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

How great is the pleasure that arises from self-denial (wherein we do, duly and as we ought, deny our selves); not only as it is an act of duty towards God (of which before,) but as it is an act of justice and mercy towards our own souls! That is, wherein we make a just and true estimate of our selves, do esteem basely of our selves; wherein we are really become base and vile: And wherein there is any thing of real value and excellency in our own ⟨p. 77⟩beings, we value it only upon that account, and in that subordination wherein it is truly valuable!

How pleasant, when we have learned to forsake and abandon our selves, when we are not apt to magnify and applaud, to trust or love, to seek & serve our selves unduly and are only inclined to own, to cleave and stick to our selves, wherein and so far as we ought! when that Idol Self is no longer maintained within us, at the dear expense of our peace, comfort, safety, and eternal hope; An Idol that engrossed the whole substance of our Souls, that exhausted and devoured the strength and vigour of our spirits, which it doth not maintain, and cannot repair; which consumes our time, which keeps all our powers and faculties in a continual exercise and hurry, to make a costly, a vain, an unlawful provision for it! How great is the ease and pleasure which we feel, in being delivered from that soul-wasting Monster, that was fed and sustained at a dearer rate, and with more costly sacrifices and repasts then can be paralleled by either sacred or other History; That hath made more desolation in the souls of men, then ever was made in their Towns & Cities where Idols were served by only humane sacrifices, or monstrous creatures satiated with only such refections; Or where the lives & safety of the most were to be bought out by the constant successive tribute of the blood of not a few! That hath devoured more, and preyed more cruelly upon human lives than Molech, or the Minotaur; When this ⟨p. 78⟩monstrous Idol is destroyed & trodden down, what a Jubilee doth it make, what songs of triumph and praise doth it furnish and supply to the poor soul, now delivered & redeemed from death and bondage. How much more easy and reasonable a service is it (when once the grace of God and their own experience give men to understand it,) to study to please him than themselves? when they feel themselves dead to their former Lord and service,