ious do they
appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight!
How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a
pure mass of light and holiness, yet even these glorious beings cannot
behold this light without covering their faces. These God may charge with
folly. "God is light," saith the apostle, 1 John i. 5. This is his
peculiar glory, for "in him there is no darkness at all." Is there any
thing more excellent and divine than to seek God, and find him, and enjoy
him? Yet even that holds forth the emptiness of the creature in its own
bosom, that cannot be satiated within, but must come forth to seek
happiness. Nay, even the greatest perfection of the creature speaks out
the creature's own self indigence most, because its happiness is the
removal from itself unto another, even unto God the fountain of life.

Now the enjoyment of this "kingdom of God" mentioned in the text, holds
forth man's own insufficiency for well being within himself. But seeking
this kingdom declares a double want, a want of it altogether. Not only
hath he it not in himself, but not at all, and so must go out and seek it.
God is blessed in himself, and self sufficient, and all sufficient to
others. Without is nothing but what has flowed from his inexhausted
fulness within, so that, though he should stop the conduit, by withdrawing
his influence, and make all the creatures to evanish as a brook, or a
shadow, he should be equally in himself blessed. "Darkness and light are
both alike to thee," says David in another sense, Psal. cxxxix. 11, 12.
And indeed they are all one in this sense, that he is no more perfected
and bettered, when all the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits
of just men made perfect, follow him with an eternal song, nor(496) before
the mountains and hills were, when nothing was brought forth. Many
thousand more worlds would add nothing to him, nor diminish anything from
him. It is not so with man, he is bounded and limited, he cannot have well
being in his own breast. He was indeed created with it in the enjoyment of
God, which was his happiness, so that he had it not to seek, but to keep,
he had it not to follow after, but to hold it still fast. But now, alas!
he hath lost that, and become miserable. Once all Adam's posterity were
void of happiness. By catching at a present shadow of pleasure, and
satisfaction to his senses, he lost this excellent substance of
blessedness in co