569 / 674
I?IISC.
X.)
THE EORETASTE
OF
HEAVEN.
549
you would
willingly
part
with all the
attainments
and
honours that
you
have already arrived
at, which
make
you
ever
so
eminent in the
world
or
in
the church,
as
to
be made
so
near
a
conformist
to
the
image
of the blessed
Jesus
as this
fellow
-
christian
has seemed
to be
?
"
Have
you
never
seen
or
read
of
the
glories
and
graces
of
the
Son
Of
'God
exemplified in some
of
the
saints
in
so high
a
degree, and
at
the
same time
been
so
divested
of
self,
and
so
mortified
to
a
narrow
self
love,
as to he satisfied with
the
lowest
and
the meatiest
sup-
ports
of
life,
and the meanest station
in the
church
of
Christ
here
on
earth,
if
you
might
but
be favoured
to
partake of that transcendent
likeness to the holy
Jesus,
as you would
fain
imitate and
possess
?
"
Have
you
never
had
a
view
of
all
the virtues
and
graces
of
the
saints,
.
derived from
one.
eternal fountain,
the
blessed
God, and
flowing
through
the mediation
of
Jesus
his Son in so
glorious
a manner,'
that
you
have
longed for the day
when you shall be
amongst'them,
and
receive
your share
of
this blessedness?
Have
you
never
found
yourself
so
united to
them in one
heart
and one
soul,
that
you have wished them all the
same'blessings
that
you
wished to
yourself, and
that
without
the least
shadow
of
grudging or
envy,
if
everyone
of them
were
partaker
as much
as
you
?"
There
is
no
envy
among
the
heavenly
inhabitants
;
nor
cloth St.
Paul
receive
the
less
because Cephas
or
Apollos has
a
large
share.
Every
vessel
has
its
capacity
enlarged
to a
proper extent
by
the God of nature
and
grace,
and
every
vessel
is
com-
pletely
filled,
and
feels
itself
for ever
full
and for
ever
happy
;
then
there cannot
be
found
the shadow
of
envy
amongst
them.
Now to
sum
up
the
view
of
these things
in
short;
who
is
there
that
enjoys these blessed evidences
of
an
interest
in
the inheritance
on high, who
is
there
that
has
any
such
foretastes
of
the felicity above,
but
must
join
with the whole
creation
in
groaning for
that great
day,
when
all
the children
of God
shall
appear
in the
splen-
dour of
their adoption,
and
every
thing in
nature and
grace
among them shall
attain
the
proper
end for
which
it
was
at
first designed
?
And whensoever any
such
christian
hears
some
of
the last words in the
bible
pro-
Iv
3