I Have a Desire

I Have a Desire
I have a desire. Desires are the immediate issue of the soul, the motion and stirring of the same to something that likes it. When there is anything set before the soul having a magnetical force, as the loadstone, to draw out the motions thereof, we call that desire, though for the present it enjoys it not.
1. St Paul's desire was spiritual; not after happiness, so much as holiness. 'O miserable man that I am,' saith he, 'who shall deliver me from this body of death?' Romans 7:24. His desire of death was to be freed from the body of sin, more than to be taken out of the flesh; and his desire of holiness, to have Christ's image stamped on his soul, was more than of eternal happiness. Nature cannot do this. It is a work above the flesh, for that will not hear of departing, but rather bids God and Christ depart from it.
2. This desire came from a taste of sweetness in communion with Christ; and those desires that most ravish the soul in apprehension of heavenly things are ever the most holy. St Paul knew what a sweet communion Christ was.
3. It was a constant desire. He doth not say I desire, but I have a desire, I carry the same about me, and that carries me to a love of Christ and his members.
4. It was efficacious, not a naked velleity, not a wish of the sluggard, I would, and I would, but a strong desire, carrying him even through death itself to Christ. Desires thus qualified are blessed desires. As where we see vapours arise, there are springs usually below them, so where these desires are, there is always a spring of grace in that soul. Nothing characteriseth a Christian so much as holy and blessed desires, for there is no hypocrisy in them.