Heaven upon earth, or, The best friend in the worst of times. Delivered in…

tempt him to folly, and he will soon answer in Josephs language, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? He that sometimes thought sin the only pleasure, and looked upon the Devil and the world as the only Friends, now sees his dangerous mistake, and blesseth God that his eyes are opened before he comes into another world; he knows now that holiness is the only pleasure, and God is the only Friend, and sin, and the world are as mortal enemies as the Devil himself; he believes that if he venture upon sin, he must venture upon the displeasure of his Friend, whose favour he set more store by than all the delights under Heaven, and whose loving kindness he judgeth to be better then life it self. When the Soul is once acquainted with God, how strangely are its apprehensions of thing altered? Now he calls Things and Persons by their right Name; good he calls good, and evil evil, where as before he called evil good, and good ⟨p. 190⟩evil, and put light for darkness, and darkness for light; he now believes that the zealous compassionate Ministers that spoke so much against sin, had reason enough to have said ten times as much as they did; he sees that it was not for nothing that they were so earnest with him; he hath tasted the Gall, Wormwood, and poison that is in, sin; he plainly sees what is the great Makebate between God and Man, he hath now the wit to understand what it is that hath kept good things so long from him: Tell him now of a Revel, a Whore, he had as live thou shouldst persuade him to part with his strength and liberty and grind in a mill, he reckons you might as rationally desire him to leap into a bottomless pit, to take up his everlasting lodging in a Bed of flames, and to make light of Damnation. Let Men and Devils use what Arguments they will to prevail with him, now to close with temptations, he is sure he hath a stronger against them, he hath a sensible Argument within, which will answer all, if they had ten thousand times as many more then they can produce: The love of Christ makes him abhor the motion; God is my Friend, dashes all. Shall such a one as I take up Arms against God? shall I that have found him so infinitely good? shall I that have experienced the Faithfulness of this friend to me, be so infinitely ungrateful as to be thus abominably unfaithful to him?

tempt him to folly, and he will soon answer in Josephs language, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? He that sometimes thought sin the only pleasure, and looked upon the Devil and the world as the only Friends, now sees his dangerous mistake, and blesseth God that his eyes are opened before he comes into another world; he knows now that holiness is the only pleasure, and God is the only Friend, and sin, and the world are as mortal enemies as the Devil himself; he believes that if he venture upon sin, he must venture upon the displeasure of his Friend, whose favour he set more store by than all the delights under Heaven, and whose loving kindness he judgeth to be better then life it self. When the Soul is once acquainted with God, how strangely are its apprehensions of thing altered? Now he calls Things and Persons by their right Name; good he calls good, and evil evil, where as before he called evil good, and good