CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

Secondly, To this Christian Joy is required a knowledge of God, and faith in him, as revealed in the Word. As there cannot be any love or delight in what we know not; so neither any joy. The brute beasts have no joy properly, because they have no knowledge; They have a natural delight, but that is not truly joy. Infants may have grace, yet have no actual joy; Therefore when John Baptist a babe in the womb, did leap for joy, it was extraordinary; and this is the reason why ignorant and carnal men are wholly destitute of all heavenly joy. They have no knowledge, no spiritual illumination; so that as the blind man cannot delight in pleasant colours, nor the deaf man rejoice in curious music, neither can the natural man rejoice in heavenly and holy Objects; for he knoweth no better, he is not acquainted with any other Comfort or Consolation, but what is in the bowels of the creature.

Secondly, To this Christian Joy is required a knowledge of God, and faith in him, as revealed in the Word. As there cannot be any love or delight in what we know not; so neither any joy. The bruit beasts have no joy properly, because they have no knowledge; They have a naturall delight, but that is not truely joy. Infants may have grace, yet have no actuall joy; Therefore when John Baptist a babe in the womb, did leap for joy, it was extraordinary; and this is the reason why ignorant and carnal men are wholly destitute of all heavenly joy. They have no knowledge, no spiritual illumination; so that as the blinde man cannot delight in pleasant colours, nor the deaf man rejoyce in curious musick, neither can the naturall man rejoyce in heavenly and holy Objects; for he knoweth no better, he is not acquainted with any other Comfort or Consolation, but what is in the bowels of the creature.

Thirdly, There is required a sanctified and heavenly frame of heart. For such as a man is, such is his joy. The voluptuous man rejoiceth in his pleasures, the intellectual man doth so rejoice in his studies, and finding out of truth, that some have forgot their time of food, yea have not attended to their lives, so great hath their joy been in such contemplations. Thus the people of God, being made new creatures, and made partakers of a Divine Nature, they now become to love and delight in those Objects, which once they hated and abhorred; They find all the Consolations from the creatures contemptible in respect of God, concerning whom they say with David, The Lord is my portion, and whom have I in Heaven, but thee, and in earth, in comparison of thee? The old Rule is Simile gaudet simile; The heavenly heart delights in heavenly Objects. Heaven it self, and all the Glory of it, do not, or cannot affect a wicked man, no more then fine flowers or pearls do a Swine: So that this duty of rejoicing in God, is altogether impossible to an ignorant carnal man, they can no more in their souls thus be raised up to God then in their bodies they can fly in the air. As our vile earthly bodies must be made spiritual and immortal, ere they can be filled full of agility, and be enabled to meet the Lord in the air: So these souls of ours must be renewed and sanctified, ere they can take any delight in that which is good.