BY 1tF,LIGIOUS AFFECTIONS. 269 in the city of our God; in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Sion ; God is known i n her palaces fora refuge."(g) 18. Yet proceed on. The soul that loves, ascends frequently, and runs familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, visiting the patriarchs and prophets, saluting the apostles, and admiring the armies of martyrs. So do thou lead on thy heart as from street to street ; bring it into the palace of the great King : lead it as it were, from chamber to chamber. Say to it, "Here must I lodge; here must I live; here must I praise; here must I love and be beloved: I must shortly be one of this heavenly choir, and be better skilled in the music. Among this blessed company must I take up my place ; my voice must join to make up the me- lody. My tears will then be wiped away ; my groans be turned to another tune; my cottage ofclaybechanged to this palace ; my prison rags to these splendid robes ; and my sordid flesh shall be put off, and such a sun-like spiritual body be put on: 'For the former things are here passed away.'(k) ' Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God !'(i) When I look upon this glorious place, what a dunghill and dungeon methinks is earth!. O what difference between a man, feeble, pained, groan - ing, dying, rotting in the grave, and one of these tri- umphant shining saints ! ' Here shall I drink of the river of pleasures, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.(k) Must Israel, under the bondage of the law; serve the Lord with joyfulness and with glad- ness of heart, for the abundance of all things ?(1) Surely I shall serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of glory. Did persecuted saints take joyfully the spoiling of their goods ?(m) And shall not I take joyfully such a full reparation of all my losses? Was it a celebrated day Wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, because it was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning unto a good day ?(n) What a day then will that be to my soul, whose rest and change will be inconceivably greater ! When the (g) Ps. xlviii. 1, 2, 3. (h) Rev. xxi. 1. (i) Ps. lxxxvii. 3, (k) Ps. xxxvi. 8. (l) Deut, xxviii. 47. (m) I-Ieh. x. 34. (n) Esther ix. 22.
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