Part 35

Learn, O saints! from what has been said, to sit loose to all your worldly comforts; and stand ready prepared to part with every thing, when GOD shall require it at your hand. Some of you perhaps may have friends, who are to you as your own souls; and others may have children, in whose lives your own lives are bound up: all I believe have their _Isaacs_, their particular delights of some kind or other. Labour, for CHRIST’s sake, labour, ye sons and daughters of _Abraham_, to resign them daily in affection to GOD, that, when he shall require you really to sacrifice them, you may not confer with flesh and blood, any more than the blessed patriarch now before us. And as for you that have been in any measure tried like unto him, let his example encourage and comfort you. Remember, _Abraham_ your father was tried so before you: think, O think of the happiness he now enjoys, and how he is incessantly thanking GOD for tempting and trying him when here below. Look up often by the eye of faith, and see him sitting with his dearly beloved _Isaac_ in the world of spirits. Remember, it will be but a little while, and you shall sit with them also, and tell one another what GOD has done for your souls. There I hope to sit with you, and hear this story of his offering up his Son from his own mouth, and to praise the Lamb that sitteth upon the throne, for what he hath done for all our souls, for ever and ever.