whom God requires it to unite for this very purpose This cannot but add unspeakably to the delightfulness of this transaction and of this effusion of the Holy Ghost in the virtue whereof the thing is done how oft soever it be seriously done As our case and state require that it be very often And to receive him as our Lord which is joined with that other capacity wherein we receive him viz. of a Jesus or Saviour As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord so c. This also and the heart-subduing influence that disposes to it is most highly delectable When the Soul that was so stoutly averse and that once said within it self I will not have him to reign over me is brought freely to yeild and with sincere loyal resolutions and affections devotes it self to him consents to his government submits its neck and shoulder to his yoke and burden says to him with an ungainsaying heart as its full sense Now thou Lord of my life and hope who hast so long striven with me so oft and earnestly prest me hereto so variously dealt with me to make me understand thy merciful design and who seekest to rule with no other aim or intent but that thou may'st save and who hast founded thy dominion in thy blood and didst dy and revive and rise again that thou mightest be Lord of the living and the dead and therefore my Lord Accept now a self-refigning Soul I make a free surrender of my self I bow and submit to thy Sovereign Power I fall at the footstool of thy Throne Thou Prince of the Kings of the Earth who hast loved sinners and washt them from their sins in thy blood Glory in thy conquest Thou hast overcome I will from henceforth be no longer mine own but thine I am ready to receive thy commands to do thy will to serve thy interests to sacrifice my all to thy Name and Honour my whole life and being are for ever thine I say as before there is pleasure in the very doing this it self as often as it is sincerely done And it adds hereto if it be more distinctly considered It is no mean or any way undeserving person to whom this homage is paid and obligation taken on unto future obedience He is the brightness of the Fathers glory the express Image of his person the Heir of all things and who sustains all things by the word of his power It is he whose name is Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of peace 'T is he to whom all power is given both in heaven and earth and more especially power over all flesh that he might give eternal life to as many as were given him 'T is he who spoiled Principalities and Powers and made an open shew of them He whom because when he was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God he humbled himself made himself of no reputation took on him the form of a servant became obedient to death the Father hath therefore highly exalted and given him a Name above every name that in his Name every knee should bow And of whom when he brought him his first-born into the world he said Let all the Angels of God worship him And such a one he is whose temper is all goodness and sweetness Tell Sion thy King cometh meek and lowly He came into this world drawn down only by his own pity and love beholding the desolations and ruins that were wrought in it every where Sin universally reigning and death by sin and spreading its dark shadow and a dreadful cloud over all the earth In which darkness the Prince thereof was ruling and leading men captive at his will having drawn them off from the blessed God their life and sunk them into a deep oblivion of their own original and disaffection to their true happiness that could only be found there This great Lord and Prince of life and peace came down on purpose to be the Restorer of Souls to repair the desolations and ruins of many generations He came full of grace and truth and hath scattered blessings over the world wheresoever he came hath infinitely obliged all that ever knew him and is he in whom all the nations of the earth must be blessed And who would not with joy swear fealty to him and take pleasure to do him homage Who would not recount with delight the unexpressible felicity of living under the governing power of such a one And if the tenor and scope of all his Laws and Constitutions be viewed over what will they be found but obligations upon men to be happy How easie his yoke how light his burden what is the frame of his Kingdom or whereof doth it consist but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And who would not now say This Lord reigneth let the earth rejoyce let the multitude of the Isles be glad thereof Why should it not be triumphingly said among the Heathen That the Lord reigneth that the world also shall be established that it cannot be moved Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad let the sea roar and the fulness thereof let the fields rejoice and all that is therein and all the trees of the wood rejoice It s plain that be the matter of joy here what it will be there never so much cause of exultation and glorying in him The righteousness and peace which his Kingdom promises never actually take place nor the joy that is connexion therewith till the Holy Ghost dispose and form mens spirits thereto For all this is but meer dream and idle talk to those who hear only of these things and feel not that vital influence insinuating it self that may give the living sense and savor of them And we may rather expect seas and fields beasts and trees to sing his triumphant Song and chant his praises than those men whose hearts are not attempered to his Government and who are yet under the dominion of another Lord not being yet by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made free from the law of sin and death But where this is effectually done How large matter of most rational pleasure do they find here while there is nothing in that whole System of Laws by which he governs that is either vain unequal or unpleasant or upon any account grievous only this is not the estimate of distempered spirits or of any other than them in whose hearts his Law is written and who because they love him keep his Commandments Unto Love his commands are most connatural For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments They are not grievous i. e. by the Meiosis which some do reasonably enough apprehend in those words they are joyous delightful pleasant but to them only who being born of God have overcome the world This holy influence and communication of God is therefore grateful and contributes not
Spiritual good things so delight in God is satisfaction it self of such desire Or 358 2. External of an inferior kind so far satisfying of them It doth either 1. Moderate them and dispose to acquiescence if the good be withheld 359 2. Add a satisfying sweetness to the enjoyment if it be granted 363 3. Deliver from the torment of unsatisfied Desire 364 A TREATISE OF Delighting in GOD From PSAL. 37. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart PART I. Shewing the Import of this Precept THIS Psalm by the Contents of it seems to suppose An afflicted state of good men by the oppression of such as were in that and other respects very wicked The prosperity of these wicked ones in their oppressive course An aptness in the oppressed to impatience under the evils they suffered A disposition to behold with a lingering and an envious eye the good things which their oppressors enjoyed and themselves wanted Hence the composure of it is such as might be most agreeable to these suppositions and serviceable to the fortifying of the Righteous against the sin and trouble which such a state of things might prove the occasion of unto them This Verse hath a more direct aspect on the last of these cases or on this last mentioned thing considerable in the case of Upright men suffering under the oppression of violent and prosperous wickedness viz. That they might hereupon be apt both to covet and envy the worldly delights of their enemies To be desirous of their dainties and grudg they should be theirs who they knew deserved worse things And while themselves also felt the pressure of worse which at their hands they deserved not What is here offered to the consideration of the sufferers tends aptly to allay their discontent to check and repress their inordinate desire towards inferior things or to divert and turn it another way as in case of bleeding to excess and danger the way is to open a Vein and stop the course of that profusion by altering it As if it had been said You have no such cause to look with displeasure or immoderate desire upon their delicacies You may have better Better belong to you and invite you The Lord himself is your portion It becomes both your state and spirit to apply your selves to an holy delight in him To let your Souls loose and set them at liberty to satiate themselves and feed unto fulness upon those undefiled and satisfying pleasures unto which you have a right and in which you will find the loss and want of their meaner enjoyments abundantly made up unto you You have your natural desires and cravings as well as other men and those may be too apt to exceed their just bounds and measures But if you take this course they will soon become sober and moderate such as will be satisfied with what is competent with an indifferent allowance of the good things of this earth And towards the Lord let them be as vast and large as can be supposed they can never be larger than the Rule will allow nor than the object will satisfie The direction and obligation of the former being indeed proportioned to the immense and boundless fulness of the latter We need not operously inquire what sort of persons this direction is given unto It is plain that it 's the common duty of all to delight in God But it cannot be the immediate duty of all Men that know not God and are enemies to him have somewhat else to do first They to whom the Precept is directly meant are the regenerate the righteous and the upright as the Psalm it self doth plainly design them or his own people The most profitable way of considering these words will be chiefly to insist on the direction given in the former part of the Verse And then to shew towards the close how the event promised in the latter part will not only by virtue of the Promise but even naturally follow thereupon The Direction in the former part gives us a plain signification of Gods good pleasure that he himself would be the great object of his peoples delight Or it is his will that they principally delight themselves in him Our discourse upon this Subject will fall naturally into two parts The Former Latter whereof will concern the Import Practice of the enjoined Delighting in God Under which latter what will be said of the latter part of the Verse will fitly fall in That we may more distinctly open the import and meaning of Delighting in God It will be necessary that we treat 1. Of the Delectable Object 2. Of the Delight to be taken therein As to the former The general object of Delight is some good or somewhat so conceived of with the addition of being apprehended some way present Here it is the cheif and best good The highest and most perfect excellency Which goodness and excellency considered as residing in God gives us a twofold notion or view of the object whereupon this delight may have it's exercise Absolute Relative 1. God may be lookt upon in an absolute consideration as he is in himself the best and most excellent Being wherein we behold the concurrence of all perfections The most amiable and beauteous excellencies to an intellectual eye that it can have any apprehension of 2. In a Relative viz. As his Goodness and Excellency are considered not meerly as they are in himself but also as having someway an aspect on his creatures For considering him as in himself the most excellent Being If here we give our thoughts liberty of exercising themselves we shall soon find that hereupon he must be considered also as the first Being the Original and Author of all other Beings Otherwise he were not the most excellent From whence we will see Relation doth arise between him and his creatures that have there Being from him And besides the general relations which he beareth to them all as the common Maker Sustainer and Disposer of them Observing that there are some which by their reasonable natures are capable of Government by him in the proper sense viz. by a Law and of blessedness in him To these we consider him as standing in a twofold reference in both which we are to eye and act towards him viz. As a Lord to be obey'd Portion to be enjoy'd And have most delectable excellencies to take notice of in him that require we should sutably comport with them answerable peculiarly to each of these considerations in respect whereof we are to look upon him 1. As the most excellent Lord most delectably excellent we take not here that title so strictly as to intend by it meer propriety or dominion But as to ordinary apprehension it is more commonly understood to signify also governing Power or Authority founded in the other whom we cannot but esteem worthy of all possible honour and Glory that every knee bow to him and every tongue confess
some way a penalty not to be already perfectly blessed For it is certain that such rapturous sensations and the want of them are not the distinguishing characters of the more grown strong and excellent Christians and of them that are more infirm and of a meaner and lower pitch and stature Yea those extatical emotions although they have much of a sensible delectation in them as more hereafter may be said to that purpose and though they may in part proceed from the best and most excellent Cause do yet if they be frequent which would signifie an aptitude thereto import somewhat of diminution in their subject and imply what is some way a lessening of it that is they imply the persons that are more disposed this way to be of a temper not so well fixed and compos'd but more volatile and airy which yet doth not intimate that the chief Cause and Author of those motions is therefore mean and ignoble nay it argues nothing to the contrary but that the Holy Spirit it self may be the supream Cause of them For admitting it to be so it doth not alter mens natural tempers and complexions but so acts them as that they retain and express upon occasion what was peculiar to their temper notwithstanding The work and office of the Holy Ghost in its special communications is to alter and new-mold men in respect of their moral dispositions not those which are strictly and purely natural the subject is in this regard the same it was and whatsoever is received is received according to the disposition of that and it gives a tincture to what supervenes and is implanted thereinto whence the same degree of such communicated influence will not so discernibly move some tempers as it doth others as the same quantity of fire will not so soon put solid wood into a flame as it will light straw That some men therefore are less sensibly and passionately mov'd with the great things of God and even with the discovery of his love than some others doth not argue them to have less of the Spirit but more of that temper which better comports with deeper judgment and a calm and sober consideration of things The unaptness of some mens affections unto strong and fervent motion doth indeed arise from a stupid inconsiderateness of some others from a more profound consideration by which the deeper things sink and the more they pierce even into the inmost center of the Soul the less they move the surface of it And though I do not think the saying of that Heathen applicable to this case It is a wise mans part to admire nothing for here is matter enough in this Theam the Love of God to justifie the highest wonderment possible and not to admire in such a case is most stupidly irrational yet I conceive the admiration as well as other affections of more considering persons is more inward calm sedate and dispassionate and is not the less for being so but is the more solid and rational and the pleasure that attends it is the more deep and lasting And the fervour that ensues upon the apprehended Love of God prompting them to such service as is sutable to a state of devotedness to his interest is more intense and durable of the others more flashy and inconstant As though Flax set on fire will flame more than Iron yet withal it will smoak more and will not glow so much nor keep heat so long 10. But to shut up this Discourse They that have more transporting apprehensions of the love of God should take heed of despising them who have them not in just the same kind or do not express them in the same seraphick strains They that have them not should take heed of censuring those that with humble modesty upon just occasion discover and own what they do experience in this kind much less should they conclude that because they find them not there is therefore no such thing to be found which Cynical humour is too habitual to such tempers If they do fancy such to be a weaker sort of persons they may be sincere for all that And it ought to be considered of whom it was said That he would not quench the smoaking flax The Grace and Spirit of Christ ought to be reverenc'd in the various appearances thereof Whether we be sober or besides our selves The love of Christ constraineth us So diversly may the apprehensions of that Love work in the same person much more in divers Christians should be shie of making themselves standards to one another which they that do discover more pride and self-conceit than acquaintance with God and more admiration of themselves than of his love Thus far we have given some account of the object to be delighted in wherein if any think strange that we have spoken so much of the delectable Divine communication as belonging to the object which how it doth hath been sufficiently shew'n let them call it if they please a preparing or disposing of the Subject which it also making its own way into the Soul as hath been said effectually doth and if the necessity of it be acknowledg'd upon that account it equally answers the main purpose aimed at in all this and had it been only so considered would but have infer'd some alteration in the frame and method of this Discourse but not at all of the substance or design of it We art next to say somewhat briefly of the Delight it self to be taken therein Nor shall we be herein so curious as to distinguish which some do Delight and Joy The distinction wont to be assigned cannot 't is plain hold here so as to make the former of these signifie a brutish affection only and the latter proper to rational nature Nor is there any such propriety belonging to the words but they may be rendered as indeed they are used in Scripture promiscuously either in reference to the matter of intellectual or sensitive complacency and either of a reasonable being or an unreasonable We take these therefore to signifie substantially the same thing and here delight to be intirely all one with joy That is there is not any the highest degree of joy which may not fitly enough be comprehended under the name of Delight when it is placed as here it is requir'd to be upon the blessed God Whereof that we may speak the more fully it will be necessary to preface somewhat concerning its general nature and more principally as it is found in man within which compass our principal business lies Delight in the general is most intimately essential to Love which imports a well-pleasedness arising from the apprehended goodness or congruity of the thing loved and it seems to be meerly by accident that there is any thing else in Love besides that complacency of Delight That is what there is else belonging to the nature of Love arises from the mixture and variety which is to be found in the present state of
who have felt this quickening cherishing healing vertue are also strengthen'd with might viz. by the Spirit in the inner man so that they hold on their way and being of clean hands grow stronger and stronger They go from strength to strength and do not so much spend as increase it by going forward For the way it self of the Lord is strength to the upright He provides that fresh recruits shall still spring up to them in their way For all their supplies are of him and are acknowledged to be so In as much as by waiting upon the Lord they renew strength and mount up with wings as Eagles run without weariness and walk without fainting And this increasing strength cannot be without a proportionably increasing delight How pleasantly doth the strong man rejoyce to run his race and enterprize even difficult and hazardous things By this strength doth the regenerate man perform the ordinary duties belonging to his holy profession by it he encounters difficulties combats and conquers enemies bears heavy and afflicting pressures and none of these without some intermingled pleasure For even that exercise of this strength which is likely to be least accompanied with pleasure the suffering of sharp and smarting afflictions hath many times much of this grateful mixture and can only be expected to have it in this way of gracious communication as the depending sufferers shall be strengthened with all might according to the glorious power of God unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness God is therefore to be enjoy'd and delighted in by this delectable communication intervening by which he now frames the Soul according to his own Image and gives an heart after his own heart that is such as is sutable to him and as he would have it be And this way only is any one in a possibility to delight in God by having a good frame of Spirit communicated to him and in wrought in him I mean never without this and in a great measure by it Then is he in a happy state when God hath by his own Spirit made him what by his Word he requires him to be Now is he compos'd to delights and blessedness being by the same workmanship created in Christ Jesus both to good works and to the best of enjoyments How happy is that Soul in whom the true matter of delight is become an implanted thing that is what it should be and should be nothing such is the constitution of Gospel-Rules and Precepts but what most truly makes for its own content delight and rest whose own temper is now in some sort become to it both a law and a reward Surely this is one great part of what an enlightened apprehensive Soul would most earnestly desire and crave or would be the genuine breathings of a sincerely gracious heart O that I were more like God! more perfectly framed according to his holy will And must therefore be in great part a thing apt to afford it delight and rest as hath been already inculcated before But yet this natural consequence is little understood And the common ignorance or inadvertency of this hath made it necessary to insist the more largely though but little have been said in respect of what might on this part of the delectable communication wherein God offers himself to his peoples enjoyment For from the not-knowing or not-considering of this way of enjoying him this twofold mistake the one of very dangerous the other of uncomfortable importance and tendency hath arisen 1. That some have thought they have enjoy'd God when they have not having only had their imaginations somewhat gratified by certain either false or ineffectual notions of him In which they have rested and placed the sum of their Religion and Happiness Never aiming in the mean time to have their spirits reformed according to that pure and holy Image and Exemplar which he hath represented in the Gospel of his Son the impression whereof is Christ formed in us 2. That others have thought they have not enjoyed God when they have supposing there was no enjoyment of him but what consisted in the rapturous transporting apprehension and perswasion of his particular love to them and sleightly overlooking all that work he hath wrought in their Souls as if it were nothing to be accounted of not allowing themselves to reflect on any thing in themselves but what was still amiss and vainly seeking with much anxiety and complaint what they have while they will not take notice that they have it nor apply themselves to improve the already implanted Principles that are in themselves apt to yield fruits of so pleasant relish It was upon this account requisite to discover and labour somewhat to magnifie the intrinsecal delightfulness of Religion it self and to put the more of note and remark upon a well-tempered spirit even in point of delectableness and the matter of pleasure it hath in it by how much it is with too many on one account or another a neglectâ—d thing There is only somewhat of doubt or objection that may possibly lie in the minds of some against the scope and drift of this Discourse which it will be needful we endeavour to remove before we proceed to what is further contained in this gracious communication As 1. It may be said Doth not all this tend to bring us instead of delighting in God to delight in our selves To make us become our own center and rest And how can the relishable sweetness of gracious principles and dispositions signifie Gods being to be enjoyed or delighted in For what are these things God To this I only say 1. That such holy dispositions as they are not God so nor are they in strictness of speech our selves And how absurd were it to call every thing our selves that is in us And how self-contradicting then were the very objection for that would make delighting in God and in our selves directly all one and so the fault which it causlesly pretends to find it would really commit 'T is true that improperly holy dispositions are said to make up another self in us a new man according as corrupt and sinful principles and dispositions do make also a self the old man But then it is also to be remembered that with no greater impropriety they are capable of bearing the name of God as the image of any thing frequently doth the name of the thing which it represents or the work of its Author And they are expresly called Christ formed in us and is not the God They are called the Spirit for when we are caution'd not to quench the Spirit how can that be understood of the eternal uncreated Spirit himself And the very thing produced not meerly the productive influence in the work of Regeneration is expresly called by that name as it is no such strange thing for the effect to carry the name of its cause That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit There is Spirit
begetting and Spirit begotten And the Spirit begotten as it must be distinguished from its cause the Spirit of God so it must from the subject wherein the effect is wrought our own Spirits For they sure are not produc't by the regenerating work Yea and when God is said to dwell in them that dwell in love and that are humble and contrite somewhat else is thereby signify'd to be indwelling there than the meer being of God for otherwise the priviledg of such were no greater than of all other men and things And what else is it but somewhat communicated and imparted immediately from God to such else how by dwelling in love do they dwell in God which because dwelling imports permanency cannot be a transient influence only but some settled abiding effect a consistent frame and temper of Spirit maintained by his continually renewed influence and therefore it would be very unreasonably said that the representing this as delectable is a calling us off from God to delight in our selves For if this communication be not it self in strict propriety God it were as great impropriety to say it were our selves Again 2. It hath a great deal more affinity with God than with us We are its true the subjects of it but it is his immediate production and very likeness a Divine nature no humane thing Therefore if here our delight were to terminate it were more proper to call it delighting in God than in our selves But 3. It is neither said nor meant that here our delight is to terminate but that hereby we are to delight in God and so that our delight is to terminate in him 4. When we are said to enjoy God I inquire Is any thing communicated to us or no If not we have no enjoyment If any thing be what is it Gods Essence That 's impossible and horrid to think as hath been said And we need not repeat that when we can tell what it is to enjoy a Friend without partaking his essence whose communications are so incomparably more remote mediate resistible It is less difficult to conceive how God is to be enjoy'd by his communications 2. It may be again said But if God be thus to be delighted in how can delighting in him be upon such terms our duty For is it our duty that he communicate himself in this way to us Let any that object thus only study the meaning of those Precepts Keep your selves in the love of God Continue in his goodness Be ye fill'd with the Spirit Walk in the Spirit And if they can think them to signifie any thing they will not be to seek for an answer But to this more hereafter when from the delightful object we come to treat of actual delighting in it 3. But some may say It were indeed to be acknowledged that such a temper of spirit once communicated were indeed very delightful But where is it to be found And to state the matter of delight so much in what is to be sought in our selves is to reduce the whole business of delighting in God to an impossibility or to nothing So little appearing of this temper and so much of the contrary as gives much cause of doubt whether there be any thing to be rejoiced in or no. And what then Are we to suspend the exercise of this duty till we have gotten the difficult case resolved which may be all our time Is there a real thorough work of God upon my Soul or no For how can I rejoice in that whereof I have yet a doubt whether it be what it seems or no I answer 1. It is plain they that really have nothing of this communication from God cannot take delight in it otherwise than as hoped for But 2. Would we therefore have such to please themselves and be satisfied without it and delight in their distance and estrangement from God and while there is no intercourse between him and them And shall this be called too delighting in God Surely somewhat else than delight belongs to their states 3. But for such as really have it That which hath been designed to be evinced is that it is delectable in it self and therefore they cannot be without any taste or relish of pleasure therein while yet some doubt touching the sincerity and truth thereof doth yet remain Though such doubt but more their imperfect reception of this communication and neglect to look after further degrees of it cannot but render their delight comparatively little Nor hath it been designed to speak hitherto of what delight the regenerate in this way actually have but what they may have and what matter of delight Gods heart-rectifying communication doth in the nature of it contain that is supposing it were imparted and received so as actually to have formed the Soul according to the Gospel-revelation And if it were so in a more eminent measure and degree it were then in it self so delectable as without the assurance of our future safe and happy state though that in that case is not likely to be in a comfortable degree wanting that is not by it only but by it self without the present constant necessary concurrence thereof to afford unspeakable pleasure to that Soul in which it hath place So that the getting of assurance is not the only thing to be done in order to a persons delighting in God of which more hereafter is intended to be said in the directive Part But though that be not the only thing yet it is a very great thing and being superadded makes a great addition to the matter of delight Therefore we further say This divine communication is delectable as it includes in it the manifestation of Gods love to the Soul in particular Nor do we hereby intend an Enthusiastical assurance or such a testification of the love of God to the Soul as excludes any reference to his external revelation and exercise of our own enlightened reason and judgment thereupon or wherein these are of no use nor have subservience thereto But as in the other parts of the divine communication his external revelation hath the place of an instrument whereby he effects the work inwardly done upon the mind and heart and of a rule or measure whereby we are to judg of it so we are to account it is as to this part of it also that is he inwardly testifies and manifests the same thing which is virtually contained in his Gospel-revelation considered in that reference and aspect which it hath on the present state of the Soul For that outward Revelation must needs be understood to signifie diversly to particular persons as their state may be divers As when it says The things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor have entred into the heart of man God hath prepared for them that love him To a person that doth indeed truly love God it virtually says all these things are prepared for thee To one that doth not love God it can only be
Creation the beauty loveliness pleasantness of any Creature Must not all that and infinitely more be originally in the great Creator of all This if you consider you cannot but see and own While then your own hearts tell you you delight not in God Do not your Consciences begin to accuse and judg you that you deal not righteously in this matter And ought it not to fill your Souls with horror when you consider you take no delight in the best and sovereign Good Yea when you look into your disaffected hearts and find that you not only do not delight in God but you cannot and not for the want of the natural power but a right inclination Should you not with astonishment bethink your selves every one for himself what is this that 's befal'n me I am convinced this is the best Good every way most worthy of my highest delight and love and yet my heart savours it not You can have no pretence to say That because your heart is disinclin'd therefore you are excused for you only do not what through an invincible disinclination you apprehend you cannot do But you should bethink your self What a wretch am I that am so ill-inclin'd For is not any one more wicked according as he is more strongly inclin'd to wickedness and averse to what is good But how vincible or invincible your disinclination is you do not yet know not having yet made due trial That you cannot of your selves overcome it is out of question But have you tried what help might be got from Heaven in the use of Gods own prescribed means If that course bring you in no help then may you understand how much you have provoked the Lord. For though he have promised that for such as turn at his reproof he will pour out his Spirit to them yet they who when he calls refuse and when he stretches out his hand regard not but set at naught all his counsel c. may call and not be answered may seek him early and not find him And that wickedness may somewhat be estimated by this effect that thus it makes the Spirit of Grace retire that free benign merciful Spirit the Author of all love sweetness and goodness become to a forlorn soul a resolved stranger If you are so given up you have first given up your selves You have wilfully cast him out of your thoughts and hardened your own hearts against him who was the Spring of your Life and Being and in whom is all your Hope And whether this malignity of your hearts shall ever finally be overcome or no as you have no cause to despair but it may be overcome if apprehending your life to lie upon it you wait and strive and pray and cry as your case requires Yet do you not see it to be a fearful pitch of malignity and so much the worse and more vicious by how much it is more hardly overcome That we may here be a little more particular Consider 1. How tumultuous and disorderly a thing this your disaffection is You are here to consider its direct tendency its natural aptitude or what it doth of it self and in its own nature lead and tend to If you may withdraw your delight and love from God then so may all other men as well Therefore now view the thing it self in the common nature of it And so Is not aversion to delight in God a manifest contrariety to the order of things A turning all upside down A shattering and breaking asunder the bond between rational appetite and the First Good A disjointing and unhinging of the best and noblest part of Gods Creation from its station and rest its proper basis and center How fearful a rupture doth it make How violent and destructive a dislocation If you could break in pieces the orderly contexture of the whole universe within it self reduce the frame of nature to utmost confusion rout all the ranks and orders of creatures tear asunder the Heavens and dissolve the compacted body of the earth mingle Heaven and Earth together and resolve the World into a meer heap you had not done so great a spoil as in breaking the primary and supream tie and bond between the Creature and his Maker Yea between the Creator of all things and his more noble and excellent Creature All the relations aptitudes and inclinations of the Creatures to one another are but inferior and subordinate to those between the Creatures and their common Author and Lord And here the corruption of the best cannot but be worst of all Again 2. What an unnatural wickedness is it To hate thy own original To disaffect the most bountiful Author of thy Life and Being What wouldst thou say to it if thy own Son did hate the very sight of thee and abhor thy presence and converse especially if thou never gave him the least cause If thou hast been always kind and indulgent full of paternal affection towards him Wouldst thou not think him a vile miscreant and reckon the Earth too good to bear him But how little and in how low a capacity didst thou contribute to his being in comparison of what the great God did to thine How little of natural excellency hast thou above him it may be in many things besides this unhappy temper he much excels thee when thou knowest in thy Maker is infinite excellency beyond what thou canst pretend unto And what cause canst thou pretend of disaffection towards him Many good works hath he done for thee For which of these dost thou hate him Whereby hath he ever disoblig'd thee With how sweet and gentle allurements hath he sought to win thy heart And is it not most vilely unnatural that thy spirit should be so sullenly averse to him who is pleased to be stiled the Father of Spirits And in which respect it may fitly be said to thee Dost thou thus requite the Lord O foolish Creature and unwise Is not he thy Father If thou didst hate thy own self in a sense besides that wherein it is thy duty and in which kind thou hast as thy case is a just and dreadful cause of self-abhorrence If thou didst hate thy very life and being and wer't laying daily plots of self-destruction thou wer 't not so wickedly unnatural He is more intimate to thee than thou art to thy self That natural love which thou owest to thy self and the nature from whence it springs is of him and ought to be subordinate to him And by a superior Law of Nature thy very life if he actually require it ought to be sacrific'd and laid down for his sake Thy hatred towards him therefore is more prodigiously unnatural than if it were most directly and implacably bent against thy self And yet also in hating him thou dost most mischievously hate thy self too and all that thou dost by the instinct of that vile temper of heart towards him thou dost it against thy own life and soul. Thou cuttest thy self off
towards God and you suffer it not And is that well That Divine thing born of God of heavenly descent that hath so much in it of sacredness by its extraction and parentage you fear not to do violence to If indeed such a thing as you seem to hope be in you at sometime or other you may perceive which way it beats and tends The Soul in which it hath place is byass'd by it Godward and though often it is not discernible it sometimes shews its inclination Other men and meaner creatures sleep sometimes and then their most rooted dispositions appear not when they are awake they bewray them and let them be seen in their actions motions and pursuits The renewed Soul hath its sleeping intervals too and what propensions it hath towards God is little discernible and yet even then it sometimes dreams of him at least between sleeping and waking I sleep but my heart waketh it is the voice of my beloved But if you seriously commune with your selves in your more wakeful seasons you may perceive what your hearts seek and crave some such sense as this may be read in them The desire of our Souls is unto thy Name O Lord and to the remembrance of thee One thing have I desired that will I seek after to behold the beauty the delight as the word signifies of the Lord. And when you observe this discovered inclination you may see what it is that in your too wonted course you repress and strive against That Divine Birth calls for sutable nutriment more tastes how gracious the Lord is You will have it feed upon ashes upon wind and vanity or although it had the best Parent it hath so ill a Nurse when it asks bread you give it a stone and let it be stung by a Scorpion And the injury strikes higher than at it alone even as is obvious at the very Author of this Divine Production Which therefore we add as a further aggravation of this evil viz. 9. That it 's an offence against the Spirit of Grace whose dictates are herein slighted and opposed for surely with the tendencies of the new creature he concurs It is maintained by him as well as produced continually depends on him as to its being properties and all its operations Nothing therefore can be cross to the inclination of a renewed Soul as such which is not more principally so to the Holy Ghost himself And particularly the disposing of the Soul unto delight is most expresly ascribed to him that very disposition being it self joy in the Holy Ghost And we find it numbered among the fruits of the Spirit You may possibly be less apprehensive of your sin in this because you find him not dictating to you with that discernible Majesty Authority and Glory that you may think agreeable to so great an Agent But you must know he applies himself to us in a way much imitating that of nature And as in reference to the conservation of our natural beings we are assured the First Cause co-operates with Inferiour Causes for we live move and have our being in him though the Divine influence is not communicated to this purpose with any sensible glory or so distinguishably that we can discern what influence is from the superiour Cause and what from subordinate our reason and faith certainly assure us of what our sense cannot reach in this matter So it is here also The Divine Spirit accommodates himself very much to the same way of working with our own and acts us sutably to our own Natures And though by very sensible tokens we cannot always tell which be the motions that proceed from him yet Faith teaches us from his Word to ascribe to him whatever spiritual good we find in our selves inasmuch as we are not of our selves sufficient to think a good thought And if by that Word we judg of the various motions that stir in us we may discern which are good and which not and so may know what to ascribe to the Spirit and what not Whereas therefore that Word commands us to delight in God if we find any motion in our hearts tending that way we are presently to own the finger of God and the touch of his Holy Spirit therein And what have you found no such motions excited no thoughts cast in that have had this aspect and tendency which your indulged carnality and aversion have represt and counter-wrought Herein you have grieved and quencht the Spirit And if it have not over-born you into what you should have understood to have been your duty but have upon your untractableness retired and withdrawn from you Do not therefore make the less reckoning of the matter but the more rather this carries more in it of awful consideration to you and smarter rebuke that He desisted You must consider him as a free Agent and who works to will and to do of his good pleasure His influence is retractable and when it is retracted you ought in this case to reckon it signifies a resentment of your undutiful and regardless carriage towards him And ought you not to smite upon the thigh then and say What have I done You have striven against the Spirit of the most High God You have resisted him in the exeeution of his Office when you were committed to his Conduct and Government you have fal'n out and quarrelled with your merciful Guide and slighted at once both his Authority and Love This could be no small offence And you are also to consider that when such a Province was assigned him in reference to you and such as you and the great God set his Spirit on work about you It was with a special end and design being the determination of most wise Counsel And how highly doth this increase the offence That 10. You have herein directly obstructed the course and progress of that Design That could be no other than the magnifying of his grace in your conduct to blessedness This is that whereon he hath been intent and he hath made his Design herein so visible that they that run might read what it was The very overture to you of placing your delights on him speaks its end 'T is that whereby he should be most highly acknowledg'd and you blessed both at once His known design you ought to have reckoned did prescribe to you and give you a Law 'T is a part of civility towards even an ordinary man not to cross his Design which I know him earnestly to intend when it tends no way to my prejudice or any mans Yea to do so would in common interpretation besides rudeness argue ill nature and a mischievous disposition Much more would duty and just observance towards a superior challenge so much as not to counter-work him and awe a well-temper'd spirit into subjection and compliance but a stiff reluctancy to the great and known Design of the blessed God meant so directly to our own advantage speaks so very
even a spirit of might and power that may counter-mand and over-rule in every of those ports and turn the battle in the gate Those use to be the places of most strength and surely here there needs most Your case and present state cannot admit that you securely give up your selves to unmixed unsolicitous delight even in the best Object If you intermit care and vigilancy you will soon have such things come in upon you as will make a worse mixture in your delight than they can do and corrupt and spoil all Your delight were better to be mixed with holy care than with sinful vanity that tends to preserve this utterly to destroy it Your state is that of conflict and warfare You must be content with such spiritual delight as will consist with this state In a time of War and Danger when a City is beset with a surrounding Enemy and all the Inhabitants are to be intent upon common Safety their case will not admit that they should entirely indulge themselves to ease and pleasure And surely it is better to bear the inconvenience of Watching and Guarding themselves and enjoy the comforts which a rational probability of Safety by such means will allow them than meerly with the mad hope of procuring themselves an opportunity and vacancy for freer delights to throw open their Gates and permit themselves and all their delectable things to the rapine spoil of a merciless Enemy Understand this to be your case Therefore strictly guard all the avenues of your inward man It is better resist there and combate your Enemy than within your Walls who is more easily kept than driven out There cause every occasion and object even that importunes and pretends business to you to make a stand and diligently examine the errand Let also for this purpose a spirit of Wisdom and Judgment reside here The Gate was wont to be the place of counsel and judgment as well as strength that may prudently consider what is to be entertained and what not and determine and do accordingly But if you will have no rule over your own spirit but let it be as a City broken down and without walls If you will live careless and at ease and think in this way to have delight in God your delight will soon find other Objects and grow like that of the Swine wallowing in the mire become sensual impure and at length turn all to Gall and Wormwood It may be you have known some of much pretence to Piety that would allow themselves the liberty of being otherwise very pleasant in their usual conversation by which you may imagine delight in God which you cannot suppose such persons unacquainted with may fairly consist with another sort of delight Nor indeed is it to be doubted but it may For the Rules and Measures which the Holy God hath set us import no such rigorous severity nor do confine us to so very narrow bounds but that there is scope and latitude enough left unto the satisfaction of sober desires and inclinations that are of a meaner kind He that hath adjoined the inferior faculties we find in our selves to our natures and at first created a terrestrial Paradise for innocent man never intended to forbid the gratification of those faculties nor hath given us any reason to doubt but that the lower delights that are sutable to them might be innocently entertained Nay and the very Rules themselves of Temperance and Sobriety which he hath given us for the guiding and governing of sensitive desires do plainly imply that they are permitted For that which ought not to be is not to be regulated but destroyed But then whereas such rules do so limit the inclinations and functions of the low animal life as that they may be consistent with our end and subservient to it How perverse and wicked an indulgence to them were it to oppose them at once both to the Authority of him that set us those Rules and therein to our very end it self That delectation in the things of this lower world which is not by the Divine Law forbidden and declared evil either in it self or by the undue measure season or other circumstances thereof is abundantly sufficient for our entertainment and the gratification of this grosser part while we are in this our earthly pilgrimage and so much can never hurt us nor hinder our higher delights God hath fenc'd and hedg'd them in for us as a Garden inclosed by his own Rules and Laws set about them so that we cannot prejudice or empair them but by breaking thorough his inclosure Our great care and study therefore must be to repress and mortifie all earthly and sensual inclinations unto that degree as till they be reduc't to a conformity and agreement with his Rules and Measures unto which they who have no regard and do yet pretend highly to spirituality and delight in God 'T is apparently nothing else but meer hollow pretence they only put on a good face and make a fair shew look big and speak great swelling words of vanity as they must be called while their hearts taste nothing of what their tongues utter Spiritual delight and joy is a severe thing separated from vain and unbecoming levities as well as from all earthly impurities and only grows and flourishes in a Soul that is dead to this world and alive to God through Jesus Christ. See then to the usual temper of your spirit and do not think it enough that you hope the great renewing change did somtime pass upon it and that therefore your case is good and safe and you may now take your ease and liberty But be intent upon this to get into a confirmed growing spirituality and that you may find you are in your ordinary course after the Spirit then will you savour the things of the Spirit And then especially will the blessed God himself become your great delight and your exceeding joy Retire yourself from this world draw off your mind and heart This is Gods great rival The friendship of this world is enmity to him which is elsewhere said of the carnal mind that is indeed the same thing viz. a mind that is over-friendly affected towards this world or not chastly wherefore also in that fore-mentioned Scripture they that are supposed and suspected to have made themselves in that undue sense friends of this world are bespoken under the names of Adulterers and Adulteresses You must cast off all other Lovers if you intend delighting in God Get up then into the higher region where you may be out of the danger of having your spirit ingulpht and as it were suck't up of the spirit of this world or of being subject to its debasing stupifying influence Bear your self as the inhabitant of another country Make this your mark and scope that the temper of your spirit may be such that the secret of the Divine Presence may become to you as your very element