N00747:190
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the…
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the help of dark souls, labouring under divine withdrawings. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry and Benjamin Eliot, 1699
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. Our Communion with God in this life is very imperfect. There is indeed ⟨p. 96⟩a fellowship which Gods people have with him at present the Apostle could say, in 1 Joh▪ 1.3. truly our fellowship is with God the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ; and hence there […] an Inchoate blessedness which they do enjoy, on account whereof they are declared to be now blessed; but it is not in that fullness which our souls do crave, and ou• hopes grasp after. It is but mediate for the present, and the medium also is obscure, 1 Cor 13 12. we now see through a g•ass darkly: they are but earnests and ta••s that we have of this love now. Our present Communion is conveyed to us in promises, the performance of which will not be here completed, but this is reserved for another life; & it is by faith & hope that we have communion with him; which is a thing, though comfortable to the soul, yet inconceivably short of that which shall be by sight, and immediate enjoyment of him, which is the thing that we look for at his coming and Kingdom: this is the reason the Apostle gives of his expecting to be dissolved. 2 Cor. 5.7. for we walk by faith, and not by sight.
3. Our Communion with God in this life is very imperfect. There is indeed ⟨p. 96⟩a fellowship which Gods people have with him at present the Apostle could say, in 1 Joh▪ 1.3. truly our fellowship is with God the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ; and hence there 〈…〉 an Inchoate blessedness which they do enjoy, on account whereof they are declared to be now blessed; but it is not in that fulness which our souls do crave, and ou• hopes grasp after. It is but mediate for the present, and the medium also is obsc•re, 1 Cor 13 12. we now see through a g•ass darkly: they are but earnests and tas that we have of this love now. Our present Communion is conveyed to us in promises, the performance of which will not be here compleated, but this is reserved for another life; & it is by faith & hope that we have communion with him; which is a thing, though comfortable to the soul, yet inconceivably short of that which shall be by sight, and immediate enjoyment of him, which is the thing that we look for at his coming and Kingdom: this is the reason the Apostle gives of his expecting to be dissolved.