ur blessed Lord! He hath created the understanding with
a natural bias and inclination to truth as its object, and to the prime
truth as its prime object; and lest we should turn aside to any
creature, He hath kept this as His own divine prerogative, not
communicable to any creature, namely, to _be_ the prime truth.

And, doubtless, memory will not be idle or useless in this blessed work,
if it be but by looking back to help the soul to value its enjoyment.
Our knowledge will be enlarged, not diminished; therefore the knowledge
of things past shall not be taken away. And what is that knowledge but a
remembrance? Doubtless, from that height the saint can look behind him
and before him; and to compare past with present things must needs raise
in the blessed soul an unconceivable esteem and sense of its condition.
To stand on that mount whence we can see the wilderness and Canaan both
at once; to stand in heaven and look back on earth, and weigh them
together in the balance of a comparing sense and judgment, how must it
needs transport the soul and make it cry out: Have the gales of grace
blown me into such a harbour! O, blessed way, and thrice blessed end!

And now if there be such a thing as indignation left how will it here
let fly: O vile nature that resisted so much and so long such a
blessing! Unworthy soul, is this the place thou camest so unwillingly
towards? Was duty wearisome? Was the world too good to lose? Didst thou
stick at leaving all, denying all, and suffering anything for this? Wast
thou loth to die to come to this? O false heart, that had almost
betrayed me and lost me this glory!

But oh, the full, the near, the sweet enjoyment is that of the
affections--love and joy! It is near, for love is of the essence of the
soul; love is the essence of God, for God is love. Oh, the high delights
of this love! The content that the heart findeth in it! Surely love is
both work and wages.

But, alas! my fearful heart scarce dares proceed. Methinks I hear the
Almighty's voice saying to me, as to Job, "Who is this that darkeneth
counsel by words without knowledge?" But pardon, O Lord, Thy servant's
sin. I have not pried into unrevealed things, nor with audacious wits
curiously searched into Thy counsels; but, indeed, I have dishonoured
Thy Holiness, wronged Thine Excellency, disgraced Thy saints' glory by
my own exceeding disproportionate pourtraying. I bewail that my
conceivings fall so short, my apprehensions are