A28620:972
The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in several treatisesThe dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in severall treatises
The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in several treatises ... : never before published / by Samuel Bolton ...The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in severall treatises ... : never before published / by Samuel Bolton ...
London: printed by Robert Ibbitson for Thomas Parkhurst, 1657
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE OF THE LOVES OF CHRIST TO HIS SPOUSE. › Sign 6: 6. Sign.
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.
1. In Grace here. Oh! How the soul once taken with Christ desires converses with him, in prayer, in hearing, in meditation, Isa. 26.8, 9. The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. And this is the Genius of a soul taken with Christ: that duty doth not content him, if he find not Christ in duty. If the end of a duty have left him on this side Christ, it hath left him so far short of comfort.
1. In Grace here. Oh! How the soul once taken with Christ desires converses with him, in prayer, in hearing, in meditation, Isa. 26.8, 9. The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea with my spirit within mee will I seek thee early. And this is the Genius of a soul taken with Christ: that duty doth not content him, if hee finde not Christ in duty. If the end of a duty have left him on this side Christ, it hath left him so far short of comfort.
Others indeed, though they do a duty, yet as their hearts seek not Christ in the duty, so their souls can rest content without him, when the duty is done: but it is otherwise with a right-born-soul.
'Twas the speech of Bradford, that he could never leave a duty, till he had found communion with Christ in the duty: till he had brought his heart into a duty-frame. He could not leave confession, till he had found his heart touched, broken, and humbled for sin; nor Petition, till he had found his heart taken with the beauties of the things desired, and carried out after them: nor could he leave thanksgiving, till he had found his spirit enlarged, and his soul quickened in the return of praises.