Part 131

§ 10. (5.) The diligent keeping your hearts in heaven, will maintain the vigor of all your graces, and put life into all your duties. The heavenly Christian is the lively Christian. 'Tis our strangeness to heaven that makes us so dull. How will the soldier hazard his life, and the mariner pass through storms and waves, and no difficulty keep them back, when they think of an uncertain, perishing treasure? What life then would it put into a Christian's endeavors, if he would frequently think of his everlasting treasure? We run so slowly, and strive so lazily, because we so little mind the prize. Observe but the man who is much in heaven, and you shall see he is not like other Christians; there is something of what he hath seen above, appeareth in all his duty and conversation. If a preacher, how heavenly are his sermons! If a private Christian, what heavenly converse, prayers, and deportment! Set upon this employment, and others will see _the face_ of your conversation _shine_, and say, surely he hath been _with God in the mount_. But if you lie complaining of deadness and dulness, that you cannot love Christ, nor rejoice in his love, that you have no life in prayer, nor any other duty; and yet neglect this quickening employment; you are the cause of your own complaints. Is not thy life hid with Christ in God? Where must thou go, but to Christ for it? And where is that, but to heaven, _where Christ is_? _Thou wilt not come to Christ, that thou mayest have life._ If thou wouldst have light and heat why art thou no more in the sunshine? For want of this recourse to heaven, thy soul is as a lamp that is not lighted, and thy duties as a sacrifice which hath no fire. Fetch one coal daily from this altar, and see if thy offering will not burn. Light thy lamp at this flame, and feed it daily with oil from hence, and see if it will not gloriously shine. Keep close to this reviving fire, and see if thy affections will not be warm. In thy want of love to God, lift up thy eye of faith to heaven, behold his beauty, contemplate his excellencies, and see whether his amiableness and perfect goodness will not ravish thy heart. As exercise maintaineth appetite, strength, and vigor to the body; so these heavenly exercises will quickly cause the increase of grace and spiritual life. Besides, it is not false or strange fire, which you fetch from heaven for your sacrifices. The zeal which is kindled by your meditations on heaven, is most likely to be a heavenly zeal. Some men's fervency is only drawn from their books, and some from the sharpness of affliction, and some from the mouth of a moving minister, and some from the attention of an auditory; but he that knows this way to heaven, and derives it daily from the true fountain, shall have his soul revived with the water of life, and enjoy that quickening which is peculiar to the saints. _By this faith_ thou mayest _offer Abel's sacrifice, more excellent than_ that of common men, and _by it obtain witness, that thou art righteous, God testifying of thy gifts_, that they are sincere. When others are ready, like Baal's priests, to _cut themselves_, because their sacrifice will not burn; thou mayest breathe the spirit of Elijah, and in the chariot of contemplation soar aloft, till thy soul and sacrifice gloriously flame, though the flesh and the world should cast upon them all the water of their opposing enmity. Say not, how can mortals ascend to heaven? Faith hath wings, and meditation is its chariot. Faith is as a burning glass to thy sacrifice, and meditation sets it to the face of the sun; only take it not away too soon, but hold it there a while, and thy soul will feel the happy effect. Reader, art thou not thinking, when thou seest a lively Christian, and hearest his lively, fervent prayers, and edifying discourse, "O how happy a man is this! O that my soul were in this blessed condition!" Why, I here advise thee from God, set thy soul conscientiously to this work, _wash thee_ frequently _in_ this Jordan, and thy leprous, dead soul will revive, _and thou shalt know that there is a God in Israel_, and that thou mayest live a vigorous and joyful life, if thou dost not wilfully neglect thy own mercies.