ill be the joy of heart which His presence and _the
light of His countenance_, who is the life of the universe, will inspire
good men with when they shall have a sensation that He is the sustainer
of their being, that they exist in Him; when they shall feel His
influence to cheer and enliven and support their frame, in a manner of
which we have now no conception? He will be in a literal sense _their
strength and their portion for ever_.

When we speak of things so much above our comprehension as the employment
and happiness of a future state, doubtless it behoves us to speak with
all modesty and distrust of ourselves. But the Scripture represents the
happiness of that state under the notions of _seeing God_, _seeing Him as
He is_, _knowing as we are known_, _and seeing face to face_. These
words are not general or undetermined, but express a particular
determinate happiness. And I will be bold to say that nothing can
account for or come up to these expressions but only this, that God
Himself will be an object to our faculties, that He Himself will be our
happiness as distinguished from the enjoyments of the present state,
which seem to arise not immediately from Him but from the objects He has
adapted to give us delight.

To conclude: Let us suppose a person tired with care and sorrow and the
repetition of vain delights which fill up the round of life; sensible
that everything here below in its best estate is altogether vanity.
Suppose him to feel that deficiency of human nature before taken notice
of, and to be convinced that God alone was the adequate supply to it.
What could be more applicable to a good man in this state of mind, or
better express his present wants and distant hopes, his passage through
this world as a progress towards a state of perfection, than the
following passages in the devotions of the royal prophet? They are
plainly in a higher and more proper sense applicable to this than they
could be to anything else. _I have seen an end of all perfection_. _Whom
have I in heaven but Thee_? _And there is none upon earth that I desire
in comparison of Thee_. _My flesh and may heart faileth_: _but God is
the strength of my heart and my portion for ever_. _Like as the hart
desireth the water-brooks_, _so longeth my soul after Thee_, _O God_. _My
soul is athirst for God_, _yea_, _even for the living God_: _when shall I
come to appear before Him_? _How excellent is Thy loving-kindness_, _O
God_! _a