hendeth in it these particulars, which if you distinctly apprehend, you will much the better understand the nature and excellency of it.

1. The true believer hath the small beginnings and earnests, and foretastes of the everlasting blessedness in this life in his approaches to God, and living upon him by faith and love, and in his believing apprehensions of the favour of God, the grace of Christ, and the happiness which in heaven he shall enjoy for ever.

2. At death the souls of true believers do go to Christ, and enter upon a state of happiness.

3. At the last day, the body shall be raised and united to the soul, and the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory to judge the world, where he will openly absolve and justify the righteous, when he condemneth the ungodly, and will be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that do believe, and the saints shall also judge the world, and be themselves adjudged to everlasting glory.

4. Their everlasting habitation shall be in the heavens, even near unto God, and in the presence of his glory.

5. Their company will be only blessed spirits, even the holy angels and glorified saints, with whom we shall be one body, and constitute the new Jerusalem and be perfectly one in God for ever.

6. Their bodies shall be perfected and made immortal, spiritual, incorruptible, and glorious bodies, shining as the stars in the celestial firmament. No more subject to hunger, and thirst, or cold, or weariness, or shame, or pain, nor any of the frailties that now adhere unto them, but be made like the glorified body of Christ.

7. The souls of the saints united to these bodies shall also be perfected, having far larger capacity to know God, and enjoy him than now we have; being freed from all ignorance, error, unbelief, pride, hardheartedness, and whatsoever sin doth now accompany us; and perfected in every part of the image of God upon us.

8. The eyes of the glorified body shall in heaven have a glory to behold that is suitable to their bodily capacity. Heaven being not a place where the essence of God is confined, but where a prepared glory will be manifested to make happy the angels and saints with Christ. And whatever other senses the glorified bodies shall then have (whether for

mally or eminently, we cannot now conceive what they will be) they will all be satisfied with suitable delights from God.

9. The blessed person of our Redeemer in our nature glorified, will there be the everlasting object of our delightful intuition and fruition. An object suitable to the eye of the glorified body itself. We shall for ever live in the sight of his face, and in the sense of his unspeakable love..

10. The glorified soul (whether mediately or immediately) shall behold the infinite, most blessed God, and by knowing him, be perfected in knowledge. As we shall see the person of Jesus Christ, and the glory of God with open face, and not as in a glass, as now we do, so we shall know so much of the essence of the Deity as we are capable of, to our felicity.

11. With the knowledge of God, and the beatifical vision will be joined a perfect love unto him, and closure with his blessed will. So that to love him, will be the everlasting employment of the soul.

12. This love will be drawn forth into everlasting praise; and it will be our work before the throne of his glory, to magnify the Lord for ever.

13. In all this love, and praise, and glory, and in the full fruition of the eternal God, we shall rejoice with full and perfect joy, and we shall have full content, delight, and rest.

14. In all this blessedness and glory of the saints, the glory of God himself will shine, and angels shall admire it, and the condemned spirits with anguish shall discern it, that God may be glorified in our glory.

15. In all this happiness of believers, and his own glory, the Lord will be well pleased, and that blessed will which is the beginning and the end of all, will be accomplished, and will have an eternal complacency, as the saints shall have an endless complacency in God.

This is the glory promised to the saints; this is that good part which they choose. I cite not the texts of Scripture that prove all this, because the things are all so plainly and frequently expressed in the premises. And I shall have occasion to do somewhat of this anon. And so (in brief) I

have told you what the good part is.

II. We are next to inquire, What it is that is put by worldly, carnal men, into the other end of the scales, and is set up in comparison with all this everlasting glory? Yea, what it is that is preferred by ungodly men before it?

What it is

that sin and the world will do for men? What do they find that lose the Lord? What do they get that miss of heaven? What do they choose, that refuse the needful, better part?

And here I am even amazed at that which I must give you an account of. O wonderful, astonishing thing, that ever such base, unworthy trifles should, by reasonable men, be put into any comparison with God! Wonderful, that so much madness and wickedness can enter into the mind and heart of man, as to let go all this glory for a toy! And yet more wonderful, that this should be the case of the greatest part of men on earth! And yet more wonderful, that so many make so mad a choice, even when the case is opened to them, and plainly opened, and frequently opened; and when they are carefully entreated to be wiser, and importuned to make a better choice!

In a word, all that is set against the Lord, and all that is preferred before this everlasting life, and all the portion of ungodly men, is no more than this: The pleasure of sin for a season: the satisfying of the flesh. A little ease, and pelf, and fair words from men as miserable as themselves; and all this but for a little, a very little time, when temperance is as sweet at least; a little that is excessive or forbidden, in wealth, or meat, or drink, or clothes, or lust, or other fleshly pleasures, is the joy, and the heaven, and the god of the ungodly. The fleshly pleasures which are common to the beasts, and a little vainglory among men, and this for a short uncertain time (and then to pass to everlasting punishment), this is the chosen portion of the wicked. This is all for which they refuse the Lord, and for which they refuse a holy life. This is all for which they part with Christ, and part with their everlasting peace! This is all that they have for heaven and their salvation! and all for which they sell their souls! To the everlasting shame of sin and sinners, it shall be known that this was all! To the abasing of our own souls, that sometime were guilty of this madness, I shall tell you again that this is all! To the humbling of the best, to the confounding of the wicked, and the amazement of us all, I must say that this is all! This dirt, this dream, this cheat is all that the wicked have for God and glory! This nothing is all that they obstinately prefer and choose before him that is all in all! O wonderful madness, stupidity, and deceit! so common! so wilful! and so

incurable! till tender mercy and grace shall cure it, in them that shall be saved.

Well, the balance is now set before you. You see what is in the one end and in the other. You see the part that believers choose, and the part that is chosen by the rest of the world. And are you not yet resolved which is best, and which to choose?

Two sorts I look to meet with here, to whom I shall apply myself distinctly before I come to the comparative work. First some will tell me, that all these are needless words; and that there is no man so senseless as to think that temporal things are better than eternal, or the world than God, or sin than holiness.

Answ. O that this were true! how happy then were all the world! I grant that many are superficially convinced, that are not converted; and that many have a slight' opinion that heaven and holiness is best, that yet have no love to it, and will not seek it above all. But their practical judgment doth not go along with their opinions. They relish the world as sweetest unto them. In the prevailing, deepest thoughts. of their hearts, they set most by the pleasures of this world. Why else is their hearts most towards them? Why else do they choose them, and refuse to live a holy life? Why have they no delight in God? and why have we so much ado with them, to bring them to a heavenly mind and life, and all in vain? What! will not men be persuaded to choose that which they know is best for them?

Object. Temptations are strong, and men are weak, and so men go against their knowledge.'

Answ. 1. What do temptations prevail with you to do? Is it not to think well of sinful pleasures, and to think more hardly of the ways of God? Is it not to like a worldly, fleshly life better than a holy life? If not, how can you follow those temptations? And if it be so, then they draw you for that time to think that fleshly pleasures are the better part.

2. But if indeed it be as you say, you are the most inexcusable miscreants in the world. What! do you know that God is best for you, and yet will you fly from him? Do you know that heaven is the only happiness, and yet will you seek this world before it. Do you know what is best for you, and will not have it? and what is worst, and yet will keep it? Will

you go to hell, and know whither you are going. And will you run from heaven and damn yourselves, and know that you do so? yea, and that while we day by day entreat you to the contrary? If this be the case of any one of you, the God of justice shall teach you to know what you are doing, by his everlasting vengeance. Heaven and earth shall be witness against you, your own consciences, and such confessions of your own shall bear witness against you; that you justly perish, and are damned, because you would be damned, and are shut out of heaven because you would not be persuaded to come thither.

Object. But we hope we may have both pleasure here, and heaven hereafter; and that we may be saved by the mercy of God and the blood of Christ, without the sanctification of the Spirit, and though we do not live a holy life.'

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Answ. And who gave you these hopes? Is it God, on whom you pretend to trust? or the devil that doth deceive you? Certainly not God; for he hath told you over and over, that he will save none but the sanctified (Acts xxvi. 18.), and "that except a man be born again, even of the Spirit as well as of water, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John iii. 3. 5.), and that "without holiness none shall see the Lord;" Heb. xii. 14. And is it God that persuadeth you that his word is false? Doubtless it is the devil. When God had told Adam and Eve, that in the day that they did eat the forbidden fruit, they should die the death," was it not the serpent that gave them hopes of living, and told them that they should not die? If you be at that pass that you will take on you to trust in God, and yet will not believe him, but your trust is but trusting that God is a liar, you are as foolish in your presumption, as heathens are in their infidelity. For who is worse, he that believeth that there is no God (as Atheists do), or he that believeth that God is a liar, which is to be no God, and worse?

If therefore you do believe indeed that heaven is best, you must needs believe that holiness is necessary; yea, and best too, when heaven consisteth so much in perfected holiness. And therefore you must choose and seek with the greatest diligence, that happiness which you confess is best, or never hope that it will be yours. O did you at the heart believe it to be best, and that for you, you would love it, and