256 CONTEMPLATION [Chap. 4.6. of power, nor :'flak', . nor preserve, nor rule the worlds ; no more can I match thee in love. No, Lord, I yield ; I am overcome. O blessed conquest ! Go on victoriously, and still prevail, and triumph in thy love. The captive of love shall proclaim thyvictory,; when thou leadest me in triumph from earth to heaven, from death to life, from the tribunal to the throne ; myself, and all that see it, shall acknowledge thou hast prevailed, and all shall say, ' Behold how he loved him !' Yet let me love in subjection to thy love ; as thy re- deemed captive, though not thy peer. Shall I not love at all, because I cannot reach thy measure ? O that I could feelingly say, ' 1 Rove thee,' even as I love my friend, and myself ! Though I cannot say, as the apostle, ' Thou know- est that I love thee ;' yet I can say, Lord, thou knowest that I would love thee. I am angry with my heart, that it doth not love thee,; :I .chide it, yet it Both not mend ; I reason with it, and would fain . persuade it, yet I do not perceive it stir ; I rub and chafe it in the use of ordinances, and yet I feel it not warm within me. Unworthy soul! is not thine eye now upon the only lovely object ? Art thounot now behold- ing the ravishing glory of the saints ? And dost thou not love ? Art thou not a rational soul, and should not reason tell thee that earth is a dungeon to the celestial glory? Art thou not thyself a spirit, and shouldst thou not love God, who is a spirit, =and tie Father of spirits?' Why dost thou love so much thyperishing clay, and love no more the hea- venly glory ? Shalt thou love when thou contest there ; when the Lord shall take thy carcass from the grave, and make thee shine as the sun in glory for ever and ever ; shalt thou then love, or shalt thou not ? Is not the place a meeting of .lovers? Is not the life a state of love ? Is it not the great marriage-day of the Lamb ? Is not the employment there the work of love, where the souls with Christ take their fill ? O then, my soul, begin it here ! ' Be sick with love' now, that thou mayst be well with love there. ' Keep thyself' now in the love of God ;' and let ' neither life, nor death, nor any thing, separate thee from it ;' and thou shalt be kept in the fulness of love for ever, and nothing shall im- bitter or abate thy pleasure; for the Lord hath prepared a city of love., a place for communicating love to hischosen, and they that love his name shall dwell therein.' " Awake, then, O my drowsy soul ! To sleep under the
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