'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — June 17

God is the happiness of man because of his suitableness to the soul. A hungry man finds his stomach craving. Give him music or honour and he is hungry still. These are not suitable to his appetite. Give him food and his craving is over. So it is with a man's soul. Give it honour, profits, and the pleasures of the world, and these cannot abate its desire; it craves still. These do not answer the soul's nature, and therefore cannot answer its needs. Set God before it just once, and let it feed on him; it is satisfied, and its inordinate, dogged appetite after the world is cured. Tasting this manna tramples on the onions of Egypt. God is the true happiness of the soul because he is an eternal good. As the sun never sets, so the soul that rests in God has an eternal Sabbath. Outward mercies, in which most place their happiness, are like floods that swell high and make a great noise, but are quickly over. The blessed God is like the spring that bubbles forth and runs over forever. This all-sufficient, suitable, and eternal God is the saint's peculiar portion, and therefore causes infinite satisfaction. God is my portion forever. When God says to the soul, ‘I am yours, and all that I have,’ who can tell how the heart leaps with joy and desires after him upon such news! The pronoun 'my’ is worth so much to the soul. Luther said much religion lies in the pronouns. All our consolation indeed consists in this pronoun. He is my God. All the joys of the believer are hung upon this one string. Break this and all is lost. I have sometimes thought how David rolls this word as a lump of sugar under his tongue: ‘I love you, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold' (Psa. 18: 1-2).

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
George Swinnock, Works, IV:7-12
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