Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
ordinances, and yet I feel it not warm within me.<br />
"Unworthy soul! is not thine eye now upon the only lovely object? Art<br />
thou not now beholding the ravishing glory of the saints? And dost thou not<br />
love? Art thou not a rational soul, and should not reason tell thee that earth is<br />
a dungeon to the celestial glory? Art thou not thyself a spirit, and shouldst<br />
thou not love God, ‘who is a spirit, and the Father of spirits?' Why dost thou<br />
love so much thy perishing clay, and love no more the heavenly glory? Shall<br />
thou love when thou comest there; when the Lord shall take thy body from<br />
the grave, and make thee shine as the sun in glory for ever and ever; shalt<br />
thou then love, or shalt thou not? Is not the place a meeting of lovers? Is not<br />
the life a state of love? Is not the great marriage-day of the Lamb? Is not the<br />
employment there the work of love, where the souls with Christ take their<br />
fill? O then, my soul, begin it here! ‘Be sick with love' now, that thou mayst<br />
be well with love there. ‘Keep thyself' now ‘in the love of God;' and let<br />
‘neither life, nor death, nor any thing, separate thee from it;' and thou shalt be<br />
kept in the fulness of love for ever, and nothing shall imbitter or abate thy<br />
pleasure; for the Lord hath prepared a city of love, a place for<br />
communicating love to his chosen, ‘and they that love his name shall dwell<br />
therein.'<br />
11. "Awake, then, O my drowsy soul! To sleep under the light of grace<br />
is unreasonable, much more in the approach of the light of glory. Come<br />
forth, my dull, congealed spirit; thy Lord bids thee ‘rejoice, and again<br />
rejoice. ‘ Thou hast lain long enough in thy prison of flesh, where Satan has<br />
been thy jailer, cares have been thy irons, fears thy scourges, and thy food<br />
the bread and water of affliction; where sorrows have been thy lodgings, and<br />
thy sin and foes have made thy bed, and an unbelieving heart has been the<br />
gates and bars that have kept thee in: the angel of the covenant now calls<br />
thee, and bids thee ‘arise and follow him.' Up, O my soul! and cheerfully<br />
obey, and thy bolts and bars shall all fly open: follow the Lamb<br />
whithersoever he goeth. Shouldst thou fear to follow such a guide? Can the<br />
268
Change language