of hellish monsters: the excellent creatures are not now slain to hold in the life of base miscreants, ten thousand stages below the lowest of beasts. Thou air, thou art not an instrument any more, whereby the wretched souls and carcasses of cursed sinners are kept together, in a tolerable condition; base and treacherous enemies to God and man, do not now defile thee, by drawing thee in, and out, for the conversation of their abominable life. Thou water, thou art not now used, by the devil and his slaves, as instruments of their cruelty against the only princely and noble persons, the "co-heirs" of heaven and earth, and all things. Thou art not, O fire, compelled violently, against thy nature, to reduce to ashes, with great torment, the precious bodies of "Zion's children, comparable to fine gold." Ye sun, moon, and stars, you shall not shine upon the wicked, as well as the righteous any more: you do not lose your sweet influences upon the abomination of heaven and earth, and all things: are you not in your own kind happy, by being freed from such grievous bondage; more grievous, than to be corrupted, destroyed, and broken in a thousand nothings? Oh what joys! all dance, and rejoice! all are in a melodious frame! the virtue of my Wellbeloved's suffering and exaltation extends by superabundance to all things. No wonder we are plunged in the oceans of unspeakable joys and delights! though all were in a mourning apparel, we could not but eternally superabound in joys! this is the eternal day of our redemption, the day of the "restitution of all things," Acts iii. 21.

60. All things are

fed, nothing annihi

lated.

O thou lower world, thou art renewed, and glori- made new indeed! Oh such a majestic, glorious fabric out of the ashes of a dunghill! Oh heavenly earth! or earthly heaven! wonderful! not a new creation, but a renewing of the old, that perished by the fire of his indignation! O my Lord, thou canst make any thing out of any thing thou pleasest: beings, and no beings, are all alike to thee! verily this is a change, wherein infinite excellence is highly manifested. What joy, to behold the face of all things! our seeing of the first temple will not cause us to weep, because of this second: here is a magnificent royal palace reared up, in the place of a dungeon; a stately, majestic city, in the place of a few poor cottages. Was the former fabric real? or was it not rather imaginary? were they not fools, who were only delighted with it? were they not bewitched, and led away with fancies, night dreams, and vanities? I thought the former earth, in the days of my mortality, full of the glory, bounty, riches, and excellence of the great Former; and was it not? Yet it was a dark shadow to what mine eyes behold. This is a change could never have entered within the conceptions of the most excellent creatures! this is materially the "former," and yet not the former. It is manifest, my Almighty One, thou canst create ever so many worlds, differing altogether in excellence from one another; but thou hast done it, because it so pleased thee: just, and holy, and wise, and true art thou, in all thy ways. This is the stage whereon thou actedst most wonderful things, as

a "prelude" to this endless day of eternity: whereon thou didst produce an inconceivable mass of various dispensations, which will fill eternity with admiration: here didst thou display the banner of thy mercy and justice in the very same traces of providence, as the wisest of mortals could not trace thy footsteps; here thou wroughtest the never-enough admired work of our redemption; here thou didst seek thy bride; here thou didst prepare thine enemies for the time of vengeance; here thou madest all things ready for this everlasting day; and therefore in thy wisdom. hast thou continued it an eternal monument. Oh! thy sovereignty runs in the channel of thine infinite love and bounty! thou mighetst return all things back to their original again; but thy goodness is for ever extended over the works of thine hands. Thy glory endureth for ever; thou dost rejoice in all thy works, Psa. civ. 31; shall I not then rejoice in them? shall not I, considering them, be eternally enraptured? might it not render a creature eternally blessed, to consider thy infinite glory and perfections, written on thy handy-work? Even in the days of my childhood, I could not open mine eyes on the most ordinary productions of thine excellence, without strange stirrings, love, joy, and admiration. Oh the sweet sights that even then I have seen of thee, through the glass of the creature! how have my thoughts run a maze of delights and sweetness, in considering the vastness and expansion of the canopy of the lower world: the beams of thy chambers, laid in the waters: the clouds, thy chariots, whereon thou didst gloriously ride the

winds, the pavement whereon thou walkedst thy omnipotent power, in laying so firmly the foundations of the earth, that it cannot be moved : the prodigious overflowing of the waters, when they overwhelmed the earth: the unsearchable manner of bounding the boisterous waves of the raging sea, by sandy bulwarks: thy wisdom, in watering the vallies from the mountains, and the mountains from the sea and heavens, that the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field might drink abundantly: the excellent virtues of the earth manifested in its rich, pleasant, sweet, various, and lively offspring; as grass, herbs, flowers, shrubs, trees, and innumerable multitude of beauties, filling all the senses with surpassing delight, and subservient to all the wants of indigent mortals; as nutriment, medicine, clothing, and habitation: the wonderful eye of thine omniscient providence over the most inconsiderable creatures; as the conies and goats, who were provided with fit refuges from all danger: the exact ordinances of sun, moon, and stars: the vicissitudes of light and darkness, for the several exigencies of men and beasts. In the midst of such thoughts of thy power, wisdom, and goodness, how have I been filled, according to the measure of mortality, with inexpressible joy and sweetness! so that I could not but cry out, with astonishment, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches!" Psa. civ. 24; and again fell into the deep contemplation of the greatness of the sea, its innumerable progeny of small and great animals; thy wisdom in the appointment of navigation, and

power in the leviathan's playing there; thy rich bounty, in holding a well furnished table, to so numerous a family, as the people of heaven, earth, and sea; their necessary dependance on thee, every instant, in their living, moving, being; so that they are not, if thou draw in thyself, and the vivifying spirit thou communicatest unto them. Have I not, O my God, been in many such sweet meditations, until I have been wrapt up in a frame of spirit unutterable, inexpressible? and sung forth in the midst of such sweetness, "The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever; the Lord shall rejoice in his works. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord," Psa. civ. 31, 33, 34. How often have I thought, Is the wilderness so sweet and pleasant? what must the inland be? Is there such variety of beauty, glory, and sweetness, all along in my pilgrimage? what can I imagine to behold in my native country? Is the habitation, which devils, wicked men and beasts inhabit, so excellent and glorious? what can I think of the place where Jesus, the Emmanuel, with his fair white company of saints and angels, everlastingly abides? Is my God's footstool so glorious? what must his throne be? Is the undervault of this base dungeon so majestic? Oh the higher hall of glory, where the glorious King and his magnificent court remain! Does the habitation symbolize with the inhabitants? the higher world must inconceivably transcend this lower. And is this earth so sweet, when cursed and defiled, because of its abomin