or fadings, or what could imply the least privative imperfection: but now I see they have no likeness to one another, either in whole or in part, even as to the smallest external resemblance. No beauties, no comeliness, no joys, no delights here, if we speak according to earth's dialect; yet, here are all things in a high and eminent manner. O my God, how incomprehensible art thou in thy works! how enrapturing in that reflex of thy glory, which shall endure for ever! Thou shalt for ever rejoice in thy works; every work of thine is a deepness, a transporting wonder to my elevated capacity! might not the mediate enjoyment of thee, through thy creatures, render a creature eternally happy? "How excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens!" Psa. viii. 1. What wonders are written in those heavens of heavens! the choice masterpiece of thee, who art perfect in knowledge, and "excellent in working," Isa. xxviii. 29. This is a world stored with all manner of riches: the inhabitants here inherit all things.

32. All excellency, spiritual or corpore

mented in glory, by myriads of stages.

We knew on earth by the word,

al, on earth, is aug- that when the clay house "of our tabernacle should be dissolved,” we were to receive " a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," for in that we did groan, not desiring to be unclothed, but clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; that mortality might be swallowed up of life," 2 Cor. v. 1—4. And now, every one of us, in our own kind, appears the perfection of beauty! whose very clay tabernacles

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are now conformed to his glorious body; and whose souls are made perfect in holiness! And did our bodies, when terrestrial, so degrade us? how doth the celestial, united to an elevated soul, perfect with passing excellence! Did our vile bodies impede the sublime operation of our heaven-born spirits? how do these glorious bodies perfect perfected souls, in all their proceedings! If, when "sown in corruption," they rendered us frail and contemptible, in many things like the beasts; how excellent, glorious, and majestic are we now, when vileness and corruption is swallowed up of glory! Yea, if it might be said of our souls, when darkened with mortality and sinning, that they were in their operation quick; what are they now, when exalted to such a supernatural high pitch of excellence! Did we behold, by faith, a delightful fulness and beauty in thy face? what do we now behold, when made so capacious and divine! Were our bodies, when animal, such stupendous pieces of thy unsearchable wisdom and power, that every one of us was amazed, and said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made!" Psa. cxxxix. 14; how excellent and curious are these heavenly bodies, conformed to the glorious body of the Son of God! Did our

wisdom shine in our mortal faces? what majesty and glory dwells in every cast of our eye now! Were the potsherds of the earth so vigorous, strong, and valiant, that many of us, through faith, excelled in these perfections, which brutish men were only taken with, whereby we "subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge

of the sword, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens," Heb. xi. 33, 34; oh, now, our wonderful strength and vigour, when our very corporeal parts become spiritual, and of a divine nature! Had some of us hearts, in our dull earthly condition, "enlarged as the sand on the sea-shore?" how capacious are our hearts now, when widened above the dimensions of many worlds! What is earth to heaven? what is darkness to light? what is childhood to man's estate? Oh high, high capacity of glory! oh superexcellent and only glory in its blooming! oh the rapturous frame, that we are for ever into! Are we not the selfsame persons we were on earth? and yet we are not the same! every one of us is like our Alllovely and Wellbeloved, whom we eternally behold, with our bodily eyes, according to our proper measure; every one of us is at the highest pitch of created perfection. This is a wonderful transformation indeed! O sun, sun of the lower world, I can look thee out of countenance, and dazzle thee with every cast of mine eyes! Is this, sometime poor, frail, despicable I? Surely this is I! the selfsame I, who was so silly in mine own eyes, and the eyes of all the beholders: wonderful! am not I crushed under such an exceeding weight of glory? But glory, and only glory, can sustain itself. Thy eternal power and Godhead is manifested upon us, in a transcendent manner; thou hast gone beyond, by almost infinite degrees, the limits of nature: the natural world is quite abolished; what now is natural and agreeable to created beings, before was miraculous and naturally impossible.

33. The highest manifestations of God

time, are but mere day manifestation.

emblems of the noon

The most signal foretaste of this glory on earth, was thy transfigura- in tion, O Wellbeloved, in the days of thy mortality, on the holy mount, when "thy face shone as the sun, and thy raiment was white as the light," Matt. xvii. 2; so that mortal beholders were amazed and confounded: such an unsuitableness there is betwixt mortality and immortality! weak heads would not be able to bear one draught of this celestial wine. And was thy face so majestic and glorious, in the days of thy mortality and sorrow? is it not more than majestic and beautiful, now in the days of thy joy and exaltation, when thou hast seen all the travail of thy soul, and art satisfied! Isa. liii. 11. More loveliness is to be seen in every view of thy Divine countenance, than in infinite numbers of excellent, beautiful worlds. One sight of thee, and no more, may set ever so many myriads of men and angels in the burning flames of immortal loves! Much was spoken, in time, of thy acts, and glory, and majesty; but lo, the thousand thousandth part hath not been told! indeed, thou art a Beloved, more than another beloved." How joyful that I ever took thee for my all, and only one that ever I cried heartily, Amen, to the blessed bargain of the new covenant, and renounced my vanities, and came to thee! that ever I subjected myself to the obedience of all thy commandments! that ever I preferred a holy, heavenly, mortified walking, in time, to the fulfilling my vain fleshly inclinations! that ever I "esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the pleasures of sin for a season!"

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Now I clearly behold, that I have chosen the good part, that shall never be taken from me. Oh happy I that ever I sold all, and bought this matchless Pearl of invaluable price! oh my riches, my riches! since I have thee, O Wellbeloved, what can I have more? Strange! wast thou despised by base worldlings? But they knew thee not; thy loveliness was hid from their blinded eyes; which if they had seen, how should the whole race of mankind run after thee! Men and angels, all beauty, all loveliness, all excellences, are here to be seen. Much is to be seen in this visible fabric of this great creation; but no manifestation of glory equal to this! who can desire more, than to stand beside thee? O flower and only beauty of heaven, what are all created heavens! Thou art only heaven thyself.

34. The saints are every way like their

full love must have

full similitude.

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Love desires the nearest simili

Wellbeloved; since tude and conjunction: as thou becamest like us, assuming our nature; so hast thou made us like thee, both in spirit and body. We are in every part transformed into thy lovely image: whatever before was terrestrial, is now heavenly and divine. These tabernacles were sown in corruption, dishonour, and weakness" now they are raised in incorruption, glory, and power." They were sown natural bodies; they are raised spiritual: for as once we bare the image of the earthly Adam, so now we bear "the image of the heavenly," 1 Cor. xv. 42-49. Oh thy vivifying Spirit, that raised thee from the dead! "by whom" thou hast made us incapable of any the least change tending to corruption! And what though it were not so?