Watts conveys themselves, and to make all of us use for the serious words from this new royal psalmist, “My soul thirsts to own Thee O Goodness, yea, for the way of living God
? To own, in the event the walking that have God, as you say, is such a keen respectable and you can pleasant situation, whence is-it that the title of the people with the method is throw out as the worst, each where spoken against? Just how comes it to take and pass that they’re apparently impacted, lured, destitute, and you may tormented? Is it new honor, that it the newest satisfaction, that you speak of?” We respond to, Yes. End some time; become not extremely hasty. Legal perhaps not considering ??appearance, however, judge righteous view, and all sorts of might be well. It is true, i recognize the newest https://datingranking.net/new-york-men-dating/ “people of this way” enjoys its brands throw aside since worst, and are everywhere verbal against. But by who? By foes of the most high Goodness. And do you really believe it is disgrace becoming verbal evil of from the him or her? Blessed be God, i have not very read Christ. Our very own royal Learn possess pronoun- ced the individuals “privileged, that persecuted, and get every manner of evil spoken against them incorrectly.” He’s got demanded him or her “in order to rejoice and get surpassing pleased,” for this ‘s the privilege of its discipleship, and that its reward would be great from inside the paradise. He himself is therefore addressed. And will here become an elevated award put upon an animal, rather than getting concurred towards ever-blessed Son off God?
And Goodness is the same now when he was then, and you will takes care so so you’re able to sweeten sufferings and you may afflictions together with his love, you to definitely Their disciples get a hold of, by happier feel, you to definitely as illnesses abound, consolations create even more abound
After that, it is equally true that the people in the ways are frequently afflicted, tempted, destitute, and you may tormented. But what of all this? Does this destroy the pleasure of walking with God? No, in no wise; for those that walk with God are enabled, through Christ strengthening them, to joy even in tribulation, and to rejoice when they fall into divers temptations. And I believe I may appeal to the experience of all true and close walkers with God, whether or not their suffering times have not frequently been their sweetest times, and that they enjoyed most of God when most cast out and despised by men? This we find was the case of Christ’s primitive servants, when threatened by the Jewish Sanhedrin, and commanded to preach no more in the name of Jesus; they rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for the sake of Jesus. Paul and Silas sang praises even in a dungeon; and the face of Stephen, that glorious martyr of the Christian church, shone like the face of an angel. And therefore these objections, instead of destroying, do only enforce the motives before urged, to excite you to walk with God. But supposing the objections were just, and walkers with God were as despicable and unhappy as you would represent them to be; yet I have a 3rd motive to offer, which if weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, will over-weigh all objections, and it is this:
Third, that there surely is an eden at the end of which walking. For, to use the words of pious bishop Beveridge, “Though the way be narrow, yet it is not long: and though the gate be strait, yet it opens into everlasting life.” Enoch found it so. He walked with God on earth, and God took him to sit down with him for ever in the kingdom of heaven. Not that we are to expect to be taken away as he was: no, I suppose we shall all die the common death of all men. But after death, the spirits of those who have walked with God shall return to God that gave them; and at the morn- ing of the resurrection, soul and body shall be for ever with the Lord; their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, and their souls filled with all the fullness of God. They shall sit on thrones; they shall judge angels. They shall be enabled to sustain an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, even that glory which Jesus Christ enjoyed with the Father before the world began. “O gloriam quantam et qualem,” said the learned and pious Arndt, just before he bowed down his head, and gave up the ghost. The very thought of it is enough to make us “wish to leap our seventy years,” as good Dr. When shall I come to appear in the presence of my God?” I wonder not that a sense of this, when under a more than ordinary irradiation and influx of divine life and love, causes ????some persons to faint away, and even for a time lose the power of their senses. A less sight than this, even the sight of Solomon’s glory, made Sheba’s queen astonished; and Daniel, when admitted to a distant view of this excellent glory, fell down at the feet of the angel as one dead. And if a distant view of this glory be so excellent, what must the actual possession of it be? If the first fruits are so glorious, how infinitely must the harvest exceed in glory?