---- CHAPTER VIII: Of joy in the Holy Ghost; that it springs from our communion with God the Father,
Father shall be, that you shall rise again, and go to heaven too. This is clearly the scope of Christ: 'Go, tell my brethren this,' saith he,
'that I ascend to my God,' &c.
I might shew here how he is the God of Christ and the Father of Christ, and that in him what he is to Christ he is likewise to us. But I will not stand upon that now.
Obs. 7. Only observe this, that the tenor of the covenant is altered,—it was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob, and so the God of the Jews; but now it is the God of Christ, and so our God, because he that Abraham typified out is come. Abraham, with whom the covenant was made, was but a shadow, Christ is the substance. And so I proceed to the 18th verse.
Verse 18, 'Mary Magdalene came, and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.' There is little I shall observe out of these words, but only that which before I did. Mary she goes and doeth her duty, she leaves communion with Christ, and goes to perform that which Christ had enjoined her, as indeed we should. Though communion with Christ may be sweeter to us, as it is with a child to be with his mother all day, yet it is his duty to go to school all day, and then he shall come home to his mother at night; so it is our duty to be conversant in our callings, to be doing those things Christ sets us about, and it is more acceptable to God than to have communion with him all day long. You see Mary counts it so here; she leaves Christ, and goes and tells the disciples what he had spoken to her.
CHAPTER VIII
Of joy in the Holy Ghost; that it springs from our communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.—1
JOHN 1:4.
This apostle John was the love and delight of Christ when he lived upon the earth, nor had he less familiar converse with his Lord Jesus after his ascension and investiture with glory in heaven; hence the apostle makes this preface to his Epistle: 1 John 1:3, 'That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.'
The only begotten Son of God, coming out of the bosom of the Father, revealed the Father and his love; and, indeed, he only could do it, John 1:13. In like manner John, that bosom-apostle, who lay in the bosom of Christ, opens to us those breasts of consolation which himself had sucked; and as they were full breasts, so he writes these things that our joys may be full.
What therefore this Epistle aims at, we may guess by the frontispiece, to which also relates, and comes almost to the same thing, what he repeats at the end, and which is near the close of the Epistle: 1 John 5:13, 'These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God;' for however believers may be happy by having an interest in this life, yet then only they gladly rejoice when they know themselves to have it, and exult with a full joy when they know the life which they have to be eternal. Hence then there arises two things more distinctly to be treated of: 1. That it is the chief aim of the apostle to fortify the way for believers to attain communion with God, and to ascertain themselves concerning eternal life. 2. That thence only a fulness of joy doth redound: 'that your joy,' saith he, 'may be full.' The papists, who have made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, to endanger others too would deprive the church of Christ of assurance of salvation, which is the trusty rudder to steer her in a storm, and so put her out to sea, not a calm sea, but unquiet and troubled (as Isaiah
speaks, chap. 57:20), and there leave her to be driven about with the whirlpools of a fluctuating conscience, or to be tossed with the hurricanes of temptations, and at last to suffer shipwreck.
If in no other respect, in this at least, they are enemies of the Christian peace, of that which is the best peace, 'peace of conscience.'
To overthrow them all I oppose this single apostle John alone against them.
But they will say that it is granted indeed that to the prophets, and apostles, and to Christians of the first magnitude, this extraordinary privilege of assurance is vouchsafed and manifested to them by extraordinary revelation, but that it is not discovered to the common sort of Christians by any revelation founded on the word. But, says the apostle, I have wrote these things (and indeed he wrote them on purpose) to that end, that they who believe may know that they have eternal life. What need is there of any heavenly messenger to tell them? They have John, let them hear him. It is not only to the apostles that John, who was one of them, writes this, but to all who believe: 1 John 1:3, 'That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.' His meaning is, that you believers may have communion with us apostles, in the same fellowship with Jesus Christ which we have. He directed this Epistle to all who believe on Christ, and to persons of all ages among them: 1 John 2:12–14, 'I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.
I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.' He doth not therefore speak of assurance and joy in the Holy Ghost as a privilege peculiar to grown believers, of the largest and strongest size, or to young men
established in the faith, but to children themselves, to whom it is given (as our Saviour speaks, Mat. 13:11), more often given, to know this mystery of joy in the Holy Ghost.
If we read over the whole Epistle, we shall find that there are as many right and infallible marks, and certain signs given, whereby we may know our adoption, as there are verses in it; such are, walking in the light, 1 John 1:6, 7; confession of our sins, ver. 9; observance of God's precepts, 1 John 2:3, 5, observance especially of that precept of Christ which is the test of his disciples; to love the brethren, ver. 10.
Then he tells us (1 John 3:3) that the greater our hope is, the more it will purify us; and that whoever is born of God doth not commit sin, ver. 9; and that he hath given us the Spirit, ver. 24.
Obj. But the papists reply, that they freely grant that all these are certain signs of salvation in the general, but that the apostle John doth not name, or so much as intimate, any person to be assured of his salvation in particular. Whence therefore can any one promise himself that these signs are in him?
Ans. The apostle himself furnisheth us with an answer to this: 1 John 5:10, 'He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.' In himself, that is, in his heart, assenting and agreeing to these signs; for as the word of God, which we have in our hands, and which is divinely inspired, hath the inward testimony of the Spirit in itself, and is the evidence and judge of itself, by like reason also λόγος ille ἔμφυτος, that word which you bear written in your hearts, hath annexed to it a most credible and authentic evidence of itself; 'He who believes,' says the apostle, 'hath the witness in himself,' and that witness is, that God hath given to us eternal life, ver. 11; and the; same apostle exhibits to us three witnesses (ver. 8) who use on earth to confirm and seal to the consciences of believers their proper particular salvation. As there are three in heaven, who before had accomplished their salvation established in the greatest reality (ver. 7), so 'there are
three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one,' ver. 8. There is the spirit of adoption, Rom. 8:16, the water of sanctification, Heb. 10:22, and the blood of Christ and justification, Heb. 9:14. Now in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established, 2 Cor. 13:1.
Obj. But the papists again object that the heart of man itself is deceitful; who can know it? Jer. 17:9. And we experience daily many to be deceived, and to be deluded with a false hope.
Ans. Be it so; yet to us who truly believe, Christ hath given us an understanding that we may know him, 1 John 5:20, he hath put into us that true new heart, that renewed understanding which judgeth all things, 1 Cor. 2:15; and besides, he hath given us the Spirit, which is a Spirit of truth, and knoweth all things, and teacheth us all things, 1
John 2:20, 21, 27; for all these signs of salvation which the Spirit hath inserted in the Scriptures he hath written in the hearts of believers, and hath taught them to read them in themselves as well as in this Epistle, so that there is no need that any man should teach us, ver. 27.
To which this also may be added, that since all knowledge chiefly owes the certainty of its evidence, which is in itself, to the reality which is in the object, faith, therefore, which is ἔλεγχος, an evident demonstration, and ὑπὸστασις, or real subsistence of the things which are believed, doth claim to itself the highest certainty and infallibility. For if the sense is not deceived about its proper object, nor the understanding about its proper object (which, since it is a sublimer and more abstracted power of the soul, often corrects the sense), much less can faith, in which the image of God chiefly shines forth, be deceived about its proper object, since it is more noble than reason, and raised above it, and often convinceth reason of errors and mistakes. For it is the ὑπὸστασις, the subsistence of things believed, and the ἔλεγχος, the evident demonstration of them, and therefore challengeth to itself the highest certainty. And indeed the certainty and infallibility of knowledge chiefly ariseth from, and is
owing to, both the reality which is in the object, and to the evidence which is in the knowledge itself. Therefore, though hypocrites deceive themselves, and being deluded with false appearances, dream that they believe, yet they who are sincere believers, who are awake in the broad daylight of a clear and bright faith, see and embrace the things themselves really subsisting. But the papists, when they are so reduced that they cannot defend their error in the grossest sense, in denial of all assurance of salvation, begin to soften their opinion, and to smooth it with some little distinction, and pretend to acknowledge that a man may have a conjectural and probable opinion of his salvation, but not a certain and infallible knowledge, this they stiffly deny. But they shall not so evade the cogency of this apostle's reasoning, who not only often inculcates these and the like expressions, From this we know, and By this we know, but speaks more plainly, 1 John 2:3, 'Hereby do we know that we know him;' and 1 John 3:19, 'Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.' Ay, say the cavilling papists, this doctrine doth render men secure indeed, too secure; this your assurance makes them careless, profligate, and loosed to all wickedness. The apostle, as foreseeing and aware of this cavil, meets with it, and prevents it at the first entrance of this second chapter: 1
John 2:1, 'These things,' says he, 'write I unto you, that ye sin not.' To which also agrees what he says, 1 John 3:3, 'And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.' This assurance of faith, when it is genuine, begets an ingenuous spirit in the heart of the believer, Ps. 51:14, 15. There is not a stronger bridle to restrain sin, nor a quicker spur to holiness, than this hope, and assurance, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
But what though the believer falls into great sins, as the greatest lights have their eclipses, yet the certainty of faith is not utterly lost; for as the seed of faith remains in him, not as yet shaken out, 1 John
3:9, so the firm establishment of faith abides also unshaken: 1 John 2:1, 'My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.
And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' We have assurance in this, that Christ being a
righteous advocate, he will never be the patron of a bad cause, and therefore since he pleads ours, we may be sure to prosper in it. And he is not only a righteous advocate, but his own very righteousness pleads for us, and pleads not before a judge, but a Father, who in this shews himself just to us his children, that 'if we confess our sins, he is righteous to forgive,' 1 John 1:9.
Obj. But it is objected by others than the papists, Many fall by sinning so as wholly to fall away, though therefore it should be granted that believers may have assurance at present, yet how shall they be ascertained of the future?
Ans. But notwithstanding all, the foundation of God and faith stands sure; for what says the apostle of these who thus totally fall away? 1
John 2:19, 'They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.' But of those who are true brethren indeed, what says he? 1
John 3:1, 'Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.' Ay, but they will object, that he says indeed rightly, that 'now we are the sons of God,' ver. 2, but leaves it uncertain whether we shall be so for the future.
The apostle, to obviate this objection, goes on and says, that 'though it doth not yet appear what we shall be, yet we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him;' for, as he says 1 John 5:11, 12, 'And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.' God hath now given us this eternal life, whose gifts are ἀμεταμέλητα, 'without repentance,' Rom. 11:29, and the life which he gives is eternal, and so it is impossible that ever it should be cut off by any fate or death. And as it is given to us, and to be enjoyed by us, so it is deposited in Christ to be kept for us; and he is so powerful and so faithful as to preserve what is committed to his charge: 'And these things have I written to you,' says he, 1 John 5:13,
'that you may know that ye have eternal life.'
From this alone perfect love and full joy result; for there cannot be perfect love in the heart of any believer which nourisheth a fear of any future hatred or enmity which God may have against him, nor can there be a full joy where the mind is obnoxious to the least suspicion of a change in its happy state. For any one so to love as that hereafter he will hate, is the poison and bane of friendship; and thus for us to enjoy God the chiefest good, in so uncertain a manner as that afterwards we shall lose him, would afford more bitter than sweet reflections to our thonghts; but the apostle wrote all in this his
Epistle, 'that our joy may be full,' 1 John 1:4.
Having thus surmounted the chiefest rocks of those objections and doubts, with which the papists endeavour to obstruct the entrance
(of which Peter speaks, 2 Peter 1:11) into the kingdom of God, let us now with full sails (that I may use Paul's word, πληροφορίαν, Heb.
6:11) strive to enter into the harbour itself of joy in the Holy Ghost, a joy so great, a joy so full that we may rather be said to enter into it than that to enter into us. But we shall better understand how full and deep this joy is if we consider the fountain from which it springs.
For as water will rise as high as its spring-head, so this joy doth too.
Nor is there any need for us to search for the fountain afar off, for it is near to us (as that in Gen. 20 was to Hagar) since the verse preceding my text opens this spring to us: 1 John 1:3, 4, 'That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.' This communion with Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost is the blessed spring from whence these clear, lively, and refreshing waters come, bubbling up unto eternal life, John 4:14. All joy, which God as the most excellent and wise worker hath inserted into the actions of creatures to sharpen, excite, and animate them, doth either accompany or follow vital actions and operations, and a full, complete joy doth only attend such an action of our souls as is most vital, and most perfect; and to such an operation there are these three things requisite:—
1. That it should have for its subject the most vivacious and lively power or faculty of our souls.
2. The object, about which it is exercised, must be the most noble of all other.
3. The power or faculty must be joined to this its object with the most intimate union. Even Aristotle's philosophical school teacheth us thus much; but that great dictator of nature could never find out what this most perfect and vital operation was; but the apostle John hath unlocked and opened this mystery out of Christ's school, and his most secret counsels. Communion with God and his Christ is this most vital and perfect operation of our souls above all other, and let us see how all the fore-mentioned particulars do exactly square with this communion, and are found in it alone.
(1.) For this operation, viz., communion with God and Christ, is most vital: John 17:3, 'And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' And indeed this communion is the only vital action; for those who live in carnal pleasures 'are dead while they live,' 1 Tim. 5:6. And as the apostle denies that such live, so Austin denied that they had any joy, for as good is the sole object of the will, so of true joy likewise.
Wicked men, as they only lust, not love, so they wanton, not rejoice.
(2.) This blessed communion hath for its seat both the understanding and will, which are called the quintessence, the very
'spirits of the mind,' Eph. 4:22; these are the subjects and receptacles of this communion, and of this full joy, according to that song of Mary, Luke 1:47, 'And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour;' and this part of the mind, the spirit, is more sublime, pure, and more lively than any other, and formed for infinitely greater pleasures than all our external senses and appetites. These are vastly deep, and most capacious gulfs, which can at one draught take in and drink more of pleasures and joys than all the other lower powers of the soul (which are only subservient to these, as purveyors of pleasures for them),
and they are able also to collect, to treasure, and heap up these joys unto eternity. But the gates of the senses are too narrow to admit an entrance of this full joy; therefore 'lift up your heads, you everlasting gates,' that I may speak in the psalmist's phrase; 'you gates of eternity,' viz., you higher powers of the rational soul, which only is immortal, 'that the King of glory may come in,' attended with this retinue, Ps. 24:7, whom yet to receive even these passages of the soul are too narrow, though they are never so much enlarged. As the eye, too small and unequal to the light of the sun spread far and wide, cannot with one look behold and comprehend all its beams diffused through the whole compass of nature, 'the peace of God' doth not only surpass all our senses, but our understanding too, Philip. 4:7.
2. This communion, as the most noble operation, hath the most perfect object. For our communion is with God, and with his Son
Jesus Christ. Our communion is with God, who, as the Father of spirits, is the fountain and centre of our souls, and they cannot have any rest or complacent satisfaction but in the bosom of this their
Father. Our communion is with that God who is 'the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things,' who can do all things, who fills all things with himself, and who is 'all in all,' 1 Cor.
15:20, in whom alone we feast upon that abundant heap of bliss and pleasure, which he hath but sparingly scattered in other things besides himself. All those delights which we, like bees, do but lightly touch in other things, we in a super-eminent manner do find and taste in God, who alone can fill and satisfy the various desires of our minds, and he doth indeed fill them; the enjoyment of him is the fullest and most satisfactory blessedness of our souls, for this enjoyment of himself is alone full, and sufficient to his own happiness from all eternity. It is full, for it fills all the Godhead, the possessor of it, and yet doth not empty itself; it is sufficient, for it hath a present and constant supply from him who is all in all, and therefore it must be full and most satisfying to us: 'I will be his God,' says God, Rev. 21:7, 'and he shall inherit and possess all things.'
Our communion is also with Christ, 'in whom all fulness dwells,' Col.
1:19, 2:9, who, as he is 'full of grace and truth,' John 1:14, with grace he delights our wills, and with truth gratifies our understandings.
3. Then also the union, on which this our communion is founded, is of all other the closest, which by the help of faith in the understanding, and of love in the will, joins God and the soul into one spirit. For there are two arms of the soul wherewith we embrace
God, the understanding and will; and there are also two hands in believers, adjoined to those arms, faith and love, by which we lay hold on God, and embrace him.
(1.) Faith, as it always unites us unto Christ, so sometimes it is strengthened and elevated by a light flowing from above, and makes us to rejoice with joy unspeakable: 1 Pet. 1:8, 'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' David also speaks to the same purpose, Ps. 4:6, 'There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.'
The greatness of this blessedness he illustrates, ver. 7, 'Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased.' To this farther light is also added from that place in Ps.
36:9, 10, 'For with thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we see light: Oh continue thy loving-kindness unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart!' This heavenly light, with which faith sometimes shines, is not a dry light, but drops with honey, and bedews the soul with the most delicious sweetness. What doth Philip pray for? John 14:8, 'Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us;' it was sufficient to satisfy him, what
Christ promised, ver. 21, 'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him:' which he often performs, and sometimes illuminates the mind with light, which doth not only shew him conspicuous to be seen, but which doth exhibit him present to the soul in the most real and intimate presence, whence ariseth the most real and closest union
and communion, and also the highest and most glorious joy. But if we consider the union which the senses and the understanding produce between themselves and other things, how superficial and merely outward is it! and how weak and empty is that intercourse which they have with those things! Now the joys which arise hence are of the same kind, they are not solid, but only plated or gilded over, for the substance of the things remain without, and only the shadowy and vanishing images of them enter in by the windows of the senses, and walk through the soul, and being deceived with a thin cloud, we do not embrace the things themselves. What thin and airy pleasures, therefore, doth the trifling enjoyment of all these things afford us! The mind is only lightly touched with air, but doth not feed on true nourishing joy. These mere shadows of things leave the mind, which is formed to be sustained by firmer and more solid food, unquiet and hungering after the things themselves; but faith, by an admirable art, which is peculiar to itself, and is unknown to reason, gives a reality to all things which it represents. Faith is the ὑπὸστασις, 'the substance of things hoped for,' Heb. 11:1, and affords to the things which it believes a real subsistence and presence of them before the mind, and doth not transmit its objects by the shadows of species only, which supply the place of the things themselves. And hence likewise the greatest and highest, the most real and solid, the truest and fullest, and most serene joy, is predominant in the satisfied mind.
(2.) I now come to consider the second bond of this communion, and the other cause of this 'joy in the Holy Ghost,' which is the conjugal union of the will to God in the bonds of love. For as soon as that threefold most blessed and kind aspect of the Trinity, of which we have spoken, hath shined on the soul, she kindles with an heavenly flame, and a reciprocal love to God ariseth in her; for the love of God manifested to her, doth as with a fan make this flame of divine love to break forth. And hence the holy soul doth triumph, and is sweetly delighted, for that great conjunction of these two loves, both of that which flows from God to us, and that which is in us infused, never
falls out, but it brings jointly with it an august and solemn jubilee in the heart.
Hence the apostle Peter hath joined these three most intimately together: 1 Pet. 1:8, 'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.'
[1.] 'You believing,' saith he, 'love.' The apostle John speaks answerably: 1 John 4:16, 19, 'And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. We love him, because he first loved us.' His meaning is, that whilst faith more clearly views all those infinite perfections, and all those infinite lovely things which are in God alone, the first infinite and the first lovely being, and sees all these things mingled and seasoned with love, whilst faith savours and discerns all God to be entirely love, and whilst the soul sees God to be such an husband who looks for no other dowry in his spouse than only a return of love for his love, and whilst the soul also knows that all those are blessed with love who thus place their love, the ingenuous soul, conquered and overpowered with love, flows into this vast ocean with a reciprocal tide of love, and pours itself wholly into it.
[2.] 'You loving,' says the apostle, 'rejoice with joy unspeakable.' It is not easy to conceive, much less to speak, how much this intercourse and sweet strife of love doth delight the soul. For,
First, A love that is yet single and divided, a probationary love, hath I know not what self-sufficiency in it, and applauds itself in its own bosom, is a price and reward to itself, and nourisheth itself; and to love one who yet loves not again, yields most abundant fruits, for love is the relish of all things, and doth sweeten the most bitter circumstances of life. But these considerations are very mean, and small, and only little gleanings in comparison to that harvest of joy which springs from the mutual concourse of two loves, and a
fastened union of souls. It is sweet to love and to be loved again:
Prov. 27:9, 'Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.' To which answers that saying of David, mourning for the death of his Jonathan: 2 Sam.
1:26, 'I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan, very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.'
Secondly, To all this we may moreover add, that the beginning of this love is from him who loves without beginning, and without end; without measures, and without any preceding merit, and who receives nothing from any other, but it is from himself only that he hath it, that he loves freely, and therefore he loves the more vehemently, because he hath not love in him so much as himself is love. As Bernard sweetly says, whose love we taste not only to be stronger than death (Cant. 8:6, since Christ laid down his soul as a pledge of his love, John 15), but better than life, as David found it to be, Ps. 63:3. As God rests satisfied in the love of himself, so the soul rests satisfied in the love of God, and so in God himself, whom therefore David calls his rest, Ps. 116:7.
Thirdly, Nor is the joy of a Christian yet in its height and splendour, for the soul doth not only perceive that she is loved again by her beloved, but that she is most closely united with him, and that she enjoys her beloved, which union Christ himself makes; and as the enjoyment of him is the blessed fruit of that union, so he is the efficient of it too.
First, The soul is united to Christ, for being allured by the sight of the divine excellencies, and powerfully drawn by his love, as with a magnetic force, she goes out of herself, and most earnestly desires union with God; this she breathes after with so great a vehemence, as she doth not only desire to be united to Christ, but to be melted, to be transformed into him, as much as his being at present her absent bridegroom will admit; she reposeth and layeth close herself in the
most inward bowels of his love, for whoever loves God is said to abide, and to dwell in God, 1 John 4:15, 16.
Secondly, And behold now how good and pleasant it is, for God and the soul, as husband and wife, to dwell together in unity; and not only to cohabit, but to rejoice in one another: Isa. 62:5, 'For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.' Cant. 1:2, 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine.' And behold how Christ dismisseth his spouse filled with himself, and full of joy; for what virtue and efficacy must there be in the kisses of his mouth, whose lips breathe life, Gen.
2:7. Souls, angels, and all the heavenly spirits, are the breath of God; and not only so, but he breathes the Holy Ghost himself, John 20:22.
These kisses of his mouth are better known by the impressions which they make upon us, than they can be by any of our expressions; we may experience the joy, but are not able to speak what it is; we may more easily obtain its possession, than learn perfectly the nature of it.* Nor doth Christ only give the kisses of his mouth, but the entire possession of himself, so that the soul takes hold on, and possesseth whole God, wholly as her own, so as it is free for her to enjoy all the sweetness of God (if it were possible to an infinity), and to draw out and taste all the pleasures which can be drawn from Christ, even to eternity.
But this joy, which is already so full, is yet more full and abundant, and flows to a greater exuberancy, so that I may use Job's words, Job
26:14, 'How little a portion is heard of him;' and believers do more profusely and exuberantly rejoice that all these excellencies and perfections, which afford so much joy and delight to them, are in God, than if they were in themselves; for love, whose offspring is joy, a bright clear spark, and resembling its original, with a pure disinterested flame, loves God for himself, as God loves himself; and therefore loves all those perfections, which it sees to be infinite in God, and flowing from his essence, and with which his nature being crowned and adorned, shines with incomparable brightness. And
besides, this sincere affection of the will doth wish and pray, that God may have all the revenues of his glory, arising from the present dispensation of things, and offers all these to him; and as this love is thus ingenuous, so this joy too is not less ingenuous and illustrious, for both of them are of the same nature and kind; therefore the believer doth congratulate and rejoice at all that beauty, glory, goodness, and sweetness, which he believes to abound most affluently in God, and he doth more sweetly rejoice (infinitely more), that God doth possess all these perfections in an infinite manner, and incommunicable (as to their essence), to other things, nay, to believers themselves, than he rejoiceth in his own felicity. So that this joy is a joy of friendship, as the fore-mentioned love is also a love of friendship, which our Lord Jesus, the fountain of love, taught us, when he reproved his disciples' ingratefully mourning for his departure from them: John 14:28, 'Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you; if ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I.' Which glory and honour of his person his forerunner John the Baptist declared, when he lived upon earth, John 1:29, 30. The apostle Paul boasts in 'the hope of glory,' Rom. 5:2, and the believer made an heir with Christ may deservedly do so too; for he knows that joy (which the apostle sometime enjoyed), though inexpressible, and he takes in some little drops descending from that river, which waters and makes glad the city of God; and the time will come that he shall be more thoroughly and deeply plunged into the fountain of the Deity, where one flood of joy will continually follow another without any interruption. We rejoice therefore in hope of the thing, and we rejoice in the thing itself; we rejoice in the possession, and also in the promise; in the present exhibition, and in the future expectation; and as if all this joy were too little (which indeed is exceeding great), and not noble enough, the apostle subjoins, Rom.
5:2, 3, 'And not only so' (he speaks in a rhetorical figure called climax), 'but we also glory in tribulations,' &c., till at last we come to glory in God himself, or in 'his love shed abroad in our hearts,' verse
5. The apostle fixeth here the highest top of all, than which there is nothing more sublime or more divine, that we do not only rejoice in
those perfections of God, with which he is blessed, but that the joy too is in some manner the same, to which also that speech of Christ hath a reference: John 15:11, 'These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.' He doth not only say, that my joy may be concerning you, but that it may be and abide in you, viz., that very same joy with which Christ doth rejoice, and therefore we are said to enter at last into the joy of our
Lord; not into that joy only with which saints and angels do rejoice, but with which God himself rejoiceth. This is a wonderful fastening of love, which is the cause that as one mind is in the persons loving, so likewise one joy, not mutually only, but individually, and joining into one flame, and this is the ἀκμὴ, the complete strength, and fullest increase of joy; it is (as I may so speak) the plenilunium, the full moon of it, than which nothing is fuller; for since the joy of Christ, the fountain of light, remains in us, that joy which we borrow from him must be also full.
I will speak in a word what is the sum of all, and what is the highest top of this joy; the joy of a believer is in God, and on the account of God, their joy is God himself, and the joy of God himself, who himself is the God of peace, and of joy, and of all consolation. What says God of all the pleasures and imaginary joys of the wicked? Isa.
57:21, 'There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.' But on the contrary, believers, though sometimes they seem sorrowful, yet they are always rejoicing: 2 Cor. 6:10, 'As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.' Though the expression is 'as sorrowful,' yet of the joy it is not said 'as rejoicing,' but 'always rejoicing.' The happiness of the world may have an as if put to it all, and as the world, so all its felicity passeth away (though an as if cannot be said of the punishment of the ungodly, which is real, and endures for ever); but the joy of the godly is not with an as if, but is solid and permanent; the very tears of praying believers are sweeter than the songs and applauses of theatres. You may believe the apostle, who says, Gal. 5:22, that true joy is 'the fruit of the Holy Ghost,' and that it grows not on any other stock, whereas the joys of the wicked are the mere rinds and shells of
the fruits of paradise, and, as Tantalus his apples, deceive any one who endeavours to taste them, and vanish into vapour and air; they are nothing but the spectrums and apparitions of pleasures and joys; they are like Jonah's gourd, which wither in a moment; they are like the crackling of thorns under a pot, which is soon at an end, Eccles.
7:6; it makes a loud noise, a great blaze, but as it ariseth and increaseth on a sudden, so the substance of it is thin and vanid; it is a short-lived flame, and leaves nothing remaining; they are deceitful joys, which allure but do not satisfy us, which under a show of kindness hurt us, which emasculate our minds, and which in all respects have a greater mixture of troubles and misery than delight,
Prov. 14:13. But, on the contrary, the joys of a believer are pure, without any mixture of a baser alloy: they are the drops and dews of heaven, and clear streams flowing from God the fountain of all pleasures; they are joys cleared from all filth and dregs: Isa. 25:6,
'And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.' They are joys co-natural to the mind, which both heal it and restore it to its right genuine taste of things; they are joys which when once the soul hath drunk and taken in, it will never thirst more to eternity, John 4:14, for it will be abundantly satiated with them: Jer. 31:14, 'And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord.' They are joys which increase with their own growth, and in their agitation ferment to a greater quantity; they are joys which never fail, being full and sufficient to themselves; they are 'the breasts of consolation,' Isa. 66:11; they are such joys which disarm all evils, and pulls the sting out of all sorrows, and sweetens the most bitter calamities, even death itself, the very remembrance of which how bitter is it to us! They are joys which infuse into us a true and invincible strength of mind, Neh. 8:10, so that we glory and triumph in the midst of afflictions, Rom. 5, and though storms and thunder-bolts may fall upon us, yet they are like hail falling on the house-top and shattered to pieces, and do not break us, but are themselves broken. The heavens and earth may fall into ruins, as Christ hath told us that they shall pass away, when not an iota, not a