HEAVENLY MEDITATION. 311 soul after thee, O God.. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God : when shall I come and appear before God ? My conversation is in heaven, from whence I look for a Saviour. My affections are set on things above, where Christ sitteth, and my life is hid. I walk by faith, and not by sight; willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. ÿ 26. " \%That interest bath this empty world in me? and what is there in it that may seem so lovely as to en- tice my desires from my God, or make me loth to come away? Methinks, when I look upon it with a delibe- rate eye, it is a howling wilderness, and too many of its inhabitants are untamed monsters. I can view all its beauty as deformity ; and drown all its pleasures in a few penitent tears ; or the wind of a sigh will scatter. them, away. O let not this flesh so seduce my soul, as to make it prefer this weary life before the joys that are about thy throne ! And though death itself be unwelcome to nature, yet let thy grace make thy glory appear to me so desirable, that the king of, ter - rors may be the messengers of my joy ! Let not my soul be ejected by violence and dispossessed of its habitation against its will ; but draw it to thyself by the secret power of thy love, as the sunshine in the spring draws forth the creatures from their winter cells : meet it half way, and entice it to thee, as the loadstone doth the iron, and as the greater flame attracts the less ! . Dispel therefore the clouds that hide thy love from me ! or remove the scales that hinder mine eyes from beholding thee ! For the beams that stream from thy face, and the foretastes of thy great salvation, and nothing else can make a soul unfeignedly say, Now let thy servant depart in peace ! But it is not thy Ordinary discoveries that will here suffice : as the work is greater, so must thy help be. O turn these fears into strong desires, and this loth - ness to die into longings after thee ! While I must be absent from thee, let my soul as heartily groan, as my body doth under its want of health ! If I have any more time to spend on earth, let me live as without the world in thee, as I have sometimes lived as without
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