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
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
greatness of their cause If we indeed were to form conceptions of these things our selves by our own light and conduct our way were to follow the ascending order and go up from the effects till we reach the cause But he can if he please in the cause present to us the effects and maginfie them in our eyes by giving us to see unto how great and magnificent a cause they owe themselves Now shall we know whence all hath proceeded that he hath done for us Wherefore again must the transported Soul admiringly cry out I now see whence it was that he gave his Son because he so loved the world Why he came and bled and died who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood What a lustre doth that love cast upon those sufferings and performances I see why he sent his Gospel to me why so convincing awakening words were often spoken in my ear I see much in what once I saw but little why he so earnestly strove with me by his spirit why he gave not over till he had overcome my heart why he humbled melted broke me why he drew so strongly bound me so fast to himself in safe and happy bonds why he shone into my mind with that mild and efficacious light transformed my whole Soul stampt it with his holy Image and markt me out for his own These are now great things when I behold their glorious mighty cause And now also in this same cause are all the great effects to be seen which are yet to be brought about by it They are seen as very great His continued presence and conduct which he affords to his own through this world That constant fellowship which they expect him to keep with them The guidance and support they look for In his love these appear great things And now doth Heaven sound no more as an empty name it looks not like a languid faint shadow somewhat can be apprehended of it that imports substance when it 's understood to be a state of rest and blessedness in the communion of the God of Love and intended as the last product and expression of his love They are seen as most sure and certain Such Love now manifested and apprehended leaves no place for doubtful thoughts and suspicious misgivings There is no fear that this Love intends to impose upon us or mock us with the representation of an imaginary heaven or that it will fail to do what can be expected from it to bring us to the real one How pleasant is it now to behold the great and sure products of this mighty Love its admirable designs and projects as they appear in the Gospel-revelation now illustrated and shone upon by divine light to lie ready formed in the pregnant womb of this great productive cause It cannot but be an unspeakable pleasure which such a discovery will carry with it when we thus behold the matter it self that is discovered and offered to our view unto which it must be a very considerable additional pleasure that will arise 2. From the nature and kind of this manifestation As being In the general made by himself 'T is a too plain and sad Truth that men have unhappily learn'd to diminish God to themselves and make every thing of him seem little But when he represents his Love himself as who but God can represent the Love of God He only can tell the story of his own Love that evil is provided against He will manifest it so as it shall be understood and set it off to the best advantage He will make it known how great a thing it is to be beloved of him And when he gives that blessed salutation Hail thou that art highly favoured O thou that art greatly beloved He will withal bespeak and procure a sutable entertainment of it And hence Particularly it will be Most incomparably bright and lightsom in respect of any representation we have had of the Love of God any other way Most immediate that is at least so as not to be only made by some external testimony given out many an age ago out of which we are left to pick what we can and to construe or misconstrue it as our own judgment serves us but so as that if He use such an instrument he animates it puts a soul into it leaves it not as a dead spiritless letter and applies it himself to the purpose he intends by it and immediately himself reaches and touches the heart by it Most facile and easily sliding in upon us so that we are put to no more pains than to behold the light which the Sun casts about us and upon us Whatever labour it was necessary for us to use before in our searches and enquiries into the state of our case there is no more now than in moving being carried or in using our own weak hand when another that is sufficiently strong lifts and guides it for us Most efficacious and overcoming That makes its own way scatters clouds drives away darkness admits no disputes makes doubts and misgiving thoughts vanish pierces with a quick and sudden energy like lightening and strikes through the mind into the heart there sheds abroad this love diffuses the sweet refreshing savour of it actuates spiritual sense makes the soul taste how gracious the Lord is and relish the sweetness of his love puts all its powers into a sutable motion and excites answerable affection so as to make the Soul capable of interchanging love with love In all these respects this manifestation of love cannot but be very delectable and they who have not found it to be so will yet apprehend that it must be so if they have found and experienced the cravings of their own hearts directed this way and can upon enquiry find this among the things they would fain have from God O that I might be satisfied of his love that I might know his good will towards me For to such cravings must this delight at least be commensurate as was formerly said But to them that are indifferent in this matter unconcerned to whom the love of God is a fancy or a trifle no real or an inconsiderable thing all this will be as tastless as the white of an egg Concerning which yet before we pass from this head 't is needful to add these few things by way of caution 1. That when we say this is of great necessity we mean not that it is simply necessary we think it not so necessary that a Christian cannot be without it i. e as a Christian. But it is necessary to his well-and more-comfortable-being and his more lively fruitful walking and acting in his Christian course 2. That therefore the way of Gods dealing herein is with great latitude and variety he having reserved to himself by the tenour of his Covenant a liberty to afford or suspend it to give it in a greater or less degree as in absolute sovereignty and infinite wisdom he
bad a temper hath in it such a complication of peevish wilfulness of undutifulness and ingratitude to him of negligence and disregard of our selves that it must want a name to express it And now do you see what evil the neglect of delighting in God accompanied as it cannot but be with the having your hearts otherwise ingaged and vainly busie doth include and carry in it Will you pause a while and deliberate upon it Do but make your just and sober estimate by the things that have been mentioned Measure it by Gods Law and it imports manifest disobedience in a matter of highest consequence by the judgment of your own conscience and it imports much boldness against light in a very plain case by your experience and it speaks an uninstructible stupidity or a very heedless forgetful spirit by the obligation laid upon you by the kindness of this very counsel and offer besides many other ways and it hath in it great ingratitude and insensibleness of the greatest love by your Covenant and it imports treachery by your Relation much incongruity and undecency by your Profession falshood and hypocrisie by the tendency of the new nature in you unnatural violence by the Dictates of Gods Spirit great untractableness by his known declared Design in this matter a most undutiful disrespect to him with a most wretched carelesness of your selves as to your nearest and most important concern One would think it needless to say more But why should we balk any thing that so obviously occurs tending to set forth the exceeding great sinfulness of this sin Therefore know that besides its great faultiness in it self Much also cannot but be derived into it from its very faulty causes It supposes and argues great evils that flow into it and from which it hath its rise 1. Great blindness and ignorance of God For is it possible any should have known and not have loved him or have beheld his glory and not have been delighted therewith and that with such delight and love as should have held a setled seat and residence in them And can your ignorance of God be excusable or innocent The Apostles words are too applicable Some have not the knowledg of God I speak it to your shame Do you pretend to him and know him not Worship him so oft and worship you know not what Had such opportunity of knowing him and yet be ignorant at least it would be thought In Judah is God known and that his Name were great in Israel where he hath had his Tabernacle and dwelling place Here one would think his Altar should not bear the same Inscription as at Athens To the unknown God How express hath his discovery of himself been to you and how amiable What was there in it not delectable or in respect whereof he hath not appeared altogether lovely as it were composed of delights You have had opportunity to behold him clad with the Garments of Salvation and Praise And as he is in Christ in that alluring posture reconciling the world to himself wherein all his Attributes have visibly comply'd to the reconciling design His boundless fulness of life and love not obstructed by any of them from flowing out in rich and liberal communications If you had not excluded that glorious pleasant light wherein he is so to be beheld you would have beheld what had won your hearts fully and bound them to him in everlasting delight and love And have you not reason to be ashamed you have not known him better and to better purpose Alienation from the life of God proceeds from blindness of heart i. e. a chosen affected voluntary blindness Or if your knowledg of him be not little 2. Your little delight in him argues much unmindfulness of him At least that you have not minded him duly and according to what you have known It might here be seasonable to suggest to you how likely it is that several ways your great faultiness in the matter of thinking of God may have contributed to the withholding of your delight from him Consider therefore 1. Have not your thoughts of him been slight and transient Have they not been overly superficial thoughts casual only and such as have dropt into your minds as it were by chance fluid and roving fixed neither upon him nor into your hearts Too much resembling what is said of the wicked man God is not in all his thoughts He hath not been amidst them Your thoughts have not united upon him he hath not been situated and centred in them Was not this the case You bestowed upon him it may be now and then an hasty passant glance the careless cast of a wandering eye and was this likely to beget an abiding permanent delight Have you been wont to compose your selves designedly and on purpose to think of him so as your thoughts might be said to have been directed towards him by the desire and inclining bent of your heart according to that The desire of our Soul is towards thy name and to the remembrance of thee Whence it is that 't is represented as the usual posture of them whom he reckons among his Jewels and for whom the book of remembrance was written that they thought on his name A thing that they might be known by and distinguisht from other men wherefore it is observable that their remembrance of him was thought worth the remembring and to be transmitted into records never to be forgotten The evil of your not-delighting in God hath a great accession from your negligent thinking of him 2. Have not your thoughts of Him been low and mean such as have imported light esteem Compare them with those admiring thoughts Who is like unto thee O Lord among the gods Who is like thee glorious in holiness O Lord our Lord how excellent is thy name in all the earth How unlike have yours been to such thoughts Bethink your selves how deeply culpable you have made your neglect to delight in God by your unworthy thoughts by which you have detracted so unspeakably from the Divine excellency Hence you have more to account for than meerly not-delighting in God a rendering him such to your selves as if he were not worthy to be delighted in How ought this to shake your hearts 3. Have they not been hard thoughts full of censure and misjudging of his Nature Counsels Ways and Works Have there not been perverse reasonings with dislike of his Methods of Government over men in this present state As if he had too little kindness for such as you would have him favour and too much for others Judging his love and hatred by false measures This seems to be much the evil unto which the Injunction of delight in God is here opposed in this Psalm and whence it may be estimated how directly that militates against this and prevailing excludes it Perhaps you have delighted so little in God because ye have thought the thing
This will be found the sence of his heart though his desire hath inclin'd to this or that thing in particular And this would be his Prayer in such a case Lord If thy wisdom which is infinitely more than mine see this thing not fit cross me deny me in this desire of mine And this general desire at least which is the measure of the particular one is sure to be accomplisht to one that hath God for his delight For the promise is express and cannot fail All things shall Work together for good to them that love God And this love to God or delight in him as it entitles such to that his care and concern for them which is exprest in this promise So it doth in its own nature dispose their hearts to an acquiescence and satisfiedness therein For love to God where it is true is supream and prevails over all other love to this or that particular good Whence it cannot be but if this love be in act as the Text must be understood to call unto actual and exercised delight in God it must subdue and keep the heart so far subject to the divine good pleasure as that its desire and addictedness to this particular lesser good concerning which there may also be a just and rational doubt whether it will be now a good to him yea or no shall never be a matter of controversy and quarrel with him who is unquestionably the Supream and universal good How will that one thought overcome if such a one shall but apprehend God saying to him Dost thou love me above all things and wilt yet contend with me for such a trifle And we may by the way note That upon this ground of the dubious mutability of external good things which by circumstances may become evil to this or that person As they are not here so nor can they be any-where the matter of a general absolute promise to be claim'd indefinitely by any ones faith The nature of the thing refuses it For suppose we that what may in this or that case become evil or prejudicial to this or that person doth now actually become so and is the matter of an absolute promise now claimable by such a person What would follow That an evil is now the actual matter of a promise Than which what can be said or supposed more absurd when nothing can further or otherwise be the matter of a promise than as it is good Wherefore that promise would in the supposed case degenerate as the matter of it is by the present circumstances varied and turn into a threatning Wherefore when that condition or proviso is not expresly added to a promise concerning a temporal good the very nature of the thing implies and requires it to be understood For it is not otherwise than as qualifi'd by that condition any way a promise Now he that is in the present exercise of delight in God hath his heart so set upon God and alienated from earthly things as that the present temper of it bears proportion to the natural tenor of such promises And is not otherwise than by the cessation of this delight liable to the torture of unsatisfied desire in reference to these lower things Although the fig-tree shall not blossom yet I will rejoyce in the Lord c. And as delight in God doth thus reduce and moderate desires in reference to any inferior good so that if it be with-held they admit a satisfaction without it and the want of is easily tolerable So secondly If it be granted Delight in God addes a satisfying sweetness to the enjoyment A lover of God hath another taste and relish even of earthly good things than an earthly-minded man can have He hath that sweet Savor of the Love of God upon his spirit that imparts a sweetness to all the enjoyments of this World beyond what such things in their own nature have with them This makes the righteous mans little better than the great revenues of many wicked Upon the whole therefore This is if duly weighed a mighty and most perswasive argument to delight in God For it imports thus much which I add for a close to this discourse If you place your delight here You are most certainly delivered from the vexation and torment of unsatisfied desire The motions of your Souls are sure to end in a pleasant rest Your lesser desires will be swallowed up in greater and all in the Divine fulness So that you will now say Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none on earth I desire besides thee If you take no delight in God your own Souls will be a present Hell to you And it may be it is not enough considered how much the future Hell stands also in unsatisfied desire Which desire all sutable Objects being for ever cut off from it turns wholly to despair rage and torture And that ravenous appetite which would be preying upon external Objects that now fail turns inward and as an insatiable Vulture gnaws everlastingly the wretched Soul it self And the beginnings of this Hell you will now have within you while you refuse to delight in God The sapless earthly vanities upon which your hearts are set give you some present content which allays your misery for a little while and renders it less sensible to you But they have nothing in them to answer the vast desires of a reasonable immortal spirit Whereby you certainly doom yourselves to perpetual disrest For in these false vanishing shadows of goodness you cannot have satisfaction and in the blessed God you will not Imprimatur Aug. 9. 1674. C. Smith THE END THE Blessedness of the Righteous Opened and further Recommended from the Consideration of the Vanity of this Mortal Life In two Treatises On Psal. 17. 15. Psal. 89. 47. By the same Author And are to be sold at the Ball in St. Pauls Church-yard 1674. * From Psal. 10. 13. Rom. 5. 10 11. Psal. 27. 4. Joh. 14. Hos. 6. Rom. 1. 1 Cor. 2. Phil. 3. Eph. 1. 17. v. 13. v. 13. v. 17. v. 38. Joh. 14. 21 v. 22. Mat. 6. Psal. 26. Mat. 11. Act. 26. 18. 1 Joh. 5. 20. 1 Pet. 2. Psal. 119. Rom. 15. 3. 1 Pet. 1. 8. Joh. 6. Num. 14. 11. Psal. 106. 24. Joh. 7. 39. Joh. 6. v. 35. v. 63. v. 64. v. 65. Joh. 12. v. 37. 38. Isa. 53. 1. Eph. 1. 19 Isa. 6. 1 Cor. 12. 3. Joh. 4. 15. ch 5. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 1 Pet. 2. 2 3. Prov. 2. 10. 2 Cor. 2 14. v. 16. Joh. 1. 2 Cor. 5. Eph. 4. 2 Pet. 1 1 Joh. 3. Jam. 1. 1 Joh. 1. 3. 5. Eph. 5. v. 6. v. 7. 2 Cor. 3. 18. Rom. 6. 17 Isa. 58. 11. v. 14. Joh. 4. 14. Pro. 14. 14. ch 10. * And how rationally men may be said at the same time to love delight in and enjoy the amiable or delectable object and therewith also love their own love enjoy their own fruition
hearts of men repugnant to what the same Spirit hath said in his Word 107 Nor is it his usual way to do it immediately 110 But if the Spirit do it as a co-witness and but mediately 1. It is no small thing to be ascertained of Gods love ibid. 2. It is not less than if he testified immediately ibid. 3. Yea it doth more advantageously propose the same thing to us 111 Whichsoever way the Spirit doth manifest Gods love it is not to be doubted but that 1. There is such a thing in it self very necessary to be attain'd and sought after And 2. That 't is highly delectable when he doth vouchsafe it 113 1. If we consider the matter the Love of God 119 2. The nature and kind of the manifestation 124 as being in the general made by himself 125 particular most bright and lightsom immediate in a sort facile efficacious Yet to be understood with Caution viz. 1. Not simply necessary to a Christian as a Christian. 126 2. God deals herein with great variety 127 3. 'T is to be sought with much resignation ibid. 4. To be less esteemed than heart-rectifying communication ibid. 5. Nor think God is not otherwise to be enjoy'd ibid. 6. Nor to place the sum of Religion here 128. 7. Nor to reckon it the first thing in minding Religion ibid. 8. Yet renewed Christians wanting it should reckon it much 9. However the necessary degree not to think raptures withheld penally 131 10. They who have transports should take heed they despise not those who have them not in the same kind 134 2. The Delight it self to be taken in the Delectable object 135 This 1 in General is essential to Love and imports well-pleasedness 136 But because Love in the present state is but in a tendency to perfection Desire that it might be so to our selves and others takes place 138 Delight being Love in Motion Desire Love in Rest. 139 2 In Special which is here placed upon God 141 About which consider 1. What it is we are call'd to 142 Here distinguish Humane delight into meerly natural in mans corrupt state Holy the subject of the present Discourse as suted to God the blessed Object This Holy delight is twofold according to the consideration of the object in the communication of light 144 operative influence So Delight is either mental understood or real felt And the Delight taken in God is either more Open and explicite more directly Latent implicite and unobserved rather collaterally 145 The former is contemplative as of the Sight the latter spiritually sensitive as of the Taste that of spiritual reason this of spiritual sense 146 1. Of the latter Delight from spiritual sensation being a relish of sweetness in the holy quickening communications of God to it more principally in his spiritually infant state 148 So under Delighting in God thus taken Christians are called to the keeping of their Souls open to Divine influences and communications thirsting after them praying and waiting for them and endeavouring to improve them 149 Delighting in this notion imports then two things 1. Applying our selves by help of God communicating influences to these things wherein the matter of delight lies 151 2. Reflecting upon the things themselves that are so delightful Obj. But so we shall bring our whole Religion within the compass of this one thing Ans. 1. It can only be said there is a delight adhering thereto 152 2. All the things of Religion are truly delectable 153 3. What fault that delight runs through Religion 154 4. What absurdity the several acts of Religion should be comprehended under Delight in God 2. Explicite Delight in God may be considered as to its 1. Nature which is the rest of the Soul in God by a satisfiedness of will in him as the best and most excellent Good 155 Which supposeth 1. A knowledg of him 156 2. Actual thoughts of him 157 3. A pleasedness with the first view of him 4. A desire of what is due to him or wanted from him 5. Satisfaction and repose it self so far as desire is satisfied work as our love to him either for himself or our selves 158 6. A stirring up of our selves to heighten our delight 159 2. Modification manner or measure of this delight in God in respect of the Excellency highest delight simply and comparatively 160 Permanency sutable to the object 162 2. How 't is we are called to it 163 And that is according to what it is in it self both As 1. A Priviledg by Gracious Invitation 164 2. A Duty by way of Authoritative Command It is a great piece of Homage 165 Therefore we should be well informed 1. That we are to delight in him supreamly 169 2. That we continue therein 170 II. Practice or Exercise of Delight in God 173 Both as 1. Adhaerent to the other Duties of Religion and so treat of the exercise of Religion as delightful 175 Wherein 1. We are not to rest in or practise a Religion which is not naturally and in it self delightful 176 Hence more distinctly is shew'd 1. What that Religion is which is wholly in it self undelightful Taking two Cautions 1. That even such Religion as is true and living and consequently in it self delightful yet may by accident sometimes not appear or be thought so 177 2. That a dead Religion may be thought delightful through the ill temper of the subject And premising a twofold General Rule viz. 1. Such Delight which is taken in any thing not answering the end to which it serves 178 2. Such as is accompanied with a real hurt greater than the Delight can countervail So then that Religion is undelightful i.e. not chiefly delightful 1. Which consists wholly in revolving in one's mind the notions that belong to Religion without either the experience or the design and expectation of having the heart and conversation formed according to them 180 2. Which too many place in some peculiar opinions that are either false and contrary to Religion or doubtful and cumbersom to it 182 3. Hitherto may be referr'd the much less rational pleasure which is taken by some in the meer dress wherewith such notions and opinions may be artificially clothed by themselves or others 184 4. Which is made all of Talk 186 5. Which stands all in hearing 187 6. Which consists entirely in the external additaments and forms of Worship which this or that party have chosen to affix to it 188 2. How unfit that Religion is to be chosen and rested in 189 Here let it be considered 1. That Religion which is in it self undelightful is uncapable of growth because a dead thing 190 2. Nor for the same reason can it be a lasting thing 192 3. While it doth last it wants the fruit and profit which should be designed and sought by Religion 193 4. How foolish a thing it is and unworthy of a reasonable creature to do that in a continued course and series of actions wherein we
glorious things are divine wisdom love holiness to an enlightened mind which is therefore supposed to have a clearer discovery of them But it may be said Is there any thing apprehensible concerning these or any other matters which may not be expressed in some proposition or other And what proposition is there which a regenerate person can assent to but one who is not regenerate may assent to it also what definition so truly expressive of the natures of these things can be thought of unto which a carnal mind may not give its approbation what can be said or conceived so fully aud truly tending to describe and clear them up but an unrenewed understanding may have the representation of the fame truth so as to give entertainment to it 'T is answered there are many things to which somewhat may belong not capable of description and whereof we have yet a most certain perception As the different relishes of the things we taste There are no words that will express those many peculiarities And as to the present matter There is somewhat belonging to the things of God those for instance that were mentioned his wisdom holiness c. besides the Truth of the conceptions that may be formed about them which is more clearly apprehensible to a divinely enlightened understanding than to one that is not so As 1. The beauty of those Truths which it is most delightful to behold Their lively sparkling lustre by which they appear so amiable and lovely to a well-tempered spirit as to transport it with pleasure and ravish it from it self into union with them There was somewhat else apprehensible no doubt and apprehended by them the inward sentiments of whose souls those words so defectively served to express Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods who is like thee glorious in holiness c. besides the meer truth of any propositions that those words can be resolved into And so in those O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! c. And those God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that c. Or those This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners whereof I am chief Or the strains of that rapturous prayer That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height And to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledg that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God There is a certain acceptableness in some Truths necessary to their being received in the love thereof which is peculiarly so represented to some as that their apprehension is clear and vivid beyond that of other men who however they have the representation of the same things yet have not the same representation Though if they be things of necessary and common concernment it is as was said their own fault that they have it not And to have yet clearer apprehensions of this sort is what the renewed Soul doth most earnestly crave and would be proportionably delighted with 2. The tendency of such Truths is much more clearly conceivable to an holy Soul than another what their scope and aim or aspect is which way they look and what they drive at or lead to I mean not what other truth they are connected with and would aptly tend to infer But what design God hath upon us in revealing them and what impression they ought to make upon us To the ignorance or disregard of which tendency and design of Gods revelation it is to be attributed that many have long the same notions of things hovering in their minds without ever reflecting with any displeasure upon the so vastly unsutable temper of their spirits thereto They know it may be such things concerning God the tendency whereof is to draw their hearts into union with him to transform them into his likeness to inflame them with his love But they still remain notwithstanding at the greatest distance most unsutable averse coldly affected towards him yea utterly opposite and disaffected and fall not out with themselves upon this account have no quarrel nor dislike take not any distaste at themselves for it They take no notice of an incongruity and unfitness in the ill temper of their own spirits but seem as if they thought all were very well with them nothing amiss and apprehend not a repugnancy in their habitual dispositions towards God to their notions of him For a vicious prejudice blinds their eyes their corrupt inclinations and rotten hearts send up a malignant dark and clammy fog and vapour and cast so black a cloud upon these bright things that their tendency and design is not perceived That prejudice not being conceived so much against the abstract notions of the things themselves whence they are entertained with less reluctancy but only against the design and scope of them Against which poysonous cloud Gods own glorious revelation directs its beams dissolves its gross consistency scatters its darkness as to them to whom he by special grace affords it Whereupon observing any remainders of the same distemper in their spirits though it be in a considerable degree abated and lessened they are ashamed of themselves for it fill'd with confusion yea and indignation do loath and abhor and could even be ready if it were possible to run away from themselves And what is the reason of this so great difference Surely somewhat appears discernible to these in Gods revelation of himself which to the other doth not They have then before their eyes a more clear prospect of the aim and scope of it Which so far as they have it pleases them for they like the design well only they are displeased at themselves that they comport no more with it And as the end therefore aimed at is desirable to them and would be delightful as will be shewn in its proper place so is it to have that representation immediately offered to the view of their Souls which hath so apt and comely an aspect thereon not meerly for its own sake but for the sake of the end it self Wherefore there is somewhat to be apprehended by Gods representation of himself to the minds of this regenerate people at least more clearly than by other men Whence the work of regenerating or converting them it self is expressed by opening their eyes For the divine communication makes its own way and enters at the eye the Souls seeing faculty which it doth find as opening the eyes imports and not now create But finding it vitiated and as to any right seeing of God shut and closed up it heals opens and restores it as it enters It is expressed By turning
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
discursive faculty help us to discern the connexions of some things which otherwise we should not perceive so it may by assisting the intuitive make things evident to us that of themselves are not Nor yet also that it actually doth so can any I believe certainly tell For admit that at some times some have very transporting apprehensions of the love of God towards themselves suggested to their hearts by the holy Spirit they having this habitual knowledg before that love to him for instance or faith in him or the like are descriptive characters of the persons whom he accepts and delightfully loves How suddenly may the divine light irradiate or shine upon those preconceived notions which were begotten in them by the interveniency of the external revelation before and excite those before-implanted principles of Faith Love c. so as to give them the lively sense of them now stirring and acting in their hearts And thence also inable them unwaveringly to conclude and with an unexpressible joy and pleasure their own interest in his special love in this way shedding it abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost given to them This may be so suddenly done that they may apprehend the testimony to be immediate when indeed it is not Nor are they able to prove from Scripture the immediateness of it For as to what it doth to them in particular Scripture says nothing they not being so much as mentioned there What it doth or hath done to this or that person there mentioned signifies nothing to their case if any thing were said that must have that import which will be hard to evince and that it is any where in Scripture signified to be its usual way in common towards them on whose hearts it impresses this perswasion to do it immediately is much less to be evinced For what Scripture saith so and that famous Text that speaks so directly to this matter The Spirit of God beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God seemeth rather to imply the contrary In as much as the Spirit of God is there expresly said to co-witness with our spirit as the word there used signifies by which it should seem to take the same course in testifying which our spirit or conscience doth that is of considering the general characters of his children laid down in his Word reflecting upon the same in our selves and thereupon concluding we are his children Which if it were suppos'd the only thing the Spirit of God ordinarily doth in this matter we may with much confidence assert 1. That it doth herein no small thing for is it a small thing to be ascertain'd of Gods fatherly love to us as his own children 2. That it doth not a less thing than if it testify'd the same matter in a way altogether immediate For wherein is it less Is the matter less important that cannot be said for the thing we are assured of is the same howsoever we be certify'd thereof Is it less evident That can with as little pretence be said For doth any one account a thing not evident in it self and that needs to be proved to him some way or other the less evident for being proved to him in a discursive way What pretence can any one have to say or think so Is it that reasoning is more liable to error and mistake But I hope the reasoning of Gods Spirit is not so when it enables us to apprehend the general Truth we should reason from to assume to it to collect and conclude from it guiding us by its own light In each of these surely we have as much reason to rely upon the certainty and infallibility of the Spirits reasonings as of its most assertory dictates Otherwise we would most unreasonably think the authority of those conclusions laid down in the Epistle to the Romans and other parts of Scripture invalidated by the Holy Ghost's vouchsafing to reason them out to us as we know it most nervously and strongly doth Or is it less consolatory That cannot be for that depends on the two former the importance and evidence of the thing declared The former whereof is the same the latter not less 3. Yea and supposing that the Holy Ghost do manifestly concur with our spirits in the several steps of that discursive way so that we can observe it to do so and there is little doubt but it may do so as observably to us by affording a more than ordinary light to assist and guide us in each part of that procedure as if it did only suggest a sudden dictate to us and no more we may upon that supposition add That it doth hereby more advantageously propose the same thing to us than if it only did it the other way It doth it in a way more sutable to our natures which is not nothing and it doth it in a way less liable to after-suspicion and doubt for it is not supposed to be always dictating the same thing And when it ceases to do so howsoever consolatory and satisfying the dictate was at that instant when it was given the matter is liable to question afterwards upon what grounds was such a thing said And though it cannot be distrusted that what the Holy Spirit testifieth is true yet I may doubt whether it was indeed the Holy Spirit that testify'd it or no. Whereas if it proceeded with me upon grounds they remain and I have no reason to suspect that which was argued out to me upon grounds which I still find in me was either from an ill suggestor or with an ill design whereas there may be some plausible pretence of doubt in the matter if there was only a transient dictate given in to me without any reference or appeal to that rule by which God hath not only directed me to try my self but also to try spirits whether they be of him or no. Nor is there any imaginable necessity of assigning quite another method to the Spirits work as it is a Spirit of Adoption from that which it holds as it is a Spirit of Bondage For as to this latter when it convinces a person and binds down the condemning sentence upon him this surely is the course it follows to let a person see for instance they that live after the flesh shall die But thou livest after the flesh therefore thou shalt dye Or all that believe not the wrath of God abides on them But thou believest not as it is we know the Spirits work to convince of not-believing therefore the wrath of God abides on thee And what need is there of apprehending its method to be quite another in its comforting-work Nor is it surely a matter of less difficulty to perswade some that they are unbelievers and make them apprehend and feel the terror sutable to their states than others that they are believers and make them apprehend the comfort which is proper to theirs Yea and is not its course the same in its
whole sanctifying-work to bring home the particular Truth whose Impression it would leave on the Soul with application thereof to it in particular which as generally propounded in Scripture men are so apt to wave and neglect for what is every ones concern is commonly thought no ones And what need that its method here should be wholly diverse But in whichsoever of these ways the Spirit of God doth manifest his love it is not to be doubted but that There is such a thing in it self very necessary and to be attained and sought after And that it is highly delectable when he doth vouchsafe it That there is such a thing to be sought after as a communicable priviledg and favour to holy Souls is evident enough from multitudes of Scriptures Those that have been occasionally mentioned in speaking what was thought fit to be said of the way of his doing it need not be repeated unto which we may add what we find is added to those above-recited words Eye hath not seen c. the things which God hath prepared for them that love him viz. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit And that Spirit not only gives those lovers of God above-mentioned a clearer view of the things prepared for them so as that the nature of them might be the more distinctly understood as is argued in the latter part of this and in the following verse but also of their own propriety and interest in them Now we have received not the Spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God that we may know the things that are freely given us of God Whence therefore they are revealed by the Spirit not as pleasing objects in themselves only but as gifts the evidences and issues of Divine Love their own proper portion by the bequest of that Love to whom they are shew'n Nor is this the work of the Spirit only as inditing the Scriptures but it is such a work as helps to the spiritual discerning of these things such as whereto the natural man is not competent who yet is capable of reading the Scriptures as well as other men And what will we make of those words of our Saviour when having told his Disciples he would pray the Father and he should give them another comforter even the Spirit of Truth that he might abide with them for ever Even the Spirit of Truth c. He adds I will not leave you comfortless I will come to you that is as is plain by that Spirit And then shortly after subjoins He that hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him Here is an express promise of this love-manifestation whereof we speak by the Spirit the Comforter mentioned above not to those particular persons only unto whom he was then directing his speech or to those only of that time and age but to them indefinitely that should love Christ and keep his commandments Which is again repeated in other words of the same import after Judas not Iscariot his wondering expostulation touching that peculiarly of this loving manifestation Jesus answered and said unto him If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him So that such a manifestation as is most aptly expressive of love such converse and cohabitation as imports most of kindness and endearedness they have encouragement to expect that do love Christ and keep his words The same thing no doubt with that shedding abroad of the love of God in their hearts by the Holy Ghost given to them mentioned before And whereas we have so plain and repeated mention of the seal the earnest the first-fruits of the Spirit what can these expressions be understood to import and they do not signifie nothing other than confirmation of the love of God or assuring and satisfying evidences and pledges thereof And that there should be such an inward manifestation of divine love superadded to the publique and external declaration of it which is only made indefinitely to persons so and so characteriz'd the exigency of the case did require That is wherein it was necessary his love should be distinctly understood and apprehended it was so far necessary this course should be taken to make it be so A meer external revelation was not sufficent to that end Our own unassisted reasonings therefrom were not sufficient As other Truths have not their due and proper impression meerly by our rational reception be they never so plain without that holy sanctifying influence before insisted on so this Truth also of Gods love to this person in particular hath not its force and weitht its efficacy and fruit answerable to the design of its discovery unless it be appâ—ied and urged home on the Soul by a communicated influence of the Spirit to this purpose Many times not so far as to overcome and silence tormenting doubts fears and anguish of spirit in reference hereto and where that is done not sufficient to work off deadness drowziness indisposition to the doing of God chearful service not sufficient to excite and stir up love gratitude admiration and praise How many who have learned not to make light of the love of God as the most do who reckon in his favour is life to whom it is not an indifferent thing whether they be accepted or no who cannot be overly in their enquiry nor trifle with matters of everlasting consequence who are not enough Atheists and Scepticks to permit all to a mad hazard nor easie to be satisfy'd walk mournfully from day to day with sunk dejected spirits full of anxiety even unto agonies under the clear external discovery of Gods love to persons of that character whereof they really are such as observe them judg their case plain and every one thinks well of them but themselves yea their mouths are sometimes stopt by such as discourse the matter with them but their hearts are not quieted or if they sometime are in a degree yet the same doubts and fears return with the former importunity the same work is still to be done and 't is but rolling the returning stone And all humane endeavours to apply and bring home the comforts proper and sutable to their case prove fruitless and ineffectual nothing can be fastened upon them they refuse to be comforted while God himself doth not create that which is the fruit of his own lips peace peace while as yet they are not fill'd with joy and peace in believing and made to abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost It is plain there needs a more learned tongue than any humane one to speak a word in season to such weary ones How many again have spirits overcome with deadness and sloth under a settled perhaps
not altogether mistaken but more notional apprehension of the same love They have only that assurance which arises it may be not from a false but the single testimony of their own spirits at least unaccompanied with other than the ordinary help of the Spirit not very distinguishable from the workings of their own Have reasoned themselves perhaps regularly by observing the rule and the habitual bent of their own spirits into an opinion of their own good estate so that they are not vext with doubts and fears as some others are But they do not discover to others nor can discern in themselves any degree of life and vigour of heavenliness and spirituality of love to God or zeal for him proportionable to their high expectations from him or the great import of this thing to be beloved of God There is no discernible growth or spiritual improvement to be found with them How remote is their temper from that of the Primitive Christians It is apparent what is yet wanting they are not edify'd as those were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost Wherefore the matter is plain There is such a thing as an effectual over-powering communication of the Holy Ghost for the manifesting of the love of God of great necessity and importance to Christians that may be had and ought to be diligently sought after 2. And if it be afforded which was the other thing proposed How infinitely delectable is that manifestation the thing it self carries its own reason and evidence with it 1. If we consider the matter represented to us thereby The love of a God! How transporting would the thought of it be to an enlightened apprehensive mind no one whose nature is not over-run with barbarism would entertain the discovery of the harmless innocent love though it were not profitable to us even of a creature like our selves otherwise than with complacency Yea though it were a much inferiour even a brute creature Men are pleased to behold love expressing it self towards them in a child in a poor neighbour in an impotent servant yea in their horse or their dog The greatest Prince observes with delight the affection of the meanest peasants among his Subjects Much more would they please themselves if they have occasion to take notice of any remarkable expression of his favourable respect to them But how unspeakably more if he vouchsafe to express it by gracious intimacies and by condescending familiarities How doth that person hug and bless himself How doth his Spirit triumph and his imagination luxuriate in delightful thoughts and expectations who is in his own heart assured he hath the favour of his Prince Yea with what complacency are inward friends wont to receive the mutual expressions of each others love And can it be thought the love of the great and blessed God should signifie less How great things are comprehended in this The Lord of Heaven and Earth hath a kindness towards me and bears me good will How grateful is the relish of this apprehension both in respect of what it in it self imports and what it is the root and cause of True ingenuity values love for it self If such a one will think of me if I shall have a place in his remembrance If he will count me among his friends this we are apt to be pleased with And tokens are sent and interchanged among friends not only to express love but to preserve and cherish it and keep up a mutual remembrance among them And as there is a great pleasure conceived in receiving such expressions or pledges of love from a friend not so much for the value of the thing sent as of what it signifies and is the token of his love his kind remembrance so is there no less pleasure in giving and sending than in receiving Because that hereby as we gratifie our own love by giving it a kind of vent this way so we foresee how we shall thereby excite theirs which therefore we put a value upon even abstracting from any advantage we expect therefrom And this hath a manifest reason in our very natures because we reckon there is an honour put upon us and somewhat is attributed to us when we are well thought of and a kindness is placed upon us especially by such as have themselves any reputation for wisdom and judgment Hâ—w dignifying is the love of God! How honourable a thing to be his favourite To Apostle seems to put a mighty stress on this when he utters those so emphatical words wherefore we labour so defectively we read it we covet or are ambitious of it as our honour as that word signifies that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him q. d. neither life or death neither being in the body or out of it signifie any thing to me or they are indifferent things in comparison of this honour that he may accept me that I may be pleasing to him and gracious in his eyes that I may stand well in his thoughts and he bear a kind and favourable regard to me Yea and this is a thing in it self delightful not only as it 's honourable but as it is strange and wonderful Things that are in themselves grateful are so much the more so for their being somewhat surprising and above all our expectation I say supposing they have an antecedent gratefulness in them for otherwise we know there are also very unwelcome wonders and which are so much the more dreadful because they are surprizing and unexpected it is greatly heightened by their being out of the road quite of all our thoughts great things that we looked not for And who would have look't for such a thing as this That the Lord of Glory should place his Love on such a Worm as I Which is set off with the more advantage because the same light that represents to a Soul Gods love doth also discover to it at the same time it s own deformity and unloveliness And then how taking and overcoming is the thought I impure wretch loathsome miscreant that lost apostate creature that made one with a race and crew of rebels was confederate with rebellious men against Him yea in a combination with those revolted creatures the Devils and now taken I know not why into a state of acceptance and favour with him And his love is declared to be towards me And why towards me in my self so vile And such love the love of an holy glorious God towards one in whose very nature was such an horror and hell of wickedness Why towards me rather than others not naturally more vile than I How can this be thought on without crying out O wonderful O the depths breadths lengths and heights of this love that so infinitely passeth knowledg And here the greater the wonder the greater is also the delight And now also are the effects of this love great in the eyes of the Soul according to the apprehended
things Would not the word of an ordinary man premonishing you of any advantage or danger which you have no other knowledg of be of more value with you Constant suspicion of any one without cause or pretence most certainly argues radicated enmity You love him not whom you cannot trust Do you love him whom upon all occasions you most causlesly displease whose offence you reckon nothing of Is that ingenuous towards a Friend or dutiful towards a Father or a Lord How do you in this carry towards the blessed God Are you wont to displease your selves to please him or cross your own will to do his Do you take delight in him whom you make no difficulty to vex whose known declared pleasure though you confess him greater wiser and more righteous than your self you have no more regard to wherein it crosses your own inclination than you would have to that of your Child your Slave or a Fool Have you any thing to except against that measure and character of loyal affection to your Redeemer and Lord If ye love me keep my commandments Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you This is the love of God that we keep his commandments Do you not disobey the known will of God in your ordinary practice without regret Do not you know it to be his will That you strive to enter in at the strait gate That you seek first the Kingdom of Heaven That you keep your heart with all diligence That you deny your self crucifie the flesh be temperate just merciful patient Do you aim at obeying him in these things Can you say Lord for thy sake I refrain the things to which my heart inclines Hath his prohibition any restraining force upon your hearts Do you not allow your self to be licentious earthly vain proud wrathful revengeful though you know it will offend him And is this your love to him or delight in him Do you bear goodwill to him whose reproach and dishonour you are not concern'd for yea whom you stick not to dishonour and reproach whose interest among men hath no place in your thoughts whose friends are none of yours whose enemies are your friends whose favour you care not for nor regret his frowns whose Worship is a burthen to you that you had rather do any thing than pray to him and his fellowship an undesired thing Make an estimate by these things of the temper of your hearts towards God and consider whether it bespeak delight in him or not rather habitual aversion and enmity It may be you will admit these things seem to carry somewhat of conviction with them But they concern many that are taken for godly persons and lovers of God as well as they do you And it may be many such may take themselves for godly persons and lovers of God and be mistaken as well as you And what will that mend your cause If these things will prove a person one that hath no delight in God they equally prove it as to you and others which will make nothing to your advantage But if they who have sincere love to God are in a degree peccant against the Laws of such love as that they are they will hear in due time They are more ready to accuse themselves than other men They abhor themselves that they do not more entirely delight in God and repent in dust and ashes It better becomes you to imitate their repentance than glory in their sinful weakness which while they patronize not themselves you should not think it can afford a valuable patronage unto you When did you check and contend with your own hearts upon these accounts as they are wont to do And if these things in a degree found with them prove their delight in God imperfect their prevailing contraries will prove it however sincere And if you will not now understand the difference God grant you may not hereafter at a more costly rate between the imperfection and the total want of his love between having your heart and Soul imperfectly alive towards God and perfectly dead You may further say God is out of your sight and therefore how can it be expected you should find a sensible delight in him But is he out of the sight of your minds If he be what would you infer That then you cannot delight in him at all and therefore that you do not the thing that you are charg'd with all this while But he is out of sight by the high excellency of his Being for which reason he should be delighted in the more i.e. with a deeper delight though not like that you take in the things of sense And he hath been so beyond all things notwithstanding his abode in that light which is inaccessible This therefore is confession without excuse and would never be offered as an excuse by any but those that are lost in flesh and sense have forgot they have reasonable Souls and had rather be numbred with Brutes than Men As if there were not many things you have not seen with the eyes of flesh more excellent than those you have Or as if you had no other faculty than eyes of flesh to see with Which since you have and the depravation thereof is vicious and sinful as your not-delighting in God the matter of fact seems to be yeilded and so you quit your first Post It will thence appear that it cannot but be sinful too And since at that you seem to make a stand as at your next Post either thinking to deny or extenuate the evil of it our Expostulation must follow you thither and be aimed 2. To evince to you the greatness and horridness of that sin Suffer your selves therefore to be reasoned with to this purpose and consider First That you have somewhat of delectation in your Natures i.e. you have the power naturally inherent in you of taking delight in one thing or other You have such a thing as love about you Are not some things grateful and agreeable to you in which you can and do take complacency Therefore herein an act is not enjoined you which is incompetent to your Natures or simply impossible to you Next then Do you not know your delight or love ought to be placed on some good or other that is known to you and among things that you know to be good proportionably to the goodness which you find in them and supreamly on the best Further Do you not acknowledg the blessed God to be the best and most excellent Good as being the first and fountain-Good the fullest and most comprehensive the purest and altogether unmixed the most immutable and permanent Good How plain and certain is this How manifestly impossible is it if there were not such a Good that otherwise any thing else should ever have been good or been at all Is not this as sure and evident as any thing your senses could inform you of Whence is the glorious excellency of this great
from him who is thy life and art laying a train for the blowing up of thy eternal Hope All that hate him love death Further 3. It is the most comprehensive wickedness and which entirely contains all other in it For as the Law of Love is the universal and summary Law comprehending all Duty and even as it enjoins love to God for love to men ought to be resolved into that and must be for his sake so must disaffection to God be comprehensive of all sin whereinto every thing of it resolves it self Dost thou not see then how thou cancellest and nullifiest the obligation of all Laws while thou hast no delight in God offerest violence to the very knot and juncture wherein they all meet and are infolded together Not to delight in God therefore What can it be but the very top of Rebellion What will thy sobriety thy justice thy charity signifie if thou hadst these to glory in while thou art habitually disaffected to thy God Let men value thee for these to whom thereby thou shewest some respect But shall he who in the mean time knows thou bearest none to him 4. It is a most reproachful contemptuous wickedness To him I mean whom it most directly offends against Carries it not in it most horrid contumely and indignity to the most high God It is a practical denial of all those excellencies in him that render and recommend him the most worthy object of our delight it is more than saying He is not good holy wise just and true Things may on the sudden be said that are not deliberately thought and may be retracted the next breath but a man 's stated constant course and way signifies the apprehension it proceeds from to be fixed and that it is the setled habitual sense of his Soul Yea and since as hath been said Thou delightest in other things whilst thou delightest not in him It plainly imports it to be the constant sense of thy very heart that those things are better than He. What is it then that hath thy delight and love Whereon is thy heart set Commune with thy self Dost thou not tremble when thou findest this to be thy very case that thou may'st truly say I can delight in creatures but not in God can take pleasure in my friend but none in him I must confess it to be the temper of my heart that I love my Father Mother Son or Daughter more than Christ Is it not then to be concluded from his own express word that thou art not worthy of him and canst be none of his Disciple Nay may'st thou not moreover truly say that thou lovest this base impure earth more than God That thou takest more delight in thy companions in wickedness canst more solace thy self with a drunkard on the Ale-bench with a lascivious wanton with a prophane scoffer at godliness than with the blessed God That thou canst allow thy self to riot with the luxurious and eat and drink with the drunken and not only do such things but take pleasure in them that do them yea and thy self take pleasure to commit iniquity but in the glorious holy God thou canst take no pleasure Then wouldst thou be content to carry the plain sense of thy heart written on thy forehead and proclaim it to all the world as thy resolved practical judgment That thou accountest thy Friends thy Relations this vile and vanishing World thy wicked Associates thine own impure lusts better than God And dost thou not yet see the horrid vileness of thy own heart in all this Art thou yet an harmless innocent creature an honest well-meaning man for all this Yea wil't thou not see that thine heart goes against thy Conscience all this while That thou disaffectest him in whom thou knowest thou shouldst delight That the temper of thy Spirit is a continual affront to thy profession through the perfidious falshood and vanity whereof thou dost but cover hatred with lying lips Is not that an odious thing which thou so seekest to hide and which though thou art not loath to be guilty of it thou art so very unwilling should be known And since thou art so very loath it should be known How canst thou hold up thy head before that eye that is as a flame of fire that searches thy heart and tries thy reins that observes thy wayward spirit and sees with how obstinate an aversion thou declinest his acquaintance and converse Wilt thou stand before the glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth who knows thy disaffected heart and say it is but a small transgression thou hast been guilty of in not loving him and making him thy delight Dost thou think this will pass for a little offence in the solemn judgment of the great day that is drawing on Or will thy heart indure or thy hands be strong when the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open thou shalt stand convicted before his Tribunal in the sight of Angels and Men of having born all thy days a false disloyal heart full of malignity and ill-will to thy Soveraign Lord whom thou wast so many ways obliged to serve and cleave to with delight and love When the difference shall be visibly put between those that delighted in God and them that never did and thou shalt be markt out for one of them that didst in heart depart from him all thy days and be thereupon abandon'd to the society of that horrid accursed crew in whom only thou didst delight Surely thou wilt not then say thy transgression was small 2. But we are also to expostulate with another sort who though they are not altogether unacquainted with this heavenly exercise of delighting in God yet too much disuse it and apply not themselves to it as who do with that constancy and intention of Soul as the matter requires And these we are to put upon the consideration of such evils as either are included in this neglect or are ally'd unto it and do therefore accompany and aggravate the natural evil of it as either causing it or being caused by it And 1. Those whom we now intend are to bethink themselves what evil is included in their neglect of this part of holy Practice And you are to judg of the evil of it by its disagreement with such known and usual measures as whereto our practice should be sutable and which in reason and justice it is to be estimated and censured by as for instance The Divine Law Conscience Experience Obligation by kindness Stipulation Relation Profession Tendency of the new Nature Dictates of Gods Spirit The course and drift of his design with all which it will be found to have very ill accord 1. How directly opposite is it to the Law of God! Not only to his express written Precept but to that immutable eternal Law which arises from our very Natures refer'd unto his The obligingness or binding force whereof doth not so much stand in this That the thing to
he professes to do over you If he should repent In what case were you Not to take pleasure in God! Your own God! How strangely uncouth is it You are not to consider him as a stranger an unrelated one If he were such to you his own excellencies challenge to be beheld with delight But you are to reckon and say of him This is my Beloved and this is my Friend c. I am his and he is mine And how ill do such words become the mouth that utters them not from the abundance of the heart even from an heart abounding and overflowing with Love and Joy 7. And how doth the temper of your heart and your practice while you take not actual ordinary delight in God clash and jar with your profession For admit you do not then make an express verbal profession of actual delight in God at such times when you find it not yet you still avow your selves and would be accounted and lookt upon as related to him And the just challenges of that relation are not any way answered but by a course of ordinary actual delight So much your Profession manifestly imports Whilst you profess the Lord to be your God you profess him to be your supream delight And how is he so when you seldom have a delightful thought of him or look to him with any pleasure and the temper of your Spirit towards him is usually strange and shie And bethink your selves What would you then be esteemed such as care not for him as value him not Would you willingly be taken for such in all those long intervals wherein your actual delight in him is wholly discontinued Would you not be ashamed the disposition of your heart towards him at such times should be known Do you not desire to be better thought of What is there then at the bottom and under the covert of your yet continued profession at such times but falsehood A correspondent affection there is not Is not your very profession then meer dissimulation and a lie A concealment and disguise of an heart inwardly bad and naught but which only comforts it self that it is not known that is all day long full of earth and vanity and wholly taken up with either the contentments delights and hopes or the cares fears and discontents that do naturally arise from these vile mean Objects and so are of a kind as mean and vile as they Only makes a shift to lie hid all the while and lurk under the appearance such a one hath put on of a Lover of God and one that above all things delights in him But is this honest dealing or was this indeed all that was this while to be got of God the credit of being thought his Yet it may be you will somewhat relieve your selves by saying you suppose for all this your profession was not altogether false For you hope there was still a Principle in you by which your heart was habitually directed towards God and whereby his Interest did still live and was maintained in you notwithstanding your many and long diversions from him And while your Profession did signifie that it signified some real thing and so was not a false and lying Profession But to this I say Was this all that your Profession was in it self apt and by you designed to signifie Surely it was apt and intended to signifie more than habitual inclination It carried the appearance of such actings Godward as were sutable to your having him for your God And you would it's likely have been loth it should have been otherwise understood And surely whatsoever it said or imported more than the Truth was false And again Can you be confident that so much as you suppose was true Are you sure of this that because you have sometimes found some motions of heart towards God it is therefore habitually inclin'd to him when it very rarely puts forth it self in any sutable acts and for the most part works quite another way Whereby are Habits to be known but by the frequency of their acts Do not you know there are many half-inclinations and workings of heart with some complacency God-ward that prove abortive and come to nothing as that of the stony ground and that of Heb. 6. 4. do more than intimate Surely your hope and safety more depend upon your repentance your return and closer adherence to God thereupon than the supposition your heart is in the main sound and right amidst those more notable declinings from him But we will admit your supposition true which the consideration of the persons we are now dealing with and the Design of this present Piece of our Discourse requires and take it for granted that amidst this your great neglect you have notwithstanding a Principle a new and holy nature in you whose tendency is Godward Whereupon we further say then 8. And doth not your unaccustomedness to this blessed exercise resist the Tendency of that new nature And so your practice while your hearts run a quite contrary course for they are not doing nothing while they are not in this delightful way working towards God doth not only offend against your profession which it in great part belies but against that vital Principle also which is in you and so your very excuse aggravates your sin Is there indeed such a Principle in you And whither tends it Is it not from God And doth it not then naturally aim at him and tend towards him Being upon both those accounts as well as that it resembles him and is his living Image called a participation of the Divine Nature Yea doth it not tend to delight in him For it tends to him as the Souls last end and rest What good Principle can you have in you God ward if you have not Love to him And the property of that is to work towards him by desire that it may rest in him by delight Have you Faith in God That works by this Love Faith is that great power in the Holy Soul by which it acts from God as a Principle Love is that by which it acts towards him as an End By that it draws from him by this it moves to him and rests in him The same holy gracious nature dependently on its great Author and Cause inclining it both to this motion and rest and to the former in order to the latter So by the work of the new Creature is the Soul formed purposely for blessedness in God and devotedness to him its aspirations its motions its very pulse breath tend and beat this way But you apply not your Souls to delight in God You bend your minds and hearts another way What are you doing then You are striving against your own life you are mortifying all good inclinations towards God stifling and stopping the breath that your panting heart would send forth to him you are busily crucifying the new creature instead of the body of sin There is somewhat in you that would work
that is so wearisom to him Every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delighteth in them and have said in your hearts Where is the God of Judgment Or have you not been more peccant in your apprehensions of his rules and resolutions for the disposing of men as to their eternal states Have you not disbelieved the revelation he hath given of his Nature and express declarations of his mind and purpose touching these matters Was it not enough for you to have known his gracious propensions towards returning sinners that desire him again for their God and willingly accept the grace and submit themselves to the conduct and government of his Son Should not this have allured and won your hearts to him and made you with humble thankful admiration of his grace resign and yeild your selves to be his for ever Have you not measured your apprehensions of him by the suggestions and misgivings of your guilty jealous hearts or by your experienc'd animosity and the implacableness of your own spirits towards such as have offended you as if he could forgive no more than you are dispos'd to do Have you not oppos'd your own imaginations of him to his express testifications of himself that He is Love Slow to anger and of great mercy c. And that as the heavens are high above the earth so are his ways above your ways and his thoughts above your thoughts Have you not against his plain word thought him irreconcilable and averse to the accepting of any atonement for you prescribed and set bounds to him and thought your sin greater than could be forgiven And if hereupon you have not delighted in him and have found all ingenuous affection towards him stifled within you as your not-delighting in him was a foul evil the more-sinful injurious cause denying the infinite goodness of his Nature and giving the lye to his Word hath made it beyond all expression worse And further at least consider 4. Have not your thoughts of God been few Is not the meditation of him with you an unwonted thing The Psalmist resolving to mind him much To praise and sing to him as long as he lived and while he had any being Doth as it were prophesie to himself that his meditation of him should be sweet Frequent right thoughts of God will surely be pleasant delightful thoughts But your little delight in God too plainly argues you have minded him but seldom And how full of guilt is your not-delighting in God upon this account How cheap is the expence of a thought What that so much should not be done in order to the delightful rest of your Soul in God! 3. It supposes much carnality a prone inclination and addictedness to this earth and the things of it And thereupon argues in you a very mean abject spirit While you can take no pleasure or do take so little in God is there nothing else wherein you take pleasure And what is it God hath in this matter no other rival than this world 'T is its friendship that is enmity to him something or other of it The lust of the flesh the lust of the eye or the pride of life prevails far while the love of the Father hath so little place in you Whither are you sunk into how low and vile a temper of spirit when you can take pleasure in so base things rather than in the blessed God and quit so high and pure delights for mire and dirt What hath thus carnalized your minds that you favour only the things of the flesh and Divine things are tasteless and without relish Nor are you to think more favourably of your case if you take little actual complacency in the world also probably it is because you have little of it to delight in it may be you are more acquainted with the cares of it than the delights or your desire after it is much larger than your possession 'T is all one for that But what are your hearts most apt to delight in or what is most agreeable to your temper 'T is the same thing what earthly affection predominates in you while the temper of your spirit is earthly and it is thereby held off from God Your not-having actual earthly delights to put in the balance against heavenly is only by accident But all your cares desires and hopes of that vile kind would turn into as vile delights if you had your wills In the mean time you are the more excuseless and your sin is the grosser That even the cares and troubles of this world are of more value with you than delight in God How far are you from that temper Whom have I in heaven but thee and whom do I desire on earth besides thee 4. And how sad an argument is it of downright aversion and disaffectedness to God in a great degree at least yet remaining Whence can your not-delighting in him proceed but from this as its most immediate cause What could hinder you if your heart were inclin'd Are you not astonisht to behold this as the state of your case That you delight not in him because your heart is against it that is from flat enmity And what doth more naturally import enmity to any thing than to turn off from it as not being able to take pleasure in it So God expresses his detestation of Apostates If any man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him And his contempt of Jechoniah is signified by the like manner of speaking Do you not tremble to think that this should be the temper of your spirit towards God and that your estimate of him as if he were a despised broken Idol and as mean a thing as a vessel wherein is no pleasure Reckon then thus with your self As your case stands and things do lye between God and you your little delight in God can have no more favourable account given of it nor be resolved into any gentler or milder cause than enmity And if this seem to you not to be a cause but to be coincident and fall in with it so much the worse By how much less this enmity hath of antecedency to your neglect or the more it seems the same with it so much the more it discovers the evil of the thing it self For by what worse name can we call any thing than enmity to God But we speak of your habitual temper as that which is the cause of your actual neglect And since you have a discovery of God as the most delectable Object cannot pretend there is a better have leave and free permission to place your delight on him yea are earnestly invited and prest to it 'T is plain nothing else is in your way to hinder you Therefore you delight not in him because your heart only is averse 3. We also might insist further to shew the evils that ensue and follow upon this neglect Such I mean as
and repent and do your first works Till then He hath this against you that you have left your first love And consider Is it not a grievous thing to you Doth it not pain your hearts that your Lord and Redeemer should have somewhat against you as it were laid up noted and put on record kept in store and as himself remarkably expresses it sealed up among his treasures somewhat that sticks with him and which he bears in mind and hath lying in his heart against you Is this a small thing with you when that must be apprehended to be his sense and suppose him saying to you I remember the kindness of thy youth the love of thine espousals And now since those former days What iniquity hast thou found in me that thou art gone far from me and hast walked after vanity and art become vain How confounding a thing were it if he should say as sometime to others in a case resembling yours and why should you not take it as equally belonging to you O my people What have I done unto thee and wherein have I wearied thee testifie against me And while the case admits such sharp and cutting rebuke and that it is the matter of rebuke not rebuke it self abstracted from the matter i. e. if it were causless that should smart or wound How becoming is it and sutable to the case to cast down a wounded bleeding heart before the Lord and be abased in the dust at the footstool of his Mercy-seat And though your sin be great and hainous 4. Yet apprehend you are before a Mercy-Seat That there is forgiveness with him that he may be feared How would this apprehension promote the humiliation which the case requires A sullen despondency that excludes hope of mercy hardens the heart continues the sinful comfortless distance Therefore apply your selves to him seek his Pardon in the Blood of the Redeemer know you need it and that it is only upon such terms to be obtained Yet also take heed lest any diminishing thoughts of the evil of your sin return and make you neglect the thing or wave the known stated way of remission We are apt to look upon crimes whereby men are immediately offended and which therefore are of worse reputation among men as robbery murder c. as very horrid This is a matter that lies immediately between Spirit and Spirit the God of the Spirits of all flesh and your Spirit You have had a solemn transaction with him and have dealt falsly And though the matter were secret between God and you Is it the less evil in it self for that If you had dealt unworthily and used base treachery towards a friend in a matter only known to him and your self Would you not when you have reflected blush to see his face till matters be composed betwixt you And is there another way of having them composed and of restoring delightful friendly converse than by your seeking his Pardon and his granting it Could you have the confidence to put your self upon conversing with him as at former times without such a preface Or were it not great immodesty and impudence to offer at it But that when this hath been the case between the blessed God and you and you now come with deep resentments and serious unfeigned acknowledgments of your most offensive neglects of him to seek forgiveness at his hand he should be easie and facile to forgive How should this melt you down before him And this is what his own word obliges you to apprehend and believe of him These words He hath required to be proclaimed to you Return you back-sliding ones and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful saith the Lord and I will not keep anger for ever Only acknowledg your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree your offence hath been Idolatry as well as theirs Turn O backsliding Children saith the Lord for I am married unto you What heart would not break and bleed at this overture You can be recovered to no capacity of delighting in God as heretofore till you sensibly feel the need of great forgiveness and have a disposition of heart inwardly to relish the sweetness and pleasantness of it Till those words do agree with the sense of your hearts and you can as in a transport cry out O the blessedness of the man as the expression imports whose iniquity is forgiven and whose sin is covered c. And now when you are come thus far if the temper of your Spirit be right even in this there will be in conjunction with the desire hope and value of forgiveness at least an equal dread of such future strangenesses and breaches between God and you And that will be very natural to you which I next add as further advice 5. Most earnestly seek and crave a better and more fixed temper of spirit More fully determined and bent Godward That your heart may be directed into the love of God That the spirit of love power and a sound mind may bear rule in you Be intent upon the recovery of that healthy soundness which wheresoever it hath place will with a certain steady power and a strong inclining bent of love carry your heart toward God And take heed lest you be satisfied in the expectation and hope of forgiveness as to your former neglects of God without this There is a manifest prejudice daily accrewing to the Christian name and profession by the unequal estimation which that part of the Doctrine of Christ hath that concerns the work of his Spirit upon us regeneration the new creature repentance and an holy life in comparison of that which concerns his performances and acquisitions for us expiation of sin satisfaction of Divine Justice forgiveness and acceptance with God How sweet ravishing transporting Doctrines and how pure Gospel are these latter accounted by many who esteem the former cold sapless unpleasant notions Thence comes Christian Religion to look with so distorted a face and aspect as if it suffered a convulsion that hath altered and disguised it unto that degree that it is hardly to be known being made to seem as if it imported only a design to rescue some persons from Divine Wrath and Justice without ever giving them that disposition of heart which is necessary both to their serving of God and their blessedness in him This is not to be imputed so much to the misrepresentation made of it by them whose business it hath been to instruct others though of them too many may have been very faulty in almost suppressing or insisting less or very little upon Doctrines of the former strain while the stream of their Discourses hath mostly run upon the other for it must be acknowledged that by very many in our age the absolute necessity of the great heart-change hath been both most
this way you may expect a spiritual frame to grow habitual to you and then would the rest of your business do it self You would not need to be prest and perswaded to delight in God any more than to do the acts of Nature to eat and drink and move yea and draw your breath 2. Endeavour your knowledg or the conception you have of God may be more distinct and clear For observe whether when you would apply your self to delight in him this be not the next or at least one great obstruction after that of an indisposed carnal heart That though you would and you know 't is fit you should do so you know not how to go about it for you are at a loss what or how to conceive of him But is it fit it should be always thus What ever learning and never arrive to this knowledg 'T is most true We can never search out the Almighty unto perfection And it will always be but a little portion we shall know of that glorious incomprehensible Being But since there is a knowledg of God we are required to have our Souls furnisht with and whereon eternal life depends with all gracious dispositions of heart towards him that are the beginnings of that life Certainly the whole compass of our Duty and Blessedness is not all laid upon an Impossibility And therefore if we do not so far know as to love and delight in him above all things else this must be through our own great default and more to be imputed to our carelesness and contentedness to be ignorant than that he is unknowable or hath so reserved and shut up himself from us that we cannot know him There are many things belonging to the Being of God which we are not concerned to know and which it would be a vain and bold curiosity to pry into But what is necessary to direct or practise and tends to shew how we should be and carry our selves towards him is not such hath been his gracious vouchsafement impossible or difficult to be known We may apprehend him to be the most excellent Being and may descend to many particular excellencies wherein we may easily apprehend him infinitely to surpass all other Beings For we most certainly know all things were of him and therefore that whatsoever excellency we can observe in creatures must be eminently and in highest perfection in Him without the want of any thing but what doth it self import weakness and imperfection And hath it not been His errand business into the world who lay in his bosom to declare him And hath not he who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets in these last days spoken to us by his Son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds who is the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person He hath been on earth the visible Representation of God to men The Divine Glory shone in him The glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth Was not that Divine Suppose we then we had seen Christ in the flesh and been the constant observers of his whole conversation on earth and though we have not seen it we have the sufficient Records of his Life and Actions in our hands Let us I say suppose him from day to day before our eyes in all his meek humble lovely deportments among men and withal in the beams of Majesty that appeared through that vail wherein he was pleased to inwrap himself If we did observe him going to and fro and every where doing good scattering blessings wherever he went with what compassion and tenderness he healed the sick instructed the ignorant supplied and fed the hungry and necessitous how he bare with the weak forgave the injurious even against his own life and wept over secure and obstinate sinners with what mighty power he cast out Devils raised the dead commanded Winds and Seas and they obeyed him with what authority zeal and conviction he contested against an hypocritical generation of hardened impenitent unbelieving wretches casting flames of holy just displeasure in their faces and threatning them with the damnation of Hell And now suppose the veil laid aside and the lustre of all these excellencies shining forth without the interposition of any obscuring cloud or shadow And such a one is the blessed God For this was the express Image of his Person and as he himself tells us They that have seen Him have seen the Father And do you not now see one to be delighted in But yet further Can you not frame a notion of Wisdom Goodness Justice Holiness Truth Power with other known Perfections all concurring together in a Being purely Spiritual not obvious to our sense and that was Eternally and Originally of Himself the Author and Original of all things and who is therefore over all and in all infinite and unchangeable in all the perfections before-mentioned Surely such conceptions are not impossible to you And this is He in whom you are to delight Lift up then your minds above your senses and all sensible things use your understandings whereby you are distinguisht from brute creatures Consider this is he from whom you and all things sprang and in whom your life is Do you perceive life wisdom power love in other things these must all have some or other fountain Other things have not these of themselves for they are not of themselves therefore they must derive and partake them from him and thence it is evident they must be in him in their highest excellency Of this your understandings duly exercised will render you as sure as if you saw that infinite glory in which all these meet with your eyes and will assure you 't is so much more excellent and glorious for that it cannot be seen with your eyes You see the external acts and expressions of these things from such creatures as you are But life wisdom power love themselves are invisible things which in themselves you cannot see yet you are not the less certain that there are such things And do you not find that the certain evidence you have that these things meet in this or that creature do render it lovely and delightful in your eyes especially if you have or apprehend you may have nearest interest in such a creature The blessed God not only hath these things in himself but is these very things himself therefore must be invisible as they are And because he not only hath them but is them therefore they are in him perfectly unchangeably and eternally as being his very Essence Think then of a Being that is pure original substantial life wisdom power love And how infinitely amiable and delectable should that ever blessed Being be unto you Converse with the Word of God Read his descriptions of Himself And do not content your selves to have the words and expressions
to fix the thoughts of your hearts on him and yet it will not be or that he gives you no help Though he can be no way indebted to you but by his own free promise He giveth meat to them that fear him being ever mindful of his Covenant yea he doth it for Ravens and Sparrows He will not then famish the Souls that cry to him and wait on him Their heart shall live that seek God It 's becoming and sutable to the state of things between him and you that he should put you upon seeking that you may find Your reasonable nature and faculties especially being already rectified in some measure and enlivened by his Grace and Spirit do require to be held to such terms It is natural to you to think and there is nothing more sutable to the new creature than that you apply and set your selves to think on him and that your thoughts be set and held on work to enquire and seek him out Know therefore you do not your parts unless you make this more your business Therefore to be here more particular 1. Solemnly set your selves at chosen times to think on God Meditation is of it self a distinct Duty and must have a considerable time allow'd it among the other exercises of the Christian Life It challenges a just share and part in the time of our Lives and he in whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to place our delight is you know the prime and chief Object of this holy Work Is it reasonable that he who is our Life and our All should never be thought on but now and then as it were by chance and on the by My meditation on him shall be sweet Doth not that imply that it was with the Psalmist a designed thing to meditate on God that it was a stated course whereas it was become customary and usual to him his ordinary practice to appoint times for meditating on God his well-known exercise which is supposed he promises himself satisfaction and solace of soul herein Let your eyes herein therefore prevent the Night-watches Reckon you have neglected one of the most important businesses of the day if you have omitted this and that to such omissions you ow your little delight in God Wherein therefore are you to repair your selves but by redressing this great neglect 2. Think often of him amidst your other affairs Every one as he is called be his state or way of living what it will be he bond or free is required therein to abide with God And how is that but by often thinking of him as being a great part and fundamental to all the rest of what can be meant by this abode How grateful a mixture would the thoughts of God make with that great variety of other things which we are necessarily to be concern'd in while we are in this world If they be serious and right thoughts they will be accompanied with same favour and relish of sweetness and at least tend to keep the heart in a disposition for more delightful solemn intercourses with God It is a sad Truth than which also nothing is more apparâ—nt that whatsoever there is either of sinfulness or uncomfortableness in the lives of those who have engaged and devoted themselves to God doth in greatest part proceed from their neglect to mind God A thing if due heed were taken about it so easie so little laborious and the labour whereof so much as it is were sure to be recompenc't with so unspeakable pleasure that they are so often lost in darkness drown'd in carnality buried in earthliness and overwhelmed with miseries and desolations of spirit and all this for want of a right employing of their thoughts is from hence only They set their thoughts upon things that tend either to corrupt and deprave their spirits or to disquiet and afflict them At this in-let and by the labour of their own thoughts sins and calamities are brought in upon them as a flood which very thoughts if they were plac't and exercised aright would let in God upon them fill them with his fulness replenish their Souls with his light grace and consolations And how much more easie an exercise were it to keep their thoughts imployed upon one object that is ever full delectable and present than to divide them among many that either lie remote and out of their power to be pursued with anxiety toil and very often with disappointment Or being nearer hand are to be enjoyed if they be things that have an appearance of good in them with much danger and damage to their spirits and with little satisfaction or if they appear evil to be endured with pain and sorrow So that the labour of their thoughts among those many things brings them in torture when their Rest upon God alone would be all pleasure delight and joy Here their souls might dwell at ease or as those words import rest in goodness even with that quiet repose which men are wont to take by night for so the word we read Dwell peculiarly fignifies after the weariness which we may suppose to have been contracted by the labour of the foregoing day And if no such sweet and pleasant fruit were to be hoped for from the careful government and ordering of our thoughts Is the obligation of Gods Law in this matter nothing with us whom we are bound to fear and love to trust and obey above all things of him are we not bound so much as to think And what is loving God with all our mind so expresly mentioned in that great summary of our duty towards him Or what can it mean after the required love of all the heart and all the soul to add so particularly and with all thy mind when-as the mind we know is not the seat of love Surely it cannot at least but imply that our thoughts must be much exercised upon God even by the direction of our Love and that our Love must be maintain'd by thoughts of him That our minds and hearts must continually correspond and concur to the loving of God and so our whole soul be exercised and set on work therein What doth it mean that our Youth is challenged to the remembrance of him What is our riper Age more exempt Do we as we longer live by him ow him less Doth it signifie nothing with us that as was hinted formerly the wicked bear this brand in the Scriptures They that forget God That it is a differencing character of his own people That they thought on his Name Why do we suppose our thoughts exempt from his Government or the obligation of his Laws Why should it be reckoned less insolent to say our thoughts than our tongues are our own who is Lord over as May we do what we will with our thoughts Who gave us our thinking power or made us capable of forming a thought And now Will we assume the confidence to tell God we think on him all that we can How many
him but so he be ever glorious in himself you care not to be happy It would sound like an hollow complement You are not to deal with a God upon such terms It becomes you not nor is sutable to him It is fit for you to own it to him that he is your Life that you are a meer nothing in your self and must seek your All in him Your Song and your Prayer must be directed to him as the God of your life You do not own him as God except you own and adore him as your all-sufficient Good and that fulness which filleth all in all You detract from the glory of his Godhead if you attribute not this to him And if accordingly as one that cannot live without him you do not seek union with him and joyn your self to him and then rejoyce and solace your self in that blessed conjunction And if you be not sure as yet that he is yours your delighting in him is not therefore to be suspended and delayed till you be But in the mean time delight in him as willing to become yours To disbeleive that he is willing is to give him the lye It is the great design of his Gospel so to represent him to you See that your hearts do embrace and close with that as a most delightful and lovely representation The great and glorious Lord of heaven and earth offering himself in all his fulness to be thine Thy portion and thy God for ever How transporting should this be to you Nor if you suspect the sincerity of your own heart towards him which is the only thing you can have any pretence to suspect for it were a blasphemy to his Truth and Goodness to intimate a suspicious thought of him may you therefore spend all your time in anxious enquiries or in looking only upon your own evil heart But look most and with a direct and steady eye towards him Behold and view well his glory and his love that by this means your heart may be captivated and more entirely won to him This makes delight in God a strange thing in the hearts and practice of many They find too much cause of complaint concerning their own hearts that they are disaffected and disenclin'd Godward And what is the course they take hereupon Their Religion is nothing but complaint And all their days are spent in beholding that they are bad without ever taking the way to become better They conclude their case to be evil and full of danger because they find they can take no delight in God And they will take no delight in him because they have that apprehension of the danger of their case And so their not-delighting in God resolves into it self And they delight not in him because they delight not in him T is strange the absurdity of this is not more reflected on And what now is to be done in this case To rest here is to be held in a circle of sin and misery all your days And would signify as if delighting in God were a simple impossibility or as if not to delight in God were a thing so highly rational as to be its own sufficient self-justification And that it were reason enough not to delight in him because we do not There can be no other way to be taken but to behold him more in that discovery of him which his Gospel sets before your eyes and in that way seek to have your hearts taken with his amiableness and love and allured to delight in him And labour in this way to have that delight increased to that degree that it may cease to be a question or doubt with you Do I delight in God or no Whence when you reflect and find that you do Then shall you have that additional matter of further delight That whereas you before took delight in him because being in himself so excellent a one he hath freely offered himself to you to become yours You may now delight in him also because you are sure he is so Whereof you cannot have a more fatisfying assurance than from his so express saying I Love them that Love me and we love him because he loved us first 6. Take especial heed of more apparent and grosser transgressions Nor account your security from the danger of them so much to stand in your being ordinarily out of the way of temptations to them as in an habitual frame of holiness and the settled aversion of your heart to them Endeavour a growing conformity to God in the temper of your spirit and to be in Love with purity That your heart may no more endure an impure thought than you would fire in your bosom If you be herein careless and remiss and suffer your heart to grow dissolute or more bold and adventurous in admitting sinful cogitations Or if you have more liking or less dislike of any wicked course wherein others take their liberty you are approaching the borders of a dangerous precipice And if some greater breach hereupon ensue between God and you what becomes of your delight in him A sad interruption of such pleasant intercourse cannot but follow both on his part and on yours On his part a suspension and restraint of those communications of light and grace which are necessary to your delight in him He will be just in his way of dealing towards those of his own family as well as merciful It appears how much David's delight in God was intermitted upon his great transgression through Gods withdrawing from him when he prays he would restore the joy of his salvation And on your part will insue both less liking of Gods presence and a dread of it Your inclination will not be towards him as before though the act of sin be soon over the effect will remain even a carnal frame of spirit that disaffects converse with God and cares not to come nigh him And if that were not a guilty fear would hold you off so that if you were willing you would not dare to approach him Your liberty taken to sin would soon infer a bondage upon your spirit God-ward unless conscience be wholly asleep and you have learned a stupid insolent confidence to affront God which surely would signifie little to your delight in him Thou shalt put away iniquity from thy tabernacles Then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty and shalt lift up thy face unto God The conscience of unpurged iniquity will not let you lift up your face or appear in that glorious presence 7. Cherish the great grace of humility And be ever mean and low in your own eyes That temper carries in it even a natural disposition to delight in God How sweet complacency will such a Soul take in him His light and glory shine with great lustre in the eyes of such a one while there is not a nearer imagined lustre to vie therewith Stars are seen at noon by them that descend low into a deep pit
They will admire God but little that admire themselves much And take little pleasure in him who are too much pleased with themselves And how sweet a relish have his love and grace to an humble lowly soul that esteems it self less than the least of his mercies With what ravishing delight will Divine mercy be entertain'd when it is so unexpectedly vouchsafed when this shall be the sense of the Soul now caught into the embraces of Gods love What I vile creature impure worm what beloved of God! Expectation grounded especially upon an opinion of merit would unspeakably lessen a favour if it were afforded as also expected evils seem the less when they come But the lowly soul that apprehends desert of nothing but Hell is surprized and overcome with wonder and delight when the great God expresses kindness towards it Besides that he more freely communicates himself to such To this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit c. And he looks to such with a design of habitation Heaven and Earth are not to him so pleasant a dwelling Down then into the dust there you are in the fittest place and posture for delightful converse with God 8. Reckon much upon an eternal abode in that presence where is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Enjoy by a serious believing foresight the delights of heaven labour to rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Look beyond this your present state Confine not your eye and delight to what is now to be enjoyed but think of what shall be Set before your eyes the glorious prospect of the blessed God communicating himself to that vast Assembly of Angels and the spirits of just men made perfect in clearest discoveries of his glory and richest effusions of his goodness The best appearance of things in this world makes but a dull scene in comparison of this If you look towards God according to what now appears of his glory in the frame of the universe and the course of his administrations and government over his Creatures He hath not 't is true left himself without witness And you may behold much that would be to you the matter of delightful admiration If your eye be clear and can pierce through clouds and darkness and a manifold veil He hath made this world and is every-where in it but it knows him not His light shines in darkness that doth not comprehend it Beams of his glory do every-where break forth through every Creature Providence Law and Ordinance of his But much of his glory that shines in the Creation is hid by a train of second causes through which few look to the first His Laws men judg of according to their interests and inclinations while the holy glorious Majesty that enacted them is out of sight His work in the world is carried on in a mystery His interest lives but is deprest They who are most devoted to him are supported indeed by his invisible hand but are in the mean time low for the most part and afflicted If you now limit and confine your apprehensions of him to his present appearances the matter of your delight is real but much diminish't But conceive of him as your Faith can behold him at a distance in that posture wherein having setled the eternal State of things he will finally shew himself Conceive him as having now gathered home all that that have been recovered to him out of the apostacy and joined them to those numberless legions of innocent and pure spirits about his throne that never offended Conceive him as dispensing rewards pouring out blessings upon the loyal heads and hearts of them that expressed fidelity and duty to him in the time and state of trial and temptation Letting his Glory shine out with bright and direct beams to so many beholding and admiring eyes Giving forth the full and satisfying communications of his love and making Rivers of pleasure flow perpetually to the replenishing the vast enlarged capacities of so innumerable a multitude of grateful adoring spirits to whom it is now sensibly to be perceived how his fulness filleth All in all Take this view of him and let your Faith and Hope thus enter into that which is within the veil And remember there is only a little time between you and that blessed state That then you are to enter into the joy of your Lord so that the very element and region wherein you are to live for ever shall be nothing else but delight and joy In this way of believing foresight and by this lawful and allowed prepossession of future blessedness much surely would be added to your present delight in God Should not the thoughts of him be pleasant to you from whom you are expecting so great things If your delight in him be any at all upon what you have already found and experienced of his goodness It should be abundantly the more upon what you are by his Word encouraged to look for And having thus given some account in what way delight in God is to be exercised and improved It were a charitable hope that there would be little need to propound arguments to perswade unto it But it were an hope not grounded upon common experience which too plainly tells us that though such directions as these are plain and obvious not unknown to Christians but only less considered whence it was not needless here to recommend them yet delight in God obtains little place in the practice of the most There will therefore too probably be still much need of excitation to it And yet because it is not multitude of words that is likely to do the business but the weight of things urged on by a more powerful hand than that of man and that much may be collected to this purpose from what hath been said of the sinfulness of the omission I shall with great brevity offer these things only to be considered Is it not a merciful vouchsafement that the holy God allows you to place your delight on him and invites you to it How much Grace and Love breaths in these words Delight thy self also in the Lord Trust in him was recommended before and now this being added also How plain is it that your ease and rest is the thing designed Is it fit to receive so much kindness with neglect Again He delights in you I speak to such of whom this may be supposed And it is indefinitely said His delights were with the sons of men Think what he is and what you are And at once both wonder and yield And what else have you to delight in what thing will you name that shall supply the place of GOD or be to you in the stead of him Moreover Who should delight in him but you his friends his sons those of his own house Think what life and vigour it will infuse into you and that The joy of the Lord will be your strength How
understood to say all these things may be thine i. e. if thou shalt love him If thou do not thou hast no part in them but in as much as a conditional promise when the condition is performed is equivalent to an absolute These words do as truly import this sense to one that loves God these things are thine as if they were directed to it in particular As truly I say supposing the person do truly love God but not so clearly or with that evidence For this Truth supposing it a Truth I do sincerely love God is not so evident as this That such preparation is made for them that do For this is expresly contained in the Word of God The other is not so but to be collected only by self-inspection and observation of the bent and tenor of my spirit and way Godward yet however the evidence of truth admits of degrees Truth it self doth not All things that are true are equally true And therefore when it is said so great things are prepared for them that love God It is as truly said they are prepared for this man who loves God as this or that particular lover of God is contained in the general notion of a lover of him And then as that publick declaration says not to any these things are prepared for you whether you love God or no or otherwise than as they come under that common notion of lovers of God This inward manifestation is also so accommodate to that as that it says not another thing but the same that is nothing that contradicts and indeed no more than is virtually contained in the other or it applies what is generally said of the lovers of God to this particular lover of him as such that is enabling him to discern himself a lover of him impresses this Truth powerfully upon the heart these great preparations belong to thee as thou art such a one We speak not here of what God can do but what he doth Who can doubt but as God can if he please imprint on the mind the whole System of necessary Truth and on the heart the entire frame of holiness without the help of an external revelation so he can imprint this particular perswasion also without any outward means Nor do we speak of what he more rarely doth but of what he doth ordinarily or what his more usual course and way of procedure is in dealing with the spirits of men The supream Power binds not its own hands We may be sure the inward testimony of the Spirit never is opposite to the outward testimony of his Gospel which is the Spirits testimony also and therefore it never says to an unholy man an enemy to God thou art in a reconcil'd and pardoned state But we cannot be sure he never speaks or suggests things to the spirits of men but by the external testimony so as to make use of that as the means of informing them with what He hath to impart Nay we know he sometime hath imparted things as to Prophets and the Sacred Pen-men without any external means and no doubt excited sutable affections in them to the import of the things imparted and made known Nor do I believe it can ever be proved That he never doth immediately testifie his own special love to holy Souls without the intervention of some part of his external Word made use of as a present instrument to that purpose or that he always doth it in the way of methodical reasoning therefrom Nor do I think that the experience of Christians can signifie much to the deciding of the matter For besides that this or that or a third persons experience cannot conclude any thing against a fourth's and the way of arguing were very infirm what one or two or a thousand or even the greater part of serious Christians even such as have attain'd to some satisfying evidence of their own good estate have not found that no-where is to be found Besides that I say it 's likely few can distinctly tell how it hath been with them in this matter that is what way or method hath been taken with them in begetting a present perswasion at this or that time of Gods peculiar love to them His dealings with persons even the same persons at divers times may be so various his illapses and coming in upon them at some times may have been so sudden and surprizing the motions of thoughts are so quick the observation or animadversion persons usually have of what is transacted in their own spirits is so indistinct and they may be so much taken up with the thing it self as less to mind the way and order of doing it that we may suppose little is to be gathered thence towards the settling of a stated rule in this case Nor is the matter of such moment that we need either be curious in enquiring or positive in determining about it that Principle being once supposed and firmly stuck to That he never says any thing in this matter by his Spirit to the hearts of men repugnant to what the same Spirit hath said in his Word Or That he doth not say a new or a diverse thing from what he hath said there for their assurance that is That he never testifies to any person by his Spirit that he is accepted and beloved of him who may at the same time be concluded by his publiquely-extant constitutions in his Word to be in a state of non-acceptance and disfavour or concerning whom the same thing viz. his acceptance might not be concluded by his Word if it were duly applied to his case Hereby the most momentous danger in this matter is avoided For if that Principle be forelaid enough is done to preclude the vain boasts of such as may be apt to pretend highly to great manifestations of divine love while they carry with them manifest proofs of an unsanctified heart and are under the power of unmortified reigning sin That Principle admitted will convince that their boasted manifestations do only manifest their own ignorance pride and vanity or proceed only from their heated imagination or the worse cause Satanical illusion designed to lull them asleep in sin and the more easily to lead them blind-fold to perdition And this is the main concernment about which we need to be solicitous in this matter which being provided for as it is difficult so it is not necessary to determine whether the Spirit do always not only testifie according to the external revelation but by it also and so only as to concur in the usual way of reasoning from it No doubt but the same Truth may be assented to upon divers grounds sometimes upon rational evidence sometimes upon testimony And some Truths may be seen by immediate mental intuition as being self-evident which also may be capable of demonstration And though this Truth of Gods particular love to such a man be none of those that have self-evidence Yet Gods Spirit as it may by assisting the