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INWARD WITNESS
TO
CHRISTIANITY.
[SERrI.
ï1
come,
nor
height,
nor
depth,
nor
any other creature,
shall
he
able
to
separate
us
f
from
the
love
of
God
which
is
in
Christ Jesus our
Lord,
Rom.
viii. 38, &c.
When a rational
mind
is
awakened
to see the
emptiness
of
all
creatures, and their
insufficiency
to make
him
happy,
and
finds
nothing but
the
eternal
love
of
God
capable to make a
creature
truly
blessed
;
how
miserably
must
that
soul be
tormented,
that
knows
not whether
God
will
love him
or
no,
nor
how this love may be
at-
tained;
nor,
when
once attained,
how
long this
love
will
continue? But
he finds
an
answer to
all
these painful
questions
in the gospel
of
Christ
:
For
the
Father
loves
the
Son infinitely,
and
loves all those
that
believe on
him for
his
sake;
they
are
for ever accepted
in
him
who
is
first
and for ever
accepted
;
and
they
are
beloved
in
him
who
is
first
and
for
ever beloved;
Lph.
i.
6.
III.
The
happiness
of
eternal
life
consists in the
plea-
sure that
arises from the
regular operation
of
all
our
powers and
passions.
This
was a
great
part of
the
hap-
piness
of
the
innocent
man;
his
reason
was
the guide to
all
his
meaner
faculties,
and
his
appetites, and
his affec-
tions,
in
a
sweet
harmony
followed
the conduct
of
his
reason
:
And
as his
understanding and
judgment
put
forth their regular
dictates,
so
the
meaner
powers paid a
,constant obedience,
and
pursued their proper
objects.
There
was
no
irregular
anger to set his blood
on
fire;
no
intemperate
and
corrupt
wishes
to vitiate
his
nature; to
pollute
his
pleasures,
and disturb
his
peace
;
none
of
those tumults and
hurricanes
in his
soul, which
we so
often
feel in
our
fallen state,
and lament them much
of-
tener
than
we
can suppress them. And
as
the
fancy
and appetites
of
innocent
Adam submitted to
his
reason,
so,
doubtless,
if
his
Maker
were
pleased
to
reveal
any
sublimer
truth
to
him,
which his
reason could not com-
prehend, then reason
itself submitted
to
that
revelation,
believed the word
of
a speaking God, and
resigned
the
throne to
faith.
His
natural
powers had
no
uneasy con-
test,
there
was
no
civil
war
nor rebellion
amongst
then/
to
interrupt
his
happiness.
And thus
it
shall be again,
but
in
a
more glorious
manner, when
we
are raised
from all the
ruins of our
fallen state, and
eternal
life
is
made complete in heaven.