Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

In return hereunto, for the carrying on of the communion between them, the Saints delight in Christ: He is their Joy, their §. 11, Crown, their Rejoicing, their Life, food, health, strength, desire, Righteousness, Salvation, Blessedness: without him they have nothing, in him they find all things, Gal. 6. 14. God forbid that I should rejoice, save in the Cross of Christ. He hath from the foundation of the world, been the hopes, expectation, desire, and delight of all Believers. The promise of him was all, (and it was enough) that God gave Adam in his unexpressible distress, to relieve and comfort him, Gen. 3. 15. Eve perhaps supposed that the promised seed had been borne in her first borne, when she said, I have gotten a man from the Lord, so most properly [Greek or Hebrew] denoting the 4th Case; and this was the matter of her joy, Gen: 4. 1. Lamech having Noah given to him as a type of Christ, and salvation by him, cries out, this same shall comfort us concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed, Gen. 5. 29. he rejoices in him who was to take away the Curse, by being made a curse for us. When Abraham was in the height of his Glory, returning from the Conquest of the Kings of the East, that came against the confederate Kings of the vale of Sodom, God appears to him with a glorious promise, Gen. 15. 1. fear not Abraham, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. What now could his soul more desire? alas he cries (as Reuben afterwards upon the loss of Joseph) the Child is not, and whither shall I go? v. 2. Lord God ⟨p. 141⟩what wilt thou give me, seeing I go Childless? Thou hast promised, that in my seed shall all the earth be blessed, if I have not that seed, ah what will all other things do me good? Thence it is said that he rejoiced to see the day of Christ; He saw it and was glad, Joh. 8. 56. the thoughts of the coming of Christ, which he looked on at the distance of 2000 years, was the joy and delight of his heart. Jacob blessing his sons, lifted up his spirit when he comes to Judah, in whom he considered the Shiloh to come,