Part 28

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.

HYMN FOR SERMON XII. _The Scale of Blessedness; or Blessed Saints, Blessed Saviour, and Blessed Trinity._

Ascend, my soul, by just degrees, Let contemplation rove O’er all the rising ranks of bliss, Here, and in worlds above.

Blest is the nation near to God, Where he makes known his ways: Blest are the men whose feet have trod His lower courts of grace.

Blest were the levite and the priest, Who near his altar stood; Blest are the saints from sin releas’d, And reconcil’d with blood.

Blest are the souls dismiss’d from clay, Before his face they stand: Blest angels in their bright array, Attend his great command.

Jesus is more divinely blest, Where man to godhead join’d, Hath joys transcending all the rest, More noble and refin’d.

But, O what words or thoughts can trace The blessed Three in one! Here rest my spirit, and confess The infinite unknown.

Footnote 24:

These expressions may be sufficiently justified, if we consider Jepthah’s rash vow of sacrifice, which fell upon his only child; and Samson’s rude or unbecoming conduct in his amours with the Philistine woman at Timnah, the harlot at Gaza, and his Delilah at Sorek, his bloody quarrels, and his manner of life. The learned and pious Dr. Owen, as I have often been informed by his intimate friend Sir John Hartopp, called him a rude believer. He might have a strong faith of miracles; Heb. xi. 22. but a small share of that faith which purifies the heart.

Footnote 25:

I know the word blessed, when it is applied to God or Christ, generally signifies, that they are the objects of our blessing or praise, and it is thus translated from the originals, ברוך or ευλογητος: But in our tongue this word signifies also happy, and the original words אשרי and Μακαριος are frequently rendered blessed, to signify happiness, as in my text. Though, if our translators had always observed the distinction, the precise lease of the original had better appeared.

Footnote 26:

See the note toward the end of this part of the sermon, p. 151.

Footnote 27:

This discourse was delivered above twenty years ago, and the reader will observe some warmer efforts of imagination than riper years would indulge on a theme so sublime and abstruse. Since I have searched most studiously into this mystery of late, I have learned more of my own ignorance: so that when I speak of these unsearchables, I abate much of my younger assurance; nor do my later thoughts venture so far into the particular modes of explaining this sacred distinction in the godhead. There appears to me good reason to doubt, where there can be three distinct and different principles of consciousness, and three distinct and different wills in the one God, the one infinite Spirit. I was afraid to assert it in this sermon heretofore, and I am more afraid to assert it now. Reason and scripture join to teach me, that there can be but one God, and this God is a Spirit. What distinctions may be in this one Spirit, I know not: Yet, since I am fully established in the belief of the Deity of the blessed Three, though I know not the manner of explication, I dare let this discourse appear now in the world, as being agreeable so far to my present sentiments on this subject. A larger and more particular account of my most mature thought on the doctrine of the holy Trinity, may be seen in the last sermon of my third volume.—_April 8, 1729._

TWO SERMONS _On our Appearance before God here and hereafter._ Delivered in Sir Thomas Abney’s Family at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, at the Evening-worship, Nov. 25, and Dec. 9, 1716.

_To the Right Worshipful_ Sir Thomas Abney, Knt. and Alderman of London.

WORTHY SIR,

While you were restrained by the laws of men from public worship in that way which you have chosen, I also suffered the same restraint, by the providence of God confining me to long sickness; during which time I enjoyed in your excellent family, many happy conveniences, toward the ease of my affliction, and the recovery of my health.

I thought it therefore a necessary piece of christian gratitude, that some of the first-fruits of my labours should be devoted to your service; and with this view I attempted such meditations as might be well suited to my own circumstances of confinement, as well as to yours; that I might speak more sensibly from the heart to your spiritual advantage, and to the profit of all your household.

Since that time it has pleased the providence of God to take off your restraint entirely, by the repeal of that unrighteous law, and to give you the pleasures of his sanctuary; yet the review of these discourses, through the operation of the blessed Spirit, may renew some useful meditations, when offered from the press as a testimony of public thankfulness, and in this new form proposed to your perusal, by,

SIR,

Your most affectionate,

And obedient servant,

Under many obligations,

I. WATTS.

SERMON XIII. _Appearance before God here and hereafter._ PSALM xlii. 2.—When shall I come and appear before God. THE FIRST PART.