By the entrance of sin into the world, man was first separated from God and happiness: God in righteous anger withdrew from his creature man; and man, obeying the dictates of his own impious folly, runs farther away from his Maker God; He is born like a wild ass’s colt, unknowing and thoughtless: and like a colt he runs wild in the forest of this world, roving amongst a thousand vanities in quest of happiness, but afar off from God still. He seeks substantial and pleasant food, but he meets with broad barren sands in the wilderness, or with brakes, and briars, and bitter weeds. He follows every foolish fire of fancy, till he is led into many a pit and precipice; He rises again, and changes the chase: He flies perpetually from object to object, but finds everlasting disappointment: Shadows, and painted hopes, flatter and tire, and delude him, till he lies down and despairs in death.
This is the case of mankind by nature; they live ignorant of God, and wilfully blind to their own felicity. Fatal blindness and wretched mankind! But blessed be God, that he has not renounced and abandoned all our race for ever, and fixed us in a state of eternal separation from him! Blessed be God, who has chosen, and already called many of the wanderers to himself again! He has built dwellings for himself on earth; he has appointed means for our return, and invites all to approach him. Good David had a full and lively sense hereof when he wrote the words of this song; Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: Whence I derived this doctrine in the foregoing sermon.
Doctrine. Nearness to God is the foundation of a creature’s happiness.
This doctrine appeared in full evidence, while we considered the three chief ingredients of true felicity, viz. the contemplation of the noblest object, to satisfy all the powers of the understanding, the love of the supreme good, to answer the utmost propensities of the will; and the sweet and everlasting sensation and assurance of the love of an almighty friend, who will free us from all the evils which our nature can fear, and confer upon us all the good which a wise and innocent creature can desire. Thus all the capacities of man are employed in their highest and sweetest exercises and enjoyments. Now it is God alone, the great and ever-blessed God, who can furnish us with all these materials of blessedness, who can refine our natures, and who can thus engage and entertain all the powers and appetites of our natures refined.
Having finished what I designed in the explication and proof of this doctrine, I proceeded to make various reflections for our information and practice. But the meditation which I proposed, and reserved for this discourse, was the sacred scale of blessedness, or the several degrees of felicity, that creatures are possessed of, according to their advancing approaches toward God; and we shall find blessedness, in its highest perfection, to belong only to God himself.
First degree of blessedness.—I. Happy are they who, though they are sinners by nature, yet are brought so near to God, as to be within the sound and call of his grace.
In this sense the whole nation of the Jews was a people near unto God, for he shewed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel; and upon this account they were happy, in ancient ages, above all kingdoms of the earth; Ps. cxlvii. and cxlviii.
Happy those countries where the apostles of Christ planted the gospel, and brought grace and salvation near them, though they were before at a dreadful distance from God! Happy Britons in our age! Though we are involved, with the rest of mankind, in the common ruins of our first defection from God, yet we are not left in the darkness of heathenism, on the very confines of hell: But God has exalted us near to heaven and himself, in the ministrations of his word, and led us in a way to his everlasting enjoyment. He has built his sanctuaries amongst us, and established his churches in the midst of us. We are invited to behold the beauty of the Lord, to return to our obedience and his love, and thus be made happy for ever.
This is a matter of divine choice and peculiar favour. Blessed England, whom “He hath chosen, and caused to approach” thus far towards himself! And why was not the polite nation of China chosen too; And why not the poor Savages of Africa, and the barbarous millions of the American world? Why are they left in a dismal estrangement from God, “Even so, Father, because it pleased thee,” whose counsels “are unsearchable, and whose ways of judgment and mercy are past finding out.”
“Blessed are the people who hear and know the joyful sound;” Ps. lxxxix. 15. But there are degrees of this blessedness, even in the lands which enjoy the gospel. Blessed are they above others, who dwell near to the places of public worship, who sit under an enlightening, a powerful and persuasive ministry, who have opportunity to hear the word of God often, and who have skill to read it. Blessed are they who are born of religious parents, and trained up in the early forms of piety; these are still brought near unto God; they are nursed up, as it were, in his churches, and dwell in his courts. And blessed are those who are devoted to the service of the sanctuary, like the priests and levites of old, who were brought nearest to God, among all Israel; for their civil employment, as well as their religious duty, led them continually toward God, heaven and happiness. But all these glorious privileges are not sufficient to ensure eternal felicity, unless we come one step farther in approaching to God.
Second degree of blessedness—II. Happy are those souls who have been taught to improve their outward advantages of nearness to God, so as to obtain reconciliation, with him by the blood of Christ. This is the great end of all the privileges before-mentioned, which either Jew or Gentile were partakers of: This was the design of all the approaches that God made towards them. Peace and salvation, were preached to those which were afar off, and to them that were nigh, and Christ died to reconcile both unto God; and that through him both might have an access by one Spirit unto the Father: Eph. ii. 16, 17, 18. Why are all the alluring glories of the Lord displayed before us, in his gospel, but that we might be drawn to love him? Why are these wondrous manifestations of his grace made to us, but that we might become the objects of his love, and taste of his special goodness.
Happy persons, who are weary of their old estrangement from God, who have heard and have received the offers of his mercy, who have made their solemn approaches to God by Jesus the Mediator, and are joined to the Lord in a sweet and everlasting covenant! Happy creatures, who behold the beauties of their Maker’s face with double pleasure, who love him with all their souls, and begin to taste the love of his heart too! This is a matter of special privilege. Blessed are the men who are thus chosen by divine grace, and whom he has caused to approach to himself by the converting power of his own Spirit! Let them come, let them come, and give up their names to his churches; let them take up their places, and dwell in his courts on earth, and thus make a nearer approach to his court of heaven.
O that sinners would once be convinced that there are divine pleasures in religion, and joys which the stranger intermeddles not with! O that they would be once brought to believe, that happiness consists in approaching to God! That they would but give credit to the report of wise and holy men, who have lived in humble converse with God many years! What a sacred and superior pleasure it is, above all the joys of sense, to love the great and blessed God, and to know that he loves me! To walk all the day in the light of his countenance! To have him near me as a counsellor, whose advice I may ask in every difficulty of life! To be ever near him as my guard, and to fly from every danger to the wing of his protection! To have such an almighty Friend with me in sickness and sorrow, in anguish and mortal agonies, and ready to receive my departing spirit into the arms of his love.
O that the formal and nominal christian, who attends divine worship, would but once be persuaded, that if he come one step nearer to God, his happiness will receive almost an infinite advance! Let the shadows lead him to the substance; let the image in the glass allure him to converse with the original beauty, and the ordinances of grace bring him near to the God of grace! Let him no longer content himself with pictures of happiness, but give himself up entirely to the Lord, and be made possessor of solid and substantial felicity. Blessed is the man who has renounced sin and the world, and his heart is over-powered by divine goodness, and brought near to God in his holy covenant.
Yet there are degrees of blessedness among the saints on earth. Blessed is every soul whose state and nature are changed, who is not a stranger, but a son: but more blessed are those sons who are most like their heavenly Father, and keep closest to him in all their ways! Blessed are they above others in the holy family, who seldom wander from their God, whose hearts are always in a heavenly frame, and whose graces and virtues brighten and improve daily, and make a continual and joyful advance toward the state of glory!
Third degree of blessedness.—III. Now let us raise our thoughts, and wonder at the blessedness of the saints and angels in the upper world: and blessed are those spirits, whether they belong to bodies or not, whom the Lord has chosen, and caused to approach so near him, as to dwell and abide in his higher courts! They are fully satisfied with the goodness of his house, even of his holy temple. The saints are established as pillars in this temple of God, and shall go no more out. They approach him in their sublime methods of worship, without the medium of types and ordinances: They see God face to face; 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Though ordinances in the church on earth are means of drawing near, yet in that very thing they are also tokens of some degree of estrangement. The saints above are constantly before the throne, or night and day serving the Lord, as it is expressed metaphorically; Rev. vii. 15. though in truth there is no night there; for they who dwell with God, dwell in light everlasting: They approach to their Maker in most pleasurable acts of worship, without any interposing cloud to hide his face from them, without clogs and fetters to hold them at a distance, without wanderings, without sins, and without temptations.
O blessed state! O glorious felicity! They behold the beauty of the Lord, transported in divine contemplation, infinitely various and immortal. They feed upon his goodness with all the raptures of refined love, and are held in long ecstacy under the permanent sensations of the love of God.
Yet in this state of perfect glory, there are doubtless some different degrees of nearness to God, and consequently there are different ranks and orders of blessed spirits. This is evident amongst the angels beyond all contradiction: for though all of them behold the face of God continually; Mat. xviii. 10. yet Gabriel seems to be a favourite angel, standing in the presence of God, and employed in the noblest errands to men; Luke i. 19. And we read of seraphs and cherubs, angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, and principalities; which plainly exhibits to us a celestial hierarchy, or superior and subordinate ranks of glory and power.
And why may it not be so amongst the saints on high, those sons of Adam who are made like to angels! They are so many stars that shine with various degrees of splendour, as they are placed nearer to the Sun of Righteousness, and receive and reflect more of his beams. I might multiply arguments on this head, but I shall at present ask only these two or three convincing questions.
Can we ever imagine that Moses the meek, the friend of God, who was, as it were, his confidant on earth, his faithful prophet to institute a new religion, and establish a new church in the world; who, for God’s sake, endured forty years of banishment, and had forty years fatigue in a wilderness; who saw God on earth face to face, and the shine was left upon his countenance? Can we suppose that this man has taken his seat no nearer to God in paradise, than Samson and Jepthah, those rash champions, those rude and bloody ministers[24] of providence? Or can we think that St. Paul, the greatest of the apostles, who laboured more than they all, and was in sufferings more abundant than the rest; who spent a long life in daily services and deaths for the sake of Christ, is not fitted for, and advanced to a rank of blessedness superior to that of the crucified thief, who became a christian but a few moments, at the end of a life of impiety and plunder? Can I persuade myself, that a holy man, who has known much of God in this world, and spent his age on earth in contemplation of the divine excellencies, who has acquired a great degree of nearness to God in devotion, and has served him, and suffered for him, even to old age and martyrdom, with a sprightly and faithful zeal; can I believe that this man, who has been trained up all his life to converse with God, and is fitted to receive divine communications above his fellows, shall dwell no nearer to God hereafter, and share no larger a degree of blessedness, than the little babe who just entered into this world to die out of it, and who is saved, so far as we know, merely by the spreading veil of the covenant of grace, drawn over it by the hand of the parent’s faith? Can it be that the great Judge who cometh, and his reward is with him, to render to every one according to his works, will make no distinction between Moses and Samson, between the apostle and the thief, between the aged martyr and the infant, in the world to come?
And yet after all it may be matter of enquiry, whether the meanest saint among the sons of Adam, has not some sort of privilege above any rank of angels, by being of a kindred-nature to our Emmanuel, to Jesus the Son of God? But this leads me to the
Fourth degree of Blessedness.—IV. Let us stand still again, and wonder yet more at the blessedness of the man Christ Jesus in his approach to God.
1. His very union to God is habitual blessedness. He is constituted near to God by an unspeakable union. What joys, what unknown delights above our language, and above our thoughts, possess the holy soul of the man Jesus, for he is the nearest creature to the blessed God; for he is one with godhead; John x. 30. The Son of David, according to the flesh, is joined in a personal union to the eternal God, and thus he is over all, God blessed for evermore; Rom. ix. 5.
There was a time indeed, when the divine nature so far withheld its influences, as to let him feel sorrows and sharp agonies, when he came to make himself a sacrifice for our sins, and exposed his holy nature to pain and shame: He consented for a season to have God absent, but cried out terribly under the present anguish of it, and shall have no more trials of this kind. Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; Rom. vi. 9. The man who was born of the virgin, shall now have the eternal Son of God for ever manifesting himself in him and to him, according to this divine union.
This is that glorious piece of human nature, that one man, whom God has chosen, from all the rest of mankind, to bring so near to himself. This is that flesh, and that soul, which were chosen by God the Father’s decree, from among all possible, and all future flesh and souls, to be made for ever one with God: and they are for ever one. This wondrous union has, and must have everlasting pleasure in it, vastly beyond our nearest unions and approaches to God even in our most exalted state in grace or glory. This is an approach to God indeed, and blessed is the man whom thou hast thus chosen, O Lord, and thus caused to approach unto thee, that he may dwell, not only in thy courts, but in thy bosom, in thyself for ever and ever: Blessed is this man, and may he be for ever blessed![25]
2. His knowledge of God is much more intimate, more extensive, and more perfect, than any other creature can attain: for as he is exalted to the highest station and dignity that can belong to a creature, so we may be assured the all-wise God has furnished him with faculties of the noblest capacity, answerable to so exalted a station; and Christ has the highest advantage to fill all those capacities with inconceivable treasures of knowledge, by dwelling so near to God, and being so intimately united to Divine Wisdom. The sublime furniture of his understanding is vastly superior to all that we know, or can know; for our union to God is but a distant copy, his is the bright, but inimitable original. Our nearness to God bears no proportion to that of the man Jesus; for his union to the godhead is of a superior kind. He has therefore a vaster comprehension of all truth, and a sweeter relish in the survey of it, than any created spirit, angelic or human; and thereby this part of his blessedness becomes far superior to theirs.
3. All the outgoings of his holy soul towards God, all his desires, his love, and delight, are more noble in their kind, and more intense in their degree, than those of any other creature. He who dwells so near to godhead, sees vastly more beauty, excellency, and loveliness in the Deity, than men or angels can do at their distance; and therefore his love is raised to unknown heights and raptures.
All his worship of the Father consists of nobler acts, and nearer approaches, than it is possible for any other creature to perform or partake of. Jesus, the man, worshipped here on earth, and he worships above in glory: He loves the godhead, as infinitely more amiable than himself; he trusts in it as more powerful; acknowledges God is above him in every glory, in every beauty infinitely superior to him; and this is divine worship; for a creature is still beneath God, and the acknowledgment of it is the worship due from him. Now Christ pays this acknowledgment with greater humility than the meanest worm of the race of Adam; for the nearer he is to God, the better he knows the true distance of a creature; and because he does it with greater humility, therefore with sweeter delight; for the lower a creature lies before God, the nearer doth God approach it. The High and Holy One, who inhabiteth eternity, and dwelleth in the high and holy place, dwelleth also with the humble soul; Is. lvii. 15. But this leads me to a farther degree of the blessedness of the man Christ Jesus; and that is,
4. He hath a fuller, a richer, and a more transporting sense of the love of God, since God makes nearer approaches to him, and discovers more of his infinite goodness, and communicates more of his love. We may venture to say, that God loves the human nature of Christ better than he does any other creature; and this human nature has a stronger, and more intimate consciousness of the divine love, and a sweeter sensation of it, than saints or angels can have, because of the personal union between the son of man and the eternal God: which union, though we know not precisely what it is, yet, we know to be sufficient to give him the name Emmanuel, God with us; which distinguishes it most gloriously from all our unions to God, and raises his dignity, his character, and his advantages, even as a man, to so sublime a degree above that of all other creatures.
By his exaltation, and his dwelling so near to God, his powers are inconceivably enlarged, and made capable of taking in higher degrees of felicity. Sights of God stretch the faculties of the soul, and enlarge it to receive more of God; this eternal sight has our Redeemer. We see the glory of God chiefly in the face of Christ Jesus his Son, but he sees the glory of God in his own face and brightness, Christ himself is the brightness of his Father’s glory; Heb. i. 2, 3.
5. As Christ is the medium of our nearness to God, as he is the head of all those who approach to God, and the Mediator through whom all approach, so his blessedness is above ours; for in some sense, and by way of eminence, he enjoys and feels all that we enjoy and feel, and vastly more too; for he is the medium through which we approach and we enjoy, as well as a person who himself, and for himself, approaches and enjoys: As when a stream of wine or living water is conveyed from the spring by a pipe or channel, the pipe has a tincture of the rich liquor as it flows; so, if it be lawful to illustrate things heavenly and divine, by things on earth, and to bring them down to our ideas by material similitudes, our Lord Jesus, who is authorised to confer life and joy on the saints, and through whom all grace, glory, and blessedness, are conveyed to them, feels, and tastes, and relishes, eminently and in a superior manner, all the joy and the blessedness that he conveys to our souls; and all better than we can do, for he is nearer the fountain; he takes a divine and unknown satisfaction in every blessing which he communicates to us. Besides all this, there are some richer streams that terminate and end in himself; the peculiar privileges and pleasures of the good man, while others flow through him, as the head, down to all his members, and give him the first relish of their sweetness.
When Christ, at the head of all the elect saints, shall at the great day draw near to the Father, and say, Here am I and the children thou hast given me; those blessed ones whom thou hast chosen, that they may approach unto thee by me; I have often approached to thee for them, and behold I now approach with them to the courts of thy upper house. What manner of joy and glory shall this be! How unspeakably blessed is our Lord Jesus; and we rejoice with wonder!
[This sermon may be divided here.]
Fifth, or supreme degree of Blessedness.—V. Our admiration may be raised yet higher, if we make one excursion beyond all created nature, and lift our thoughts upward to the blessedness of the three glorious persons in the trinity[26]. All their infinite and unknown pleasures are derived from their ineffable union and communion in one godhead, their inconceivable nearness to each other in the very centre and spring of all felicity. They are inseparably and intimately one with God; they are eternally one God, and therefore eternally blessed; 1 John v. 7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one; which text I believe to be authentic and divine, and that upon just reasons, notwithstanding all the cavils and criticisms that have endeavoured to blot it out of the bible. Nor is their blessedness, or their nearness, a dull inactive state: Knowledge and mutual love make up their heaven, so far as mortals dare conceive of it, and so far as we have leave to speak of God after the manner of men.
First, Knowledge.—An eternal blissful contemplation of all the infinite beauties, powers, and properties of godhead, and of all the operations of these powers in an inconceivable variety among creatures, is the glorious employment of God. His own knowledge of infinite truths, whether wrapt up in his own nature, or unfolded and displayed in his works, is a pleasure becoming the Deity; and each sacred person possesses this unknown pleasure.
And besides the general glories of the divine nature, we may suppose, that a full and comprehensive knowledge of the sameness, the difference, the special properties, and the mutual relations of the three divine persons, which are utterly incomprehensible to mortals, and perhaps far above the reach of all created minds, is the incommunicable entertainment of the holy Trinity, and makes a part of their blessedness. In reference to this mystery, God may be said to dwell in thick darkness; 1 Kings viii. 12. or, which is all one, in light inaccessible; 1 Tim. vi. 16. We are lost in this glorious, this divine abyss, and overcome with dazzling confusion: But the ever blessed Three behold these unities and distinctions in the clearest light. As the Father knoweth me, so know I the Father, saith Jesus the eternal Son; John x. 15. And as the spirit of a man knoweth the things of a man, so the things of God are known to his own Spirit, for he searcheth the depths of God; 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11. as it is expressed in the original, τὰ βάθη τοῦ Θεοῦ.
But God’s contemplation, or knowledge of himself, is not his only pleasure, for God is love; 1 John iv. 8. He has an infinite propensity towards himself, and an inconceivable complacence in his own powers and perfections, as well as in all the outgoings of them toward created natures. His love being most wise and perfect, must exert itself toward the most perfect object, and the chiefest good; and that in a degree answerable to its goodness too: Therefore he can love nothing in the same degree with himself, because he can find no equal good.
May we not therefore suppose the blessedness of the sacred Three to consist also in mutual love? May I call it a perpetual delightful tendency, and active propensity toward each other? An eternal approach to each other with infinite complacency? An eternal embrace of each other with arms of inimitable love and with sensations of unmeasurable joy? Thus saith the Son of God under the character of divine wisdom; Prov. viii. 23, 30. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. Then was I by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. As the Father loveth the Son, so the Son loveth the Father. As the Father delights infinitely in his perfect image, so may we not venture to say, the Son takes infinite delight in the glorious archetype, and thus imitates the Father? Will not the expressions of the apostle Paul; Heb. i. 3. and the words of Christ himself; John v. 19, 20. encourage and support this manner of speaking? He is the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person: The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and what things soever he seeth the Father do, these also doth the Son likewise. And this seems to be the first foundation of those glorious offices of raising the dead, and judging the world, which in the following verses are committed to the Son, that all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father; ver. 23.
As the blessed Three have an unknown communion in the Godhead, or divine nature, so they must have an unspeakable nearness to one another’s persons, an inconceivable in-being and in-dwelling in each other. John xiv. 10. I in the Father, and the Father in me. Each is near to the two other divine subsistences, and this mutual nearness must be attended with delight and felicity unknown to all but the blessed Three who enjoy it. O glorious and divine communion! The Father for ever near to his own image the Son, and herein blessed! The Son never divided from the embraces of the Father, and therefore happy! The Spirit everlastingly near them both, and therefore he is the ever-blessed Spirit! And all these united in one Godhead, and therefore infinitely and for ever blessed!
The Father is so intimately near the Son and Spirit, that no finite or created natures or unions can give a just resemblance of it. We talk of the union of the sun and his beams, of a tree and its branches: But these are but poor images, and faint shadows of this mystery, though they are some of the best that I know. The union of the soul and body, is, in my esteem, still farther from the point, because their natures are so widely different. In vain we search through all the creation to find a complete similitude of the Creator.
And in vain may we run through all the parts and powers of nature and art, to seek a full resemblance of the mutual propensity and love of the blessed Three towards each other. Mathematicians talk indeed of the perpetual tendencies, and infinite approximations of two or more lines in the same surface, which yet never can entirely concur in one line: And if we should say that the three persons of the Trinity, by mutual in-dwelling and love, approach each other infinitely in one divine nature, and yet lose not their distinct personality; it would be but an obscure account of this sublime mystery. But this we are sure of, that for three divine persons to be so inconceivably near one another in the original and eternal spring of love, goodness, and pleasure, must produce infinite delight. In order to illustrate the happiness of the sacred Three, may we not suppose something of society necessary to the perfection of happiness in all intellectual nature? To know, and be known, to love and to be beloved, are perhaps, such essential ingredients of complete felicity, that it cannot subsist without them: And it may be doubted whether such mutual knowledge and love, as seems requisite for this end, can be found in a nature absolutely simple in all respects. May we not then suppose that some distinctions in the divine Being are of eternal necessity, in order to complete the blessedness of godhead? Such a distinction as may admit, as a great man expresses it, of delicious society, We, for our parts, cannot but hereby have in our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed state, than we can conceive in mere eternal solitude.
And if this be true, then the three differences, which we call personal distinctions, in the nature of God, are as absolutely necessary as his blessedness, as his being, or any of his perfections. And then we may return to the words of my text, and boldly infer, that if the man is blessed who is chosen by the free and sovereign grace of God, and caused to approach, or draw near him, what immense and unknown blessedness belongs to each divine person, to all the sacred Three who are by nature, and unchangeable necessity, so near, so united, so much one, that the least moment’s separation seems to be infinitely impossible, and, then we may venture to say, it is not to be conceived; and the blessedness is conceiveable by none but God?
This is a nobler union and a more intense pleasure than the man Christ Jesus knows or feels, or can conceive; for he is a creature. These are glories too divine and dazzling for the weak eye of our understandings, too bright for the eye of angels, those morning-stars; and they, and we, must fall down together, alike overwhelmed with them, and alike confounded. These are flights that tire souls of the strongest wing, and finite minds faint in the infinite pursuit: These are depths where our tallest thoughts sink and drown: We are lost in this ocean of being and blessedness, that has no limit, on either side, no surface, no bottom, no shore. The nearness of the divine persons to each other, and the unspeakable relish of their unbounded pleasures, are too vast ideas for a bounded mind to entertain. It is one infinite transport that runs through Father, Son, and Spirit, without beginning, and without end, with boundless variety, yet ever perfect, and ever present, without change, and without degree: and all this, because they are so near to one another, and so much one with God.
But when we have fatigued our spirits, and put them to the utmost stretch, we must lie down and rest, and confess the great incomprehensible. How far this sublime transport of joy is varied in each subsistence: how far their mutual knowledge of each others’ properties, or their mutual delight in each others’ love, is distinct in each divine person, is a secret too high for the present determination of our language and our thoughts, it commands our judgment into silence, and our whole souls into wonder and adoration[27].
Thus we have traced the streams of happiness that flow amongst the creatures in endless variety, to their original and eternal fountain, God himself: He is the all-sufficient spring of blessedness as well as of being, to all the intellectual worlds; and he is everlastingly self-sufficient for his own being and blessedness.
But are not we told in scripture, that God delights in the works of his hands, that he takes pleasure in his saints, that he rejoices in Zion, and rests in his love to his church; that Jesus Christ, even as man and Mediator, is the beloved of his soul, in whom he is well-pleased? Yes, surely, this is one way whereby he represents his own divine satisfactions in our language, and after the manner of men. But we must not imagine that he ever goes out of himself, and descends to creatures, as though he needed any thing from them, who are all before him as nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. It is from his own wisdom, power, and goodness, as they appear in all his works, that his delight arises; and it is in these glories of his nature, and in the gracious purposes of his will, as they are manifested in his works, that the saints and angels, and all the happy ranks of beings, find their highest satisfaction. It is in the contemplation of God, and in the exercises and sensations of divine love, that all supreme felicity consists, so far as we are capable of being acquainted with it.
The only reflection with which I shall conclude the subject, is this, that communion with God, which has been impiously ridiculed by the profane wits of the last and the present age, is no such visionary and fantastic notion as they imagine; but as it is founded in the words of scripture, so it may be explained with great ease and evidence to the satisfaction of human reason. That it is founded in scripture, appears sufficiently in several verses of the xvii. chapter of St. John’s gospel, where the divine union and blessedness of the Father and the Son, are made a pattern of our union to God, and our blessedness; John xvii. 21, 22, 23-26. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they may be one in us: And in this sense, but in a lower degree, even here on earth, our communion, or fellowship, is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ; 1 John i. 3. Though our communion with Christ includes also some particular varieties in it, which is not my present business to explain.
That this doctrine is exactly agreeable to reason, may be thus demonstrated:
We use the word communion, when two or more persons partake of the same thing. So friends have communion in one table when they dine together: Christians have communion in one sermon, in one prayer, or one sacrament, when they join together in those parts of worship; and the saints have communion with God in blessedness, when they rejoice in the same object of contemplation and love. God surveys himself, he is pleased with his own glories, delights in himself as the highest and the noblest object; he trusts in his own right-hand of power, he leans upon his own understanding, he rests in his own counsels and purposes, he feels and he acknowledges all his own infinite perfections, and thus he enjoys them all. Thus also is our blessedness frequently set forth in scripture. It is our happiness to know God, to contemplate his glories, so far as they are revealed; to love him and his goodness, to trust in his wisdom, and lean securely on his strength? to feel the workings of divine powers and graces in and upon us, and to make acknowledgment of them all to God. Thus the image of God is restored to us in holiness and in happiness: Thus we are said to be holy as God is holy; and thus also we are blessed as God is blessed.
But though we are admitted to this amazing privilege, and hold communion with God, in the same object of contemplation and love, yet we must still remember, with humble adoration, that his holiness and his happiness, does infinitely exceed ours. The pleasures which arise from his knowledge, and his love of himself, are as far above our taste, or all our ideas of blessedness, as heaven is higher than the earth, or as God is above the creature.
There is another sense also of this phrase, communion or fellowship with God, which has been used by many pious writers, when they make it to signify the same thing as converse with God; and this also depends upon our nearness, or approach to him: As when a christian, in secret, pours out his whole heart before God, and is made sensible of his gracious presence, by the sweet influences of instruction, sanctification, or comfort. When man speaks, and God answers, there is a sacred communion, between God and man; Is. lviii. 9. Thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer. This holy David often enjoyed, and always sought after it. When the soul, in secret, complains of perplexity and darkness, and God is pleased to give some secret hints of direction and advice; when the soul mourns before God, confessing guilt, and the weakness of grace, and some divine promise is impressed upon the mind by the Holy Spirit, whence the christian derives peace of conscience, and strength to fulfil duty, and to resist mighty temptations: These certainly are seasons of converse or communion with God.
So when, in public worship, we address God with our souls in fervent prayer, and while we hear the word of God spoken to us by his ministers, we receive an answer to those prayers in the convincing and sanctifying impressions which the word makes upon the heart; this is also an hour of secret communion. So at the supper of the Lord, when with hope and joy we receive the bread and the wine, as divine seals of the faithfulness of God’s covenant, and when we transact those solemn affairs also as seals of our faith and love, and our engagements to be the Lord’s; we may properly be said to hold fellowship, or communion with him.
What swift advances of holiness doth the saint feel in his heart, and practise in his life, after such seasons of devotion! What glory doth he give to religion in a dark and sinful world! What unknown pleasure doth he find in such approaches to God! And he moves swiftly onward in his way to heaven, by such daily receipts of mercy, and returns of praise. These are powerful motives that will make him persist in his holy practice and joy, in scorn of all the mockery and ridicule of a profane age of infidels. So the moon holds bright communion with the sun, the sovereign planet; so she receives and reflects his beams; she shines gloriously in a dark hemisphere, and moves onward sublime in her heavenly course, regardless of all the barking animals that betray their senseless malice.
This blessed privilege and pleasure of converse with God, which is enjoyed by the saints on earth, is doubtless the pleasure and the privilege of the spirits of the just made perfect, and of angels near the throne, but in a much higher degree: When they address the Majesty of Heaven in the forms of celestial worship, and receive immediate and sensible tokens of divine acceptance; or when they take their orders and commissions from the throne for some particular errand, or high employment, and return again to make their humble report there: These are glorious seasons of converse with their Maker.
Much more glorious communion of this kind does the man Christ Jesus enjoy with God, in transacting all the vast and illustrious affairs of his commission; a commission large as the extent of his Father’s kingdom, full of majesty and justice, terror and grace; a divine commission to govern, to redeem, and to save, or to punish and destroy millions of mankind, as well as to rule all his unknown dominions in the upper and nether worlds.
But in what manner this communion between the Father and Christ is maintained, we know not; nor can we guess in what manner, or in what degree such sort of converse or communion as this is practised, or is possible, between the three glorious persons of the ever-blessed Trinity. These are mysteries wrapt up in sacred darkness, and the explication of them surrounded with dangers. A particular knowledge of these divine unsearchables, any farther than scripture has revealed them, is by no means necessary either to begin, or to maintain our state of grace. Let us content ourselves a few years longer with humble ignorance, and we shall have brighter discoveries in the future world, if it be necessary there to fulfil our happiness, and to complete our state of glory.