APPENDIX. more desirable toher, than to be dissolved, and so be with Christ ; in all her sickness magnifying his mercies to her. Many have thus joyfully laid down the flesh to go to Christ: what wonder, then, if Peter was loath to lose the pleasure of what he saw! Two things are necessary to great and solid joy; first, that the object be truly and greatlyamiable and delectable; and, secondly, that the apprehensions of it be clear and strong. As to the first, we have so great and glorious things to delight us as would feast our soulswith constant joy, werenot the second, alas ! much wanting. What man could choose but be even in Peter's rapture continual- ly, if he. had but ascertained heavenly glory, apprehended by him in as satisfactory a manner as these sensible things are? If I lay in prison, yea, or in torment of colic, stone, or any such disease, and had but, withal, such apprehensions, or sight of assured glory, surely the pain would not be able to suppress my joy. What a mixture, what a discord would there be in my expressions ! tor- ment would constrain my flesh to groan, and the sight of heaven would make me triumph. Í cannot but think how this great dis- cord would show the difference between the spirit and the flesh. What a strange thing it would be to hear the same man, at the same time, crying out in pain, with groans, and magnifying the love of God with transporting joy ! But we are not yet fit for such joyful apprehensions : our weak eyes must not see the sun, but through the allaying medium of a humid air, at a vast distance, and by the crystalline humor and organical parts of the eye. Fain we would get nearer, and have sight, or clearer apprehen- sions, of the spiritual society and glorious world. We study, we pray, we look up, we groan under our distance, darkness, and un- satisfying conceptions ; but yet it must not be ; we must be ripen- ed before the shell will break, or the dark wombwill deliver us up to the glorious light. But Christ vouchsafed that to his three apostles, which we are unworthy of, and yet unfit for. O, happy sight ! O, happy men ! It is incongruous to say, ' What would I not give for such a sight !' lest it. should savor of Simon Magus' folly; and I have nothing to give; but it is not incongruous to say, What would I not do, and what would I not suffer, for such a sight !' Yea, Christ puts such kind of questions to us : O that I had better answered them in the hour of duty, and in the hour of temptation ! When he asked, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? " . I have been ready, with James and John, to say, I can ; but when the trial comes, (as they after, in his suffering, forsook him and fled,) how insufficient, is my own strength to perform my promise! When he did impose on me the denying of myself,
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