A farther APPEAL To MEN of REASON and RELIGION. (continued 2)

What effect then has this heavy visitation of God, on those who lie under it for any time? There is perhaps, an exception here and there; but in general, they are abandoned to all wickedness, utterly divested of all fear of God, and all reverence to man; insomuch, that they commonly go out of that school compleatly fitted for any kind or degree of villany, perfectly brutal and devilish, thoroughly furnished for every evil word and work.

30. Are our countrymen more effectually reclaimed, when danger and distress are joined? If so, the army, especially in time of war, must be the most religious part of the nation. But is it so indeed? Do the soldiery walk as those who see themselves on the brink of eternity? Redeeming every opportunity of glorifying God, and doing good to men, because they know not the hour in which their Lord will require their souls of them? So far from it, that a soldier’s religion is a by-word, even with those who have no religion at all; that vice and prophaneness in every shape reign among them without controul; and that the whole tenor of their behaviour speaks, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

Have those who are exposed to still more danger, the English sea-forces, more religion than those at land? It is said they were once remarkable for this: and it is certain Sir Francis Drake feared God, as did most of his commanders; and we have reason to believe, his marines and sailors too. But what shall we say of the navy that now is, more particularly of the ships of war? Is religion there? Either the power or the form? Is not almost every single man of war a mere floating hell? Where is there to be found more consummate wickedness, a more full, daring contempt of God, and all his laws, except in the bottomless pit? But here description fails: and the goodness of God endureth yet daily! But shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? O that the prospect of national judgments may suffice! That we may remember ourselves, and turn unto the Lord our God, before his long-suffering mercy is at an end, and he pours out the vials of his wrath upon us!

But how small ground have we as yet to hope for this? For who will now suffer the word of exhortation? How few will endure sound doctrine, and the honest, close application of it? Do they not say unto the seers, see not; and unto the prophets, prophesy smooth things? And if a man will do thus, if he will sew pillows to all arm-holes, and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them; if he will prophesy of wine and strong drink, he shall even be the prophet of this people.

31. I am sensible, how nice a subject this is, and how extremely difficult it is so to speak, as neither to say too little nor too much, neither more nor less than the cause of God requires. I know also, that it is absolutely impossible, so to speak as not to give offence. But whosoever is offended, I dare not to be silent; neither may I refrain from plainness of speech: only I will endeavour to use all the tenderness I can consistently with that plainness.

In tender love then I ask, are there none among us (I speak to you, my brethren, who are priests and prophets of the Lord, set apart to minister in holy things, and to declare the word of the Lord) Are there none among us who commit lewdness, as did those by whom Israel was defiled? Hath not the Lord seen an horrible thing, in some of the prophets of this land also, even, that they commit adultery, and (to conceal it) walk in lies? God forbid that I should affirm this. I only propose (not maintain) the question. If there be such a wretch, I pray God to strike him to the heart, and to say, Thou art the man!

Are there none of you, like them, mighty to drink wine, men of strength to mingle strong drink? Yea, are there none, that err through strong drink, that are swallowed up of wine? Are there not found those who say, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink: and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant?

* Alas, my brother! Is this the voice of a minister of Christ? A steward of the mysteries of God? Suppose you find at any time trouble and heaviness, is there no help for you in your God? Is not the God whom you serve able to deliver you from any plague or trouble? Is the being drunk with wine a better relief, than the being filled with his Spirit? Do you not understand this? Do you not know the Lord? Take heed you do not destroy both your own soul and them that hear you! O beware! If you know not his love, fear his power! Make haste to flee from the wrath to come, lest he smite you with a curse great as your sin, and sweep you away from the face of the earth.

32. Can such as you be said, to honour or fear God, any more than those spoken of by Malachi? May not God complain, These priests have violated my law and prophaned my holy things? Yea, whensoever you presume with those unhallowed hands, to touch the mysteries of God: whensoever you utter his name or his word with those unhallowed lips! But is it on this account only that God may say, Both prophet and priest are prophane? May he not add, they have put no difference between the holy and prophane; therefore I am prophaned among them. For is it not so? Do you put a difference between the holy and prophane, him that feareth God, and him that feareth him not? Do you put an effectual difference between them, even in the most solemn office of our religion? At the table of the Lord, do you take care to separate the precious from the vile? To receive all those who (as you may reasonably believe) draw near with penitent hearts and lively faith, and utterly to reject those who testify against themselves, that they are without hope and without God in the world?

Nay, who dares repel one of the greatest men in his parish from the Lord’s table? Even tho’ he be a drunkard or a common swearer? Yea tho’ he openly deny the Lord that bought him? Mr. Stonhouse did this once. But what was the event? The gentleman brought an action against him, for the terror of all such insolent fellows, in succeeding times.

33. O my brethren, is it not for want of your making this difference, as well as for many other abominations that with regard to some among us, (how many God knoweth) that scripture is now also fulfilled. His watchmen are blind, they are ignorant, they are shepherds that cannot understand.—The Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed their eyes; the prophets and the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed.

If you ask what those other abominations are? I will speak, in love and in the spirit of meekness. There are found among us covetous men, men who mind earthly things, who seek themselves and not Christ crucified, who love the world, and the things of the world: men in whom these words are still fulfilled, Who is there among you that would shut the doors for nought? Neither do ye kindle fire on my altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you saith the Lord of hosts. Yea, are there not those at this day, (O that I might be found to fear where no fear is!) who make themselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel? Are there not those, who now enlarge their desire as hell, who are as death and cannot be satisfied? Who, though they want neither food to eat nor raiment to put on, yet seek more and more preferment? Who are continually studying to join house to house, and to lay field to field? To grow rich in the service of that Master, who himself had not where to lay his head? Is it not to these that those dreadful words belong, enough to cause the ears of him that heareth to tingle, They are greedy dogs which never can have enough; they all look to their own way, (not the way of their Lord) every one for his gain, from his quarter.

Is it strange, if among these there should be some, who are cruel, oppressive men? Inasmuch as covetousness knows no mercy, nor can a lover of money be a lover of his neighbour. Have not some been known even to grind the face of the poor? To strip, rather than cloath the naked? Some, who while they cried out, as the horse-leech, Give, give, would take, if it was not given; like those of old who said, Thou shalt give it me now, and if not, I will take it by force: or those spoken of by Micah, The prophets bite with their teeth, and cry peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. Very great is the sin of these men before the Lord. If there be ten such now in the land, may God smite them this day with terror and astonishment, that they may have no rest in their bones till their sin is done away!

34. Are you as watchful and zealous to gain souls, as those are to gain the gold that perisheth? Do you know by experience what that meaneth, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up? Or are you one of those watchmen who do not watch at all? Who neither know nor care when the sword cometh? Of whom the prophet saith, They are dumb dogs that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

* Can it be supposed, that such shepherds will feed the flock? Will give to every one his portion of meat in due season? Will these warn every man, and exhort every man, that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus? Will they take care to “know all their flock by name, not forgetting ♦the men-servants and women-servants?” Will they enquire into the state of every soul committed to their charge? And watch over each with all tenderness and long-suffering, as they that must give account? Marking how they either fall or rise? How these wax weary and faint in their mind; and those grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Who can do this, unless his whole heart be in the work? Unless he desire nothing but to spend and be spent for them; and count not his life dear unto himself, so he may present them blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Can any shepherd do this (and if he do not, he will never give any account with joy) who imagines, he has little more to do, then to preach once or twice a week? That this is the main point, the chief part of the office, which he hath taken upon himself before God? What gross ignorance is this? What a total mistake of the truth? What a miserable blunder touching the whole nature of his office? It is indeed a very great thing, to speak in the name of God; it might make him that is the stoutest of heart tremble, if he considered, that every time he speaks to others, his own soul is at stake. But great, inexpressibly great as this is, it is perhaps the least part of our work. To seek and save that which is lost, to bring souls from Satan to God, to instruct the ignorant, to reclaim the wicked, to convince the gainsayer; to direct their feet into the way of peace, and then keep them therein; to follow them step by step, least they turn out of the way, and advise them in their doubts and temptations; to lift up them that fall, to refresh them that are faint, and to comfort the weak-hearted; to administer various helps, as the variety of occasions require, according to their several necessities: these are parts of our office; all this we have undertaken at the peril of our own soul. A sense of this made that holy man of old cry out, “I marvel if any ruler in the church shall be saved;” and a greater than him say, in the fulness of his heart, who is sufficient for these things?

34. But who is not sufficient for these things, for the taking care of a parish, though it contain twenty thousand souls, if this implies no more than the taking care to preach there, once or twice-a-week; and to procure one to read prayers on the other days, and do what is called the parish duty? Is any trade in the nation so easy as this? Is not any man sufficient for it, without any more talents either of nature or grace, than a small degree of common understanding? But O! what manner of shepherds are those, who look no farther into the nature of their office, who sink no deeper into the importance of it than this! Were they not such as these concerning whom the word of the Lord came unto Ezekiel, saying, Woe be to the shepherds that feed themselves: should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye cloathe you with the wool; but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken; neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost――And they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became meat to all the beasts of the field. Yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

I conjure you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, who hath bought them and ♦us with his own blood, apply this each to his own soul. Let every man look unto God, and say, “Lord, Is it I? Am I one of these idle, careless, indolent shepherds, that feed myself, not the flock? Am I one that cannot bark, slothful, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber? One of those who have not strengthened that which was diseased, neither healed that which was sick! Search me, O Lord, and prove me; try out my reins and my heart. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

35. “Have I not, at least, healed the hurt of thy people slightly? Have I not said, Peace, peace, when there was no peace?”—How many are they also that do this? Who do not study to speak what is true, especially to the rich and great, so much as what is pleasing? Who flatter honourable sinners, instead of telling them plain, How can ye escape the damnation of hell? O what an account have you to make, if there be a God that judgeth the earth? Will he not require at your hands the blood of all these souls, of whom ye are the betrayers and murderers? Well spake the prophets of your fathers, in whose steps ye now tread. They have seduced my people, and one built up a wall, and another daubed it with untempered mortar. They strengthen the hands of the evil-doers, that none doth return from his wickedness. They prophesy lies in my name saith the Lord. They say unto them that despise me, ye shall have peace, and unto them that walk after the imagination of their own heart, no evil shall come upon you.

How great will your damnation be, who destroy souls, instead of saving them? Where will you appear, or how will you stand, in that great and terrible day of the Lord! How will ye lift up your head, when the Lord descends from heaven, in flaming fire, to take vengeance on his adversaries! More especially on those who have so betrayed his cause, and done Satan’s work under the banner of Christ! With what voice wilt thou say, “Behold me, Lord, and the sheep whom thou hadst given me, whom I gave to the devil, and told them they were in the way to heaven, till they dropped into hell?”

Were they not just such shepherds of souls as you are concerning whom God spake by Jeremiah, Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot; they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness: By Ezekiel, There is a conspiracy of her prophets, like a roaring lion, ravening the prey, they have devoured souls: And by Zechariah, Thus saith the Lord, feed the flock of the slaughter, whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty; and they that sell them say, blessed be the Lord, for I am rich; and their own shepherds pity them not.

* 36. Is not this the real ground, the principal reason of the present contempt of the clergy? And long since was it assigned as such, by him who cannot lie. The same men of old, who made the Lord’s people to transgress, thereby made themselves vile. They were despised both as the natural effect, and the judicial punishment of their wickedness. And the same cause the prophet observes to have produced the same effect, many hundred years after this. Ye are departed out of the way saith the Lord; ye have caused many to stumble—therefore have I also made you contemptible, and base before all the people.

I have now, brethren, delivered mine own soul and in so doing, I have (as I proposed at first) used great plainness of speech, as not studying to please men, but the Lord. The event I leave to him in whose name I have spoken, and who hath the hearts of all men in his hand.

I have brought you heavy tidings this day, and yet I cannot but be persuaded, that some of you will not count me your enemy, because I tell you the truth. O that all of us may taste the good word which we declare! May receive that knowledge of salvation, which we are commanded to preach unto every creature, thro’ the remission of sins! My heart’s desire is, that all of us to whom is committed the ministry of reconciliation, may ourselves be reconciled to God, thro’ the blood of the everlasting covenant: that he may be henceforth unto us a God, and we may be unto him a people: that we may all know as well as preach, the Lord, from the least unto the greatest: even by that token, I am merciful to thy unrighteousness: thy sins I remember no more!

III. 1. I have hitherto spoken more immediately to those, who profess themselves members of the church of England. But inasmuch as I am a debtor also to those who do not, my design is now, to apply to them also; and briefly to shew, wherein (I fear) they are severally inconsistent with their own principles.

I begin with those who are at the smallest distance from us, whether they are termed Presbyterians or Independents. Of whom in general I cannot but have a widely different opinion, from that I entertained some years ago: as having since then conversed with many among them, in whom the root of the matter is undeniably found; and who labour to keep a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward man. I cannot therefore doubt, but every serious man, of either one or the other denomination, does utterly condemn all that inward as well as outward unholiness, which has been above described.

But do you, as a people, avoid what you condemn? Are no whoremongers or adulterers found among you? No children disobedient to their parents? No servants that are slothful or careless? That answer again? That do not honour their masters as is meet in the Lord? Are there none among you that censure or speak evil of the ruler of their people? Are there no drunkards, no gluttons, no luxurious men, no regular epicures, none whose belly is their God, who, as their fortune permits, fare sumptuously every day? Have you no dishonest dealers, no unfair traders, no usurers, or extortioners? Have you no liars, either for gain, or for good manners, so called? Are you clear of ceremony and compliment? Alas, you are sensible, in most if not all these respects, you have now small ♦pre-eminence over us.

How much more sensible must you be of this, if you do not rest on the surface, but enquire into the bottom of religion, the religion of the heart? For, what inward unholiness, what evil tempers are among us, which have not a place among you also? You likewise bewail that ignorance of God, that want of faith and of the love of God and man, that inward idolatry of various kinds, that pride, ambition and vanity, which rule in the hearts even of those who still have the form of godliness. You lament before God, the deep covetousness that eats so many souls as doth a gangrene; and perhaps are sometimes ready to cry out, help, Lord, for there is scarce one godly man left. Lay to thine hand: for the faithful are minished from the children of men!

2. And yet you retain the truth that is after godliness, at least, as to the substance of it. You own what is laid down in scripture, both touching the nature and condition of justification and salvation. And with regard to the author of faith and salvation, you have always avowed, even in the face of your enemies, that it is God which worketh in us, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure: that it is his Spirit alone who teacheth us all things, all we know of the deep things of God: that every true believer has an unction from the Holy One to lead him into all necessary truth: that because we are sons, God sendeth forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father; and that this Spirit, beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

How is it then, my brethren (so I can call you now, although I could not have done it heretofore;) how is it, that the generality of you also are fallen from your stedfastness? In the times of persecution ye stood as a rock, tho’ all the waves and storms went over you. But who can bear ease and fulness of bread! How are you changed, since these came upon you! Do not many of you now (practically I mean) put something else, in the room of faith that worketh by love? Do not some of you suppose that gravity and composedness of behaviour, are the main parts of Christianity? Especially, provided you neither swear, nor take the name of God in vain. Do not others imagine, that to abstain from idle songs, and those fashionable diversions commonly used by persons of their fortune, is almost the whole of religion? To which if they add family prayer, and a strict observation of the sabbath, then doubtless all is well! Nay my brethren, this is well, so far as it goes: but how little a way does it go toward Christianity? All these things, you cannot but see, are merely external; whereas Christianity is an inward thing; without which the most beautiful outward form is lighter than vanity.

Do not others of you rest in conviction? Or good desires? Alas, what do these avail? A man may be convinced he is sick, yea deeply convinced, and yet never recover. He may desire food, yea with earnest desire, and nevertheless perish with hunger. And thus I may be convinced I am a sinner; but this will not justify me before God. And I may desire salvation (perhaps by fits and starts, for many years) and yet be lost for ever. Come close then to the point, and keep to your principles. Have you received the Holy Ghost; the Spirit which is of God, and is bestowed by him on all believers, that we may know the things which are freely given to us of God? The time is short. Do you experience now that unction from the Holy One? Without which you confess outward religion, whether negative or positive is nothing. Nay, and inward conviction of our wants is nothing, unless those wants are in fact supplied. Good desires also are nothing, unless we actually attain what we are stirred up to desire. For still, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, whatever he desires, he is none of his. O my brother, beware you stop not short! Beware you never account yourself a Christian, no not in the lowest degree, till God hath sent forth the Spirit of Christ into your heart, and that Spirit bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God.

3. One step farther from us, are you who are called (though not by your own choice) Anabaptists. The smallness of your number, compared to that of either the Presbyterians, or those of the church, makes it easier for you to have an exact knowledge of the behaviour of all your members, and to put away from among you every one that walketh not according to the doctrine you have received.

But is this done? Do all your members adorn the gospel? Are they all holy as he which hath called us is holy? I fear not. I have known some instances to the contrary; and doubtless you know many more. There are unholy, outwardly unholy men, in your congregations also: men that prophane either the name or the day of the Lord; that do not honour their natural or civil parents; that know not how to possess their bodies in sanctification and honour; that are intemperate, either in meat or drink, gluttonous, sensual, luxurious; that variously offend against justice, mercy or truth, in their intercourse with their neighbour, and do not walk by that royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

But how is this consistent with your leading principle, “That no man ought to be admitted to baptism, till he has that repentance whereby we forsake sin, and living faith in God, through Christ?”

For if no man ought to be admitted into a church or congregation, who has not actual faith and repentance, then neither ought any who has them not, to continue in any congregation. And consequently an open sinner cannot remain among you, unless you practically renounce your main principle.

4. I refer it to your own serious consideration, whether one reason, why unholy men are still suffered to remain among you, may not be this; that many of you have unawares put opinion in the room of faith and repentance? But how fatal a mistake is this? Supposing your opinion to be true, yet a true opinion concerning repentance is wholly different from the thing itself. And you may have a true opinion concerning faith all your life and yet die an unbeliever.

Supposing therefore the opinion of particular redemption true, yet how little does it avail toward salvation? Nay, were we to suppose, that none can be saved who do not hold it, it does not follow, that all will be saved who do. So that if the one proved a man to be in ever so bad a state, the other would not prove him to be in a good one. And consequently, whosoever leans on this opinion, leans on the staff of a broken reed.

Would to God that ye would mind this one thing, To make your own calling and election sure! That every one of you (leaving the rest of the world to him that made it) would himself repent and believe the gospel! Not repent alone (for then you know only the baptism of John) but believe and be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Are you still a stranger to that inward baptism, wherewith all true believers are baptized? May the Lord constrain you to cry out, How am I straitened till it be accomplished! Even till the love of God inflame your heart, and consume all your vile affections. Be not content with any thing less than this! It is this loving faith alone which opens our way into the general church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven! Which giveth us to enter within the veil, where Jesus our fore-runner is gone before us!

5. There is a still wider difference in some points, between us and the people usually termed Quakers. But not in these points. You, as well as we, condemn all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men; all those works of the devil which were recited above, and all those tempers from which they spring.

You ♦agree, That we are all to be taught of God; and to be led by his Spirit: that the Spirit alone reveals all truth, and inspires all holiness: that by his inspiration men attain perfect love, the love which purifies them as he is pure: and that through this knowledge and love of God, they have power to do always such things as please him; to worship God, a Spirit, according to his own will, that is, in spirit and in truth.

Hence you infer, That formal worship is not acceptable to God, but that alone that springs from God in the heart: you infer also, that they who are led by him, will use great plainness of speech, and great plainness of dress, seeking no outward adorning, but only the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.

I will look no farther now, than simply to ♦enquire, Whether you are consistent with these principles?

To begin with the latter: “He that is led by the Spirit will use great plainness of speech.”

* You would have said, “will use the plain language.” But that term leads you into a grand mistake. That term, “the plain language,” naturally leads you to think of one particular way of speaking; as if plainness of speech implied no more, than the use of that particular form.

* Alas! my brethren! Know ye not, that your ancestors designed this, only as a specimen of plain language? And is it possible that you should mistake the sample for the whole bale of cloth?

Consult the light God has given you, and you must see that plainness of speech does not lie in a single point, but implies an open, undisguised sincerity, a child-like simplicity in all we speak.

* I do not desire you to refrain from saying thou or thee. I would not spend ten words about it. But I desire you whenever you speak at all, to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth. I desire your words may always be the picture of your heart. This is truly plain language.

* Either do not pretend to plain speech at all, or be uniformly plain. Are you so? I pray, consider. Do you never compliment? I do not suppose you say, “Sir, your very humble servant.” But do you say no civil things? Do you never flatter? Do you not commend any man or woman to their face? Perhaps farther than you do behind their back. Is this plainness of speech? Do you never dissemble? Do you speak to all persons, high or low, rich or poor, just what you think, neither more nor less, and in the shortest and clearest manner you can? If not, what a mere jest is your plain language? You carry your condemnation in your own breast.

6. You hold also, That “he which is led by the Spirit, will use great plainness of dress, seeking no outward adorning, but only the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.”

And that, in particular, “he will leave gold and costly apparel, to those who know not God.”

* Now I appeal to every serious, reasonable man among you, Do your people act consistently with this principle? Do not many of your women wear gold upon their very feet? And many of your men use ornaments of gold? Are you a stranger to these things? Have you not seen with your eyes (such ♦trifles as will scarce bear the naming) their canes and snuff-boxes glitter, even in your solemn assembly, while ye were waiting together upon God? Surely, they are not yet so lost to modesty, as to pretend, that they do not use them by way of ornament. If they do not, if it be only out of necessity, a plain oaken stick will supply the place of the one, and a piece of horn or tin will unexceptionably answer all the reasonable ends of the other.

* To speak freely (and do not count me your enemy for this) you cannot but observe upon cool reflection, that you retain just so much of your antient practice, as leaves your present without excuse; as makes the inconsistency between the one and the other, glaring and undeniable. For instance: this woman is too strict a Quaker, to lay out a shilling in a necklace. Very well; but she is not too strict to lay out fourscore guineas in a repeating watch. Another would not for the world wear any lace, no, not an edging round her cap. But she will wear point; and sees no harm in it at all, though it should be of twelve times the price. In one kind of apron or handkerchief she dares not lay out twenty shillings; but in another sort, lays out twenty pounds. And what multitudes of you are very jealous, as to the colour and form of your apparel, (the least important of all the circumstances that relate to it) while in the most important, the expence, they are without any concern at all? They will not put on a scarlet or crimson stuff, but the richest velvet, so it be black or grave. They will not touch a coloured ribband; but will cover themselves with a stiff silk from head to foot. They cannot bear purple: but make no scruple at all of being cloathed in fine linen: yea, to such a degree, that the linen of the Quakers is grown almost into a proverb.

Surely you cannot be ignorant, that the sinfulness of fine apparel, lies chiefly in the expensiveness. In that it is robbing God and the poor: it is defrauding the fatherless and widow; it is wasting the food of the hungry, and with-holding his raiment from the naked, to consume it on our own lusts.

7. Let it not be said, that this affects only a few among you, and those, of the younger and lighter sort. Yes it does; your whole body: for why do you, who are elder and graver, suffer such things? Why do ye not vehemently reprove them? And if thy repent not, in spite of all worldly considerations, expel them out of your society? In conniving at their sin, you make it your own; you, especially who are preachers. Do you say, “They cannot bear it; they will not hear:” Alas, into what state then are ye fallen! But whether they will bear it or not, what is that to thee? Thou art to speak, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. To say the very truth, I am afraid, you rather strengthen their hands in their wickedness. For you not only ¹do not testify against it in the congregation, but even sit at their table and reprove them not. Why then, thou also art one of the dumb dogs that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

¹ You say, “You do testify against it in the congregation.” Against what? “Against gay and gaudy apparel.” I grant it. But this is not the thing I speak of. You quite mistake my mark. Do you testify against the costliness of their apparel, however plain and grave it may be? Against the price of the velvet, the linen, the silk, or raiment of whatever kind? If you do this frequently and explicitly, you are clear. If not, own and amend the fault.

It is easy to discern how your people fell into this snare of the devil. You were at first a poor, despised, afflicted people. Then, what some of you had to spare, was little enough to relieve the needy members of your own society. In a few years you increased in goods, and were able to relieve more than your own poor. But you did not bestow all that you had to spare from them, on the poor belonging to other societies. It remained either to lay it up, or to expend it in superfluities. Some chose one way, and some the other.

* Lay this deeply to heart, ye who are now a poor, despised, afflicted people. Hitherto ye are not able to relieve your own poor. But if ever your substance increase, see that ye be not straitened in your own bowels, that ye fall not ♦into the same snare of the devil. Before any of you either lay up treasures on earth, or indulge needless expence of any kind, I pray the Lord God to scatter you to the corners of the earth, and blot out your name from under heaven!

I fix this charge upon every preacher, in particular, who saw a young woman, daughter to one of the Quakers in London, going to be married in apparel suitable to her diamond buckle, which cost a hundred guineas. Could you see this, and not call heaven and earth to witness against it? Then I witness against thee, in the name of the Lord, thou art a blind leader of the blind: thou strainest a gnat and swallowest a camel!

Verily the sin both of teachers and hearers, is herein exceeding great. And the little attempts toward plainness of apparel, which are still observable among you (I mean, in the colour and form of your cloaths, and the manner of putting them on) only testify against you, that you were once what you know in your hearts you are not now.

8. I come now to your main principle, “We are all to be taught of God, to be inspired and led by his Spirit. And then we shall worship him, not with dead form, but in spirit and in truth.”

These are deep and weighty words. But many hold fast the words, and are utterly ignorant of their meaning. Is not this an exceeding common case? Are not you conscious, abundance of your friends have done so? With whom the being taught of God and led by his Spirit, are mere words of course, that mean just nothing. And their crude and indigested accounts, of the things they did not understand, have raised that deep prejudice against these great truths, which we find in the generality of men.

Do some of you ask, “But dost thou acknowledge the inward principle?” I do, my friends: and I would to God every one of you acknowledged it as much. I say, all religion is either empty shew, or perfection by inspiration; in other words, The obedient love of God, by the supernatural knowledge of God: yea, all that which is not of faith is sin; all which does not spring from this loving knowledge of God; which knowledge cannot begin, or subsist one moment, without immediate inspiration: not only all public worship, and all private prayer, but every thought, in common life, and word and work. What think you of this? Do you not stagger? Dare you carry the inward principle so far? Do you acknowledge it to be the very truth? But alas! what is the acknowledging it? Dost thou experience this principle in thyself: What saith thy heart? Does God dwell therein? And doth it now eccho to the voice of God? Hast thou the continual inspiration of his Spirit, filling thy heart with his love, as with a well of water, springing up into everlasting life?

* 9. Art thou acquainted with the leading of his Spirit, not by notion only, but by living experience? I fear very many of you talk of this, who do not so much as know what it means. How does the Spirit of God lead his children, to this, or that particular action? Do you imagine, it is by blind impulse only? By moving you to do it, you know not why? Not so. He leads us by our eye, at least as much as by the hand; and by light as well as by heat. He shews us the way wherein we should go, as well as incites us to walk therein. For example. Here is a man ready to perish with hunger. How am I led by the Spirit to relieve him? First, by his convincing me, it is the will of God I should, and secondly by his filling my heart with love toward him. Both this light and this heat are the gift of God; are wrought in me by the same Spirit: who leads me, by this conviction as well as love, to go and feed that man. This is the plain, rational account of the ordinary leading of the Spirit. But how far from that which some have given!

* Art thou thus led by the Spirit to every good word and work? Till God ♦hath thereby made thy faith perfect? Dost thou know what faith is? It is a loving, obedient sight of a present and reconciled God. Now where this is, there is no dead form; neither can be, so long as it continues. But all that is said or done is full of God, full of Spirit and life and power.

10. But perhaps, as much as you talk of them, you do not know the difference between form and Spirit; or between worshipping God in a formal way, and worshipping him in spirit and in truth.

The Lord is that Spirit. The seeing and feeling and loving him is spiritual life. And whatever is said or done in the sight or love of God, that is full of spirit and life. All beside this is form, mere dead form; whether it be in our public addresses to God, or in our private; or in our worldly business, or in our daily conversation.

* But if so, how poor and mean and narrow have your views and conceptions been! You was afraid of formality in public worship. And reason good. But was you afraid of it no where else? Did not you consider, that formality in common life, is also an abomination to the Lord? And that it can have no place in any thing we say or do, but so far as we forget God? O watch against it in every place, every moment, that you may every moment see and love God: and consequently, at all times and in all places, worship him in Spirit and in truth.

My brethren, permit me to add a few words, in tender love to your souls. Do not you lean too much on the spirit and power which you believe rested upon your forefathers? Suppose it did! Will that avail you, if you do not drink into the same spirit? And how evident is this! That whatever you once were, ye are now shorn of your strength. Ye are weak and become like other men. The Lord is well nigh departed from you. Where is now the spirit, the life, the power? Be not offended with my plain dealing, when I beseech you who are able to weigh things calmly, to open your eyes and see multitudes even in the church, pursuing, yea and attaining the substance of spiritual life, and leaving unto you the shadow. Nay a still greater evil is before you: for if ye find not some effectual means to prevent it, your rising generation will utterly cast off the shadow as well as the substance.

11. There is an abundantly greater difference still, according to your own account, between us who profess ourselves members of the church of England, and you who are members of the church of Rome. But notwithstanding this, do you not agree with us in condemning the vices above recited? Prophaneness, drunkenness, whoredom, adultery, theft, disobedience to parents, and such like? And how unhappily do you agree with us in practising the very vices which you condemn?

And yet you acknowledge (nay and frequently contend for this with a peculiar earnestness) that every Christian is called to be zealous of good works, as well as to deny himself and take up his cross daily. How then do you depart from your own principles, when you are gluttons, drunkards or epicures? When you live at your ease, in all the elegance and voluptuousness of a plentiful fortune! How will you reconcile the being adorned with gold, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day, with the denying yourself and taking up your cross daily? Surely while you indulge the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, the excellent rules of self-denial that abound in your own writers, leave you of all men most inexcusable.

12. Neither can this self-indulgence be reconciled, with the being zealous of good works. For by this needless and continual expence, you disable yourself from doing good. You bind your own hands. You make it impossible for you to do that good which otherwise you might. So that you injure the poor in the same proportion as you poison your own soul. You might have cloathed the naked; but what was due to them, was thrown away on your costly apparel. You might have fed the hungry, entertained the stranger, relieved them that were sick or in prison. But the superfluities of your own table swallowed up that whereby they should have been profited. And so this wasting of thy Lord’s goods, is an instance of complicated wickedness; since hereby thy poor brother perisheth, for whom Christ died.

I will not recommend to you either the writings or examples of those whom you account hereticks, (although some of these, if you could view them with impartial eyes, might provoke you to jealousy.) But O! that God would write in your hearts the rules of self-denial and love, laid down by Thomas a Kempis! Or that you would follow both in this and in good works, that burning and shining light of your own church, the Marquis de Renty! Then would all who know and loved the Lord rejoice to acknowledge you as the church of the living God: when ye were zealous of every good word and work; and abstained from all appearance of evil: when it was hereby shewn that you were filled with the Holy Ghost, and delivered from all unholy tempers: when ye were all unblameable and unrebukable, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, shewing forth to all Jews, infidels and hereticks, by your active, patient, spotless love of God and man, the praises of him, who had called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

13. Men and brethren, Children of the seed of Abraham, suffer me to speak a few words to you also; you who do not allow, that Messiah the Prince is already come and cut off. However you so far hear Moses and the prophets, as to allow, 1. That it is the inspiration of the Holy One, which giveth man understanding, and that all the true children of God are taught of God. 2. That the substance both of the law and the prophets, is contained in that one word, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself. ♦3. That the sure fruit of love is obedience, ceasing from evil, and doing good.

And do you walk by this rule? Have you yourselves that inspiration of the Holy One? Are you taught of God? Hath he opened your understanding? Have you the inward knowledge of the most High? I fear not. Perhaps you know little more, even of the meaning of the words than a Mahometan.

Let us go a little farther. Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength? Can you say, Whom have I in heaven but thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee? Do you desire God at all? Do you desire to have any thing to do with him, till you can keep the world no longer? Are you not content, so you enjoy the good things of earth, to let God stand afar off? Only calling upon him now and then, when you cannot well do without him. Why then you do not love God at all, tho’ you will sometimes condescend to use him. You love the world. This possesses your heart. This therefore is your God. You renounce the God of your fathers, the God of Israel; you are still uncircumcised in heart. Your own conscience bears witness, you in this no more hear Moses and the prophets, than you do Jesus of Nazareth.

14. From Moses and the prophets it has been shewn, that your forefathers were a faithless and stubborn generation; a generation which set not their hearts aright, and whose spirit cleaved not stedfastly unto God. And this you acknowledge yourselves. If you are asked, how is it that the promise is not fulfilled? Seeing the scepter is long since departed from Judah, why is not Shiloh come? Your usual answer is, “because of the sins of our fathers, God hath delayed his coming.” Have you then reformed from the sins of your fathers? Are you turned unto the Lord your God? Nay, do ye not tread in the same steps? Bating that single point of outward idolatry, what abomination did they ever commit, which you have not committed also? Which the generality of you do not commit still, according to your power? If therefore the coming of the Messiah was hindered by the sins of your forefathers, then by the same rule, your continuance therein will hinder his coming to the end of the world.

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God is, that he would gather the outcasts of Israel. And I doubt not, but when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, then all Israel shall be saved. But mean time, is there not great cause that ye should say with Daniel, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and unto all Israel. O Lord, we have sinned, we have rebelled against thee, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God. Yet O our God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations; for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord hear! O Lord forgive! O Lord, hearken and do! Defer not, for thine own sake; for thy city and thy people that are called by thy name.

15. I cannot conclude without addressing myself to you also, who do not admit either the Jewish or Christian revelation. But still you desire to be happy. You own the essential difference between vice and virtue; and acknowledge, (as did all the wiser Greeks and Romans) that vice cannot consist with happiness. You allow likewise that gratitude and benevolence, self-knowledge and modesty, mildness, temperance, patience and generosity, are justly numbered among virtues; and that ingratitude and malice, envy and ill-nature, pride, insolence and vanity, gluttony and luxury, covetousness and discontent, are vices of the highest kind.

Now let us calmly enquire, how far your life is consistent with your principles.

* You seek happiness. But you find it not. You come no nearer it with all your labours. You are not happier than you was a year ago. Nay, I doubt you are more unhappy. Why is this, but because you look for happiness there, where you own it cannot be found? Indeed, what is there on earth which can long satisfy a man of understanding? His soul is too large for the world he lives in. He wants more room.

Æstuat infelix augusto limite Mundi,

Ut brevibus clausus Gyaris, parvaque seripho.

He has already travelled through all which is called pleasure; diversions and entertainments of every kind. But among these he can find no enjoyment of any depth; they are empty, shallow, superficial things: they pleased for a while, but the gloss is gone: and now they are dull and tasteless. And what has he next? Only the same things again; for this world affords nothing more. It can supply him with no change. Go, feed again: but it is upon one dish still. Thus

Occidit miseros crambe repetita.

Yet what remedy under the sun!

* 16. The sounder judgment, the stronger understanding you have, the sooner are you sated with the world. And the more deeply convinced, all that cometh is vanity; foolish, insipid, nauseous. You see the foibles of men in so much clearer a light, and have the keener sense of the emptiness of life. Here you are, a poor, unsatisfied inhabitant of an unquiet world; turning your weary eyes on this side and on that side: seeking rest, but finding none. You seem to be out of your place: neither the persons nor things that surround you are such as you want. You have a confused idea of something better than all this; but you know not where to find it. You are always gasping for something which you cannot attain, no, not if you range to the uttermost parts of the earth.

But this is not all. You are not only negatively unhappy, as finding nothing whereon to stay the weight of your soul; but positively so, because you are unholy: you are miserable, because you are vicious. Are you not vicious? Are you then full of gratitude to him, who giveth you life and breath, and all things? Not so; you rather spurn his gifts, and murmur at him that gave them. How often has your heart said, God did not use you well? How often have you questioned either his wisdom or goodness? Was this well done? What kind of gratitude is this? It is the best you are master of. Then take knowledge of yourself. Black ingratitude is rooted in your inmost frame. You can no more love God, than you can see him; or than you can be happy without that love.

Neither (how much soever you may pique yourself upon it) are you a lover of mankind. Can love and malice consist? Benevolence and envy? O do not put out your own eyes. And are not these horrid tempers in you? Do not you envy one man, and bear malice or ill-will to another? I know you call these dispositions by softer names; but names change not the nature of things. You are pained that one should enjoy what you cannot enjoy yourself. Call this what you please, it is rank envy. You are grieved, that a second enjoys even what you have yourself; you rejoice in seeing a third unhappy. Do not flatter yourself: this is malice, venomous malice, and nothing else. And how could you ever think of being happy, with malice and envy in your heart? Just as well might you expect to be at ease, while you held burning coals in your bosom.

17. I intreat you to reflect, whether there are not other inhabitants in your breast, which leave no room for happiness there. May you not discover, through a thousand disguises, pride? Too high an opinion of yourself? Vanity, thirst of praise, even (who would believe it?) of the applause of knaves and fools? Unevenness or sourness of temper? Proneness to anger or revenge? Peevishness, fretfulness, or pining discontent? Nay, perhaps even covetousness.—And did you ever think, happiness could dwell with these? Awake out of that senseless dream. Think not of reconciling things incompatible. All these tempers are essential misery. So long as any of these are harboured in your breast, you must be a stranger to inward peace. What avails it you, if there be no other hell? Whenever these fiends are let loose upon you, you will be constrained to own,

“Hell is where’er I am: myself am hell;”

And can the supreme Being love those tempers, which you yourself abhor in all but yourself? If not, they imply guilt as well as misery. Doubtless they do. Only enquire of your own heart. How often in the mid career of your vice have you felt a secret reproof, which you knew not how to bear, and therefore stifled as soon as possible?

18. And did not even this point at an hereafter? A future state of existence? The more reasonable among you have no doubt of this; you do not imagine the whole man dies together: although you hardly suppose the soul, once disengaged, will dwell again in an house of clay. But how will your soul subsist without it? How are you qualified for a separate state? Suppose this earthly covering, this vehicle of organized matter, whereby you hold commerce with the material world, were now to drop off! Now, what would you do in the regions of immortality? You cannot eat or drink there. You cannot indulge either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life. You love only worldly things; and they are gone, fled as smoke, driven away for ever. Here is no possibility of sensual enjoyments; and you have a rellish for nothing else. O what a separation is this, from all that you hold dear! What a breach is made, never to be healed!

But beside this, you are unholy: full of evil tempers: for you did not put off these with the body. You did not leave pride, revenge, malice, envy, discontent behind you, when you left the world. And now you are no longer cheared by the light of the sun, nor diverted by the flux of various objects: but those dogs of hell are let loose to prey upon your soul, with their whole, unrebated strength. Nor is there any hope, that your spirit will now ever be restored to its original purity; not even that poor hope of a purging fire, so elegantly described by the Heathen poet some ages before the notion was revived among the doctrines of the Romish church

—Aliæ tenduntur inanes

Suspensæ ad ventos; aliis sub gurgite vasto

Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni—

Donec longa dies, exacto temporis orbe,

Concretam exemit labem, purumque reliquit

Æthereum sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem.

19. What a great gulph then is fixed between you and happiness, both in this world and that which is to come? Well may you shudder at the thought! More especially when you are about to enter on that untried state of existence. For what a prospect is this, when you stand on the verge of life, ready to launch out into eternity? What can you then think? You see nothing before you. All is dark and dreary. On the very best supposition, how well may you address your parting soul in the words of dying Adrian:

“Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing,

Must we no longer live together?

And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,

To take thy flight thou know’st not whither?

Thy pleasing vein, thy hum’rous folly

Is all neglected, all forgot;

And pensive, wavering, melancholy,

Thou hop’st, and fear’st thou know’st not what.”

“Thou know’st not what!” Here is the sting, suppose there were no other. To be thou knowest not what? * Not for a month, or year, but thro’ the countless ages of eternity! What a tormenting uncertainty must this be? What racking unwillingness must it occasion, to exchange even this known vale of tears, for the unknown valley of the shadow of death?

“And is there no cure for this?” Indeed there is an effectual cure; even the knowledge and love of God. There is a knowledge of God which unveils eternity, and a love of God which endears it. That knowledge makes the great abyss visible; and uncertainty vanishes away. That love makes it amiable to the soul, so that fear has no more place! But the moment God says, by the welcome angel of death, “Come thou up hither!” She

“Claps the glad wing and towers away,

And mingles with the blaze of day.”

20. See ye not, what advantage every way, a Christian has over you? Probably the reason you saw it not before was, because you knew none but nominal Christians; men who professed to believe more (in their way of believing) but had no more of the knowledge or love of God than yourselves. So that with regard to real, inward religion, you stood upon even ground. And perhaps in many branches of outward religion, the advantage was on your side.

May the Lord, the God of the Christians, either reform these wretches, or take them away from the earth! That lay this grand stumbling-block in the way of those who desire to know the will of God!

O ye who desire to know his will, regard them not! If it be possible, blot them out of your remembrance.

They neither can nor will do you any good. O suffer them not to do you harm. Be not prejudiced against Christianity by those who know nothing at all of it. Nay, they condemn it, all real substantial Christianity; they speak evil of the thing they know not. They have a kind of cant word for the whole religion of the heart. They call it enthusiasm.

I will briefly lay before you the ground of the matter, and appeal to you yourselves for the reasonableness of it.

* 21. What a miserable drudgery is the service of God, unless I love the God whom I serve? But I cannot love one whom I know not. How then can I love God till I know him? And how is it possible I should know God, unless he make himself known unto me? By analogy or proportion? Very good. But where is that proportion to be found? What proportion does a creature bear to his Creator? What is the proportion between finite and infinite?

I grant, the existence of the creatures demonstratively shews the existence of their Creator. The whole creation speaks, that there is a God. But that is not the point in question. I know there is a God. Thus far is clear. But who will shew me what that God ♦is? The more I reflect the more convinced I am, that it is not possible for any of all the creatures, to take off the veil which is on my heart, that I might discern this unknown God; to draw the curtain back which now hangs between, that I may see him which is invisible.

This veil ♦or flesh now hides him from my sight. And who is able to make it transparent! So that I may perceive through this glass, God always before me, till I see him face to face.

I want to know this great God who filleth heaven and earth: who is above, beneath, and on every side, in all places of his dominion; who just now besets me behind and before, and lays his hand upon me. And yet I am no more acquainted with him, than with one of the inhabitants of Jupiter or Saturn.

O my friend, how will you get one step farther, unless God reveal himself to your soul?

22. And why should this seem a thing incredible to you? That God, a Spirit, and the Father of the Spirits of all flesh, should discover himself to your spirit, which is itself the breath of God, Divinæ Particula Auræ? Any more than that material things should discover themselves to your material eye. Is it any more repugnant to reason, that spirit should influence spirit, than that matter should influence matter? Nay, is not the former the more intelligible of the two? For there is the utmost difficulty in conceiving, how matter should influence matter at all: how that which is totally passive should act. Neither can we rationally account either for gravitation, attraction, or any natural motion whatsoever, but by supposing in all the finger of God, who alone conquers that vis inertiæ, which is essential to every particle of matter, and worketh all in all.

Now if God should ever open the eyes of your understanding, must not the love of God be the immediate consequence? Do you imagine you can see God without loving him? Is it possible in the nature of things? Si virtus conspiceretur occulis, said the old Heathen, mirabiles amores excitaret sui. How much more if you see him who is the original fountain, the great archetype of all virtue, will that sight raise in you a love that is wonderful, such as the gay and busy world know not of!

23. What benevolence also, what tender love to the whole of human kind, will you drink in, together with the love of God, from the unexhausted source of love? And how easy is it to conceive, that more and more of his image will be then transfused into your soul? That from disinterested love, all other divine tempers will, as it were naturally, spring? Mildness, gentleness, patience, temperance, justice, sincerity, contempt of the world; yea, whatsoever things are venerable and lovely, whatsoever are justly of good report.

And when you thus love God and all mankind, and are transformed into his likeness, then the commandments of God will not be grievous; you will no more complain, that they destroy the comforts of life. So far from it, that they will be the very joy of your heart; ways of pleasantness, paths of peace! You will experience here that solid happiness, which you had elsewhere sought in vain. Without servile fear or anxious care, so long as you continue on earth, you will gladly do the will of God here, as the angels do it in heaven. And when the time is come that you should depart hence, when God says, “Arise and come away,” you will pass with joy unspeakable out of the body, into all the fulness of God.

* Now does not your own heart condemn you, if you call this religion enthusiasm? O leave that to those blind zealots, who tack together a sett of opinions and an outside worship, and call this poor, dull, lifeless thing, by the sacred name of Christianity. Well might you account such Christianity as this, a mere piece of empty pageantry, fit indeed to keep the vulgar in awe, but beneath the regard of a man of understanding.

But in how different a light does it now appear? If there be such a religion as I have sketched out, must not every reasonable man see, there is nothing on earth to be desired in comparison of it?—But if any man desire this, let him ask of God: he giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.

24. May you not ask, quite consistently with your principles, in some manner resembling this;

O thou Being of beings, thou cause of all, thou seest my heart; thou understandest all my thoughts. But how small a part of thy ways do I understand! I know not what is above, beneath, on every side. I know not my own soul. Only this I know, I am not what I ought to be. I see and approve the virtue which I have not. I do not love thee, neither am I thankful. I commend the love of mankind; but I feel it not. Thou hast seen hatred, malice, envy in my heart. Thou hast seen anger, murmuring, discontent. These uneasy passions harrow up my soul. I cannot rest, while I am under this yoke. Nor am I able to shake it off, I am unhappy, and that thou knowest.

Have compassion upon me, thou whose years do not fail! On me, who have but a short time to live. I rise up, and am cut down as a flower. I flee as it were a shadow. Yet a little while, and I return to dust, and have no more place under the sun.

Yet I know thou hast made my soul to live for ever. But I know not where; and I am unwilling to try. I tremble, I am afraid to go thither, whence I shall not return. I stand quivering on the edge of the gulph; for clouds and darkness rest upon it. O God! Must I go always “creeping with terrors, and plunge into eternity with a peradventure!”

O thou lover of men, is there no help in thee? I have heard (what indeed my heart cannot ♦conceive) that thou revealest thyself to those that seek thee, and pourest thy love into their hearts: and that they who know and love thee, walk through the shadow of death and fear no evil. O that this were so! That there was such an unspeakable gift, given to the children of men! For then might I hope for it. O God, if there be, give it unto me! Speak that I may see thee! Make thyself known unto me also in the manner that thou knowest! In any wise let me know thee and love thee, that I may be formed after thy likeness! That I may be love, as thou art love; that I may now be happy in thee; and when thou wilt, fall into the abyss of thy love, and enjoy thee through the ages of eternity!