62 MEDITATIONS AND DISCOURSES. It was-a privilege (whowould not have longed topar- sons of God. This is the posture of their minds who have received the first fruits of the Spirit, in the most eminent degree. The nearer any one is to heaven, the more earnestly hedesires to be there, because Christ is there. For the more frequent and steady are our views of him by faith, the more do we long and groan for the removal of all obstructions and interpositions in our so. doing. Now groaning is a vehement desire mixed with sorrow, for the present want of what is desired. The desire hath sorrow, and that sorrow hath joy and re- freshment in it; like a shower that falls on a man in a garden in the spring; it wets him, but withal refresheth him with the savour it causeth in the flowers and herbs of the garden where he is. And this groaning, which when it is constant and habitual, is one of the choicest effects of faith. in this life, respects what we, would be delivered from and what we would attain unto. The firstis expressed, Rom. vii. 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the bodyof this death! The other in the places now mentioned. And this frame, with an intermixture of same sighs from weariness by the troubles, sorrows, pains, sicknesses of this life, is the best we can here attain unto. Alas we cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, to imperfect. Com- monly, they issue in a groan or a sigh: Oh ! when shall we come unto him? when shall we be ever with him? when shall we see him as he is? and if at any time he begins to give more than ordinary evidences and inti- mations of his glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds. But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world;. a trouble which I pray God I may never be de- livered from, until deliverance do come at once from. this state of mortality. Yea, the good Lord increase this.trooble more and more in all that believe. The heart of a believer affected with the glory of Christ, is like the needle touched with the loadstone. It can no longer 'be quiet, no longer be satisfied in a. distance from him. It is put into a continual motion towards him. The motion indeed is weak and tremu- lous. Pantings, breathings, sighings, groanings, in prayer, in meditations, in the secret recesses of our minds, are the life of it. However, it is continually take of it?) to have seen him with our bodily eyes in the days of his flesh, as did the apostles and other his dis- ciples. Howbeit he was not then glorified himself in the manifestation of his glory; nor they who saw him, . in the change or transformation of their nature. How great this privilege was himself declares unto those that so saw him, Mat. xiii. 17. Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things whichye see, whereunto we shall speak im- mediately. And if this were so excellent a privilege, as that we cannot but congratulate them by whom it was enjoyed, how excellent, how glorious will it be when with these eyes of ours, gloriously purified and strength- ened beyond thoseof Stephen, we shall behold Christ himself immediately in the fulnessof his glory! He a- loneperfectly understands the greatness and excellency hereof, who prayed his Father that those whobelieve in him, may be where he is, so tobehold his glory. These aré some of the grounds of this first difference between our beholding the glory of Christ by faith here, and by immediate vision hereafter. Hence the one is weak, imperfect, obscure, reflexive; the other direct, immediate, even, and constant; and we may stay a lit- tle in the contemplation of these things. This view of the glory of Christ which we have now spoken unto: is that which we are breathing and pant- ing after; that which the Lord Christ prays that wemay arrive unto, that which the apostle testifies to be our best: the best thing, or state, which our nature is ca- pable of, that which brings eternal rest and satisfaction unto our souls. Here our souls are burdened with innumerable infir- mities, and our faith is clogged in its operations by ig- norance and darkness. This makes our best estate and highest attainments to be accompanied with groans for deliverance. " We which have received the first fruits " r of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- selves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of the body." Rom. viii. 23. Yea, whilst we are in this tabernacle, we groan earnestly as being burthened, because we are not absentfrom thebody, andpresent with the Lord, 2 Cor, v. 2, 4, S. The more we grow in faith and spiritual light, the more sensible are ive of our present burthens, and the more vehemently do we groan for deliverance into the perfect liberty of the
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