The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but [it is] abomination to fools to depart from evil.
Ver. 19. The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.] Tota vita boni Christiani sanctum desiderium est, saith Augustine: The whole life of a good Christian is one holy desire; he even spends and exhales himself in continual sallies, as it were, and expressions of strongest affection to God, whom he hath chosen, and with whom he hath much sweet intercourse. He cannot be at rest without some comings in from him every day. And then, Oh the joys, the joys, the inconceivable joys! as she once cried out a ‘Oh that joy! O my God, when shall I be with thee?' b These were the dying words of the young Lord Harrington. He was in heaven aforehand, as having let out his holy soul into God, the fountain of all good.
But it is abomination to fools to depart from evil.] To be pulled from their vain delights, though never so sinful, never so destructive. Esau, for a mess of pottage, sold his birthright; Cardinal Burbon would not part with his part in Paris for a part in paradise. Theotimus, in Ambrose, being told that intemperance would be the loss of his eyesight, cried out, Vale lumen amicum. He would rather lose his sight than his sin; so doth many a man his soul. The panther loves man's dung, they say, so much, that if it is hanged a height from him, he will leap up, and never stop till he hath burst himself in pieces to get it; and this is the way they get that creature. Like policy uses Satan, by base lusts, to draw many to hell. It was a speech of Gregory Nyssen, He that doth but hear of hell, is without any further labour or study taken off from sinful pleasures. Men's hearts are grown harder today.
a Mrs. Kath. Brettergh.
b Fun. Serm. by Mr Stock.