A39659:578
Divine Conduct, or The Mystery of Providence
Divine conduct, or, The mystery of Providence wherein the being and efficacy of Providence is asserted and vindicated : the methods of Providence as it passes through the several stages of our lives opened : and the proper course of improving all Providences / directed in a treatise upon Psalm 57 ver 2 by John Flavell ...Divine conduct, or, The mysterie of Providence wherein the being and efficacy of Providence is asserted and vindicated : the methods of Providence as it passes through the several stages of our lives opened : and the proper course of improving all Providences / directed in a treatise upon Psalm 57 ver 2 by John Flavell ...
London: printed by R.W. for Francis Tyton, 1678
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.
How much advantage those things have upon §1our souls, which we have already felt and tasted, ⟨p. 180⟩beyond those which were never relished by any former experience? What is Experience? but the bringing down of the objects of faith to the dijudication and test of spiritual sense? Now when any thing hath been once tasted, felt and judged by a former Experience, it is much more easily believed and received when it occurs again. It's much easier for faith to travel in a path that is well known to it, having formerly trod it, than to beat out a new one which it never trod, nor can see one step before it. Hence it is, though there be a difficulty in all the acts of faith, yet scarce in any like the first adventure it makes upon Christ; and the reason lies here, because in the subsequent acts it hath all its former experiences to aid and encourage it; but in the first adventure it hath none at all of its own, it takes a path which it never knew before.
How much advantage those things have upon §1our souls, which we have already felt and tasted, ⟨p. 180⟩beyond those which were never relished by any former experience? What is Experience? but the bringing down of the objects of faith to the dijudication and test of spiritual sense? Now when any thing hath been once tasted, felt and judged by a former Experience, it is much more easily believed and received when it occurrs again. It's much easier for faith to travel in a path that is well known to it, having formerly trod it, than to beat out a new one which it never trod, nor can see one step before it. Hence it is, though there be a difficulty in all the acts of faith, yet scarce in any like the first adventure it makes upon Christ; and the reason lyes here, because in the subsequent acts it hath all its former experiences to aid and encourage it; but in the first adventure it hath none at all of its own, it takes a path which it never knew before.