A30587:45
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughs.Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughes.
London: printed for Robert Dawlman, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
No:1 Affirmative Precepts do not bind to all times, but Negative do; therefore it is necessary at all times, that there be no mixture of evil with any good we do, that our Mediocrity be not Medium participationis, but Medium abnegationis, between two extremes, which are evil, but not partaking of any evil; no good thing is moderated by mixture of evil, but by removing from it something that is evil, that hath already mingled it self with it.
No:1 Affirmative Precepts doe not binde to all times, but Negative doe; therefore it is necessary at all times, that there be no mixture of evill with any good we doe, that our Mediocrity be not Medium participationis, but Medium abnegationis, between two extreams, which are evill, but not partaking of any evill; no good thing is moderated by mixture of evill, but by removing from it something that is evill, that hath already mingled it selfe with it.
- 1Answ.
But must God have all our hearts,1 so as we may not let them out at all to any thing else?
- 1Object. 2.
If we let out our hearts to any thing but in subordination to God,1 then we divide between God and that thing sinfully; but though we do let out our affections to other things, yet if it be in subordination to God, so far as God is in those things, and we may be led nearer to God by them; this is no dividing between God and other things, but an uniting all in God, and enjoying God in all. The Saints are instructed in this mystery of godliness, they know how to give God the whole heart, and yet to enjoy the comforts of wives and children, and estates, and callings, as much as any in the world; they have that heavenly skill to unite all in God, and enjoy God in all, God is all in all unto them in their enjoyments of all good whatsoever; but if our hearts be let out to any thing otherwise then thus, they go a whoring from God, and will certainly vanish in their own folly. This is contrary to that singleness, to that oneness of heart promised as a blessing of the Gospel. Many of you complain of barrenness, here is the reason your hearts are divided; were the stream of your hearts wholly after God, it would run strongly, and bear down opposition before it, you would be fruitful in all the ways of holiness.