o it by the wise ordination of God.

But there are joys of the Holy Ghost arising from the intimation and
apprehension of the gospel, from the consideration of the grace and
goodness of God manifested in it and the experience of that in the soul,
which are of another stamp and nature. These, indeed, affect the heart,
and give the answer of a good conscience, in the blood of Christ, which is
a continual feast. These drive out the bitter and dreadful apprehensions
of sin and wrath. These sweeten and refresh the soul in all worldly
afflictions and griefs. The heart of man knoweth his own bitterness, and
a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy, Prov. xiv. 10. Indeed, the
torments and perplexities of a troubled soul are better felt by itself
than known by others, and so are the joys of that heart that apprehends
Jesus Christ and peace purchased in him. They are such as no man that is
a stranger to such things in his experience can apprehend. It is a joy
unspeakable. O what unspeakable content gives it to the heart! And truly
if you did not interpose the clouds of unbelief and sin between you and
his shining countenance, there needed not be so often an eclipse in the
joys of believers. Yet the day is coming that ye shall see him fully as
he is, and nothing be interposed between you and him, and then your joy
shall be full &c.

Sermon IX.

1 John i. 5.--"This then is the message which we have heard of him,
and declare unto you, that God is light," &c.

The great design of the gospel is to make up the breach of man's joy, and
open up the way to the fulness of it, and therefore it is the good news
and glad tidings of great joy, the only best message that ever came to the
world. Now it shows unto us the channel that this river of gladness and
joy runs into, it discovers what is the way of the conveyance of it to the
soul, and what are the banks it runs between, and that is fellowship with
the Father and with the Son. In this channel that river of delight
runs,--between the banks of the love of God to us, and our love to him.
Herein a soul is happy, and accounts itself happy, and truly, in so much
do we profit by the word, and answer the design of the gospel, by how much
we estimate our happiness from this alone from the communication of God to
us. Whensoever the gospel takes hold of your hearts, it will undoubtedly
frame them to this,--to a measuring of all blessedness from God alone. And
this