DISCOURSE X. 209 good of their fellow - creatures, and supremely for the honour of their God, in that day when holiness to the Lord shall be written upon the bells of the horses, and every pot in Jerusalem shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts; Zech. xiv. 20. Why should we not join then with the whole creation in groaning and long- ing after this promised time, when all the works of God shall be restored to their rightful use, and the glory of the Maker shall some way or other be made to shine in every one of them ? The apostle then adds, in the words of my text, and not these creatures only, but ourselves also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we who are filled with the gifts and graces of the holy Spirit, and eminently, the first fruits hereof appear in our taste and relish of the divine provisions that God has given us here in this world to prepare for a better ; and even bestows upon some of his christian servants these first fruits of the tree of pa- radise, these blessings and these foretastes which are near a -kin to those of the upper world, when the saints shall be raised from the dead, when their adoption shall be clearly manifested, and they shall look like the children of God, and their bodies and all their natural powers shall be redeemed from those disor- ders, whether of sin or sorrow, and from all the springs and seeds of them, which they are more or less liable to feel in the pre- sent state. Mere let it be observed, that the first fruits of any field, or plant or tree, are of the same kind with the full product of the 'harvest : Therefore it is plain, that the first fruits of, the spirit in this place cannot chiefly signify the gifts of the spirit, such as the gifts of tongues, or of healing, or of miracles, nor the gifts of prophecy, preaching, or praying, because these are not the employments nor the enjoyments of heaven. The first fruits of the spirit must rather refer therefore to the knowledge and holiness, the graces and the joys which are more perfect and glorious in the heavenly state, than they were ever designed to be here upon earth. Now these first fruits of graces and joys are sometimes bestowed uponiehristians in this world, in such a degree as brings them near to the heavenly state And that is the chief observation I design to draw from these words, viz. " That God has been pleased to give some of his children here on earth several of the foretastes of the heavenly blessed- ness, the graces and the joys of the upper world ;" as they are the first fruits of that paradise to which we are travelling : And these privileges have 'brought some of the saints within the con- fines and borders of the celestial country. What these are I shall spew immediately ; but before ,I represent them T desire to lay down these few cautions : I. " These sensible foretastes of heaven do not belong to all VOL. vii. p
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