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The word here translated blessed is the same that occurs in the beautitudes, signifying happy, and is to be distinguished from another word, also translated blessed, but signifying to be blessed or adored. This phrase " the happy God" stands out in bright contrast with the dark dream of Asia, that there were two gods — one good, one evil — Ormuzd and Ahriman, against which Jewish religion had witnessed from the beginning. The Jewish faith was distinguished from all other ancient beliefs by maintaining the unity and blessedness of the King Eternal, and by asserting the recent origin, the reptile quality, and the final destiny of evil.

I. Let us, then, observe THAT OUR OWN SOULS, IN THEIR PROFOUNDEST INSTINCTS, COMPEL THE BELIEF IN THE HAPPINESS OF THE ETERNAL MIND. Our minds revolt at once at the idea of a miserable everlasting cause. We cannot steadily conceive of an everlasting and boundless power otherwise than as resting on its own ocean depths in unfathomable bliss. We cannot even imagine it as suffering eternally, whether from weakness, or weariness, or pain, disappointment, or malignity, or through sympathy with everlasting misery of created beings. The necessity of indestructible being, which supports the eternal life, necessitates its blessed life. The very heathen, as in Homer, always speak and sing of "the happy gods." If we are to follow in our thoughts the instincts of our own nature (and we have no other means of thinking of the boundless life), then it is blessed for ever. For life here — its product — in all its orderly states is identical with enjoyment. It is disorder alone which produces misery. Think of the life on this planet, from its lowest to its highest ranges, from the dance of animalculae seen in the magnified drop of water up to the pleasures of the highest races that frequent the atmosphere, the land, the ocean. To breathe the pure air, to drink in the pleasant sunlight, to seek for and enjoy each its proper food, is the law of life, for if their life is short they have no sense of its shortness, and while it lasts it supplies the pleasures of motion, of rest, of vision, of action, and of love. For mankind there opens a new world of delights. Words fall us to describe the heights and depths of human enjoyment. What must that blessed existence be as a life of thought! To us thought is one of the chief and steadiest sources of enjoyment even amidst all our darkness, and deficiency of light, and baffled inquiries, and unsatisfied longings for intelligence. But what must be the delights of that infinite intellect, the energy, the reach, and the force of that Spirit, whence have sprung all the worlds, all the sciences, and all the minds in the universe. What must be that life of inexhaustible power in design, radiant within all the archetypes of beauty in form and colour, the mind in which have dwelt for eternity the patterns of all loveliness in earth and heaven; in which have bloomed the floral splendours of all the worlds; all the lovelinesses of figure, and form, and face, and scenery in earth, and sky, and air, and in the heaven of heavens? What, again, must be that life of creative energy from whose eternal love of life-giving have sprung all the delights of parental and life-giving love through the creation? What ideas can man form of the intrinsic and eternal blessedness of God before and apart from the creation? In that past creationless eternity, the Son, we are told, "was in the bosom of the Father"; He "had a glory with the Father or ever the world was." And in Him were gathered up all the thoughts and purposes of God as to creation, moral government, and redemption (John 17:5-24). This gives a ledge of solid ground for one further step upward in our thought. In the past eternity the self-existing wisdom and power revolved the whole infinite future of His manifestation to an everlasting universe, including the redemption of man, the incarnation of the Word; and this eternal counsel of love was the outcome of the holy and loving blessedness of the Sun of spirits. For God is love. He was never alone in eternity.

II. LET THIS SAME TEMPER APPEAR IN OUR WORSHIP. Let us "sing unto the Lord."

(E. White.)

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KJV: According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

WEB: according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.