A02178:4233
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.
CHAP. XXX. How to profit and to examine our selves when Friends forsake us.
CHAP. XXX. How to profit and to examine our selues when Friends forsake vs.
IT is an usual Evil, that a man sometimes shall be forsaken even of his own kind red, so that though he came unto them laying open his pitiful estate, if he put them in mind of the brother-hood had between them, if he urgeth them with their promise, if he sueth in the title of his need, and in the Name of JESUS CHRIST, if he chargeth them with the force of natural affection; yet they are deaf, and will not hear his moan. Strange, yet an usual evil it hath been heretofore, is now, and will be hereafter. ⟨p. 686⟩Wherefore it shall be profitable to learn, how we shall stand affected in this trial before the Lord. The best way is not, as some have done, to repine at this evil as at a thing but lately sprung up, saying, Who was ever so forsaken of his friends as I am? who was ever so unkindly dealt with, the world was never so wicked, mens hearts were never so hard: but the surest course is to enter into our own souls, and to look what fruit we are to reap1 under the hand of the Lord, who by this kind of affliction either punisheth some sin, or proveth our faith, or worketh in us some further mortification, or stirreth us up to a more careful using of the means of our salvation, or else to a more earnest contempt of this life, and more hungry longing for the life to come.