A12185:57
A glance of Heaven, or, A precious taste of a glorious feastA glance of Heaven, or, A pretious taste of a glorious feast
A glance of Heaven, or, A precious taste of a glorious feast wherein thou mayst taste and see those things which God hath prepared for them that love him / By R. Sibs ...A glance of Heaven, or, A pretious taste of a glorious feast wherein thou mayst taste and see those things which God hath prepared for them that love him / By R. Sibs ...
London: printed by E. G. for John Rothwell, 1638London: printed by E. G. for Iohn Rothwell, 1638
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And therefore when you read & hear these things, content not your selves with the first degree of revelation: no, that is not enough; when you have done that, desire of God to join his Spirit, to give you spiritual eyes, and hearts, that you may close with Divine truths, and be divine as the truths are; that there may be a consent of the heart with the truth: then the word of God will be sweet indeed.
And therfore when you read & heare these things, content not your selves with the first degree of revelation: no, that is not enough; when you have done that, desire of God to joyne his Spirit, to give you spirituall eyes, and hearts, that you may close with Divine truths, and be divine as the truths are; that there may bee a consent of the heart with the truth: then the word of God will be sweet indeed.
Again, here we see this ⟨p. 39⟩divine truth, That a man when he hath the Spirit of God, knows things otherwise than he did know them before, though he did not know them by outward revelation of hearing and reading, &c. And he believes them otherwise than he did before: he sees them by a new light. It is not the same knowledge that an unregenerate man hath,1 with that he hath after, when God works upon his heart: for then it is a divine supernatural knowledge. And it is not the same faith, and belief: the Spirit of God raiseth a man up in a degree of creatures above other men, as other men are above beasts: he gives new eyes, new ears, & ⟨p. 40⟩a new heart;2 he moulds him anew every way. Therefore you have good men, sometimes wonder at themselves (when God hath touched their hearts) that they have had such shallow conceits of this and that truth before. Now they see that they were in the dark, that they were in a damp before, that they conceived things to be so and so, and thought themselves some body; but when God opens their eyes, and takes away the scales, and lets them see things in their proper light, heavenly things, by a heavenly light, and with a heavenly eye; they wonder at their former foolishness in divinity, especially so far as concerns