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can sing sweetly, when I observe others to listen to me, and be affected with my music. O false, deceitful heart, such delight as this will end in howling! Were my spirit right, it would as much delight in retirements for the enjoyment of God, as it doth in those duties that are most exposed to the observation of man. Will such a spring

as this maintain a stream of affections, when carnal motives fail? What wilt thou answer, O my soul! to that question? Job xxvii. 9, 10. “ Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?" What wilt thou reply to this question? Deceive not thyself, O my soul! thou wilt doubtless be easily persuaded to let go that thou never delightest in, and, from an hypocrite in religion, quickly become an apostate from religion.

From all this, the upright heart The upright heart's takes advantage to rouse up its delight

reflection.

in God, and thus it expostulateth with itself: Doth the ploughman sing amidst his drudging labors and whistle away his weariness in the fields, and shall I droop amidst such heavenly employment? O my soul, what wantest thou here, to provoke thy delight? If there be such an affection as delight in thee, methinks such an object as the blessed face of God in ordinances should excite it. Ah! how would this ennoble all my services, and make them angel-like! How glad are those blessed creatures to be employed for God! No sooner were they created, but they sang together, and shouted for joy. Job xxxviii. 7. How did they fill the air with heavenly melody, when sent to bring the joyful tidings of a Saviour to the world! ascribing glory to God in the highest, even to the highest of their powers; yea, this delight would make all my duties Christ-like, and the

nearer that pattern the more excellent: he delighted to do his Father's will; it was to him meat and drink. Psalm xl. 7. John iv. 32, 34.

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Yea, it would not only ennoble, but facilitate all my duties, and be to me as wings to a bird in flying, or sails to a ship in motion. Non tardat uncta rota; oiled wheels run freely Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Aminadab. O what is the reason, my God, my delight in thee should be so little? Is it not because my unbelief is so great? Rouse up my delights, O thou fountain of pleasure! and let me swim down the stream of holy joy in duty, into the boundless ocean of those immense delights that are in thy presence, and at thy right hand for evermore.

THE POEM.

O WHAT a dull, desponding heart is mine!
That takes no more delight in things divine.
When all the creatures both in heav'n and earth,
Enjoy their pleasures, and are big with mirth.
Angels and saints that are before the throne,
In ecstasies and raptures, ev'ry one
Perpetually is held; each blessed spirit
The purest, highest joys doth there inherit :
The saints on earth, in their imperfect state,
Those peerless joys by faith do antedate.
To nat❜ral men, who savor not this pleasure,
Yet bounteous nature doth unlock her treasure
Of sensitive delights; yea, strange to tell,
Bold sinners rant it all the way to hell.

Like fish that play in Jordan's silver stream,
So these in sensual lusts, and never dream
Of that dead sea to which the stream doth tend,
And to their pleasures puts a fatal end.

Yea, birds and beasts, as well as men, enjoy
Their innocent delights: these chirp and play;
The cheerful birds among the branches sing,
And make the neighb'ring groves with music ring:
With various warbling notes they all invite
Our ravish'd ears, with pleasure and delight.
The new-fallen lambs will, in a sun-shine day,
About their feeding dams jump up and play.
Are cisterns sweet? And is the fountain bitter?
Or can the sun be dark, when glow-worms glitter?
Have instruments their sweet, melodious airs?
All creatures their deligths, and saints not theirs?
Yea, theirs transcend these sensual ones as far
As noon day Phoebus doth a twinkling star.
Why droop I then, may any creature have
A life like mine for pleasure? Whoe'er gave
The like encouragement that Christ hath given,
To do his will on earth, as 'tis in heaven?

CHAPTER IV.

UPON THE DUE QUALITY OF ARABLE LAND.

Corn land must neither be too fat nor poor :
The middle state suits best with Christians, sure.

OBSERVATION.

HUSBANDMEN find, by experience, that their arable may be dressed too much, as well as too little; if

lands

the soil be over rank, the seed shoots up so much into the stalk, that it seldom ears well; and if too thin and poor, it wants its due nutriment, and comes not to perfection; therefore their care is to keep it in heart, but not to over-dress or under-dress it. The end of all their cost and pains about it is fruit; and therefore reason tells them that such a state and temperament of it, as best fits it for fruit, is best, both for it and them.

APPLICATION.

And doth not spiritual experience teach Christians that a mediocrity and competency of the things of this life, best fits them for the fruits of obedience, which is the end and excellency of their beings? A man may be over. mercied, as well as over-afflicted; Rare fumant fælicibus ara, the altars of the rich seldom smoke. When our outward enjoyments are by Providence shaped and fitted to our condition, as a suit is to the body, that sits close and neat, neither too short nor long; we cannot desire a bet ter condition in this world. This was it that wise Agur requested of God. Prov. xxx. 8, 9. "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." Against both he prays equally, not absolutely; that had been his sin, but comparatively and submissively to the will of God. He had rather, if God see it fit, to avoid both of these extremes; but what would he have then? Why, food convenient: or, according to the Hebrew, give me my prey, or statute-bread, which is a metaphor from birds which fly up and down to prey for their young, and what they get, they distribute among them; they bring them enough to preserve their lives, but not more than enough to lie mouldering in the nest. Such

a proportion Agur desired, and the reason why he desired it is drawn from the danger of both extremes. He measured, like a wise Christian, the conveniency or inconveniency of his estate in the world, by its suitableness or unsuitableness to the end of his being; which is the service of God. He accounted the true excellency of his life to consist in its reference and tendency to the glory of his God; and he could not see how a redundancy, or too great a penury of earthly comforts could fit him for that; but a middle estate, equally removed from both extremes, best fitted that end. And this was all that good Jacob, who was led by the same spirit, looked at, Gen. xxviii. 20. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, if God will be with me, and keep me in the way that I go, and give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." Poor Jacob, he desires no great matters in the world, food and raiment will satisfy him; in spiritual matters his desires are boundless, he is the most greedy and unsatisfied man in the world, Hos. xii. 4. but in the matters of this life, if he can get from God but offam et aquam, a morsel of meat and a mouthful of water, he will not envy the richest Croesus or Crassus upon earth. Cibus et potus sunt divitiæ Christianorum; meat and drink are the riches of Christians. Divitiæ sunt ad legem naturæ composita paupertas, saith Pomponius Atticus; riches are such a poverty or mediocrity, as hath enough for nature's uses; and such a state is best accommodated, both to the condition, and to the desires of a saint.

1. To his condition; for what is a saint but a stranger and pilgrim upon earth, a man in a strange country travelling homeward? So David professed himself, Psalm exix. 19. "I am a stranger in this earth." And so those

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