to be always For to be always in Duration is such an intrinsical Denomination as springs from the greatest of all God's natural Perfections for it arises from the necessity of his Existence whereby he cannot but be which is the highest degree of Being as being directly opposite to not Being and consequently of Perfection But now to be every where seems rather an extrinsical Denomination relating to somewhat without and such as is not directly contrary to not Being but only to limited Being And if we ascribe the Greater to God why should there be any Controversy about the Less Taking therefore the Supposition for granted we may well consider God as a Being every where Essentially present and consequently as an All-seeing and All-knowing Being to whom all Hearts are open and all Desires known and from whom no Secrets are hid and not only as an idle Observer but as one that takes such strict Notice and Cognizance of what he sees and knows as to treasure and seal it up against the Day of Retribution and to Punish or Reward us accordingly These I take to be the several ways of setting God before us so as to reap any Spiritual advantage from it I come now in the Second place to represent the many and great advantages arising from each and what an excellent Art and Spiritual Expedient it is for Holy Living thus to set God always before us and truly the advantages are very great for as the Habitual Knowledge of God and the Belief of his Existence are the first and general Foundations of all Religion according to that of the Apostle He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him So the actual Consideration of him under these Capacities is highly conducive to the Promotior and Accomplishment of all Holiness and Vertue For First to begin with those advantages that naturally spring from the Consideration of God as the Supream Good what can be more excellent than the Love of God 'T is the highest Elevation of a Creature and withal the most pregnant and comprehensive of all the virtuous Dispositions he is capable of 'T is like the Flower or Blossom of a Plant which contains all in it and therefore our Saviour calls it the First and the Great Commandment But now what more effectual means can there be next to the Grace of him who is Essential Love and who as the Apostle tells us sheds the Love of God abroad in our Hearts I say what more effectual means can there be to kindle increase and keep alive in us this Heavenly and Divine Fire than to set God always before us as the Supream Good Can a Man consider any thing barely as Good and not love it when Love it self is nothing else but an Inclination of the Soul to Good He may indeed not proceed to chuse it because it may come into competition with a greater which when it does not the good but the absence of it is to be Chosen as being the lesser Evil but yet notwithstanding he must still love it with a natural Love as long as he considers it as in any degree good Much less then can a Man refuse to love God when he considers him not only as Good but as the Supream Good For here besides that natural inclination which necessarily follows upon the appearance of Good as Good there is this peculiar to be considered that there is no room for Competition with a greater Good and accordingly that natural Love and Inclination which is due to God as Good must needs pass into act and effectual Choice upon the consideration of his being the Supream Good The least degree of Love or Inclination must needs be actual and effectual when it has nothing to outweigh it as the least Weight weighs down the Scale where there is no contrary weight to counterballance and over-rule it He therefore that sets God always before him as the Supream Good and never thinks of him but under that Notion must necessarily and effectually love him as he that looks upon Sin as the greatest of all Evils must necessarily and effectually hate it For the Beauties of God are infinitely Charming and Attractive in themselves and there wants nothing but our serious and due Attention to make them become so to us and the more we apply our Attention to them the more we shall be in love with them What is it that makes the Seraphin burn and flame above the rest of the Angelical Orders but because they see more of the First and Supream Beauty Now as Love depends upon Vision in the other Life so does it upon Contemplation in this and consequently he that considers the infinite Perfection of God most must necessarily love him most Contemplation is the most proper and genuine incentive of Love wherever the Object is truly deserving of it as discovering to us the reasons why it ought to be loved I say where the Object is truly deserving of our Love for otherwise it will serve only to discover its Vanity and so lessen its amiableness which is the reason that the best way to cure our Love to the World is thoroughly to consider it But in case the Object be a true and real Good and such as will abide the Test of Meditation and endure to be weighed and handled on both sides the proper way to beget and increase our Love toward such an Object as this is studiously to Contemplate it and then the Light that is in our Understandings will beget a warmth in our Wills and Affections Experience as well as Reason may inform us that the way to love any thing that is truly good and will bear a near inspection is to look much upon it and consider it thoroughly since even the most indifferent Objects by long stay and dwelling upon them do by degrees so gain upon our Afflictions that we come at last to have a kind of a fancy and a kindness for them and many have gazed and stared upon an ordinary Face so long till they have entertained a more than ordinary Passion And if the meanest Beauty of the Creature by frequent and familiar interviews becomes at length so Lovely and Charming how much more shall the continual Meditation upon the Beauty of the Creator kindle in us a Love towards him and a Delight in him The longer certainly we sit thus under his Shadow the more we shall delight to do so and his Fruit will be the more sweet to our Taste And if the general Consideration of God has such influence upon our Love of him how much stronger will that influence be when we set him before us under the Notion and Capacity of the Supream Good And therefore when the Psalmist in a deep Contemplation of the Beauties of Christ had proceeded so sar as to conclude him fairer than the Children of Men as if wounded to the Heart with the Rays
accordingly upon the strength of this Conviction have gone out of the Circle of this World for their Happiness and have proposed to themselves the supream Good for their End and for the wisdom of this their Choice are stiled Children of Light Even these Men are chargeable with this strange Folly and it is here actually charged upon them by the eternal and substantial Wisdom of God in this his weighty Remark upon the Politick Stratagem of the unjust Steward The Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light In the Words there is something implied and something directly asserted 'T is implied 1. That there are a sort of Men who are Children of this World that is who make the Good of this World their End and seek no further for their Rest and Happiness 'T is implied again on the other side 2. That there are a sort of Men who are Children of Light who look beyond this Sphere of Vanity and black Vale of Misery and propose to themselves the Beatitudes of another Life as their true and last End and these our Lord calls Children of Light both from the Object of their Choice the Glories of Heaven being frequently represented in Scripture under the Symbol of Light and from their Wisdom in chusing it 'T is implied again 3. That the former of these notwithstanding the preference here given them do not act according to the measures of true Wisdom and therefore our Lord does not say absolutely that they are Wise but only that they are Wiser in their Generation 4. The thing directly asserted by our Lord is this That notwitstanding their want of true Wisdom that Wisdom which is from above they are however wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light That is that however they are befool'd in the Choice of their End yet they make more prudent Provisions for its Attainment and Security and prosecute it by more apt and agreeable Means and with greater Cunning and Diligence than they who have chosen a better do theirs And in this the Children of this World though great Fools are yet in their Generation in their way and manner Wiser than the Children of Light These I shall make distinct Subjects of Discourse to each of which I shall speak according to the present Order And first of all 't is implied that there are a sort of Men who are Children of this World who make the Good of this World their End and seek no further for their Rest and Happiness 'T is I confess strange that there should be any such considering that the World is no proper Boundary for the Soul even in its Natural Capacity much less in its Spiritual T is too cheap and inconsiderable a Good for an Immortal Spirit much more for a Divine Nature And therefore did not the Commonness of the thing take off from the Wonder 't would seem no doubt as great a Prodigy to see a Man make the World his End as to see a Stone hang in the Air. For what is it else for a Man the weight of whose Nature presses hard towards a stable and never failing Center to stop short in a fluid and yielding Medium and take up with the slender stays of Vanity and lean upon the Dream of a Shadow I say why is not this to be look'd upon as equally strange and preternatural as a Stone 's hanging in the Air Is not the Air as proper a Boundary for a Stone as the World is for a Soul And why then is not one as strange as the other For in the First place one would think it next to impossible that a Man who thinks at all should not consider frequently and thoroughly the vanity and emptiness of all Worldly Good the shortness and uncertainty of Life the certainty of Dying and the uncertainty of the Time when the Immortality of the Soul the doubtful and momentous Issues of Eternity the Terrours of Damnation and the Glorious things which are spoken and which cannot be uttered of the City of God These are Meditations so very obvious so almost unavoidable and that so block up a Mans way and besides they are so very important and concerning that for my part I wonder how a Man can think of any thing else And if a Man does consider and revolve these things one would think it yet more impossible that he should make so vain a thing as this World his End that he should think of Building Tabernacles of Rest on this side the Grave and say it is good to be here So that upon the whole matter were a Man put to the Question whether 't were possible that a Rational and Thinking Creature as Man is should be so far a Child of this World as to make the Good of it his End and seek no further for Rest and Happiness were a Man I say to consider this only in Notion and Theory without having any recourse to Observation and Experience he would go nigh to resolve the Question in the Negative and think it impossible that he who is capable of Chusing at all should Chuse so ill But whether 't is that Men do not heartily believe such a thing as a future state of Happiness and Misery or if they do that they do not actually and seriously consider it but suffer it to lye dormant and unactive within them and so are as little affected with it as if they did not believe it or that they look upon it through that End of the Perspective which respresents it as a great way off and so are more vigorously drawn by the Nearer though Lesser Loadstone or whatever other cause may be assigned for it we are too well assured from Experience that there are such Men in the World Men who going through the Vale of Misery use it not only as a Well to refresh and allay but fully to quench and satisfy their Thirst 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle Phrases it it who mind and relish Earthly things who make the Good of this World their last Aim the Sum total of their Wisbes the upshot of their Desires and Expectations their End Who love it as they are Commanded to love God with all their Heart Soul Mind and Strength who rest and lean upon the World with the whole stress and full weight of their Being who out-do the Curse of the Serpent and whose very Soul cleaves to the Dust. For I demand Is not the Interest of this Animal Life the great Governing Principle of the World Are not the Policies of the Statesman and the little Under-crasts of the Plebeian all put into Motion by this Spring and all guided and determined by this Measure Is not every thing almost reckoned Profitable only so far as it conduces to some Temporal Interest in so much that the very Name Interest is almost appropriated to Worldly Advantage And is not this the great Bias of Mankind Is not most of the Noise and
that special and excellent Portion of it Glory and Happiness If we consider it according to the former sense then to have our Conversation in Heaven will be to be perpetually mindful of our Mortality and that we are Citizens of another World and must shortly take our leave of this to have a constant prospect into that other World which must be our last Home and to be always looking beyond the Horizon of Time to the Long Day of Eternity to dwell in the Meditation of the Four last things Heaven Hell Death and Judgment how great they are in their Consequence how certain in the Event and how near in their Approach and in consideration of all this to be always preparing for our great and final Change But if we consider it according to the latter and stricter Sense then to have our Conversation in Heaven will be frequently to contemplate the Infinite Perfections of the Divine Essence the First of Beings and the Last of Ends and the unconceivable Happiness of those who shall enjoy the Communications of his Blessedness to Contemplate and have always in view that weight of Glory that incorruptible Crown with which the Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared no not to be mentioned To Meditate Day and Night upon that happy time when we shall be Partakers of Moses's Wish and be admitted to that intimate and naked Vision of that Mysterious and Incomprehensible Excellence which is too great for our Mortal Faculties and which none can See and Live When we shall see him not in Symbols and Figures not in Glories and sensible Manifestations but openly and clearly really and as he is and from seeing him be transformed into his Likeness To meditate upon the blessed Society of Saints and Angels upon the delicious repasts of Anthems and Alleluiahs and that more ravishing Harmony of Divine Love and intellectual Sympathy upon the elevated and raised Perfections of a glorified Soul the inlargements of its Understanding and the sublimations of its Will and Affections and upon the Angelical Clarity and Divine Temper of our Resurrection Body In sum upon all those glorious things which are spoken and which even he that saw them could not utter of the City of God and upon the infinite Consolations of that joyful Sentence Come ye Blessed of my Father Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World Lastly to contemplate all this not coldly and indifferently as a thing that is a great way off or as an uncertain Reversion or maginary Utopia but as a state that will shortly and certainly be and with that Faith and Assurance which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen to Dwell Converse and have our Civil Life in Heaven for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as if we were already Inhabitants of that Blessed Place and actual Members of that Sacred Policy and Community This is to have our Conversation in Heaven this is that Heavenly-Mindedness which the great Apostle who had personally conversed in the Third Heaven and seen there more than he could utter proposes to the imitation of his Followers and for which he esteemed himself fit to be an Example Which leads me to shew Secondly what a reasonable and becoming thing it is for a Christian thus to have his Conversation in Heaven and to convince him that it is so let him consider First That the other Life is the state we are chiefly intended for without respect to which there is nothing in this considerable enough to justify the Wisdom and Goodness of God in making the World that here we have no abiding City no durable concern and consequently what a folly 't is to let our Thoughts dwell where we but Sojourn our selves that this present state both by reason of its shortness and other Vanities is upon no other account considerable than as 't is an opportunity for and a Passage to the next that as it was not worth while for God to make it so neither is it for us to live in it if it were not in order and relation to something further that 't is a short Voyage and where the Haven lies always in sight that 't is the greatest short-sightedness imaginable not to see beyond so little a prospect as the Grave and the greatest stupidity and dotage to confine our Cares and Affections on this side of it if we do 'T is true indeed if there were no other state but the present 't would be our greatest Prudence to make as much of it as we could though 't were more vain and contemptible than 't is because 't is our All 't would then be as reasonable to have our Conversation on Earth as now 't is to have it in Heaven and the Epicure's Proverb would then be as Wise as any of Solomon's Let us Eat and Drink for to Morrow we Dye But since we are assured by him who brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel that there is another state and that our Death is but the beginning of a new and never to be ended Life this one would think should deserve and engross all our Thoughts and Affections our Meditations and Discourses and that we should be no more concerned with the things of this World than a Ghost is that only comes to do a Message of Providence and when his Errand is over vanishes and disappears Or if we did at any time condescend to interest our selves in the Affairs or lawful Entertainments of this Life methinks it should be only transiently and by the by as the Hungry Disciples pluck'd the Ears of Corn just to serve a present Necessity or as the Israelites ate the Passover in hast with our Loins girt our Shoes on our Feet and our Staff in our hand Secondly Let him consider that as the other state is the chief and proper state of Man so Heaven is the good and happiness of that state that 't is the true and natural Centre of our Rest our Home and Native Region that the Joys there are unspeakable and full of Glory such as the Senses of Man cannot tast such as his Understanding cannot at present conceive and such as it will never be able to comprehend Joys that are without example above experience and beyond imagination for which the whole Creation wants a Comparison we an Apprehension and even the Word of God a Revelation That Eternal Word of God which opened to us a Prospect of a future state and brought Life and Immortality to light yet he attempted not to give us a representation of the Heavenly Felicity but thought fit rather to cast that unexpressible Scene of Glory into a Shade For indeed to what purpose should the Son of God go about to reveal the Secrets of the Kingdom to us since if it were possible to describe it as it is yet 't is not possible for us to conceive it as
it is described but we must Dye and be Partakers of it before we can either understand it or indure it this therefore would be a Revelation without a Discovery a Revelation which he himself only could understand another Sealed Book which none but himself would be able to open Since then Heaven is a Place of such transcendent Glory and Happiness as our present Faculties are not fine enough to conceive not strong enough to bear what can be more reasonable and becoming than that we who are now journying in the Wilderness towards this our Heavenly Canaan where is our Portion and our Inheritance should have our constant Conversation there by holy Contemplations and devout Affections that so according to our Saviour's Argument where our Treasure is there our Heart may be also For what can be either a more noble or a more concerning Object for an Human Soul to Contemplate than its last end and sovereign Happiness when all its Changes and Revolutions shall cease all its Appetites be satisfied and nothing further to be expected but a most delightsome continuation of the same endless circle of Felicity Certainly one would think that what will so wholly take up and ingage the Soul when she comes to enjoy it should be thought worthy to employ her best Thoughts now as undoubtedly it would did we firmly and heartily believe it And therefore Thirdly Consider that we have no other way of approving the sincerity and heartiness of our Faith concerning Heaven and Happiness but by having our Conversation there for so great and glorious things are spoken of the City of God that 't is not morally possible that a Man should be heartily perswaded of the truth of them and yet not to have the main current of his Thoughts and Affections run in that Chanel How is it possible that a Man should believe such great things and yet not have his Thoughts dwell upon them Some things indeed may be very little questioned and yet as little thought of because their Moment and Importance carries no proportion to their Truth they are Realities but Trisles But sure the things we now speak of are too concerning if true not to be frequently and seriously considered If once we are thoroughly perswaded of their Truth and Reality their own concernment and importance will be enough to recommend them to our most inward and recollected Thoughts and Meditations and therefore for my part when I see Men plunge themselves into the depths of Sensuality and Worldly Interests as if they never meant to rise again to love the World as they are commanded to love God with all their Heart Mind Soul and Strength to have no serious Thoughts and Remembrances of Heaven or Heavenly things but to set up their Tabernacles and say 't is good to be here I must conclude and they may think me uncharitable if they please that whatever they pretend they do not heartily and seriously believe there is any such place as Heaven for if they did considering the vast importance of the thing it would certainly have a greater share of their Contemplations and a larger room in their Hearts And this very thing our Saviour intimates in his Reprehension of the immoderate Carers for the World These things says he the Gentiles seek those who have no Revelation to assure them of a better and more induring Substance Having no certainty of the future they make the most of the present and in so doing act in some measure according to their Principles But seek ye first the Kingdom of God ye that have a Revelation of a nobler end and of a far more excellent state do you apply your selves principally to that or else you will not act like your selves and may justly be suspected of not Believing that Revelation which the others want Fourthly Consider that as the having our Conversation in Heaven is an argument and test of our Faith so is it also of our Resurrection with Christ and our Spiritual Life the Connexion is made by the Apostle If ye be then risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the Right Hand of God set your Affections on things above and not on things of the Earth for ye are Dead c. In which Discourse 't is evident that the Apostle does not only exhort to Heavenly-Mindedness as a Christian Duty but makes it also a certain Mark and Argument of Spiritual Life and Resurrection The Marks and Signs of Grace have made a great part of some Mens Divinity and they are generally such as do not want for Latitude and Comprehensiveness to be sure they contrived their business so as to take in themselves and their own Party But certainly there is not a more notorious Criterion whereby to distinguish the prevalency either of the Animal or of the Divine Life than to consider how the Moral Tast and Relish that which the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Boniform faculty of the Soul stands affected 'T is a shrewd Symptom of an ill habit of Body when the Tast comes to be so vitiated as to delight to feed upon Trash and unwholsom things and so 't is in the state of the Mind the Animal and Sensualized Man as he does not Perceive so neither does he Relish the things of God they have no congruity with that Life and Sense that is most invigorated and awaken'd in him and therefore he prefers his Husks and Acorns before the hidden Manna and the Food of Angels But he who is born of that incorruptible Seed mentioned by St. Peter and in whom the Divine Life is most excited he having his Spiritual Senses well disposed and exercised finds a particular gust in Divine things contracts his Affections upon Heaven and Happiness looks upon all inferiour good as dry and insipid and is ready to say with the Psalmist One thing have I desired of the Lord even that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my Life to behold the fair Beauty of the Lord and to visit his Temple This is the Desire this is the Relish of a Spiritually disposed Soul of a Soul that is dead to the World and alive unto God the Sum of all which is briefly comprized in that of the Apostle They that are after the Flesh do mind or as the Word also signifies do relish the things of the Flesh and they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit This is a short and compendious but a very great Test of Spiritual Life and that whereby we may distinguish a vital Sense of Religiou from a formal Profession of it Fifthly and Lastly Consider that one great end of our Saviour's Ascending into Heaven in his Human Nature was that we Christians might have our Conversation there in order to which end the Ascension of Christ has a double Influence First as a Rational Motive and Secondly as a Moral Emblem First as a
Rational Motive for since the Ascension of our Saviour into Heaven adds new Supplements of support to our Hopes of arriving thither his Ascension being a Pledge and Pattern of ours it must needs at the same time fan the Flame of our Affections and make them tend upwards with importunate reaches towards Heavenly Objects For this is a Maxim which Experience as well as Philosophy has stamped for truth that the more our Hope of any good is established the more our Desires after it are increased and that nothing sooner cools the Fever of the Affections than Despair of Fruition Whence it follows that the Ascension of Christ by adding further incouragement to our Hopes becomes a Rational Motive to us to refine and elevate our Affections and to have our Conversation in that Heaven of our Interest in which the Ascension of Christ in our Nature is so convincing an Assurance Secondly As a Moral Emblem the whole course of our Saviour's Actions tends to our instruction and admonishment and though some of them were never intended to be copied out in kind as being set above the Sphere of our imitation yet they are not so far out of our reach but that they point out to us some resembling Excellence and may be imitated though not literally yet in Figure and Mystery Of this kind are the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord for although with him we cannot as yet loosen the bands of Death and break the Prison of the Grave yet we can now in some sense rise with him from the Death of Sin to newness of Life and are by his Resurrection not only inabled but also admonished to do so And altho as to his Bodily Ascension as our Lord told St. Peter we cannor follow him now yet we can in some sense ascend with him by a passionate elevation of our Thoughts and Affections and are also mystically invited to do the latter from the Contemplation of the former The Local and Bodily Ascension of Christ calls for a Moral and Spiritual Ascent If I be lifted up from the Earth I will draw all Men unto me said our Lord in reference to his Crucifixion How much more powerful then ought this Consideration to be in reference to his Ascension for it cannot be said of him now what was then when his Beauty was benighted under a Cloud that there is no Form nor Comeliness in him that we should desire him for now are the Mists scattered before the prevailing Sun he shines forth in his full Glory and Triumph yea he is now altogether Lovely Now therefore may the Pious and Seraphick Soul bear up her self upon the wings of Contemplation Love and Desire and follow her Ascending Lord where the Eyes of the wondring Apostles were forced to leave him and say in the Words of Elisha to his departing Master as the Lord liveth and as thy Soul liveth I will not leave thee and blessed is he that hath part in this first Ascension for over him the Second Death shall have no Power And thus have I shewn by several Considerations what a reasonable and becoming thing it is for a Christian to have his Conversation in Heaven but it will appear yet much more so if we consider in the Third and Last place the great uses and advantages of such a Heavenly dispensation of Life and they are many but I shall consider only some of the most remarkable of them First This is a most excellent expedient to beget and confirm in us the contempt of the World and of all those Pomps and Vanities of it which we renounced in our Baptism this is a mighty thing and a thing that has been essayed by several methods as by Monastick ingagements by retiring into Cloisters and Deserts by Vows of Poverty and the like But these are rather Natural than Moral ways of forsaking the World and 't is considerable that our Saviour in his last Intercession for his Disciples prays not that they should be taken out of the World but delivered from the evil of it The best way to forsake the World is to do it in Heart and Affection and the most effectual means to do this is by conversing in the other World This indeed may be done by a serious Contemplation of the powers of external Nature and of the capacities of our own by comparing which two together we may be satisfied of the Vanity and insufficiency of all Worldly Objects to the purposes of Content and Happiness And this was the course that Solomon took to convince himself and others of the Worlds Vanity But besides that this is a long way about and a way that requires a great deal of Time and a great deal of Experience and a great deal of Meditation and Reflection it is also a Method fit only for finer and more elevated Spirits those of a Contemplative Genius and of a Nice Discernment But to Converse in Heaven is a more compendious and easy Method to contemn the lower World more practicable to the common fort and those that cannot in the other way Dispute and Demonstrate may however in this be sensibly convinced of the Vanity of the World The Earth to us that dwell upon it seems a Body of considerable Magnitude but to one that should take a view of it from one of the higher Orbs 't would appear but as a Point The same indeed might be demonstrated upon Mathematic Principles but every one is not capable of doing that and such an high rais'd prospect would save the trouble And so 't is in the case before us this World considered alone may perhaps carry with it a specious and goodly Appearance and he that does so consider it will need Reason and Argument to convince him of its Vanity but 't is but to converse a little in the other World and take a view of it from thence and 't will all without any more ado shrink almost into nothing And therefore 't was not without reason that the Divine Philosopher stiled Philosophy the Theory of Death for certainly the Contemplation of the other state is the most compendious way to true Philosophy the Contempt of the World far beyond all the ways of Reason or Discourse all the rigid and mortifying lectures of Stoicism And accordingly I observe that the Author to the Hebrews says of Abraham that by Faith he Sojourned in the Land of Promise as in a strange Country dwelling in labernaoles And the reason of his doing so more expresly follows for he look'd for a City which has Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God so that this was that which drew off Abraham's Affections from the Land of Promise because by Faith he had a Prospect of a far better Country and had his Conversation in Heaven Secondly This is the best Remedy to support us under the Evil of this present Life as it lessens the good so it lessens the evil of it too and will serve to support us under