3. Elevation, and often lifting up of the heart towards heaven. What Christian heart can endure to discontinue its sweet familiarity and humble intercourse with God for one day? Let thy broken heart, therefore, every day, besides solemn and ordinary ejaculations, evening and morning, and upon other special occasions, be sure, 1. To bathe itself deliciously in the blissful depths of God's boundless mercies in Christ, that it may be happily kept, spiritually joyful, thankful, and in love with all holy duties. 2. To kiss sweetly the glorified body of our crucified Lord, with the lips of infinitely dearest, and inexpressibly affectionate love,—though the distance be great, yet the hand of faith will bring them easily together,—that it may be preserved in peace, purity, and revengeful opposition unto sin. For, as the application of his meritorious blood is a sovereign remedy to heal the wounded conscience, to turn crimson and scarlet into snow and wool, so, methinks, a serious and compassionate commemoration of the dear effusion thereof should be both a precious corrosive to eat out the heart of corruption, and a special preservative to keep from sin, since sin was the principal in slaughtering the Lord of life. 3. To cast the eye of hope upon the glory, everlastingness, and unutterable excellences of that immortal, shining crown above, which, after this life, (and this life is but a bubble, a smoke, a shadow, a thought,) shall be set upon thy head by the hand of God; a very glimpse of the goodly splendour and enrapturing beauty whereof, is able both to sweeten the bitterest villanies and basest wrongs from the world and wicked men, and to dispel those mists of fading vanities and hurtful fumes of honours, riches, and earthly pleasures, which this great dunghill of the world, heated by the fire of inordinate lusts, is wont to evaporate, and interpose between the sight of men's souls and the bliss of heaven. [Robert Bolton]
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