A02178:1933
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,…
The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham, minister and preacher of the Word of God collected into one volume: revised, corrected, and published, for the further building of all such as love the truth, and desire to know the power of godliness. By H.H.The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham, minister and preacher of the Word of God collected into one volume: reuised, corrected, and published, for the further building of all such as loue the truth, and desire to know the power of godlinesse. By H.H.
London: printed by Thomas Snodham and Thomas Creede for William Welby, 1612London: printed by Thomas Snodham and Thomas Creede for VVilliam VVelby, 1612
Part 2 › Treatise 11: A TREATISE OF BLESSEDNESS.Part 2 › Treatise 11: A TREATISE OF BLESSEDNES.
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.
The instrumental cause is partly within us, as faith, & partly without us, as the word, and the appurtenances accompanying the same, as Prayer, the Sacraments, the discipline of the Church▪ Faith being the ground of things, which are hoped for, & the evidence of things which are not seen Heb▪ 11. 1. doth so apply the promises of God to our proper and peculiar comforts, that it sealeth us up to the Lord, affording a certain testimony to our hearts, that we have not in vain received of the good spirit of God. Now, because there is a certain kind of faith, which Satan himself doth broach in his school, and propounds as a principle to all his scholars; seeing the Papists urge faith in their unwritten verities,1 the Familists will have it in their foolish revelations. The Turk requireth it in his dry speculations of Mahomet, and the wizard will seem to demand it in his devilish incantations: we must not believe every spirit, but trust to the word only▪ which is our sure lodestar and touch-stone, and being it self firm, doth make our faith in it most firm, sure and unchangeable. This blessedness to have the Lord communicate himself to us by his word, is privileged above that praise, which the woman gave our Saviour Christ, Luk. 11. 27. as may appear by his sharp answer, Yea blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. We conclude then with the Psalmist, Blessed are they that dwell in the house of the Lord, they will ever praise him. Blessed is the man whose strength is in the Lord, and in whose heart are his ways, Psal. 84. 4. 5. If the Queen of Saba counted those men happy, that might stand before Solomon, and hear his wisdom, 2. Chron 9. 7. if David thought it a high recompense and princelike benefit to prefer the son of Barzillai to sit at the table of Solomon: 2how great is our happiness to hear the wisdom of Christ? how high is our blessedness to sit at the table of the Lord, where not Solomon, but a greater than Solomon is present; where not Solomon, but a wiser than Solomon speaketh unto us? Behold then the causes of true blessedness, which are our election, redemption, illumination, & sanctification: