A treatise of delighting in God from Psal. xxxvij. 4. Delight thy self also…

To live in a stated habitual subjection to him as the Lord of our lives, How pleasant is it! To have learned to obey; To be accustomed to the yoke; To taste and prove the goodness and acceptableness of his will, through an effectual transformation in the renewal of our minds; To be by the law of the spirit of life made free from the law of sin and death; To be able to speak it as the undisguised sense of our hearts, because thy law is holy, therefore thy servant loveth it; To reckon it a royal law of liberty, so as to account our selves so much the more free, by how much we are the more thus bound; When we affect to be prescribed to, and are become patient of Government, not apt to chafe at the bridle, or spurn and kick at the boundaries that hem us in: This is a temper that hath not more of duty in it than it hath of delight. There is such a thing as delighting in the law of God, according to the inward man, when there is yet a difficulty in suppressing and keeping under inordinate rebellious workings of corrupt nature; unto which there is no desire an indulgence should be given, by having the law attempered to them, but severity rather used to reduce them to a conformity to the law: So will it be, if the law become an heart impression; when it can once ⟨p. 59⟩be truly said, Thy law is in my heart, It will be also with the same sincerity said,¹ I delight to do thy will, O God.

To live in a stated habitual subjection to him as the Lord of our lives, How pleasant is it! To have learned to obey; To be accustomed to the yoke; To taste and prove the goodness and acceptableness of his will, through an effectual transformation in the renewal of our minds; To be by the law of the spirit of life made free from the law of sin and death; To be able to speak it as the undisguised sense of our hearts, because thy law is holy, therefore thy servant loveth it; To reckon it a royal law of liberty, so as to account our selves so much the more free, by how much we are the more thus bound; When we affect to be prescrib'd to, and are become patient of Government, not apt to chafe at the bridle, or spurn and kick at the boundaries that hem us in: This is a temper that hath not more of duty in it than it hath of delight. There is such a thing as delighting in the law of God, according to the inward man, when there is yet a difficulty in suppressing and keeping under inordinate rebellious workings of corrupt nature; unto which there is no desire an indulgence should be given, by having the law attempered to them, but severity rather used to reduce them to a conformity to the law: So will it be, if the law become an heart impression; when it can once