The vanity of this mortal life, or, Of man, considered only in his present…

To think every time one enters that blessed Presence, for ought I know, I shall approach it no more! This is possibly my last sight of that pleasant Face! my last taste of those enravishing pleasures! What bitterness must this infuse into the most delicious sweetness our state could then admit! And by how much more free and large Grace should be in its present communications; and by how much any soul should be more experienced in the life of God, and inured to divine delights, so much the more grievous and afflictive resentments it could not but have of the approaching ⟨p. 44⟩end of all; And be the more powerfully tempted to say, Lord, why was I made in vain? How faint and languid would endeavours be after the knowledge of that God, whom I may but only know, and dye? How impotent and ineffectual would the attractions of this end be to man in his terrene state, to raise him above the world, and rescue him from the power of sensible things, to engage him in the pursuit of that sanctity and purity which alone can qualify him for converse with God, to bear him out in a conflict against the (more natural) inclinations of sense; When if with much labour and painful striving, much self-denial, a•d severity to the flesh, any disposition should be attained to relish divine pleasures; it be considered all the while, that the end of all may be as soon lost as it is gained. And that possibly there may be no more than a moments pleasure to recompense the pains and conflicts of many years; although, in this case, the continual ⟨p. 45⟩hope and expectation of some farther manifestation and fruition, might much influence a person already holy, and a great lover of God, unto a steadfast adherence to him; yet how little would it do to make men such, that are yet unsuitable and disaffected to him? or even to recover such out of their lapses, and drowsy fits, that are not altogether so?

To think every time one enters that blessed Presence, for ought I know, I shall approach it no more! This is possibly my last sight of that pleasant Face! my last tast of those enravishing pleasures! What bitterness must this infuse into the most delicious sweetness our state could then admit! And by how much more free and large Grace should be in its present communications; and by how much any soul should be more experienc't in the life of God, and inured to divine delights, so much the more grievous and afflictive resentments it could not but have of the approaching