The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

Why, suppose we such a thing, as an entire Sphere of nothing else but pure light; what can work any disturbance here? or raise a storm within it? A calm, serene thing; perfectly homogeneous, void of contrariety, or any self-repugnant quality, how can it disquiet it self?

We cannot yet say, that thus it is, with holy souls in their present state,¹ according to the highest literal import of these words, ye are light. But thus it will be, when they awake, ⟨p. 111⟩when they are satisfied with this likeness: They shall then be like God fully, and throughout. O the joy and pleasure of a soul made after such a similitude! Now glory is become as it were their being, they are glorified. Glory is revealed into them, transfused throughout them. Every thing that is conceivable under the notion of an excellency, competent to created nature, is now to be found with them, and they have it inwrought into their very beings. So that in a true sense it may be said (that they are light) they not only have such excellencies, but they are them.² As the Moralist saith of the wise, or virtuous man, that he not so properly hath all things, as is all things. 'Tis said of man, in respect of his naturals, he is the image and glory of God. ³As for his supernatural excellencies, though they are not essential to man, they are more expressive of God, and are now become so inseparable from the nature of man too, in this his glorified state, that he can as soon cease to be intelligent, as holy. The image of God, even in this respect, is not separable from him: nor blessedness (surely from this image. As the divine excellencies, being in their infinite fullness in God, are his own blessedness; so is the likeness, the participation of them in the soul that now bears this image, its blessedness. Nothing can be necessary to its full satisfaction, which it hath not in it self, by a gracious vouchsafement, and communication. The good man (in that degree which his present state admits of) Solomon tells us is satisfied from himself;