December 1

The light of the righteous rejoiceth.—Prov. xlii. 9.

THE light of the righteous, consists in their inward illumination by the Holy Spirit, and the sweet beamings of God's countenance upon them. They are light in the Lord. And as by this Divine illumination they are made pure and conformed to

God, who is light, so are they surrounded with an atmosphere of pleasure and delight. And as they become more lustrous in holiness, their joys are the more exuberant. As we rise in perfection, our souls dilate with joy.

The life of a saint may be compared to the labor of bees, who all the day either fly from their hives to the flowers, or from the flowers to their hives; and all their art and exercise is, where there is fragrancy or sweetness. In divine worship the soul ascends to God, by holy thoughts, and ardent desires, and God descends into the soul, by the communication of grace and comfort.

It is true the carnal man can not see nor taste the divine delights, that a saint has real experience of; for a lower nature is incapable of the perceptions and enjoyments of a higher. A plant can not apprehend the pleasure of sense, nor a beast the pleasures of reason; and reason must be prepared and elevated to enjoy the pleasures of holiness, which makes all the charming contents of this world insipid and nauseous. For according to the excellency of the objects, and the capacity and vigor of the faculties exercised upon them, such is the delight that results from their union. The holy soul is a heaven enlightened with the beams of the Sun of Righteousness; a paradise planted with immortal fruits, the graces of the sanctifying Spirit; and God walks in it, communicating the sense of his love.

Are not life and light, and liberty, productive and preservative of joy? And consequently, as the natural life, the more lively and vigorous, the more pleasant it is; so the spiritual. The more we are like God, the more we are loved of him, and the more clear revelations of his love are communicated to us. The more we are freed from the chains of sin, and bondage of Satan, the more joyful and glorious is our liberty. Indeed, the saints are sometimes in darkness, but their sorrows are from their defects in holiness; from their not improving the means of grace, whereby they might rise to perfection. For as when sadness oppresses us, the vital spirits retire to the heart, and are shut up in their springs, that nature does not perform its operations with delight; so when the Holy Spirit, the eternal Comforter, is grieved, by our quenching his pure motions, he withdraws his comforting influences, and the soul is left desolate. The experience of all the saints is a demonstration, that religion, the more it fastens us to our duty, and to God, by the bands of love, the happier we are; and that the state of a renewed Christian is so far from being gloomy and melancholy, that it is the joyful beginning of heaven.