y in Christ;--all in all, all the treasures of
wisdom are in him; and may not this cause surely an high spring-tide of
joy? The heart is eased upon the lowest clear apprehension of Christ and
the gospel. It gives a heart-serenity and calmness to a troubled soul,
that nothing else could do. Yet to make up the fulness of joy, as well as
the solidity of it, to extend the measure of it, as well as to beget the
true quality of it, it is requisite that not only there be a fulness in
the object,--that is, full, superabundant, ample matter of rejoicing; but
there must be a kind of fulness in the apprehension. It must be
represented fully as it is, and the clouds of unbelief scattered; and then
indeed, upon the full aspect of the gospel, and Christ in it, there is a
fulness of joy that flows into the soul, as the sea is filled upon the
full aspect of the moon. O that we could believe this, that there is a
fulness of joy here, and nowhere else! Certainly, this alone being
pondered and sunk into our hearts, would be a powerful reformer in us, and
among us. How would it carry men's hearts to a disgracing and despising
all the things that are held in admiration by men! How would it turn the
channel of men's judgments, opinions, affections, and conversations! For
certainly, whithersoever the tide of joy flows, thither the heart is
carried, and this it is that all men are seeking, though they take many
contrary and divers ways, as their own fancy leads them. Now, if once this
were established in thy soul, that here is that truth and fulness of joy,
which elsewhere is ignorantly and vainly sought, would it not divert thy
desires, and turn the current of thy affections and endeavours, to fall
into this ocean of gladness and delight? Elsewhere there is neither true
joy nor full joy,--_nec verum nec plenum gaudium_. There is no verity in
it; it is but an external garb and shadow, and there is no plenty or
fulness in it. It fills not the hand of the reaper, it satisfieth not his
very hunger. But here, when a soul is possessed with Christ by faith, and
dwelleth in God by love, there is both reality and plenty. All the
dimensions of the heart may be filled up. Some allegorize upon the
triangular composition of man's heart, that no orbicular thing such as
this world can fill it exactly without vacuity, but only the blessed and
holy Trinity.(236) Truly we may conceive, this fulness of joy, excluding
all the latent griefs of the heart and filling