The Saints' Everlasting Rest

SECT. III.¹

1. 1§. 3.

2. When you have fetched from your memory the matter of your Meditation, your next work is to present it to your Judgment: open there the case as fully as thou canst; set forth the several ornaments of the Crown, the several dignities belonging to the Kingdom, as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this Book; Let judgment deliberately view them over, and take as exact a survey as it can, Then put the question, and require a determination, Is there happiness in all this? or not? Is not here enough to make me blessed? Can he want any thing, who fully possesseth God? Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain? Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence, and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy Celestial happiness, and to leave this sentence as under its hand upon Record. If thy senses should here begin to mutter, and to put in a word for fleshly pleasure or profits; let judgment hear what each can say: weigh the Arguments of the world and flesh in one end, and the Arguments for the preeminence of Glory in the other end, and judg impartially which should be preferred. Try whether there be any comparison to be made; which is more excellent? which more manly? which is more satisfactory? and which more pure? which freeth most from misery? and advanceth us highest? and which dost thou think is of longer continuance? Thus let deliberate judgment decide it; and let not Flesh carry it by noise and by violence; And when the sentence is passed and recorded in thy heart, it will be ready at hand to be produced upon any occasion, and to silence the flesh in its next attempt, and to disgrace the world in its next competition.

2. WHen you have fetcht from your memory the matter of your Meditation, your next work is to present it to your Judgment: open there the case as fully as thou canst; set forth the several ornaments of the Crown, the several dignities belonging to the Kingdom, as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this Book; Let judgment deliberately view them over, and take as exact a survey as it can, Then put the question, and require a determination, Is there happiness in all this? or not? Is not here enough to make me blessed? Can he want any thing, who fully possesseth God? Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain? Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence, and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy Celestial happiness, and to leave this sentence as under its hand upon Record. If thy senses should here begin to mutter, and to put in a word for fleshly pleasure or profits; let judgment hear what each can say: weigh the Arguments of the world and flesh in one end, and the Arguments for the preheminence of Glory in the other end, and judg impartially which should be preferred. Try whether there be any comparison to be made; which is more excellent? which more manly? which is more satisfactory? and which more pure? which freeth most from misery? and advanceth us highest? and which dost thou think is of longer continuance? Thus let deliberate judgment decide it; and let not Flesh carry it by noise and by violence; And when the sentence is passed and recorded in thy heart, it will be ready at hand to be produced upon any occasion, and to silence the flesh in its next attempt, and to disgrace the world in its next competition.