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CONSIDERATION,

THE

NATURE, USEFULNESS, and

.

NECESSITY of it,

In order to a Serious Life.

CHAP. I.

The Nature of our Souls. The Eternal State they are defign'd for. The Means God hath made ufe of, to fit Men for Everlafting Bliß. All thefe means ineffectual without Confideration.

HAT we are defign'd for Nobler Employments, than Eating, and Drinking, and Sleeping, and Playing, and following our Trades and Bufineffes in this World, (a) happiness which Beasts ar

rive to as well as we) the great Souls we carry in our Breasts do evidently demonstrate. These being capable of knowing God, of delighting in him, and converfing with him for ever, we may

rationally

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rationally fuppofe, That those who fuffer the Profits and Pleasures of this prefent World, to engross their Affections, go aftray, and err from the great End of their Creation.

While the Atheift laughs at the Immortality of his Soul, and the Prophane fells his better part to the Devil; the Religious, who will prove the only wife Man in the end, and who hath none of those clouds and mists, the other are troubled with, before his eyes, fees clearly what a Treafure the bountiful hand of Heaven hath bestow'd on him, in fhedding abroad fo excellent, so Angelical a Being in his Body, a Soul that can build her Neft among the Stars of Heaven, walk through yonder Manfions, and taste of the Ri vers which make glad the City of God: a Soul which can wing her felf above the Clouds, and furvey the Crowns and Scepters laid up for those that dare despise the World, and have their converfation in Heaven; a Soul which can live · in Paradife, while the Body is in trouble, and rejoyce in him, who is All in All, while the fierce Winds are whistling above her ears.

Thewaft reach of these Souls, we have, For they can comprehend whole Worlds, and dive into the caules, ends, and defigns of things, and in a moment fly from one end of the Earth unto the other, their fitness to receive Divine Illumination, their strong defires after Immortality, their fecret actings without the help of a Body, their hopes of Heaven, their fears of Hell, their capacity of feeing things to come, B 3

their

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