Fathers fometimes expofe their own Lives to fave their Sons; God hath done infinitely more for me, for he affumed Human Nature, and exposed his Life for me, who was an Enemy, and a Traitor to him, that I might become his Son.

By Grace I am the Friend of God; if God had not taken me for his Child, yet how excellent, how incomprehenfible would the favour be, that he vouchfafes to take me into the number of his Friends? What a ftir do Men keep, to purchase the Friendfhip of Great Men? How little do they esteem the Friendship of the Almighty? They have not Souls clear enough to admire the Mercy; their Underftandings are too earthy to adore fo great a Bounty; it requires too much Spirit and Mind, to be ravish'd with fuch compaffion. A Friend is often loved better than near Relations; What may not I promife my felf from this Love and Friendship of God? What Calamity or Misery is there, in which this Love cannot hold my Head, and keep it from aking? To be loved of God, is to be fed with the richest Stream, and to live upon Milk and Honey. If God laid down his Life for his Enemies, What will he not do for his Friends? When I was his Enemy, God feemed to love me more than he did himself, and now that I am his Friend, fhall I think he will love me lefs than an Enemy? How fhould I rejoice to have fuch a Friend as Jonathan was? But alas! What is this Friendship to God's Love? All human Friendfhip is perfect perfidioufnefs, in comparison of God's Friendship. God fo loves his Friends, that

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he knows not how to be feparated from them; if God had no other place to move in, but Heaven, he would leave that Heaven, and come down and join himself to thofe, whom by his Spirit he hath adopted into the number of his Friends; fo great, immenfe, is his Love to them. He that is a Friend of God, becomes God's individual Companion. What a favour would it have been counted, if the Son of God, when he was on Earth, would have joined himself to one particular Man, and would have never departed from him? What a Privilege then must it be, for one who is God's Friend, to have the Divinity always prefent with him, not only as a Companion, but as an Inhabitant, for he dwells in us by his Spirit. Did ever any Father love his Son fo as never to part company! Did ever any Mother love her Child as never to fuffer it to go from her Arms? But God is continually embracing his Friends. Among Men, a Father cannot be always there where his Son is, but God knows not how to be from him that is his Friend; and though God be in all Creatures by his Effence, Prefence, and Power, yet that is, because he is God; with a gracious Soul he is, because that Soul is his friend, and if God were not immenfe and infinite, and could not be with his other Creatures, yet he would be with fuch a Soul with whom he is one Spirit; and if he could forget things, yet he could not forget fuch a Soul, or lay afide the thoughts of his profperity and welfare; and if he could forfake his other Creatures, yet he could not forfake fuch a Soul, but would work always E e 2

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fome good or other in her: For God's Love being ftrong it's always active, and where God bears a good Will to her, he cannot but communicate Goodness to her.

And fhall I, after all this, repine, because I am not a Favourite of Kings and Princes, whenT have God for my conftant Guide and Affociate? How fhall I ftand amazed at the strangeness of the favour? If God fhould charge all the Angels of Heaven, all the ten thousand times ten thoufand Spirits which wait upon him, to go and attend fuch a Man with all the Grandeur and Majefty imaginable; yet what is all this but a Defart to God's Society? In having him for my Affociate, I enjoy more Dignity, more Majefty, more Pomp and Glory, than if I had all the Armies of Heaven waiting upon me; and can I think God is always with me, and will not provide for me? If Ifhould neglect all things in the World, and mind nothing but the things of God, and my Father's Bufinefs, I might be confident that he would feed me, and support me, because fo Great, fo Good, fo Almighty, fo Kind a Friend could not fee me perish. The Son of God hath not honoured any Angel with the name of Brother, and yet if I am united to him by Grace, and by his Spirit, I enjoy this Privilege; and as Mothers love thofe Children moft, for which they have fuffered and endured moft; foI may be confident that God loves me most fervently, because he hath fuffered for me on the Crofs, and endured moft bitter Torments and Agonies for me. How may I exult? How may I triumph in this Love?

O my God! The Angels, for the least drop of that Grace thou haft beftowed on them,are more beholden to thee than all other Creatures, for all their Natural Gifts, and for the Creation of the whole World: But for the leaft degree of Grace thou haft conferred on me, I am more beholden to thee than all the Angels in Heaven; for that I might live by Grace, thou delivered'it thine own Son,the Son of thy Bofom, the brightnefs of his Father's Glory, to be crucified and to die for me, which is more than thou haft done for all the Angels in Heaven; and thus thou haft obliged me more than thou haft done the heavenly Cherubims and Seraphims.

Farewel, ungrateful treacherous World! I have seen enough of thy deceitful Presents. I'll follow thy weak Judgment no longer, I'll efteem no Riches but what my Saviour hath counted fo: In following him I cannot err; Self-denial and doing the Will of God, were the Treasures he studied to be Master of; Why should not I judge that to be the Riches which God hath judged fo? Why fhould not my Mind agree with the Verdict of the most High? Nay, when God doth love me fo entirely, Why should not I, for love of him, conform my Understanding to his Judgment? I fee, those that love the World, at the fame time confefs, that they ought to love the everlasting Riches more; for, if the fading things deferve their Love, things Permanent, and Solid, and Eternal, ought to be loved much more. I will not think much of Afflictions now, for I find that God, by them, would make me weary Ee 3

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of my fondness to perishable trash, and elevate and raise my Soul, to embrace thofe Treafures which neither Men nor Devils can steal away. Phyficians, I fee, when they would cure a fick Man, make him ficker than he is, by enjoining him Abftinence, by Aduftions, by Vomitives, by putting him to greater torments. I know my Soul is fick, God would make it perfectly well; but fuch is my fickness, that God mult put me to pain and anguish, and great trouble, before I can be well; my Heart is all Flint, but when this Stone is ftruck fufficiently, it will then fend forth holy Fire; when my Flesh is weak, my Strength will retire more to my Mind and Understanding, and I fhall be fitter for Heaven. The glorified Bodies of Saints in the last day, will be the more fplendid and illuftrious, the more they have been afflicted and tortured here, and fhine the more, the more difmal the Dungeon was they were kept in, during their abode in this Valley of Tears. Why should I weep, when God takes away from me the caufe of weeping? How many thousands are now weeping in Hell, becaufe they enjoyed fo much of the World's comforts, and made them occafions of affronting their Creator? Shall I count that lofs which is my gain, and call my want of Riches a Misfortune, when it is the greatest remedy to fit my Soul for Heaven? What imprudence is it in me, to defire that of God, which I ought to hate, at the moft, love but with fear and trembling? What inhumanity to my felf is it, to beg Poifon of the Father of Lights, and to

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