The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

Is our love to God so faint and weak, that it dares not encounter Death, nor venture upon the imaginary terrors of the Grave to go to him?¹ How unsuitable is this to the character which is given of a Saints love? And how expressly are we told, that he who loves his life better then Christ, or that even hates it not for his sake (as certainly he cannot be said to do, that is not willing to part with it to enjoy him) cannot be his Disciple? If our love to God be not Supreme, 'tis none; or not such as can denominate us lovers of him; and will we pretend to be so, when we love a putide flesh, and this base earth better then him? And have we not professedly, as a fruit of our avowed ⟨p. 412⟩love to him, surrendered our selves? Are we not his devoted ones? will we be his, and yet our own? or pretend our selves dedicated to his holy pleasure,² and will yet be at our own dispose, and so dispose of our selves too, as that we may be most ungrateful to him? and most uncapable of converse with him?³ How doth this love of a perishing life and of a little animated clay stop all the effusions of the Love of God, suspends its sweet and pleasant fruits, which should be always exerting themselves towards him? Where is their fear, obedience joy, and praise, who are through the fear of death all their lives subject to bondage? And kept under a continual dismal expectation of an unavoidable dissolution! But must the great God lose his due acknowledgements because we will not understand wherein he deals well with us? Is his mercy therefore no mercy? As we cannot nullify his truth by our unbelief, so nor his goodness by our disesteem. But yet consider doth it not better become thee to be grateful, then repine that God will one day unbind thy Soul and set thee free? Knock of thy Letters and deliver thee out of the house of thy bondage? Couldst thou upon deliberate thoughts judge it tolerable, should he doom thee to this earth forever? He hath however judged otherwise (as the Pagan Emperor and and Philosopher excellently speaks) who is the Author both of the first composition of thy present being, and now of the dissolution of it; thou wert the cause of neither, therefore depart and be thankful for he that dismisseth thee, dealeth kindly