A02178:4106
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.
IT is the usual manner of the Holy Ghost, 1. Pet. 4. Jam. 2. John, 12. to persuade men to godliness, because they have but a quantity of days. This is such an ordinary1 Argument, that use hath taken away the force of it, yet David saith, that even ordinary things by grace move us, and where grace works not, even extraordinary things move us not. Concerning shortness of life, the heathen could say, that a man is but a man2 of a day old, and the Philosophers teach that his life cannot be long. But we will leave all them without the Church, and come to them within: David said it was a span long Moses and Solomon say, it is a life of days: and I will observe withal, that Moses, Joh, David, Solomon, when they describe the life of man, they can find nothing to rest on as vain enough, whereunto they might compare it: so base a thing is this life, that it may abide any extenuation in the world. In regard whereof they have compared it to a bubble, a sleep, a vapour, and they come so far at the length, that they compared it to a thought, whereof3 we know there may be no fewer then a thousand in one day. Isaiah 38 it is said, it may be spent before night. And 2. Cor. 5. it is compared to a booth or a shepherds tent, which we see doth last but a while. In our daily and ordinary prayer Christ admonisheth us of this point, when he teacheth us to pray, that we may have a portion for a day, as though our life were shut up, or may be shut up in one day. There are long spaces, which by a4 speedy course are quickly ended; and there be short spaces, which having a slow mover,5 are long in going, but if the space be short, and the motion swift, there is no hope of continuance; and such a one is our life. The Israelites went no further in thirty years, by their slow motion, than by a swift passage they might have gone in eleven days: So that one may be going a long journey in a little time, and a little journey a long time. Our way is short, and for the manner of our motion in this short way, it is compared to a Weavers shuttle, and to a Post, and to a shadow: to a Post, Nay, it is not of so long continuance, for a Post leaves a print of his steppes behind him, but a man doth leave no impression, he is still going, & the motion never ceaseth. The swiftest thing in nature for motion may stay, but mans life doth not stay: