A10659:244
Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…
Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life of Christ. Being the substance of several sermons preached at Lincolns Inn: by Edward Reynolds, preacher to that honourable society, and late fellow of Merton College in Oxford.Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life of Christ. Being the substance of severall sermons preached at Lincolns Inne: by Edward Reynoldes, preacher to that honourable society, and late fellow of Merton Colledge in Oxford.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Robert Bostocke, 1631
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.
Lord, I desire to have more fellowship with thee, help thou my strangeness: Lord, I love and delight in thy Law, help thou my failings. Such tugging is there of either nature to preserve and improve it self. Jacob was a man of contention and wrestling from the beginning.1 Contention with his brother in the birth, contention for the birth-right, contention with an Angel for the blessing, contention for his wife, and for his wages with Laban. He was a Typical man, his name was Israel, and he was a pattern to the Israel of God. We must be all men of contention, wrestlers not only with God in strong and importunate prayers for his blessings, but with our elder brother Esau, with the lusts and frowardness of our own hearts. The Thief on the Cross was a perfect emblem of the sin of our nature, he was nailed2 hand and foot, destined unto death, utterly disabled from any of his wonted outrages, and yet that only part which was a little loose, flies out in reviling and reproaching Christ: Our old man by the mercy of God is upon a3 Cross, destined to death, disabled from the exercise of that wonted violence and dominion which it used; and yet so long as there is any life or strength left in him, he sets it all on work to revile that blessed spirit which is come so near him. The more David prevails the more Saul 4rageth and persecuteth him. As in the womb of Tamar there was a strife for precedency, Zarah thrust out his hand first, and yet Pharez go• fo•th before him: so in a Christian many times the […] thru• out the hand, and begins to work, and presently the flesh grows sturdy and boisterous and gets first into the action. A man sets ⟨p. 159⟩himself to call upon God, lifts up his hand with the scarlet thread, the blood of Christ upon it, is in a sweet preparation to pour out his complaints, his requests, his praises to his father; and ere he is aware, pride ln the excellency of Gods gifts, or deadness, or worldly thoughts intrude themselves, and jostle-by Gods spirit, and cast a blemish upon his offering.