pursuing us! when shall we receive with joy and triumph, this King of
glory that is courting us daily, and is seeking access and entry into
our souls! Oh, why cry we not out in the height of the passion of
spiritual longing and desire, O come Lord Jesus, King of glory, with
thine own key, and open the door, and enlarge and dilate the chambers of
the soul, that thou may enter and be entertained as the King of glory,
with all thy glorious retinue, to the ennobling of my soul, and
satisfying of all the desires of that immortal spark? Why do we not
covet after this knowledge which hath a true and firm connexion with all
the best and truly divine gifts. O happy soul that is wasted and worn to
a shadow, if that could be, in this study and exercise, which at length
will enliven, and, as it were, bring in a new heavenly and spiritual
soul into the soul, so that it shall look no more like a dead
dis-spirited thing out of its native soil and element, but as a free,
elevated, and spiritualized spirit, expatiating itself and flying abroad
in the open air of its own element and country. O happy day, O happy
hour that is really and effectually spent in this employment! What would
souls, swimming in this ocean of pleasures and delights care for? Yea,
with what abhorrency would they look upon the bewitching allurements of
the purest kind of carnal delights, which flow from the mind's
satisfaction in feeding on the poor apprehensions, and groundlessly
expected comprehensions of objects, suited to its natural genius and
capacity? O what a more hyperbolical exceeding and glorious satisfaction
hath a soul in its very pursuings after (when it misseth and cannot
reach) that which is truly desirable! How doth the least glimpse through
the smallest cranie, of this glorious and glorifying knowledge of God in
Christ, apprehended by faith, raise up the soul to that pitch of joy and
satisfaction which the knowledge of natural things, in its purest
perfection, shall never be able to cause; and to what a surmounting
measure of this joy and contentation will the experiencing and feeling,