[Contents] [Previous: Marks and signs of union with Christ.] [Next: How the soul is kept from rest in God.]

Neo. Sir, be pleased to give me leave to tell you some part of my mind, and then I will cease to trouble you any more at this time. The truth is, I have, ever since I could remember, felt a kind of restless discontentedness in my spirit, and for many years together, I fed myself with hopes of finding rest and content in persons and things here below, scarce thinking of the state and condition of my soul, or of any condition beyond this life, until, as I told you before, the Lord was pleased to visit me with a fit of sickness; and then I began to bethink myself of death, judgment, hell, and heaven, and to take care and seek rest for my soul, as well as for my body; but, alas! I could never find rest for it before this day; because,, indeed, I sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law; or, in plain terms, because I sought it not in Christ but in myself. But now, I bless God, I see that Christ is all in all; and therefore, by the grace of God, I am resolved no longer to seek rest and content, neither in any earthly thing, nor in mine own righteousness, but only in the free love and favour of God, as he is in his Son Jesus Christ; and, God willing, there shall be my soul's rest. And I beseech you, sir, pray for me, that it may be so; and I have done.

Evan. This point, concerning the heart's happiness, or soul's rest, is a point very needful for us to know; and indeed, it is a point that I have formerly thought upon; and therefore, though my occasions do now begin to call me away from you, yet, nevertheless, since you have begun to speak of it, I shall, if you please, proceed on, if you shall, or any of you, give occasion, and as the Lord shall enable me.

Ant. With a very good will, sir; for indeed it is a point that I much desire to hear of.

Evan. First, then, I would entreat you to consider with me, that when God at first gave man an elementish body, ¹ he did also infuse into him an immortal soul of a spiritual substance; and though he gave his soul a local being in his body, yet he gave it a spiritual well-being in himself; so that the soul was in the body by location and at rest in God by union and communication; and this being of the soul in God at first was man's true being, and his true happiness. Now man falling from God, God in his justice left man, so that the actual union and communion that the soul of man had with God at first is broken off; God and man's soul are parted; and it is in a restless condition. Howbeit, the Lord having seated in man's soul a certain character of himself, the soul is thereby made to re-aspire towards that summum bonum, that chief good, even God himself, and can find rest no where, till it come to him. ²

Nom. But stay, sir, I pray you; how can it be said that man's soul doth re-aspire towards God the Creator, when it is evident that every man's soul naturally is bent towards the creature, to seek a rest there?

Evan. For answer hereunto I pray you consider, that naturally man's understanding is dark and blind; and therefore is ignorant what his own soul does desire and strongly aspire unto. It knoweth, indeed, that there is a want in the soul; but till it be enlightened, it knoweth not what it is which the soul wanteth. For, indeed, the case standeth with the soul as with a child new born, which child, by natural instinct, doth gape and cry for nutriment; yea, for such nutriment as may agree with its tender condition; and if the nurse, through negligence or ignorance, either give it no meat at all, or else such as it is not capable of receiving, the child refuses it, and still cries, in strength of desire, after the breast; yet does not the child, in this estate, know by any intellectual power and understanding what itself desires. Even so man's poor soul doth cry to God as for its proper nourishment; ³ but his understanding, like a blind, ignorant nurse, not knowing what it cries for, offers to the heart a creature instead of a Creator; thus, by reason of the blindness of the understanding, together with the corruption of the will, and disorder of the affections, man's soul is kept by violence ⁴ from its proper centre, even God himself.

[Back] [1] That is an elementary body, made up, as it were, of the four elements, as they are called, namely, fire, air, earth, and water.

[Back] [2] The soul of man has a natural desire of happiness: nothing can make it happy but what is commensurable to its desires, or capable of affording it a full satisfaction. Nothing less than an infinite good is such: and God himself only is an infinite good, in the enjoyment of which the soul can rest, as fully satisfied, desiring no more. Now, since by reason of the vast capacity of the soul, nothing but God himself can indeed satisfy this its desire of happiness, the which is so woven into the very nature of the soul, that nothing but the destruction of the very being of the soul can remove it; it is evident, that it is impossible the soul of man can ever find true rest, until it return to God, and take up its rest with him; but must still be in quest of, or desiring its chief good and happiness, wherein it may rest, and this in reality is God himself only; though the practical understanding being blinded, knows not that, and the perverse will and affections carry away the soul from him, seeking the desired good and happiness in other things. This is what the author calls the soul's re-aspiring towards the chief good, even God himself; and it is so consistent with the total depravation of man's nature, that it will remain for ever in the damned in hell; a chief part of whose misery will lie in that this desire shall ever be rampant in them, but never in the least satisfied; they shall never be freed from this scorching thirst there, nor yet get a drop of water to cool the tongue.

[Back] [3] Man's poor soul, before it is enlightened, naturally cries to God, as the "young ravens cry to him," (Job 38:41), not knowing to whom: and it cries for him as its proper nourishment, as the new born infant for the breast, not knowing for what. Only it feels a want, desires supply proper for filling it up, and can never get kindly rest till it be supplied accordingly, that is, till it come to the enjoyment of God: then it rests, as the infant set to the full breast. (Isa 66:11), "That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations."

[Back] [4] Namely, violence done to its natural make and constitution [if I may so express it] by the blindness, corruption, and disorder, that have seized its faculties.