The truly blessed man

Conclu. 3. IT is the privilege and duty of all these to rejoice. It is their privilege, because God hath given them all grounds of it; it is their duty because God requires it. Every righteous one enjoys this privilege, and is under this obligation: and to clear this up, these things may be enquired.

Conclu. 3. IT is the priviledge and duty of all these to rejoyce. It is their priviledge, because God hath given them all grounds of it; it is their duty because God requires it. Every righteous one enjoys this priviledge, and is under this obligation: and to clear this up, these things may be enquired.

1. What is to be accounted a just ground of rejoicing?

1. What is to be accounted a just ground of rejoycing?

A. Rejoicing is properly an expression or exercise of the Affection of joy. Now joy is placed among the closing Affections; deriving from love, and may be described, A delighting our selves in the enjoyment of an object wherein we find satisfaction. If the object be loved, the same love that carrieth desire after it till it be enjoyed, will employ joy upon it, when it hath gotten it. Only we must observe, that there is a twofold enjoyment to be conceived; viz a man may in a sense be said to enjoy a thing in hope, & he doth so in actual fruition. Hence there is a double joy: the former, viz. The joy of Hope, ariseth on a confidence or security we have of the thing: Now the apprehension of the excellency of the object affords a redundant joy to the unfailing certainty that we have of being in due time possessed of it: and indeed this security is a present good, when the persuasion is built upon undeceiving grounds; and this joy serves to quicken the desire into a more vigorous prosecution of the means for obtaining the thing it self; and then there is the joy of fruition, when we take the comfort of the thing it self, being possessed of it, compared to the joy of harvest,