glory! I know every one of you in particular, as by name, and what was your lot on earth. When our converse is more joyful, shall not our fellowship now be passing excellent? The faculties are great, the objects are great, and great is eternity, which we have ever before us in our fellowship. We are not confined, as on earth, to days, hours, and years; but shall speak to one another of his infinite excellences again and again, and more and more, and for ever speak: and what new delights, since earth's childish dialect is done away! Words, sentences, orations, and volumes were as dark shadows, of little or no signification; but oh the profound idiom of Emmanuel's country! every word is like a talent, representing more than ten thousand excellent volumes in earth's language. How admirably do mortality and immortality differ in all things! Cry out, then, his matchless praises; shall we not contend, who shall speak most excellently of his glory? shall we not be for ever recounting his wonderful goodness to us, in time and eternity? Oh delightful fellowship with men and angels! oh more than enrapturing voice of the Son of God! were it not the prerogative of glory, that one enjoyment cannot divert from another, I should for ever shut all my faculties against you, O fellow-creatures; that they might only be filled with Jesus, my only Wellbeloved. Whatever I enjoy, still I enjoy thee perfectly and fully with whomsoever I converse, continually I am with thee." Thou art the beginning, middle, and end of all. Oh the eternal high tides of joys in my heart! nothing can separate me, in the least, from this immediate 66 : enjoyment of thee. The members are not hindered from receiving influences from the head, because of their mutual commerce among themselves; reflex rays hinder not the direct; the enjoyment of the thing included eminently, hinders not the enjoyment of that which includes. I enjoy thee; and therefore I enjoy all things: and my enjoyment of creatures is no new enjoyment, but another manner of enjoying of thee; like the beholding the light of the sun darting from the moon: every one of us reflects the beauty wherewith thou adornest us. 66 41. All the attri bute to our eternal blessedness; but his the crown of all. How do all smile with a ravishing countenance, whether we view butes of God contriin time on earth, these present unchangeableness is enjoyments, or their flourishing throughout eternity! The consideration of God's wonderful providences in time, will fill the thoughts with endless admiration. And am I not delighted in looking back into infinite perfections, before all ages? Here there is ever a further; but it is according to finite conception, to look upon thee, as past, present, and to come." Thou art eminently all things, yet not formally, and in their own proper nature: we change every moment, and have still new actings, because we are 66 finite" beings; but with thee there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," James i. 17 Whatever thou dost, from eternity thou dost it: thy actings have neither beginning, middle, nor ending; which are but one simple act, the same with thyself, though virtually and equivalently it contains in its bosom innumerable actions; even as thy everlastingness 66 innumerable days, years, and ages. Who can admire enough of this? All thy excellences are but one excellence, equivalent to infinite worlds of excellences. Oh what a blessed life have we, men and angels," in dwelling in God," the almighty, all-sufficient JEHOVAH! in whom is contained infinite varieties of all joys, all pleasures, all sweetness, all contentments, all beauties, all glories, in a transcendent, eminent, and most perfect manner. Oh happy I who have such an infinite One, boundless One in all perfections, to be my portion! Oh, thou art infinite, eternal, unchangeable in thy wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Everlasting raptures! he, who loveth us, is " unchangeable;" he, in whom we trust, is the "Rock of ages," whose goings forth have been from eternity, Micah v. 2. Oh, then, thy smiles are everlasting. Our happiness is eternal; it is joy upon joy, to consider, this life can have no period: it hath neither middle, progress, nor ending; but shall ever be a beginning, and shall be ever, ever alike far from the period of my joys and happiness; ever in this same delightful unspeakable frame of divine love and joy, I am just now into! Shall it ever be high tide? Oh more than happiness! it overflows its banks: it is much I bear this joy! Oh my joys, my joys, you are of an immortal duration! O my excellent Wellbeloved, now hast thou with eternity crowned all my happiness! to think ever to be disjoined from thee, would embitter all the present sweetness: the greater the enjoyment, the greater the loss. Temporary enjoyments nothing affect me: what will end, will be as if it had not been. Ever so many ages are nothing in the minds of elevated creatures: only brutes are taken with time. Nothing is real and substantial, but what is enduring. Nothing vain and empty now all things here shall be ever in the selfsame state we are now in. So are all things in hell also. The fashion of this world shall never pass away all are now solid and enduring: vanity is for ever banished out of the universe; all things shall be for ever as they are. Oh my joys! though you were low, yet the thoughts of your eternal permanency may cause you to swell over your banks. Oh glory, glory, how massy art thou! Not a thing glistering now, and anon vanished. Oh the more enduring substance! the kingdom immovable! these everlasting arms encircle us eternally! for "the Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Sion, to all generations." We "that trust in the Lord, are like mount Sion, that cannot be removed, but abideth for ever: the glory of the Lord shall endure for ever he shall rejoice in all his works. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee with long life dost thou satisfy them, and showest them thy salvation. Thou art the strength of their heart, and their portion for ever, Psa. cxlvi. 10; cxxv. 1; civ. 31; cii. 28; xci. 16; lxxiii. 26. Oh real, solid, substantial, enduring portion! indeed, thou art the "Rock of ages.' All the innumerable ages past, present, and to come, do roll upon thee as their foundation. Thy years are throughout all generations; of old didst thou lay the foundations of the earth; and the heavens 66 were the work of thine hands; they did perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them waxed old, like a garment; as a vesture thou changedst them, and they were changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end," Psa. cii. 24; Heb. i. 10—12. Oh, my surpassing happiness shall have no end! Oh life, and fulness of joys! I shall be ever with thee, O most lovely Wellbeloved! Some transient glimpses of thy loveliness upon my soul, was a heaven upon earth: but oh, the permanent and full outlettings of thy beauty, sweetness, and all excellences, are more than ten thousand heavens of happiness! I am here dwelling within the boundless circle of eternity! Oh sweet for evermore! only because of my sweetest Wellbeloved, whom I fully and eternally enjoy! What good would my life do to me, were I not to enjoy him throughout eternal ages? Not that I account it not an invaluable happiness, to receive one token of love, and no more, from thee: one sight of thy only excellent beauty, one smile of thy overcoming lovely face, transcendently excels the height of all creature enjoyments. are altogether Christ's, rations. 42. That we Thy kingdom, O Emmanuel, is and not our own, is an everlasting kingdom; the sceptre our only happiness. of glory dost thou sway to all geneIndeed, when time and days came to a period, and thou hast put down all rule, and all authority and power, thou deliveredst up the commission of governing the church, and, in part, bringing the world back to thy Father; and art subject as Daysman betwixt God and creatures, that God may only fill the faculties of men and |