Centuries of Meditations

24

That you are a man should fill you with joys, and make you to overflow with praises. The privilege of your nature being infinitely infinite. And that the world serves you in this fathomless manner, exhibiting the Deity, and ministering to your blessedness, ought daily to transport you with a blessed vision, into ravishments and ecstasies. What knowledge could you have had of God by an unprofitable wall though endless and infinite? For though as things now are, nothing can be, but it exhibits a Deity; as the Apostle saith, By things that are seen the invisible things of God are manifested, even His power and Godhead, because everything is a demonstration of His goodness and power; by its existence and the end to which it is guided: yet an endless wall could never manifest His being, were it present with you alone: for it would deny that infinity by its unprofitableness, which it showeth by its endlessness. The true exemplar of God’s infinity is that of your understanding, which is a lively pattern and idea of it. It excludeth nothing, and containeth all things, being a power that permitteth all objects to be, and is able to enjoy them. Here is a profitable endlessness of infinite value, because without it infinite joys and blessings would be lost, which by it are enjoyed. How great doth God appear, in wisely preparing such an understanding to enjoy His creatures; such an endless, invisible, and mysterious receiver! And how blessed and divine are you, to whom God hath not only simply appeared, but whom He hath exalted as an Immortal King among all His creatures!