The divine life in three treatises

And the sweet appropriating and applying works of faith, by which the soul can own his God, and finds it self owned by him, are exercised most easily and happily in these near approaches unto God. Our doubts are cherished by our darkness, and that is much caused by our distance: The nearer the soul doth approach to God, the more distinctly it heareth the voice of mercy, the sweet reconciling invitations of Love; and the more clearly it discerneth that goodness and amiableness in God, which maketh it easier to us to believe that he loveth us, or is ready to embrace us; and banisheth all those false and horrid apprehensions of him, which before were our discouragement, and made him seem to us more terrible then amiable. As the Ministers and faithful servants of Christ, are ordinarily so misrepresented by the malignant Devil, to those that know them not, that they are ready to think them some silly fools, or falsehearted hypocrites, and to shun them as strange undesirable persons; but when they come to through acquaintance with them by a nearer and familiar converse, they see how much they were mistaken, and wronged by their prejudice and belief of slanderers misreports: Even so a weak believer that is under troubles, in the apprehension of his sin and danger, is apt to hearken to the enemy of God, that would show him nothing but his wrath, and represent God as an enemy to him: And in this case it is exceeding hard for a poor sinner to believe that God is reconciled to him, or loveth him, or intends him good, but he is ready to dread and shun him as an enemy, or as he would fly from a wild beast or murderer, or from fire or water that would destroy him: And all these injurious thoughts of God ⟨p. 252⟩are cherished by strangeness and disacquaintance.

And the sweet appropriating and applying works of faith, by which the soul can own his God, and finds it self owned by him, are exercised most easily and happily in these near approaches unto God. Our doubts are cherished by our darknesse, and that is much caused by our distance: The nearer the soul doth approach to God, the more distinctly it heareth the voice of mercy, the sweet reconciling invitations of Love; and the more clearly it discerneth that goodness and amiableness in God, which maketh it easier to us to believe that he loveth us, or is ready to embrace us; and banisheth all those false and horrid apprehensions of him, which before were our discouragement, and made him seem to us more terrible then amiable. As the Ministers and faithful servants of Christ, are ordinarily so misrepresented by the malignant Devil, to those that know them not, that they are ready to think them some silly fools, or falsehearted hypocrites, and to shun them as strange undesirable persons; but when they come to through acquaintance with them by a nearer and familiar converse, they see how much they were mistaken, and wronged by their prejudice and belief of slanderers misreports: Even so a weak believer that is under troubles, in the apprehension of his sin and danger, is apt to hearken to the enemy of God, that would shew him nothing but his wrath, and represent God as an enemy to him: And in this case it is exceeding hard for a poor sinner to believe that God is reconciled to him, or loveth him, or intends him good, but he is ready to dread and shun him as an enemy, or as he would fly from a wild beast or murderer, or from fire or water that would destroy him: And all these injurious thoughts of God