And this indeed makes me more desirous of coming to you again, than any thing else. That I may do some good among you. Oh, how few study to advance the interest of Christ and the benefit of one another's souls in their visits, as they should and might do! I am not able, at present, to order my affairs so as to come comfortably over to you, but I hope, ere long, the Lord will give me leave to see you, and be refreshed by you, I desire to supply my absence by this sure token of my remembrance of you, and also that I might have an opportunity for that which we ought to eye most in the enjoyment of one another's society. But I have found, that partly because of the narrowness of my heart, not being enlarged to bring forth into act what I have greatly desired, partly because of the malice of the Enemy of our souls, who endeavours all that possible he can, to lay stumbling blocks in our way to real union and nearer acquaintance with God and Christian communion: from these, and other causes, it is, that I ⟨p. 69⟩have been too little beneficial to you for mercy.
It may be, I may write that with freedom, which in presence I should not have spoken. I shall take occasion from your desire of my presence with you to look higher to the desires of our souls to be in conjunction and communion with the highest good, who fills up all relations to our souls; who is our Father, our Husband, our Friend, our God; yea our all in all. But, when I say, He is all in all; I mean more than that which we count all; For every one doth confess, that it is God alone, that doth bless all other things to us, and that it is not out of the nature of those things that we enjoy, that they are blessings; but it is God, which makes them comforts to us. And thus God is to be acknowledged All in all common enjoyment!
But, besides this, God is something to the soul, which he is by himself and not in the mediation of the creatures, where God is as a portion, and lived upon as our true happiness; He is, not only the complement of other things, but He himself is the souls sufficiency. I am a little obscure, I desire to be plainer, I mean, that through the dispensation of the Gospel, God is to be lived upon, delighted in, and chosen before all, for, for this very end, hath Christ appeared, that he might make God approachable by man, and that we who are a far off, may be mad nigh.
And this indeed makes me more desirous of coming to you again, than any thing else. That I may do some good among you. Oh, how few study to advance the interest of Christ and the benefit of one anothers souls in their visits, as they should and might do! I am not able, at present, to order my affairs so as to come comfortably over to you, but I hope, e're long, the Lord will give me leave to see you, and be refreshed by you, I desire to supply my absence by this sure token of my remembrance of you, and also that I might have an opportunity for that which we ought to eye most in the injoyment of one anothers society. But I have found, that partly because of the narrowness of my heart, not being inlarged to bring forth into act what I have greatly desired, partly because of the malice of the Enemy of our souls, who indeavours all that possible he can, to lay stumbling blocks in our way to real union and nearer acquaintance with God and Christian communion: from these, and other causes, it is, that I ⟨p. 69⟩have been too little beneficial to you for mercy.
It may be, I may write that with freedom, which in presence I should not have spoken. I shall take occasion from your desire of my presence with you to look higher to the desires of our souls to be in conjunction and communion with the highest good, who fills up all relations to our souls; who is our Father, our Husband, our Friend, our God; yea our all in all. But, when I say, He is all in all; I mean more than that which we count all; For every one doth confess, that it is God alone, that doth bless all other things to us, and that it is not out of the nature of those things that we injoy, that they are blessings; but it is God, which makes them comforts to us. And thus God is to be acknowledged All in all common injoyment!
But, besides this, God is something to the soul, which he is by himself and not in the mediation of the creatures, where God is as a portion, and lived upon as our true happiness; He is, not only the complement of other things, but He himself is the souls sufficiency. I am a little obscure, I desire to be plainer, I mean, that through the dispensation of the Gospel, God is to be lived upon, delighted in, and chosen before all, for, for this very end, hath Christ appeared, that he might make God approachable by man, and that we who are a far off, may be mad nigh.
