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A
SOUL
PREPAYtED FOR
HEAVEN.
There
are
also
many
curious speculations
and
delight-
ful amusements, which may lawfully
entertain
us while
we
are here; there are sports and recreations
which may
divert
the
flesh
or the mind in
a
lawful
manner, whilst
we dwell in
tabernacles of
flesh
and blood,
and
are
encompassed
with
mortal things
:
But
the
soul
that
is
wrought for heaven must arise to a
holy indifference
to
all,the entertainments
of.flesh
and
sense,
and
time,
if it
would
put
on the
appearance
of
an heavenly
inhabitant:
Christians
that
would
be
ever ready for the
glories
ef.a
better
world must
be
such in some measure,
as
the
epos.
tle describes
;
1
Coy. vii.
29
-31.
" They
must
re-
joice
with such
moderation
in
their dearest
comforts
of
life, as
though they rejoiced
not;
they
must weep
and
mourn
for the
loss
of
them,
with-
such
a
divine self
-
government,
as
though they wept
not;
they must buy aa'
though they
possessed
not;
they must use this world as
net
abusing
it
in
any
instance;
but must look upon the
fashions and
the
scenes
of
it
as
vanishing
things,
and
have
their hearts
set on the
things
that
are
above,
where
Christ Jesus
is
at
the Father's right-hand
;'''
Col. iii.
1,
9.
If
you ask
me,
what methods the
blessed
God
uses
án
order
to
attain
these
ends,
and
to
purify and
refine
the
soul
for heaven,
I
answer, he sometimes does
it
by
sharp
strokes
of
affliction,
making
our interests
in
the
creature
bitter
to
us,
that
we
may
be
weaned from the relish
of
them,
and the
power
of
divine grace must accompany
all
his
weaning providences, or the work
will
not
be
done.
Sometimes again
he weans
the
soul from
the lawful
things
of
this world, by
peripitting
our earthly enjoy
-
ments to plunge
us
into
difficulties, to seize
the
heart
with anxieties,
or to
surround
us
with sore
temptations
:
Then,
when
we
feel
ourselves falling
into
sin,
and
bruised
or
defiled thereby,
we
lose
our
former
gust
of
pleasure
in them
;
and
when
we
are
recovered
by
divine grace,
we
are
more
effectually
weaned
from such kind
of
temp-
tations
for
the
future
;
but
it
is
impossible in the com-
pass
of a
few
lines to describe the various
methods
which
the
blessed
,
God
uses to
wean the
spirit
from all its
earthly attachments, and
to
work
it
up
to
a
meetness for
the inheritance
of the saints
in-
light. Blessed souls, who
are
thus loosened
and
weaned from
sensible-
things,
though
it
be done
by
painful
sufferings
I
Mit4