A02178:2311
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
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.
In the night. Of his holy exercises in the night the man of God speaketh, Psal. 119 55.
In the night. Of his holie exercises in the night the man of God speaketh, Psal. 119 55.
I have remembered thy name in the night, O Lord, and have kept thy law. And Psal. 62. At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee, because of thy righteous judgements. And vers. 148. Mine eyes prevent the night watches to meditate in thy law. The Physicians affirm, that our dreams in the night season are agreeable to our musings in the day time: and that our affections in our sleep do much follow the complexions, the repletion or evacuation of the body: according to these they say also are the dispositions of the mind naturally, without some violent alteration or extraordinary operation. And surely a man by diligent observation may espy his inclination of mind as well by his dreams sleeping, as by his cogitations waking: or rather the better by how much the night is more free from those troubles which work great perturbations & violent distractions of the mind in the day: So that the agitations of the mind are by so much the more strong and effectual, by how much it is more free and natural; which experience may teach both in them that are renewed, and such as are unregenerate. The Philosophers not much disagreeing, say, that the civill virtuous man is much affected in the night, according to his actions in the day, and that the virtuous and the vicious man concerning half their lives, that is, the night season or sleeping times, do nothing differ, sane that the dreams of the virtuous are good, the ⟨p. 326⟩dreams of the vicious are evil; which if it be so, then much more shall they, whose hearts are throughly sanctified with the spirit of God, either find comfort in good things, or sorrow for their sins even in the night season. Such is the mercy of our God, that he ceaseth not to continue our knowledge, and to teach us by his spirit and meditation, even in the night season; and if at any time they break forth into more sensual liberty proceeding from their natural appetite, they make this profit of it by judging that the Lord correcteth these wandering thoughts in the day, by confused dreams in the night, and their impure cogitations waking, by unchaste imaginations in sleeping. By the reins I gather, is signified not the spiritual parts of the mind, but the more gross & sensible parts of the body separated far from the heart, and that part which conceiveth and seemeth to be the Prophet his sense,