So when, in public worship, we address God with our souls in fervent prayer, and while we hear the word of God spoken to us by his ministers, we receive an answer to those prayers in the convincing and sanctifying impressions which the word makes upon the heart; this is also an hour of secret communion. So at the supper of the Lord, when with hope and joy we receive the bread and the wine, as divine seals of the faithfulness of God’s covenant, and when we transact those solemn affairs also as seals of our faith and love, and our engagements to be the Lord’s; we may properly be said to hold _fellowship, or communion with him_. What swift advances of holiness doth the saint feel in his heart, and practise in his life, after such seasons of devotion! What glory doth he give to religion in a dark and sinful world! What unknown pleasure doth he find in such approaches to God! And he moves swiftly onward in his way to heaven, by such daily receipts of mercy, and returns of praise. These are powerful motives that will make him persist in his holy practice and joy, in scorn of all the mockery and ridicule of a profane age of infidels. So the moon holds bright communion with the sun, the sovereign planet; so she receives and reflects his beams; she shines gloriously in a dark hemisphere, and moves onward sublime in her heavenly course, regardless of all the barking animals that betray their senseless malice. This blessed privilege and pleasure of converse with God, which is enjoyed by the saints on earth, is doubtless the pleasure and the privilege of the spirits of the just made perfect, and of angels near the throne, but in a much higher degree: When they address the Majesty of Heaven in the forms of celestial worship, and receive immediate and sensible tokens of divine acceptance; or when they take their orders and commissions from the throne for some particular errand, or high employment, and return again to make their humble report there: These are glorious seasons of converse with their Maker. Much more glorious communion of this kind does the man Christ Jesus enjoy with God, in transacting all the vast and illustrious affairs of his commission; a commission large as the extent of his Father’s kingdom, full of majesty and justice, terror and grace; a divine commission to govern, to redeem, and to save, or to punish and destroy millions of mankind, as well as to rule all his unknown dominions in the upper and nether worlds.