A00888:440
The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2.…The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2.…
The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2. The second service, 3. The breaking up of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Physic from heaven / published by Thomas Adams ...The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2. The second seruice, 3. The breaking vp of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Phisicke from heauen / published by Thomas Adams ...
London: printed by Thomas Snodham for Ralph Mab, 1614
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.
Complaints are the witness of a grieved soul: both are sufferings. God is here said to complain. Why? he is grieved at our sins. Can he be grieved indeed? No nor need he complain, that hath such power to right himself. Yet he is often said to be grieved; Grieve not the Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed up to the day of Redemption: 1And here to complain. To speak properly, God cannot complain because he cannot be grieved: He cannot be grieved, because he cannot suffer. Every blow of ours, though we were as strong and high as the sons of Anak lights short of him. If some could have reached him, it had gone ill with him long ere this. All is spoken per [Greek or Hebrew]. He is sine ira irascens, sine poenit•ntia poenitens, sine dolore dolens: angry without anger, grieving without sorrow. These passions are ascribed to him, quoad effectum, non quoad affectum: They are perfections in him, what are affections in us. The complaint that once God made against a whole world, as he doth here against Israel, is ⟨p. 233⟩expressed in more patent and significant terms. It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, 2and it grieved him at his heart. God so complains against mans sin, that he is sorry that he made him. This, saith Augustine, non est perturbatio, sed judicium, 3quo irrogatur poena: It is no disturbance in God, but only his Judgement, whereby he inflicts punishment. And further; Poenitudo Dei est mutandorum immutabilis ratio: Gods repentance is his unchangeable disposition, in things of a changeable condition. It is mutatio rei, non Dei: the change of the thing, not of God. Cum ij quos curat mutantur, mutat ipse res, 4prout ijs expedit, quos curat: He willeth an expedient alteration of things, according to the alteration of them for whom he provides. So God is said to repent that he made Saul King, or that he threatened evil to Nineveh. In all which hee changed (non affectum, sed effectum) the external work, not his internal counsel. For as the School speaks, immutabiliter ignoscit, he unchangeably pardons whom he means to save, though they feel it not till conversion: so immutabiliter non ignoscit, hee unchangeably retains their sins in his Judgement-book, which amend not, as Saul