Moral Perfections United and Harmonizing

Charles Simeon (1759-1836) on believers being “filled with the fullness of God:”

Say now, Whether there be not a glory and excellency in the Gospel, not only beyond any thing which is generally contemplated, but far beyond what any finite capacity can ever fully comprehend?

Yet, how is it regarded amongst us? Does it in any degree corresponding with its importance, occupy our minds as Christians, and our ministrations as ambassadors of Christ?

On the contrary, is it not rather viewed with suspicion, and in too many instances loaded with contempt?

But would it be so treated, if it were properly understood? See what effects are ascribed to it, and what blessings a just comprehension of this mysterious subject is calculated to impart.

In my text [Eph 3:18-19] it is said, that a view of this sublime mystery will “fill us with all the fulness of God.” And what can be meant by this?

Can it be supposed that a creature should ever resemble God in his natural perfections? No: but in his moral perfections we both may and must resemble him, if ever we would behold the face of God in peace.

Nay more; we must not only partake of his moral perfections, but must have them all united and harmonizing in us, even as they unite and harmonize in God himself, and in this stupendous mystery, which has emanated from him.

Let me break in here for a moment to itemize what Simeon has just said. First, there resides in God a united and harmonious agreement of moral perfections. Second, a stupendous mystery has emanated from God–the gospel!–in which we also see a united and harmonious agreement of moral perfections. And third, believers are to partake of those united and harmonious moral perfections in a way that corresponds to how they reside in God and emanate from him in the stupendous mystery which is the gospel.

That’s Simeon’s point as he explains how the fullness of God does (and doesn’t) dwell in us (Eph 3:19), and also how the gospel is the glorious message about the blessed God (1 Tim 1:11, which Simeon is somehow simultaneously explaining; see below). Now he particularizes and illustrates his point, first by naming individual moral virtues and then by meditating on the nature of light:

For instance; whilst justice, and mercy, and truth, and love, find in us, on all occasions, their appropriate operations, we must be careful that the opposite graces of faith and fear, humility and confidence, meekness and fortitude, contrition and joy, have full scope, not only for occasional, but for constant and harmonious exercise. In a word, we should resemble “God, who is light” itself. In light, you know, there is an assemblage of widely-different rays; some of which, if taken separately, might be thought to approximate rather to darkness than to light. But if the more brilliant rays were taken alone, though they might produce a glare, they would never make light. It is the union of all, in their due proportion, and in simultaneous motion, that constitutes light: and then only, when all the different graces are in simultaneous exercise, each softening and tempering its opposite, then only, I say, do we properly resemble God.

But how shall this character be formed in us? How shall we “be filled thus with all the fulness of our God?” Can it be effected by philosophy, or by the operation of any natural principles? Can any thing but the Gospel of Christ effect it? No; nothing under heaven ever did, or ever can, form this character, but an overwhelming sense of the love of Christ in dying for us: and it is on this account that I have endeavoured to bring this great subject before you. And, O, that it might have a suitable operation upon your souls! 

Perhaps if the moral virtues were separate items on a list, we might undertake to add them one by one to our character. But they have by nature a kind of virtuous simplicity, or at least a strong mutual implication, or a perichoretic interpenetration in which each of them is in each other. As a result, we cannot simply copy them out one at a time, but we need a way of receiving them in their unity and fullness. When we partake of them, an appropriately awe-filled sense of God’s love for us in the death of Christ will stamp on our characters the united and harmonious character of God and his gospel.

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This is a great passage of Simeon that is bibliographically fugitive. The main reason I’m posting it here is to share it, but a lesser reason is to nail it down for my own use. As far as I can tell, it’s from one of Simeon’s University Sermons preached as a special invited series at Great St Mary’s Cambridge (rather than his own church, Holy Trinity Cambridge), and the text it exegetes is Eph 3:18-19 (“filled with the fullness of God”). But then it was enfolded into Simeon’s great Horae Homileticae, not under sermons on Ephesians but for some reason under sermons on 1 Timothy, at 1:11 “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” So you can find it as “The Excellency and Glory of the Gospel,” Sermon 2225, at 1 Tim 1:11 in Horae Homileticae vol 18, at p. 482. Digitized text is at the corresponding site for StudyLight commentaries on 1 Tim. 1:11. Furthermore, it’s the passage chosen by H.C.G. Moule to illustrate how Simeon’s English style was “accurate and strong, a good specimen of the writing of the closing eighteenth century.” This is on p. 91 of Moule’s excellent 1892 book Charles Simeon. I think that’s where I first ran across it.