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,…

We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as one without eyes: we stumble at the noon day as in the twilight: we are in solitary places like dead men: we roar like bears and mourn like doves. So complains Hezekiah in the bitterness of his soul: Isaiah. 38 14 Like a cr•ne or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove. And Psal. 51. 10. &c. when David crieth, Create in me, O God, a clean heart, renew in me a right spirit, restore to me the joy of thy salvation, establish me with thy free spirit: doth he not declare, that his heart was unclean, his spirit crooked, the joy of his salvation lost, and himself subject to the spirit of bondage; so that wanting the spirit of liberty, or adoption, he could neither cry Abba father, nor ••ue any power against sin? Thus you see how God his children may be blinded in mind, and hardened in hart for a time, so that they feel in themselves the graces of the holy spirit to be as it were perished and dead. Further, to relieve the infirmity of your judgement in this point (because I know it may much distress you) you must understand that there be two kinds of hardness of heart: the one, which is not felt nor perceived: the other, which is perceived and felt: and of the former, that there be two sorts: the first, which is most fearful, when any do purposely resist the motions of God his spirit, and wilfully refuse the means of their salvation. Of the which the Prophet Zechariah speaketh, chap. 7. vers. 11 &c. They refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they should not hear: yea they made their heart as an Adamant stone, least they should hear the Law and the words which the Lord of hosts sent in his spirit by the ministry of the former Prophets. The outrageous sin of these men, the Prophet Isaiah expresseth in these their own fearful terms, chap. 28. 15. We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement: though a scourge run over, and pass through, it shall not come at us: for we have made falsehood our refuge, and under vanity are we hid. This was a fearful estate indeed: yet for all that, no man can say, but some of those having so hardened their hearts, might be, and were afterwards converted.

We grope for the wall like the blinde, and we grope as one without eyes: we stumble at the noone day as in the twilight: we are in solitarie places like dead men: we roare like beares and mourne like doues. So complaines Ezechias in the bitternes of his soule: