Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God #232726

These treatises, reader, will inform thee who He is whom thou callest thine, present thee with a view of thy chief good, and make thee value thyself a thousand times more upon thy interest with God, than upon all external accomplishments and worldly possessions. Who but delights to hear well of one whom he loves! God is thy love, if thou be a believer; and then it cannot but fill thee with delight and ravishment to hear so much spoken in his praise. David desired to dwell in the house of the Lord,' that he might there behold his beauty how much of that beauty, if thou art but capable of seeing it, mayest thou behold in this volume, which was our author's main business, for about three years before he died, to display before his hearers! True, indeed, the Lord's glory, as shining forth before his heavenly courtiers above, is unapproachable by mortal men; but what of it is visible in his works — creation, providence, redemption — falls under the cognizance of his inferior subjects here. And this is, in a great measure, presented to view in these discourses; and so much, we may well say, as may, by the help of grace, be effectual to raise thy admiration, attract thy love, provoke thy desires, and enable thee to make some guess at what is yet unseen; and why not, likewise, to clear thy eyes, and prepare them for future sight, as well as turn them away from the conte'mptible vanities of this present life Vv'hatever is glorious in this world, yet (as the apostle, in another case) hath no glory, by reason of the glory that excels' (2 Cor. Iii. This excellent glory' is the subject of this book, to which all created beauty is but mere shadow and duskiness. If thy eyes be well fixed on this, they will not be easily drawn to wander after other objects if thy heart be taken with God, it will be mortified to every thing that is not God.