The View Of The Misery

Lord, Stamp Eternity On My Eyeballs.

It Is God’s Will Through His Wonderful Grace, That The Prayers Of His Saints Should Be One Of The Great Principal Means Of Carrying On The Designs Of Christ’s Kingdom In The World. When God Has Something Very Great To Accomplish For His Church, It Is His Will That There Should Precede It The Extraordinary Prayers Of His People; As Is Manifest By Ezekiel 36:37. And It Is Revealed That, When God Is About To Accomplish Great Things For His Church, He Will Begin By Remarkably Pouring Out The Spirit Of Grace And Supplication (see Zechariah 12:10).

I Claim No Right To Myself, No Right To This Understanding, This Will, These Affections That Are In Me. Neither Do I Have Any Right To This Body Or Its Members, No Right To This Tongue, To These Hands, Feet, Ears Or Eyes. I Have Given Myself Clear Away And Not Retained Anything Of My Own.

If The Heart Be Chiefly And Directly Fixed On God, And The Soul Engaged To Glorify Him, Some Degree Of Religious Affection Will Be The Effect And Attendant Of It. But To Seek After Affection Directly And Chiefly; To Have The Heart Principally Set Upon That; Is To Place It In The Room Of God And His Glory. If It Be Sought, That Others May Take Notice Of It, And Admire Us For Our Spirituality And Forwardness In Religion, It Is Then Damnable Pride; If For The Sake Of Feeling The Pleasure Of Being Affected, It Is Then Idolatry And Self-gratification.

That There Should Absolutely Be Nothing At All Is Utterly Impossible. The Mind, Let It Stretch Its Conceptions Ever So Far, Can Never So Much As Bring Itself To Conceive Of A State Of Perfect Nothing.