nothing. He bathes souls in his blood for nothing. Virtue goes from him for nothing to cure issues; "Virtue is gone from me," Luke viii. 46. Healing virtue goes of itself to relieve the distressed: it boils, runs over, and runs out itself, and quenches strong fire which would burn the soul.

Sanctity is a facile birth.-The wind blows where it lists. Christ can do what he lists within, as you can set your mouth, and blow, and breathe, this way or that way, as you list. It is nothing to Christ to wash a blackamore white; to make scarlet sin white; to fetch out filth in grain. Christ quickens whom he will; he can will you clean. "When the strong man comes, he takes him and binds him," &c. saith the scripture. It is nothing to Christ to take the strongest man and bind him; to throw down, and throw out the strongest lust. The strong man is no man to Christ. Christ can with his finger cast out

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If I by the finger of God cast out devils." Sanctity is a full birth. One grace cannot be had without another; no grace, without all Christ. All Christ is our sanctity. Ye cannot have the stream, unless ye have the fountain. Ye cannot have a beam of the Sun, unless the Sun be yours. It is in vain to talk of holiness, till Christ be owned by faith. Christ made ours, makes us. Faith fetches

him; that brings down, and brings in all to the soul. Christ is a troop of virtues. Behold a troop comes, when he comes. Behold he comes, if ye believe. Sinners, can ye believe in the Son of God? Can ye resign up all to him, who is all holy? if so, he will make you all holy; without this, he will not. Christ is holiness all over; so is the soul that is filled with him. Sinners, make it your design to get Christ, to be holy get the Sun to be glorious. Saints, make

it your design to get more of Christ, to be more holy. "Of his fulness ye receive, and grace for grace." Christ in fulness in the soul, makes grace for grace. It was Simeon's ambition to have Christ in his arms; to have his bosom full of him: then had he his spirit at the fullest height for heaven. Our souls rise in holiness and heavenliness, as Christ comes in all Christ come in to the soul, and all presently makes away post, to perfect glory. If the King of glory were come in, the soul would arrive instantly at his fulness, at his full blessedness.

SERMON XXI.

COLOSSIANS I. 12.

GIVING THANKS UNTO THE FATHER, WHICH HATH MADE US MEET TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS IN LIGHT.

LIGHT is used in scripture, to resemble the noblest things, as darkness is used to resemble the most dreadful. Civil felicity is set forth by light. "Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel," 2 Sam. xxi. 17. They spake this in a civil sense, as David was the prime member of such a body; a sun by whose rays all Israel had their flourishing livelihood.

Christ

Divine felicity likewise is set forth by light, every step of it, to the last step, which is heaven. is called light; "I come a light into the world," &c. He is called a Sun, that great source of light, which makes glory and felicity to a world at once.

The rays of this Sun, namely, graces and their exercise, are set forth by light. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light," &c. Our blessedness here, and our blessedness above, grace and glory; all that ever the saints shall have for eternity, are shadowed out by light; "The inheritance of the saints in light."

The Holy Ghost always makes apt similitudes : apt similitudes always illustrate; what illustration of our highest felicity light gives, I am to give you by charge from this scripture, which I will discharge as well as I can.

Light is a very immediate thing; it is a medium to bring all other things to view, but it has no medium but itself to discover itself: light only discovers light. The first thing the eye takes in, is light, ere it can do its office for the body, as such a prime organ. Our felicity above is of a very immediate nature; itself best discovers itself, no discovery here can be made to any purpose, it is felicity so immediate from Christ. It is Christ and the soul face to face; the bride and bridegroom, hand in hand. It is the soul where Christ now personally is, and with these eyes, that is, not through ordi nances, but as it shines in itself, beholding Christ's personal glory. It is the soul brought into the presence chamber above, and beholding the great King of all the earth at dinner, yea, sitting down with him, and feasting with him. Heaven is glory falling immediately from God's face upon ours, by standing near him and beholding him; you may take its glimpse and resemblance, from that glory which fell upon Moses's face, immediately from God's discourse with him. Our felicity above, is full union; members joined to their Head, according

to their full and mature conjunction, and so receiving all fully and only from the Head; hearing no other words but what Christ himself speaks; feeding upon no other sweetmeats but what Christ with his own hand gives about. Our felicity above is a communication and a reception without any intermediate agent; it is drinking at the well-head: more immediate it is springs bubbling up in the soul, an eternal life, to felicity; so, you know, doth Christ compare it.

Another property of light is this-it is immense Can you make a girdle for the sun? Can you span the light? or tell the house where it dwells? as God speaks to Job. His expressions are very high and noble; "Where is the way where light dwelleth," &c. "That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof," &c. Our felicity above is immense; that holy land has no bounds; there is more milk and honey than ever will be eaten. It is not flagons of love above, but seas which cannot be fathomed. All the work there is admiration, because none can find the bottom; not angels, those tallest spirits, can feel the bottom of that love, in which they have so long stood and so deeply waded. Our felicity above is as vast as God: it is only God; a Father with all his children in his arms; Christ manifesting forth his own glory, to make some as blessed as himself: it is mortality swallowed up of life; not only filled with felicity, but swallowed up. Here the soul swallows up every good, and looks for more, but is swallowed up of none; the soul is vaster than the things you put into it, so that nothing fills it, much less swallows it up. But our felicity above swallows up the vastest soul; there is every vessel filled, and swallowed up;

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every sense satisfied and swallowed up. This is not consistent here, but it is above. There is much within reach; as much within reach, as capacity to reach; and there is much beyond reach, for the soul to admire to all eternity, and this not as a lessening, but as a filling up of its own and others' felicity. Infinite swallows up finite; God is beyond the soul's capacity when vastest; therefore all are in an ecstasy above: not a soul in heaven, but in a

rapture.

Light is pure. The sun is without spot, so are all his beams, so is all the light of those beams. Light is the purest thing that man beholds; it has no defilement nor takes any, though nothing more general in its course; it is over all an unclean world, and yet without all uncleanness. Can ye dirt the light? Ye may defile yourselves in the light, but ye cannot defile the light. It is simple; corrupts not within itself, nor can any thing without it corrupt it. Our felicity above is pure. Heaven is a house without spider or spider's web; there is no dirt nor dust within door nor without; the very gates and streets are gold and pearls; " Pure gold," &c. If the city of Christ here below will be so, what will that city above be? Holy, holy, holy, is our felicity above; purity absolute: this is the sun that shines upon all there, and all there shine like this sun, with absolute purity. There is no sin above; not the least appearance of sin. Every spirit there moves steadily. Christ and the soul go exactly in one path. The nature of the place, and the nature of every one in it, fully suit, all divine; Christ and the soul all one. Here Christ and the soul are one in purity; "My undefiled is one," &c. that is, in simplicity and purity. But above they are all one. Here