SEAM. XII.1 THE SCALE OF BLESSEDNESS. 207 unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts Whence I derived this doctrine in the foregoing sermon. Doctrine. Nearness to God is the foundation of a creature's happiness. This doctrine appeared in full evidence, while we con- sidered the three chief ingredients of true felicity, viz. the contemplation of the noblest object, to satisfy all the powers of the understanding; the love of the supreme good, to answer the utmost propensities of the will; and the sweet and everlasting sensation and assurance of the love ofan almighty friend, who will free us from all the evils which our nature can fear, and confer upon us all the good which a wise and innocent creature can desire. Thus all the capacities of man are employed in their highest and sweetest exercises and enjoyments. Now it isGod alone, the great and ever blessed God, who can furnish us with all these materials of blessedness, who can refine our natures, and who can thus engage and, entertain all the powers and appetites of our natures re- fined. Having finished what I designed in the explication and proof of this doctrine, I proceeded to make various re- flexions for oùr information and practice. But the me- ditation which I proposed, and reserved for this dis course, was the sacred scale of blessedness, or the seve- ral degrees of felicity, that creatures are possessed of according to their advancing approaches toward God ; and weshall find blessedness, in its highest perfection, to Wongonly to God himself. First degree of BLESSEDNESS. I. Happy are they who, though they are sinners by nature, yet are brought so near to God, as to be within the sound and call of his grace. In this sense the whole nation of the Jews was a peo- ple near unto God, for he shewed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel; and upon this account they were happy, in ancient ages, above all kingdoms of the earth, P,s. cxlvii. and cxlviii. Happy those countries where the apostles of Christ planted the gospel, and brought grace and salvation near fhetn, though they were before at a dreadful distance from God! Happy Britons in our age! Though we are involved, with the rest of mankind, in the common 4
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