"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am,
there ye may be also." - John 14:2-3
How shall I ever sufficiently enter into an apprehension of the love of
Jesus? Much less, how shall I ever sufficiently love thee, and adore
thee, thou unequalled pattern of excelling love, blessed, precious
Jesus? Was it not enough to have given such palpable evidences of thy
love in dying for poor sinners; but must thou tell them also before thy
departure the cause for which thou art gone away, and to give them an
assurance, at the same time, that thou wouldest come again, and take
them home with thee to glory? Oh help me, Lord, to love thee, to live
to thee, to be always on the lookout for thee, and to rejoice with a
joy unspeakable in the promise of thy coming. And, my soul, while thou
art taking all the sweetness of those precious words of thy Jesus to
thyself, in the prospect of his shortly coming to take thee to himself,
let them also have their full comfort under any bereaving providences
of thy friends. Wouldest thou regret if an earthly king had conceived
such a love to any friend of thine, that he had sent for him to advance
him to some high dignity, to make him his favorite, and to load him
with honours? Considered as to earthly accommodations, would this
advancement of some near and dear friend of thine be distressing to
thee, because thou wert to see him no more? Nay, would not the
generosity of the prince be highly extolled by thee; and more
especially if the messengers which came to fetch thy friend, brought
with them a promise, that, ere long, a royal guard would be sent to
take thee also, to live with thy friend forever, in the king's palace,
and under the king's eye, both enjoying the royal favour? But what
would all this fading, dying, perishing, and uncertain grandeur be, to
that which Jesus promiseth in these blessed words of the morning? And
hath Jesus taken any of thine home to his glory? Are they now at the
fountain head of blessedness, and art thou weeping over their
breathless remains? Raise up, my soul, thy thoughts from earth to
heaven. Hear the voice that speaks, "Blessed are the dead which die in
the Lord." Keep up the constant expectation of thine own call. Walk as
on the borders of the invisible world. And above all, so watch the
daily, hourly, visits of Jesus, by his grace, and enjoy the sweet
communion and fellowship in spirit, by which he now speaks to his
people, and they to him, that when Jesus draws back the curtain of thy
bed at death, and appears to thy ravished view in all his glory, thou
mayest leave the trembling body, and run to his embraces, crying out,
"My Lord, and my God."
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