The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

This is a general rule in Divinity to be observed, that of one place of Scripture there is ¹but one natural and proper sense: although by consequence, searching out the contraries, the causes, the effects, and such like, other things may be also gathered out of it. If the words be more ⟨p. 154⟩proper and natural, the sense is more proper and natural: if the words be borrowed and metaphorical, then is the sense borrowed and metaphorical. Now allusions are not so much for the proof & confirmation of the matter, as for the amplifying and illustrating of the same. For example, 2. Corinth. 13. 1. the Apostle saith: This is the third time I come unto you. Where we must understand, how the Apostle had been with them once in bodily presence, and twice wrote unto them, and yet he saith, this is the third time I come unto you. He alludeth then to this, as ye see, O Corinthians, in the law, that two or three witnesses were sufficient to confirm the good, and condemn the evil: so I have been with you thrice, which is sufficient to confirm the faith of the godly, & to leave the ungodly without excuse. Again, Rom. 10. 18. we read, But I demand, Have they not heard? No doubt their sound went throughout all the earth, and their words into the ends of the world. Here we see the Apostle alludeth to that Psal. 19. 4. which is meant of the day and the night. This is then the allusion, As the day and the night spread over the whole world, so the Apostles were sent to preach over the whole world. Again, Galat. 4. Paul alludeth to Hagar and Sarah, in which place he showeth, that as in Abraham's family was the image both of the true Church and malignant Church, the one persecuted of the other: so like should be the estate of the Church continually even unto the end. In like manner the author to the Hebrews useth an allusion, that as God rested the seventh day from the works of the creation: so we also should rest from the works not of sin, as these men would have it, but of our calling. For this Adam should so have done, though he had not sinned, and therefore it is not meant of resting from sin. Thus we see, where the Christian Be gathereth honey, there the heretical Spider sucketh poison, who affirmeth, that in this life they rest from sin, and here they have their heaven.