A32723:765
Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God
Several discourses upon the existence and attributes of God by that late eminent minister in Christ, Mr. Stephen Charnocke ...
London: printed for D. Newman, 1682
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. Not the joy of Gods dispensation flowing from God, but a gracious active joy streaming to God. There is a joy, when the Comforts of God are dropped into the Soul, as Oil upon the Wheel; which indeed makes the faculties move with more speed and activity in his service, like the Chariots of Aminadab: And a Soul may serve God in the strength of this taste, and its delight terminated in the sensible comfort. This is not the joy I mean, but such a joy that hath God for its Object, delighting in him as the term, in worship as the way to him: The first is Gods dispensation, the other is our duty; The first is an act of Gods favour to us, the second a sprout of habitual grace in us. The Comforts we have from God, may elevate our duties; but the grace we have within, doth spiritualize our duties.
1. Not the joy of Gods dispensation flowing from God, but a gracious active joy streaming to God. There is a joy, when the Comforts of God are dropt into the Soul, as Oyle upon the Wheel; which indeed makes the faculties move with more speed and activity in his service, like the Chariots of Aminadab: And a Soul may serve God in the strength of this taste, and its delight terminated in the sensible comfort. This is not the joy I mean, but such a joy that hath God for its Object, delighting in him as the term, in worship as the way to him: The first is Gods dispensation, the other is our duty; The first is an act of Gods favour to us, the second a sprout of habitual grace in us. The Comforts we have from God, may elevate our duties; but the grace we have within, doth spiritualize our duties.
2. Nor is every delight an argument of a spiritual service. All the the requisites to worship must be taken in. A man may invent a worship, and delight in it; as Micah in the adoration of his Idol, when he was glad he had got both an Ephod and a Levite*. As a man may have a contentment in Sin, so he may have a contentment in Worship; not because it is a worship of God, but the worship of his own invention, agreeable to his own humour and design, as