CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

First therefore positively,¹ This Eternal Life doth essentially lie in the immediate fruition and enjoyment of God: This the Scripture doth often call seeing of God, for howsoever it be disputed by the Learned whether the bodily eye shall be elevated so supernaturally, that it shall be able to see the divine essence,² though spiritual and immaterial, yet so far as seeing doth imply enjoying and immediate fruition of God, so far they are sure to partake of it; Now then consider how great a mercy this is, To have God the Object of all our love, joy, and delight, For he only is that universal and infinite object which can satiate and comfort the heart: All these earthly comforts they are too narrow, too little for the soul: Divines say, The soul of a man hath an infinite appetite, it desireth this, and it desireth that, and nothing but God is such an universal good that can fully replenish it; Now David even in this life he saith, Whom have I in heaven and earth but thee? Psa. 13.35. how much rather will this be true in heaven? God is the centre of the soul, it is unquiet and restless till it fix there: Take all the men in the world, who have drunk deepest in the streams of these earthly comforts, yet still they thirst; There is a dropsy on them, still they would have more and other objects, They have a feverish heat with them, That makes them restless, whereas when we come to Christ we shall find rest to our souls, and He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst more, Jo. 4.14. so then we see what eternal life is, it's all the good that God is, What good is in God, that the believer hath, and how unreasonable is it to think that there is a better good then he; If the Creator cannot satisfy, can the Creature? From hence it is that the godly do so long for this time of enjoying him, I desire to depart, saith Paul, Phil. 2.23. The Church crieth for Christ to Come quickly: Those Patriarchs looked on themselves as Pilgrims, and desiring a better City then that of this world; so then you can but judge of this happiness by the footsteps, by the drops of it; If there be any attractive good in the creature, it's but a drop, God the Fountain he is the Ocean: Now in this object God enjoyed, there are these remarkable properties of his goodness.

First therefore positively,