A GLIMPSE OF GLORY; OR, A GOSPEL DISCOVERY OF EMMANUEL'S LAND. THE PRELUDE. ROUSE thee, O my soul, from this base and contagious earth: why should lower thoughts, and base aims possess thee thus ? What hast thou here, that may draw thee aside from the centre of thy felicity even for one moment? If this world, in her rosy and youthful constitution, be very vanity and vexation of spirit, what must there be now in her sad and withered state? If, in her smiles, she be not worth the regarding, what folly is it, to court a frowning nothing! Is it time, O my soul, to place one beam of thy affection upon such a silly, base dunghill, so as to give it an affectionate look? Trample it under thy feet carry thyself after the manner of those who expect the kingdom. God hath formed thee of such a capacious constitution, as nothing can satisfy thee below his infinite Self; and shouldst thou be confined, in thy outgoings, within the limits of this lower, smoky region? Mount up B swiftly, far above the sun, moon, and stars, beyond the borders of this narrow vault, where thou mayst sweetly bathe thyself in these oceans of joys and felicity, that know neither brim nor bottom: thou art not to waste away thy conceptions on things to-day in their vigour, and to-morrow they are not-shadows, empty nothings, night dreams, and vanities, insufficient objects for the faculties of such a noble being to fix upon. Art thou not beginning to consider of a more enduring substance? the kingdom that cannot be shaken, Emmanuel's glorious, stately, and ever-flourishing land, the smiling, rosy place, where his servants do incessantly serve him, and see his face eternally, without a cloud; where our all-lovely Wellbeloved doth corporally dwell, and shall for ever take up his eternal abode. A fruitful, fragrant, beautiful, delightsome soil, overflowing with the true and real nectar and ambrosia; a garden of delights, a paradise of pleasures, planted at the beginning by the Almighty's own right hand, whereon he hath manifested, in a high and transcendent manner, the incomprehensible glory of his power, love, and goodness, wonderfully above what eye hath seen, ear hath heard, or the mind of man, within the tents of mortality, considered. What a wonderful frame is this! Oh, the alluring objects up above! the first thought whereof set all on a flame. Oh, what desires! oh, what longings! When shall mortality be swallowed up of life, death of victory, time of eternity, miseries of blessedness, sorrows of joys, pains of pleasures, painted enjoyments and delights of his love and eternal sweetness? All creatures are ever in action, especially those of the highest and most noble rank, which must necessarily have some object or other to fix their outgoings upon the most excellent and sublime are then to be chosen; and what more excellent, than what will fill all the powers and faculties of blessed men and angels throughout all eternity! To take a view of the higher Canaan, is neither curiosity nor audacity, but a necessary duty, lying upon all, who are travelling thither the advantages of such a noble study cannot be told, nay, nor conceived, but by the exercised therein. According to the knowledge, so are the affections, both as to kind and degree: what we know not, that we cannot love; and what we behold lovely, we cannot but love it. Seraphic spirits, no wonder you are ofttimes transported with delight! Ah silly worldlings, you cannot but have a drooping life of it, since you know nothing but earth had you a half glimpse of the more enduring substance, of the ever-flourishing, never-fading glory, how would you be in an unexperienced frame of joy and admiration! how would you disdain all the lesser beauties on this side of time! but, ah! you never saw the enduring glory; and what wonder you are as you are? Mortality hath no greater joy than the solid hope of glory; the sweetness, arising from the solid hope of so great things, fills the soul with wonderful rapture, and perfumes the lowest of earthly enjoyments: surpassing joys to my soul ! these temporal things, my Lord bestows upon me, are as pledges of the fair inheritance. And, are not all visible things as so many emblems of the invisible? Worldlings, you are fools, to imagine we have a sad and melancholy life: none live but we; though we may be said to be, as to this life, "of all men the most miserable!" it is only as to the bulk of externals; you know not our joys, nor the manner of our enjoyments; neither can ye know them. must search after this evanishing va pour. Of necessity we May not the vanity and vexation another life, than of spirit, in the pursuit of every sublunary enjoyment, force us to the searching after another life? If we search not for the glory to come, then let us search after nothing at all. Sirs, what madness to notice this earth, unless in order to eternity! Do you not clearly see all your temporary enjoyments die in the birth? Are not the glistering shows of men on this stage of the world, like the appearance of aerial things in the clouds? Here are armies engaging one another, there are ships under sail, yonder are men riding in the equipage of kings, queens, etc. elsewhere are towns, castles, rivers, etc. All real to the spectators, but anon all vanishing to nothing, and where are they? Fools! are they considering, that thus it is with all the glories of time! Verily, to all eternity, they shall be as if they had not been. The small study of glory proves carnal. appear Is it not evident, we have our us, in a great part, eyes too much upon shadows; and that we divide our looks betwixt heaven and earth; since our joys are more carnal than spiritual, and our longings and desires run so little heavenward? Ah! our love to the only Wellbeloved is not unlike that which every nation carries to their god; else we would be often crying out, Is not my Wellbeloved gone unto another country? and shall not my heart and love for ever dwell there, and only there? Sit I down here, when he hath removed himself to another place? Can there be any thing desirable where He is not? Oh! all ye beauties of this lower world, what are you to me, if my Lord be absent? Let me pass through all possible difficulties, even through ten thousand oceans of burning fire and brimstone, providing I land at last on that ten thousand times happy place, where he for ever dwells; that these arms may be blessed in embracing, these eyes in eternal beholding, and all my faculties may be filled with his eternally enrapturing sweetness. Oh, when shall I behold thy countenance! when shall I hear thy voice! when shall I stand amongst these happy, happy, happy ones, who stand in the immediate presence of thy all-glorious Majesty, and have the immediate and clear vision of thine eternal Godhead! Ah, how is it I think of any thing but heaven! Why are we not ever in an impatient longing to be in his everlasting embraces ? Know we what it is to take him for our only Wellbeloved? Is not every sounding of his very name melodious harmony in our ears? Does not every hearing or reading of him affect us with a wonderful sweetness? Do not the thoughts of our being in his embraces ere long, fill us with an ecstasy of joy? Are we not often challenging years, months, and days, that they succeed so leisurely one another; and contending with sun, moon, and stars, that they run their course so |