A44697:346
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.
As in the best and most excellent good; for this signifies the good wherein it rests to be ultimate, and its last end, the very period of its pursuits, beyond which it neither needs nor desires to go further, viz. as to the kind and nature of the good which it is now intent upon; though it still desire more of the same, till there be no place left for further desire, but it wholly cease and end in full satisfaction.
And that we may speak somewhat more particularly of this rest in God; it supposes,
1. Knowledge of him. That the Soul be well furnished with such conceptions of his ⟨p. 157⟩Nature and Attributes, as that it may be truly said to be himself it delights in, and not another thing; not an Idol of its own fancy, and which its imagination hath created and set up to it instead of God. Therefore his own representation of himself must be our measure; which being forsaken, or not so diligently attended to, He is either by some, misrepresented, (according as their own corrupt hearts do suggest impure thoughts), and made altogether such a one as themselves, and such as cannot be the object of a pure and spiritual delight; or by others (as their guilt and fear do suggest to them black and direful thoughts of him) rendered such as that he cannot be the object of any delight at all.
1. Knowledg of him. That the Soul be well furnished with such conceptions of his ⟨p. 157⟩Nature and Attributes, as that it may be truly said to be himself it delights in, and not another thing; not an Idol of its own fancy, and which its imagination hath created and set up to it instead of God. Therefore his own representation of himself must be our measure; which being forsaken, or not so diligently attended to, He is either by some, misrepresented, (according as their own corrupt hearts do suggest impure thoughts), and made altogether such a one as themselves, and such as cannot be the object of a pure and spiritual delight; or by others (as their guilt and fear do suggest to them black and direful thoughts of him) render'd such as that he cannot be the object of any delight at all.