Truly and beautifully has Sir Thomas Browne said,—­“There is no felicity in what the world adores:  that wherein God himself is happy, the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy—­that dare I call happiness; whatsoever else the world terms happiness, is to me an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name.”  Following out this thought, let us reverently inquire in what chiefly consists the joy of God, or what especially constitutes His glory.  Now, He is glorious in that creative mind by which things are made so wisely with reference to the end which each has to serve; and made so beautiful and grand in their sculptured forms and harmonious colours.  He surveys all His works, and rejoices in them as “very good.”  He is glorious also in that miracle of a wondrous providence by which without a miracle the wants of all the endless worlds of His creatures are supplied; and by which responsible persons also are created and trained to glorify and enjoy Himself for ever.  But while perfection beams in every feature of the Divine mind, His glory, His joy, is in His character.  Not His power, but the character which wields the power; not His wisdom, but that which His character accomplishes by it; not His majestic sovereignty, but that majestic character which stamps His reign as one of right and therefore of might, commanding, irresistible.  This is the glory which He made to pass before the eyes of Moses when upon the mount; which shone in the face of Jesus Christ the Holy One of God; and which fills the souls of the rapt seraphim when they cry, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts:  the whole earth is full of His glory!” Thus God is happy and most blessed because He is “glorious in holiness,” or, in one word, because “His name is Love.”

And in what, moreover, does the happiness of the angels consist, but in sharing this life of God?  These bright ones, indeed, experience joy in contemplating His works of creation and redemption, and have been glad in acquiring truth throughout many ages; but the atmosphere which they breathe, the light in which they dwell, is love.  They are happy not merely in what they hear, or see, or know of the things of God, but chiefly in what they are towards God himself.  They know Him, and this is life eternal.

And, finally, it is in the defect of this in which devils are unhappy.  For Satan, as he “goes to and fro in the earth, and in walking up and down in it,” may hear those sounds of loveliness which delight our ears, but they are no music to his jarring and discordant spirit; and he may behold those sights of loveliness which delight our eye, but he does so as the prowling lion who perceives no grandeur in the glorious mountains which echo to his savage roar.  Nor does the exercise of his subtle intellect afford him joy, because it is not in harmony with truth, nor with the God of truth; but is as a “wandering star, to which is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.”  And therefore, though he is a king, he is king of darkness, and carries hell in his own bosom, whether he moves among the beauteous bowers of Eden, or dwells for days upon earth, in the wilderness, in the holy temple, or on the high mountain, with even God manifest in the flesh beside him.  He has no holiness, no love, and therefore no peace or joy.