Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

¹9. Consider, it's both work and wages to look up unto Jesus. Hence David professed, it is good for me to draw near to thee, and my meditation of him shall be sweet: the word ⟨p. 21⟩imports a sweetness with mixture, like compound spices, or many flowers. Every thought of Jesus is sweet and pleasant, nay, it's better than wine,² we will remember thy love more than Wine; there is more content in contemplating on Christ, more refreshing to the spirit, than wine gives to the body, How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God? ³look in what kind soever you account a thing precious, so precious are the thoughts of God and Christ to a man, whose heart is in a right frame. Such a one loves every glance of Christ, and the more it sees, the more it loves; It is said of one Eudoxius, that he wished he might be admitted to come near the body of the Sun, to have a full view of it, though it devoured him; he was something rash in his wish: but there is something proportionable in a godly spirit, he so loves Christ, that he could be content to be swallowed up in the beholding of him. Certainly there is a blessing in this work; when we are bid to look unto Jesus, it is but to receive from Jesus: is it any thing else but to call and invite us to look on the most pleasing and delightful object? That in the beholding of it, it may convey it self unto us, and we be delighted and filled with it? it is all one as if he should bid us sit down by a well of Life, and drink; or if he should bid us be as the Angels are, who are blessed in the beholding of this Jesus; why come then, if this be a blessed work, why will we unbless our selves? If the work will exalt us, why will we debase our selves, in not closing with it? If we might live above heaven, why will we live below? certainly when thoughts of Christ are moving in us, Christ himself is not far off, he will come, and enter too; and how sweet is it for Christ to come and take up his habitation in our souls.

¹9. Consider, it's both work and wages to look up unto Jesus. Hence David professed, it is good for me to draw near to thee, and my meditation of him shall be sweet: the word