A09339:3893
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.
The second part of knowledge is application, whereby thou must know & believe not only that Christ was crucified, but that he was crucified for thee, for thee, I say, in particular. Here two rules must be remembered and practised. One, that Christ on the cross was thy pledge and surety in particular, that he then stood in thy very room and place in which thou thy self in thine own person shouldest have stood: that thy very personal and particular sins were imputed and applied to him; that he stood guilty as a malefactor for them, and suffered the very pangs of hell, and that his sufferings are as much in acceptation with God, as if thou haddest borne the curse of the law in thine own person eternally. The holding and believing of this point is the very foundation of religion as also of the Church of God. Therefore in any wise be careful to apply Christ crucified to thy self: and as Elisha when ⟨p. 816⟩he would revive the child of the Shunamite,1 went up and lay upon him, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his hands upon his hands, & his eyes upon his eyes, and stretched himself upon him: even so, if thou wouldest be revived to everlasting life, thou must by faith as it were set thy self upon the cross of Christ, and apply thy hands to his hands, thy feet to his feet, and thy sinful heart to his bleeding heart, and content not thy self with Thomas to put thy finger into his side, but even dive and plunge thy self wholly both body and soul into the wounds and blood of Christ. This will make thee to cry with Thomas, and say, My Lord, my God; and this is to be crucified with Christ. And yet do not content thy self with this, but by faith also descend with Christ from the cross to the grave, and bury thy self in the very burial of Christ: and then look as the dead soldier tumbled into the grave of Elisha was made alive at the very touching of his body;2 so shalt thou by a spiritual touching of Christ dead and buried; be quickened to life everlasting. The second rule is, that Christ crucified is thine, being really given thee of God the father, even as truly as houses and land are given of earthly fathers to their children: this thou must firmly hold and believe; and hence is it that the benefits of Christ are before God ours indeed for our justification and salvation.