A09339:2084
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.
Again, particular Churches are in a twofold estate: sometime lie hid in ⟨p. 491⟩persecution, wanting the public preaching of the word, and the administration of the Sacraments: and sometimes again they are visible, carrying before the eyes of the world an open profession of the name of Christ: as the moon is sometime eclipsed and sometime shineth in the full. In the first estate was the Church of Israel in the days of Elijah, when he wished to die:1 because the people had forsaken the covenant of the Lord, broken down his altars, slain his Prophets with the sword, and he was left alone and they sought to take his life also. Behold a lamentable estate, when so worthy a Prophet could not find an other beside himself that feared God: yet mark what the Lord saith unto him, I have left seven thousand in Israel, even all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him. Again it is said,2 That Israel had been a long season without the true God, without priest to teach, and without the law. Neither must this trouble any that God should so far forth forsake his Church: for when ordinary means of salvation fail, he then gathereth his Elect by extraordinary means; as when the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness wanting both circumcision and the Passover, he made a supply by Manna and by the pillar of a cloud. Hence we have direction to answer the Papists, who demand of us where our Church was three-score years ago before the days of Luther: we say, that then for the space of many hundred years, an universal Apostasy overspread the whole face of the earth; and that our Church then was not visible to the world, but lay hid under the chaff of Popery. And the truth of this, the Records of all ages manifest.
Again•, particula• Churches are in a twofold estate: sometime lie hid in ⟨p. 491⟩persecution, wanting the publike preaching of the word, and the administration of the Sacraments: and sometimes againe they are visible, carrying before the eyes of the world an open profession of the name of Christ: as the moone is sometime eclipsed and sometime shineth in the full. In the first estate was the Church of Israel in the daies of Eliah, when he wished to die: