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holy, heavenly delight: exercise yourselves, therefore, in believing contemplations of the things unseen.'-It must not be now and then a glance of the eye of the soul towards God, or a seldom salutation, which you would give a stranger; but a walking with him, and frequent addresses of the soul unto him, which must help you to the delights which believers find in their communion with him.

Direct. x1. Especially let faith go frequently to heaven for renewed matter of delight, and frequently think what God will be to you there for ever, and with what full, everlasting delight he will satiate your souls.'-As heaven is the place of our full delight, so the foresight and foretaste of it, is the highest delight, which on earth is to be attained. And a soul that is strange to the foresight of heaven, will be as strange to the true delights of faith.

Direct. XII. It is a great advantage to holy delight, to be much in the more delightful parts of worship; as in thanksgiving and praise, and a due celebration of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.'-Of which I have spoken in the foregoing Directions.

Direct. XIII. A skilful, experienced pastor, who is able to open the treasury of the Gospel, and publicly and privately to direct his flock in the work of self-examination, and the heavenly exercises of faith, is a great help to Christians' spiritual delight.'-The experiences of believers teach them this: How oft do they go away refreshed and revived, who came to the assembly, or to their pastors in great dis tress, and almost in despair? It is the office and delight of the ministers of Christ, to be "helpers of his people's faith and joy1."

Direct. XIV, Make use of all that prosperity and lawful pleasure, which God giveth you in outward things, for the increase and advantage of your delight in God.'-Though corrupted nature is apter to abuse prosperity and earthly delights, than any other state, to the diverting of the heart from God; and almost all the devil's poison is given in sugared or gilded allectives; yet the primitive, natural use of prosperity, of health, and plenty, and honour, and peace, is to lead up the mind to God, and give us a taste of his spiritual delights! That the neighbourhood of the body might be

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the soul's advantage; and that God, who in this life will be seen by us but in a glass, and will give out his comforts by his appointed means, might make advantage of sensitive delights, for his own reception, and the communications of his love and pleasure unto man: that, as soon as the eye, or ear, or taste, perceiveth the delightfulness of their several objects, the holy soul might presently take the hint and motion, and be carried up to delightful thoughts of him that giveth us all these delights. And, doubtless, so far as we can make use of a delight in friends, or food, or health, or habitations, or any accommodations of our bodies, to fur ther our delight in God, or to remove those melancholy fears or sorrows, which would hinder this spiritual delight, it is not only lawful, but our duty to use them, with that moderation as tendeth to this end.

Direct. xv. Make use of affliction, as a great advan tage for your purest and unmixed delight in God.'-The servants of Christ have usually never so much of the joy in the Holy Ghost, as in their greatest sufferings: especially if they be for his sake. The soul never retireth so readily and delightfully to God, as when it hath no one else that will receive it, or that it can take any comfort from. God comforteth us most, when he hath made us see that none else can or will relieve us. When all friends have forsaken us save only one, that one is sweeter to us then than ever. When all our house is fired down except one room, that room is pleasanter to us than it was before. He that hath lost one eye, will love the other better than before. In prosperity our delights in God are too often corrupted by a mixture of sensual delight: but all that remaineth when the creature is gone, is purely divine.

Direct. xvI. Labour by self-examination, deliberately managed under the direction of an able spiritual guide, to settle your souls in the well-grounded persuasion of your special interest in God and heaven: and then suffer not satan, by his troublesome importunity, to renew your doubts, or molest your peace.'-An orderly, well-guided, diligent, self-examination, may quickly do much to shew you your condition: and if you are convinced that the truth of grace is in you, let not fears and suspicion go for reason, and cause you to deny that which you cannot, without the gain

saying of your consciences, deny. You see not the design of the devil in all this: his business is by making you fear, that you have no interest in God, to destroy your delight in him, and in his service: and next that, to make you, through weariness, forsake him; and either despair, or turn to sensual delights. Foresee and prevent these designs of satan, and suffer him not at his pleasure to raise new storms of fears and troubles, and draw you to deny your Father's mercies, or to suspect his proved love.

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Direct. XVII. Damp not your delights by wilful sin.’— If you grieve your Comforter, he will grieve you, or leave you to grieve yourselves. In that measure that any known sin is cherished, delight in God will certainly decay.

Direct. XVIII. Improve your observation of wicked men's sensual delights, to provoke your souls to delight in God.'-Think with yourselves; shall hawks, and hounds, and pride, and filthiness, and cards, and dice, and plays, and sports, and luxury, and idleness, and foolish talk, or worldly honours, be so delightful to these deluded sinners, and shall not my God and Saviour, his love and promises, and the hopes of heaven, be more delightful to me? Is there any comparison between the matter of my delights and theirs?

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Direct. XIX. Labour to overcome those fears of death, which would damp your joys in the foresight of everlasting joys.'-As nothing more feedeth holy delights than the forethoughts of heaven; so there is scarce any thing that more hindereth our delight in those forethoughts, than the fear of interposing death. See what I have written against this fear, in my "Treatise of Self-denial," and "Saints' Rest," and in my "Treatise of Death, as the last Enemy," and in my "Last Work of a Believer."

Direct. xx. Pretend not any other religious duties, against your delight in God and holiness; but use them all in their proper subserviency to this.'-Penitent sorrow is only a purge to cast out those corruptions which hinder you from relishing your spiritual delights. Use it therefore as physic, only when there is need; and not for itself, but only to this end; and turn it not into your ordinary food. Delight in God is the health of your souls: say not you cannot have while to be healthful, because you must take

physic, or that you take physic against health, or instead of health, but for your health. So take up no sorrow against your delight in God, or instead of it, but for it, and so much as promoteth it. See the Directions for love beforegoing.

By this time you may see, that holy delight adjoined to love, is the principal part of our religion, and that they mistake it which place it in any thing else. And therefore how inexcusable are all the ungodly enemies or neglecters of a holy life. If it had been a life of grief and toil, they had had some pretence; but to fly from pleasure, and refuse delight, and such delight, is inexcusable. Be it known to you, sinners, God calleth you not to forsake delight, but to accept it to change your delight in sin and vanity, for delight in him. You dare not say but this is better: you cannot have your houses and lands for ever, nor your lust and luxury for ever, but you may have God for ever. And do you hope to live for ever with him, and have you no delight in him? Men deal with Christ as the Papists with the reformed churches: because we reject their formalities and ceremonious toys, they say we take down all religion. So because we would call men from their brutish pleasures, they say we would let them have no pleasure: for the epicure thinks, when his luxury, lust, and sport are gone, all is gone. Call a sluggard from his bed, or a glutton from his feast, to receive a kingdom, and he will grudge, if he observe only what you would take from him, and not what you give him in its stead. When earthly pleasures end in misery, then who would not wish they had preferred the holy, durable delights?

Grand Direct. xiv. 'Let Thankfulness to God thy Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator, be the very temperament of thy soul, and faithfully expressed by thy tongue and life.'

Though our thankfulness is no benefit to God, yet he is pleased with it, as that which is suitable to our condition, and sheweth the ingenuity and honesty of the heart. An unthankful person is but a devourer of mercies, and a grave to bury them in, and one that hath not the wit and honesty to know and acknowledge the hand that giveth them; but the thankful looketh above himself, and returneth all, as he is able, to him from whom they flow.

True thankfulness to God is discerned from counterfeit, by these qualifications: 1. True thankfulness having a just estimate of mercies comparatively, preferreth spiritual and everlasting mercies, before those that are merely corporal and transitory. But carnal thankfulness chiefly valueth carnal mercies, though notionally it may confess that the spiritual are the greater. 2. True thankfulness inclineth the soul to a spiritual rejoicing in God, and to a desire after more of his spiritual mercies: but carnal thankfulness is only a delight in the prosperity of the flesh, or the delusion and carnal security of the mind, inclining men to carnal, empty mirth, and to a desire of more such fleshly pleasure, plenty, or content: as a beast that is full fed, will skip, and play, and shew that he is pleased with his state: or if he have ease, he would not be molested. 3. True thankfulness kindleth in the heart, a love to the giver above the gift, or at least a love to God above our carnal prosperity and pleasure, and bringeth the heart still nearer unto God, by all his mercies. But carnal thankfulness doth spring from carnal self-love, or love of fleshly prosperity; and is moved by it, and is subservient to it, and loveth God and thanketh him but so far as he gratifieth or satisfieth the flesh. A childlike thankfulness maketh us love our Father more than his gift, and desire to be with him, in his arms; but a dog doth love you and is thankful to you, but for feeding him : he loveth you in subordination to his appetite and his bones. 4. True thankfulness inclineth us to obey and please him, that obligeth us by his benefits. But carnal thankfulness puts God off with the hypocritical, complimental thanks of the lips, and spends the mercy in the pleasing of the flesh, and makes it but the fuel of lust and sin.. 5. True thankfulness to God is necessarily transcendent, as his mercies are transcendent. The saving of our souls from hell, and promising us eternal life, besides the giving us our very beings and all that we have, do oblige us to be totally and absolutely his, that is so transcendent a benefactor to us, and causeth the thankful person to devote and resign himself, and all that he hath to God, to answer so great an obligation. But carnal thankfulness falls short of this absolute and total dedication, and still leaveth the sinner in the power of self-love, devoting himself (really) to himself, and

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