My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out of
darkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of
his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as many
as hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this
action? Is this one of thy ways, to raise strength out of weakness, to
make him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come home
to me, and in this sound give me the strength of healthy and vigorous
instructions? O my God, my God, what thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal,
what hoarseness, what harshness, is not a clear organ, if thou be
pleased to set thy voice to it? And what organ is not well played on if
thy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand, is in this sound, and in this
one sound I hear this whole concert. I hear thy Jacob call unto his sons
and say, _Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall
befall you in the last days_:[241] he says, That which I am now, you
must be then. I hear thy Moses telling me, and all within the compass of
this sound, _This is the blessing wherewith I bless you before my
death_;[242] this, that before your death, you would consider your own
in mine. I hear thy prophet saying to Hezekiah, _Set thy house in order,
for thou shalt die, and not live_:[243] he makes use of his family, and
calls this a setting of his house in order, to compose us to the
meditation of death. I hear thy apostle saying, _I think it meet to put
you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must go out of this
tabernacle_:[244] this is the publishing of his will, and this bell is
our legacy, the applying of his present condition to our use. I hear
that which makes all sounds music, and all music perfect; I hear thy Son
himself saying, _Let not your hearts be troubled_;[245] only I hear this
change, that whereas thy Son says there, _I go to prepare a place for
you_, this man in this sound says, I send to prepare you for a place,
for a grave. But, O my God, my God, since heaven is glory and joy, why
do not glorious and joyful things lead us, induce us to heaven? Thy
legacies in thy first will, in the Old Testament, were plenty and
victory, wine and oil, milk and honey, alliances of friends, ruin of
enemies, peaceful hearts and cheerful countenances, and by these
galleries thou broughtest them into thy bedchamber, by these glories and
joys, to the joys and glories of heaven. Why hast thou changed thine old
way, and carried us by the ways of discipline and mortification, by the
ways of mourning and lamentation, by the ways of miserable ends and
miserable anticipations of those miseries, in appropriating the exemplar
miseries of others to ourselves, and usurping upon their miseries as our
own, to our prejudice? Is the glory of heaven no perfecter in itself,
but that it needs a foil of depression and ingloriousness in this world,
to set it off? Is the joy of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it
needs the sourness of this life to give it a taste? Is that joy and that
glory but a comparative glory and a comparative joy? not such in itself,
but such in comparison of the joylessness and the ingloriousness of this
world? I know, my God, it is far, far otherwise. As thou thyself, who
art all, art made of no substances, so the joys and glory which are with
thee are made of none of these circumstances, essential joy, and glory
essential. But why then, my God, wilt thou not begin them here? Pardon,
O God, this unthankful rashness; I that ask why thou dost not, find even
now in myself, that thou dost; such joy, such glory, as that I conclude
upon myself, upon all, they that find not joys in their sorrows, glory
in their dejections in this world, are in a fearful danger of missing
both in the next.