22 NATURE OF [Chap. I. ourGod. Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 0, Christians ! this is the blessed rest; a rest, as it were, without rest; for " they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." And if the body shall be thus employed, 0 how shall the soul be taken up ! As its powers and capacities are greatest, so its actions are strongest, and its enjoyments sweetest. As the bodily senses have their proper actions, whereby they receive and enjoy their objects, so does the soul in its own actions enjoy its own objects, by knowing, remembering, loving, and delightful joying. This is the soul's enjoyment. By these eyes it sees, and by these arms it embraces. Knowledge, of itself, is very desirable. As far as the rational soul exceeds the sensitive, so far the delights of a philosopher, in discovering the secrets of nature, and knowing the mystery of sciences, exceed the delights of the glutton, the drunkard, the unclean, and of all volup- tuous sensualists whatsoever. So excellent is all truth. What, then, is their delight who know the God of truth ! How noble a faculty of the soul is the understanding ! It can compass the earth; it can measure the sun, moon, stars, and heaven; it can foreknow each eclipse to a minute, many years before. But this is the top of all its excellency, that it can know God, who is infinite, who made all these, a little here, and more, much more, here- after. O the wisdom and goodness of our blessed Lord ! He hath created the understanding with a natural bias and inclination to truth, as its object; and to the prime truth, as its prime object. Christian, when, after long gazing heaven -ward, thou hast got a glimpse of Christ, dost thou not sometimes seem to have been with Paul in the third heaven, whether in the body or out, and to have seen what is unutterable ? Art thou not, with Peter, ready to say, " Master, it is good to be here ?" " O that I might dwell in this mount ! 0 that I might ever see what I now see !" Didst thou never look so long upon the Sun of Righteous- ness, till thine eyes were dazzled with his astonishing glory ? And did not the splendor of it make all things below seem black and dark to thee? Especially in the day of suffering for Christ, when he usually appears most mani- festly to his people, didst thou never see one walking in
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