I describe these blessings? "In God's favour is life; and
his loving-kindness is better than life itself <^" — As for
the testimony of our own conscience, and the witness of God's Spirit with ours, that we are upright before him, man can
have no greater joy on earth than thaf^ And who can
adequately declare the blessedness of a soul that apprehends God himself as his portion, and all the glory of heaven as his inheritance ? ]
But it is the peculiarity and exclusiveness of this portion which we are chiefly called to notice —
[To the faithful man these blessings are accorded; but to him also are they limited : for they are peculiar to him ; " and a stranger intermeddleth not with his joy^." Let the man who is unfaithful to his convictions or to his engagements say what he knows of these blessings ? If he speak the truth before God, he has no experience of them whatever in his own soul. Indeed, it is impossible that he should have any sense of them as already imparted to him ; since, if God be true, no one of them belongs to him ; "he has no part or lot in any one of them :" they belong to the faithful man, and to him alone ]
See, then,
1. What is the proper scope and tendency of the Gospel —
[It is doubtless intended to effect a change, yea, an ex- ceeding great change, both in the characters and states of men. But what does it effect in their character? Does it make them hypocrites ? No ; but faithful both to God and man. And what does it effect in their states ? Does it deprive them of comforts, and make them melancholy ? No ; but it makes them to abound with blessings, both in time and in eternity. O that you could be prevailed upon to view the Gospel in its true light, and to embrace it with your whole hearts !]
2. What bitter self-condemnation awaits the im- penitent and unbelieving soul —
[You have now the blessings of time and sense. But what are they, in comparison of those that await the faithful man ? Even here your jiortion is far inferior to his : but what will they be in the eternal loorld? Truly, you will all find, ere long, that to gain the whole world with the loss of your own souls was a sad exchange. May God make you wise in time, that you may not have to deplore your folly to all eternity !]
c Ps. XXX. 5. and Ixiii. 3. ^ 2 Cor. i. 12. Rom. viii. 16.
^ Prov. xiv. 10.