Would they be here again for a thousand worlds? Or if
they were, would they be afraid that God would not make them
welcome? What would they judge of thee if they knew thy heart began
to fail thee in thy journey, or thy sins began to allure thee and to
persuade thee to stop thy race? Would they not call thee a thousand
fools, and say, O that he did but see what we see, feel what we
feel, and taste of the dainties that we taste of? O if he were one
quarter of an hour to behold, to feel, to taste, and enjoy but the
thousandth part of what we enjoy, what would he do? What would he
suffer? What would he leave undone? Would he favor sin? Would he
love this world below? Would he be afraid of friends, or shrink at
the most fearful threatenings that the greatest tyrants could invent
to give him? Nay, those who have had but a sight of these things by
faith, when they have been as far off from them as heaven from
earth, yet they have been able to say with a comfortable and merry
heart as the bird that sings in the spring, that this and more shall
not stop them from running to heaven. Sometimes when my base heart
hath been inclining to this world, and to loiter in my journey
towards heaven, the very consideration of the glorious saints and
angels in heaven hath caused me to rush forward--to disdain these
poor, low, empty, beggarly things, and say to my soul, Come soul,
let us not be weary; let us see what this heaven is; let us even
venture all for it, and try if that will quit the cost.
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