which to form a worm! This cannot want its due resentments in a glorified state.

Fourthly. This transformation of the blessed soul into the likeness of God, may be viewed by it, in reference to the way of accomplishment as an end, brought about by so amazing stupendous means which will certainly be a pleasing contemplation. When it reflects on the method and course insisted on, for bringing this matter to pass; views over the work of redemption in its tendency to this end, the restoring God's image in souls; (Phil. 2. 7.) considers Christ manifested to us, in order to his being revealed and formed in us: that God was made in the likeness of man to make men after the likeness of God; that he partook with us of the human nature, that we might with him partake of the divine; that he assumed our flesh, in order to impart to us his Spirit: when it shall be considered, for this end had we so many great and precious promises; (2 Pet. 1. 4.) for this end did the glory of the Lord shine upon us through the glass of the gospel; (2 Cor. 3. 18.) that we might be made partakers, &c. that we might be changed, &c. Yea, when it shall be called to mind, (though it be far from following hence, that this is the only or principal way, wherein the life and death of Christ have influence, in order to our eternal happiness) that our Lord Jesus lived for this end, that we might learn so to walk, as he also walked; that he died that we might be conformed to his death; that he rose again that we might with him attain the res urrection of the dead; that he was in us the hope of glory, that he might be in us (that is, the same image that bears his name) our final consummate glory itself also: with what pleasure will these harmonious congruities, these apt correspondencies, be looked into at last! Now may the glorified saint say, I here see the end the Lord Jesus came into the world for, I see for what he was lifted up, made a spectacle; that he might be a transforming one: what the effusions of his Spirit were for; why it so earnestly strove with my wayward heart. I now behold in my own soul, the fruit of the travail of his soul. This was the project of redeeming love, the design of all powerful gospel-grace. Glorious achievements! blessed end of that great and notable undertaking happy issue of that high design!

Fifthly. With a reference to all their own expectations and endeavors. When it shall be considered by a saint in glory; the attainment of this perfect likeness to God, was the utmost mark of all my designs and aims; the term of all my hopes and desires this is that I longed and labored for; that which I prayed and waited for; which I so earnestly breathed after, and restlessly pursued it was but to recover the defacedness of God: to be again made like him, as once I was. Now I have attained my end; I have the fruit of all my labor and travels; I see now the truth of those (often) encouraging words, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Be not weary in well-doing, for ye shall reap, if ye faint not: what would I once have given for a steady, abiding frame of holiness, for a heart constantly bent and biased toward God; constantly serious, constantly tender, lively, watchful, heavenly, spiritual, meek, humble, cheerful, self-denying? how have I cried and striven for this, to get such a heart! such a temper of spirit! how have I pleaded with God and my own soul, in order hereto ! how often over have I spread this desire before the searcher and judge of hearts; Turn me out of all my worldly coraforts, so thou give me but such a heart; let me spend my days in a prison, or a desert, so I have but such a heart; I refuse no reproaches, no lossess, no tortures, may I but have such a heart? How hath my soul been sometimes ravished with the very thoughts of such a temper of spirit, as hath appeared amiable in my eye, but I could not attain? and what a torture again hath it been that I could not? What grievance in all the world, in all the days of my vanity, did I ever find comparable to this; to be able to frame to myself by Scripture, and rational light and rules, the notion and idea of an excellent temper of spirit; and then to behold it, to have it in view, and not be able to reach it, to possess my soul of it? What indignation have I sometimes conceived against mine own soul, when I have found it wandering, and could not reduce it; hovering, and could not fix it; dead, and could not quicken it; low, and could not raise it? How earnestly have I expected this blessed day, when all those distempers should be perfectly healed, and my soul recover a healthly, lively, spiritual frame? What fresh ebullitions of joy will here be, when all former desires, hopes, endeavors are crowned with success and fruit! This joy is the joy of harvest. They that have sown in tears, do now reap in joy. They that went out weeping, bearing precious seed; now with rejoicing, bring their sheaves with them. Psal. 126. 6.

Sixthly. In reference to what this impressed likeness shall for ever secure to it: an everlasting amity and friendship with God; -that it shall never sin, nor he ever frown more.-That it shall sin no more. The perfected image of God in it, is its security for this for it is holy throughout; in every point conformed to his nature and will; there remains in it nothing contrary to him. It may therefore certainly conclude, it shall never be liable to the danger of doing any thing, but what is good in his sight: and what solace will the blessed soul find in this! If now an angel from heaven should assure it, that from such an hour it should sin no more, the world would not be big enough to hold such a soul. It hath now escaped the deadliest of dangers, the worst of deaths, (and which even in its present state, upon more deliberate calmer thoughts it accounts so) the sting of death, the very deadliness of death; the hell of hell itself. The deliverance is now complete which cannot but end in delight and praise.

VOL. I.

13

-That God can never frown more. This it is hence also assured of. How can he but take perfect, everlasting complacency in his own perfect likeness and image; and behold with pleasure his glorious workmanship, now never liable to impairment or decay? How pleasant a thought is this, "The blessed God never beholds me but with delight! I shall always behold his serene countenance, his amiable face never covered with any clouds, never darkened with any frown! I shall now have cause to complain no more; my God is a stranger to me, he conceals himself, I cannot see his face; lo, he is encompassed with clouds and darkness, or with flames and terrors." These occasions are for ever ceased. God sees no cause, either to behold the blessed soul with displeasure, or with displeasure to avert from it, and turn off his eye. And will not this eternally satisfy! When God himself is so well pleased, shall not we!

2. The pleasure it disposes to. Besides that the inbeing and knowledge of this likeness are so satisfying; it disposes, and is the soul's qualification for a yet further pleasure that of closest union, and most inward communion with the blessed God.

(1.) Union which (what it is more than relation) is not till now complete. Besides relation it must needs import presence: not physical, or local; for so nothing can be nearer God than it is: but moral and cordial, by which the holy soul with will and affections, guided by rectified reason and judgment, closes with, and embraces him; and he also upon wise forelaid counsel, and with infinite delight and love embraceth it: so friends are said to be one (besides their relation as friends) by a union of hearts. A union between God and the creature, as to kind and nature higher than this, and lower than hypostatical or personal union, I understand not, and therefore say nothing of it. I would fain know what the Tertium shall be, resulting from the physical union, some speak of.

But as to the union here mentioned: as, till the image of God be perfected, it is not completed; so it cannot but be perfect then. When the soul is perfectly formed according to God's own heart, and fully participates the divine likeness, is perfectly like him; that likeness cannot but infer the most intimate union that two such natures can admit: that is, (for nature) a love-union; such as that which our Saviour mentions, and prays to the Father to perfect, between themselves and all believers, and among believers, mutually with one another. Many much trouble themselves about this scripture; (John 17. 21.) but sure that can be no other than a love-union. For, it is such a union as christians are capable of among themselves; for surely he would never pray that they might be one with a union whereof they are not capable. It is such a union as may be made visible to the world. Whence it is an obvious corollary, that the union between the Father and the Son, there spoken of as the pattern.

of this, is not their union or oneness in essence (though it be a most acknowledged thing, that there is such an essential union between them;) for, who can conceive that saints should be one amor g themselves, and with the Father and the Son, with such a union as the Father and the Son are one themselves, if the essential union between Father and Son were the union here spoken of; but the exemplary or pattern-union, here mentioned between the Father and Son, is but a union in mind, in love, in design, and interest; wherein he prays, that saints on earth might visibly be one with them also, that the world might believe, &c. It is yet a rich pleasure that springs up to glorified saints from that love-union (now perfected) between the blessed God and them. It is mentioned and shadowed in Scripture, under the name and notion of marriage-union; in which the greatest mutual complacency is always supposed a necessary ingredient. To be thus joined to the Lord, and made as it were one spirit with him; (1 Cor. 6. 17.) for the eternal God to cleave in love to a nothing-creature, as his likeness upon it engages him to do; is this no pleasure, or a mean one?

(2.) Communion: unto which that union is fundamental and introductive; and which follows it upon the same ground, from a natural propensity of like to like. There is nothing now to hinder God, and the holy soul of the most inward fruitions and enjoyments; no animosity, no strangeness, no unsuitableness on either part. Here the glorified spirits of the just have liberty to solace themselves amidst the rivers of pleasure at God's own right hand, without check or restraint. They are pure, and these pure. They touch nothing that can defile, they defile nothing they can touch. They are not now forbidden the nearest approaches to the once inaccessable Majesty; there is no holy of holies into which they may not enter, no door locked up against them. They may have free admission into the innermost secret of the divine presence, and pour forth themselves in the most liberal effusions of love and joy: as they must be the eternal subject of those infinitely richer communications from God, even of immense and boundless love and goodness. Do not debase this pleasure by low thoughts, nor frame too daring, positive apprehensions of it. It is yet a secret to us. The eternal converses of the King of glory with glorified spirits, are only known to himself and them. That expression (which we so often meet in our way) "It doth not yet appear what we shall be," seems left on purpose to check a too curious and prying inquisitiveness into these unrevealed things. The great God will have his reserves of glory, of love, of pleasure for that future state. him alone awhile, with those who are already received into those mansions of glory, those everlasting habitations: he will find a time for those that are yet pilgrims and wandering exiles, to ascend and enter too. In the mean time, what we know of this

-That God can never frown more. This it is hence also assured of. How can he but take perfect, everlasting complacency in his own perfect likeness and image; and behold with pleasure his glorious workmanship, now never liable to impairment or decay? How pleasant a thought is this, "The blessed God never beholds me but with delight! I shall always behold his serene countenance, his amiable face never covered with any clouds, never darkened with any frown! I shall now have cause to complain no more; my God is a stranger to me, he conceals himself, I cannot see his face; lo, he is encompassed with clouds and darkness, or with flames and terrors." These occasions are for ever ceased. God sees no cause, either to behold the blessed soul with displeasure, or with displeasure to avert from it, and turn off his eye. And will not this eternally satisfy! When God himself is so well pleased, shall not we!

2. The pleasure it disposes to. Besides that the inbeing and knowledge of this likeness are so satisfying; it disposes, and is the soul's qualification for a yet further pleasure that of closest union, and most inward communion with the blessed God.

(1.) Union which (what it is more than relation) is not till now complete. Besides relation it must needs import presence: not physical, or local; for so nothing can be nearer God than it is but moral and cordial, by which the holy soul with will and affections, guided by rectified reason and judgment, closes with, and embraces him; and he also upon wise forelaid counsel, and with infinite delight and love embraceth it: so friends are said to be one (besides their relation as friends) by a union of hearts. A union between God and the creature, as to kind and nature higher than this, and lower than hypostatical or personal union, I understand not, and therefore say nothing of it. I would fain know what the Tertium shall be, resulting from the physical union, some speak of.

But as to the union here mentioned: as, till the image of God be perfected, it is not completed; so it cannot but be perfect then. When the soul is perfectly formed according to God's own heart, and fully participates the divine likeness, is perfectly like him; that likeness cannot but infer the most intimate union that two such natures can admit: that is, (for nature) a love-union; such as that which our Saviour mentions, and prays to the Father to perfect, between themselves and all believers, and among believers, mutually with one another. Many much trouble themselves about this scripture; (John 17. 21.) but sure that can be no other than a love-union. For, it is such a union as christians are capable of among themselves; for surely he would never pray that they might be one with a union whereof they are not capable. It is such a union as may be made visible to the world. Whence it is an obvious corollary, that the union between the Father and the Son, there spoken of as the pattern