An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

4. The soul-mercies will abide for ever, thou canst not lose thy title and interest in them; but all these earthly comforts are as the flower which presently withereth; thou hast them to day, and they may be removed to morrow. Be sure then, that thy blessing of God, keepeth that method which the nature of mercies doth require above all things. Let thy soul melt with joy in blessing of God, for what he hath done to thy soul.

Lastly, Consideration, remembering, and fixed meditation upon the mercies of God, is that which will greatly inflame the soul to give all glory and honour to him. The heart is not easily and quickly put into a blessing frame; there must be polishing and fashioning of it; and there is no such way for this, as true consideration. When David calls upon himself so much to glorify God, this implieth, that he found his soul dull, heavy and unfit for that duty. The heart will not boil over in meditation, unless it be long upon this fire. Psal. 45. 1. ⟨p. 133⟩David there calls his inditing, the boiling or bubbling of his heart; we are apt to forget Gods mercies, or when we do think of them, they are but transitory and ambulatory, It is Gods goodness, or I bless God, and there is all; whereas when we bless God, our souls should be raised up into divine inflammations; we should be as Elijah, who was carried up to Heaven in a Chariot of fire; whereas the soul is at other times abridged or epitomized, but in short characters, in the praises of God it should be voluminous, as you see David in Psalms 103, 104, 105, 106, and 107. very large in the enumeration of all Gods benefits, which intimateth, That the soul ought to be extended in all its dimensions, while it sets upon this work. And certainly, meditation is like the birds sitting on the egg, not leaving it, till it hath produced a live young one. This will so often work upon the soul, that at last there will be heavenly and supernatural life; for several aggravations will the meditating heart find in every blessing it doth possess. As