2. The other sort are those that would rejoice, but do not provide matter of joy. Christ saith, ' That my joy may bo fulfilled in them- selves.' But in whom ? He had pleaded their interest, ' They are thine ;' he had spoken well of them to the Father, ' I am glorified in them.' Alas ! the joys of others are but * stolen waters, and bread eaten in secret,' frisks of mirth, when conscience is asleep. A man cannot rejoice in God till he hath some interest in him : 1 Sam. xxx. 6, ' David encouraged himself in the Lord his God,' when all was lost at Ziklag ; pray mark, ' his God.' Tolle meum et tolle Dcum — take away mine, and take away God. God is better known in prcedicamenio rehiiionis, guam in prccdicamento sid)Htanticc. God in his nature is terrible; God in covenant is sweet: Hab. iii. 18, ' Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.' When all things
VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVIT. 361
fail, a child of God runneth to his interest. The object of joy is good, but not good in common, but m?j good. Excellency and propriety are the two conditions of the object of joy. Therefore holy joy is not every one's duty, but theirs that have an interest in God. There are some duties proper to the saints, that suppose such a state and interest. Prayer and hearing are common duties, the obligation lieth on all the creatures, it is the homage they owe to God ; but now they are not immediately bidden to rejoice. All are bound to provide matter for joy, but not all to rejoice. Carnal men are for the present under wrath, liable to hell, bondage is their portion ; therefore clear up your interest, if you would rejoice in God. Men delight in their children because they are their own.
Use 5. To raise your minds to the exercise of this joy. We should be more careful than we are to maintain our peace and joy.
To help you, I shall show —
1. What reason a christian hath to rejoice.
2. By what means he may get, keep, and maintain it.
First, What reasons a christian hath to rejoice. The causes of joy may be referred to his past estate, his present interest, his future hopes.
1. The remembrance of his past estate. A christian may stand wondering at the change which God hath made in his soul : 1 Peter ii, 9, ' That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.' The light is the more mar- vellous because of the foregoing darkness. Past miseries are sweet in the remembrance. It will be a part of our happiness in heaven to look back ; as travellers in the inn discourse of the dangers and dirtiness of the way. It is matter of renewed joy to see how the weeds of sin are rooted out, how the buds of grace begin to grow in the garden of our hearts. No man looketh on the sea with more comfort than he that hath escaped the dangers of a shipwreck ; as the Israelites, when they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore, sung a song of triumph ; so doth a christian rejoice when he considereth his change, what he was, what he is.
2. His present interest, sense, and feeling. We have mercies in hand as well as mercies in hope, something exhibited as well as pro- mised; God's eternal love, with all the blessings that issue thence, of justification, sanctification,&c. Paul triumphs in this : Kom. viii. 37, 'Nay, in all these things Ave are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.' God hath adopted them to be children, heirs of his heavenly kingdom ; if the world maketh war against them, they liave peace with God, they are in a reconciled estate ; in frame of heart they are regenerate, they have the first-fruits of the Spirit, sweet experience of grace ; not only the wine of Canaan, but the clusters of Canaan ; they have communion with God, though banished from men. It is the nature of the mind to delight itself in the possession of any solid good. No good can satisfy but the supreme ; this we are in part possessed of as soon as grace is wrought in the heart.
3. His future hopes: Heb. iii. 6, ' If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm unto the end.' We are heirs-apparent to the crown of heaven, We may rejoice in wdiat we possess, we may glory in what we hope for. This ravisheth the heart to think of it ; we shall
3G2 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. [SeR. XXI.
have what infinite mercy will bestow, infinite merit purchase, and the ample promises of the reward l hath revealed. The body of sin will be destroyed, and we shall be out of the reach of temptations.
Secondly, By what means it is maintained. God hath appointed graces and ordinances for this end.
1. Graces ; faith, hope, and obedience.
[1.] Faith ; it is a help to joy ; it representeth the excellency, truth, and reality of spiritual things. That which we rejoice in must be good, true, present. All joy arise th from the presence of some good, either in actual possession or firm expectation. Thus doth faith : Heb. x. 34, ' Knowing in yourselves that in heaven ye have a better and an endur- ing substance.' Faith is not an opinion or wild guess ; heaven is a pleasing fancy to a carnal man, but it is a reality, a substance, an enduring substance to a believer. The world is a fashion, perishing, moveable. It is the nature of faith to make things absent, present ; it giveth a being to hope, it sets up a stage in the heart of a believer, where God is represented acting whatever he hath promised ; and this not by a naked fiction or empty speculation, as a man may frame ideas of things that never shall be, as in the dream of dotage of a dis- tempered fancy they make a soul as if seen with bodily eyes. Faith gives to its object not only a naked representation, but an actual presence.