do afiect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure, though itself be as if in a
872 chaenock's works. [Ps. XXXVII. 4.
cheerfulness in labour as well as in attainment. The desire of Canaan made the good Israelites cheerful in the wilderness. There is an inchoate delight
in motion, but a consummate delight in rest and fruition.
2. In hopes. Desired happiness aflects the soul ; much more expected happiness : Kom. v. 2,
' We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.' Joy
is the natural issue of a well-grounded hope. A tottering expectation will engender but a tottering delight. Such a delight will madmen have, which
is rather to be pitied than desired ; but if an imaginary hope can affect the heart with some real joy, much more a hope settled upon a sure bottom, and
raised upon a good foundation. There may be joy in a title as well as in
possession.
3. In contemplation. The consideration and serious thoughts of heaven do afiect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure, though itself be as if in a
wilderness. The near approach to a desired good doth much affect the
heart. Moses was surely more pleased with the sight of Canaan from mount Pisgah than with the hopes of it in the desert. A traveller's delight is more
raised when he is nearest his journey's end, and a hungry stomach hath a
greater joy when he sees the meat approaching which must satisfy the appe-
tite. As the union with the object is nearer, so the delight is stronger. Now,
this delight the soul hath in duty is not a delight of fruition, but of desire, hope or contemplation, gaudium vicr,, not patrim.
1. We may consider delight as active or passive.
(1.) Active, which is an act of our souls in our approaches to God, when the heart, like the sun, rouseth up itself, as a giant to run a spiritual race.
(2.) Passive. Which is God's dispensation in approaches to us, and often met with in our cheerful addresses to God : Isa. Ixiv. 6, ' Thou meetest him
that rejoiceth and works righteousness.' When we delightfully clasp about the throne of grace, God doth often cast his arms about our necks, especially when cheerful prayer is accompanied with a cheerful obedience. This joy is, when Christ meets us in prayer with a ' Be of good cheer, thy sins are for-
given,' thy request granted. The active delight is the health of the soul, the
passive is the good complexion of the soul. The one is man's duty, the other God's pecuhar gift ; the one is the inseparable property of the new birth, the other a separable privilege. There may be a joy in God when there is
little joy from God ; there may be gold in the mine when no flowers on the
surface.
2. We may consider delight as settled or transient, as spiritual or sensitive.
(1.) A settled delight. In strong and grown Christians, when prayer proceeds out of a thankfulness to God, a judicious knowledge and apprehension
of God. The nearer to God, the more delight ; as the motion of a stone is most speedy when nearest its centre.
(2.) A sensitive delight. As in persons troubled in mind there may be a kind of delight in prayer, because there is some sense of ease in the very venting itself ; and in some, because of the novelty of a duty they were not accustomed to before. Many prayers may be put up by persons in necessity without any spiritual delight in them ; as crazy persons take more physic than those that are healthful, and observe the spring and fall, yet they delight not in that physic. The pharisee could praj^ longer, and perhaps with some
delight too, but upon a sensual ground, with a proud and vaunting kind of
cheerfulness, a delight in himself, when the publican had a more spiritual
delight ; though a humble sorrow, in the consideration of his own vileness, yet a delight in the consideration of God's mercy. This sensitive delight may be more sensible in a young than in a grown Christian, There is a more sensible affection at the first meeting of friends, though more solid after