{2d.) There is complete love. There is a constant cleaving of heart to God, without change and weariness, a love that never ceaseth work- ing without weakness and distractions. If we delight in anything here, we soon grow weary, and have a change of objects; but God in heavenly communion is always fresh and new. Here are distractions and startings aside to the creature ; but there is an eternal solace and complacency, a continual sabbath that never groweth weary and bur- densome. All the heart and bowels run out after Christ ; we shall never want the actual breathings of the Spirit. The Spirit came upon Sampson at times, so it doth upon us here ; we have several motions and fleetings, but there Jesus Christ is a more lovely object, and the delights of the soul are carried out to him without satiety ; we shall have a sweet complacency in and liking of him. Also outward things clog the appetite ; as soon as we have them we despise them, because our desires are restless ; we sip of them as the bee doth of the flower, and then we must have change, and go to a new flower ; but here is an eternal complacency in Christ. Here we are troubled when we want outward comforts, and cloyed when we have them. Curiosity is soon satisfied, and fruition discovereth their imperfection; still the more they are enjoyed the less they are beloved ; as Amnon hated Tamar when his lust was satisfied. Imperfections that before lay hid then appear to view, and so our aftections are confuted by experience. But there the more we enjoy God, the more his infinite perfections are manifested, and our pleasure is augmented by our enjoyment.
(3d) There is a complete union with God and fruition of liim :
196 SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. [SeR. XIV.
2 Cor. V. 6, ' Knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord ; ' Phil. i. 23, ' I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ.' Here we are united to Christ by faith, but that is nothing to sight and immediate intui- tion ; we lay hold upon Christ, but have not such an absolute possession of him. He is a head that gives out himself, not by necessity, but choice and pleasure, therefore our communion with Christ is not so perpetual and familiar as it shall be then. As an iron that lieth long in the fire seemeth to be changed into the nature of it, so we are then more conformed and changed into the likeness of Christ: Ps. xvi. 11, ' In thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' All comforts in this life we enjoy in God's absence, and have them at the second, third, and fourth hand, by the ministration of the creatures, sun, moon, and stars, or by the ministry of men. Now these are not vessels capacious enough to convey so much of God to us as we shall receive when God is all in all immediately : 1 Cor. XV. 28, ' And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.' There is no temple nor ordinances in heaven, but the Lamb is the light thereof. We shall enjoy God without means or intervention of ordinances. We are fed among the lilies, but it is but till the day break and the shadows flee away : Cant, ii. 16, 17, 'My beloved is mine, and I am his ; he feedeth among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away : turn my beloved, and be thou like a roe, or young hart upon the mountains of Bether.'
[2.] The happiness of his relations and society. In our company we shall be blessed, God and Christ, and saints and angels : Heb. xii. 22-24, ' But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new cove- nant,' &c. We shall see God in Christ. The bodily eye, that cannot look upon the sun, shall be perfectly glorified and strengthened ; though it cannot see the essence of God, yet it shall see greater manifestations of his glory than it is able to behold here. How will the Father wel- come us as he welcomed Christ ! Ps. ii. 8, ' Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.' So he will say to us, as Mat. xxv. 21, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' We shall not come into his presence with shame. Sin causeth shame, and maketh us shy of God ; but as the ey cannot endure the light if it be wronged, so a wronged conscience makes us afraid of the presence of God ; but when we shall be perfectly sancti- fied, and sin shall be done away, we shall be able to stand in the pre- sence of God. So as to Christ ; he cannot be contented without your company, and you should not be satisfied without his : John xiv. 3, 'And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and take you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.' Oh ! what a