A09339:1328
A Golden Chain
A golden chain: or The description of theology containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seen in the table annexed. Hereunto is adjoined the order which M. Theodore Beza used in comforting afflicted consciences.A golden chaine: or The description of theologie containing the order of the causes of saluation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seene in the table annexed. Hereunto is adioyned the order which M. Theodore Beza vsed in comforting afflicted consciences.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1600Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1600
AN EXPOSITION OF THE CREED. I believe in God. &c.AN EXPOSITION OF THE CREED. I beleeue in God. &c.
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.
The duties which we may learn hence are manifold. And here we have occasion offered first of all to consider who is our father by nature. I shall say to corruption (saith Job) thou art my father: and to the worm, thou art my mother: 1seeing God vouchsafeth this great prerogative to them that love him, that he will be their father: therefore Job in consideration hereof would have every man to have recourse to his own natural condition, to see who is his father by nature• Job saith, corruption is his father: but if we mark well the condition of our nature, we shall further see every man to be the child of wrath, and that Satan is his father: for so long as a man walks in his sins (which every man doth by nature) so long doth he show himself to be the lively child of the devil. And thus Christ reasoneth against the Scribes and Pharisees. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. 2And true it is, that no child is so like his father that begat him, as every man by nature is like the devil: and the whole tenor and course of his natural life without grace is a lively resemblance of the disposition of Satan. Secondly, every one that believes God to be a Father, and in Christ his father, must as a good child be obedient to his fathers will. So Solomon saith,3 A wise son maketh a glad father. How? by doing his will: and therefore when one told our Saviour Christ that his mother and brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him, he said,4 Whosoever shall do my fathers will which is in heaven, the same is my father, my sister, and mother: where we may note, that he that will have God the father to be his father, and Christ Jesus his brother, must do the will of God the father. And hence God saith,5 If I be a master, where is my fear? if I be a father, where is my honour? Where is plainly taught this second duty; that if God be our father, then as good children we must show obedience unto him: but if we disobey him, then we must know, that that former saying of Christ will be verified upon us: that because men do the lusts of the devil, therefore they are the children of the devil. But least this fearful sentence be verified of us, it is the duty of every man that maketh this confession, that he believes God to be his father, first to labour to know Gods will;