Part 195

10. When the minister returneth thanks and praise to God, stir up your souls to the greatest alacrity; and suppose you saw the heavenly hosts of saints and angels praising the same God in the presence of his glory; and think with yourselves, that you belong to the same family and society as they, and are learning their work, and must shortly arrive at their perfection: strive therefore to imitate them in love and joy; and let your very souls be poured out in praises and thanksgiving. And when you have the next leisure for your private thoughts, (as when the minister is exhorting you to your duty,) exercise your love, and thanks, and faith, and hope, and self-denial, and resolution for future obedience, in some such breathings of your souls as these: "O my gracious God, thou hast surpassed all human comprehension in thy love! Is this thy usage of unworthy prodigals? I feared lest thy wrath as a consuming fire would have devoured such a guilty soul; and thou wouldst have charged upon me all my folly. But while I condemned myself, thou hast forgiven and justified me; and surprised me with the sweetest embracements of thy love! I see now that thy thoughts are above our thoughts, and thy ways above our ways, and thy love excelleth the love of man, even more than the heavens are above the earth. With how dear a price hast thou redeemed a wretch that deserved thy everlasting vengeance! with how precious and sweet a feast hast thou entertained me, who deserved to be cast out with the workers of iniquity! Shall I ever more slight such love as this? shall it not overcome my rebelliousness, and melt down my cold and hardened heart? shall I be saved from hell, and not be thankful? Angels are admiring these miracles of love; and shall not I admire them? Their love to us doth cause them to rejoice, while they stand by and see our heavenly feast; and should it not be sweeter to us that are the guests that feed upon it? My God, how dearly hast thou purchased my love! how strangely hast thou deserved and sought it! Nothing is so much my grief and shame, as that I can answer such love with no more fervent, fruitful love. Oh what an addition would it be to all this precious mercy, if thou wouldst give me a heart to answer these thine invitations, that thy love, thus poured out, might draw forth mine, and my soul might flame by its approaching unto these thy flames! and that love, drawn out by the sense of love, might be all my life! Oh that I could love thee as much as I would love thee! yea, as much as thou wouldst have me love thee! But this is too great a happiness for earth! But thou hast showed me the place where I may attain it! My Lord is there in full possession; who hath left me these pledges, till he come and fetch us to himself, and feast us there in our Master's joy. O blessed place! O happy company that see his glory, and are filled with the streams of those rivers of consolation! yea, happy we whom thou hast called from our dark and miserable state, and made us heirs of that felicity, and passengers to it, and expectants of it, under the conduct of so sure a guide! O then we shall love thee without these sinful pauses and defects, in another measure and in another manner than now we do; when thou shalt reveal and communicate thy attractive love, in another measure and manner than now! Till then, my God, I am devoted to thee; by right and covenant I am thine! My soul here beareth witness against myself, that my defects of love have no excuse: thou deservest all, if I had the love of all the saints in heaven and earth to give thee. What hath this world to do with my affections? And what is this sordid, corruptible flesh, that its desires and pleasures should call down my soul, and tempt it to neglect my God? What is there in all the sufferings that man can lay upon me, that I should not joyfully accept them for his sake, that hath redeemed me from hell, by such unmatched, voluntary sufferings? Lord, seeing thou regardest, and so regardest so vile a worm, my heart, my tongue, my hand confess, that I am wholly thine. O let me live to none but thee, and to thy service, and thy saints on earth! And O let me no more return unto iniquity! nor venture on that sin that killed my Lord! And now thou hast chosen so low a dwelling, O be not strange to the heart that thou hast so freely chosen! O make it the daily residence of thy Spirit! Quicken it by thy grace; adorn it with thy gifts; employ it in thy love; delight it in its attendance on thee; refresh it with thy joys and the light of thy countenance; and destroy this carnality, selfishness, and unbelief: and let the world see that God will make a palace of the lowest heart, when he chooseth it for the place of his own abode."