Certain sermons, first preached, and after published at several times, by M. Thomas Gataker…Certaine sermons, first preached, and after published at severall times, by M. Thomas Gataker…

Answer. 1 But 1. They judge amiss of Joy, and are much mistaken, that^b measure Joy by outward laughter and merriment. A sound substantial joy is one thing, and a tickling laughter is another thing: There is a pain sometime in the one, an inward warmth in the other.^* Any ridiculous toy may occasion the one, some weighty matter is necessarily the ground of the other. Whether delighteth a man more, or joyeth him more inwardly at the heart, a bag of gold given him, or an inheritance befallen him, that it may be, he scarce smileth at the receipt of, or some idle jest told him that maketh him laugh till his heart ache, or till he almost burst again withal?^c True Joy, saith the Heathen man, is, though not a sad, yet a solid and a serious thing. And there is as much difference between idle merriment and sound Joy, as between wanton dalliance and well grounded love. Wicked and worldly men may have some kind of^d superficial merriment, some kind of frothy and flashy mirth, such as may^† wet the mouth, but not warm the heart, may smooth the brow, but not fill the breast; like^e a slight dash of rain, that washeth the stalk, but wetteth not the root, and therefore doth the grass little good; or to use Solomons comparison,^f like an handful of brush wood or sear thorns under the pot, that maketh a great noise, and giveth a great blaze, but heateth little, boileth nothing, ⟨p. 190⟩leaveth the meat still as^g raw as it was when it went in: But true, sound and substantial joy, such as that is that the godly have, or as is here said to belong to them, do such never attain to.