creature in court or country can afford: that your joy is laid up where the hand of violence cannot touch it; and that they that can deprive you of estate, and liberty, and life, yet cannot take your comfort from you. That when fleshly unthrifts love not home, because all is spent, and they can expect no better entertainment there than want, confusion, chiding, and distress, you can withdraw from a confused troublesome world, into a well-furnished and adorned soul, replenished with the precious fruits of the Spirit, and beautified with the image of your Lord! O Madam, what sweet and noble employment have you there, in comparison of that which worldlings are troubled with abroad! There you may read the sentence of your justification, as foregoing and foreshewing the public final sentence of your Judge: there you can converse with God himself, not in his vindictive justice, but as he is love: for the love that dwelleth so plentifully in you, doth prove that God dwelleth in you, and you in him. (1 John iv. 7, 8. 16.) There you may converse with Christ your head, that dwelleth in you by faith, (Ephes. iii. 17,) and with the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in you, and hath communion with you, by the beams of his illuminating, sanctifying, confirming, and comforting grace: there, as in his temple, you are speaking of his glory, (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19, with Psal. xxix. 9,) and rejoicing in his holy praise, and remembering what he hath done for your soul: There you can peruse the records of his mercy, and think with gratitude and delight, how he did first illuminate you, and draw and engage your heart unto himself: what advantage he got upon you, and what iniquity he prevented by the mercies of your education, and how he secretly took acquaintance with you in your youth: How he delivered you from worldly, fleshly snares; how he caused you to favour the things of the Spirit; how he planted you in a sound, well-ordered church, where he quickened and conducted you by a lively faithful ministry, and watered his gifts by their constant, powerful preaching of his word, where discipline was for a defence, and where your heart was warmed with the communion of the saints, and where you learned to worship God in spirit and in truth; and where you were taught so effectually by God to discern between the precious and the vile, and to love those that are born of God, whom the world knoweth not, that no subtleties or calamities of the

serpent can unteach it you, or ever be able to separate you from that love. You may read in these sacred records of your heart, how the Angel of the Covenant hath hitherto conducted you, through this wilderness towards the land of promise; how he hath been a cloud to you in the day, and a pillar of fire by night; how the Lord did number you with the people that are his flock, his portion, and the lot of his inheritance; and led you about in a desert land, instructed you, and kept you as the apple of his eye. (Deut. xxxii. 9, 10.)' His manna hath compassed your tent; his doctrine hath dropped as the rain, and his words distilled as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. As his beloved you have dwelt in safety by him, and the Lord hath covered you all the day long, when storms have risen, he hath been your refuge; and when dangers compassed you on every side, he hath hid you as in his pavilion, and his angels have pitched their tents about you, and borne you up: You have been fortified in troubles, and have been enabled comfortably to undergo them: in war and in peace; in your native country and in foreign lands; among your friends and among your enemies; in court and country; in prosperity and adversity, you have found that there is none like the God of Israel, who rideth upon the heaven in your help, and his excellency on the sky: the eternal God hath been your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." (Deut. xxxiv. 26, 27.) You may remember the mercies of your younger years, of your married state, and of your widowhood: your comforts in your truly noble lord, though troubled and interrupted by his death, yet increased by the consideration of his felicity with Christ; your comfort in your hopeful issue, though abated by the injury of Romish theft, which stole one of the roses of your garden, that they might boast of the sweetness when they called it their own: (I may well say, stole it, when all the cheat was performed by unknown persons in the dark; and no importunity by you or me, could procure me one dispute or conference in her hearing, with any of the seducers, before her person was stolen away. Though comforts conveyed by creatures must have their pricks, yet your experience hath partly taught you (and more will do) that by all the mixtures of sour and bitter ingredients, your Father doth temper you the most wholesome composition; he chasteneth you for

your profit, that you may be partaker of his holiness, (Heb. xii. 10,) and the least degree of holiness cannot be purchased at too dear a rate. His rod and staff have comforted you: and whatever are the beginnings, the end will be the quiet fruit of righteousness, when you have been exercised therein: and though man be mutable, and friends, and flesh, and heart have failed you, yet God is still the strength of your heart, and your portion for ever. (Psalm lxxiii. 26.) O the variety of learning that is contained in the secret writings of a sanctified heart! The variety of subjects for the most fruitful and delightful thoughts, which you may find recorded in the inwards of your soul! How pleasant is it there to find the characters of the special love of God, the lineaments of his image, the transcript of his law, the harmony of his gifts and graces, the witness, the seal and the earnest of his Spirit, and the foretastes and beginnings of eternal life! As thankfulness abhors oblivion, and is a recording grace, and keepeth histories and catalogues of mercies; so is it a reward unto itself; and by these records it furnisheth the soul with matter for the sweetest employments and delights: Is it not pleasant to you there to read how God hath confuted the objections of distrust? How oft he hath condescended to your weakness, and pardoned you when you could not easily forgive yourself? How oft he hath entertained you in secret with his love? and visited you with his consolations? How near him sometimes you have got in fervent prayer, and serious meditation? And when for a season he hath hid his face, how soon and seasonably he returned? How oft he hath found you weeping, and hath wiped away your tears, and calmed and quieted your troubled soul? How he hath resolved your doubts, and expelled your fears; and heard your prayers? How comfortably he hath called you his child; and given you leave, and commanded you to call him Father; when Christ hath brought you with boldness into his presence! How sweet should it be to your remembrance, to think how the love of Christ hath sometimes exalted you above these sublunary things! How the Spirit hath taken you up to heaven, and shewed to your faith the glory of the New Jerusalem, the blessed company of those holy spirits that attend the throne of the majesty of God, and the shining face of your glorified Head! By what seasonable and happy messengers he hath sent you the cluster of grapes as

the firstfruits of the land of promise! and commanded you oft to take and eat the bread of life? How oft he hath reached to your thirsty soul the fruit of the vine, and turned it sacramentally into his blood, and bid you drink it in remembrance of him, till he come and feast you with his fullest love, and satisfy you with the pleasure and presence of his glory.

But the volumes of mercy written in your heart, are too great to be by me transcribed. I can easily appeal to you that are acquainted with it, whether such heart-employment be not more pleasant and more profitable than any of the entertainments that flashy wit, or gaudy gallantry, or merriments, luxury, or preferments can afford. Is it not better converse with Christ at home than with such as are described, Psalm xii. abroad? To dwell with all that blessed retinue, (Gal. v. 22, 23,) than with pride, vainglory, envy, dissimulation, hypocrisy, falsehood, time-wasting, soul-destroying pleasures; to say nothing of the filthiness which Christian ears abhor the mention of, and which God himself in time will judge, (Eph. v. 3-6; Heb. xiii. 4,) and the rest recited, Gal. v. 19-21. If ungodly persons do find it more unpleasant to converse at home, no wonder, when there is nothing but darkness and defilement; and when they have put God from them, and entertained Satan, so that their hearts are like to haunted houses, where terrible cries and apparitions do make it a place of fear to the inhabitants. But if their souls had such blessed inhabitants as yours, could they meet there with a reconciled God, a Father, a Saviour and a Sanctifier; had they souls that kept a correspondence with heaven, it would not seem so sad and terrible a life to dwell at home, and withdraw from that noise of vanity abroad, which are but the drums and trumpets of the devil, to encourage his deluded followers, and drown the cries of miserable souls. Your dearest friends and chiefest treasure, are not abroad in court or country, but above you, and within you; where then should your delightful converse be, but where your friends and treasure are? (Matt. vi. 21; Phil. iii. 20; Col. iii. 1-4.) When there is almost nothing to be found in the conversation of the world, but discord and distraction, and confusion, and clamours, and malice, and treachery, is it not better to retire into such a heart, where notwithstanding infirmities, and some doubts and fears, there

is order, and concord, and harmony, and such peace as the world can neither give nor take away? O blessed be the hand of love, that blotted out the names of honour, and riches, and pleasures, and carnal interest, and accommodations, from your heart; and inscribed his own in characters never to be obliterated! That turned out usurpers, and so prepared and furnished your heart, as to make and judge it such, as no one is worthy of it but himself. O what a court have you chosen for your abode! How high and glorious! how pure and holy! unchangeable and safe! How ambitiously do you avoid ambition! How great are you in the lowliness of your mind! How high in your humility! Will no lower a place than heaven content you to converse in? (For heart-converse and heaven-converse are as much one, as beholding both the glass and face :) Will no lower correspondents satisfy you than the host of heaven? Cannot the company of imperfect mortals serve your turn? Nay, can you be satisfied with none below the Lord himself? Well, Madam, if you will needs have it so, it shall be so: What you judge BEST FOR YOU, shall be yours: what you had rather be, you are: and where you had rather dwell, you shall: and seeing you have understood that "one thing is necessary, and have chosen the good part, it shall not be taken from you." (Luke x. 41, 42. Having first sought the kingdom of God and his righteousness, you shall have such additionals as will do you good. (Matt. vi. 33; Rom. viii. 28; Psalm lxxxiv. 11.) You have learned to know while God is yours, how little of the creature you need, and how little addition. it maketh to your happiness (you are wise enough if you live to God; and honourable enough if you are a member of Christ; and rich enough if you are an heir of heaven; and beautiful enough if you have the image of God: and yet having made your choice of these, how liberally hath God cast in as overplus the inferior kind, which you find in losing them! As if he had said to you, as to Solomon, (2 Chron. i. 11,) "Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself-wisdom and knowledge is granted to thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour――;" as if God would convince even flesh itself that none are like the servants of the Lord: And when