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

If indeed such a thing (as you seem to hope) be in you; at sometime or other you may perceive which way it beats and tends. The Soul in which it hath place is biased by it Godward; and though often it is not discernible, it sometimes shows its inclination. Other men, and meaner creatures, sleep sometimes, and then their most rooted dispositions appear not; when they are awake they bewray them, and let them be seen in their actions, motions and pursuits. The renewed Soul hath its sleeping intervals too, and what propensions it hath towards God is little discernible, (and yet even then it sometimes dreams of him, at least between sleeping and waking;¹ I sleep, but my heart waketh, it is the voice of my beloved): But if you seriously commune with your selves in your more wakeful ⟨p. 270⟩seasons, you may perceive what your hearts seek and crave; some such sense as this may be read in them,² The desire of our Souls is unto thy Name, O Lord, and to the remembrance of thee. One thing have I desired, that will I seek after, ³to behold the beauty (the delight, as the word signifies) of the Lord. And when you observe this discovered inclination, you may see what it is that in your too wonted course you repress and strive against. That Divine Birth calls for suitable nutriment, more tastes how gracious the Lord is. You will have it feed upon ashes, upon wind and vanity; or (although it had the best Parent, it hath so ill a Nurse) when it asks bread, you give it a stone, and let it be stung by a Scorpion: And the injury strikes higher than at it alone, even (as is obvious) at the very Author of this Divine Production; Which therefore we add as a further aggravation of this evil, viz.

If indeed such a thing (as you seem to hope) be in you; at sometime or other you may perceive which way it beats and tends. The Soul in which it hath place is byass'd by it Godward; and though often it is not discernible, it sometimes shews its inclination. Other men, and meaner creatures, sleep sometimes, and then their most rooted dispositions appear not; when they are awake they bewray them, and let them be seen in their actions, motions and pursuits. The renewed Soul hath its sleeping intervals too, and what propensions it hath towards God is little discernible, (and yet even then it sometimes dreams of him, at least between sleeping and waking;