YAM' II. SERMON Xli. 775 rest who spent a long life in daily services and deaths for the sake of Christ, is not fitted for, and advancedtòa rankof blessedness superior to that of the crucified thief, who became a christian but a few moments, at the end of a life of impiety and plunder ? Can Ipersuade myself, that a holy man, who has known much of God in this world, and spent his age on earth in contemplation of the divine excellencies, who has acquired a great degree of nearness to God in devotion, and has served him, and suffered for him, even to old age and martyrdom, with a sprightly and faithful zeal ; can I believe that this man, who has been trained up all his life to converse with God, and is fitted to receive divine communications abovehis fellows, shall dwell no nearer to God hereafter, and share no larger a degree of blessedness, than the little babe who just entered into this world to dieout of it, 'and who is saved, so far as weknow, merely by the spreading veil of the covenant of grace, drawn over it by the hand of the parent's faith ? Can it be that the great. Judge who cometh, andhisreward is with him, to render to every one according to his works, will make no distinction between Moses and Samson, between the apostle and the thief, between the aged martyr and the infant, in the world to come ? And yet after all it may be matter of enquiry, whether the meanest saint among the sons of Adam, has not some sort of privilege above any rank of angels, by being of a kindred- nature to our Emmanuel, to Jesus the Son of God ? But this leads me to the Fourth degree ofBlessedness. IV. Let usstand still again, and wonder yet more at the blessedness of the man Christ Jesus - inhis approach to God. 1. His very union to God is habitual blessedness. He is constituted near to God by an unspeakable union. What joys, what unknown delights above our language, and above our thoughts, possess the holy soul of the man Jesus, for he is the nearest creature to the blessed God ; for he is one withgodhead ; John x. 30. The Son of David, according to the flesh, is joined in a personal union to the eternal God, and thus he is over all, Godblessedfor evermore; Rom. ix. 5. There was a time indeed, when the divinenature so far with- held its influences, as to let him feel sorrows and sharp agonies, when he came to make himself a sacrifice for our sins, and. ex- posed his holynature to pain and shame : Ile consented for a sea- son to have God absent, but cried out terribly under the present anguish of it, and shallhave no more trials of this kind. Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; Rom. vi. 9. The man who was born of the virgin, shall now have the eternal Son of VOL. I. N
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