The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

Faith directly tends, in that double office before mentioned, to excite and foment this joy. As it assents to the truth of the Gospel-revelation it realizes the object,¹ is the substance and evidence of the invisible glory. As it unites the soul with God through Christ in a fiducial and obediential closure, it ascertains our interest therein, and is our actual acceptance of our blessedness it self; for when we take God through Christ to be our God, what is it? but to accept him as our eternal and satisfying portion, whom we are after fully to enjoy in the vision and participation of his glorious excellencies, and infinite fullness. Which two acts of faith we have mentioned together in one text.—They were persuaded of the promises and embraced them; the former respecting the truth of the promise, the latter the goodness of the thing promised. And hereupon they confessed themselves (as it follows) Pilgrims and Strangers on earth which abdication of the earth, as none of their country could not be, but that, through their faith, they had a joyous pre-apprehension of that better state. That confession did manifestly involve in it a lively joy, springing from the sight and embrace of that more taking distant good; which the promise presented them with; whence ⟨p. 367⟩they could not think it enough to be such to themselves in their own thoughts, and the temper of their minds; but they cannot forbear (so overcoming were their sights and tastes) to give it out, to speak, and look, and live, as those that were carried up in their spirits above this earth; and who did even disdain to own themselves in any other relation to it, then that of Foreigners and Strangers.

Faith directly tends, in that double office before mentioned, to excite and foment this joy. As it assents to the truth of the Gospel-revelation it reallizes the object,¹ is the substance and evidence of the invisible glory. As it unites the soul with God through Christ in a siducial and obediential closure, it ascertains our interest therein, and is our actual acceptance of our blessedness it self; for when we take God through Christ to be our God, what is it? but to accept him as our eternal and satisfying portion, whom we are after fully to enjoy in the vision and participation of his glorious excellencies, and infinite fulness. Which two acts of faith we have mentioned together in one text.—They were perswaded of the promises and embraced them; the former respecting the truth of the promise, the latter the goodness of the thing promised. And hereupon they confessed themselves (as it follows) Pilgrims and Strangers on earth which abdication of the earth, as none of their country could not be, but that, through their faith, they had a joyous pre-apprehension of that better state. That confession did manifestly involve in it a lively joy, springing from the sight and embrace of that more taking distant good; which the promise presented them with; whence