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.