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as the sands of the sea-shore?

Would not your

earthly temper, your strangeness and averseness to him, vanish and wear off, if you were more exercised in actual delightful converse with him? Therefore the permanency and increase of those mentioned evils, and that they have got such settled rooting in you, is all to be charged upon your not applying yourselves to more frequent actual delight in God.

Consider also, what further may follow hereupon, namely, the languishment and decays of your inward man-the difficulty you find to trust in God, when you are reduced to straits, (for who would commit his concerns to one he does not love?)-your impatience of adverse and cross emergencies, that may often befall you-your aptness to vexation or despondency-the easy victory a temptation hath over you, (as, surely, he who delights in God is sooner drawn away from God, or into sin against him,)—your less usefulness in your place and station-your want of courage, resolution, and zeal for God, (which are best maintained by delight and the relishes of a sweet complacency taken in him,)—your sluggishness in a course of well doi g-the sense of a toilsome heavy labour in religion, that it begets weariness without rest,-and lastly, your continual bondage by the fear of death, (which one would not dread, apprehending it only a removal into the presence of Him in whom one delights) all these things (which might have been distinctly insisted on, and more expressly accommodated to the present purpose,

but that I would not be over tedious, and that somewhere else some or other of them may fall again in our way,) bring in great and weighty additions to the evil and guiltiness of this sin, and much tend to fill up its measure, even to pressing down and running over. For how just is it, to impute to it what it naturally causes, and lay its own impure and viperous births at its own door!

Though this discourse hath been drawn out to a greater length than was intended, it will not be lost labour, if, by all that has been said, any that fear God shall be brought to apprehend more of the odiousness of this sin, and if the selfindulgent thought be banished far from them, that this is either an indifferent matter, or one of their more harmless inadvertencies and omissions. And as it is to be hoped, that the apprehension of the evil of this neglect will prompt and quicken serious and considerate persons to set upon the enjoined duty, it will be the less necessary to enlarge much in that other kind of discourse, which we now come to, namely, the invitation to this duty.

CHAPTER V.

Invitation to the Duty of delighting in God.

THE invitation to the exercise of this duty ought, if it were possible, to be a kind of manuduction; it is needful we be not only called and pressed, but even led into it. This then we are to endeavour, the giving of some plain prescriptions, that may put us into an easy and direct way of falling expeditely upon this delightful work.

Here it must be considered, that all, as hath been said, are not in an equal disposition to it; some are more averse, others less, but all too much. Therefore are we to begin as low as their case may require, who are less disposed; and so proceeding on in our course, somewhat may fall in more suitable to them who are in some disposition to it, but do yet need-as who do not?some help and furtherance.

First, therefore, it is necessary, that you deliberately and resolvedly design the thing itself. Propose to yourselves delighting in God as a business, to which you will designedly and with stedfast purpose apply your whole soul. Content not yourselves with light roving thoughts about it, which many have about divers matters, which they never think fit to engage themselves

in. Determine the matter fully in your own heart, and say, "Many projects I have tried in my time, sundry things I have turned my mind unto, to little purpose; I will now see, what there is of delight to be found in God." The sloth and aversion of a backward heart must be overcome by resolution; and that resolution well weighed, deliberately taken up, and deeply fixed, that it may last and overcome. And why should you not be resolved on this point? Is this a matter always to be waved? Know you another way to be happy? Are you yet to learn, that a reasonable soul needs the fulness of God to make it happy, and that there is no other God but one? Can there be any dispute or doubt in the case, when there is but one thing to be done, besides yielding one's self to be miserable for ever? And what need of that, while yet there is one way to avoid it? Surely, that there is but one, is better than if there were a thousand. You need not now be long in choosing.

To talk of any difficulty in the matter, is a strange impertinency; for who would oppose difficulty to necessity, or allege the thing is hard, which must be done? must it be done, and never be attempted; or attempted, and not be resolved upon? You have nothing to do to read further, who will not digest this first counsel, and here settle your resolution, "I will apply myself to a course of delight in God." If ever you will be in earnest, you must return to this point; you will but waste time to no purpose, if you will not now set down your resolution; that is, that you will seek a

happiness for your soul,-too long already neg. lected!-a happiness that may satisfy and last, and (where only it is to be found) in the blessed God, by setting yourselves to delight in him;-since nothing can make you happy, wherein you delight not.

Then next consider your present state toward God, do you see you must come to this point, of having your delight in God? In what posture then are your affairs towards Him? How do things stand between Him and you? You well know you were unacceptable to him, and his enemy; and that his justice and holy nature obliged him to hold you as such, though he never gave you ground to think him implacable. Can you delight in an enemy, who-as matters in that case stand-must be feared as ready to avenge himself on you, and as having whet his glittering sword, and made the arrow ready upon the string, directed against your very heart? Apprehend this to have been your case, and most deservedly, that you were an impure hateful wretch, deformed and loathsome, one that could yield the holy God no matter of delight, full of enmity and contrariety to him, and in whom he could not but find much cause of most just hatred. Remember, you were one of his revolted creatures, under his most deserved wrath and curse. Know at how vast a distance you were from delighting in him, and from a state that could admit of it. Consider, is this still your case? Do not rashly think

it altered; or that you have

nothing to do, but

out of hand to rush upon the business of delighting in God.

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