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

Or have you not been more peccant in your apprehensions of his rules and resolutions for the disposing of men as to their eternal states? Have you not disbelieved the revelation he hath given of his Nature, and express declarations of his mind and purpose touching these matters? Was it not enough for you to have known his gracious propensions ⟨p. 279⟩towards returning sinners, that desire him again for their God, and willingly accept the grace, and submit themselves to the conduct and government of his Son? Should not this have allured and won your hearts to him, and made you, with humble thankful admiration of his grace, resign and yield your selves to be his for ever? Have you not measured your apprehensions of him by the suggestions and misgivings of your guilty jealous hearts; or by your experienced animosity, and the implacableness of your own spirits towards such as have offended you; as if he could forgive no more than you are disposed to do? Have you not opposed your own imaginations of him to his express testifications of himself, that He is Love; Slow to anger, and of great mercy, &c. And that as the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways above your ways, and his thoughts above your thoughts? Have you not (against his plain word) thought him irreconcilable, and averse to the accepting of any atonement for you? prescribed and set bounds to him, and thought your sin greater than could be forgiven? And if hereupon you have not delighted in him, and have found all ingenuous affection towards him stifled within you, as your not-delighting in him, was a foul evil; the more-sinful injurious cause (denying the infinite goodness of his Nature, and giving the lye to his Word) hath made it beyond all expression worse. And further at least consider,

Or have you not been more peccant in your apprehensions of his rules and resolutions for the disposing of men as to their eternal states? Have you not disbelieved the revelation he hath given of his Nature, and express declarations of his mind and purpose touching these matters? Was it not enough for you to have known his gracious propensions ⟨p. 279⟩towards returning sinners, that desire him again for their God, and willingly accept the grace, and submit themselves to the conduct and government of his Son? Should not this have allured and won your hearts to him, and made you, with humble thankful admiration of his grace, resign and yeild your selves to be his for ever? Have you not measured your apprehensions of him by the suggestions and misgivings of your guilty jealous hearts; or by your experienc'd animosity, and the implacableness of your own spirits towards such as have offended you; as if he could forgive no more than you are dispos'd to do? Have you not oppos'd your own imaginations of him to his express testifications of himself, that He is Love; Slow to anger, and of great mercy, &c. And that as the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways above your ways, and his thoughts above your thoughts? Have you not (against his plain word) thought him irreconcilable, and averse to the accepting of any atonement for you? prescribed and set bounds to him, and thought your sin greater than could be forgiven? And if hereupon you have not delighted in him, and have found all ingenuous affection towards him stifled within you, as your not-delighting in him, was a foul evil; the more-sinful injurious cause (denying the infinite goodness of his Nature, and giving the lye to his Word) hath made it beyond all expression worse. And further at least consider,