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

7. Joy as it is participated in this life increaseth more hungering and desire after the object we desire, to have more of it still; Take any Object of delight which we do not perfectly enjoy, and oh how it quickens and stirs up the appetite to have more still, for although perfect joy doth fully satiate the desire, and extinguish all thirst, because as Aquinas saith well, Gaudium se habet ad desiderium, sicut quies ad motum, and so when the stone is come to the centre, it moveth no further, yet because in this life we have not a perfect fruition of God, only have some bunches of the Grapes of Canaan, not Canaan it self; Therefore the sweetness we have in God or Christ doth more stir up the desire after God, as you see in David, those inchoate enjoyments of God did make him restless and impatient for further Communion with him; Hence David exhorteth to taste how good God is, if once we had but an experimental sweetness of the Excellency of his love, we should still be breathing after him, as David, Psal. 119. My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to him at all times; But especially the heavenly joy produceth this admirable effect so contrary to flesh and blood, that it makes a man look for the coming of Christ, and hastening it in his prayers and desires, as that which will complete his joy, Here sorrow and joy will be mixed together, but there is pure and unmixed joy, and that to all Eternity; Oh what a wilderness, what a place of banishment is this world to such a tempered heart; This is the valley of Tears, and that is the mountain of joys.

7. Joy as it is participated in this life encreaseth more hungring and desire after the object we desire, to have more of it still; Take any Object of delight which we do not perfectly enjoy, and oh how it quickens and stirs up the appetite to have more still, for although perfect joy doth fully satiate the desire, and extinguish all thirst, because as Aquinas saith well, Gaudium se habet ad desiderium, sicut quies ad motum, and so when the stone is come to the center, it moveth no further, yet because in this life we have not a perfect fruition of God, only have some bunches of the Grapes of Canaan, not Canaan it self; Therefore the sweetnesse we have in God or Christ doth more stir up the desire after God, as you see in David, those inchoate enjoyments of God did make him restlesse and impatient for further Communion with him; Hence David exhorteth to taste how good God is, if once we had but an experimental sweetnesse of the Excellency of his love, we should still be breathing after him, as David,