their hearts, they are enabled to cry Abba, Father. O gifts; either of which are more worth than many worlds; yet, through thy goodness, O Lord, both of them mine. How rich is my soul, through thy divine munificence; how over-laid with mercies! How safe, in thine Almighty tuition! How happy, in thy blessed possession!

Now, therefore, I dare, in the might of my God, bid defiance to all the gates of hell. Do your worst, O all ye principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickednesses in high places; do your worst: God is mine, and I am his: I am above your malice, in the right of him, whose I am. It is true, I am weak; but he is omnipotent: I am sinful; but he is infinite holiness: that power, that holiness, in his gracious application, is mine.

It is my Saviour's love, that hath made this happy exchange, of his righteousness for my sin; of his power, for my infirmity. Who, then, shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God, that justifieth. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him, that loved us: so as, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans, viii. 33, &c.

Lo where this love is placed; were it our love of God, how easily might the power of a prevalent temptation separate us from it, or it from us! For, alas, what hold is to be taken of our affections; which, like unto water, are so much more apt to freeze, because they have been heated? but it is the love of God to us in Christ Jesus, which is ever as himself, constant and eternal. He can no more cease to love us, than to be himself: he cannot but be unchangeable: we cannot but be happy.

SECT. X.

Our sense and improvement of Christ's Love, in all the former particulars; and, first, in respect of the Inequality of the Persons.

All this, O Dear Jesu, hast thou done, all this hast thou suffered for men. And, oh now for a heart, that may be some ways answerable to thy mercies! Surely, even good natures hate to be in debt for love; and are ready to repay favours with interest.

Oh for a soul sick of love; yea, sick unto death! Why should I, how can I, be any otherwise, any whit less affected, O Saviour? This only sickness is my health: this death is my life:

and, not to be thus sick, is to be dead in sins and trespasses. I am rock, and not flesh: if I be not wounded with these heavenly darts. Ardent affection is apt to attract love, even where is little or no beauty; and excellent beauty is no less apt to inflame the heart, where there is no answer of affection: but, when these two meet together, what breast can hold against them? and here they are both in an eminent degree. Thou canst say even of thy poor Church, though labouring under many imperfections, Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart, with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck; how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! Cant. iv. 9. And canst thou, O blessed Saviour, be so taken with the incurious and homely features of thy faithful ones; and shall not we much more be altogether enamoured of thine absolute and divine beauty; of whom every believing soul can say, My beloved is white and ruddy; the chiefest among ten thousand; his head is as the most fine gold: his eyes are as the eyes of doves, by the rivers of waters: his cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh, &c. Cant. v. 10, &c. It hath pleased thee, O Lord, out of the sweet ravishments of thy heavenly love, to say to thy poor Church, Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: but, oh let me say unto thee, "Turn thine eyes to me, that they may overcome me:" I would be thus ravished, thus overcome: I would be thus out of myself, that I might be all in thee.

Thou lovedst me, before I had being: let me, now that I have a being, be wholly taken up with thy love: let me set all my soul upon thee, that gavest me being upon thee, who art the eternal and absolute Self-Being; who hast said, and only could say, I am that I am. Alas, Lord, we are nothing, but what thou wilt have us; and cease to be, when thou callest in that breath of life, which thou hast lent us: thou art that incomprehensibly glorious, and infinite self-existing spirit; from eternity, in eternity, to eternity; in and from whom all things are. It is thy wonderful mercy, that thou wouldest condescend so low, as to vouchsafe to be loved of my wretchedness: of whom thou mightest justly require and expect nothing, but terror and trembling. It is my happiness, that I may be allowed to love a Majesty so infinitely glorious. Oh, let me not be so far wanting to my own felicity, as to be less than ravished with thy love.

SECT. XI.

A further enforcement of our Love to Christ, in respect of our Unworthiness and his Sufferings, and prepared Glory. THOU lovedst me, when I was deformed, loathly, forlorn, and

miserable shall I not now love thee, when thou hast freed me, and decked me with the ornaments of thy graces ? Lord Jesu who should enjoy the fruit of thine own favours, but thyself? How shamefully injurious were it, that, when thou hast trimmed up my soul, it should prostitute itself to the love of the world! Oh, take my heart to thee alone: possess thyself of that, which none can claim but thyself.

Thou lovedst me, when I was a professed rebel against thee; and receivedst me, not to mercy only, but to the endearment of a subject, a servant, a son: where should I place the improvement of the thankful affections of my loyalty and duty, but upon thee?

Thou, O God, hast so loved us, that thou wouldest become the Son of Man, for our sakes; that we, who are the sons of men, might become the sons of God. Oh, that we could put off the man, to put on Christ; that we could neglect and hate ourselves for thee, that hast so dearly loved us, as to lay aside thy heavenly glory for us!

How shall I be vile enough, O Saviour, for thee; who, for my sake, being the Lord of Life and Glory, wouldest take upon thee the shape of a servant! How should I welcome that poverty, which thy choice hath sanctified! How resolutely shall I grapple with the temptations of that enemy, whom thou hast foiled for me! How cheerfully should I pass through those miseries and that death, which thou hast sweetened! With what comfortable assurance shall I look upon the face of that merciful justice, which thou hast satisfied!

But oh, what a blessed inheritance hast thou, in thine infinite love, provided for me! an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for me: so as, when my earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; 1 Pet. i. 4. 2 Cor. v. 1. A house? Yea, a palace of heavenly state and magnificence. Neither is it less than a kingdom, that abides there for me: a kingdom, so much more above these worldly monarchies, as heaven is above this clod of earth.

Now, Lord, what conceits, what affections of mind can be, in the least sort, answerable to so transcendent mercy? If some friend shall have been pleased to bestow some mean legacy upon me, or shall have feoffed me in some few acres of his land, how deeply do I find myself obliged to the love and memory of so kind a benefactor! O then, Lord, how can my soul be capable of those thoughts and dispositions, which may reach to the least proportion of thine infinite bounty; who, of a poor worm on earth, hast made me an heir of the kingdom of heaven?

Woe is me, how subject are these earthly principalities to

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hazard and mutability, whether through death or insurrection! but this crown, which thou hast laid up for me is immarcescible : and shall sit inmoveably fast upon my head; not for years, nor for millions of ages, but for all eternity. Oh, let it be my heaven here below, in the mean while, to live in a perpetual fruition of thee; and to begin those hallelujahs to thee here, which shall be as endless as thy mercy, and my blessedness.

SECT. XII.

The improvement of our Love to Christ for the mercy of his Deliverance, of the Tuition of his Angels, of the powerful working of his Good Spirit.

HADST thou been pleased to have translated me from thy former paradise, the most delightful seat of man's original integrity and happiness, to the glory of the highest heaven, the preferment had been infinitely gracious; but, to bring my soul from the nethermost hell, and to place it among the choir of angels, doubles the thank of thy mercy, and the measure of my obligation. How thankful was thy prophet (Jer. xxxviii.) but to an Ebedmelech, that, by a cord and rags let down into that dark dungeon, helped him out of that uncomfortable pit wherein he was lodged: yet, what was there, but a little cold, hunger, stench, closeness, obscurity? Lord, how should I bless thee, that hast fetched my soul from that pit of eternal horror, from that lake of fire and brimstone, from the everlasting torments of the damned; wherein I had deserved to perish for ever? I will sing of thy power unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my deliverer, and the God of my mercy.

But, O Lord, if yet thou shouldest leave me in my own hands, where were I? how easily should I be robbed of thee, with every temptation? how should I be made the scorn and insultation of men and devils! It is thy wonderful mercy, that thou hast given thine angels charge over me. Those angels, great in power and glorious in majesty, are my sure, though invisible, guard. O Blessed Jesu, what an honour, what a safety is this, that those heavenly spirits, which attend thy throne, should be my champions! Those, that ministered to thee after thy temptation, are ready to assist and relieve me in mine. They can neither neglect their charge, because they are perfectly holy; nor fail of their victory, because they are, under thee, the most powerful. I see you, O ye Blessed Guardians, I see you, by the eye of my faith, no less truly, than the eye of my sense sees my bodily attendants: I do truly, though spiritually, feel your presence, by your gracious operations, in, upon, and for me: and I do heartily bless my God and yours, for you; and for

those saving offices, that, through his merciful appointment, you ever do for my soul.

But, as it was with thine Israelites of old, that it would not content them, that thou promisedst and wouldest send thine angel before, to bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, unless thy presence, O Lord, should go also along with them; so is it still with me and all thine; wert not thou with and in us, what could thine angels do for us? In thee it is, that they move and are. The same Infinite Spirit, which works in and by them, works also in me. From thee it is, O thou Blessed and Eternal Spirit, that I have any stirrings of holy motions and breathings of good desires, any life of grace, any will to resist, any power to overcome evil. It is thou, O God, that girdest me with strength unto battle: thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation: thy right-hand hath holden me up: thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies. Glory and praise be to thee, O Lord, which always causest us to triumph in Christ; who crownest us with loving kindness and tender mercies; and hast not held us short of the best of thy favours.

Truly, Lord, hadst thou given us but a mere being, as thou hast done to the lowest rank of thy creatures, it had been more than thou owest us; more than ever we could be able to requite to thy divine bounty: for every being is good; and the least degree of good is far above our worthiness.

But, that to our being thou hast added life, it is yet a higher measure of thy mercy; for, certainly, of thy common favours, life is the most precious.

Yet this is such a benefit as may be had and not perceived; for even the plants of the earth live and feel it not: that to our life, therefore, thou hast made a further accession of sense, it is yet a larger improvement of thy beneficence; for this faculty hath some power to manage life; and makes it capable, to affect those means which may tend to the preservation of it, and to decline the contrary.

But this is no other than the brute creatures enjoy equally with us, and some of them beyond us: that therefore, to our sense thou hast blessed us with a further addition of reason, it is yet a higher pitch of munificence: for hereby we are men; and, as such, are able to attain some knowledge of thee, our Creator, to observe the motions of the heavens, to search into the natures of our fellow-creatures, to pass judgment upon actions and events, and to transact these earthly affairs to our own best advantage.

But, when all this is done, woe were to us, if we were but men! for our corrupted reason renders us, of all creatures, the most miserable: that, therefore, to our reason thou hast superadded faith; to our nature, grace; and, of men, hast made us Christians; and to us, as such, hast given thy Christ, thy