A09339:5112
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 Exposition.
IN a man there must be considered three things, the substance of the body and soul, whereof a man is said to consist, the faculties placed in the soul and exercised in the body, as understanding, will, affections: the integrity and purity of the faculties, whereby they are conformable to the will of God, and bear his Image. And since the fall of Adam, man is not deprived of his substance or of the powers and faculties of his soul, but only of the third, which is the purity of nature, and therefore the conversion of a sinner, whereof the conclusion speaketh, is not the change of the substance of man, or the faculties of the soul: but a renewing and restoring of that purity and holiness which was lost by mans fall, with the abolishment of that natural corruption that is in all the powers of the soul. This is the work of God, and of God alone, and that on this manner. First of all, when it pleaseth God to work a change in any, he doth it not first in one part, then in an other, as he that repairs a decayed house by piece-meal: but the work, both for the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment, is the whole man, ⟨p. 1047⟩and every part at once, specially in the mind and conscience, will and affection: as on the contrary, when Adam lost the image of God, he lost it in every part. Secondly, the conversion of a sinner is not wrought all at one instant, but in continuance of time, and that by certain measures and degrees. And a man is in the first degree of his conversion, when the holy ghost by the means of the word, inspires him with some spiritual motions, and begins to regenerate and renew the inward powers of the soul. And he may in this case very fitly be compared to the night in the first dawning of the day, in which though the darkness remain and be more in quantity then the light, yet the Sun hath already cast some beams of light into the air, whereupon we term it the breaking of the day. Now then, the very point which I touch, is, that a man at this instant and in this very state (God as yet having but laid certain beginnings of true conversion in his heart) is the very child of God, and that not only in the eternal purpose of God (as all the elect are) but indeed by actual adoption: and this is plain by a manifest reason.