A heavenly conference between Christ and Mary after His resurrection. Wherein the intimate familiarity,…

And therefore let us learn to single out of God whatsoever may help us to be in covenant with him. He having made himself over to be ours, let us learn this wisdom to single out of God whatsoever is peculiar to our present condition; for considering he hath made himself a God to us, he is ¹all-sufficient for every turn: therefore out of his all-sufficiency, take out whatsoever is fit for any particular exigency. Lord I am now in a straight, and want wisdom, thou in Christ hast abundance of wisdom. Christ hath in him all treasures. I now want friends, ⟨p. 202⟩I want counsel, I want help, I want strength, God hath a fullness of all this for his Children. He hath it not only to content himself, and look on his own happiness, but for his friends that be in covenant with him, that be in covenant with him, that be so ²near him, that he will own him to be their God. If you ask what is Religion? it is to know God, to have all-sufficiency in him for my good; and then to make use of him by dependence on him for that good, and by advancing of him in giving him the due honour and thanks of it. And therefore we deserve not the names of religious persons, if we do not study what he is to his Creatures in the Covenant of grace. Then make use of it by a spirit of dependency, and always giving praise and thanks. This is our whole man, and what is all else? nothing but trouble and vanity. Get our bonds sealed, that he is our God, and then break with all the world beside, come what can come, or what will come, we are sure to be safe. It is a com•ort of wonderful large extent. The use of the Sacrament ⟨p. 203⟩is to seal that God is our God in particular, and that Christ is ours, ³as verily as the Bread and Wine are ours. And let us desire the Lord to seal to every one of our souls, that are to have communion with him in particular, that he in Christ is ours. Christ with all his merits, and the fruits of them, forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting, as verily as the outward man partakes of the outward seals, and then we shall come, and go away with comfort, and be made partakers of that end and use of the Sacrament, for which our blessed Saviour instituted it.