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 paradise, "To him that loved us, that died for us, that rose again, and reigns on high, be honor and might, power and dominion, blessing and glory, for ever and ever, Amen."

MEDITATION CXVIII.

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 departure, 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 nigher to heaven! If I make progress in my spiritual pilgrimage, I will daily lose sight of the world and all its vanities, 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 three-score 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 naturalized in the world of spirits, ere I go to dwell for ever there. Α 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, be gone 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 inhabitant in her blessed abode.

MEDITATION CXIX.

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 fire-brands, 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 approve, and see a divine beauty shining through the whole conduct of providence, in the light of glory. Now,in the noblest subjects my ignorance often leaves me greatly in the dark; but then shall I know, and

that even as I am known. Now I have foes without, and foes within, the sin of my nature, and the idols of my heart, enemies from earth and hell to grapple with; but then, triumphing over every foe, I shall sing the conquest of the Captain of my salvation, the victories of the divine Conqueror, and never cease from this interesting, this unexhausted theme. Now sometimes, from the precious ordinances and sacred courts of God I am debarred for a time; but then shall I be a pillar in the temple of God, and go no more out, but always worship at his throne. Now the cruel hand of death comes among my friends and familiars, and leaves me like a sparrow on the house-top alone, or a pelican in the wilderness mourning; but then not one of all the numerous inhabitants shall so much as say, "I am sick," because they are an assembly of sinless ones. My Sun often conceals himself, so that I go mourning without him; but then in the light of his countenance, in the brightness of his glory, shall I walk on for ever. Now I am crawling along the road of life in company with fellow-worms, who dwell in cottages of clay, and are crushed before the moth; but then, dignified with his divine similitude, I shall dwell with the Ancient of days, and enjoy the dearest and most intimate communion with Jehovah and the Lamb for ever. Now my time is wasting away, and I am not far, yea, for aught I know, am very near my latter end; but then an endless eternity shall be mine, and my bliss be as durable as desirable, as permanent as pleasant. O! then, who would not prepare and wait for a change that is so pregnant with glory and bliss?