A09339:1782
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.
Thus much for the meaning of the words. Now follow the uses. And first of all Christs descending into hell, teacheth every one of us that profess the name of Christ, that, if it shall please God to afflict us, either in body or in mind, or in both, though it be in most grievous and tedious manner, yet must we not think it strange. For if Christ upon the cross not only suffered the pangs of hell, but after he was dead, death takes him, and as it were carries him into his den, or cabbin• and there triumpheth over him, holding him in captivity and bondage, and yet for all this was he the son of God: and therefore when Gods hand is heavy upon us any way, we are not to despair, but rather think it is the good pleasure of God to frame and fashion us, that we may become like unto Christ Jesus as good children of God. David a man after Gods own heart was by Samuel anointed King over Israel, but withal God raised up Saul to persecute him, as the fowler hunteth the partridge in the mountain, in so much that David said, there was but one steppe between him and death. So likewise Job a just man and one that feared God with all his heart,1 yet how heavily did God lay his hand upon him: his goods and cattle were all taken away, and his children slain, and his body stricken by Satan with loathsome boils from the sole of his foot unto the crown• of his head: so as he was fain to take a potsherd and scrape himself sitting among the ashes. And Jonah the servant and Prophet of the most high God, when he was called to preach to Nineveh, because he refused for fear of that great city, God met with him, and he must be cast into the sea, and there be swallowed up of a Whale, that so he might chastise him: and thus doth he deal with his own servants, to make them conformable to Christ. And further, when it pleaseth God to lay his hand upon our souls, and make us have a troubled and distressed conscience, so as we do as it were struggle with gods ⟨p. 377⟩wrath as for life and death, and can find nothing but his indignation seizing upon our souls, which is the most grievous and perplexed estate that any man can be in: in this case howsoever we cannot discern or see any hope or comfort in our selves, we must not think it strange, nor quite despair of his mercy.