It seems as if every passing hour is but bringing us nearer to our home, to the

to invade and assault heaven. And it is indeed a most giganticall essay, to thrust ourselves so boldly into the lap of heaven; it is the prank of a Nimrod, of a mighty hunter, thus rudely to deal with God, and to force heaven and happinesse before his face, whether he will or no. The way to obtain a good assurance indeed of our title to heaven is, not to clamber up to it by a ladder of our own ungrounded persuasions, but to dig as low as hell by humility and self-denial in our own hearts: and though this may seem to be the farthest way about, yet it is indeed the nearest and safest way to it. We must avaßaivɛiv kárw, and καταβαίνειν ἄνω, as the Greek epigram speaks, ascend downward and descend upward, if we would indeed come to heaven, or get any true persuasion of our title to it. The most gallant and triumphant confidence of a Christian riseth safely and surely upon this low foundation, that lies deep under ground, and there stands firmly and steadfastly. When our heart is once tuned into a conformity with the word of God, when we feel our will perfectly to concurre with his will, we shall then presently perceive a Spirit of adoption within ourselves, teaching us to cry Abba, Father.' We shall not then care for peeping into those hidden records of eternity, to see whether our names be written there in golden characters: no, we shall find a copy of God's thoughts concerning us written in our own breasts. There we may read the

bosom of our heavenly Father, and the pure and happy society where sin and selfishness

characters of his favour to us, there we may feel an inward sense of his love to us, flowing out of our hearty and unfeigned love to him. And we shall be more undoubtedly persuaded of it, than if any of those winged watchmen above, that are privy to heaven's secrets, should come and tell us that they saw our names enrolled in those volumes of eternity. Whereas on the contrary, though we strive to persuade ourselves never so confidently, that God from all eternity hath loved us, and elected us to life and happinesse; if we do yet in the mean time entertain any iniquity within our hearts, and willingly close with any lust; do what we can, we shall find many a cold qualm ever now and then seizing upon us, at approching dangers; and when death itself shall grimly look us in the face, we shall feel our hearts even to die within us, and our spirits quite faint away, though we strive to raise them and recover them never so much with the strong waters and aqua vitæ of our own ungrounded presumptions. The least inward lust willingly continued in will be like a worm, fretting the gourd of our jolly confidence and presumptuous persuasion of God's love, and alway gnawing at the root of it: and though we strive to keep it alive, and continually besprinkle it with some dews of our own; yet it will always be dying and withering in our bosomes. But a good conscience within will be always better to a

will never more disturb our repose. At such an hour, our souls seem to feel the presence of his unutterable love: and the chastisements of his fatherly correction are dearer to us than the smiles of the whole world. How shall we know that all this is not a baseless vision, a delusive dream, which is to end in the bitterness of everlasting disappointment and despair? How shall we know that, when the light of an eternal world bursts into this prison, we shall not discover-dreadful thought!— that our real parent is the spirit of malignity and falsehood; and our real home the

Christian than health to his navell, and marrow to his bones; it will be an everlasting cordial to his heart; it will be softer to him than a bed of down, and he may sleep securely upon it in the midst of raging and tempestuous seas, when the winds bluster, and the waves beat round about him. A good con

science is the best looking-glasse of heaven; in which the soul may see God's thoughts and purposes concerning it, as so many shining stars reflected to it. Hereby we know that we know Christ, hereby we know that Christ loves us, if we keep his commandments."-CUDWORTH's Sermon on 1 John ii. 3, 4. pp. 111-117. Lond. 1670. Second Edition.

dismal abodes of incurable wickedness and never-ending agony and remorse? Is it possible that we can be ascertained that our hopes are inspired by the Giver of all good? that the delight we feel in calling Him our Father, is indeed the instinct of a heavenly nature, and that it is the Spirit of truth himself who is bidding us look upwards to our home and our native land? The word of God desires us to examine our conscience. "Little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him '." Here is certainty. Here is peace that passeth all understanding; "The work of righteousness," saith the Prophet, "shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever 2."

Here indeed is true happiness. For what can be happier than amidst the pain, and labours, and vexations with which life

1

1 John ii. 28, 29.

2 Isaiah xxxii. 17.

abounds, and even in the extremity of human misery and destitution, to be able to derive from an assurance of our salvation, pleasures and consolations worthy of reasonable and immortal beings? Living under the sentence of an inevitable death, reminded at every instant by how uncertain a tenure we hold our present existence, and by how slight and fragile a partition we are separated from the grave, what can we conceive more suited to the necessities of our condition, and the cravings of our immortal spirits, than to possess a wellgrounded hope of happiness surpassing all our desire, and imperishable as the God from whom it springs! What can we conceive more blessed, what more noble, than to look death calmly in the face, and to balance, with untrembling hand, the sufferings and calamities of this life, against the incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance', which is to be ours for ever 2!

J 1 Peter i. 4.

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