A02178:3789
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.
Vers. 170. Let my supplication come before thee, and deliver me according to thy promise.
Vers. 170. Let my supplication come before thee, and deliuer me according to thy promise.
Well now, if we only consider those former causes, we shall see that here is no vain repetition, and that in nothing this prayer was made too often. For besides that, as we said, we know here but in part, we forget also that which we know, and we cannot practise that which we remember: so that it is a rare thing to have a good judgement, but rarer when we have a good judgement to have a good affection, and most rare when we have a good judgement and a sound affection, to have them still. For we have not in us any indwelling righteousness. Again, as it had not been sufficient for us to have had light heretofore, and not to have it now; or having it now, unless we have it hereafter: so it is requisite1 for our life which we hold in Christ, that we have not only had judgement heretofore, unless we have it now; and it is not sufficient to have it now, unless we have it hereafter. For they that think their judgement is perfect enough, and their affections holy, had no need to have Christ to be their schoolmaster, who teacheth the simple and ignorant; they that are whole need him not to be their physician, who came not to call the righteous: but sinners to repentance. But God his children seeing their ignorance and corrupt affections, even by experience (the schoolmistress of schools) know, how needful it is daily to crave knowledge, and continually to labour for a good conscience. On the contrary ⟨p. 599⟩part, who so bold as blind bayard; who so lofty as he that understandeth least; who so proud, as he that hath but slender knowledge? But surely the children of God, who are conscious still of their deadness & dullness in heavenly things, would even have despaired, had they not seen the same in the Saints of God before them, and had they not received from God this holy Psalm, both for a pattern of godliness, to their instruction, and also for an example, how they might be rid from their ignorance, deadness, & dullness, and how they might be comforted, when after much striving and shaking them off, they return to them again to their consolation. For when we see that the Saints of God before us have had such fights, not only with corruptions of ill judgement, and corrupt affections, which they had of nature: