"Exceeding happy beyond compare"

From Jonathan Edwards, "Nothing Upon Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven (1724)":

Although all things upon earth are insufficient to represent to us these glories, nor are we capable of conceiving of it, yet God condescends, when he speaks of these things, to our way of apprehension, and because we are most apt to [be] affected by those things which we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and had experience of. Therefore God has taken his similitudes, by which he would shadow forth heaven to us, from those things which, although they are but faint shadows, have yet an analogy and, in those things wherein they are compared, a likeness; and the thing resembled differs no otherwise from the similitudes, in no more degrees, than as they are more excellent and glorious. ....

Thus we have taken notice of some of those similitudes by which God has been pleased to shadow forth the glories of heaven, even all the most glorious [that] can be found in the aspectable world. We are come, therefore, to show that none are sufficient to represent to us, or to give us an idea of, the glories of the blessed. Although perhaps they give us as bright a picture and image of it—or would do, if fully understood—as we are capable of receiving in this life, yet 'tis but a very faint shadow.' 'Tis but a glimpse, and a small glimpse too; they are things that are quite beyond our conception. Nothing that we see upon earth will serve to give us a notion; those things are so much more excellent, so much more pure, more refined, noble and exalted, we have never yet seen anything with our eyes, or heard anything with our ears, like it. 1 Corinthians 2:9, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him." ....

Reason tells us that man was created to be happy in the enjoyment of God's love, and therefore that those that enjoy this happiness must be inconceivably happy. We have showed already that it must needs be that God created the world only from goodness, and that the rational part of the world are the ultimate objects of all this goodness. Wherefore it follows that God created the whole world for the manifestation of his love and goodness to the rational part of the world. Therefore there will doubtless be a time wherein God will fully manifest his love to good men, to those that answer the end of their creation.

But reason tells us that they that fully enjoy the love of God must be exceeding happy beyond compare: for how happy are men sometimes in the love one of another. How much more happy, then, must they necessarily be in the enjoyment of the love of him who is infinitely greater, better and more excellent than any creature. ....

How much greater is the Christian's reward than the Christian's troubles. All the troubles of this [world] are truly worthy to be despised in comparison of the glories of the future....

Jonathan Edwards, "Nothing Upon Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven," 1724.