CONVERSE WITH THE WORLD UNSEEN. 1. FUTURE GLORY. Oct. 1763. WHEN, some years ago, I left my native coun try for another land, my thoughts went be fore me; and when I foresaw that, in the course of providence, I should cross the glowing Equinoctial, still my thoughts got the start of me, and were, as it were, acquainted in the place ere my arrival there. Since, then, I am on my journey towards eternity and the world unseen, why is not my meditation there? Shall the howling desart through which I haste engross my attention, when paradise is before me? Tell me, ye inhabitants of bliss, how you employ yourselves, ye who have bid everlasting farewell to all created things? "Oh! man, thy question moves our pity, and proves that thou dwellest in thick darkness. Couldst thou thrust thy head through these heavens, and get one glance of the glory we dwell in, of the divine Person we adore, thou wouldst never move the question again, but ardently long to come up hither, and account the conquest of a kingdom like the childish acquisition of a feather or a fly; thou wouldst turn the world out of thy mind, and trample on its roblest things, with a disdain becoming an expectant of glory." My divine Redeemer, I see, then, that in thy presence there is fulness of joy, and that at thy right hand are pleasures evermore. Too long the things of time have gained on my esteem; too long have I been enamoured with creature-charms, and mis taken the chief good; henceforth will I dwell in that world, where in a little I shall dwell for ever. The more I meditate on divine things, the more I love them, and find the greater delight in my meditations; but the less my thoughts are on them, alas! the less do I esteem them. Ah! hitherto how have I refused and fled the purest felicity, and followed after vanity and pain! II. ON WANT OF DIVINE LOVE. BLEED, my heart! and be pained, my inmost soul! at the irreverence that too often troubles me in my devotion, and defiles my best duties. O ye sons of light! I see you stand at the eternal throne, and worship, with profoundest awe and reverence, the Almighty. Yes, ye angelic throng! though your countenance sparkles with glory, yet, before the Ancient of Days, ye hide your faces with your wings, drop your greatness in his effulgent majes ty, and lose your beauty in his diviner beams. There the mighty Gabriel a celestial worm; and all the seraphic principalities are insects round the throne ! What, then, must I be before the high and lofty One who alone inhabits eternity? I who dwell in clay, am crushed before the moth, clouded with ignorance, defiled by sin, dogged by death, pleased with phantoms, and charmed with gilded nothings! The language I write in, cannot afford words to describe my vileness; metaphors fall short, and fruitful fancy toils in vain : Then let me think, and debase myself even unto hell. O tremendous gulph! where am I now? Ye fallen hosts! ye infernal throng! you I resemble in my irreverence towards God. Óh, horrid! shall I be like these grinning spectres, these eldest sons of sin and death? Out of the belly of hell will I cry unto thee; yet thou hast my heart, thou hast my love, and I will worship at thy throne prostrate on the humble ground. O ye happy assembly on the heavenly mount, the mount of God! could I think like you, could I know like you, could my whole soul be wrapt up in adoration and divine attention to the sweet employ, what delight would diffuse through all my powers of mind in my happiest moments! What cause have I to fear lest thy burning thunderbolts break on my irreverent head, and dash the daring wretch out of thy gracious presence into perdition and woe! But be thou exalted in thy condescension to my state, in thy pity to my frame; and let thy patience and forbearence swell my grateful anthem, while I long for that perfect state, wherein, though blessed with the nearest approaches, I shall always be filled with the profoundest respect, and divinest awe, and not one improper thought of God shall pass my breast. |