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on high at the right hand of God. But the most amazing and inimitable piece, for abundance of subject, for excellency of matter, for beauty of expression, for ardency of love, for intimacy of communion, and for refined and exalted thought, is the divine epithalamium, which, at the marriagesupper of the Lamb, when the whole family of heaven is assembled to divide no more, shall be sung by every guest at the feast of love, at the table of bliss. Besides these, here are some reviving hymns, composed by angels rejoicing over repenting sinners. What exalted joy sparkles in that angelic composition over a penitent Manasses, and every returning prodigal! Gabriel, in this matchless ode, sings of the eternity of God, in such strains as would astonish all the bards of time;in that, Raphael dwells on the trinity of persons; -while Michael celebrates the majesty and power of the Eternal, with such energy of thought as would darken the brightest wits the world ever saw. In another, a mighty seraph sings inimitably of sacred love, and all heaven echoes Amen to his divine encomium. Yea, now every saint is a poet, every believer a bard; and O how sweet are the songs of the higher temple! how soft the harmony of eternal day! What hallelujahs rise from the angels of God! what hosannas from the church of the first-born! What concord and symphony are in the songs above! how dark, compared to these, were the brightest descriptions of God I ever heard below! how dull my former ardours to those which now I feel! how faint and languid my. love to what now kindles in my breast! Here is the refined expression, here the noble idea, here the exalted turn of thought, here the true sublime of divine poetry, and here the enlarged, the naked

view of divine things, of heavenly glories, to embolden and enliven every song. Here we talk of God at his throne, and while we commend him, we behold the beautics of his face; while we exalt him we enjoy him, and so can never cease extolling him.

But, alas! my dark views of future things convince me that I am still in the body. Yet great things I may expect in that state of perfection. And though now I cannot serve God, nor sing to God, as I would, and as I should, yet there is a day on the wing when I shall join the anthem of love, and, being loosed from all my present fetters, shall sing through eternity with the bards of pa radise, “To him that loved us, that died for us, that rose again, and reigns on high, be honour and might, power and dominion, blessing and glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

MEDITATION CXIX.

DECLINING YEARS.

River Tagus at Lisbon, December 26. 1761. HITHERTO I have looked upon myself as young, and coming to my best; but henceforth I shall consider myself as in my declining years. I am certain how long I have lived in the world, but quite uncertain how soon I must leave the world; and therefore should be preparing for my final de parture, and daily be ripening for the regions of

bliss.

Nothing would be a more forbidding prospect, than the verdure of spring to cloathe the fields in

harvest; but nothing more pleasant, than to see maturity keep pace with the approach of autumn. So should I grow daily riper for the great harvest, as the time of ingathering draws daily nearer and nearer. Leaves are pleasant in the infant orchard, but fruits are expected from the full-grown trees:So in the young converts, the breathings of grace are sweet; but aged saints are expected to abound in fruits of righteousness. My love, like Ezekiel's holy waters, the longer it runs, should rise the higher, and spread the wider, till lost in its divine ocean above. The longer we live with our friends, we grow better acquainted, more intimate with, and fonder of them; so the longer I enjoy communion with God, the more ardently should I breathe after uninterrupted communion with him. As my years decline, and my outward man wastes away, so should my graces bloom, and my inner man grow strong and when it is almost dark night with my life, it should be bright noon with my expectations. O how pleasant is it, that the longer I live in the world, I rise the higher to hea ven! If I make progress in my spiritual pilgrimage, I will daily lose sight of the world and all its va nities, which is the wilderness I travel from, and will daily see more of the tops of the heavenly mountains, of the towers of the New Jerusalem, toward which I travel. A state of grace is a glorious condition at all times; but a growth in grace is a sweet proof and heavenly consequence of being in a state of grace. My affections should be more and more loosed from the creature, while the pins of my earthly tabernacle are loosening every day. I should at all times have my conversation in heaven, but especially when walking with one foot in the grave.

Now, though the period of threescore years seems far distant, yet, as there is not an hour of the day of life but the sun goes down at, so I should just walk as under a setting sun, seeing upon thousands at my age the shadows of an everlasting evening have fallen, who had as many pretensions to longevity as I. My walking with God will not shorten my span, but brighten my noon, and make my sun set with all the sweetness of a cloudless evening. Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and in a manner begun heaven upon earth, so that he grew immortal, and ascended deathless to the very throne. O how pleasant is it to feed on the fruits of paradise while entering into the land of promise, and as it were to be natu ralized in the world of spirits, ere I go to dwell for ever there! A grey head, and a carnal worldly heart, is a wounding sight; but a young man, and an aged love, one in his prime, and all his graces flourishing, is comely to behold. Henceforth, begone bewitching vanities, and all the enchantments of the world! the evening of my life is not to be trifled away with you. Death attends me, the grave awaits me, and eternity is at hand; therefore, may my purified affections, river-like, enlarge as they approach the ocean; and on the wings of faith and love, may I often fly to the hills of spices, where thy glories shed their beams. May I walk in the liberty of spiritual meditation in the land of bliss, that so death, when it comes, may have no more to do than lay my slumbering ashes in the silent grave, and let my soul remain a free inha bitant in her blessed abode.

MEDITATION CXX.

THE EXPECTED CHANGE.

Jan. 10. 1762, Lisbon River.

WHATEVER horrors may beset the carnal and secure when their gloomy moments come on apace, yet no prospect affords me equal pleasure to that of my last change; and I have exceeding great cause to rejoice, when I compare what I now am and suffer, with what I shall then enjoy and be. Now my joys are mostly future and in expectation, for I walk by faith, and live on hope; but then they shall be present and in possession, for I shall dwell in light, and feed on fruition. Now I am daily struggling with death and sin, but then I shall eternally triumph over both. Now I toil along a tiresome road, but then I shall walk above these skies, in the very heavens. Now mine eyes rove from vanity to vanity; but then they shall see, yea, fix on the King in his glory, on the King of kings in his divinest glory. Now I dwell among firebrands, and surrounding sinners daily give me pain; but then I shall dwell among the armies of redeeming love, see angels and archangels increase the throng, cherubims and seraphims join the song, and not one sinner among all the hosts of light. Now I bewail myself often as a frail inhabitant of feeble clay; but then I shall find myself possessed of all the vigour of immortality, of all the briskness of eternal life. Now I am often puzzled about the providences of my lot; but then I shall ap

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