Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
This disciple, who declared that whatever "heavenly life" there was in
himself had been "hatched" by the fostering care, the nurturing love
and the brave conduct of his teacher, has left a few very clear traits
for the creation of a true portrait of this saintly interpreter of the
Spirit: He was a Fountain running over, Worthington says, "an ever
bountifull and bubbling Fountain."[14] Love was bubbling and springing
up in his soul and flowing out to all. He would have emptied his soul
into others. He {308} was dipped into Justice as it were over head and
ears; he had not a slight tincture but was dyed and coloured quite
through with it. He cared only for those substantial and solid things
of a Divine and Immortal Nature, which he might carry out of the world
with him. He was a living library, a walking study, a whole college in
himself, that carried his learning about with him; a man of great
industry, indefatigable pains, and herculean labours. His learning was
so concocted that it lay not in notions in his head, but was wrought
out and formed in his very soul so that a man came away always better
after converse with him. His faith did not busy itself about fine
notions, subtilties, and curiosities, but it was firmly set and fixed
in an experience of the mercy and goodness of God, seen in Jesus
Christ. He lived in a continuous enjoyment of God and perpetually drew
nearer to the Centre of his soul's rest and always stayed God's time of
advancement. His spirit was absorbed in the business and employment of
becoming perfect in his art and profession--which was the art _of being
a good man_.[15] The devoted scholar's highest wish, as he closes his
glowing account of his beloved master, who "enshrined so much Divinity
that everything about him had a kind of sacredness," was that those who
had enjoyed his presence and inspiration and had formed their lives
under his instruction might "so express his life" in theirs, that men
would say as they saw these disciples of his, "There walks at least a
shadow of Mr. Smith!"[16]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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