Pater It. SERMON XII,, 175 ness consists hi approaching to God ! That they would but give credit to the report of wise and holy men, who have lived in humble converse with God many years ! What á sacred and superior pleasure it is, above all the joys of sense, to love the great and blessed God, and to know that he loves me ! To walk all the day in the light of his countenance ! To have him near meas a counsellor, whose advice I may ask in every difficulty of fife ! To Be ever near him as my guard, and to fly from every danger to thewingofhis protection ! Tohave such an almighty Friend with me in sickness and sorrow, in anguish and mortal agonies, and ready to receive my departing spirit into the arms of his love. O that the formal and nominal christian, who attends divine worship, would but once be persuaded, that if he come one step nearer to God, his happiness will receive almost an infinite ad- vance ! Let the shadows leadhim to the substance ; let the image, in the glass allure him to converse with the original beauty, and the ordinances of gracebring himnear to the God of grace ! Let him no longer content himself with pictures of happiness, but give himself up entirely to the Lord, and be made possessor of solid and substantial felicity. Blessed is the man who has re- nounced sin and the world, and his heart is over-powered by divine goodness, and brought near to God in hisholy covenant. Yet there are degrees ofblessedness among the saints on earth. Blessedis every soul whose state and nature are changed, who is not a stranger, but a son : but more blessed are those sons who are most like their heavenly Father, and keep closest to him in all their ways ! Blessed are they above others in the holy family, who seldom wander from their God, whose hearts are always in a heavenly frame; andwhose graces and virtuesbrightest and improve daily, and make a continual and joyful advance toward the state of glory ! Third degree of blessedness. III. Now let us raise our thoughts, and wonder at the blessedness of the saints and angels in the upper world: and blessed are those spirits, whether they belong to bodies or not, whom the Lord has chosen, and caused to approach so near him, as to dwell and abide, in his higher 'courts! They are fully satisfied with the goodness of his house, even of his holy temple. The saints are established as pillars in this temple of God, and shall go no more out. They approach him intheir sublime methods of worship, without the medium of types and. ordinances : They see God face to face; 1 Cor. xiii. 32. Though ordinances in the church on earth are means of drawing near,'yet in that very thing theyare also tokens of some degree of estrangement. The saintsabove are constantly before the throne,or night and day servingthe Lord, as it is expressed
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