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
heavens he hath done whatsoever he pleased Their Idols are silver and gold c. Be thou exalted O God in thine own strength We will sing and praise thy power Forsake me not until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to every one that is to come c. This is given out as the Song of Moses and the Lamb Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy name Great and marvelous are thy works Lord God Almighty c. And how do they magnifie his Mercy and Goodness both towards his own people and his creatures in general O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee that thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the children of men Rejoice in the Lord O ye righteous for praise is comely for the upright Praise the Lord with harp Sing unto him with the Psaltery The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. I will extol thee my God O King I will bless thy name for ever and ever Men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works To insert all that might be mentioned to this purpose were to transcribe a great part of the Bible And in what raptures do we often find them in the contemplation of his Faithfulness and Truth his Justice and Righteousness his Eternity the boundlesness of his Presence the greatness of his Works the extensiveness of his Dominion the perpetuity of his Kingdom the exactness of his Government Who is a strong God like unto thee and to thy faithfulness round about thee Thy mercy O Lord is in the heavens and thy faithfulness reaches unto the clouds Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth or the world from everlasting to everlasting thou art God But will God indeed dwell on the earth Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee The works of the Lord are great sought out of them that have pleasure therein His work is honourable and glorious c. All thy works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bless thee they shall speak of the glory of thy Kingdom and talk of thy power To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious Majesty of his Kingdom Thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and thy Dominion endureth throughout all generations And his Glory in the general which results from his several Excellencies in conjunction How loftily is it often celebrated with the expression of the most loyal desires that it may be every-where renowned and of greatest complacency in as far as it is apprehended so to be The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever They shall sing in the ways of the Lord for great is the glory of the Lord. Be thou exalted above the heavens let thy glory be above all the earth Let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is excellent his glory is above the earth and the heavens When you read such passages as these whether they be elogies or commendations of him or doxologies and direct attributions of glory to him you are to bethink your selves with what temper of heart these things were uttered with how raised and exalted a spirit what high delight and pleasure was conceived in glorifying God or in beholding him glorious How large and unbounded a heart and how full of his praise doth still every where discover it self in such strains When all Nations when all Creatures when every-thing that hath breath when Heaven and Earth are invited together to join in the consort and bear a part in his praises And now eye him under the same notions under which you have seen him so magnified that in the same way you may have your own heart wrought up to the same pitch and temper towards him Should it not provoke an emulation and make you covet to be amidst the throng of loyal and devoted Souls when you see them ascending as if they were all incense When you behold them dissolving and melting away in delight and love and ready to expire even fainting that they can do no more designing their very last breath shall go forth in the close of a Song I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live I will sing praise to my God while I have my being How becoming is it to resolve This shall be my aim and ambition to fly the same and if it were possible a greater height Read over such Psalms as are more especially designed for the magnifying of God and when you see what were the things that were most taking to so spiritual and pious hearts thence receive instruction and aim to have your hearts alike affected and transported with the same things Frame the supposition that you are meant that the invitation is directed to you O Come let us sing unto the Lord let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise to him with Psalms for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods c. And think with your selves Is he not as great as he was Is he not as much our Maker as he was theirs Is it not now as true that the Lord reigneth and is high above all the earth and exalted far above all gods Now since these were the considerations upon which so great complacency was taken in him set the same before your own eyes And since these were proposed as the matter of so common a joy and the Creation seems design'd for a musical instrument of as many strings as there are Creatures in Heaven and Earth Awake and make haste to get your heart fixed Lest the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad the world and all that dwell therein Lest the sea roar and the fulness thereof the floods clap their hands the fields and the hills be joyful together and all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord while you only are silent and unconcern'd And seriously consider the kind and nature of that joy and delight in God wherewith the hearts of holy men did so exceedingly abound Which is to be collected from the expressed ground and reasons of it for the most part wheresoever you have any discovery of that joy it self This general and principal character may be given of it that it was a sincerely-devout and a loyal joy not a mean narrow selfish pleasure an hugging of themselves in this apprehension meerly It is well with me or I am safe and happy whatsoever becomes of the world This was still the burden of their Song The Lord is
method in which they were brought to the capacity of doing so For ye are dead Their professed relation to Christ did suppose them risen and did therefore first suppose them dead Now if they would do sutably to what their profession imported this was it they had to do To abstract their minds and hearts from the things of this earth and place them upon the things of an higher region And as it s afterwards expressed in this same context which we were considering before to have our conversation or Citizenship in heaven whence we look for the Saviour c. That is as our chief interests and priviledges are above to have our thoughts and the powers of our Souls chiefly exercised upon that blessed and glorious state which state is the prize mentioned above of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus It being the scope and import of his Call unto us and the very design of his sufferings on the Cross to draw up a people from earth to heaven whence therefore they that under this Call do still mind earthly things are said to be enemies to the Cross of Christ the great incongruity whereof the Apostle even resents with tears as he there testifies And it was in this that he was for his part so willing to comply with the design of the Cross that he made no difficulty to endure all the hardship and dolour of it that he might attain this glorious fruit and gain which he reckoned should accrew to him from it even more of a rais'd heavenly mind which signify'd it to be strongly bent that way already when no mortifications were reckoned too severe to be undergone in order thereto And here therefore this soul-rectifying influence must be understood to have been proportionably strong Hence also it was that we find him groaning as one under a pressure or heavy weight to be cloath'd upon with the heavenly house and to have mortality swallowed up of life Because God had wrought him to this self-same thing so bent and determined his spirit was towards the blessedness of the future state which seems the most natural contexture of discourse here though some others have understood it otherwise as that though he could bear patiently the delay he could not but desire most earnestly to be there And we see how the temper of the Primitive Christians was as to this and the other world in those days when the Spirit was plentifully poured out They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves they had in Heaven a far better and an enduring substance Heaven signified much with them and this world very little They looked not to the things that were seen and temporal but to the things unseen and eternal As those former Worthies did whose minds and hearts being set right by that faith which is the substance of the things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen They lived as pilgrims and strangers on earth despised the pleasures riches and honours of it Endured all manner of hardships and tortures in it not accepting deliverance because they were taken up in the pursuit of the better Country had respect to the recompence of reward and expected a part in the better Resurrection And is it not a delightful thing to the spirit of a man when he is sensibly disintangled and at liberty from the cares desires griefs and fears that were wont to enwrap his heart when he finds his weights and clogs faln off that deprest him the bonds and snares loosed which bound him down to this earth and feels himself ascending and moving upwards out of that darkness stupidity and death that possessed his Soul into that upper region of light purity and peace unto which his spirit is still gradually more and more connaturallized day by day When Heaven in respect of the pure holiness the calm serenity the rest and blessedness of it is now grown familiar to him and his very element We see then that in all these mentioned respects this gracious communication wherein it is rectifying and tends to settle the Soul in that frame which it ought to be in and which is most proper and natural to it therein it is also most delightful and carries highest matter of pleasure in it It is upon the whole that we may sum up the account of this divine communication in the following characters of it 1. Generative and begets the Soul to a new a divine life makes it of a sluggish stupid dead thing as it was towards all heavenly and divine matters living and sprightly full of active life and vigour Life we say is sweet it is in it self a pleasant thing This mean bodily life it self is so if we do but consider it and allow our selves to taste and enjoy the pleasure of it As for instance that this and that limb and member is not a dead lump that we feel life freshly sprouting and springing in every part is not this delightsom How much more the life of the Soul especially this so excellent and sublime kind of life And it is the radical principle of all other consequent pleasure that by which we are capable thereof every thing is sapless and without savour to the dead How pleasant operations and fruitions doth the divine life render a person capable of 2. It is Nutritive Souls are nourished by the same thing by which they are begotten by the same divine influence As a generative vertue is wont to be attributed to the Sun so it cherishes also its own productions The beams of that Sun of righteousness make them that fear God grow up as calves in the stall fill them with marrow and fatness cause them to flourish as the Cedars of Lebanon And is not that delightsome to be increased daily with the increases of God fed with heavenly hidden Manna Angels food and thereby though we need not here speak distinctly of these to receive at once both nourishment and growth 3. It is Sanative and virtually contains all the fruits in it which are for the healing of the Nations when the Soul grows distemper'd it restores it and is both sustaining and remedying to it How great is the pleasure of health and soundness of ease to broken bones of relief to a sick and fainting heart so it is often for in the present state the cure is not perfect and relapses are frequent with the Soul in which the life of God hath begun to settle and diffuse it self till his influence repair and renew it And when it doth so how pleasant is it to find an heart made sound in his statutes and to perceive a-new working in it the Spirit of love power and a sound mind So pleasant that it occasions a triumph even when the outward man is perishing if it be found that the inward is renewed day by day 4. It is Corroborative and strengthening confirms resolutions and establishes the heart Hereby they
needless unwarrantable modesty as to account you are of a lower rank than all that ever became intimately acquainted with the hidden delights of a godly life At least you are as capable of being thought worthy as any for his sake upon whose account all must be accepted Therefore think with your selves Why should I not labour to attain as far in the matter of Religion as this or that Neighbour of mine What should hinder Who restrains or forbids me But you cannot if you consider but have somewhat more to assure you of the delightfulness of it than the meer report of others For your own Reason and Conscience cannot but so pronounce if you go to the particulars that have been instanc't in If you acknowledg a God and consider your self as a reasonable Creature made by him and depending on him you cannot but see it is congruous and fit your spirit should be so framed and affected towards Him towards your fellow-creatures of your own order and all things else that do and shall circumstantiate your present and future state as hath been in some measure though very defectively represented And that it must needs be very pleasant if it were so You can frame in your mind an Idea of a life transacted according to such rectified inclinations And when you have done so do but solemnly appeal to your own judgment whether that were not a very delectable life And thereupon bethink your self what your case is if you cannot actually relish a pleasure in what your own judgment tells you is so highly pleasurable Methinks you should reflect thus What a monstrous creature am I that confess that delightful wherein yet I can take no delight How perverse a nature have I Surely things are much out of order with me I am not what I should be And one would think it should be uneasie to you to be as you are and that your spirit should be restless till you find your temper rectified and that you are in this respect become what you should be And will you dream and slumber all your days How much time have you lost that might have been pleasantly spent in a course of godliness Do you not aim at a life of eternal delights with God If you now begin not to live to God when will you That life which you reckon shall never end with you must yet have a beginning Will you defer till you dye your beginning to live Have you any hope God will deal in a peculiar way with you from all men and make the other world the place of your first heart-change How dismal should it be to you to look in and still find your heart dead towards God and the things of God so that you have no delight in them Think what the beginnings of the Divine life and the present delights of it must be the earnest of to you and make sure the ground betime of so great an hope BUT I forbear here to insist further and pass on to the Discourse of Delighting in God under the other more strict notion of it viz. As the very act of delight hath its direct exercise upon himself So we are to consider this delight not as a thing some way adherent to all other duties of Religion but as a distinct Duty of it self that requires a solemn and direct application of our selves thereunto For though it seems little to be doubted but there is in this Precept a part of Religion put for the whole as having a real influence and conferring with its name a grateful savour and tincture upon the whole it would yet be very unreasonable not to take special notice of that part from whence the intire frame of Religion hath its name And having shewn the nature of this Duty already in the former part what is now to be said must more directly concern the practice of it And will as the case requires fall into two kinds of Discourse viz. Expostulation concerning the omission and disuse of such Practice And Invitation thereunto And in both these kinds it is requisite we apply our selves to two sorts of Persons viz. Such whose spirits are wholly averse and alien to it And Such as though not altogether unpractis'd are very defective in it and neglect it too much 1. Both sorts are to be expostulated with and no doubt the great God hath a just quarrel with mankind whom these two sorts do comprehend upon the one or the other of these accounts wherein it is fit we should plead with men for his sake and their own And 1. With the former sort Them who are altogether disaffected to God alienated and enemies in their minds through wicked works and excepting such as deny his being with whom we shall not here concern our selves at the utmost distance from delighting in him And as to such our Expostulation should aim at their conviction both of The matter of fact That thus the case is with them And of The great iniquity and evil of it First It is needful we endeavour to fasten upon such a conviction That this is the state of their case For while his being is not flatly deny'd men think it generally creditable to be professed Lovers of God and reckon it so odious a thing not to be so that they who are even most deeply guilty are not easily brought to confess enmity to him but flatter themselves in their own eyes till their iniquity be found to be hateful The difficulty of making such apprehend themselves diseased that their minds are under the power of this dreadful distemper that it is not well with spirits in this respect is the great obstruction to their cure But I suppose you to whom I now apply my self to acknowledg the Bible to be Gods Word and that you profess reverence to the Truth and Authority of that Word and will yeild to be tried by it 1. Therefore first you must be supposed such as believe the account true which that book gives of the common state of man That it is a state of Apostacy from God That the Lord looking down from heaven upon the children of men to see if any did understand and seek God finds they are all gone aside i. e. that the return may answer to the meaning of the inquiry gone off from him Every one of them is gone back or revolted as it is expressed in the parallel Psalm There is none that doth good no not one which is quoted by the Apostle to the intent That every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God This is then a common case And as the same Apostle charges it upon the Gentiles that they were haters of God so doth our Saviour as expresly on the Jews who no doubt thought themselves as innocent of this crime as you That they had both seen and hated both Him and his Father And when it is said of men that they were by nature the