Husbandry spiritualized, or, The heavenly use of earthly things consisting of many pleasant observations,…

Is my heart so much in heaven now, as it was wont to be? §1Say,¹ O my soul! dost thou not remember, when like the beloved Disciple thou layest in Jesus bosom? how didst thou sweeten communion with him? how restless and impatient wast thou in his absence! Divine withdrawments were to thee as the hell of hell: What a burden was the world to me in those days! Had it not been for conscience of my duty, I could have been willing to let all lye, that communion with Christ might suffer no interruption. When I awaked in the night, how was the darkness enlightened by the heavenly glimpses of the countenance of my God upon me? How did his company shorten those hours, and beguile the tediousness of the night? O my soul, speak thy experience, is it now as it was then! No, no, those days are past and gone, and thou become much a stranger to that heavenly life. Art thou able with truth to deny this charge? When occasionally I pass by those places, which were once to me as Jacob's Bethel to him; I sigh at the remembrance of former passages betwixt me and heaven there; and say with Job, Chap. 29. O that it were with me as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, when by his light I walked through darkness, when the Almighty was yet with me, when I put on righteousness and it clothed me, when my glory was fresh in me! when I remember these things, my soul is poured out within me.

Is my heart so much in heaven now, as it was wont to be? §1Say,¹ O my soul! dost thou not remember, when like the beloved Disciple thou layest in Iesus bosome? how didst thou sweeten communion with him? how restless and impatient wast thou in his absence! Divine withdrawments were to thee as the hell of hell: What a burden was the world to me in those dayes! Had it not been for conscience of my duty, I could have been willing to let all lye, that communinion with Christ might suffer no interruption. When I awaked in the night, how was the darkness enlightned by the heavenly glimpses of the countenance of my God upon me? How did his company shorten those hours, and beguile the tediousness of the night? O my soul, speak thy experience, is it now as it was then! No, no, those dayes are past and gone, and thou become much a stranger to that heavenly life. Art thou able with truth to deny this charge? When occasionally I pass by those places, which were once to me as Iacob's Bethel to him; I sigh at the remembrance of former passages betwixt me and heaven there; and say with Iob, Chap. 29. O that it were with me as in moneths past, as in the dayes when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, when by his light I walked through darkness, when the Almighty was yet with me, when I put on righteosness and it cloathed me, when my glory was fresh in me! when I remember these things, my soul is poured out within me.