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transfigurations, that they have been carried of all creatures without God, "I went

above the world, and have despised all things

here below.

mourning without the sun." I have the star-light of outward enjoyments, but I canUse 1. Is the enjoying of God in this life not enjoy God, I want the Sun of Righteousso sweet? How prodigiously wicked are ness. "I went mourning without the sun." they that prefer the enjoying of their lusts, This should be our great design, not only to before the enjoying of God! 1 John ii. 16, have the ordinances of God, but the God of "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the ordinances. The enjoying of God's sweet the pride of life," is the Trinity they wor-presence with us here, is the most contented ship. Lust is an inordinate desire or im-life: he is a hive of sweetness, a magazine pulse, provoking the soul to that which is of riches, a fountain of delight, Ps. xxxvi. evil. There is the revengeful lust, and the 8, 9. The higher the lark flies, the sweeter wanton lust. Lust is like a feverish heat, it it sings; and the higher we fly by the wing puts the soul into a flame. Aristotle calls of faith, the more of God we enjoy, the sweetsensual lusts brutish, because, when any er delight we feel in our souls. How is the lust is violent, reason or conscience cannot heart inflamed in prayer and meditation! be heard, the beast rides the man. These What joy and peace in believing! Is it not lusts, when they are enjoyed, do besot and comfortable being in heaven? He that endispirit persons, Hos. iv. 11, “Whoredom joys much of God in this life, carries heaven and wine taketh away the heart,"-they about him. O let this be the thing we are have no heart for any thing that is good. chiefly ambitious of, the enjoying of God in How many make it their chief end not to en- his ordinances; remember the enjoying of joy God, but to enjoy their lusts! As that God's sweet presence here is an earnest of cardinal said, "Let him but keep his cardi- our enjoying him in heaven. nalship of Paris, and he was content to lose his part in Paradise." Lust first bewitcheth with pleasure, and then comes the fatal dart, Prov. vii. 23, "Till a dart strike through his liver." This should be as a flaming sword to stop men in the way of their carnal delights. Who would for a drop of pleasure drink a sea of wrath?

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And that brings us to the second thing,

2d. The enjoying of God in the life to come: Man's chief end is to enjoy God for ever. Before this plenary fruition of God in heaven there must be something previous and antecedent; and that is, our being in a state of grace. We must have conformity Use 2. Let it be our great care to enjoy to him in grace, before we can have commuGod's sweet presence here, which is the nion with him in glory; grace and glory are beauty and comfort of the ordinances. En- linked and chained together; grace precedes joying spiritual communion with God, is a glory, as the morning-star ushers in the sun. riddle and mystery to most people; every God will have us qualified and fitted for a one that hangs about the court doth not state of blessedness. Drunkards and swearspeak with the king. We may approach to ers are not fit to enjoy God in glory; the God in ordinances, and, as it were, hang Lord will not lay such vipers in his bosom ; about the court of heaven, yet not enjoy only "the pure in heart shall see God;" we communion with God; we may have the let- must first be, as the king's daughter, glorious ter without the Spirit, the visible sign with- within, before we are clothed with the robes out the invisible grace; it is the enjoying of of glory. As King Ahasuerus first caused the God in a duty we should chiefly look at, Ps. virgins to be purified and anointed, and they xlii. 2, "My soul thirsteth for God, for the had their sweet odours to perfume them, and living God." Alas! what are all our worldly then they went to stand before the king, enjoyments without the enjoying of God? Esth. ii. 12, so must we; we must have the What is it to enjoy a great deal of health, a anointing of God, and be perfumed with the brave estate, and not to enjoy God? Job graces of the Spirit, those sweet odours, and xxx. 28, "I went mourning without the then we shall stand before the King of hea

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sun.' So mayest thou say in the enjoyment ven. Now, being thus divinely qualified by

much delight in God, when we see him only by faith, 1 Peter i. 8, what will the joy of vision be when we shall see him face to face? If the saints have found so much delight in God while they were suffering, O then what joy and delight will they have when they are crowning! If flames are beds of roses, O then what will it be to lean on the bosom of Jesus! What a bed of roses will that be!— 5. God is a superlative good. He is better than any thing you can put in competition with him; he is better than health, riches, honour. Other things maintain life,-he gives life. But who would go to put any thing in balance with the Deity? Who would weigh a feather with a mountain of gold? God excels all other things more infinitely than the sun the light of a taper.-6. God is an eternal good. He is "the ancient of days," Dan. vii. 9, yet never decays, nor waxes old. The joy he gives is eternal, the crown fadeth not away, 1 Peter v. 4. The glorified soul shall be ever solacing itself in God; it shall be feasting on his love, and sunning itself in the light of his countenance. We read of "the river of pleasure at God's right hand;" but will not this in time be dried up? No, there is a fountain at the bottom which feeds it, Ps. xxxvi. 9, “ With the Lord is the fountain of life." Thus God is the chief good, and the enjoying God for ever is the supremest felicity the soul is capable of.

grace, we shall be taken up to the mount of vision and enjoy God for ever. This enjoying God for ever, is nothing else but to be put in a state of happiness. As the body cannot have life but by having communion with the soul, so the soul cannot have blessedness, but by having immediate communion with God. God is the summum bonum, the chief good; therefore the enjoying of him is the highest felicity. He is, I say, the chief good. 1. He is an universal good, bonum in quo omnia bona, “a good, in which are all goods." The excellencies of the creatures are limited. A man may have health, not beauty; learning, not parentage; riches, not wisdom; but in God are eminently contained all excellencies. He is a good, commensurate fully to the soul; he is a sun, a portion, an horn of salvation; in him dwells "all fulness," Col. i. 19.-2. God is an unmixed good. No condition in this life but hath its mixture; for every drop of honey there is a drop of gall. Solomon, who gave himself to find out this philosopher's stone-to search out for a happiness here below, he found vanity and vexation, Eccl. i. 2. But God is a perfect quintessential good. He is sweetness in the flower.-3. God is a satisfying good; The soul cries out I have enough, Ps. xvii. 15, "I shall be satisfied with thy likeness." A man that is thirsty, bring him to the ocean, and he hath enough. If there be enough in God to satisfy the angels, then sure, enough to satisfy us. The soul is but finite, but God is an uncreated infinite good. And yet though God be such a good as doth satisfy; yet not surfeit. Fresh joys spring continually from God's face; and God is as much to be desired after millions of years by glorified souls, as at the first moment. There is so much fulness in God as satisfies yet so much sweetness that the soul still desires; it is satisfaction without surfeit.-4. God is a delicious good. That which is the chief good must ravish the soul with pleasure; there must be in it spirits of delight and quin-fied soul's enjoying God: 1. This enjoying tessence of joy, and this is to be enjoyed only of God must not be understood in a sensual in God, In Deo quadam dulcedine delecta- manner; we must not conceive any carnal tur animo, immo rapitur: The love of God pleasures in heaven. The Turks, in their drops such infinite suavity into the soul as is Alcoran, speak of a paradise of pleasure, unspeakable and full of glory. If there be so where they have riches in abundance, and

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1. Use of Exhortation. Let it be the chief end of our living to enjoy this chief good hereafter; this is that which will crown us with happiness. Austin reckons up 288 opinions among philosophers about happiness, but all did shoot short of the mark. The highest elevation of a reasonable soul is to enjoy God for ever. It is the enjoying God that makes heaven, 1. Thess. iv. 17, "Then shall we ever be with the Lord." The soul trembles, as the needle in the compass, and is never at rest till it comes to God. To set out this excellent state of a glori

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there is inspection; V. 22, "And the glory thou hast given me, I have given them," there is possession. "Glory shall be re

red wine served in golden chalices. Here is a heaven, consisting of pleasures for the body; the epicures of this age would like such an heaven when they die. Though in-vealed in us," Rom. viii. 18; not only redeed the state of glory be compared to a feast, vealed to us, but in us. To behold God's and is set out by pearls and precious stones, glory, there is glory revealed to us; but to yet these metaphors are only to be helps to partake of his glory, there is glory revealed in our faith, and to show us that there is super- us. As the sponge sucks in the wine, so shall abundant joy and felicity in the empyrean we suck in glory.-5. There is no intermission heaven; but those are not carnal, but sacred in this state of glory. We shall not only delights, as our employment shall be spirit- have God's glorious presence at certain speual, it will consist in adoring and praising cial seasons, but we shall be continually in his of God; so our enjoyment shall be spiritual, presence, continually under divine raptures -it shall consist in having the perfection of of joy. There shall not be one minute in holiness, in seeing the pure face of Christ, heaven wherein a glorified soul may say, I in feeling the love of God, in conversing do not enjoy happiness. The streams of with heavenly spirits. These delights will glory are not like the water of a conduit, be more adequate and proper for the soul, often stopped, that we cannot have one drop and infinitely exceed all carnal voluptuous of water; but those heavenly streams of delights.-2. We shall have a lively sense of joy are continually running. O how should this glorious estate. A man in a lethargy, we despise this valley of tears, where we though he be alive, yet he is as good as dead, now are, for the mount of transfiguration ! because he is not sensible, nor doth he take How should we long for the full enjoyment any pleasure in his life: we shall have a of God in paradise! Had we a sight of that quick and lively sense of the infinite pleasure land of promise, we should need patience to which ariseth from enjoyment of God,-we be content to live here any longer. shall know ourselves to be happy,-we shall 2d. Let this be a spur to duty. How dilireflect with joy upon our dignity and felicity, gent and zealous should we be in glorifying -we shall taste every crumb of that sweet- God, that we may come at last to enjoy him? ness, every drop of that pleasure which flows If Tully, Demosthenes and Plato, who had from God. 3. We shall be made able to but the dim watch-light of reason to see by, bear a sight of that glory. We could not and did fancy an elysium and happiness after now bear that glory, it would overwhelm this life, did take such Herculean pains to us, as a weak eye cannot behold the sun; enjoy it, O then how should Christians, who but God will capacitate us for glory; our have the light of scripture to see by, bestir souls shall be so heavenly and perfected with themselves that they may attend at the eterholiness, that they may be able to enjoy the nal fruition of God and glory! If any thing blessed vision of God. Moses in a cleft of can make us rise off our bed of sloth, and the rock saw the glory of God passing by, serve God with all our might, it should be Exod. xxxiii. 21. Through our blessed rock, this,-the hope of our near enjoyment of Christ, we shall behold the beatifical sight God for ever. What made Paul so active in of God.-4. This enjoyment of God shall be the sphere of religion? 1 Cor. xv. 10, "I more than a bare contemplation of him. laboured more abundantly than they all." Some of the learned move the question, His obedience did not move slow as the sun Whether the enjoyment of God shall be only on the dial, but swift, as the sun in the firby way of contemplation? Ans. That is mament. Why was he so zealous in glorisomething, but it is but one half of heaven; fying God, but that he might at last centre there shall be a loving of God,-an acquies. and terminate in him? 1 Thess. iv. 17, cence in him, a tasting his sweetness,-"Then shall we be ever with the Lord." not only inspection but possession: John 3d. Use of Consolation. Let this comfort xvii. 24, "That they may behold my glory," the godly in all the present miseries they

feel.

shortly thou shalt enjoy God, and then shalt have more than thou canst ask or think; thou shalt have angel's joy,-glory without intermission or expiration. We shall never

Thou complainest, Christian, thou dost not enjoy thyself,-fears disquiet thee, -wants perplex thee,-in the day thou canst not enjoy ease, in the night thou canst not enjoy sleep,-thou dost not enjoy the com- enjoy ourselves fully till we enjoy God eterforts of thy life. Let this revive thee, that ❘nally.

OF THE SCRIPTURES.

QUEST. II. WHAT rule hath God given heaven be the author of scripture: Because, to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy 1. The angels pry and search into the abyss him? of gospel-mysteries, 1 Pet. i. 12, which im

ANS. The word of God (which is contain-plies their nescience of some parts of scriped in the Scriptures of the Old and New ture; and sure they cannot be authors of Testament) is the only rule to direct us how that book which themselves do not fully unwe may glorify and enjoy him. derstand. Besides, 2. What angel in heaven

2 Tim. iii. 16, "All scripture is given by durst be so arrogant as to personate God, inspiration of God," &c. By scripture is and say, "I create," Isa. lxv. 17, and "I understood the sacred book of God. It is the Lord have said it," Numb. xiv. 35? So given by divine inspiration, that is, the scrip- that it is evident, the pedigree of scripture ture is not the contrivance of man's brain, is sacred, and it could come from none but but of a divine original. The image of Diana God himself. was had in veneration by the Ephesians, Not to speak of the harmonious consent because they did suppose it fell from Jupiter, of all the parts of scripture, there are seven Acts xix. 35. This book then of the holy cogent arguments which may evince it to be scripture is to be highly reverenced and es- the word of God. teemed, because we are sure it came from 1. By its antiquity. It is of ancient standheaven, 2 Pet. i. 21. The two Testaments ing. The gray hairs of scripture make it are the two lips by which God hath spoken venerable. No human histories extant reach farther than since Noah's flood; but the Q. How doth it appear that the scriptures holy scripture relates matters of fact that have a jus divinum, a divine authority' have been from the beginning of the world; stamped upon them? it writes of things before time. Now, that

to us.

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A. Because the Old and New Testament is a sure rule of Tertullian, "That which is are the foundation of all religion. If their of the greatest antiquity,―id verum quod divinity cannot be proved, the foundation is primum,—is to be received as most sacred gone on which we build our faith. I shall and authentic."

therefore endeavour to evince this great 2. We may know the scripture to be the truth, that the scriptures are the very word word of God, by the miraculous preservaof God. I wonder whence the scripture tion of it in all ages. The holy scriptures should come, if not from God!-1. Bad men are the richest jewel that Christ hath left; could not be the authors of scripture. Would and the church of God hath kept these public their minds be employed in indicting such records of heaven that they have not been holy lines? Would they declare so fiercely lost. The word of God hath never wanted against sin?-2. Good men could not be the enemies to oppose, and, if possible, to exauthors of scripture. Could they write in tirpate it. They have given out a law, consuch a strain? or could it stand with their cerning scripture, as Pharaoh did the midgrace to counterfeit God's name, and put, wives concerning the Hebrew women's "Thus saith the Lord," to a book of their children, to strangle it in the birth; yet God own devising?-3. Nor could any angel in hath preserved this blessed book inviolable

to this day. The devil and his agents have been blowing at scripture light, but could never prevail to blow it out,-a clear sign that it was lighted from heaven. Nor hath the church of God, in all revolutions and changes, only kept the scripture that it should not be lost, but that it should not be depraved. The letter of scripture hath been preserved, without any corruption, in the original tongues. The scriptures were not corrupted before Christ's time, for then Christ would never have sent the Jews to the scriptures; but he sends them to the scriptures, John v. 39, "Search the scriptures." Christ knew these sacred springs were not muddied with human fancies.

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that comes from the grape, which is not mixed nor adulterated. It is so pure, that it purifies every thing else, John xvii. 17. Sanctify them through thy truth." The scripture presseth holiness, so as never any book did; it bids us live "soberly, righteously, godly," Tit. ii. 12. Soberly, in acts of temperance; righteously, in acts of justice ; godly, in the acts of zeal and devotion. It commends to us whatever is just, lovely, and of good report, Phil. iv. 8. This sword of the Spirit. Eph. vi. 17, cuts down vice. Out of this tower of scripture is thrown down a millstone upon the head of sin. The scripture is the royal law, which commands not only the actions, but affections; it binds the heart to its good behaviour. Where is there such holiness to be found, as is digged out of this sacred mine? who could be the author of such a book, as God himself?

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3. The scripture appears to be the word of God, by the matter contained in it.-1. By its profundity. The mystery of scripture is so abstruse and profound, that no man or angel could have known it had it not been divinely revealed. That eternity should be born; that He who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle; that He who rules the stars should suck the breasts; that the Prince of life should die; that the Lord of glory should be put to shame; that sin should be punished to the full, yet pardoned to the full; who could ever have conceived of such a mystery, had not the scripture been the oracle to reveal it to us? So, for the doctrine of the resurrection that the same body which is crumbled into a thousand pieces, should rise idem numero, the same individual body (for else it were a creation not a resurrection),-how could such a sacred riddle, above all human disquisition, be known, had not the scripture made a discovery of it ?-2. By its purity. 5. The impartiality of those men of God, It is, for the matter of it, so full of goodness, who wrote the scriptures. They do not justice and sanctity, that it could be breath- spare to set down their own failings. What ed from none but from God; the holiness of man that writes an history would black his it shows it to be of God, it bears his very own face, viz., record those things of himimage. The scripture is compared to silver self that might stain his reputation? Moses refined seven times, Ps. xii. 6. This book records his own impatience when he struck / of God hath no errata in it; it is a beam of the rock, and tells us, therefore he could the Sun of Righteousness,- -a crystal stream not enter into the land of promise; David flowing from the fountain of life. All laws writes of his own adultery and bloodshed, and edicts of men have had their corruptions, which stands as a blot in his scutcheon to but the word of God hath not the least tinc-succeeding ages; Peter relates his own puture, it is of a meridian splendour, Ps. cxix, sillanimity in denying Christ; Jonah sets 140, "Thy word is very pure," like wine down his own passions, "I do well to be

4. That the scripture is the word of God, is evident by its predictions; it prophesieth of things to come." This shows the voice of God speaking in it. It was foretold by the prophet, "A virgin shall conceive," Isa. vii. 14; and, the Messiah shall be cut off," Dan. ix. 26. The scripture foretells things that should fall out many ages and centuries after; as how long Israel should serve in the iron furnace, and the very day of their deliverance, Exod. xii. 41, "At the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day, it came to pass, that the host of the Lord went out of Egypt." This prediction of future things, merely contingent, and not depending upon natural causes, is a clear demonstration of its divine original.

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