UPON a certain First-day, I being together with my brethren in our
prison-chamber, they expected that, according to our custom,
something should be spoken out of the word for our mutual
edification; but at that time I felt myself--it being my turn to
speak--so empty, spiritless, and barren, that I thought I should
not have been able to speak among them so much as five words of
truth, with life and evidence: but at last it so fell out that
providentially I cast my eye upon the 11th verse of the 21st chapter
of this prophecy of Revelation; upon which when I had considered
awhile, methought I perceived something of that Jasper, in whose
light you there find this holy city is said to come or descend:
wherefore, having got in my eye some dim glimmerings thereof, and
finding also in my heart a desire to see further thereinto, I, with
a few groans, did carry my meditation to the Lord Jesus for a
blessing. This he did forthwith grant, according to his grace; and
helping me to set before my brethren, we did all eat and were all
refreshed; and behold also, that while I was in the distributing of
it, it so increased in my hand that, of the fragments that we left
after we had well dined, I gathered up this basketful. Methought the
more I cast my eye upon the whole discourse, the more I saw lie in
it. Wherefore, setting myself to a more narrow search, through
frequent prayer to God--what first with doing, and then with
undoing, and after that with doing again--I thus did finish it.
But yet, notwithstanding all my labor and travail in this matter, I
do not, neither can I, expect that every godly heart should in every
thing see the truth and excellency of what is here discoursed;
neither would I have them imagine that I have so thoroughly viewed
this holy city, but that much more than I do here crush out is yet
left in the cluster. Alas, I shall only say thus: I have crushed out
a little juice to sweeten their lips withal; not doubting but in a
little time more large measures of the excellency of this city, and
of its sweetness and glory, will by others be opened and unfolded,
yea, if not by the servants of the Lord Jesus, yet by the Lord
himself, who will have this city builded and set in its own place.