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

4. Look often to him according as absolutely ⟨p. 330⟩considered he is in himself the most excellent Being; and as in reference to his creatures, he is the Supreme Author and Lord of all.

4. Look often to him according as absolutely ⟨p. 330⟩considered he is in himself the most excellent Being; and as in reference to his creatures, he is the Supream Author and Lord of all.

There is an unspeakable pleasure to be taken in him so beheld. Too many while their distrust, or their carnality and strangeness to God holds them in suspense concerning their own special relation to him, are apt to fancy themselves excused of delighting in him: It belongs not to them they think, but to some familiar friends, and great favourites of his to whom he expresses special kindness, and on whom he places the marks of his more peculiar good-will. But do you think so to shift and wave the obligation of an universal Law upon mankind, and all reasonable nature? You are to remember (as hath been said) your delight in God is not to be considered only as your privilege, but as an act of homage to him that made you, and put an intelligent apprehensive spirit into you, by which you are capable of knowing who made you, and of beholding your Makers excellency with admiration and delight. And if now you are become guilty and vile; Will you run into darkness and hide your selves from him, or close your eyes, and then say, the Sun doth not shine, and deny the blessed glorious God to be what most truly and unchangeably he is? What-ever you are or have desired he should be towards you, yet do him right. Behold and confess his glorious excellency, every way most worthy to be delighted in. Nor have you rendered your selves so vile, ⟨p. 331⟩nor had so much cause of apprehending his displeasure towards you, by any thing so much as this, Your not having taken delight in him all this while; and your neglect to take the ways (spoken of before) tending to bring you thereto. If you think you have no special relation to him, Do you think you ever shall if you continue, in the temper of your spirits, strangers to him, and look upon him as one in whom you are to take no delight? Surely 'tis your dutiful affection towards him and complacency in him, that must give you ground to hope you are his, and he is yours; And therefore the beginnings and first degrees of that complacency and delight must be in you before; being begotten by the view of that excellency which he hath in himself antecedently to his being related to you.