A25241:808
Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…
Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of Jesus as carrying on the great work of mans salvation from first to last / by Isaac Ambrose ...
London: printed for Richard Chiswel, 1680
Book 4 › Chapter 2 › Section 3: Of Desiring after Jesus in that Respect.
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.
SECT. III. Of Desiring after Jesus in that Respect.
3. Let us desire after Jesus, carrying on the great work of our Salvation at his first coming, or incarnation. It is not enough to know, and consider, but we must desire. Now, What is desire, but a certain Motion of the Appetite, by which the Soul darts it self towards the absent good, purposely to draw near, and to unite it self thereunto? The incarnation of Christ according to the Letter, was the desire of Nations; so the Prophet,1 I will shake all Nations, and the Desire of all Nations shall come. O how they that lived before Christ, Desired after this coming of Christ! Abraham Desired to see that day, Two Thousand Years and more before it came: it was the expectation of all the Patriarchs, O when will that day come? And surely the incarnation of Christ in the fruit, or efficacy, or application is, or should be the Desire of all Christians. There is merit, and virtue in Jesus Christ, in every passage of Christ, in his conception, incarnation; in his birth, and in those consequents after his birth; now to make these ours, that we may have our share, and part, and interest in them, we must here begin; O my soul do thou desire, do thou seek to possess thy self of Christ, set thy desire (as the Needle point) aright, and all the rest will follow: never will union be with the absent good, but the Soul by Desire, must first dart it self towards it. True it is, and pity it is, Millions of Souls stand at a distance from Jesus Christ, and why? they have no desire towards him: but, O that my soul, and thy soul (whosoever thou art that readest) would Desire! O that we could Desire, and long after him until we languish, and be compelled to cry out with the spouse,2 Stay me with flagons, and comfort me with Apples, for I am Sick of Love.
3. LEt us desire after Jesus, carrying on the great work of our Salvation at his first coming, or incarnation. It is not enough to know, and consider, but we must desire. Now, What is desire, but a certain Motion of the Appetite, by which the Soul darts it self towards the absent good, purposely to draw near, and to unite it self thereunto? The incarnation of Christ according to the Letter, was the desire of Nations; so the Prophet,