182 Tilt SCALE OP BLESSEDNESS. incomprehensible, How far, this sublime transport ofjoy is varied in each subsistence : how far their mutual knowledge of each others properties, or their mutual delight in each others love, is distinct in eachdivine person, is a secret too high for the present determination of our language and our thoughts, it commands our judgment into silence, and our whole souls into wonder and adoration*. Thus we have traced the streams of happiness that flow amongst the creatures in endless variety, to their original and eternal fountain, God himself : He is the all-sufficient spring of blessednéss as well as of being, to all the intellectuaL worlds ; and he iseverlastingly self-sufficient for his own being and blessedness. But are not we told in scripture, that God delights in the works ofhis hands, that he takes pleasure in his saints, that he re- joices in Zion, and rests in his loveto his church ; that Jesus Christ, even as man Mediator, is the beloved of his soul, in whomheis well-pleased? Yes, surely, this is one way whereby he represents his own divine satisfactions in ourlanguage, and after the manner of men. But we must not imagine that he ever goes out of him- self, and descends to creatures, as though he needed any thing from them, who are all before him as nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. It is from his own wisdom, power, and goodness, as they appear in all his works, that his delight arises ; and it is in these glories of his nature, and in the gracious pur- poses of his will, as they are manifested in his works, that the saints and angels, and all the happy ranks of beings, -find their highest satisfaction. It is in the contemplation of God, and in the exercises and sensations of divine love, that all supreme felicity consists, so far as we are capable of being acquainted with it. Theonly reflection with which I shall conclude the subject, * This discourse was delivered above twenty years ago, and the reader will observe some warmer efforts of imagination than riper years would indulge .on a themesosublime and abstruse. Since I have searched most studiously into this mystery of late, I have learned more of my own ignorance : so that when I speak of these unsearchables, I abate much of my younger assurance ; nor do my' later thoughts venture so far into the particular modes of explaining this sacred distinction in.the godhead. There appears to! me good reason to doubt, where there can be three distinct and different principles of consciousness, and three distinct and different wills in the one God, the one infinite Spirit. I was afraid to assert it in this sermon heretofore, and I am more afraid to assert it now. Reason and scripture join to teach me, that there can he but one God, end this God is a Spirit. What distinctions may be in this one Spirit, I know nob, Yet, since I am fully established in the belief of the Deity of the blessed Three, though I know not the manner of explication, I dare let this discourse appear now in the world, as being agreeable so far to my present sentiments on this subject. A larger and more particular accountof my most matute thought on the doctrine Of the holy Trinity, may be Seen in the last sermon of my third volume.-- dprìl8, 1429.
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