A Meditation Upon Going Up a High Mountain by William Spurstowe (1666) Lord, who shall dwell in the mountain of thy holiness? (Ps. 15:1) was a question made by the prophet David, but the answer returned was by the Spirit of God, who can give the best character of all those who shall be received into a fellowship of glory and bliss, as Tertullian expresses it. The situation of the place, the quality of the persons do both speak it to be a work of difficulty, and discover also the ground of the paucity of the travelers in whose hearts those ways and ascensions are that seek God. Most of the men of the world, like Abraham’s servants, stay below at the foot of the hill, while he and his son go up to worship (see Gen. 22:5); or choose rather, like Ahimaaz, to run the way of the plain than, with Cushi, the way that was craggy and mountainous (see II Sam. 18:23). But few there be that see under what a necessity they lie of obtaining Heaven, and of dwelling in the mountain of God’s holiness, or understand the comfort that a continued progress in this journey yields to those to whom salvation is nearer than when they first believed. Can it therefore be amiss to evince those who are yet to make the first step towards their own happiness, what timely diligence they had need to use, that in the end they may not fall short of it? And to encourage those that are on their way, that they may go from strength to strength, till they appear before God in Zion. And how may I better do either, than by showing to one, the great distance in which they stand from Heaven; and to the other, the good proficiency  they have made, which is oft-times as indiscernible to themselves, as the swift motion of the ship is to them that are in it. There is no complaint more frequent in the mouths of saints, than that they have got no farther than what many years since they judged themselves to have attained unto. The natural man’s distance is far greater than he thinks of, so that he cannot easily step into Heaven as he presumes. He is not born near its confines or borders; but in the very extremity of remoteness from it. The distance is not only a distance of place, but of disproportion, and unlikeness, whereby he is wholly unmeet for it. Yea, there is in him not only a dissimilitude, but a formal contrariety and opposition  against Heaven, which must be destroyed and taken away before he can come thither. He is darkness, and Heaven is an inheritance in light. He is a sink of filthiness, and Heaven is a place of purity; he is wholly carnal, and the happiness of Heaven is spiritual. And what “fellowship” (said the Apostle) “hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?” (II Cor. 6:14). Can it then be rationally thought an easy task to subdue this contrariety; and to make flesh and blood meet to inherit heaven? Does not the straitness of the way, and the height of its ascent, require a putting off, and a casting away, every sin that hinders from running the Christian race, and ascending the holy hill? Is it not necessary, that the opposition and dissimilitude extending itself over the whole man, that an answerable change should be made in every part? I have read, that it is affirmed by excellent artists, that though gladness and grief be opposites in nature, yet they are such neighbors and confiners in art, that the least touch of the pencil will translate a crying into a laughing face. But such is not the opposition between sin and grace, as to admit so facile a change in the turning of a sinner into a saint. It is not effected by a small touch made upon the face, but by a powerful work upon the heart, yea, upon the whole soul. Does not the scriptures set it forth by a new birth, by a new creation, which are of all mutations that greatest, and fully evince the vast distance that is between every natural man and salvation? Deceive not yourselves, therefore, O ye loose professors, nor ye fond and presumptuous moralists, who are apt to think that the shadows of your duties and civilities will extend themselves to the top of this holy mountain; and who when you read of the young man who answered Christ discreetly, that he was not far from the Kingdom of Heaven, judge yourselves both in knowledge and practice his equals, and that you want not many steps of entering into that blessed Canaan of rest and glory. For what will proximities or degrees of nearness avail, if the end itself be not attained? Exaltations towards heaven, if they lift not into heaven, serve only to make the downfall the greater, and no man stumbles more dangerously, than he who is upon the brow of a high mountain, in respect of ruin. It is not then a ground for any to slacken their pace, or intermit their diligence in heaven’s way, upon the confidence that they have not far to go, but rather to intend their care and pains, that they lose not those things which they have wrought, but that they may receive a full reward. And this let me say, if an apprehended nearness work not such effects, it is a dream, not a reality; a presumption, rather than a progress, and will have as sad an issue as the happiness of that poor fisherman, who, sleeping in the sides of a rock, dreamed that he was a king, and leaping up suddenly for joy, found himself miserably broken and rent in the bottom of it. But I fear that while I propound the difficulties, which are great, as well as many, intending thereby to shake only the pillars of those men’s confidence, who consider neither the length of the way, nor the hardness of the task by which salvation is attained; that I may dishearten others, who, after all their travel and labor, complain that they have striven much and gained little; and that their hopes of laying hold on eternal life do rather languish than increase, doubting that the journey is much too long for their short life to finish. Gladly therefore I would lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees, that they might be animated in the way, and not despair of the end. Now how can this be better done, than by giving such signs and evidences that will best serve to manifest their motion and proficiency; the not discerning of which is the ground of those fears of their spending their strength in vain, and their laboring for nought? And is not this more readily perceived by looking downwards to those objects that are below, than by looking upwards to the heavens, which will, after all climbing to them, seem to be still at the like distance as they were at first. Suppose that a man after hard labor and toil in reaching the top of some high and steep cliff, should conclude that he had wearied himself to no purpose, in the gaining of a delightful prospect, because the sun appears to be at the same distance, and also of equal bigness, as when he was at the bottom of it; or that the stars seem still to be but as so many twinkling watch lights, without the least increase of their dimensions, or variation of their figure. Might he not be easily refuted, by bidding him to look down to those plains from whence he had ascended, and behold into what narrow scantlings and proportions those stately buildings and towers were shrunk and contracted, whose greatness as well as beauty he erewhile so much admired? And may I not with the like facility answer and resolve the discouraged Christian, who calls in question the truth of heavenly progress, because all those glorious objects which his faith eyes, and his soul desires to draw nigh unto, seem still to be as remote from him, as at his first setting out, by wishing him to consider, whether he cannot say, that though heavenly objects do not increase in their magnitude or luster, by the approach that he makes to them; that yet all earthly objects do sensibly lose theirs by the distance that he is gone from them? And if he can but so do, surely he has no cause of despairing to obtain heaven, who has traveled so far on the way as to lose well near the sight of earth. If once his faith raised him to that height, as to make the glory of the world to disappear, and to be as a thing of nought, it will quickly land him in heaven, where his fears of miscarrying as well as his lassitude in working will be swallowed up in an everlasting rest. And he that did once believe more than he saw, shall forever see far more than ever he could have believed. Lord therefore, do thou, who gives power to the faint, and to them that have no might, increase strength to me, who waits upon thee; renew my strength, that I may mount up with wings as an eagle, and may run and not be weary, and walk and not faint, until I come to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills, and behold thy face in glory.    ——————————————————————- This article is taken from:  Spurstowe, William.  The Spiritual Chymist: or, Six Decads of Divine Meditations on Several Subjects. London: Philip Chetwind, 1666.  A PDF file of this book can be downloaded, free of charge, at http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com