A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

It is our fault, if we suffer Satan with light temptations, ordinarily to interrupt our spiritual mirth, or to detain us in dumps and pensiveness. Did we but carefully maintain our ⟨p. 232⟩faith, it would do away all d stu•bance which is within us against our selves, and tame the rebellion of lust against the spirit of the mind renewed; it would secure us against the power of enemies inward or outward, that they should not be able to hurt us, much less to prevail against us, and repress or vanquish all perturbations, which spiritual wickednesses, unbelief, want of godly contentation, defects in our condition, might occasion: it would expel unquietness, keep under passions, allay fears and griefs, and calm the boisterous storms of discontent. Let us keep our faith, and it will keep our Joy: It will keep it an even ever-flowing current, without ebb & flow, clouds and eclipses: let us increase our faith, it will increase our joy. But to what measure of Joy may a grown Christian attain,¹ if he be careful to preserve and stir up his faith? It is a small thing for him to come to an ordinary pitch of cheerfulness, except his joy exceeds the mirth of a worldling in the quality and quantity of it. If his mirth be not a sweeter and more ravishing mirth, of an higher kind, of a more pure nature, of a most constant tenure, then any carnal mans what-ever, he disparages faith. The Christians joy,² is joy unspeakable and glorious, joy in the Holy Ghost, another manner of Joy then ever entered into the heart of a natural man. So is that text to be construed,³ eye hath not seen, &c. not chiefly of the joys of Heaven, which here the spiritual man himself cannot tell what they shall be, but of the Gospels joy,⁴ of the wine and fatlings already prepared, and now revealed to the Believer by the Spirit: which if the carnal man scorn and scoff at, it is because he cannot comprehend it. It is a more pure and constant joy, which needs not the support of earthly delights: his joy is within, he joys in the favour of God, which is unchangeable. It beseems not a Christian to be merry in one estate, dumpish in another, as if their joy depended upon their outward condition. No, no, the favour of