A02178:4933
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.
4 The fourth Rule is, that in pure zeal we be patient in our own causes, and devour many private injuries, that the Lord his cause may the better be provided for, & have the1 better success. Many can be as hot as fire in taking up their own cause, who are as cold as ye in defending the Lord his cause. This Rule observed, would sow up the lips of the adversary, who though for a time he think us to be choleric, & mad-men, madly revenging our private affections, yet one day should confess, that we sought not our own commodity, but God his most precious glory. And to stretch this examination of our harts one degree further, let us beware of that corruption, which springing from self-love will give us leave to rejoice at good things, so long as they be in our selves, but repineth at the sight of them in others, which will permit us to be grieved at evil things in our selves, and yet make us to rejoice to see the same in others. True zeal loveth good wheresoever, and in whomsoever2 it is: true zeal hateth sin, wheresoever, and in whomsoever; true zeal loveth friends, as they be God his friends: true zeal hateth adversaries, so far as they are God his adversaries: true zeal loveth a good thing in our most professed enemy: true love hateth a sin in our most assured friend: if we are persuaded that our enemies be God his children, howsoever we disagree in some particular, yet we can swallow up many private injuries offered, and we more rejoice in them, as they be God his children, then we can be grieved3 at them as they have injured us. Indeed true zeal is most grieved for the sins of the godly, because so much is their sin grievouser than the sin of another, by how much they came nearer to the image of GOD, then another; howbeit this must always be with a Christian sympathy; which worketh in us a grief for their sin, as well as an anger for their sin, & which changeth our grief into prayer for them. Though then we be never so far asunder, we must love them that love God, though we be joined never so near, we ⟨p. 831⟩must hate them that hate God; in the mean time in devouring on the one hand to do all duties of love and obedience unto them, in admonishing them, praying for them, and mourning for them, as they be joined in any band unto us;