A09339:3146
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
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.
I. For temporal benefits, as wealth, honour, liberty, outward peace, the Lord dealeth very bountifully with them:1 He makes his sun to shine upon the just and unjust: he fills their bellies with his hid treasures: and as David saith, I fretted at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked: for there is no bonds in their death, but they are lusty and strong, they are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued as other men. 2But yet he holds back that which is the principal ⟨p. 676⟩thing, and the very glory of these benefits, that is,3 the right use of them. For that a man may purely use Gods creatures, two things are required. First, his person must stand just and sanctified before God by faith in Christ. For until a mans person please God, his work shall never please him. Secondly, he must use the same creatures purely: which is done partly by invocation of Gods name, and partly by referring them to their set and appointed ende•; which are Gods glory, a mans own and his neighbours good. But all this is flat contrary in the ungodly man. For first, he is forth of Christ, so that his person stands unjust before God. And therefore all his actions (even those which otherwise are lawful and good) in him are mere sins. Secondly, he useth Gods gifts and blessings with an evil conscience. For by reason of his want of grace to believe, he cannot resolve himself, that God as his father doth bestow his blessings on him as his beloved child in Christ; yet as a thief and an usurper, against his conscience he useth them. Add further, the creatures are used of him without invocation: for such an one can not pray; and therefore he doth but as the swine in the •orrest, which feedeth on the mast, but never looketh up to the tree whence it falleth. Thirdly, he useth Gods gifts to evil ends: because either he makes an idol of them by setting his heart on them, or else he employeth them to riot, pride, and the oppression of godly men. A master of music hath his house furnished with musical instruments of all sorts: and he teacheth his own scholars artificially to use them, both in right tuning of them, as also in playing on them: there comes in strangers, who admiring the said instruments, have leave given them of the master to handle them, as the scholars do: