-336 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND KEEPING not but solid men have oft high joys; and more we might all havez if we did our duty. And I would have no Christian content him- self with a dull quietness of spirit, but by all means possible to be much in laboring to rejoice in God and raising their souls to heav- enly delights. O, what lives do we lose, which we might enjoy! But my meaning is this; look at these joys and delights as duties and as mercies, but.look not at them as marks of trial, so as to place more necessity in them than God bath done, or to think them to be ordinary things. If you do but feel such a high estimation of Christ and heaven, that youwould not leave him for all the world, take this for your surest sign. And if you have but so much probability or hope of your interest in him., that you can think of God as one that loveth you, and can be thankful to Christ for redeeming you, and are more glad in these hopes of your inter est in Christ and glory than if you were owner of all the world, take this for a happy mercy, and a high consolation. Yet I mean not that your joy in Christ will be elwaysso sensible, as for worldly things ; but it will be more rational, solid and deeper at the heart. And that you may know by this, you would not for all the pleas- ures, honors, or profits in the world, be in the same case as once you were, (supposing that you were converted since you had the use of reason and memory) or at least as you see the ungodly world still lie in. 3. And let me add this : commonly those that have the highest passionate joys, have the saddest lives ; for they have, withal, the most passionate fears and sorrows. Mark it, whether you find not this prove true. And it is partly from God's will in his dispensa- tions; partly from their own necessities, who after their exaltations do usuallyneed a prick in the flesh, and a minister of Satan to buf- fet .them, lest they be exalted above measure; and partly, and most commonly, it is from the temperature of their bodies. Weak, passionate women, of movable spirits and strong affections, when they love, they love violently, and when they rejoice, especially in such cases, they have most sensible joys, and when any fears arise, they have most terrible sorrows. I know it is not so with all of that sex; but mark the same people that usually have the high- est joys, and see whether at other times they have not the greatest troubles. This week they are as at the gates of heaven, and the next as at the doors of hell: P am sure with many it is sot Yet it need not be so, if Christians would but look at these high joys as duties to be endeavored, and mercies to be valued ; but when they will needs judge of their state by them, and think that, God is gone from them orforsaken them, when they have not such joys, then it leaves them in terror and amazement ; like men after a flash of lightning, that are left more sensible of the darkness. Forno wise
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