PACT II. SERMON XII, 173 sities of the will ; and the sweet and everlasting sensation and assurance of the love of an almighty friend, who will free us from all the evils which our naturecan fear, and confer upon us all the good which a wise and innocent creature can desire. Thus all thecapacities of manare employed in their highest and sweetest exercises andenjoyments. Now it is God 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 entertainall the powers and appetites of our natures refined. Having finishedwhat I designed in the explication and proof of this doctrine, I proceeded to make various reflections for our information and practice. But the meditation which I proposed, and reserved for this discourse, was the sacred `scale of blessed- ness, or the several degrees of felicity, that creatures are pos- sessed of, according to their advancing approaches toward God ; andwe shall find blessedness, in its highest perfection, tobelong onlyto God himself. First degree of blessedness. I. Happy are they who, though they are sinnersby nature, yet are brought so near to God, as tobe within the sound and call of his grace. In this sense the whole nation of theJews was a people near unto God, for he shewed his word untoJacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel ; and upon this account they were happy, in ancient ages, above all kingdoms of the earth; Ps. cxlvii. and exlviii. Happy those countries where the apostles of Christ planted the gospel, and brought grace and salvation near them, though they werebefore at a dreadful distance from God ! . Happy Bri- tons in our age ! Though weare involved, with the rest of man- kind, in the common ruins of our first defection from God, yet we are notleft in the darkness of heathenism, on the very con- fines of hell But God has exalted us near to heaven and him- self, in the ministrations of his word, and led us in a way to his everlasting enjoyment. Ile hasbuilt his sanctuaries amongst us, and established his churches in the midst of us. We are invited to behold the beauty of the Lord, to return to our obedience and his love, and thusbe made happy for ever. This is a matter ofdivine choice and peculiar favour. Blessed England, whom " He bath, chosen, and caused to approach" thus far towards himself ! And why was not the polite nation of China chosen too.; And why not thepoor Savagesof Africa, and the barbarous millions of the American world ? Why are. they left in a dismal estrangement fromGod, as Even so, Father, be- cause it pleased thee," whose counsels " are unsearchable, and whose ways of judgment and mercy are past findingout." " Blessed are the people who hear and know the joyful
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