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whether dung hill worms contemn, or esteem you it is below you to fear fuch feeble beafts. Overlook the scenical graduations of time; it is below princes, born to fo great things, to take notice of fuch trifles: ftand to your royal prerogatives; fall not down from your ennobling exercife; Set the Lord always before you, and you fhall never be moved: let the world reel to and fro; let the mountains be cast into the midst of the fea; let thoufands, and ten thousands fall on every band; yet can you undergo no harm. Death, in any garb, is gain unto the person who is in heaven already.

7 Earth worms, who will be fuch, have nothing to do with heaven.

You who will fill be grovelling upon base earth, who though ye should read and hear never fo oft, of the only excellent things, will back to the dung-hill again, and will vex and torment yourfelves with the cares and vanities of a tranfitory life, who will endeavour and defire to be laden with thick clay; we have only this to fay unto you, He that is filthy, let him be filthy ftill. You have made a brave choice, poor foo's, your paradife is base, empty, hungry, and tranfient, well befitting fuch noble and high fpirits as you: in whatever account you feem to be, in the eyes of a bafe world, you are vile despicable worms: crawl, and fet up your creft, on your ftately dung hill; but know, if ye can understand, that thefe vile bodies and fouls of yours fhall never afcend higher; under our feet fhall we eternally trample you; your kingdom being the office- houfe of our palaceroyal. Fill yourselves with duft, as the ferpents; let your day-thoughts, and night thoughts run out upon dung hill concernments; add houfe to houfe,

and

and land to land; heap up treasures for many days; and when you encounter death, or a day of fad affliction, caft up your great and precious gains have you accounted yourselves unworthy of fuch unfpeakable bleffedness? you shall never tafte it, but be everlastingly shut up in that horrid abominable lake, a fuitable dwelling place for fuch vile wretches: this dark fmoky region you only affect, and to utter darknefs fhall you be driven, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

8. Chrift alone to be exalted and esteemed, whe is the purchafer of this noble inheritance.

Let glory and renown remain for ever upon the head of the author and purchaser of so great a falvation! Can angels ever enough admire him? Can the faints ever enough praise him? where shall we get a throne to fet this majestic One upon? All our glory and excellency is too bafe and low a footftool for his feet: thousands of thousands of excel· lent worlds, erected above one another, were too bafe and low a foundation for him to trample upon. Men or angels, what have you, or can you fay worthy of him? Were your hallelujahs tuned up never fo many ftages higher, yet fill they fhould fall infinitely below -his matchlefs worth: what can we do, in extolling fuch a lofty One? for ever is he infinitely exalted above all our praifes; yet praife him we fhall, eternally fhall we praife him all our ftrength, foul, and might must be ful ly let forth to his glory; tho' all we can do be juft nothing. Who is worthy of glory, except our Wellbeloved? whom should we love, but him! whom should we praife, but him? whom should we admire, but him? Who but he! none bat him. ! let all our powers and faculties be eternally

:

alled

filled with him. Ah! it is black fhame the fons of" men should think and fpeak, and write fo much of empty nothings; and fo little of this only excellent One! When thall our Wellbeloved be great among all nations? Ah! he is nothing, or little known among the fons of men; little do they difcourfe of him; and what they difcourfe is cold and common. Alas! men talk of him, as if he were a common beloved! men efteem Jefus fome ordinary one! they hear of one Jefus, that was flain at Jerufalem, and they are as little affected, as if they read or heard of fome common history: the news of his excellent kingdom have small impreffion upon them; they think they hear of new worlds, never feen, or travelled to by any. Chrift is an unknown person to the moft; the found of his name hath filled the ears of all, the letters of his name are well known, and no more: but who have been ravished with his good ointments? Who hath been filled with the odoriferous emanations of his Lebanon-garments? Who has tafted of his foul-overcoming fweetness? Who had him as a bundle of myrrh all night betwixt their breafts? Who have found him, and held him, and would not let him go? Who have been led into his chambers

of presence? Who cannot lite (though in never fo great abundance of earthly things) without a familiar and intimate fellowship with him?

9. Religion is another thing than ftupid worldlings imagine; clofe walking with God, is an hid mystery unto them.

Poor worldlings, the best of you are but formalifts, occupied about the outfide and fhell of religion through cuftom, and a natural con-. fcience, you go through all the bulk of the exercises of godliness; you hear, you pray, you read, you

confer,

eonfer, you meditate; for perform duties b twixt man and man, through cuftom and forma lity, through shame of others, through vain glory, through the gnawings of a natural confcience, which you must somewhat quiet one way or another. But know you what it is to do all things to the glory of our Wellbeloved? to be afraid, that, in the beft of your performances, you offend him, and ftir him up before he please? Know you what it is, to look more to the manner of your duties, than the bulk of them? to the principle from whence they flow, than any thing else? to the intention and frame of your heart in duty? Know you what it is, to watch over your heart, to have a ftricter eye over your thoughts and intentions? to be most troubled with, and in guarding against thefe fecret fins of the thoughts and intentions, which no creature can fee but yourselves? Know you what it is, to keep up a near and intimate communion with Jefus to have a mutual intercourfe with him? Know you what it is, to wrestle with him, and to lay hold upon him, and to conftrain him in a manner to blefs you? Know you what it is, to account all things dross and dung unto the knowledge of the excellency of Jefus, the only Wellbeloved! Are you indifferent to all things but Chrift? Is the world, in all its glory, pleasure, and profit, a dead and crucified thing in your eyes? Is the cry of your heart, Chrift, Chrift, and only Chrift; give you him, and you defire no more? O Sirs! have you seen him? have you heard him? have you found him? Know you his fmiles, the lifting up of his countenance, his love-embraces? Ah! worldlings, I am fpeaking of ftrange things, unexperienced by you!

10. The faints only know the life and myfteries

of godliness, and ftrangers intermeddle not with their heavenly delights, and divine joy.

You faints of the Moft High, you are witnesses. of the truth of all we have fpoken: have we not fpoken poorly and childishly of fo great things! It is nothing we have faid, to that which even you experience in the land of abfence. O then! fincere one, hath not thy Wellbeloved written more of this his tranfcendent beauty, fweetnefs, and excellency upon thy heart, than all the learned of the world can put down in black and white? What can be written or spoken of fuch great things? Come, fee, and tafte, and feel, will manifeft the bufinefs beft. It was not our intention, Ore excellent ones of the earth, to write to you of things which are in other manner of characters imprinted on your faculties; but only to put you in mind, left you fuffer fuch noble impreffions to decay, in the midft of worldly affairs, tentations, and difficulties: that you may perceive the vaft difference between all expreffion, and feeling; that you may be ftirred up to acquire the noble gift of utterance; that you may manifeft to the ignorant the excellency and loveliness of your Wellbeloved, and what he hath done to your foul. We have written to you, babes, who are young ftudents in Christianity; even to you, O daughters of Jerufalem, who are inquiring after our matchlefs Bridegroom, having only heard the ravishing found of his name, but never have feen his amiable countenance, nor entered his pleafant beds of fpices. O might we be eternally honoured, in leading you in by the hand unto him! draw near, O draw near! and ye thall fee more, ten thousand times more, than ever you heard tell of: you fhall begin to laugh at your putrid and childish talking of fuch wonderful things.

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11. The