(4.) Consider the constancy of this delight ; it was from everlast- ing, as in verse 23. and from eternity ; it never suffered one mo- ment's interruption. The overflowing fountain of God's delight and love never stopped its course, never ebbed ; but as he speaks in the text, " I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before " him." Once more, consider the fulness of that delight, the per- fection of that pleasure ; / was delights : so the word is in its origi- nal; not only plural, delights, all delights, but also in the abstract, delight itself : as afterwards from the abundance of his sorrows, he was stiled, a man of sorrows ; so here, from the fulness of his de-> lights : as though you should say, even constituted and made up of pleasure and delight.
3. Once more, let us consider it comparatively, and this state will yet appear more glorious, comparing it with either the choicest delights that one creature takes in another, or that God takes in the creature, or that the creatures take in God : measure these immense delights, betwixt the Father and his Son, by either of these lines, and you shall find them infinitely short : For, (1.) Though the delights that creatures take in each other, be some- times a great delight ; such was Jacob's delight in Benjamin, whose life is said to be bound up in the lad's life, a dear and high expression, Gen. xliv. 30. Such was that of Jonathan in David, whose soul was knit with his soul, " and he loved him as his own soul," 1 Sam. xiii. 1. and such is the delight of one friend in another: n there is a friend that is as a man's own soul," Deut. xiii. 6. yet all this is but creature-delight, and can in no particular equal the delights betwixt the Father and the Son ; for this is but a finite de- light, according to the measure and abilities of creatures, but that is infinite, suitable to the infinite perfection of the divine Being ; this is always mixed, that perfectly pure. (2.) Or if you compare it with the delight that God takes in the creatures, it is confessed that God takes great delight in some creatures. " The Lord " takes pleasure in his saints, he rejoices over them with singing ! " and restetli in his love," Zeph. iii. 17. Isa. lxii. 5. But yet there is a great difference betwixt his delight in creatures, and his de- lights in Christ ; for all his delight in the saints is secondary, and for Christ's sake ; but his delights in Christ dire primary, and for 'his own sake : we are accepted in the beloved, Eph. i. 6. he is be*
48 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. II.
loved, and accepted for himself. (3.) To conclude, compare it once more with the delights that the best of creatures take in God, and Christ, and it must be confessed that is a choice delight, and a transcendent love, with which they love and delight in him ; * Psal. lxxiii. 25. " Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and on " earth there is none I desire besides thee." What pangs of love, what raptures of delight did the spouse express to Christ ? " O thou " whom my soul loveth F But surely our delight in God is no perfect rule to measure his delight in Christ by : for our love to God (at the best) is still imperfect ; that is the burden and con- stant complaint of saints, but this is perfect ; ours is inconstant, up and down, ebbing and flowing, but this is constant. So then, to conclude, the condition and state of Jesus Christ before his incar- nation, was a state of the highest and matchless delight, in the en- joyment of his Father. The uses follow.
What an astonishing act of love was this then, for the Father to give the delight, the darling, of his soul, out of his very bosom, for poor sinners ! all tongues must needs pause and falter, that at- tempt the expressions of his grace, expressions being here swallow- ed up : (i God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten " Son," John hi. 16. Here is a sic without a sicut ; so loved them : how did he love them ? nay, here you must excuse the tongues of angels ; which of us would deliver a child, the child of our delights, an only child, to death for the greatest inheritance in the world ? what tender parent can endure a parting pull with such a child ? when Hagar was taking her last leave (as she thought) of her Ishmael, Gen. xxi. 16. the text saith, " she went and sat " her down over against him, a good way off: for she said, Let " me not see the death of the child. And she sat over-against ** him, and lift up her voice, and wept :" though she were none of the best of mothers, nor he the best of children, yet she could not give up the child. O it was hard to part ! what an outcry did David make, even for an Absalom ! wishing he had died for him. What a hole (as I may say) hath the death of some children made in the hearts of some parents, which will never be closed up in this world ! yet surely, never did any child lie so close to a parent's
* Amo te, JDomine, plusguam meos , plusquam mea,plusquam me, i. e. O Lord, I lore thee above all my relations, above all that is mine, above myself. Bern.
Suppose (saith one) there were a hell betwixt me and Christ, and Christ should say, put in thy foot and come tbjrough , or thou shalt have none of me, would I not
£erm. it. the fountain of life\ 49
heart, as Christ did to his Father's ; and yet he willingly parts with him, though his only one, the Son of his delights, and that to death, a cursed death, for sinners, for the worst of sinners. O tniranda Dei phUanthropia ! O the admirable love of God to men ! matchless love ! a love past finding out ! Let all men, therefore, in the business of their redemption, give equal glory to the Father with the Son, John v. 23. if the Father had not loved thee, he had never parted with such a Son for thee.