws off from him. Secondly, When you have found a thing that is really good, tending and leading to the chief good, and to the poffeffion of him, labour to enjoy it; and rejoice in it only under this notion, as fuch; when you love it, let it be with a pure fpiritual love; and fo order your delight in it, that it may be faid, you rather rejoice in the end of it than in the enjoyment of it.

2. Another way of living upon God in the creature, is, To enjoy all things as partaking of him. Every good and perfect gift is from above. Every beam of created light floweth out of the Father of light, James i. 17. When the bleffed and glorious God framed this ftately fabric of the visible world, because there was nothing better in the world than himself, he was pleased to copy out. himself in it, and to fpread his own infinite perfections over it, and through it, Rom. i. 20. fo that every particular good is a bloffom of the first goodness, every created excellency is a dark draught of God, and a broken beam of this infinite Sun

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of Righteoufnefs. Created life, beauty, wifdom, goodness, sweetness, are nothing else but effluxes, or rather ebullitions out of the self-fufficient fountain, fcant communications made of himself from uncreated life, effential wifdom, univerfal goodnefs. And under this notion we ought only to enjoy them, and delight in them; and if we do fo, we do not fo much enjoy them, as God in them. Oh! labour to do fo! Look upon the perfections which you find here below, not fo much as the perfections of this or that particular being, but as they are so many drops rifen out of the Fountain of all Perfection, in whom they all meet, and are concentered. It is well expreffed by one, In a -particular being love the univerfal goodness; let the whole world be as the garden of God to you, where every creature is a flower, from which you may fuck something of the divine sweetness. Alas! at what a low and fenfual rate do we live, when we rejoice in creatures, either as they are excellent, or as they are ours! Whereas, indeed, neither of thefe is true, for they are not excellent, but God is excellent in them. And how can we call any thing our own, when God made both us and all things for himself? Oh! how injurious is it to the bleffed God, when we rob him of his own perfections that he hath imprinted upon the creature, by loving it and delighting in it not as in him, but as fomething diftinct from him! Nay, we are then injurious to ourselves, as we shall fee by and by. Labour to enjoy, and to converfe with God in the creatures. How precious alfo are thy thoughts unto me, O God! cried David, when he had been meditating of the creature's excellencies, Pfalm

Pfalm cxxxix. 17. Labour to abstract your mind from terrene things even in the enjoyment of them, and call upon yourselves to love, and live, and feed upon God in them; live not upon the dark fide of your mercies, but upon the representations of God in them. Is there any thing good? Oh! this is a taste of infinite Goodness! Is there any thing fweet? Oh! how sweet-is the God that made it fo? Is there any thing lovely? It is the picture of him whofe name is Love! Is any thing firm, ftable, lafting? It is a fhadow of that glorious effence, with whom there is no fhadow of a change! Have you any thing ftrong? It arifes out of that God with whom is everlasting ftrength! Doth any creature give reft, ease, refreshment? It fprings out of the all-fatisfying fulness of God ! In a word, labour to climb up by every created excellency, as by fo many beams to the Father of Lights; let all the world be to you as God's temple, and be ready to fay of every place, as Jacob, How dreadful is this place! furely this is no other than the house of God! That God, who runs through all created beings, and from himself derives several prints of beauty and excellency all the world over. But efpecially take heed of your own created comforts, that they do not infenfibly lead away your hearts, and enfnare you into a finful, particular, diftinct love of them; which is a fin foon committed, hardly discerned, and most hardly reformed. If any be freed from these inordinate affections, fure they are but few, and thofe few have come dearly by it; as he faid in another cafe, With a great fum they have obtained this freedom, they have paid for it, not with the forefkins of the Philistines,

Philistines, but with the lives of what they fo loved, there being no way to cure this evil diftemper, but cutting off the member infected with it, the part that it fed upon. As a branch of this

head, let me add, labour to live upon God in the excellencies of other men; value them and all their accomplishments only in God, as he did, deligere Deum habitantem in Auguftino. Admire God, and enjoy. God in them; where ever you fee wifdom, goodness, ingenuity, holiness, juftice, or any other accomplishment, fay, Here and there is God. And this is the honeft way of making ourselves mafters of whatever is another man's, and enjoying it as truly as he himself doth, yea, as truly as if it were our own. When we behold all these beams, as coming from the fame Fountain of Lights, and do love them all in him with an univerfal love; this is the rare art of having nothing, yet poffeffing all things; of being rich, though. one have nothing; and of being wife, though one know nothing.

3. The laft way of living upon God in the creature, is, To tafte and feed upon the love of God in them; not only his common bounty, but his fpecial love in Chrift. The good will of God gives a sweet relish to every morfel, as I hinted before. Even in the midst of all your delightful, pleasant, fweet enjoyments, let your fouls be more affected with this than with them; let this be as the manna upon the top of all your outward comforts, which your fpirits may gather up and feed upon. But this I touched upon before, therefore I fhall add no more concerning it. Thus I have fhewed you how you may imitate the life of angels in living

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