But on the other hand, how must the fense of his Presence with and Obfervation of us, animate us with Courage and Refolution to furmount the Difficulties and hardships of our Spiritual warfare, and adminifter Pleasure in the discharge even of the most painful and laborious Duties? How muft this enable us, when we are befet with the most violent Temptations, Faithfully and Bravely to exert our felves in oppofition to them and to go through the utmost uneafiness of a Strenuous Refiftance? With what Joy muft our holy Exercifes be attended, when we withdraw our felves from the World, and pour out our Souls before him in Devotion, whilft we are not only affured that he is with us, but also feel and are Satisfied with the Delights of his Prefence? When we refufe to comply with the vicious customs of the world, and fuffer the utmost Vexations, Reproaches and Injuries for fo doing, yet even in these we can take a pleafure, under a Senfe of his Approbation and Favour, and under a firm perfuafion, that not the least of our Sufferings for his Truth and Righteousness fake is unregarded, but all are Ff 2 faithfully

XII. faithfully noted in the book of his Remembrance, and will be amply rewarded in the day of Retribution.

4thly, The Belief of God's Omniprefence is the Source of Confolation in that time of Preffing Neceffity and Distress, when there is no Room for any Comfort but what Religion fupplies, the Great and Solemn hour of Death. They who are near to Diffolution, and have therefore finally paffed through all the Seafons and all Poffibility of Temporal Comfort, must needs be Sollicitous and Jealous and Sufpicious concerning the Important Events of the Soul's Separation from the Body; But all this uneafiness is at once prevented by the Thoughts of God's Omniprefence, if our lives have but been fuitable to our Belief of it. Satan is in Scripture ftyled the Prince of the Power of the Air; And it hath been an antient opinion, that, being thus placed in these lower regions, he is permitted to seize upon the Souls of wicked men as foon as ever they are separated from the Body, and to hurry them into Torment. But this opinion it felf cannot moleft us, in that Thoughtful and Bufy

and Shocking hour, if a Belief of this Attribute be firmly rooted and established in us. For the Prince of the Power of the Air cannot exercise any Dominion over us, or offer any violence to us, when the Almighty himself is present with our fouls, and will effectually defend us from the fury of the Destroyer. The Holy Scripture teacheth, that when the Body returns to the Earth from whence it came, the Spirit returns into the Hands of God that gave it. We fhall then have no Occafion to be follicitous for the Condition of the Soul after its Separation, fince God who made it receives it Immediately from the Body, and dispofes of it accordingly. 'Tis incumbent upon us now to confider and revolve these things with Attention, and to render them familiar to our minds, because That final Period will quickly come upon every one of us, when we cannot avoid being follicitous and intense about them, and shall find, that there is nothing elfe worthy of being revolved or regarded.

5thly and Laftly, The Belief of God's Omniprefence should convince us, that

the

the Fruition of him in Heaven must be attended with Unfpeakable Glory and Delight. It must be a neceffary Con-fequence, that if God's Effence be unlimited and infinite, the full Manifeftation of it must be most Highly Glorious and Delightful; And That full Manifeftation of it is referved for us in Heaven. Now our Affent to the Divine Presence is grounded upon the Effects of it, and the Revelations of it in Holy Scripture. But That, which is now the Object of our Faith, will Then become the Object of our Sight. Though our Minds, fhaded and veil'd, and darkned by our Bodies, cannot at prefent conceive how That is, yet undoubtedly Spirits have a clear Perception and Knowledge of one another, and Perfect Entercourfe and Communications with one another; And even, as to our future Knowledge of the Infinite Spirit, God himself, we are taught that we shall know him even as alfo we are known. How we fhall be rendred capable of the Beatifick Vifion, we cannot tell, God knoweth; .But we are pofitively affured, that we fhall fee him as he is. As our Sight is now the great Means of

our fulleft Apprehenfions and clearest Conceptions; Therefore, when the Scriptures teach that we fhall fee God as he is, they mean that we shall have the most Clear, and full and perfect Knowledge, the most intire Perception of the Immenfity, as well as of the other Excellencies and Perfections of his Being. When we now fet our felves to Think where God exifted before there was any fuch Thing as Place, according to our Prefent Notions of Place, our Minds are Confused, and utterly astonished and oppreffed under the Weight of the Contemplation: But, in the future State, wherein our Minds fhall be refined and Inlarged into a Capacity of feeing God as he is, This Great Mystery fhall be Unfolded, and the Thoughts of it, in which we have been amazed and loft Before, fhall clear up and become Distinct and Adequate, and Unfpeakably Tranfporting, in That Glorious Eternal Day, wherein we shall be admitted into That Glorious Inacceffible Light in which God dwells, and to which no Man upon Earth, not a Prophet, nor an Apostle could ever Approach; for in his Light Shall we fee Light. And how