APPENDIX. 239 en, man and God, flesh and spirit, sin and duty ! How thank- fully should I have thought of the work of redemption and sancti- fication"!' And why may I not accordingly put myself as into the case of them who saw all Christ's miracles, and saw him risen, and ascend towards heaven ? or at least of all those ordinary Christians who saw all the wonders done by the reporters of these things? I can easily receive a pleasing idea of some foreign, happy country,which a traveler describeth to me; though I never saw it; and my rea- son can partly gather what great things are, if I see but lesser of the same kind, or somewhat like them. A candle showeth somewhat by which we may conceive of the greatest flame. Even grace and gracioul actions do somewhat notify to us the state of glory; but the sight on the mount did more sensibly notify it. Think not, then, that heavenly contemplation is an impossible thing, or a mere dream, as if it had no conceivable subject-matter to work upon : the visible things of earth are the shadows, the cob- webs, the bubbles, the shows, mummeries, and masks ; and it is loving them, and rejoicing and trusting in them, that is the dream and dotage. Our heavenly thoughts, and hopes, and business, are more in comparison of these than the sun is to a glow-worm, or the world to amole -hill, or governing an empire to the motions of a fly. And can I make somewhat, yea, too much, of these al- most nothings ; and yet shall I make almost nothing of the active, glorious, unseen world; and doubt and grope in my meditations of it, as if I had no substance to apprehend ? If invisibility to mor- tals were a cause of doubting, or of unaffecting,, unsatisfying thoughts, God himself,who is all to men and angels, would be as no God to us, and heaven as no heaven, and Christ as no Christ, and our souls, which are ourselves, would seem as nothing to themselves ; and all men would be as no men to us, and we should converse only with carcasses and clothes. Lord, shine into this soul with such an heavenly, potent, quick- eninglight, as may give me more lively and powerful conceptions of that which is all my hope and life ! Leave me not to the ex- ercise of art alone, in barren notions ; but make it as natural to me to love thee, and breathe after thee. Thou teachest the young ones, both of men and brutes, to seek to the dam for food and shel- ter; and though grace be not a brutish principle, but works by reason, it bath its nature and inclining force, and tendeth towards its original, as its end. Let not my soul be destitute of that holy sense and appetite, which the divine and heavenlynature doth con- tain. Let me not lay more stress and trust upon my own sight and sense than on the sight and.fidelity of my God, and my Re-
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