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3. Holiness removeth fears and troubles, and therefore must needs be a pleasant state. It removeth the fears of the wrath of God, and of damnation, and the fears of all destructive evils. It tends to heal the wounded soul, and pacify the clamorous conscience, and abate all worldly and groundless sorrows, for which the wicked have no true cure.

4. Holiness is the destruction of sin, and sin is the cause of all calamities, and therefore holiness must needs be plea

sant.

5. Holiness doth consist in rejoicing graces, that are exceeding pleasant in the exercise; as faith, hope, love, patience, &c. yea it consisteth in joy itself; Rom. xiv. 17.

6. It fits the soul for communion with God, who is the fountain of delights; and it brings us near him, and acquaints us with him as a God of love; and therefore must needs be a pleasant state.

7. You see by experience, that when once men have tried a holy life, they think they can never have enough of it. The more holy they are, the more holy they would be. He that hath most would fain have more. And the weakest desireth no less than to be perfect. And do you think men that have tried it, would so long after more and more, if it were not pleasant?

Judge also by the labour and diligence of the godly, who "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and make it the principal business of their lives. Would they make all this ado for nothing? or for that which is a matter of no delight?

Judge also by the delights which they voluntarily forsake, when they let go all their sinful pleasures, and renounce all the glory of the world; would they make this exchange if they had not found a more pleasant course, and that which tends to everlasting pleasure?

8. You see also that the truly godly, when once they have tried a holy life, will never go back again to their former pleasures, but loathe the very remembrance of them. It is not all the honours, and riches, and pleasures in the world, that can hire them to forsake a holy life. Sure therefore they find it the most pleasant course; if not in sensible delights, yet at least in easing their consciences, and securing their minds from the terrors that sinful pleasures

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pectation, they have leisure enough, and temptations too many, to turn back into the state from whence they came. But how would they abhor such a motion as this!

9. If holiness were not a pleasant thing, it could not help us to bear up under all our afflictions, nor make us rejoice in tribulation, as it doth. That which can sweeten gall and wormwood must needs be very sweet itself. That which can make reproach, and scorn, and poverty, and imprisonment either sweet or tolerable, is sure itself a pleasant thing.

10. Lastly, if holiness were not pleasant, it could not make death itself so easy, nor take off its terrors, nor cause the martyrs to suffer so joyfully for Christ. Death is the king of terrors, and so bitter a cup, that it must needs be a pleasant thing indeed, that can sweeten it.

Besides all this that hath been said, let me briefly have some general aggravations of the delights of holiness, and compare it as we go with the delights of the ungodly.

1. The delights of holiness are the most great, and glorious, and sublime delights. They are fetched from the most great and glorious things. It is God, and his grace, and everlasting glory that feed our pleasures. Whereas, the delights of sensual men are fed with trifles. What do they rejoice in but the fooleries of sin, and the filthiness of their own transgressions! What is it that contenteth them, but a dream of honour, or the good will and word of mortal meu, or a brutish sportfulness, or the pleasing of the itch of lust, or the provision that they have laid up for the flesh? The treasures of a kingdom excel not the treasure of a child's pinbox the thousandth part so much as heaven excels the treasures of the ungodly. Judge therefore by the matter that feeds their pleasure, which of the two is the more pleasant life; to sport in their own shame, and laugh at the brink of misery with the ungodly, or to delight ourselves in the love. of God, and rejoice in the assured hope of glory with the true believer?

2. The delights of holiness are the most rational, wellgrounded, sure delights. They are not delusory, nor grounded on mistakes or fancies. They are warranted by the truth and all-sufficiency of God, and the certainty of his promise, and the immutability of his counsels, and the sure reward prepared for his saints. None but a lying, malicious devil, or his instruments that participate of his nature, or a blind

corrupted, partial flesh, will ever go about to question the foundations of our faith and comforts. The hopes and comforts that are built upon this rock, will never fall, nor make us ashamed.

But the ungodly rejoice in their own delusions. It is ignorance and error that they are beholden to for their mirth. They laugh in their sleep, or as madmen in their distraction. Did they know that satan rejoiceth in their joys, and that an offended God is always present, and how poor a matter it is that they rejoice in, it would mar their mirth. If they saw the hell that they are near, or well considered where they stand, and what a case their souls are in, they would have little list to play or laugh. If they knew aright the shortness of their pleasures, and the length of their sorrows, and in what a doleful case their wealth and fleshly delights will leave them, it would turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation. So that they rejoice but (as a sick man in a frenzy, or as a fool upon some good news to him that is false) upon mere mistake.

3. The delights of holiness are the most pure delights, and most entire and complete. There is no evil in it mixed with the good, and therefore nothing to interrupt the joy. Our joys indeed are too much interrupted; but that is not from any hurt that is in a holy life; but by the contrary sin, which holiness must work out. If men take poison, let them not blame nature that strives against it, if they are sick; but let them blame themselves, and the poison, that puts nature to expel it. In holiness itself there is nothing but good, and therefore nothing that should grieve us.

But it is far otherwise with sensual delights. As they are sinful, they are wholly evil. As they are natural, feeding upon the creature alone, they are as it is, a mixture of vanity and vexation. Every creature hath its unsuitableness and imperfection, by which it disturbeth even where it pleaseth, and troubleth where it comforteth, and frustrateth and disappointeth more than it satisfieth. The more we love it, usually the more we suffer by it. That thing which we most excessively love, is ordinarily our sharpest scourge. That friend whom we most excessively love, is usually our greatest sorrow; either by their failing our expectations, or by our failing theirs, or our insufficiency to accomplish the good which we desire of them. If they prove unkind, it is more

grievous than the unkindness of many others. If they prove faithful, how deeply do we suffer with them in all their sufferings! Their wants do pinch us as our own. Their reproaches are our shame. Their losses take as much from us. Their sickness paineth us. Their death half killeth us. And he that is so happy as to have many such friends, is so unhappy as to have more burdens, fears, and griefs to suffer, and more deaths to die than other men. But especially to ungodly men, these earthly comforts are uncomfortable, because they have none of the divine delights that are the kernel and the spirits, but take up with the shell or husk. And because their mirth is mixed with their own misery, which conscience sometimes gripes them for with such deep remorse as cools their comforts. And some thoughts of the shortness of their pleasures will be stepping in, and ending them before their time. So that the bitterness of worldly things surpasseth the delight.

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4. The delights of holiness are deep and solid, and thereestablish and corroborate the hearts. But sensual delights are like children's laughter; they are slight, and outside, and flitting, and vain. As children laugh in one breath, and cry in the next; so worldly joys are followed at the heels by sorrows. For they lie not deep, and fortify not the heart against distresses, as the delights of faith and holiness do.

5. The pleasures of the saints are the gift of God, and allowed of by him; commanded by his word, and promoted by his promises and mercies, and are but the fruits of his everlasting love. And being so divine, they must needs be excellent.

But the pleasures of ungodly, worldly men are partly forbidden and condemned by God, and partly contradicted and confounded, by his terrible threatenings, and the discovery of his wrath. "There is no peace saith the Lord, to the wicked;" Isa. xlviii. 22. lvii. 21. God doth disown and protest against their peace. If they will keep it, and make it good, it must be against his will. He forbiddeth joy to a rebellious people. "Rejoice not O Israel for joy as other people for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God;" Hos. ix. 1. He calleth them to "weeping and mourning, and renting of the heart;" Joel ii. 12, 13. Hear what God saith to them in their greatest pleasures, James v. 1-5. "Go to

now ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days: Ye have lived in pleasure on earth, and been wanton. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter- A man would think it should either turn them, or torment them, and fill their hearts with continual horror, to find God thus solemnly protesting against their peace, and sentencing them to woe and sorrows.

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6. The pleasures of the godly are clean and noble, and honest and honourable. They delight in things of the greatest worth, for which they had their natures, their time, and all. But the pleasures of sinners are base and filthy. They delight as swine in wallowing in the mire: and as the dog to eat his own vomit; 2 Pet. ii. 22. They delight to wrong the God that made them, and by whom they live, and to cross the ends of their lives and mercies; and to drive away all true delights, and to undo themselves. This is the matter of their delight.

7. The devil is a great enemy to the delights of holiness; which is a sign that they are excellent. He doth what he can to keep men from a holy state, lest they should meet with the happiness that attends it. And if he prevail not in this his chief design, he doth what he can to fill up the lives of believers with calamities. All the enemies (that he can raise up against them, shall by temptations, scorns, or injuries, assault their comforts. All the storms that he can raise shall be sure to fall upon them. How busy is he to fill them with fears and doubtings! and to cast perplexing thoughts into their minds! or to mislead them in some perplexing ways! and fasten on them entangling doctrines, or disquieting principles! How cunningly and diligently will he argue against their peace and comforts, and seek to hide the love of God, and dishonour the blood, and grace, and covenant of Christ, and cross the comforting workings of the Spirit! How subtilly will he question all our evidences, and extenuate all God's comforting mercies, and do all that he can that the godly may have a hell on earth, though they shall have none hereafter. It is sure an excellent joy and pleasure, which satan is so great an enemy to.

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