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comfort and surprise on the enraptured enquirer.By the scriptures of truth, the concerns of a future world are clearly presented to me. Would I be a member of Christ, and have his righteousness made mine? Well, they tell me how I may become the one, and be clothed with the other. Would I flee from the wrath to come? Here the way lies plain, and the place where I can be safe. If sin press hard upon me, they show me where to cast my sins; if short-comings and weakness vex me, whence to draw my strength, and in whom I am complete.They counsel me in my doubts, and shine upon my darkness. Not a calamity can I be in, but they can cheer. Not a step I need to take, but they can direct. Am I a son of Zion? Then I am to seek her peace, her welfare, and prosperity. Is the church in distress? I am to give God no rest till he establish her, and make her a praise through the whole earth. Does he hide his face from me? Then I am to seek, nor cease to seek him, till I find the Beloved of my soul.-Do I pine by his blow? Yet at the work of his hand I am to be dumb.-Does he remove my relations by death? Still I am to hold my peace, and even subscribe Amen.-Am I injured? That I am to forgive. Am I reproached? This I am to pass by.— Do men despitefully use me? For them I am to pray.-Must I remove from this world? Then I am to pass my time only as a sojourner, not a fixed inhabitant. Do I enjoy human society? That is to be improved in speaking on divine things. Am I among sinners? Then I am to reprove.-Among saints? These I am to imitate.-Have I an house? It is to be a place of righteousness.-Have I a family? They and I, whatever others do, are to serve the Lord.

Again, am I sorrowful? I am to pray.-Am I in severe afflictions? Yet then in patience I am to possess my soul.-Am I in a warfare? I am to take to myself the whole armour of God.-Have I tribulations? In and under them I am still to rejoice.— Am I poor? I am to seek for my riches that treasure that is eternal in the heavens.-Have I riches? In them I am not to trust, but in the living God, who gives me all things richly to enjoy.-Do I rejoice? It is to be only in the Lord.-Am I merry? I am to sing psalms. Have I affections? They are to be set on things above. My conversation is to be in heaven, and my soul a temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. Here parents and children, masters and servants, and every relation, are clearly instructed in their relative duties to one another. Here the King is taught how to reign, and the subject how to obey; the judge how to conduct every trial, and how to pass sentence; the sinner how to become a saint, and the saint how to grow in every grace.

Here I am instructed what company to choose, what to shun; whom to esteem and delight in, whom to pity, and for whom to pray. Here I am admonished how to behave as a public or private person towards men of every rank, in peace or war, as victor or vanquished. Here are the infallible rules whereby I may know the state of my soul, and if my claim for future bliss be well grounded, or founded on delusive dreams. Here I learn for what to care, and how to estimate created things, and all the gaudy pomp of time. In a word, here I am taught how to have my conversation in heaven while on earth, to ripen for glory, and enlarge for God.

MEDITATION CXXIII.

ASSURANCE.

SHOULD not the folly of the world teach me wisdom? They provide for time, and shall I not provide for eternity? But, how shall I secure endless felicity, and know my interest in unchangeable love?

Well, then, may not I, in the language of faith, argue myself into a firm belief of eternal bliss? and, without delusion, fortify myself against the attacks of sin, and sallies of unbelief?-Is not Christ come to seek and save the lost? and am not I among the number, and willing to be sought and saved?—Is not the call to all the sons of men without exception ?Why, then, not obey it without contradiction?-Am not I commanded to believe and be saved? Then, have I never believed as yet, or am I determined never to believe? No; "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief."-Further, has my faith the marks of true faith? Is it a faith that purifies the heart, and aims at holiness in life? Have I accepted of Christ on his own terms, of a whole and complete Saviour? Then true faith can never be disappointed, nor the true believer fall finally away, for " faith is the gift of God," and "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

Now, from the foot of the ladder I ascend, and climb the sacred steps, till I reach the throne of God, and read the secrets of eternity, the records of redeeming love. Hence, if my daily burden be indwelling sin, and if I strive against the tyrant raging in my breast, in such a manner, that what I do I allow not, this is a sign of the new nature; for light and

darkness cannot dwell together in perfect peace, but darkness and darkness struggle not together. Now, will not this say, that I am partly sanctified; and if sanctified, that I am justified; and if justified, that I am predestinated; and if predestinated, that I by name am foreknown in the decree of election ?Now, am I not as sure of salvation, as if I were in heaven already? Can the purpose of God be disannulled? Can the faithfulness of God fail?

I may doubt, and be in the dark again, respecting my clearness to my claim, but he will never deny himself. Heaven and earth may, yea, shall pass away, but his purposes of love, and promises of grace, shall stand. Can I not trust God in time for the completing of my promised happiness when time shall be no more, as well as trust him for the continuation of my consummate felicity in heaven, through eternity itself? Can times and dates, periods and æras, make any change on God! No, all is eternity with the unchangeable Jehovah; flying time only respects frail and dying creatures, such as I am. If, then, I have an interest in his love now, I shall have it for ever; for though death tears my soul and body asunder, it shall not touch my state, nor separate me from his love. Now, what would faith, nay, what would sense have more?

But, there is another security given to mine eternal bliss; for I am elected" in the Beloved." Now, heaven and eternity would look strange to the believers, if their best friend were not there; and empty to Christ, if his costly purchase was not there. Yea, my happiness is, as it were, connected with the happiness of the man Christ. Now, the Son is eternally united to the human nature, as Mediator; and there

is no jarring betwixt the human and divine natures, in the person of the Son. There being, therefore, a sacred oneness between the glorious Head and all his members, there is also a commonness of felicity, among them; so that the glory which the Father gives to Christ, he gives to his disciples, and into the very joy of their Lord all his followers enter. Therefore, in and with an exalted and glorified Jesus, I shall be eternally blessed. Now, unless I be afraid that Christ mystical can be divided, the divine attributes set a jarring, the hypostatical union dissolved, the covenant of grace disannulled, and the eternał decrees broken, I may rest in the sweetest assurance of divine favour, in spite of all the blasts that earth and hell, and sin and unbelief, can raise.

MEDITATION CXXIV.

CRAMPED, UNLESS STRETCHED

OUR MEDITATIONS

BEYOND DEATH.

1761.

WOULD any man envy that person's situation as

superlatively happy, who were confined to a garden, beautified indeed with all the varieties of nature, and decorated with all the ornaments of art, if its walls were high to heaven, so that he could not cast a look beyond them, but must remain a stranger to the whole world, except his own family, not being indulged with a single glance of the spacious plains that border on him, the shady forests, and the murmuring streams, the mighty oceans, and magnificent kingdoms, scattered on the face of the globe, and so could neither exult in the felicity, nor sympathise with the

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