A44697:291
A treatise of delighting in God from Psal. xxxvij. 4. Delight thy self also…
A treatise of delighting in God from Psal. xxxvij. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. In two parts. By John Howe, M.A. sometime fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon.
London: printed by A. Maxwell for Sa. Gellibrand, 1674
A TREATISE OF Delighting in GOD: From PSAL. 37. 4. Delight thy self… › Part 1
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.
The one of these is therefore truly said to be Love exercised upon a good which we behold at a distance, and are reaching at. The other, ⟨p. 139⟩Love solacing it self in a present good. They are as the wings and arms of love; Those for pursuits, these for embraces. Or the former is love in motion; the latter is love in rest. And as in bodily motion and rest, that is in order to this, and is perfected in it; Things move not, that they may move, but that they may rest (whence perpetual progressive motion is not to be found); so it is also in the motion and rest of the mind or spirit; it moves towards any object with a design and expectation to rest in it, and (according to the course and order which God hath stated and set) can never move forward endlessly towards a good in which it shall not at length rest; though yet Desire and Delight have a continual vicissitude, and do (as it were circularly) beget one another.
The one of these is therefore truly said to be Love exercised upon a good which we behold at a distance, and are reaching at. The other, ⟨p. 139⟩Love solacing it self in a present good. They are as the wings and arms of love; Those for pursuits, these for embraces. Or the former is love in motion; the latter is love in rest. And as in bodily motion and rest, that is in order to this, and is perfected in it; Things move not, that they may move, but that they may rest (whence perpetual progressive motion is not to be found); so it is also in the motion and rest of the mind or spirit; it moves towards any object with a design and expectation to rest in it, and (according to the course and order which God hath stated and set) can never move forward endlesly towards a good in which it shall not at length rest; though yet Desire and Delight have a continual vicissitude, and do (as it were circularly) beget one another.
And thus hath God himself been pleased to express his own Delight, or the Joy which he takes in his people,