A09339:2110
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 second part of the communion is that which the Saints have one with ⟨p. 501⟩an other. And it is either of the living with the living, or of the living with the dead. Now the communion of the living stands in three things: I. the like affection: II. in the gifts of the spirit: III. in the use of temporal riches. For the first; communion in affection is, whereby all the servants of God are like affected to God, to Christ, to their own sins, and each to other. They are all of one nature and heart alike disposed, though they be not acquainted nor have any external fellowship in the flesh. As in a family children are for the most part one like another & brought up alike: even so it is in Gods family which is his Church: the members thereof are all alike in heart and affection: and the reason is, because they have one spirit to guide them all: and therefore Saint Peter saith,1 The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, neither any of them said that any thing of that which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. And the Prophet Isaiah foretelling the unity which should be in the kingdom of Christ, saith,2 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie with the kid, and the calf and the lion, and the fat beast together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed, and their young ones shall lie together: and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock. The sucking child shall play upon the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand into the cockatrice hole. By these beasts are signified, men that be of a wicked and brutish nature: which, when they shall be brought into the kingdom of Christ, shall lay aside the same and become loving, gentle, courteous, and all of one mind.3 And S. Peter requires of the Church the practise of brotherly love, and that is to carry a tender affection to men, not because they are of the same flesh, but because they are joined in the bond of one spirit with us. Furthermore by reason of this that all the children of God are of one heart,4