There is nothing which the hearts of Believers do either more willingly hear, or more difficultly observe, then those precepts which invite them unto joy and gladness, they being on the one hand so suitable to the natural desires, and yet withal on the other so dissonant to the miserable condition of sinful man. Had our Apostle called on the blessed Angels to rejoice, who have neither sin, nor sorrow, nor fear, nor sufferings, nor enemies to annoy them, it might have seemed far more congruous: But what is it less then a Paradox to persuade poor creatures, loaded with guilt, defiled with corruption, clothed with infirmities, ⟨p. 2⟩assaulted with temptations, hated, persecuted, afflicted by Satan and the world, compassed about with dangers and sorrows,1 born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, that notwithstanding all this, they may rejoice, and rejoice alway? But we have a double corrective to all these doubts in the Text, one in the Object, another in the Preacher of this Joy. The object of it is Christ the Lord, as appears by the same thing twice before mentioned, cap. 3. 1. 3 The Lord that pardoneth our guilt, subdueth our lusts, healeth our infirmities, rebuketh our temptations, vanquisheth our enemies, sweeteneth our sufferings, heighteneth our consolations above our afflictions, and at last wipeth all tears from our eyes. 2Here is matter of great joy, may we be satisfied in the truth of it: And for that we have the word of an Apostle, who gives assurance of it by Divine Revelation, and by personal experience. He who next to the Lord himself,3 was of all his servants, a man of sorrow, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in perils, in deaths, in weariness, in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, in cold, in nakedness, beaten with rods, stoned with stones; shipwrecked at Sea, beset at Land; he who in the prison, the inner prison,a the stocks (a kind of case of prisons one within another) did yetb rejoice and sing Psalms unto God, Acts 16. 24, 25. He it is, who from the Lord calleth upon Believers to rejoice alway. Instead then of a Paradox, you have here a Paradise, a Tree of life, as joy is called Prov. 13. 12.
THere is nothing which the hearts of Believers doe either more willingly hear, or more difficultly observe, then those precepts which invite them unto joy and gladness, they being on the one hand so suitable to the natural desires, and yet withall on the other so dissonant to the miserable condition of sinful man. Had our Apostle called on the blessed Angels to rejoice, who have neither sin, nor sorrow, nor fear, nor sufferings, nor enemies to annoy them, it might have seemed far more congruous: But what is it less then a Paradox to perswade poor creatures, loaded with guilt, defiled with corruption, cloathed with infirmities, ⟨p. 2⟩assaulted with temptations, hated, persecuted, afflicted by Satan and the world, compassed about with dangers and sorrows,1 born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, that notwithstanding all this, they may rejoice, and rejoice alway? But we have a double corrective to all these doubts in the Text, one in the Object, another in the Preacher of this Joy. The object of it is Christ the Lord, as appears by the same thing twice before mentioned, cap. 3. 1. 3 The Lord that pardoneth our guilt, subdueth our lusts, healeth our infirmities, rebuketh our temptations, vanquisheth our enemies, sweetneth our sufferings, heightneth our consolations above our afflictions, and at last wipeth all tears from our eyes. 2Here is matter of great joy, may we be satisfied in the truth of it: And for that we have the word of an Apostle, who gives assurance of it by Divine Revelation, and by personal experience. He who next to the Lord himself,3 was of all his servants, a man of sorrow, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in perils, in deaths, in weariness, in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, in cold, in nakedness, beaten with rods, stoned with stones; shipwrackt at Sea, beset at Land; he who in the prison, the inner prison,a the stocks (a kind of case of prisons one within another) did yetb rejoice and sing Psalms unto God, Acts 16. 24, 25. He it is, who from the Lord calleth upon Believers to rejoice alway. Instead then of a Paradox, you have here a Paradice, a Tree of life, as joy is called
- 1Job 5. 7.
- 2Rev 7. 17.
- 32 Cor. 11. 23. 27
- aMalam mansionem vocabant Antiqui vid. Dionis. Gothofredi notas in Digest. Tit. Depofiti vel contra. L. 7.
- bNihil C•us sentit in nerv• cum animus in Coelo est. Tertul. ad Martyras.
