Quote 4400
That, therefore, which we are to understand ourselves called to, under the name of delighting in God, is the keeping of our souls open to divine influences and communications—thirsing after them, praying and waiting for them, endeavoring to improve them and cooperate with them, and to stir up ourselves to such exercises of religion as are most suitable to our present state, together with an allowing and applying ourselves to stay and taste, in our progress and course, the sweetness and delightfulness of those communications and operations whereof we have any present experience. John Howe
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
Redeemed from loving God! What a monstrous thought! Redeemed from what is the great active and fruitive principle; the source of obedience and blessedness; the eternal spring, even in the heavenly state, of adoration and fruition!Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1The Law, Redemption0Delight in God's service makes us resemble the angels in heaven. They serve God with cheerfulness; as soon as God speaks the word, they are ambitious to obey. How are they ravished with delight while they are praising God! In heaven we shall be as the angels; spiritual delight would make us like them here. To serve God by constraint is to be like the devil. All the devils in hell obey God, but it is against their will; they yield a passive obedience. But service which comes off with delight is angelical. This is that we pray for, that "God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven." Is it not done with delight there?
Delight0Delight in religion crowns all our services. Therefore, David counsels his son Solomon not only to serve God but to serve Him "with a willing mind" (1 Chron. 28:9). Delight in duty is better than duty itself, as it is worse for a man to delight in sin than to commit it because there is more of the will in sin. So delight in duty is to be preferred before duty: "O how love I thy law" (Ps. 119:97)! It is not how much we do, but how much we love. Hypocrites may obey God's law, but the saints love His law; this carries away the garland.
Delight0Rightly understand what delight in God it is that you must seek and exercise. It is not a mere sensitive delight, which is exercised about the objects of sense or fancy and is common to beasts with men; nor is it the delights of immediate intuition of God, such as the blessed have in heaven; nor is it an enthusiastic delight, consisting in irrational raptures and joys, of which we can give no account of the reason. Nor is it a delight inconsistent with sorrow and fear, when they are duties; but it is the solid, rational complacency of the soul in God and holiness, arising from the apprehensions of that in Him, which is justly delectable to us. And it is such as, in estimation of its object and inward complacency and gladness though not in passionate joy or mirth, must excel our delight in temporal pleasure and must be the end of all our humiliations and other inferior duties.
Delight0Diligently labor, that God and holiness may be thy chief delight. And this holy delight may be the ordinary temperament of thy religion.
Delight0Behold Him in the infinite perfections of His being: His omnipotence, omniscience, and His goodness; His holiness, eternity, immutability, etc. And as your eye delights in an excellent picture or comely buildings or fields or gardens not because they are yours, but because they are a delectable object to the eye, so let your minds delight themselves in God considered in Himself, as the only object of highest delight.
Delight0And there may be also many others of good and pious inclinations, that have never yet applied themselves to consider the principal and most fundamental grounds of religion, so as to be able to give, or discern, any tolerable reason of them.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Reason, Religion0this is an unaccountable vanity under the sun, that men too generally form such projects, that they are disappointed both when they do not compass them, and when they do. If they do not, they have lost their labour; if they do, they are not worth it.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Present Age, Worldliness0Be not over-intent on designs for this present worldWorks, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Present Age0Were we to have been set free from the preceptive obligation of God's holy law, then most of all from that most fundamental precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, soul, might, and mind had this been redemption, which supposes only what is evil and hurtful, as that we are to be redeemed from? This were a strange sort of self-repugnant redemption, not from sin and misery, but from our duty and felicity.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1The Law, Redemption0When therefore he was to do for us the part of a Redeemer, he was to redeem us from the curse of the law, not from the command of it; to save us from the wrath of God, not from his government, Gal. S. 13, 14. Rom. 8. 3, 4.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1The Law, Wrath0His power as to every one's death cannot be avoided, or withstood. The act of this key is definitive, and ends the business.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Christ, Death0Our life on earth is under the constant strict observation of our Lord Christ. He waits when to turn the key, and shut it up. Through the whole of that time, which, by deferring, he measures out to us, we are under his eye as in a state of probation.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Christ, Life, Time0That men do not die at random, or by some uncertain, accidental bye stroke, which, as by a slip of the hand, cuts off the thread of life; but by an act of divine determination, and judgment which passes in reference to each one's death.Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Death0With too many their religion is so little, and their pride and self-conceit so great, that they think themselves fit to be standards;Works, Vol 1
Works, Vol 1Pride, Religion0A smooth, if a false way should not delight us; nor should a rugged, if a right way, dishearten us.
Delight0To rejoice is not only a delight that God wants us to enjoy, but it is also an example to others.
Delight0