CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. 511 ing his delights ; or else (which is much worse) his appetite is dull,. and God and holiness relish not with him half so sweetly as they do with the confirmedChristian; and he is too busy in tasting of fleshly and forbidden pleasures, which yet more deprave his appe- tite, and dull his desires to the things of God so that though in his estimation, choice, resolution and endeavor, he much preferreth God before the world; yet, as tóany delightful sweetness in him, it is but little that he tasteth. He loveth God witha desiring love, and with a seeking love, but with very,little of a delighting love. The remnant of corrupt and alien affections do weaken his affections to the things above; and his infant measure of spiritual life, conjunct with many troublesome diseases, allow him very little of the joy of the Holy Ghost. , Nay, perhaps he bath more grief, and fear, and doubts, and trouble, and perplexity ofmind, than ever he had before he turned unto God; and perhaps he hath yet less pleasure in God, than he had before in sin and sensuality ; becausd lie had his sin in a state of fruition, but he bath God only in a seeking, hoping state: he bath the best of sin, and all that ever it will afford him; but he hath yet none of the full felicity which he expecteth in God : the fruition of him is yet but in the prospect of hope. His sensual, . sinful life was in its maturity, and the object present in its most al- luring state ; but his spiritual life of faith and love is but yet in its weak beginnings, and the object absent from our sight: he is so busy at first in blowing ups his little spark, not knowing whether the fire will kindle or go out, that he bath little of the use or pleasure, either ofits light or warmth. Infants come crying into the world, and afterwards oftener cry., than laugh : their senses and reason are not yet perfected, or exercised to partake of thepleasures of life ; and when they do come to know what laughter is, they will laugh and cryalmost in a breath. And those weak Christians that do come to taste ofjoy and pleasure in their religious state, it is commonlybut as a flash of lightning, which leaveth them as dark as they were before. Sometimes in the beginning, upon their first apprehensions of the love of God in Christ, andof the pardon of their sins, and the privileges oftheir new condition, and the hopes ofeverlasting joy, their hearts are transported with unspeakable de- light; which is partly from the newness of the thing, and partly because God will ]et them have some encouraging taste, to draw them further, and toconvince them of the difference between the pleasures ofsin and the comforts of believing ; but these first_ re- joicings soon abate, and turn into a life of doubts, and fears, and griefs, and care, till they are grown to greater understanding, ex- perience, and settledness in the things of God : the root must grow greater and deeper, before it will bear a greater top. Those Christians that in the weakness of grace have frequent joys, are
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=