A02178:4323
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.
We will commend any that will please our humours, and preach such things as follow our appetite. As if oppression be spoken against, and we be oppressed of some, this common place is very plausible to us, because it is against one that hath injured us. Or else we come to the word as Herod came: Let John speak as much as he will, I will hear him: but if he come to this, that I may not have my brothers wife, I will not hear him. But if he come to teach the Lord to speak, & to teach him wisdom, and prescribe him to say this, and not to meddle with that, we shall never hear fruitfully. A third thing is continual hearing: the word is a rare thing, therefore1 we must have a continual hearing. Will ye hear how God hath taken answer for this? it is said, Psal. 95 Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice. This we know is read to day, and to morrow, and every day, and so •or ever, and yet all is but to day. We cannot exempt our selves, this binds our hearts, and will have us hold out, as long as it is said to day. So then as we must pray and be prepared to hear, and come with a purpose to hear universally,2 so must we hear continually. Yet we must add a fourth thing, and that is, we must bring a desire to practise the things we hear. And every man must come thus affected: I have prepared my self to hear, I will hear all, as well that which is misliking, as that which liketh me: but beware of this last, come what come will, I will not obey. But if we vow not to hear, to lay up in our memory, that our memory may call upon our conscience, and our conscience call upon us to put it in practise, we cut off the sentence by the half: He that heareth the word, and keepeth it, is blessed: and keeps it, here is a conjunction copulative, and in no case we must leave it out. And there is good reason it should be so: for as Augustine saith, The word is compared to an hammer, to a fire, to a sword, and not for nothing. The hammer bruiseth, so the word must soften our hard hearts; the fire purgeth and purifieth, so the word purgeth our gross affections, and purifieth our hearts; ⟨p. 710⟩