1. This is necessary in all duties. In hearing the word, the desire must
was as dear to John, his beloved disciple, who would not leave him then, as when the people would have made him king.
Another grace to be examined and acted is desire, a holy appetite.
The Israelites were to eat the Passover in haste, not lento corde et ore languido,* but with a greediness of mind.
1. This is necessary in all duties. In hearing the word, the desire must be as insatiable as the infant's cry for milk, 1 Peter 2:2. Not the outward breast, but the nourishing milk conveyed by it, satisfies the infant. In prayer, there must be unutterable groans, strong sallies, and flights of the soul with a holy impetus: Ps. 63:8, 'My soul follows hard after thee.' It would have an infinite enlargement of heart to God, suitable to God's infinite fulness. This desire is expressed by hunger and thirst. No desire so clamorous as that of a new-born infant for milk, or of an hungry man for meat, who will eat his own flesh, or offer violence to himself, rather than want nourishment. But this should not be so strong as our desires for Christ.
2. But in this ordinary more necessary.
(1.) It is a feast, and appetite is proper to that. Were it but a crumb, yet desire were fit, as long as it is from heaven. If there be life, there will be a nutritive appetite, and desire of those things which are suitable nourishment. Now what but Christ can be suitable nourishment to the new nature wherein this appetite is seated? To come without an appetite upon Christ's solemn invitation, is a wrong to the master of the feast, and the cheer he hath provided; it is a shame to come to such a feast, and leave our stomachs at home. It is not a fulness Christ expects we should bring to him, but an emptiness with an earnest desire: Rev. 22:17, 'Let him that is athirst come;' it is an heavenly feast, there must be a suitable appetite.
Evangelical food requires evangelical hunger; marrow and fatness should whet our stomach.