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

4. Acquaint your self with the way and terms upon which his Gospel declares him reconcilable; that is, that he will never be reconciled to you while you remain wicked, nor for your own sake, become you never so good. That a more costly sacrifice than you can either procure or be, must expiate your guilt, and make your peace. If this matter could have been effected in a less expensive way, the Son of God had not (as you know he was) been designed himself, and made that sacrifice; nor a work have been undertaken by him that might as well have been done by common hands. And since he submitted and undertook as he did, reckon with your self, how highly just it is, that the entire honour of so merciful condescension, and so great a performance, be wholly ascribed to him. But withal know, he shed his blood, not in kindness to your sin, but to you: And ⟨p. 292⟩that his design was at once to procure the death of that, and your life; That you need his Spirit as well as his Blood; that to recommend and reconcile you to his Holiness, as well as this to his vindictive Justice; That as you expect ever to experience and taste the delights of that communion, whereinto he calls you, you must not only have the blood of Christ to cleanse you from all sin, ¹but must also walk in the light, as he is in the light; That an entire resignation, a betrusting and subjecting of your self to the mercy and governing power of the Redeemer, is necessary to the setting of things right between God and you; In whom only you may both accept God and be accepted of him; That he must be the centre of union between God and you; and that union the ground of all delightful intercourse.

4. Acquaint your self with the way and terms upon which his Gospel declares him reconcilable; that is, that he will never be reconciled to you while you remain wicked, nor for your own sake, become you never so good. That a more costly sacrifice than you can either procure or be, must expiate your guilt, and make your peace. If this matter could have been effected in a less expensive way, the Son of God had not (as you know he was) been designed himself, and made that sacrifice; nor a work have been undertaken by him that might as well have been done by common hands. And since he submitted and undertook as he did, reckon with your self, how highly just it is, that the entire honour of so merciful condescension, and so great a performance, be wholly ascribed to him. But withal know, he shed his blood, not in kindness to your sin, but to you: And