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Now, the new creature hath arrived to the measure of the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. The first formation of this spiritual, as well as of the natural man, was hidden and secret; it was curiously wrought, and in a way no more liable to observation, than that of framing the child in the womb; as that is as hidden as the concoction of minerals, or precious stones, in the lower parts of the earth. No secrets of nature can outvie the mysteries of godliness. Its growth is also by very insensible degrees, as it is with the products of nature; but its arrival to perfection is infinitely more strange, than any thing in nature ever was. How sudden and wonderful is the change; when, in the twinkling of an eye, the blessed soul instantly awakes out of drowsy languishings, and miserable weakness, into perfect strength and vigor! As a man is, so is his strength; and as his strength is, so is his joy and pleasure. The sun is said to go forth as a strong man, rejoicing to run his race. Psal. 19. 5. When a man goes, in the fullness of his strength, upon any enterprize; how do his blood and spirits triumph beforehand! no motion of hand, or foot, is without a sensible delight. The strength of a man's spirit is, unspeakably, more than that of the outward man; its faculties and powers more refined and raised : and hence are rational or intellectual exercises and operations, much more delightful than corporal ones can be. But (still, as the man is, so is his strength) it is an incomparably greater strength that attends the heaven-born man. This man born of God, begotten of God, after his own likeness; this hero this Son of God, was born to conflicts, to victories to triumphs. While he is yet but in his growing age, he overcomes the world (as Hercules the serpents in his cradle ;) overcomes the wicked one, and is at last more than conqueror. A mighty power attends godliness; "a spirit of power, and of a sound mind;" but how much this divine creature grows, so much the more like God: and, being perfect, conflicts cease; he had overcome and won the crown before. And now all his strength runs out into acts of pleasure. Now when he shall go forth in his might to love God, (as we are required to love him now with all our might) and every act of praise shall be an act of power, done with a fulness of strength (as it is said their praises, at the bringing home of the ark, were with all their might) O! what will the pleasure be that shall accompany this state of perfection! Perfect power, and perfect pleasure are here met, and shall for ever dwell together, and be always commensurate to one another. They are so, here, in their imperfect state: our feeble, spiritless duties, weak, dead prayers: they have no more sweetness than strength, no more pleasure than power in them. Therefore we are listless, and have no mind to duties, as we find we are more frequently destitute of a spiritual liveliness and vigor therein. When a spirit of might and power goes on with us in the wont

ed course of our converses with God, we then forecast opportunities, and gladly welcome the season, when it extraordinarily occurs, of drawing nigh to him. It cannot be thought, that the connexion and proportion between these should fail in glory; or that, when every thing else is perfect, the blessed soul itself made perfect, even as God himself is perfect, in this bearing his likeness, should be unlike him in bliss; or its satisfaction be imperfect.

CHAPTER VIII.

The satisfaction carried in the glory of God impressed, having been considered in the preceding chapters generally, it is now [2] shown by instances; certain particulars of this impression instanced in a dependent frame of spirit, subjection or self-devoting; love, purity, liberty, tranquillity.

But besides the general consideration of this likeness, we shall instance,

[2.] In some of the particular excellencies comprehended in it, wherein the blessed shall imitate and resemble God; whence we may further estimate the pleasure and satisfaction, that being like God will afford. Only here let it be remembered, that as we all along in this discourse, speak of likeness to God in respect of moral excellencies; so by likeness to him, in respect of these, we understand, not only a participation of those which are communicable; but a correspondent impress also, as to those that are incommunicable; as hath been more distinctly opened in the propositions concerning this likeness. Which being premised, I shall give instances of both kinds, to discover somewhat of the inexpressible pleasure of being thus conformed to God. And bere, pretermitting the impress of knowledge of which we have spoken under the former head of vision; we shall instance,

First. In a dependent frame of spirit: which is the proper impress of the divine all-sufficiency, and self-fulness, duly apprehended by the blessed soul. It is not easy to conceive a higher pleasure, than this, compatible to a creature, the pleasure of dependence; yea, this is a higher than we can conceive. Dependence (which speaks the creature's x or habitude to its principle, as the subserviency which imports its habitude to its end) is twofold:-Natural: which is common and essential to all creatures; even when no such thing is thought on, or considered by them. The creatures live, move, and have their beings in God, whether they think of it or no.-Voluntary, or rational: which is

de facto, peculiar; and de jure, common, to reasonable creatures as such. A dependence that is, ex gougedéws, elective; and, with a foregoing reason, (which I understand by elective, not a liberty of doing, or not doing it) and concomitant consideration of what we do, and animadversion of our own act: when knowingly and willingly, understanding ourselves in what we do, we go out of ourselves, and live in God. This is the dependance of which I speak. And it cannot but be attended with transcendent pleasure in that other state, when that knowledge and animadversion shall be clear and perfect: both, as this dependance imports,-A nullifying of self: and magnifying (I may call it omnifying) of God, a making him all in all. As it imports (which it doth most evidently) a self-annihilation, a pure nullifying of self, it is a continual recognition of my own nothingness, a momently, iterated confession, that my whole being is nothing, but a mere puff of precarious breath, a bubble raised from nothing by the arbitrary fiat of the great Creator; reducible, had he so pleased, any moment, to nothing again. These are true and just acknowledgments, and to a well tempered soul infinitely pleasant, when the state of the case is thoroughly understood (as now it is) and it hath the apprehension clear; how the creation is sustained, how, and upon what terms its own being, life and blessedness are continued to it; that it is, every moment, determinable upon the constancy of the Creator's will, that it is not simply nothing. It is not possible, that any thing should hinder this consideration from being eternally delightful; but diabolical uncreaturely pride, that is long since banished heaven, and that banished its very subjects thence also. Nothing can suit that temper, but to be a God; to be wholly independent; to be its own sufficiency. The thoughts of living at the will and pleasure of another, are grating; but they are only grating to a proud heart, which, here, hath no place. A soul naturalized to humiliations, accumstomed to postrations, and selfabasements, trained up in acts of mortification, and that was brought to glory, through a continued course and series of selfdenial; that ever since it first came to know itself, was wont to depend for every moment's breath, for every glimpse of light, for every fresh influence (I live, yet not I-Gal. 2. 20.) with what pleasure doth it, now, as it were vanish before the Lord! what delight doth it take to diminish itself, and as it were disappear; to contract and shrivel up itself, to shrink even into a point, into a nothing, in the presence of the divine glory; that it may be all in all! Things are now pleasant (to the soul, in its right mind) as they are suitable; as they carry a comeliness and congruity in them and nothing, now appears more becoming, than such a self-annihilation. The distances of Creator and creature, of infinite and finite, of a necessary and arbitrary being, of self-originated and a derived being, of what was from ever

lasting and what had a beginning; are now better understood than ever. And the soul by how much it is, now, come nearer to God, is more apprehensive of its distance. And such a frame and posture doth hence please it best, as doth most fitly correspond thereto. Nothing is so pleasing to it, as to be as it ought. The temper is most grateful that is most proper, and which best agrees with its state. Dependence therefore is greatly pleasing, as it is a self-nullifying thing. And yet it is, in this respect, pleasing, but as a means to a further end. The pleasure that attends it, is higher and more intense, according as it more immediately attains that end, namely-The magnifying and exalting of God which is the most connatural thing to the holy soul; the most fundamental and deeply impressed law of the new creature. Self gives place, that God may take it; becomes nothing, that he may be all it vanishes, that his glory may shine the brighter. Dependance gives God his proper glory. It is the peculiar honor and prerogative of a Deity, to have a world of creatures hanging upon it, staying themselves upon it; to be the fulcrum, the centre of a lapsing creation. When this dependance is voluntary and intelligent, it carries in it a more explicit owning and acknowledgment of God. By how much more this is the distinct and actual sense of my soul, Lord, I cannot live but by thee; so much the more openly and plainly do I speak it out, Lord, thou art God alone thou art the fulness of life and being; The only root and spring of life; The everlasting I AM; The Being of beings.

How unspeakably pleasant, to a holy soul, will such a perpetual agnition or acknowledgment of God be! when the perpetuation of its being, shall be nothing else than a perpetuation of this acknowledgment; when every renewed aspiration, every motion, every pulse of the glorified soul, shall be but a repetition of it; when it shall find, itself, in the eternity of life, that everlasting state of life which it now possesses, to be nothing else than everlasting testimony that God is God: He is so; for, I am, I live, I act, I have the power to love him; none of which could otherwise be. When amongst the innumerable myriads of the heavenly host, this shall be the mutual, alternate testimony of each to all the rest throughout eternity, will not this be pleasant? When each shall feel continually the fresh illapses and incomes of God, the power and sweetness of divine influences, the enlivening vigor of that vital breath, and find in themselves, thus we live and are sustained and are yet as secure, touching the continuance of this state of life, as if every one were a God to himself; and did each one possess an entire God-head. When their sensible dependance on him, in their glorified state, shall be his perpetual triumph over all the imaginary deities, the fancied Numina, wherewith he was heretofore provoked to jealousy; and he shall now have no rival left, but be ackowledged and known, to be all in all. How pleasant will it then be, as it were,

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to lose themselves in him! and to be swallowed up in the overcoming sense of his boundless, all-sufficient, every-where flowing fulness! And then add to this; they do by this dependance actually make this fulness of God their own. They are now met in one common principle of life and blessedness, that is sufficient for them all. They no longer live a life of care, are perpetually exempt from solicitous thoughts, which here they could not perfectly attain to in their earthly state. They have nothing to do but to depend: to live upon a present self-sufficient good, which alone is enough to replenish all desires: else it were not selfsufficient. How can we divide, in our most abstractive thoughts, the highest pleasure, the fullest satisfaction, from this dependance? It is to live at the rate of a God; a God-like life a living upon immense fulness, as he lives.

Secondly. Subjection; which I place next to dependance, as being of the same allay; the product of impressed sovereignty; as the other, of all sufficient fulness. Both impressions upon the creature, corresponding to somewhat in God, most incommunicably appropriate to him. This is the soul's real and practical acknowledgment of the supreme Majesty; its homage to its Maker; its self-dedication than which nothing more suits the state of a creature, or the spirit of a saint. And as it is suitable, it is pleasant. It is that by which the blessed soul becomes, in its own sense, a consecrated thing, a devoted thing, sacred to God; its very life and whole being referred and made over to him. With what delightful relishes, what sweet gusts of pleasure is this done! while the soul tastes its own act; approves it with a full ungainsaying judgment; apprehends the condignity and fitness of it; assents to itself herein; and hath the ready suffrage; the harmonious concurrence of all its powers! When the words are no sooner spoken, "Worthy art thou, O Lord, to receive glory, honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created;" but they are resounded from the penetralia, the inmost bowels, the most intimate receptacles, and secret chambers of the soul, O Lord, thou art worthy worthy, that I, and all things should be to thee: worthy, to be the Omega, as thou art the Alpha, the last, as thou art the first; the end, as thou art the beginning of all things; the ocean into which all being shall flow, as the fountain from which it sprang. My whole self, and all my powers, the excellencies now implanted in my being, the privileges of my now glorified state, are all worth nothing to me but for thee; please me only, as they make me fitter for thee. O the pleasure of these sentiments, the joy of such raptures! when the soul

* Τὸ δὲ ἀυτάρκες τίθεμεν, ὅ μονόμενον αἱρετὸν ποιεῖ τὸν βίον, και μηδενὸς ἐνδέα : we esteem that to be self-sufficient, which of itself makes life desirable, and leaves no want. Arist. de mor. lib. 1. c. 4.

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