RIGHT REJOICING. 377 brand in hell, should live a more joyful life than you! O do not so wrong your Lord, your faith, your endless joys, as to walk in heaviness,and cast away thejoy of the Lord, which is your strength, and to be still .complaining, when those that are prepared for the slaughter are as frolic as if the bitterness of death were past. It is well that you have so much life as to feel your sicknesses; but it is not' well, that, because you are yet diseased, the life of grace and of glory should be so ineffectual to your comfort. And yet, alas ! how common is it to see the most miserable frisk and fleer, while the heirs of life are sinfully vexing themselves with the inordinate fears of death ! Lift up thy head, Christian, and remember whence came thy graces, even thy least desires, and whither do they tend: Where is thy Father and thyHead, and the most dear of thy companions ?, Where is it that thou must live to all eternity? I)oth it, bessern a companion of angels, a member of Christ, a child of God, an heir of heaven, to be grieved at every petty cross, and to lay by all the sense of his felicity, be- cause some trifle of the world falls cross to his desires and com- modity ? Is it seemly for one that must be everlastingly as full of joy as the sun is full of light, to live in such a self-troubling, drooping state, as to disgrace religion, and frighten away the un- godly from the doors of grace, that, by your joyful lives, might be provoked to enter? I know, as to your happiness, the matter is not comparatively great ; because if mistakes and the devil's mal- ice should keep you sad here a hundred years, yet Heaven will wipe away all tears, and thosejoys will be long enough when they come ; and as the joy of the ungodly, so the sorrows of the hum- ble, upright soul will be but for a moment; and though you weep and lament when the world rejoiceth, as their joy shall be turned into sorrow, so your sorrow shall be turned into joy, and your joy shall no man take from you. But, in the mean time; is it not shame and pity that you should live so unanswerable to the mer- cies of the Lord? that you should sinfully grieve the comforting Spirit by the willful grieving of yourselves, and that you should peevishly cast away your precious mercies, when you so much need them, by reason of the troubles of a vexatious world, which you cannot avoid? That you, even you, that are saved by the Lord, should still be questioning it, or unthankfully denying his great salvation, and se much hinder the salvation of others? For the Lord's sake, Christians, and for your souls' sake, and in pity to the ungodly, yield not to the tempter, that would trouble you when he cannot damn you. Is God your Father, and Christ your Savior, and the Spirit your Sanctifier, and heaven your home? And will you make all, for the present, as nothing to you, by a causeless, obstinate denial ? Ifyou are in doubt, let not VOL. II. 48
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