Chap. 15.] BY SENSIBLE OBJECTS. 243 If a spark of life, which will but strive against corruptions, and flame out a few desires and groans, be of so much worth, how glorious then is the fountain of this life ! Ifwe are said to be like God, when we are pressed down with a body of sin ; sure we shall be much more like God, when we have no such thing as sin within us. Is the desire after, and love of heaven, so excellent ; what then is the thing itself? is our joy in foreseeing and believing so sweet; what will be the joy of full possession? How glad is a Christian when he feels his heart begin to melt, andbe dissolved with the thoughts of sinful unkindness ! Even this sorrow yields him joy. O what, then, will it be, when we shall know, and love, and rejoice, and praise in the highest perfection ! Think with thyself, " What a change was it, to be taken from that state wherein I was born, and in which I was rivetted by custom, when thousands of sins lay upon my score, and if I had so died, I had been damned for ever ! What an astonishing change, to be justified from all these enormous crimes, and freed from all these fearful plagues, and made an heir of heaven ! How often, when I have thought of my regenera- tion, 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, co- vered with flesh from the sight of the world, and sometimes covered with corruption from my own sight ; but my ever- lasting 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." 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 extraor- dinarily tothy 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 soul continually !" 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 heaven, or in thy retired contemplations on that blessed state, perceive thy drooping spirits revive, and thy dejected heart lift up thy head, and the light of heaven dawn
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