HEAVENLY CONTEMPLATION 286 I was born, and in which I was riveted by custom, when thousands of sins lay upon my score, and if I had só died I had been damned for ever ! What an astonishing change, to be justified from all these enor- mous crimes, and freed from all these fearful plagues, and made an heir of heaven ! How often, when I have thought of my regeneration, have I cried out, 'O blessed day ! and blessed be the Lord that ever I saw it !' How; then shall I cry out in heaven, 'O blessed eternity! and blessed be the Lord that brought me to it !' -Did the angels of God rejoice to see my conversion ? Surely they will congratulate my felicity in my salvation. Grace is but a spark raked up in the ashes, covered with flesh from the sight of the world, and sometimes covered with corruption from my own sight ; but my everlasting glory will not be so clouded, nor my light be under a bushel, but upon a hill, even upon mount Sion, the mount of God." 11. Once more, compare the joys which thou shalt have above, with those foretastes of it which the Spirit hath given thee here. Hath not God sometimes revealed himself extraordinarily to thy soul, and let a drop of glory fall upon it ? Hast thou not been ready to say, `O that it might be thus with my soulcontinually ?' Didst thou never cry out with the martyr, after thy long and mournful expectations, " He is come, he is come ?" Didst thou never, under a lively sermon of hea- ven, or in thy retired contemplations on that blessed state, perceive thy drooping spirits revive, and thy de- jected heart lift up thy head, and the light of heaven dawn on thy soul? Think with thyself, what is this earnest to the full inheritance ! Alas, all this light that so amazeth and rejoiceth me, is but a candle lighted from heaven, to lead me thither through this world of darkness. If some godly men have been overwhelmed with joy, till they have cried dut, Hold, Lord, stay thy hand; 1 can bear no more ! what then will be my joys in heaven, when my soul shall be so capable of seeing and enjoying God, that though the light be ten thousand times greater than the sun, yet my eyes shall be able
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=