A53713:449
Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Of communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, each person distinctly in love, grace, and consolation, or, The saints fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unfolded by John Owen ...Of communion with God the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, each person distinctly in love, grace, and consolation, or, The saints fellowship with the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, unfolded by John Owen ...
Oxford: printed by A. Lichfield for Tho. Robinson, 1657
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.
3. She further manifests this by her solicitousness, trouble, §. 13 and perplexity, in his loss and withdrawings. Men bewail the loss of that whose whole enjoyment they delight in. We easily bear the absence of that, whose presence is not delightful. This state of the Spouse is discovered chap. 3. 1, 2, 3. By tnight on my bed I sought him whom xmy soul loved, I sought him but I found him not. I will rise now and go about the City in the streets and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth, I xsought him but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the City found me, to whom I said, saw you him whom my soul loveth? It is night now with the soul, a time of darkness and trouble, or Affliction. When ever Christ is absent it is night with a Believer. He is the rSun; if he go down upon them, if his beams be eclipsed, if in his Light, they see no Light, it is all darkness with them. Here, whither the coming of the night of any trouble on her, made her discover Christs absence, or the absence of Christ made it night with her, is not expressed. I rather think the latter; because setting that aside, all things seem to be well with her. The absence of Christ will indeed make it night, dark as darkness it self in the middest of all other glowing consolations. But is the Spouse contented with this dispensation? She is upon her bed; that is, of ease; The bed indeed sometimes signifies tribulation Rev. 2. 22. but in this book every where rest and contentment there is not the least intimation of any tribulation but what is in the want of Christ: but in the greatest peace and opportunity of ease and rest, a believer finds none in the absence of Christ; Though he be on his bed, having nothing to disquiet him, he rests not, if Christ his rest be not there. She sought him seeking of Christ by ⟨p. 145⟩night, on the bed, that is alone in an immediate inquest & in the dark, hath two parts; searching of our own souls for the cause of his absence; Secondly searching the promises for his presence.