With my soul have I desired thee in the night; Yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: For when thy judgments are in the earth, The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Isaiah 26:9

The bent of Isaiah’s very soul was towards God, and his desires were kept up in vehemence both night and day. The Lord humbles Himself to behold things done in heaven, yet He looks down upon the children of men upon the earth to see if there is any that understand and seek Him. And if He seeks after these seekers, how ready is He to be found of them! The command is that we should seek the Lord, His strength, and His face evermore (Psalm 105:4). God is to be sought unto for Himself. When the all-sufficient Jehovah gives Himself to any, He gives infinitely more than if He gave them many thousand such worlds as this is. His strength is of absolute necessity, to secure us from evil and to assist us in the doing of good. And the shining of His face makes our work easy and pleasant. It makes our life, and even death itself, comfortable. No wonder, therefore, when God said, “Seek ye my face,” one of His attendants heard presently, as the echo answers the voice, said, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek” (Psalm 27:8). To seek to any else is vain. It is seeking for water in a broken cistern that can hold none. Those of low degree, though never so great a multitude, are vanity, and those of highest degree are a lie (Psalm 62:9). But God’s power, mercy, and truth are an evident proof that He is forward and sufficient to satiate the souls of all that charge their souls to wait only upon Him, and to have their expectations from Him.

Nathaniel Vincent, The Cure of Distractions in Attending upon God (1695), 26-27.

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