Means of Exciting the Devout Affections

We are now come to the last thing designed in these discourses, and that is to propose a “few proper methods, whereby the affections of nature may be awakened and employed in the Christian life.” Take them in the following order:

I. See to it that the leading and ruling feculties of the soul, viz. the understanding and the will, be deeply and firmly engaged in religion. Let the mind be well furnished with di%ane knowledge, and the will be as resolutely bent for God and heaven. Where the understanding has but a poor and scanty furniture of the things of God, the pious affections will have the fewer springs to raise them: And if our ideas of divine things are obscure and confused, our passions are in great danger of running wildly astray, and of being led away by every delusion. Seek therefore not only a large and plenteous acquaintance with the things of God, but endeavor, as far as possible, to get clear and distinct conceptions of them, that the pious passions may have solid ground whence to take their rise. And then let your will be steadily set for God without weakness or wavering. If the resolves and purposes of the heart be feeble and doubtful, the affections will never rise to any high degree in a regular or lasting manner.

But I have said so much on these points that I shall not enlarge here. If the mind and will are sanctified, it is certain, according to the very frame of our natures, that the passions will in some degree follow the influence of these governing faculties. Why is it our passions are suddenly alarmed and so warmly influenced by the things of this world? It is because our minds have too high a value for them, our wills are too much attached to them, we place our happiness too much in them; Matt. d. 21. Where the treasure is, the heart will be also; the ’ heart with all its passions. Why are our desires, our longings, our fears and hopes, our sorrows, joys, and resentments, so keen, and so intense about the things of life? It is because these things are too much esteemed as our treasure, our portion, our inheritance. If God be our portion, Christ our life, and heaven our inheritance and our home, then our affections will he set on the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God; Col. iii. 1, 2.

II. “Engage the most powerful and governing passion for God, that is, the passion of love:” All the train of aflectious will obey ils ruHug power and influence, they will all follow its motions and sovereign dictates, as was made evident in the second discourse on this subject. And we have shewn you before, that in order to excite divine love in our hearts, we must meditate frequently on these things, viz. what the great and blessed God is in himself, what he has done for us, what he daily does for us, and what he has promised to do, both in this life and the life to come. Never be easy, or at rest, therefore, if you find your love to God flag and languish, for then the other affections will grow cold and lifeless in religion. Take all opportunities to warm your Ijeart with this sacred passion, and to rekindle the fire of divine love within you, when at any time you find it declining.

III. “Watch carefully against the too strong attachment of your affections to creatures:” Remember that this world is at enmity with God; James iv. 4. If any man love this world the love of the Father is not in him; 1 John ii. 15. AYhere the love of the world is habitually prevalent, the love of God is not found; for God is the supreme good, and the most lovely of beings, and he counts that love as nothing which is not supreme. No man can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon y Matt. vi. 25, that is, the true God and the god of riches: And we may say, by the same rule, you cannot love the true God and the god of honor and ambition, or the god of sensuality and carnal pleasure. A God carries a supreme idea, and demands all the soul. Not only unlawful objects and sinful pleasures, but even sensible delights, possessions, and enjoyments, which are lawful, take too fast hold on the heart, and draw it away from God. Kemember that the creatures around you have this advantage, that while God is a spirit, an unseen being, the creatures are ever striking upon our eyes or ears; they are ever making their court to our senses and appetites, and have a thousand ways to insinuate themselves into the heart. The world, and the flattering enjoyments of it, are suited to work upon flesh and blood, and to draw olf the soul from God its centre and its rest: They are ever near at hand on all occasions, and they are ready sometimes to say, Where is your God? Keep your God, therefore, always near you, and watch against the pleasing flattery of alluring creatures, lest your heart cleave too fast to them, and be thereby divided from your God.

Amidst all the endearing relations and engaging businesses of life, single yourselves as much as possible for God, and let not many things dwell too near your soul, lest you lose the sight of your heavenly Father, and the pleasing sensations of his love. Where the love of sensible things prevails, it draws with it all the long train of hopes and fears, of desires, joys, and sorrows! of painful heartaches, and fond wishes, and keen resentments. Thus the alfectionate powers of nature are carnalized, are tinctured deep with the things of earth, and become too much estranged from God and heaven. Whensoever you find a tempting creature taking too fast hold of your passions, set a guard of sacred jealousy upon it; keep your heart at a holy distance from that creature, lest it twine about your inmost powers, and draw them off from their allegiance and duty to God your Creator. The love of God is a flower of divine original, and of the growth of paradise; if the Holy Spirit has planted it in your heart, let not any other love be planted too near it, nor too much nourished, lest it draw away the vital moisture, and cause the love of God to languish and wither.

IV. Be not slight and careless in secret religion. Let private devotion, reading, meditation, prayer, have a proper share of your time allotted them. In pious retirements you may indulge all the holy passions with much greater freedom: You may there give a loose to all the devout affections of the soul, in the warmest exercises and expressions: You may say a thousand things to God in secret, which are not proper for public woiship: You may pour out your souls before him in the strongest and most pathetic sentiments of holy desire and divine joy: You may tell him all the inward pains of your conscience, the secret anguish and shame of your heart, because of your past offences: You may sigh deeply, and blush before him, and dissolve your eyes into tears: You may tell him in secret how intense are your desires to taste and be assured of his love, and to be formed after his image: You may rejoice in his sight with pious exultations and triumph, in hope of his eternal presence in the uy)per world. Such exercises as these will keep all the passions in an habitual practice of religion, and maintain inward piety in the life and power of it.

V. Converse much with those parts of our holy religion, and with those books of Scripture which are suited to awaken your warmest affections. Let your thoughts take occasion, from the various occurrences in nature and providence, to meditate on the glorious perfections of God, the wonders of his wisdom in contriving the several parts of the creation, so happily fitted to answer his great designs. Think on his amazing power, that could form all things by his word, and bring a whole world into being at his will.

Awaken your souls, to admire the wide-spreading influence of his sovereignty and government, who manages the immense affairs of the upper and the lower worlds, the nations of men, and the armies of angels, and yet extends his care to every one of us in particular, and even to the meaner figures of flies and worms. Think on the infinite extent of his knowledge, that he is acquainted not only with every creature he has made, but with every thought that passes through our hearts, with all our most secret actions and purposes. This will awaken in you a holy fear of his majesty, and you will dread, the thoughts of sinning against him, since it never can be concealed from his notice; and while you think on his omnipresence, you may rejoice in him as your guardiam and defence through all times and places where or whensoever it is possible for danger to attend you. Meditate on his boundless goodness: Our God is love, and all nature i filled with the blessings of his bounty. He has overspread the skies with light, and covered the earth with food for man and beast. Of what a vast and surprising extent is the whole family of creatures which are maintained out of the stores of God! What a transcendent veneration should we have of that goodness which satisfies the craving appetites of milhons daily and hourly!

Besides these general effects of the divine goodness, it is proper to have the memory furnished with particular instances of protections, deliverances, escapes from danger, rich and unmerited blessings, which we ourselves have enjoyed, that we may awaken our gratitude, rekindle our dying love, and exalt our hearts and our voices in praise. Nor is it less useful to meditate sometimes on the sins and follies of mankind, that we may admire the patience of a God so aftronted and so abused: Nor is it less needful to recollect our own follies and our guilt, that we may keep holy repentance in its lively exercises; for the spring of godly sorrow should never be dried up while we dwell in these regions of sin and defilement. Then the astonishing designs of divine mercy towards guilty creatures call for a due share of our meditations: Designs of mercy in the heart of God, counsels of peace transacted with his Son Jesus Christ before the world began, in order to rescue mankind from the ruins of nature, and to raise up a chosen seed for his own glory out of the rebellious race of Adam.

Here the thoughts of a Christian should spread themselves abroad, and give a loose to holy contemplation and wonder. Let us run back to ancient ages, and view Jesus the Son of God, the brightness of his Fatherh glory, in his pre-existent state of light and happiness, before he visited us in flesh; Heb. i. 3. There he dwelt in the bosom of the Father, before lie made our world, or appeared in it: We should trace bis various appearances to the patriarchs, and his conduct of the church through many ages, under the name of tJie angel of GocTs presence, under the character of the King of Israel: We should meditate on his wondrous condescensions to become incarnate, to dwell in such feeble flesh and blood as ours is, to be compassed about with infirmities, to sustain perpetual labors and sorrows, fatigues and reproaches, through the course of a mortal life, to bear those unknown agonies in the garden, and on the cross, which were the price of our pardon, and the means of his atonement for our guilt. What amazing love is this! How divine! How unsearchable! It has heights and lengths, and breadths and depths in it, that pass all our knowledge; Eph. iii. 18, 19. and demand our devoutest praises. Trace him from the cross to the tomb, follow him through the regions of the dead, behold him in the power and glory of his resurrection, see him ascending on a bright cloud to heaven, attended with the chariots of God, which are twenty thousand, even unnumbered thousands of angels; Psalm lxviii. 18, view him sitting on the right hand of God, making intercession there for sinners, rebels, enemies, that they may be divinely transformed into saints, children, friends. Survey him at the head of all principalities and powers, ruling all things according to his Father’s decrees, for the glory of his Father, and for his own glory, as well as for the eternal welfare of his church. What bright and vigorous contemplations, what entertaining ideas, what efforts of pious passion may be raised by a sanctified mind travelling such a spacious round of divine wonders!

Enter into yourselves, think what once you were, corrupt, abominable, unclean, unholy; Remember the distinguishing grace of God, whereby you were awakened to a sense of your sin and danger, and were taught to fly for refuge to Jesus, your all-sufficient hope. Think on your iniquities all pardoned; think of your garments and soul washed white in the blood of the Lamb; think on the powerful influences of the Spirit, that hath changed your vile nature, and made it holy, that has guarded you from a thousand temptations, and is training you up to everlasting blessedness. Which of the passions is there that would lie cold and silent under the lively sentiments of such a various and important scene of things?

But I proceed to the second part of this fifth direction, and that is, “we may have our devout passions quickened by converse with those parts of the Holy Bible which contain the most affecting subjects, and express them in the most pathetic manner.” Read some of the wonders of mercy and love in the transactions of God with his ancient people, how he rescued them from the midst of barbarous nations and hostile armies; how he brought them out of bondage and brick-kilns, by a mighty and miraculous effort of power and grace; how he led them through seas dry-shod, and commanded rivers to cleave asunder, and leave a path for their march; how he visited them after by missionary angels, and sometimes in his own royal person; for they saw the God of Israel; Exod. xxiv. 10. Read and meditate the vengeance and the terrible destruction executed on the old world that was drowned in the flood; the deluge of wrath that fell on Sodom and Gomori-ah, which perished by divine lightning; for the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven upon them; Gen. xix. 24. Read the ten plagues of Egypt, and the desolations that were sometimes spread over rebellious Israel, and sometimes over the heathen nations by an angry God, in the writings of Moses, and the Book of Judges. Read the soft and melting language of divine mercy, inviting sinners to return to God by Isaiah, the evangelic prophet. Survey the promises that are big with blessings, that contain pardon, and righteousness, and grace, and life, and salvation, and glory in them; and let the pious affections of hope and love break out and diffuse themselves with sweet delight. Read the history of the life and death of our blessed Lord, which is made up of love and wonders, and look into some of the more affectionate paragraphs of St. Paul, and the pathetic parts of all the sacred epistles. But above all, for this purpose, I must recommend the specimens of divine meditation and divine worship, the complaints, the supplications, and the songs of praise which are offered to God by holy men in the Old Testament and in the New. You find some of these in the books of Moses, Ezra, Job, Daniel, and other prophets; especially the Psalms of David: A rich and heavenly treasure is this; a repository, or an altar of sacred fire. The people of God, in all succeeding ages, have had recourse to it, both as an example and a spring of most lively and exalted devotions. Choose a psalm suited to your own case, and frame, and temper; compare your hearts with the Psalmist, and your circumstances with his; lift up your souls to God in the words of David, or imitate his language where his words do not so perfectly expiess your case. Eater into his spirit, form and model your pious affections by that illustrious pattern, and be sure to bring Christ and the sweet discoveries of grace, and the blessings of the gospel, into this sort of devotion. David himself, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, practised this, though in a more obscure manner, and in the style of prophecy: And in the midst of such a dark dispensation, surrounded with types and shadows, we find surprising efforts of fear and love, of joy and wonder, of desire and hope, of faith and adoration, and praise, how unspeakably glorious and entertaining would it be to us, if we had a book of such holy melody, such harmonious worship, written by divine influence in the language of Christ and his gospel, interlined with the blood of the Son of God, adorned and enlivened with the grace and glory of a rising and reigning Saviour, and animated and enriched with the Holy Spirit, and the blessings of the New Testament? Perhaps this is too sublime a privilege, too high a favor for the church to expect or enjoy in this corrupted and

degenerate state: Perhaps we must wait for such a seraphic volume till we are raised to join the songs and harps of the heavenly Jerusalem; or at least till the happy time of the restitution of all things when a new heaven and a new earth shall introduce such a state of things among men as shall be near akin to the glory of the upper world.

But it is time now to go on to the next particular.

VL “When you find a devout passion arising in your heart, indulge and cherish it, if there be a convenient season.” Take heed that you do not banish the holy thought, or suppress the sacred affection. Do not immediately plunge yourself, without necessity, into the businesses of life, or any vain amusements, lest you damp the wing of your holy desires, which would bear you upward to God; quench not those seeds of divine and heavenly fire which God has kindled in your souls. When the quickening Spirit takes hold of your heart, take care that you do not refuse to follow him: Resist not the motions of the blessed Spirit, lest he retire grieved, and it may be long ere he return; 1 Thess. v. 19. Eyh. iv. 30. When the blessed God, does, as it were, take you by the hand, and lead you aside from the world, to converse with himself; when your blessed Saviour doth, if I may so express, touch the springs of devotion within you, and as it were invite and beckon you to holy fellowship with him, have a care that you do not turn rudely away from him, and renounce his invitations. Let such sacred seasons, such heavenly moments, be duly valued and improved. Let pious aflections be indulged and promoted, unless plain and necessary business call you away at that time to other engagements.

But if it should happen that the providence of God and your duty demand your thoughts and your hands to be employed in secular affairs, when you feel a devout passion arising, you may in some measure remedy this inconvenience, by the following advice:

VII. “Endeavor to keep up a constant savor of religion in the midst of the businesses and cares of this life.” While you ai’e travelling through the wilderness of this world, walk always with God: Do every thing in the name of God, as under the influence of his command, and with a design for his glory: And let your soul go forth often toward him in short and holy exercises; this will keep the devout affections awake and active. If you have found God in the closet, or in the church, carry him with you into the things of the world, into the shop and the family, so far as a proper attention to your daily business will permit. Suffer no long intermissions of your heavenly work, lest your pious affections grow cold. Let your thoughts in short intervals of worship go out toward God. Never let an hour pass, if possible, without some devout aspirations toward heaven. In the evening watches, at midnight, and at the dawn of the morning, the holy Psalmist sent up his thoughts to God; and he was often breathing out his soul toward him amidst the affairs of the day; Psalm lxiii. 6. / will meditate on thee in the night watches. Psalm xxv. 5. Thou art the God of my salvation, on thee do I wait all the day. O blessed souls, who imitate the practice of that sublime saint, the man after Gods own heart!

VIII. “Confine not your religion always to your thoughts.” Sometimes, perhaps, while you are musing, the fire will burn, as David found it; Psalm xxxix. 3. Then speak with your tongue to God, or to man, as David did, who was most exquisitely skilled in all the holy methods of a devout life, and was the noblest pattern of sacred fervor. Gain some acquaintance with lively Christians: Mutual conversation shall raise the divine flame higher, like united torches which increase each other’s blaze. Sharpen your desires, and kindle your hopes and joys, by mutual and holy discourse. Borrow a coal from the altar of the sanctuary, from the ordinances of public worship, and warm your own hearts, by endeavoring to warm the heart of your neighbor. Speak to one another of the heavenly world, till each of you find your wings stretched for the flight, and you long for the divine summons. Mix your flames of celestial love, as angels do, and let them spire upward, and point towards Jesus, your beloved. Man is a social creature and his passions were made to be raised by converse. Break therefore through the reproach and shame of a degenerate age, and aspire to the life and discourse, and joy of angels.

IX. “Seek earnestly the influences of the quickening Spirit.” Without him you can do nothing. It is the Spirit of God who raises dead sinners at first into a divine life, and he puts all the languid springs of life into new motion. Those vigorous and active powers of the soul, which have so strong an influence to promote the vivacity and beauty of true religion, are under his government, and they want a divine touch from his finger to quicken and accelerate their motions. It is he who awakens our fear, who excites our hopes, who kindles our love and desire to things holy and heavenly; and it is he who exalts our spiritual joys. How often does the pious Psalmist cry out for quickening grace in the cxix. Psalm, and for the continued influences of the Holy Spirit, in other parts of his devotional writings? The whole church prays for the same quickening operations, Psahn lxxx. 11. Quicken us, 0 Lord, so will lue call upon thee. Let this be the matter of our daily and importunate requests to heaven. And let us remember too, that under the gospel, Christ is the spring of our life; he is appointed by the Father to bestow his Spirit: He himself is called our life; Col. iii. 3. He himself is a quickening Spirit; 1 Cor. xv. 45. All the principles of our holiness must be derived from him, as our head of vital influence.

X. The last thing I shall propose, in order to keep the devout passions awake and lively in religion, is to live much in the faith of unseen things, and to daily die. Set yourselves continually as on the borders of the grave and the invisible world: This was St. Paul’s practice; 1 Cor. xv. 31. I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord, I die daily: And his daily living in the views of death, had a happy influence to maintain his rejoicing in Christ. If you constantly look on yourselves as dying creatures, and place yourselves on the borders of eternity, you will then take leave daily of sensible things, and live by the faith of things invisible. You will then behold God as ever near you, God, the Judge of all, the everlasting hope and the portion of his saints: You will be very unwilling to have your heart absent from God, while you look at death as just at hand.

Then the blessed Jesus, both as a Saviour and as a Judge, will be much on your thoughts.” Am I ready to appear before my Judge? Have I any strong and secure evidences that Jesus is my Saviour P Then the gates of heaven will be ever as it were open before you, and the gTories of it always within your view: You will think much of the heavenly world, with all its holy inhabitants, with its divine enjoyments, with its everlasting freedom from temptation,

* Most of the Greek copies, as well as our own translation, read it your rejoicing; but it is hard to make sense of it, without changing the word your into our, which in the Greek is but the small change of one letter; and one or more manuscript copies have the word our, and support this alteration and sin, and sorrow, with its delightful business, and its unknown pleasures.

Then this world will be as a dead thing in your eyes; it will have very little power to work on your passions, and to draw you aside from God: He will be your love and your all. The strength of faith and the views of death will command your fears, and hopes, and desires, and confine them to the things of religion. Then you will be ever solicitous to brighten your evidences for heaven, to keep your hopes firm and unshaken, by often reviewing the grounds and foundations of them: And your spirit will be solicitous to be found ready at all hours for the call and summons into the upper world. Every power of nature, and every passion will be kept in its right frame and posture, under the influence of such an expectation. You will hate every sin, and abhor the thoughts of it, lest your souls be defiled afresh, when they are just called to depart: You will keep your desires of God always warm, and set a guard on your love, lest it suffer and decay: You will raise your thoughts to a continual delightful converse with heavenly things, and enter into the spirit of joy and praise. O blessed souls, who daily practise this sort of departure from the body, and anticipate the pleasures of the heavenly state! Who love the blessed God, and delight in him here on earth, as far as mortality will admit, and are breathing after the more consummate holiness and joy of paradise! This was the frame and temper, this the devout language of Armelle Nicholas, a poor servant maid, who had spent more than thirty years of her life in the constant exercise of divine love. “God has sent me,” says she, “into this world but to love himself, and through his great mercy I have loved him so much, that I cannot love him more, after the manner of mortals: I must go to him that I may love him after the manner of the blessed.”

Meditation. “I have learned so much of religion, as to know that it does not consist in vehement commotions of animal nature, in sublime raptures and ecstasies: We may be sincere Christians in the exercises of repentance and faith, and in the practice of holy obedience, without any overwhelming sorrows or transporting joys. Yet since the various affections of fear and hope, love and sorrow, desire and delight, belong to my nature, I am sure they ought to be all engaged in some measure in the service of God and religion: And I have been taught in this discourse by what methods it may be obtained. Let me now recollect these advices briefly, in order to practise.”

And first,” I will endeavor that the ruling powers of my soul, the understanding and the will, be employed in these affaii-s of everlasting importance. O may my memory be richly furnished with treasures of divine knowledge; may I be fully convinced of the necessity and worth of true religion! May I have the most exalted esteem of God and things heavenly! May these be the objects of my dearest choice 1 May my will be firmly determined to fix on these as my highest portion, and my everlasting all I And can I go thus far without making God the supreme object of my love? Can I choose him with all his excellencies, his graces, and his glories, as my all-sulficient happiness, and live upon him as such, and yet not love him? I think this is impossible. Let me then cherish and improve this divine principle of love; and divine love will govern all the other passions of nature, will employ them in their proper work, and distribute to them their several offices in the religious life. Love is the sovereign and commanding passion. But what shall I do, O Lord, to love thee more? How shall I kindle this divine flame? How shall I nourish it and raise it high? I meditate on the wonders of thy nature, the extent of thy goodness, and the liches of thy mercy, and yet how little do I love thee! I review the sweet variety of blessings that I have received from thy hand in this life, and the surprising transactions of thy condescending grace, which relate to the life to come, ’ and yet how little do I love thee!’ I behold Jesus thy Son sent out of thy own bosom to take flesh and blood, and to dwell among sinners, even Jesus, the Son of thy highest love, sent down to earth to be made a sacrifice, and to die for the sake of such guilty wretches as I am, an amazing instance of thy love to us, * an’d yet how little do I love thee? I read in thy word what thou hast done for m« in ancient times and ages, long before I was born; and what thou wilt do for me in worlds and ages beyond death and time, and yet I am ashamed to think ’ how little I love thee 1’ My thoughts run from one eternity to another, and trace the various aaid transcendent wonders of thy love in the several periods of time; glorious and astonishing instances of the compassion of a God to a worthless creature, to a worm, to a dust, an atom of being, yea worse, to a sinner, a rebel that deserves thy immortal hatred, ’ and yet how little do I love thee!’ I wander in meditation through the various fields of nature and grace, and methinks I see my God in all of them, diftusing the unbounded riches of his wisdom and love through them all: I endeavor to take my warmest passions with me, while I rove among the unknown scenes of thy power and goodness, and yet, O my God, after all, I am forced to confess, ’ how exceeding little it is that I love thee!’ Lord, it is thy own work to turn a heart of stone into flesh, to make it feel all the tender impressions of divine love, and to kindle the celestial principle qf life und love within me. Come down from on high, thou Sovereign of all Nature; come down into my heart, take possession of it foi thyself, and let it ever burn and breathe towards thee, and send up the perpetual incense of holy desire and love.

“I will set a watch upon my eyes and my ears, and all the avenues of sense and appetite, that the creatures may not enter in too far, and dwell too near my heart, which I have given up to God. I would place a sacred guard upon it, to keep off every rival. I know the danger that arises from flattering objects of flesh and sense: If they but once gain admittance into the heart, they are ever busy to take too fiist hold there. Many of the weeds of this wilderness have gay and flattering blossoms, and if once they are permitted to creep into the soul, they twine about every passion, and root themselves there, to the certain prejudice of divine love. Alas, for that holy plant! That flower of heavenly original! How the noxious weeds of this world choak its growth, and cause it to decay and languish I Oh! may all the tempting trifles and vain delights of this life stand aloof from my heart, for I have devoted it to God for a habitation. Keep your distance, ye dangerous creatures, from the gates of this temple where my God dwells. There let him dwell alone, and reign over all my powers for ever.

“I would seek after my God in his public ordinances; I would seek after him daily in my secret retirements; I would give my pious passions a greater loose where no eye beholds me, where no ear can take notice of me. Oh! may these retiring hours be the special seasons for the hvely exercise and the increase of my devout aflections! There I can tell my God all my heart in private groans and private rejoicings. He shall know what my sighs mean, what are my fears and my painful sorrows: There I can blush before him for my secret sins, and open the floods of holy mourning: There I can pour out into his ear my bitter complaints of the rising corruptions of my heart: I can lament over the vanity of my thoughts, and spread my unknown temptations before his eyes. I can lay myself low at his feet in the dust, and tell him with humble confusion of face and soul how much I have received from him, how much I have done against him, and how little I have loved him.

“In these secret chambers of retirement, I may join the exercises of an active faith and a cheerful hope, with the sighs and tears of penitence: There I can breathe out my most vehement desires after the presence of my God, and after the sweeter sensations of his love. My flesh and my heart may pant and cry out after God the living God and say when shall I come and appear before him! Psalm xlii. 1, 2. When shall I be made more entirely like him? When shall these days of sin and temptation, these tedious seasons of absence and distance from God, come to a final period, never, never to return again? The lonely and retired devotions of a Christian may lead him near the walls of paradise, and the seats of the blessed, almost within the sound of their songs and praises. In a solitary cell, in a field remote from cities and men, or in a grove, such as Abraham jilanted we may call upon the name of the Lord the everlasting God; Gen. xxi. 33. There we may send up our souls towards heaven in most pathetic breathings of love and joy: The heart and the tongue may rejoice together in God our Saviour, while none but the trees and the skies bear witness to the hidden pleasures of our religion, and the sweet sensations of a conscience at peace with God: The trees in all their lovely bloom and verdure, and the skies in a cloudless and serene season, are happy emblems of such a conscience, serene and blooming with life and glory. When the sun and daylight are withdrawn, we may talk over our hopes and our holy joys to the silence of the moon and the midnight stars: Silent are they, and secure witnesses of those divine delights, to which the noisy and the busy world are too much strangers, and which the public must not know. There we may make our boast aloud in the name of Jesus, as our Saviour and our beloved: We may reckon up before him who sees all things our fairest evidences of an interest in his love, and may glory in the hope of his salvation: Surely when all the pleasing passions of nature are excited into such a just and lively exercise on divine objects, the power and the pleasure of religion within us will acquire thereby a lasting strength.

“In order to carry on this happy work, I am directed to converse much with those parts of Christianity, which are suited to raise the most sprightly aff’ections. I have done it, 0 Lord, and yet I feel my heart too little warmed and raised! But I would repeat the holy work; it is all duty, and it should be all delight: I would repeat it, till I find the sacred fire kindle and glow within. I would run over again that vast and extensive field of wonders. Again, let me survey the sublime glories of thy majesty, thy power, thy wisdom, thy goodness, all unsearchable and all infinite. I would dwell upon them till I am lost in this boundless ocean of Godhead, and swallowed up in adoration and wonder. Then would I recall my past days of life, and bring past years back to my remembrance. With a sacred solemnity would I revolve in my heart the multitude of my transgressions, and the multitude of divine mercies, till ray soul be melted into repentance and love: There is an unknown pleasure in the tears of pious love and holy mourning. I would read the astonishing history of the love of Christ, and trace the divine path of it down from his Father’s bosom to his state of infancy, to the manger, and the stable at Bethlehem: I would follow this golden track of love through the weaknesses, the fatigues, and sorrows of a life of poverty and reproach: I would trace it on the midnight mountains of prayer, and through the solitary wilderness, the stage of his sore temptations: I follow the shining thread of this unwearied love, till it brought him to sustain unknown agonies in the garden, and nailed him to the cursed tree: I behold him there groaning and expiring under the weight of my sins: Amazing spectacle! What will awaken devout passion, if such varied scenes of divine love and divine sorrow cannot do it?

“Let me borrow those blessed patterns of warm and living devotion, which David has left us, and tune the songs of Zion to the name of Jesus: The sweetest songs, and the sweetest name will happily unite and increase the divine harmony. Oh! when shall I feel the ardent desires, the penitent sorrows, the holy wishes, and pious elevated joys of the ancient Psalmist? Oh! for the return of the same Spirit that gave the soul and the harp of David, these sacred and immortal elevations. When I find a divine influence reaching my heart, and raising a devout passion there, I would hold fast and cherish the heavenly sunbeam, till I feel the holy wai’mth diffused through all my powers: Nor would I willingly suffer the tides of business or care in this world to quench the spark which was kindled from above. I would keep up the savor of divine things among the common aff’airs of this life. A present God in the midst of the labors of this world, will sweeten and sanctify them all, and bring heaven down to earth.

“Suffer me not, 0 my God, to bury all my religion within me. Let my tongue communicate some of the wonders of thy mercy, and be the lively instrument of thy praise: Give courage and wisdom, that I may know when and how to divert vain discourse, and may dare to speak for God. Oh! when shall the time be, that they which fear the Lord shall speak often one to another? Mai. iii. 16. and warm each other’s hearts with heavenly conversation? When shall the blessed Spirit revisit the forsaken churches, and dwell again in the degenerate families of Christians? While we feel our hearts heavy, and our affections cold and languid in the things of God, we toil and heave in vain without this Spirit. We flutter upon the ground, and make attempts to rise heavenward: but, alas! we grovel and groan under our impotence, till the Spirit gives us an eagle’s wing to mount us up toward the heavenly world. With all our pious endeavors, let us join our efforts of importunate request for the return of the quickening Spirit, and his vital influences. Oh! that I might live much in the faith of unseen things, and set myself continually as on the borders of death. Turn aside the veil, O blessed Jesus, that I may look into the unseen world! Or give the eyes of my faith vigor enough to pierce through the veil, and see my God and my Saviour. And may this blessed sight make a divine impression upon all the powers of my nature, such as may awaken every vigorous and pleasing passion of the heart, such as may engage me to keep my hopes always awake, my evidences for heaven unspotted, and my desires ever breathing toward thy presence, my Saviour, and my God! If my pious passions were in their warmest exercise, I should be ever ready to obey the divine order for my removal hence: I should receive the messenger death with a smile on my countenance, and follow the angel with a cheei-ful step, while he leads me away from a world of sin, sorrow, and darkness, to the regions of life and joy.

“O happy country, where sorrow and sin have no place, where my spirit in its inmost powers shall feel an eternal spring! While we dwell in this world, it is all winter with us: We behold the sun as afar oft’, and receive but feeble influences. But in the world on high, all things around us are full of life and love: There are no gloomy hours, no chilling blasts, no cold and cloudy seasons. There no damp shall hang upon the wing of my devout affections, no waters shall ever quench the fervor of them. There I shall be for ever ascending nearer to God the centre of my soul, and all my motions will be swifter too. Every power within me shall feel stronger influences of his love, when I am got so far within the divine attraction. Then I shall complain no longer of absence and distance, nor feel any more eclipse of the face of my God; but I shall be perpetually receiving a full efflux of light and love from the eternal Sun of grace and glory. I shall spend the ages of my endless existence in a rich variety of sublime duties, and sublime delights; such delights and such duties as are, and must be unknown, till we put oft” these coarse and cumberous garments of flesh and blood, these veils that enwrap our souls in darkness. Happy shall I be indeed, when all the troublesome and disquieting influences of flesh and blood shall cease: All my painful and uneasy passions shall be for ever banished: Grief, and fear, and anger, shall vex my spirit no more. Animal nature must be buried in the dust, and all the ferments and emotions of it shall cease for ever.

“But must I then lose all those kindly ferments of nature too, all those pleasing emotions, which in this present state add fresh vigor and delight to the soul in the exercise of its best affections.

love and joy? If all these must be lost, who can inform me what shall come in the room of them? Surely love and joy are immortal things; they were made for heaven, and cannot die, nor shall their vigor be diminished in a world that was built for happiness. What strange unknown powers then shall be given to separate spirits whereby these divine affections shall be invigorated, and raised to nobler degrees of exercise? Or shall my separate spirit, when it is divested of every clog, and exulting in complete liberty, use all its own affectionate powers in a nobler and more perfect manner, when I shall see the divine objects of them face to face? Surely the holy souls that are dismissed from flesh, shall be richly furnished with all necessary faculties, for their own felicity. Every saint in glory shall find full satisfaction, and intense delight, when all its best affections are united and employed on the most lovely and desirable objects; when they are all fixed on God their supreme good, and on Jesus, the most perfect, and most divine image of the Father.

“Jesus, together with the Father, shall be the object of our cou’ templation and love. And at the same time his holy soul, with all its pure affections, rejoicing in its own nearness to God, shall be the pattern of our heavenly joy. I in them says our blessed Lord, / in them, and thou in me, that they all may he made perfect in one; John xvii. 23. And we are told — We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; 1 John iii. 2.

“These are the sweet notices of our future felicity, that he has given us to cheer our hearts in the present state of faith and labor: These are the bright, but distant glimpses of those entertainments which are prepared for us in our Father’s house. These are little prospects of those rivers of pleasure, that run between the hills of paradise, and make glad the new Jerusalem, the city of our God: Such joys as these await us on high. Do we not feel our hearts pant and point upward? These are the joys of divine love; the very faith and hope of this blessedness, the slight glimpses and foretastes of it here on earth, have something in them unspeakable and full of glory: But the complete relish and fruition of it is reserved for heaven, and for heavenly inhabitants to know and enjoy. There, and there only, are such immediate and rich profusions of divine love, as the heart of man in this mortal state, is neither pure enough to partake of, nor large enough to conceive. We must die, we must die out of this world, to learn perfectly what those pleasures are; nor can we know them but by enjoyment. Missionary angels could not make us understand them, nor a visit from departed saints, Earthly languages were not made to express the fulness of these celestial sensations: The ideas of paradise demand unutterable words; nor are spirits dwelling in flesh either fit or able to hear them. We must die then, to learn how these blessed ones love God, and how God loves the blessed. Oh! when will the happy day arrive? When will the hour shine out upon us, and the bright moment appear? It is coming, it is coming, as fast as time can roll away, and the sun and moon can finish their appointed periods.

“Come, my soul, rouse thyself from thy dull and lethargic temper; shake off the dust of this earth, that hangs heavy upon thy better powers. Hast thou not been long weary of such cold and frozen devotion, as is practised in this earthly state? Hast thou not long complained of loving thy God so little, and of tasting so little of his love? Come, raise thyself above these dull and despicable scenes of flesh and sense, above all that is not immortal. Lift up thy head with cheerfulness and eager hope; look out with longing eyes, beyond the shadowy region of death, and salute the dawning of thy eternal day: Stretch out thy arms of intense desire, and send a flight of devout wishes across the dark valley, to meet the approaching joys of immortality.”