A12198:352
The Soul's Conflict with Itself
The souls conflict with it self, and victory over it self by faith a treatise of the inward disquietments of distressed spirits, with comfortable remedies to establish them / by R. Sibbs ...The soules conflict with it selfe, and victory over it self by faith a treatise of the inward disquietments of distressed spirits, with comfortable remedies to establish them / by R. Sibbs ...
London: printed by M.F. for R. Dawlman, 1635
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.
The way to cure this malady in us, 1is 1. To labour to bring these risings of our souls into the obedience of Gods truth and Spirit; for imagination of it self, if ungoverned, is a wild, and a ranging thing; it wrongs not only 2the frame of Gods work in us, setting the baser part of a man above the higher, but it wrongs likewise the work ⟨p. 184⟩of God in the creatures and every thing else, for it shapes things as it self pleaseth, it maketh evil good, if it pleaseth the senses, and good evil, if it be d• gerous and distasteful to the out• man; which cannot but breed an • quiet and an unsettled soul. As if […] were a god, it can tell good and evil at its pleasure, it sets up and pulls do• the price of what it listeth: By rea• of the distemper of imagination, the life of many is little else but a dream; Many good men are in a long dream of […] sery, and many bad men in as long• dream of happiness, till the ti• awaking come, and all because they […] too much led by appearances; and as i• a dream men are deluded with […] joys, and false fears: So here; wi• cannot but breed an unquiet and […] unsettled soul, therefore it is niecest that God by his word and spirit sh• erect a government in our hea• […] captivate and order this licentious […] culty.
The way to cure this malady in us, 1is 1. To labour to bring these risings of our soules into the obedience of Gods truth and Spirit; for imagination of it selfe, if ungoverned, is a wilde, and a ranging thing; it wrongs not onely