London's lamentation, or, A serious discourse concerning the late fiery dispensation that turned our…

The fourth Support to bear up the hearts, and to cheer up §4the spirits of the people of God, who have been sufferers, deep sufferers, under the late fiery dispensation, is this, viz. That though they have lost much, as they are men, as they are Citizens, Merchants, Tradesmen; yet they have lost nothing, as they are Christians, as they are Saints, as they are the called and chosen of God. Though they have lost their goods, yet they have not lost their God. Though they ⟨p. 72⟩¹have lost their Shops and Chests, yet they have not lost their Christ. Though they have lost their outward comforts, yet they have not lost the comforts of the Holy Ghost. Though ²they have lost their houses made with hands, yet th•y have not lost their house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. Though they have lost their earthly inheritance, ³yet they have not lost their heavenly inheritance. Though they have lost their temporal portions, yet they have not lost ⁴their eternal portions. Though they have lost their open Public Trade▪ yet they have not lost their Secret Trade, ⁵their private Trade to Heaven. I readily grant, that your stately houses; and your well furnished Shops, are turned into ashes; and that your credit is gone, and your trading gone, and your money gone, and you utterly undone (as to this ⁶world) and yet in all this, God has done you no hurt; he has done you no wrong: and though this at first sight, may seem to be a great Paradox, a very strange Assertion; yet I shall thus evidence it to be an unquestionable truth. The happiness of man in this life consists 1. In his Union with God: 2. In his Communion with God: 3. In his Conformity to God: and Fourthly and lastly, in his spiritual fruition and enjoyment of God. Now none of those losses, crosses, and afflictive dispensations that have past upon you, have, or can make any breach upon your happiness, or upon any one of those four things of which your happiness is made up. The top of mans happiness in Heaven, lies in his near unon with God, and in the beatifical vision of God, and in his full communion with God, and in his exact and perfect conformity to God, and in his everlasting fruition and enjoyment of God. Now the more of these things any Christian enjoys in this world, the more of Heaven he enjoys on this side Heaven, the more happiness he has on this happiness;