The saints everlasting rest

When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the LORD, and considered the pleasures that are at his right-hand, the• […] •••tation thus: think with thyself, where have I been, what have I ⟨p. 349⟩seen? O the incomprehensible astonishing glory! O the rare transcendent beauty! O blessed souls that now enjoy it! that see a thousand times more clearly, what I have seen but darkly at this distance, and scarce discern through the interposing clouds! What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs! I am sighing, and they are singing: I am sinning, and they are pleasing GOD: I ha•• an ulcerated soul, like the loathsome bodies of Job or Lazarus, but they are perfect and without blemish: I am here entangled in the love of the world, when they are taken up with the love of GOD: I live indeed amongst the means of grace, and I posses the fellowship of my fellow-be-lievers; but I have none of their immediate views of GOD, none of that fellowship that they possess: they have none of my cares and fears; they weep not in secret; they languish not in sorrows; all tears are wined away from their eyes. O what a feast hath my saith beheld, and what a famine is yet in my spirit! I have seen a glimpse of the court of GOD, but alas. I stand but as a beggar at the doors, when the souls of my companions are admitted in. O blessed souls! I may not, I dare not envy your happiness; I rather rejoice in my brethren's prosperity, and am glad to think of the day when I shall be admitted into your fellowship. But O that I were so happy as to be in your place; not to displace you, but to rest there with you. Why must I stay and groan, and weep, and wait? My LORD is gone, he hath left this earth, and is entered into his glory: my brethren are gone, my friends are there, my house, my hope, my all is there: […] must I stay behind to sojourn here! What precious, […] have left this earth! If the saints were all here, if Christ were here, then it were no grief for me to stay: but when my soul is so far distant from my GOD, wonder not if I now complain; an ignorant Micah will do so for his idol, and shall not my soul do so for GOD? And yet if I had no hope of enjoying, ⟨p. 350⟩I would go and hide myself in the deserts, and spend my days in fruitless wishes: but seeing it is the promised land, the state I must be advanced to myself, and my soul draws near, and is almost at it, I will live and long;