A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

2. Spiritual knowledge is most delightful, Prov. 24.13, 14. The knowledge of wisdom is said to be to the soul, as the honey and honey-comb to the taste. The knowledge of truth which is the proper object of the understanding doth usually carry something of pleasure in it, and the more excellency there appears in any truth, the more delectable a thing it is to know it. But there be no truths so excellent as Spiritual ones, such as concern God and Christ and the mysteries of Salvation, and therefore the knowledge of none is so delightful. What high and refined delights doth the contemplation of God in all his holy attributes and excellencies afford to glorious Angels, and the Spirits of just men made perfect? How do those Heavenly creatures despise the gross and faeculent pleasures of the sensual World? And though Saints here upon Earth cannot rise so high in their delights, because not so high in their knowledge, yet they may find incomparably more pleasure in knowing the things of God, even according to their present capacity, than the greatest voluptuaries can in the enjoyment of the creature. If a Philosopher can take more pleasure in the study of nature, or a Mathematician in his demonstrations than a sensualist can in his feasts and treatments; if lines and angles can do more for the mind of the one, than meats and drinks for the palate of the other, How far then do the delights a gracious soul finds in the study and search of Divine truths transcend both? And this pleasure is yet more heightened by the Interest Saints have in the truths they know; when they are not only excellent in themselves, but of the greatest consequence to them. To know God, and that as their God, to know Christ, and that he is a Christ for them, to know the Saints privileges, and that they belong to them, to know the promises, and that they have a share in them, to know there is a Heaven, a state of future glory and blessedness, and that themselves are concerned in it, this must needs be a delightful knowledge. You can take some pleasure in seeing a rich country, and pleasant seat, and fine houses, but much more if you see them as they that are to inherit them. If a natural man may take some ⟨p. 129⟩pleasure in the mere notion of divine truths; how much more may he do it that is concerned in them?

2. Spiritual knowledg is most delightful,