real heaven, fetting afide all circumftances of place, c. the perfect and proper happiness of a foul, to fee God, Mark v. 8. to be like unto him, 1 John iii. 2. to converse with the father by the fon, as our Saviour hath told us, who best knew it, John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jefus Chrift whom thou haft fent. By this it is that God dwells in the foul, and the foul in God, as we fhall fee hereafter, and the kingdom of heaven doth really enter into every believer.

3. The natural man is utterly unwilling and unable to converfe with God. An earthly mountain may as foon rife up to heaven by its power and good will, as an earthly mind: and fuch minds are natural and unregenerate. Sin, as I hinted before, is a falling from God, a finking of the foul into felf, whether fenfual felf, or spiritual felf, and a fhrivelling of it up into the creature, and the finful foul is always, like a fhadow, moving upon the surface of the earth, and higher it cannot get, Rom. viii. 5. Would you know what is the principal object of a natural man's admiration, inclination, and ambition? The pfalmift will tell you, it is fome created good, Pfal. iv. 6, 7. Will you know what is the difpofition of the natural man towards the fupreme and uncreated good; the apostle will tell you it is ignorance and enmity, 1 Cor. ii. Rom. viii. 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God. This high duty of converfing with God in a right manner is befides the temper of the wicked man: never any such man did perform it. It is a contradicttion: a wicked man converfing with God, is, as if one should say, an ungodly

man,

man, that is godly: but that is not all, this duty is not only out of the hands of a wicked man, but out of his reach too: Neither can he know him, faith the apostle to the Corinthians,and again to the Romans: Neither can he be fubject to him. Can twe zvalk together, except they be agreed? Saith the prophet. Can man walk with God, converfe with God, except he be reconciled to him? and what agreement, but by a mediator? What mediator between God and man but Chrift Jefus, who is a mediator as the logicians call a medium parti cipationis, who is God-man? In a word, fome converfe with one thing in the world, and some with another, as I noted before; but all converse prin cipally and mainly with the creature, that are not regenerated by grace, reconciled by Chrift.

4. It is the duty of man in all ages of life, at all times, and in all places and conditions, to converfe with God. It is a neceffary, natural, certain, conftant duty, fpringing up out of the very nature and na tural will of God, and out of the very nature and relation and capacity of the reasonable foul, binding femper and ad femper, as the fchool-men speak, and of admitting of no difpenfation or diminution. There is no time wherein it is not a duty, or wherein it is less a duty than at another time: however, we are apt to give to ourselves many relaxations from it. The first fruits, nay, the very early buds of the tender foul, and of the fpringing faculties; these are due to God, and ought to be dedicated to him, Ecclef. xii. 1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Manhood is not allowed so to attend unto cares and exploits, nor old age to pains and griefs, as to neglect converse

with God: but whether young men build or plant, fight or ftudy, or work, or marry, or manage the affairs of the house or of the field, all fhould be undertaken and carried on in a way of converse and fellowship with God: or whether old men fit and muse, and meditate, or lie under the pains and grievances of decrepid age, ftill it ought to be in the Lord. Neither doth this duty admit of interruption, more than of ceffation: there is no difpenfation given us from this duty, as in no age, fo in no hour of life. As we cannot live a moment out of God, so neither ought we to live a moment without God in the world. We ought continually to endeavour to walk in fubfervience to, and converse with God, yea, and as far as may be, in a feeling converse with him too. Holy David witneffeth of himself that the fear of God was continually before his eyes, and that he did continually converse with God; for so those words may be understood, Pfal lxxiii. 23. I am continually with thee. The like is recorded of many other saints, both in the old and new teftaments; concerning whom one may well fay, as the queen of Sheba concerning the fervants of Solomon, and with much better reafon, 1 Kings x. 8. Happy are thefe thy fervants, O Lord, which fand continually before thee! Neither is it the duty of fome few men, that have the greatest knowledge or the most leisure. For it fprings up out of the relation of a creature, and out of the very nature of the rational foul; fo that no foul of man is exempted from it, however many ignorant and profane perfons live rather in a profeffed independence upon God. Neither is it a duty only upon fuppofition of leifure and freedom from

B

worldly

wordly business, as fome other things are, but is equally incumbent upon prince and peasant, upon him that fits in his closet, and upon him that ploughs in the field; yea they that go down unto the fea in fhips, ought to go up unto heaven in their hearts; and not only to converfe with the clouds, which they often do, but above them too. A handful of earth, and a heart full of heaven may well stand together; for as this duty juftles out no honest business, so neither fhould itself be juftled out by any. And as this high and excellent duty agrees to all ages and times and perfons, so it agrees to all conditions too: poor men think that rich men may well do it, and rich men think that poor men had need to do it: Profperity thinks it had better things to mind than a God, and Adverfity knows it hath worse things, but it must buy them: Plenty is too full to entertain them, and Poverty hath enough to do to bear up under its own burden: Learning knows how, but will not; Ignorance fays it would, but knows not how; but notwithstanding all this fhuffling, the obligation to this duty ceases not: none fo high as to be above it, none fo mean as to be below it; for rich and poor, high and low, learned and unlearned, prince and peasant, though they are divided amongst themselves by punctilios and leffer differences, yet they are united in one universal being, meet in one and the fame center, agree in the common capacity of reasonable creatures.

As

religion hath an interest and a concernment in the whole of the converfation, according to that of the apoftle, Phil. iii. 20. Our converfation is in heaven, fo alfo hath it a room in the converfation

of

of every man in every capacity: no relation, condition, action, change is exempted from the powerful influence thereof; fo the apoftle defcribes himfelf, by his living in all good confcience before God all along, Acts xxiii. I. and by his exercifing himself in this thing, to have always a conScience void of offence towards God and towards men, Acts xxiv. 16.

Now the fifth step in order, would be, that it is more efpecially the duty of God's people to Study to converfe with him aright in the way of his judgments, which is the doctrine it felf, which I muft not come to confirm, till I have fhewed according to my promise in the fecond place, what it is for the foul to converfe with God, and how it comes to converfe with him.

Not to name thofe too low and improper notions that men ordinarily have of this high and fpiritual matter, converfing with God, to fpeak properly of it, is a complex act of the foul, whereby it entertains God into itself, and renders itself back again to him; receives impreffions from him, and gives up itself again to him; is first filled with him, and then empties itself into him. You may conceive of it after the fimilitude of a plant, that is influenced by the benign beams of the fun; and in those beams fpreads itself, and in the virtue and power of them grows up towards heaven; or after the fimilitude of a river, that is continually filled with the ocean, and is continually emptying itself into the fame. This feems to be our Saviour's elegant allufion, John iv. 14. where he compares a divine and godly principle in the soul, to a well of water fpringing out from God,

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and