esponds to all its capacities, and fills it with
unconceivable sweetness. But, my beloved, boasting and glorying in him,
ariseth not only from the proportionableness and conveniency of him to our
spirits; but this must be superadded,--propriety in him. Things are loved,
because excellent in themselves, or because they are our own; but we boast
in nothing, we glory in nothing, but because it is both excellent in
itself, and ours besides. It is the apprehended interest in any thing
makes the soul rise and lift up itself after this manner,--to have such a
one to be ours,--such a Lord to be our God,--one so high and sublime,--one so
universally full, to be made over to thee; here is the immediate rise of
the soul's gloriation. And truly, as there is nothing can be so suitable a
portion, so there is nothing that can be so truly made ours as God. Of all
things a believer hath, there is nothing so much his own as God,--nothing
so indissolubly tied unto him,--nothing so inseparably joined. See Paul's
triumph upon that account, Rom. viii. Nothing can truly be said to be the
soul's own, but that which is not only coetaneous with it, that survives
mortality, and the changes of the body, but likewise is inseparable from
it. What a poor empty sound is all that can be spoken of him, till your
souls be once possessed of him! it cannot make your hearts leap within
you, but it cannot but excite and stir up a believer's heart.

Now there may be a lawful kind of gloriation, rejoicing in the works of
God, consequent to the first, which is a little stream from that greater
river which runs out from it, and flows into it again. A soul that truly
apprehends God will take delight to view the works of God, which make such
an expression of him, and are a part of the magnificence of our heavenly
Father. But this is all in reference to him and not to ourselves; for then
it degenerates and loseth its sweetness, when once it turns the channel
towards the adorning of the creature. True boasting in God hath
necessarily conjoined with it an humble and low esteem of a man's self,
Psal. xxxiv. 2, "The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad." As humility
and self-emptiness made David go out of himself, to seek satisfaction in
God, and having found it, he boasts and triumphs, so there were none
capable of understanding his triumph, or partaking with him in his
delights, but the humble souls. Now you may perceive how far this boasting
here spoken of is degene