the blessed God, but the man Christ Jesus bears a proportionable resemblance to it, as far as a creature can resemble God, and he will consequently be highest in our esteem under God the Lord and Father of all.

9. The ever-pleasing attribute of divine 'goodness and love' is another endless and joyful theme or object of the contemplation of the heavenly world. There this perfection shines in its brightest rays, there it displays its most triumphant glories, and kindles a flame of everlasting joy in all the sons of blessedness.

But we in this world may have such glimpses of this goodness and love as may fill the soul with unspeakable pleasure, and begin in it the first fruits and earnest of heaven. When we survey the inexhaustible ocean of goodness which is in God, which fills and supplies all the creatures with every thing they stand in need of; when we behold all the tribes of the sons of men supported by his boundless sufficiency, his bounty and kind providence, and refreshed with a thousand comforts beyond what the mere necessities of nature require: In such an hour if we feel the least flowings of goodness in ourselves towards others, we shall humble ourselves to the dust, and cry out in holy amazement, Lord, what is an atom to a mountain? What is a drop to a river, a sea of beneficence? What is a shadow to the eternal substance? What good thing is there in time or in eternity, which I can possibly want which is not abundantly supplied out of thine overflowing fulness?

Hence arises the eternal satisfaction of all the holy and happy creation in being so near to thee, and under the everlasting assurances of thy love. I can do nothing but fall down before thee in deepest humility, and admire, adore, and everlastingly love thee, who hast assumed to thyself the name of love, 1 John iv. 8. "God is love."

SECTION IV.

Thus far our joys may rise into an imitation of the joys above in the devout contemplation of divine perfections.'

And not only the perfections of God' considered and surveyed single in themselves, but the union and blessed harmony of many of them in the divine works and transactions of Providence and of grace, especially in the gospel of Christ, administer further matter for contemplation and pleasure among the happy spirits in heaven: And so far as this enjoyment may be communicated to the saints here on earth, they may be also said to have a foretaste of the business and pleasure of heaven. Let us take notice of this harmony in several instances.

1. In the sacred constitution of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ as God and man united in one personal agent: Here majesty and mercy give a glorious instance of their union, here all the grandeur and dignity of Godhead condescends to join itself in union with a creature, such as man is, a spirit dwelling in flesh and blood. 1 Tim. ii. 5, "There is one

God, and one Mediator between God and men, even the man Christ Jesus:" But this man is personally united to the blessed God, he is "God manifested in the flesh :" He is a man in "whom'dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," to constitute one allsufficient Saviour of miserable and fallen mankind: What an amazing stoop or condescension is this for the eternal Godhead thus to join itself to a creature, and what a surprising exaltation is this of the creature, for the man Christ Jesus thus to be assumed into so near a relation to the blessed God? All the glories that result from this divine contrivance and transaction are not to be enumerated in paper, nor by the best capacity of writers here on earth: The heavenly inhabitants are much better acquainted with them.

Again, here is an example of the harmony and co-operation of unsearchable wisdom and all-commanding power in the person of the blessed Jesus; and what a happy design is hereby executed, namely, the reconciliation of sinful man and the holy and glorious God: and who could do this but one who was possessed of such wisdom and such power? When there was no creature in heaven or earth sufficient for this work, God was pleased to appoint such an union between a creature and Creator, between God and man, as might answer all the inconceivable pur. poses concealed in his thought. If there be wanting a person fit to execute any of his infinite designs, he will not be frustrated for want of an agent, he will appoint God and man to be so nearly united as to become one agent to execute this design.

2. In the manner of our salvation,' (viz.) by an ⚫ atonement for sin.' The great God did not think it proper, nor agreeable to his sublime holiness, to receive sinful man into his favour without an atonement for sin, and a satisfaction made to the Gov. ernor of the world for the abuse and violation of his holy law here on earth; and therefore he appointed such a sacrifice of atonement as might be sufficient to do complete honour to the law-giver, as well as to save and deliver the offender from death: Therefore Jesus was made a man capable of suffering and dying, that he might honour the majesty and the justice of the broken law of God, and that he might do it completely by the union of Godhead to this man and Mediator; the dignity of whose divinity diffuses itself over all that he did and all that he suffered, so as to make his obedience completely acceptable to God instead of thousands of creatures, and fully satisfactory for the offence that was given him by them ; here is a sacrifice provided equal to the guilt of sin, and therefore sufficient to take it away.

You see here what a blessed harmony there is between the justice of God doing honour to his own law, and his compassion resolved to save a ruined creature: Here is no blemish cast upon the strict justice and righteousness of God, when the offender is forgiven in such a method as may do honour to justice and mercy at once. Rom. iii. 24, 25. "We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his

righteousness," even his perfect governing justice, though he passes by and pardons the sins of a thousand criminal creatures: To declare,' I say, 'at this time his righteousness, that he might appear to be just' to his own authority and law, while he justifies the sinful man who believeth or trusteth in Jesus the Mediator as becoming a proper sacrifice and propitiation for sin.

There is

3. By the sanctification of our nature.' also another remarkable harmony between the holiness of God and his mercy in this work of the salvation of sinful man. The guilt of sin is not only to be forgiven and taken away by a complete atonement and sacrifice, but the sinful nature of this ruined creature is to be changed into holiness, is to be renewed and sanctified by the blessed Spirit, and reformed into the image of God his Maker: He must not only be released from punishment by forgiveness, but he must be restored to the image of God by sanctifying grace; that so he may be fit company for the rest of the favourites of God in the upper world; that he may be qualified to be admitted into this society, where perfect purity and holiness are necessary for all the inhabitants of this upper world, and for such near attendants on the blessed God: In that happy state nothing shall enter there that defileth, Rev. xxi. 27. and therefore concerning the criminals amongst the Corinthians, as vile and as offensive to the pure and holy God as they are represented, 1 Cor. vi. 9,-11. viz. "Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, drunkards, &c. but, it is said, they are washed,