A12198:561
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
THE SOULS CONFLICT with it self. › Chapter 20THE SOVLES CONFLICT with it selfe. › Chapter 20
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.
By all this we see that it is not so easy a matter as the world takes it, to bring God and the soul together by trusting on him; It must be effected by the mighty power of God, raising up the 1soul to himself, to lay hold upon the glorious power, goodness, and other excellencies that are in him; God is not only the object, but the working cause of our trust; for such is our proneness to live by sense, and natural reason, and such is the strangeness and height of divine things, such our inclination to a self sufficiency and contentment in the creature, and so hard a matter is it to take off the soul from false bottoms, by reason of our unacquaintance with God and his ways; besides such guilt still remains upon our souls for our rebellion and unkindness towards God: that it makes us afraid to entertain serious thoughts of him; and so ⟨p. 332⟩great is the distance betwixt his infinite Majesty, (before whom the very Angels do cover their faces) and us, by reason of the unspiritualnesse of our nature, being opposite to his most absolute purity, that we cannot be brought to any familiarity with the Lord (so as to come into his holy presence with confidence to rely upon him, or any comfort to have communion with him,) till our hearts be sanctified and lifted up by divine vigour infused into them.
By all this wee see that it is not so easie a matter as the world takes it, to bring God and the soule together by trusting on him; It must be effected by the mighty power of God, raising up the 1soule to himselfe, to lay hold upon the glorious power, goodnesse, and other excellencies that are in him; God is not onely the object, but the working cause of our trust; for such is our pronenesse to live by sense, and naturall reason, and such is the strangenesse and height of divine things, such our inclination to a selfe sufficiency and contentment in the creature, and so hard a matter is it to take off the soule from false bottomes, by reason of our unacquaintance with God and his wayes; besides such guilt still remaines upon our soules for our rebellion and unkindnesse towards God: that it makes us afraid to entertaine serious thoughts of him; and so ⟨p. 332⟩