r,rrx OF FAS Err. 399 ous to the sense. You see his stature, complexion, and his clothes; but as you see not his learning or skill in any art what- soever, so you see not his grace and heavenly mind. As the soul itself, so the sinful deformity, and the holy beauty of it, are to us invisible, and perceived only by their fruits, and by the eye of faith, which seeth things as God reveals them: and there- fore in the eyes of a,true believer, "a vile person is contemn- ed; but he honoreth those that fear the Lord;" Psal. xv. 4. 4. A' true believer doth seek a happiness which he never saw, and that with greater estimation and resolution than he seeks the most excellent things that he hath seen. In all his prayers, his labors and his sufferings, it is an unseen glorythat he seeks. He seeth not the glory of God, nor the glorified Redeemer, nor the world of angels and perfected spirits of the just ; but he knoweth, by faith, that such a God, such a glory, such a world as this there is, as certain as if his eyes had seen it ; and 'therefore he provides, he lives, he hopes, he waits for this unseen state of spiritual bliss, contemning all the wealth and glory that sight can reach in com- parison thereof. He believes what he shall see, and therefore strives that he may,see it. It is something above the sun, and all that mortal eyes can see, which is the end, the hope, the portion of a believer, without which all is nothing to him, and for whichhe trades and travels here, as worldlings do for worldly things ; Matt. vi. 20, 21. Col. iii. 1. Phil. ,iii. 20. 5. A true believer doth all his life prepare for a day that is yet to come, and for an account of all the passages of his life, though he hath nothing but the word of God to assure him of it ; and therefore he lives as one that is hastening to. the presence of his Judge ; and he contriveth his affairs, and disposeth of his worldly riches, as one that looks to hear of it again, and as one that re- membereth the "Judge is at the door;" James v. 9. He rather asketh, ' What life, what words, what actions, what way of using my estate and interest, will be sweetest to me in the review, and will be best at last, when I must accordingly receive my doom ?' than ' What is most pleasant to my flesh, and what will ingratiate me most with men? and what will accommodate me best at pres- ent, and set me highest in the world?' And therefore it is that he pitieth the ungodly, even in the height of their prosperity; and is so earnest (though it offend them) to procure their recovery, as knowing that how secure soever they are now, they "must give an account to him that is ready tp judge the quick and the dead:" (1 Pet. iv. 5.) and that then the case will be altered with the pre- sumptuous world. 6. Lastly, a true believer is,careful toprevent a threatened misery-
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