I can love thee. Thine is the ocean, mine a drop from thy fulness; thine is the sun, mine a spark kindled in thy beams; thine is the eternal emanation of sovereign good-will, mine the reflection of heaven-born gratitude, for I love thee, because thou first lovedst me; and as thou wast first, so art thou highest in thy love. It was much for thy saints, yea, was it not enough for them, and more than enough for me, to be loved like thine angels, archangels, thy seraphs, and all thy bright armies of light? yet thou hast loved them with a love above that; for in that matchless prayer (John, xvii.) pleading for the perfection of his spiritual seed, through union to him, the divine Redeemer says, "That the world may know," (and let all the world know it, repeats a ransomed worm) " that thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me !"

What a wonderful love is this! but what a worthless lover am I! O happy, thrice happy heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ! whom he invites to a seat with him on his throne! Surely, under a sense of so much love, and yet power to love so little, I should die, did I not wait for my removal to the region of love, where my powers of mind, enlarged and strengthened for the transports of eternity, shall be wholly exercised in love. O that divine freedom I wait for, that glorious liberty of immortal lovers that I pant after, where mine eye shall be all intuition of his glories, and mine ear all attention to the account of his excellencies! Surely, my song and soul shall be full of love to him! Yea, nothing but love, centering on him, and singing of him, with the highest degree of ardor, shall employ my every power for ever. And here, dear Lord, while I walk on the dark mountains, let it be regarded as a kind of love to think (since I cannot love thee as I should and would) how perfectly

I shall love thee in those blissful regions, in those days of future glory, and in thy heavenly presence; with what fresh ardour, and unknown delight, I shall adore the God of love, who is not only lovely altogether, but teems out full floods of love on the emmets of creation, and welcomes the trifling returns of love from the atoms of his footstool.

MEDITATION CXVI.

PROVIDENCE TO BE APPROVED OF.

Portsmouth Harbour, Oct. 31, 1761.

NOTHING is harder to attain to, than an entire resignation to the disposal of Providence; and in this very thing I condemn myself. But, O how absurd to quarrel with Heaven about one individual, if pleased with his conduct towards the totality of beings! Did I ever wish a reason why God sends his Gabriel on this or that message, and not some other of the bright armies of bliss? Durst I ever find fault with the immense distance of the stars or the huge magnitude of the sun? Did it ever give me uneasiness, though the Ottoman empire was a scene of revolutions, or a field" of blood, or though nations nearer home underwent changes and war? But if any trying providences come home, I am up, if not in arms, yet in astonishment, at heaven, and wonder why God deals so and so! Now, God's right over, and propriety in me, is as full and sovereign as over any other of his creatures; and so should I be as well pleased with what he carves out for me, as I am with what he does for others. I never complained of the age of the world in which I was born (nay, but have blessed God for it ;) and why

should I, of the time of life that this or that event concerning me takes place? I pant after some things which in themselves are good, but God postpones them, as I think; but the truth is, the proper time of God's giving, and my receiving, is not come; and yet in the greatness of my folly, I grow impatient, like the husbandman, that for an early harvest, reaps corn not fully ripe.

Now, my will shall be swallowed up in thine, since I am more thy property than mine own. And as I would not direct Omniscience how to dispose of his armies of light, so will I never tell him how to deal with the inhabitants of his carth, though I make one of the number. Yet, O Most High! as thou wilt be inquired of by the seed of Jacob for these free mercies which thou wilt bestow, and even importuned (as once by wrestling Jacob) for blessings, and the performance of thy promises; so I implore thy divine interposition in my behalf, if it be thy holy will, and that thou wouldst bring me again to the place of the soles of thy feet, that I may hear blessings instead of blasphemy, and see thee in thy glory in thine own courts. O let mine absent moments from Zion be numbered up, and finished; my wanderings counted, and completed; my company changed, and my song be to the God of my mercy in the courts of his holiness; and make me yet see some of the days of the Son of man, in commemorating the sufferings and death of my divine Redeemer! in thy tender mercy, hear, help, and give an answer of peace.

But, Lord, if thou shalt (and for thy glory I would fain live) be more glorified in my resignation to thy holy will, and my remaining in the state I am in, than in my possessing all those things I long after, I roll myself over on thee, and to thy disposal say, Amen.

MEDITATION CXVII.

BRIGHT VIEWS AND BOLD LANGUAGE ABOVE.

Under sail for Lisbon, Nov. 29, 1761.

OFTEN at the description of divine things, by a masterly pen, or a truly poetical genius, I have been astonished, and admired the enlarged views of those, and their sublime thoughts, who, like myself, but dwelt in clay. Then said I, What must the songs of the new Jerusalem be, when a stanza or two, wrote by a poor mortal, labouring with corruption, and bewailing his ignorance of sacred things, yields so much pleasure and delight!

I shall, then, for a moment, suppose myself arrived at the regions of glory, and welcomed by the King eternal to the upper world: But how am I at once transported with the harmony of bliss, while I am indulged to look into the library of heaven, and read all the essays of eternity itself! First, then, a celestial canto spreads before me, whose majestic style astonishes, whose soft and flowing numbers ravish, which was sung by the morning-stars together, by all the sons of God, when the earth was created. And next, an inimitable song, composed by the first bards of light, and sung by part of the celestial choir, when the son of God condescended to be born. Then a triumphant anthem, sung and echoed round the whole court of heaven by all the hosts of light, when the Son of God ascended conqueror over all his foes, and sat down on high at the right hand of God. But the most amazing and inimitable piece, for abundance of subject, for excellency of matter, for beauty of expression, for ardency

of love, for intimacy of communion, and for refined and exalted thought, is the divine epithalamium, which, at the marriage supper of the Lamb, when the whole family of heaven is assembled to divide no more, shall be sung by every guest at the feast of love, at the table of bliss. Besides these, here are some reviving hymns, composed by angels rejoicing over repenting sinners. What exalted joy sparkles in that angelic composition over a penitent Manasses, and every returning prodigal! Gabriel, in this matchless ode, sings of the eternity of God, in such strains as would astonish all the bards of time;-in that, Raphael dwells on the trinity of persons; while Michael celebrates the majesty and power of the Eternal, with such energy of thought as would darken the brightest wits the world ever saw. In another, a mighty seraph sings inimitably of sacred love, and all heaven echoes amen to his divine encomium. Yea, now every saint is a poet, every believer a bard; and O how sweet are the songs of the higher temple! how soft the harmony of eternal day! What hallelujahs rise from the angels of God! what hosannas from the church of the first born! What concord and symphony are in the songs above! how dark, compared to these, were the brightest descriptions of God I ever heard below! how dull my former ardours to those which now I feel! How faint and languid my love to what now kindles in my breast! Here is the refined expression, here the noble idea, here the exalted turn of thought, here the true sublime of divine poetry, and here the enlarged, the naked view of divine things, of heavenly glories, to embolden and enliven every song. Here we talk of God at his throne, and while we commend him, we behold the beauties of his face; while we exalt him, we enjoy him, and so can never cease extolling him.