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.

Church-fellowship.

It is the ordinance of God, that Christians should be often asserting the things of God to each other; and that by their so doing, they should edify one another.

The doctrine of the gospel is like the dew and the small rain, that distilleth upon the tender grass, wherewith it doth flourish and is kept green.

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have upon each of them the dew of heaven; which being shaken with the wind, let fall their dew at each other’s roots, whereby they are jointly nourished and become nourishers of one another.

Church-fellowship, rightly managed, is the glory of all the world.  No place, no community, no fellowship is adorned and bespangled with such beauties, as is a church rightly knit together to their Head, and lovingly serving one another.

The church and a profession are the best of places for the upright; but the worst in the world for the cumberground.

The church A light.