The Return of Prayers

Object. .But you will be ready to say, To have a thing when my heart is taken off from it, and even contented not to have it, makes it to be as no mercy: for where there is no desire, there is no rejoicing.

Object. .But you will bee ready to say, To have a thing when my heart is taken off from it, and even contented not to have it, makes it to be as no mercy: for where there is no desire, there is no rejoycing.

Answ. If thy desire be taken off the thing, then thou wilt rejoice the more in GOD now; and though the thing of it self should now give thee less satisfaction, yet God by the thing will give thee more, and he will make it up; for thou wilt relish his love and sweetness in it now, which is better then life, and therefore much better ⟨p. 157⟩than that thing enjoyed; and indeed the violence of the desire before, would have made it less sweet, for the thing alone would not have filled and contented that desire, when it was an inordinate lust, and so thou wouldst have been vexed with it, rather than satisfied, and found a greater vanity in it: but now when it is become a subordinate desire unto God, that the desire is down, and the heart quieted and contented with God in the thing: the heart says as she said, I have enough. So 2. likewise thou mayest have an affliction thou prayedst long against taken off ⟨p. 158⟩then, when thy heart was most willing to accept thy punishment (as Moses's phrase is,¹) and to submit to God in it.

Answ. If thy desire bee taken off the thing, then thou wilt rejoyce the more in GOD now; and though the thing of it self should now give thee lesse satisfaction, yet God by the thing wil give thee more, and he will make it up; for thou wilt rellish his love and sweetnesse in it now, which is better then life, and therefore much better