TO the READER.

IT was the saying of a Servant of Christ, Every day a Christian spends on Earth, is a day lost in heaven; sure he meant it of the Place, not the Company, For what makes Heaven, but Ʋnion and Communion with God in Jesus Christ? Now this being attainable in this life what hinders but a Christian may live in heaven whilst he lives upon earth? Truly our Fellowship is with the Father, & with his Son Jesus Christ, 1 Job. 13. And our Conversation is in Heaven (saith another Apostle) Phil. 3. 20. And I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Gal. 2. 20. These were men on earth, subject to such infirmities as these are, yet lived in Hea∣ven; and there are yet in this declining, wanton, Christ-denying age, a Ge∣neration upon earth thus living, whose lives and graces, though hidden un∣der a mean out side, under many reproaches and infirmities, yet shine inward∣ly with the glory of Christ upon them, who though they be in the world, yet follow the Lord with a Spirit differing from the spirit of the world; and amongst these hidden ones of the Lord, this blessed man (the preacher of these Sermons, of whom the world was not worthy) was such a one, who whilst he was upon earth, lived in Heaven; and as thou maiest easily per∣ceive, the end and scope of these Sermons is, to winde up thy heart to the like frame and posture; viz. To take it off from perishing vani∣ties, and to set it upon that which is the real and durable substance: We see upon what weak shoulders the fair neck of all worldly pomp and glory now stands, and how the Lord is winding up, and putting an end to the glories of the Kingdoms of men, who have not contributed their strength and power to the advancing, but contrariwise, to the pulling down and ecclypsing of the glory of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ: Besides what the World tells us, never had any age by the works of providence, more examples laid before them of the worlds vanity, than in our daies; and there∣fore our hearts should s•t loose to all things that cannot stretch themselves to eternity: The Apostles reason is full of weight, It remains (saith he) that both they that have wives, be as though they had none, and they that weep, as though they wept not, and they that rejoyce, as though they rejoyced not, and they that buy, as though they possessed not, and they that use the world, as not abusing it; and this Exhortation he puts on by this Argument, The time is short, or as the word is, The remainder of our season is now folding up, as a sail or curtain into a narrow room: Time is short, and life shorter, and the end of all things is at hand, and we have greater things to minde, and to set our hearts upon. The Divinityy ofPage  [unnumbered]this holy mans spirit did much appear in this, that having much of the com∣fort that Earth could afford him, he still looked upon all Creatures Content∣ments with the eyes of a stranger, and on order to the raising up of his soul to a more holy, humble, serviceable, self denying walking with God. For him that injoyes little or nothing in the world, to speak much of the worlds vani∣ty and emptynesse and of taking the heart off that, the sweetness whereof he never possessed, is not so much, as when a man is surrounded with the con∣fluence of Creature-comforts, then by a Divine spirit to tread upon the neck of these things, and to be caught up into the third Heaven, bathing, solacing and satisfying it self with sweet and higher injoyments, with the more savory and cordial apprehensions it hath of Jesus Christ; this is some∣what like him that is made partaker of the Divine Nature, and that lives above the world in the injoyment of the world; so that now Reader thou hast these Sermons twice printed, once in the practice of this holy man, and now again in these papers which we present to thee in this preaching stile (though we confess things might have been more contracted) because we find this way more desired, more acceptable to his hearers, and if we mistake not, more working upon the affections, and more profitable to the greatest part of Christians. The Lord Jesus be with thy Spirit, and go along with these and all other his precious labors, to the furtherance of the joy of thy Faith, build∣ing thee up in the inner man, and directing thee in the way to thine eternal rest.