A44697:606
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.
Now if herein your heart be sincere, and there be a real and vital exercise of your very Soul in this transaction with God in Christ, so as that you truly take him for your God, preferring him in your estimation and choice above all things, and giving up your self absolutely and without reservation to him as his, to be governed and disposed of by him in all things at his pleasure; You are hereby brought into that state that doth admit of delighting in him.
And what remains to be said, will concern you as persons in a nearer capacity, and who have a kind of fundamental aptitude and disposedness of heart unto this spiritual work; And will therefore be directed to you, considered according to that supposition.
Only it is withal to be considered, in the case of many such, that they were arrived hither long ago, and been (as was before supposed) hereupon somewhat exercised and versed in this piece of holy practice, have had many pleasant turns with God, and tasted often the delights of his converse: But have discontinued their course, and are grown strange to him who was their delight; have suffered themselves by insensible degrees to be drawn and tempted away from him; or there hath been some grosser and more violent rupture, by which they have broken ⟨p. 295⟩themselves off. It will be requisite to say somewhat more peculiar to these, (for the reducing of them again even to this unitive point); After which, what shall ensue, may in common concern them, and all that are arrived so far, together.
Only it is withal to be considered, in the case of many such, that they were arrived hither long ago, and been (as was before supposed) hereupon somewhat exercised and vers'd in this piece of holy practice, have had many pleasant turns with God, and tasted often the delights of his converse: But have discontinued their course, and are grown strange to him who was their delight; have suffered themselves by insensible degrees to be drawn and tempted away from him; or there hath been some grosser and more violent rupture, by which they have broken