PART II. SERMON XII. 181 infinite delight. In order to illustrate thehappiness of the sacred Three, maywe not suppose something of societynecessary to the perfection of happiness in all intellectual nature ? To know, and be known, to love and to be beloved, are perhaps, such essential ingredients of complete felicity, that it cannot subsist without them : And it may be doubted whether such mutual knowledge and love, as seems requisite for this end, canbe found in anature absolutely simple in all respects. May we not then suppose that some distinctions in the divine Being are of eternal necessity, in order to complete the blessedness of godhead ? Such a distinction as may admit, as a great man expresses it, of deli- cious society, " We, for our parts, cannot but hereby have in our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed state, than we can conceive in mere eternal solitude. And ifthis be true, then the three differences, which we call personal distinctions, in the nature of God, are as absolutely necessary as his blessedness, as his being, or any of his perfec- tions. And then we may return to the words of my text, and boldly infer, that if the man is blessed who is chosen by the free and sovereign grace of God, and caused to approach, or draw near him, what immense and unknown blessedness belongs to each divine person, to all the sacred Three who are by nature, and unchangeable necessity, só near, so united, so much one,. that the least moment's separation seems to be infinitely impossible, and, then we may venture to say, it is notto be conceived ; and the blessedness is conceivcable by nonebut God ? This is ànobler unionand a more intense pleasure than the man Christ Jesus knows or feels, or can conceive ; for he is a creature, These are glories too divine and dazzling for the weak eye of our understandings, too bright for theeye of angels, those morning-stars ; and they, and we, must fall down togetheralike overwhelmed ,with them, and alike confounded. These are flights that tire souls of the strongest wing, and finite minds faint in the Infinite. pursuit : These are depths where our tallest thoughts sinkand drown : We are lost in this oceanof being and blessedness, that has no limit, on either side, no surface, no bot- tom, no shore, The nearnessof the divine persons to each other, and the unspeakable relish of their unbounded pleasures, are too vast ideas for a bounded mind to entertain. It is one infinite transport that runs through Father, Son, and Spirit, without beginning, and without end, with boundless variety, yet ever perfect, and ever present, without change, and without degree : and all this, becausethey are so near tó oneanother, and so much one with God. But when we have fatigued our spirits, and put them to the utmost Stretch, we must lie down and rest, and confess the great
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