Thomas Watson

Enjoying spiritual communion with God is a riddle and mystery to most people. Every one that hangs about the court does not speak with the king. We may approach God in ordinances, and hang about the court of heaven, yet not enjoy communion with God. We may have the letter without the Spirit, the visible sign without the invisible grace. It is the enjoyment of God in a duty that we should chiefly look at. Psalm 42:2. ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.’ Alas! what are all our worldly enjoyments without the enjoyment of God! What is it to enjoy good health, a brave estate, and not to enjoy God? Job 30:28. ‘I went mourning without the sun.’ So mayest thou say in the enjoyment of all creatures without God, ‘I went mourning without the sun.’ I have the starlight of outward enjoyments, but I want the Sun of Righteousness. ‘I went mourning without the sun.’ It should be our great design, not only to have the ordinances of God, but the God of the ordinances. The enjoyment of God’s sweet presence here is the most contented life: he is a hive of sweetness, a magazine of riches, a fountain of delight. Psalm 36:8, 9. The higher the lark flies the sweeter it sings: and the higher we fly by the wings of faith, the more we enjoy of God. How is the heart inflamed in prayer and meditation! What joy and peace is there in believing! Is it not comfortable being in heaven? He that enjoys much of God in this life carries heaven about him. Oh let this be the thing we are chiefly ambitious of, the enjoyment of God in his ordinances! The enjoyment of God’s sweet presence here is an earnest of our enjoying him in heaven.

—Thomas Watson
A Body of Divinity, 20

 

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