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as long as I live; I will fing Praife unto my God, while I have any Being. My Meditation of him shall be fweet, I will be glad in the Lord. Pf. civ. 33, 34. Here it is obfervable, that he not only calls God the Lord, Jehovah, but he calls him his God: I will fing Praife unto my God. He claims a fpecial Intereft in him. And this is what raifeth the Joy of a Man of real Piety to the greateft Height. He doth not contemplate God and his Perfections, as we may admire a beautiful Object in which we have no Intereft or Concern; but as it were appropriates him by a lively Faith, and can fay, with humble Affiance, upon contemplating that glorious Being and his incomparable Perfections, This is my God, my rightful Lord, my fatisfying Portion, and chief Good: He is mine and

This

I am bis. Oh tranfporting Thought! The Joy that arifeth from a Senfe of this is what no Words can fully exprefs, but many excellent Perfons have had Experience of it in their own Breasts. Joy, where it is of the right Kind, ennobles and purifies the Soul, and will produce correfpondent Effects in the Temper and Practice. And indeed what we are to have principally in View, in our Meditations of the Deity, is not merely

to

to furnish a speculative Entertainment to our Minds, but that we may be thereby formed into a divine and godlike Temper, and may have his amiable moral Excellencies copied out in our own Souls from that fair and glorious Original. When the Soul endeavoureth to lay itself open to his gracious Influences and Communications; when it is fo captivated and inamoured with the View of the fupreme Goodnefs, Righteoufnefs, and Purity, that it receiveth it within itself, and is tranfformed into it's Nature and Likeness; it is then that it may moft properly be faid to delight in God. This it is to have Communion with the Father, and with his Son Jefus Chrift: God is Love, and be that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 Joh. iv. 16. This is true Religion, this is the Divine Life. The Soul hath then an inward Fund of Happiness, a Source of pure and refined Joys, as being united to the fupreme Good, and taking in the lively and delightful Impreffions of his most excellent Virtues, his Glory and Beauty: Beholding as in a Glafs the Glory of the Lord, as the Apoftle fpeaks, we are changed into the fame Image from Glory to Glory. 2 Cor. iii. 18.

Thus it is in fome Measure here

on

on Earth, and fhall be perfectly so in the heavenly State, that World of everlafting Light and Love, where we shall fee him as he is, and fhall behold his Face in Righteoufnefs, and be for ever fatisfied with his Likeness.

On

On Delighting in God's Works of Creation

DISCOURSE III.

PSALM cxi. 2.

The Works of the Lord are great, fought of all them that have Pleafure therein.

I

T is the great Advantage of Religion,

and which should mightily recommead it to our Efteem and Choice, that what it injoins upon us as our Duty is really conducive to our highest Happiness. Of this Kind is the Precept we have been confidering, which requireth us to delight ourselves in God. This is a Duty of great Extent. It

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