Mount Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…Movnt Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…

Christians, as ye love Gods face, look to your boliness; God loveth holiness more than he loveth the Creature, saith Arminius; and I say so too, if we understand it of the holiness that dwelleth in God, for that is his essential holiness, ¹God himself, so loving holiness, he loveth himself; Gods holiness is his glory, glorious in holiness; he accounts it the most radiant Jewel in his Crown Royal, the very varnish and beauty of all his glorious Attributes; for the love he beareth to which, he loveth to see the very image and likeness of it in the Creature; but he loved the Creature so well (in his [Greek or Hebrew]) that he did elect the person ⟨p. 43⟩unto the qualification, though not for the qualification; God chose the elect, ²not because he foresaw they would be holy, but that they might be holy; holiness was not the cause, but the end of their election. Oh love that (dear Souls) which God loves so much, and loveth to see in his Saints, who are therefore called Saints from their holiness. There is nothing can make you so beautiful in Gods eye as holiness, because in your holiness he seeth the reflection of his own beauty; ³Thou wast comely through the comeliness which I put upon thee; God cannot choose but love his own likeness where ever he seeth it; oh love the Lord all ye his Saints, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness, Psal. 30.4. Let your hearts leap within you as oft as you think what an holy God you have; who if he can but see true holiness in your faces, will admit you to see that holiness which is in his face for ever. Love holiness, I say, but be sure it be such an holiness as God loves; there is an holiness in the world, which is but a thing like holiness, but is not so; moral righteousness, an harmless innocence, a sober retiredness from sensual excesses, a pretty ingenuity, a readiness to do offices of love, a negative Religion, concerning which you may better tell, what it is not, than what it is; yea, there is a thing called holiness in the world, that hath not so much as the appearance or shadow of holiness, freedom from grossest impieties, and that but partial too; not to swear at the highest rate, to be soberly drunk, and privately unclean,