A44697:422
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
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.
And the more any one doth only notionally know in the matters of Religion, so as that the temper of his spirit remains altogether unsuitable and opposite to the design and tendency of the things known; the more he hath lying ready to come in judgment against him; and if therefore he count the things excellent which he knows, and only please himself with his own knowledge of them, 'tis but alike case as if a man should be much delighted to behold his own condemnation written in a fair and beautiful hand: Or, as if one should be pleased with the glittering of that sword which is directed against his own heart, and must be the present instrument of death to him: And so little pleasant is the case of such a person in it self, who thus satisfies his own curiosity with the concernments of eternal life and death, that any serious person would tremble on his behalf, at that wherein he takes ⟨p. 182⟩pleasure, and apprehend just horror in that state of the case whence he draws matter of delight.
And the more any one doth only notionally know in the matters of Religion, so as that the temper of his spirit remains altogether unsutable and opposite to the design and tendency of the things known; the more he hath lying ready to come in judgment against him; and if therefore he count the things excellent which he knows, and only please himself with his own knowledg of them, 'tis but alike case as if a man should be much delighted to behold his own condemnation written in a fair and beautiful hand: Or, as if one should be pleased with the glittering of that sword which is directed against his own heart, and must be the present instrument of death to him: And so little pleasant is the case of such a person in it self, who thus satisfies his own curiosity with the concernments of eternal life and death, that any serious person would tremble on his behalf, at that wherein he takes ⟨p. 182⟩pleasure, and apprehend just horrour in that state of the case whence he draws matter of delight.