XVI.

INDIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD.

IT is a certain truth that countenances are something a-kin to climates; hence the visages of some reveal their country: even so my soul has but a dusky colour, an earthly hue, because earth engrosses all my thoughts, my cares and concern. O how little converse have I with the unseen world! how little communion with God! One step into the future world will render this as if it had never been, and my first step may be it, since I walk on the frontiers of each world. Because this world will cheat me, shall I cheat myself? It will be a costly pledge, to give it my soul till I yield my body to its bowels. Wherein shall the expectant of glory excel others, if his causes and cures of joy and grief are the same? Should one who would fain be conversant about a world to come, so much concern himself with wind and vanity, dust and ashes? Bags of white and yellow dust may bring me to court here, but the whole world on my back, will not procure me entrance into the palace of the King Eternal. When arrived at the seats of bliss, it will not matter whether my journey was in the fair day of prosperity and fame, or in the tempestuous day of affliction and disgrace. Both are forgotten in glory. But if I love God, I will long to be with him, for I shall never get my fill of love in a foreign land. Well, death is fast approaching, and the wondrous hour that divides Jordan. Both deliver me from the howling desart, and possess me of the land of promise. Under such a prospect, well may I with cheerfulness give up the ghost, saying, Into thy hand I commit my spirit.

Ff

XVII.

THE DISEMBODIED SAINT.

1765.

WHITHER, dear angels, whither do ye carry my soul just disembodied? "Commissioned from thy Father's throne, we come to carry thee safe into his immediate presence." What dismal howling is that I hear behind us? "It is the last yells of hell's old lion, at thy safe escape."-Ah! where am I now? what wonders rise around me! what fragrance meets me from the mountains of myrrh, from the hills of frankincense! I hear the voice of my beloved; sacred guardians, let me leave you, and fly into his arms! Am I he who lately lay tumbling and tossing on a deathbed, who now walk in beds of roses, and on banks of bliss? Am I he who a little ago had none around his bed, but weeping friends, and concerned spectators, who now am surrounded with song, entranced with harmony, and ravished with delights? Am I, who lately lay struggling with the pangs, and trembling at the approach of dissolution, now above the reach of fear, and stroke of death?

But, O thou Majesty of heaven! I blush at my very entrance into thy courts, that I have been such a stranger here. Enoch, the divine Enoch, is a wonder in the upper world, he had so much of God with him on earth, he brought so much of heaven with him to heaven; he came not from earth to heaven, but from one heaven to another. What precious time and sweet meditation have!I wasted on toys and trifles,and despised the joy of angels and the work of heaven! Where

are all the things of time now, which could once dispute the possession of my heart with God? Why did not thy perfections feast my meditations? why did not thy love attract, constrain mine? why did not the joys of heaven drown the fanciful joys, and dissipate the imaginary sorrows of the world? why did I prostitute the temple of my soul to the idols of time? why permit the world and self a place in that temple which the Godhead is to inhabit for ever? There are none before the throne but supreme lovers of God, a name I dare not claim; then, let me retire to the outmost confines of the land of bliss, as unworthy to be nearer. Ah! no; at thy throne I will dwell for ever, and glow in ardors, and dissolve in love. And the sacred spark, which sin and satan, the world and self, smothered while below, shall burn a flame intense and strong through everlasting day.

SHALL I chaunt, or shall I complain? Even my complaints praise thee; it is thy kindness opens my mouth. Had I been thrown into hell, my revenge had been against the throne of God; but while I find myself in the arms of bliss, with what language shall I condemn my conduct in time! Was I content to have dwelt on the other side of Jordan for ever? to put up with a fool's paradise for eternity! O! why did not my soul go out more after God? why did not my love center on him alone? how could I treat my best, my heavenly friend, worse than a common trayeller! My house received the one, but my heart bolted out the other! How mean was mine esteem of the fairest one that ever angels saw, or scrapns sung! O that ever trifling avocations should have

called my meditations off that work that would have kindled my love and heightened my joy! Why did I look always through a false medium, on every thing that concerned me? Is it possible that this vast inheritance of glory could appear in mine eyes à little despicable island, that lay beyond an unknown ocean? O hast thou bestowed on me the boundless inheritance of bliss, who once gave mine affections so much to a few miles square on thy footstool, that lay within the sea-mark of corruption and the curse? Was my love ardent to every other object but the God of love? Oh! was mine esteem proportionate to their excellency, yea, was it not beyond what all their exccllencies put together deserved, yet dead and dull, low and languid to the Father of lights, and Fountain of perfections? Why did not the fire of love burn continually with a most vehement flame, a flame that many waters could not quench? Why did I not consider that thou wast love, and that this world, where I am now arrived, was a land of love, and that the song of the redeemed is just the warmest breathings of divinest love, "To him that loved us?" O what a hard, adamantine heart was mine, that in the midst of so many spicy flames was not melted into love! But here the furnace is seven times heated, and the cloudless emanations of eternal love make every grateful power of mind rise to the throne of God, like savory incense from the smoaking altar.

CAN I ever forget, in this exalted state, my folly when in time? How unbecoming for an heir of heaven to take so much thought about the earth! Did my faith believe that such immense treasures were reserved for me in the land of promise; and yet my unbelief distract me about the trifles of a day? Where now is the advantage of all my corroding cares, and disquieting forethoughts? How unbecoming for one whose strength was the joy of the Lord, to feel grief for the perishing things of time! Why did I take it in bad part to be poor in a world, where my dearest Saviour, whose hands founded the golden mines, beautified the sparkling diamond, and enriched the precious stones with brilliant glow, lived and died in extreme indigence? Why did any sorrow that was bounded by time, and ended in death, disquiet my immortal part? Whatever I lost in time being of a perishing nature, could not enrich me now; and it matters not what be now and then burnt, where all is devoted to fire.

ANOTHER error I was guilty of in the days of my pilgrimage below, was joy in the world; and yet all that I was possessed of, when I came to the hour of death, could neither avert the stroke, nor mitigate the pangs of dissolution. How like the sons of sense and earth, to rejoice in that which is bestowed on the basest of men, and often tends to the basest of ends! Neither the angel nor the animal regard the golden sum; and yet was I, whose animal life could not be supported by such, nor mine angelic expectations terminate there,