232 BAXTER'S .DYING THOUGHTS. must not look that this should be ordinary, or always so. When some fervent prayer is extraordinarily answered and a sacrament sweetened with drops of heavenly sweetness, or a holy discourse or meditation bath raised us higher, than ever before, we must not expect that this should be our constant diet, and God should thus feast us all the year. The times of fasting also have their túrn. Moses did not dwell on Mount Horeb, nor Mount Nebo or:Pisgah, from whence he saw the Land of Promise. God's .children 'do not always laugh and sing : while they have their sinning times, they will have their 'suffering and crying times. How suddenly doth the lark come down to the earth, who before was soaring out of sight, and singing pleasantly in the higher air, as if it had been aspiring towards the sun ! A luscious diet is not best for such as we, that have so many corruptions to be cured by cleans- ing means : cordials must not be all our physic :. unwarrantable expectations of_ greater or more continued joys than we are meet for, is injurious both o God and to ourselves. Desires of more we may and mast have ; but those desires must look up to heaven, where, indeed, they may be satisfied. 32. The joy of these spectators was turned into fear (saith the text) when they entered into the aloud. No wonder: the change was sudden and great; from a sight of the kingdom of God in power, unto a' dark cloud. Just now they seemed almost in heav- en, and presently theyknew not where they were from glorious light to a kind of prison of obscurity. Such changes here we are liable to. The same soul that lately tasted of transporting joy, may lie in terror, hardly resisting temp- tations to despair. The same person that was confident of the love of God may be quickly not only doubting of it, but sinfully denying it: the same that had assuring evidence of sincerity may shortly conclude that .all was but hypocrisy. The same that was triumphing in the sense of love, may cry out, O miserable man that I am ! And as the same that magnified the grace of Christ, may say, the day of grace is past ;.especially if either the tempter get the advantage of a melancholy body, or of casting the soul into renewed guilt of some wounding sin, or iñto impatient discontents, with the things that befall it in the world. There is a stability in the essentials of holiness : it is life eternal that is here begun: but, alas ! the degrees of grace,,the exercise of it, the evenness and integrity of our obedience; and accordingly our comforts, are lamentably liable to change; even as all worldly things are mutable to the ungodly, though their hardened hearts are too little changeable. Expecting nothing but joy from God, or expecting more 'than we' are meet for, tnaketh our dejections the greater, and more grievous. None are cast lower with terror,
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