Chapter 9: The Pleasure of Knowing Ourselves to Be Like God

The pleasure arising from knowing or considering ourselves to be like God: from considering it, 1. Absolutely. 2. Comparatively, or respectively to the former state of the soul. To the state of lost souls. To its pattern. To the way of accomplishment. To the soul's own expectations. To what it secures. The pleasure to which it disposes, of union, communion. A comparison of this righteousness, with this blessedness.

2. Here is also to be considered, the pleasure and satisfaction involved in this assimilation to God, as it is known, or reflected on, or that arises from the cognosci of this likeness.

We have hitherto discoursed of the pleasure of being like God, as that is apprehended, by a spiritual sensation, a feeling of that inward rectitude, that happy pleasure of souls now perfectly restored? We have yet to consider a further pleasure, which accrues from the soul's animadversion upon itself; its contemplating itself thus happily transformed. And though that very sensation be not without some animadversion (as indeed no sensible perception can be performed without it) yet we must conceive a consequent animadversion, which is much more explicit, and distinct; and which therefore yields a very great addition of satisfaction and delight. As when the blessed soul shall turn its eye upon itself, and designedly compose, and set itself to consider its present state and frame, the consideration it shall now have of itself, and this likeness impressed upon it, may be either absolute, or comparative and respective.

1. Absolute. How pleasing a spectacle will this be, when the glorified soul shall now intently behold its own glorious frame? When it shall dwell in the contemplation of itself? View itself round on every part, turn its eye from glory to glory, from beauty to beauty, from one excellency to another; and trace over the whole draft of this image; this so exquisite piece of divine workmanship, drawn out in its full perfection, upon itself. When the glorified eye, and divinely enlightened, and inspirited mind shall apply itself to criticize, and make a judgment upon every several lineament, every touch and stroke, shall stay itself, and scrupulously insist upon every part? View at leisure every character of glory the blessed God has stamped upon it; how will this likeness now satisfy! And that expression of the blessed Apostle (taken notice of upon some other occasion formerly) [The glory to be revealed in us] seems to import in it a reference to such a self intuition. What serves revelation for, but in order to vision? What is it but an exposing things to view? And what is revealed in us, is chiefly exposed to our own view.

All the time from the soul's first conversion till now, God has been as it were at work upon it. (He that wrought us to, etc.) has been laboring it, shaping it, polishing it, spreading his own glory upon it, inlaying, enameling it with glory; now at last the whole work is revealed, the curtain is drawn aside; the blessed soul awakes. Come now, says God, behold my work; see what I have done upon you; let my work now see the light, I dare expose it to the censure of the most curious eye, let your own have the pleasure of beholding it. It was a work carried on in a mystery, secretly wrought (as in the lower parts of the earth, as we alluded before) by a Spirit that came, and went no man could tell how. Besides, that in the general only, we knew we should be like him, it did not yet appear what we should be, now it appears. There is a revelation of this glory. O the ravishing pleasure of its first appearance! And it will be a glory always fresh and flourishing (as Job's expression is, my glory was fresh in me) and will afford a fresh, undecaying pleasure for ever.

2. The blessed soul may also be supposed to have a comparative and respective consideration of this impressed glory. That is, so as to compare it with, and refer it to several things that may come into consideration with it: and may so heighten its own delight in the contemplation thereof.

1. If we consider this impression of glory in reference to its former loathsome deformities that were upon it; and which are now vanished and gone. How inconceivable a pleasure will arise from this comparison? When the soul shall consider at once what it is, and what once it was, and thus bethink itself. I that did sometimes bear the accursed image of the Prince of darkness, do now represent and partake of the holy pure nature of the Father of lights. I was a mere chaos, a hideous heap of deformity, confusion and darkness; but he that made light to shine out of darkness, shined into me to give the knowledge of the light of his own glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and since, made my way as the shining light shining brighter and brighter to this perfect day. I was a habitation of dragons, a cage of noisome lusts; that as serpents, and vipers were winding to and fro through all my faculties and powers; and preying upon my very vitals. Then was I hateful to God, and a hater of him; sin, and vanity had all my heart. The charming invitations, and allurements of grace were as music to a dead man; to think a serious thought of God, or breathe forth an affectionate desire after him, was as much against my heart, as to pluck out my own eyes, or offer violence to my own life.

After I began to live the spiritual new life; how slow, and faint was my progress and tendency towards perfection? How indisposed did I find myself to the proper actions of that life? To go about any holy spiritual work was, too often, as to climb a hill, or strive against the stream; or as an attempt to fly without wings. I have sometimes said to my heart; Come now let us go pray, love God, think of heaven; but O how listless to these things! how lifeless in them! Impressions made, how quickly lost! Gracious frames, how soon wrought off and gone! Characters of glory razed out, and overspread with earth and dirt! Divine comeliness has now at length made me perfect. The glory of God does now encloth me, they are his ornaments I now wear. He has made me, that, lately, lay among the pots, as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold, he has put another nature into me; the true likeness of his own holy divine nature. He has now perfectly mastered and wrought out the enmity of my heart against him. Now to be with God is my very element. Loving, admiring, praising him are as natural, as breathing once was. I am all Spirit and life, I feel myself disburdened, and unclogged of all the heavy oppressive weights that hung upon me. No body of death does now encumber me, no deadness of heart, no coldness of love, no drowsy sloth, no averseness from God, no earthly mind, no sensual inclinations or affections, no sinful [reconstructed: divisions] of heart between God and creatures. He has now the whole of me. I enjoy and delight in none but him. O blessed change! O happy day!

2. If in contemplating itself, clothed with this likeness, it respects the state of damned souls — what transports must that occasion! What ravishing sentiments! When it compares human nature in its highest perfection, with the same nature in its utmost depravation? An unspeakably more unequal comparison than that would be of the most amiable lovely person, flourishing in the prime of youthful strength and beauty, with a putrefied rotten carcass, deformed by the corruption of a loathsome grave. When glorified Spirits shall make such a reflection as this: Lo here we shine in the glorious brightness of the divine Image; and behold yonder deformed accursed souls. They were as capable of this glory as we. Had the same nature with us; the same reason, the same intellectual faculties and powers; but what monsters are they now become? They eternally hate the eternal excellency. Sin and death are finished upon them. They have each of them a hell of horror and wickedness in itself. From where is this amazing difference! Though this cannot but be an awful wonder, it cannot also, but be tempered with pleasure and joy.

3. We may suppose this likeness to be considered in reference to its pattern; and in comparison therewith, which will then be another way of heightening the pleasure that shall arise from it. Such a frame and constitution of Spirit is full of delights in itself: but when it shall be referred to its original, and the correspondence between the one, and the other be observed and viewed; how exactly they accord, and answer each other as face does face in the water; this cannot, still, but add pleasure to pleasure, one delight to another. When the blessed soul shall, interchangeably turn its eye to God, and itself; and consider the agreement of glory, to glory; the several derived excellencies to the original. He is wise, and so am I, holy and so am I. I am now made perfect as my heavenly Father is; this gives a new relish to the former pleasure. How will this likeness please under that notion, as it is his; a likeness to him. O the accent that will be put upon those appropriative words to be made partakers of [His] holiness, and of the [divine] nature. Personal excellencies, in themselves considered, cannot be reflected on but with some pleasure; but to the ingenuousness of a child, how especially grateful will it be, to observe in itself, such and such graceful deportments, wherein it naturally imitates its father. So he was accustomed to speak, and act, and demean himself: how natural it is to love, to affect, and aim at the imitation of the person loved. So natural it must be, to take complacency therein; when we have hit our mark, and achieved our design. The pursuits and attainments of love are proportionable, and correspondent each to other.

And what heart can compass the greatness of this thought, to be made like God! Lord, was there no lower pattern than yourself, your glorious blessed self according to which to form a worm! This cannot want its due sentiments in a glorified state.

4. This transformation of the blessed soul into the likeness of God, may be viewed by it, in reference to the way of accomplishment; as an end, brought about by so amazing stupendous means; which will certainly be a pleasing contemplation. When it reflects on the method and course insisted on, for bringing this matter to pass, views over the work of redemption, in its tendency to this end — the restoring of God's image in souls; considers Christ manifested to us, in order to his being revealed and formed in us. That God was made in the likeness of man (Philippians 2:7), to make men after the likeness of God. That he partook with us of the human nature, that we might with him partake of the divine; that he assumed our flesh, in order to impart to us his Spirit. When it shall be considered for this end had we so many great and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4); for this end did the glory of the Lord shine upon us through the glass of the Gospel; that we might be made partakers, etc. That we might be changed, etc. (2 Corinthians 3:18). Indeed, when it shall be called to mind — though it is far from following from this, that this is the only or principal way wherein the life and death of Christ have influence in order to our eternal happiness — that our Lord Jesus lived for this end, that we might learn so to walk, as he also walked, that he died that we might be conformed to his death; that he rose again, that we might with him attain the resurrection of the dead; that he was in us the hope of glory, that he might be in us (that is, that same Image that bears his Name) our final consummate glory itself also. With what pleasure will these harmonious congruities, these apt correspondencies, be looked into at last!

Now may the glorified saint say, I here see the end the Lord Jesus came into the world for. I see for what he was lifted up, made a spectacle; that he might be a transforming one. What the effusions of his Spirit were for; why it so earnestly strove with my wayward heart. I now behold in my own soul, the fruit of the travail of his soul. This was the project of redeeming love, the design of all-powerful Gospel grace. Glorious achievement! blessed end of that great and notable undertaking! happy issue of that high design!

5. With reference to all their own expectations and endeavors. When it shall be considered by a saint in glory; the attainment of this perfect likeness to God, was the utmost mark of all my designs, and aims; the term of all my hopes and desires. This is that I longed, and labored for, that which I prayed and waited for; which I so earnestly breathed after, and restlessly pursued. It was but to recover the defaced image of God. To be again made like him, as once I was. Now I have attained my end; I have the fruit of all my labor and travels; I see now the truth of those (often) encouraging words, Blessed are they that hunger, and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Be not weary of well doing, for you shall reap, if you faint not. What would I once have given for a steady abiding frame of holiness, for a heart constantly bent and biased toward God; constantly serious, constantly tender, lively, watchful, heavenly, spiritual, meek, humble, cheerful, self-denying. How have I cried and striven for this to get such a heart! such a temper of spirit! how have I pleaded with God, and my own soul in order to this. How often have I spread this desire before the Searcher and Judge of hearts; Turn me out of all my worldly comforts, so you give me but such a heart; Let me spend my days in a prison, or a desert, so I have but such a heart; I refuse no reproaches, no losses, no tortures, may I but have such a heart. How has my soul been sometimes ravished with the very thoughts of such a temper of spirit, as has appeared amiable in my eye, but I could not attain? And what a torture again has it been that I could not? What grievance in all the world, in all the days of my vanity; did I ever find comparable to this; to be able to frame myself by Scripture, and rational light and rules, the notion and idea of an excellent temper of spirit, and then to behold it, to have it in view, and not be able to reach it, to possess my soul of it? What indignation have I sometimes conceived against my own soul, when I have found it wandering and could not reduce it; hovering, and could not fix it; dead, and could not quicken it; low, and could not raise it! How earnestly have I expected this blessed day, when all those distempers should be perfectly healed, and my soul recover a healthy, lively spiritual frame? What fresh ebullitions of joy will here be, when all former desires, hopes, endeavors, are crowned with success and fruit! This joy is the joy of harvest. They that have sown in tears, do now reap in joy. They that went out weeping, bearing precious seed; now with rejoicing bring their sheaves with them (Psalm 126:6).

6. In reference to what this impressed likeness shall forever secure to it: an everlasting amity and friendship with God, that it shall never sin, nor he ever frown more. 1. That it shall sin no more. The perfected image of God in it, is its security for this; for it is holy throughout; in every point conformed to his nature and will. There remains in it nothing contrary to him. It may therefore certainly conclude it shall never be liable to the danger of doing anything but what is good in his sight; and what solace will the blessed soul find in this! If now an angel from heaven should assure it, that from such an hour it should sin no more, the world would not be big enough to hold such a soul. It has now escaped the deadliest of dangers, the worst of deaths (and which even in its present state, upon more deliberate calmer thoughts it accounts so) the sting of death, the very deadly head of death; the hell of hell itself. The deliverance is now complete which cannot but end in delight and praise.

2. That God can never frown more. This it is hence also assured of: How can he but take perfect everlasting complacency in his own perfect likeness and image; and behold with pleasure, his glorious workmanship, now never liable to impairment, or decay? How pleasant a thought is this! The blessed God never beholds me but with delight. I shall always behold his serene countenance; his amiable face, never covered with any clouds, never darkened with any frown. I shall now have cause to complain no more; my God is a stranger to me, he conceals himself, I cannot see his face, lo he is encompassed with clouds and darkness, or with flames and terrors. These occasions are forever ceased. God sees no cause either to behold the blessed soul with displeasure, or with displeasure to avert from it, and turn off his eye. And will not this eternally satisfy! when God himself is so well pleased, shall not we!

2. The pleasure it disposes to. Besides that the indwelling, and knowledge of this likeness, are so satisfying: it disposes, and is the soul's qualification for a yet further pleasure. That of closest union, and most inward communion with the blessed God.

1. Union. Which (what it is more than relation) is not till now complete. Besides relation it must needs import presence; not physical, or local, for so nothing can be nearer God, than it is but moral, and cordial, by which the holy soul with will and affections, guided by rectified reason, and judgment, closes with, and embraces him, and he also upon wise fore-laid counsel, and with infinite delight, and love embraces it: so friends are said to be one (besides their relation as friends) by a union of hearts. A union between God and the creature, as to kind and nature higher than this, and lower than hypostatic or personal union I understand not, and therefore say nothing of it.

But as to the union here mentioned; as, till the image of God be perfected, it is not completed; so it cannot but be perfect then; when the soul is perfectly formed according to God's own heart; and fully participates the divine likeness, is perfectly like him; that likeness cannot but infer the most intimate union that two such natures can admit. That is (for nature) a love-union; such as that which our Savior mentions, and prays to the Father to perfect between themselves, and all believers, and among believers mutually, with one another. Many much trouble themselves about this Scripture; but surely that can be no other than a love-union: For, (1.) It is such a union as Christians are capable of among themselves, (for surely he would never pray that they might be one with a union of which they are not capable.) (2.) It is such a union as may be made visible to the world. From which it is an obvious corollary, that the union between the Father and the Son, there spoken of, as the pattern of this, is not their union or oneness in essence, (though it be a most acknowledged thing, that there is such an essential union between them) for who can conceive that Saints should be one among themselves, and with the Father, and the Son, with such a union as the Father, and the Son are one themselves, if the essential union between Father and Son were the union here spoken of? But the exemplary or pattern-union, here mentioned, between Father and Son, is but a union in mind, in love, in design, and interest; wherein he prays that Saints on earth might visibly be one with them also, that the world might believe, etc.

It is yet a rich pleasure that springs up to glorified Saints from that love-union (now perfected) between the blessed God and them. It is mentioned and shadowed in Scripture, under the name and notion of marriage-union; in which the greatest mutual complacency is always supposed a necessary ingredient. To be thus joined to the Lord, and made, as it were, one Spirit with him; for the eternal God to cleave in love to a nothing creature, as his likeness upon it engages him to do, is this no pleasure, or a mean one?

2. Communion, to which that union is fundamental, and introductive; and which follows it upon the same ground, from a natural propensity of like to like: there is nothing now to hinder God, and the holy soul of the most inward fruitions and enjoyments; no animosity, no strangeness, no unsuitableness on either part. Here the glorified Spirits of the just have liberty to [reconstructed: solace] themselves, amidst the rivers of pleasure at God's own right hand, without check or restraint. They are pure, and these pure. They touch nothing that can defile, they defile nothing they can touch. They are not now forbidden the nearest approaches to the (once) inaccessible Majesty, there's no Holy of Holies into which they may not enter, no door locked up against them: they may have free admission into the innermost secret of the divine presence, and pour forth themselves in the most liberal effusions of love and joy, as they must be the eternal subjects of those infinitely richer communications from God, even of immense and boundless love and goodness.

Do not debase this pleasure by low thoughts; nor frame too daring positive apprehensions of it. It is yet a secret to us. The eternal converses of the King of glory, with glorified Spirits, are only known to himself and them. That expression (which we so often meet in our way) — It does not yet appear what we shall be — seems left, on purpose, to check a too curious and prying inquisitiveness into these unrevealed things. The great God will have his reserves of glory, of love, of pleasure for that future state. Let him alone a while, with those who are already received into those mansions of glory, those everlasting habitations. He will find a time for those that are yet pilgrims and wandering exiles to ascend and enter too.

In the meantime what we know of this communion may be gathered up into this general account, the reciprocation of loves; the flowing and reflowing of everlasting love, between the blessed soul and its infinitely blessed God; its egress towards him, his illapses into it.

To such pleasure does this likeness dispose and qualify: you can no way consider it, but it appears a most pleasurable satisfying thing.

Thus far have we shown the qualification for this blessedness, and the nature of it, what it prerequires, and wherein it lies, and how highly congruous it is that the former of these should be made a prerequisite to the latter, will sufficiently appear to any one, that shall, in his own thoughts, compare this righteousness and this blessedness together. He will indeed plainly see, that the natural state of the case, and habitude of these each to other, makes this connection unalterable, and eternal; so as that it must needs be simply impossible to be thus blessed, without being thus righteous.

For what is this righteousness other than this blessedness begun, the seed and principle of it? And that with as exact proportion (or rather sameness of nature) as is between the grain sown, and reaped, which is more than intimated in that of the Apostle, Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap: for he that sows to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption: (there is the same proportion too) but he that sows to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit, reap life everlasting: which though it be spoken to a particular case, is yet spoken from a general rule and reason applicable a great deal further.

And as some conceive (and is undertaken to be demonstrated) that the seeds of things are, not virtually only, but actually, and formally the very things themselves: so is it here also. The very parts of this blessedness are discernible in this righteousness. The future vision of God, in present knowledge of him; for this knowledge, is a real, initial part of righteousness. The rectitude of the mind, and apprehensions concerning God, consisting in conformity to his revelation of himself.

Present holiness, including also the future [reconstructed: assimilation] to God. And the contentment, and peace that attends it, the consequent satisfaction in glory.

But as in glory, the impression of the divine likeness, is that which vision subserves; and from which satisfaction results; so is it here (visibly) the main thing also. The end, and design of the Gospel revelation, of whole Christianity (I mean systematically considered) of all evangelical doctrines, and knowledge, is to restore God's likeness, and image; from which joy and peace result of course, when once the Gospel is believed. The Gospel is the instrument of impressing God's likeness, in order for which it must be understood, and received into the mind. Being so, the impression upon the heart, and life, are Christianity [reconstructed: habitual] and practical, upon which joy and pleasure (the belief or thorough reception of the Gospel thus [reconstructed: intervening]) do necessarily ensue.

So aptly is the only way, or method of seeing God's face, so as to be satisfied with his likeness; said to be, in or through righteousness.