A10933:117
A commentary upon the whole book of Judges Preached first and delivered in sundry…A commentary vpon the vvhole booke of Iudges Preached first and deliuered in sundrie…
A commentary upon the whole book of Judges Preached first and delivered in sundry lectures; since collected, and diligently perused, and now published. For the benefit generally of all such as desire to grow in faith and repentance, and especially of them, who would more clearly understand and make use of the worthy examples of the saints, recorded in divine history. Penned by Richard Rogers preacher of Gods word at Wethersfield in Essex.A commentary vpon the vvhole booke of Iudges Preached first and deliuered in sundrie lectures; since collected, and diligently perused, and now published. For the benefit generally of all such as desire to grow in faith and repentance, and especially of them, who would more cleerely vnderstand and make vse of the worthie examples of the saints, recorded in diuine history. Penned by Richard Rogers preacher of Gods word at Wethersfield in Essex.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Thomas Man, 1615
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Now this repetition out of the book of Joshua here brought in, unto the 117. verse, (for the 16. is a short interlaced story of the Kenites) this repetition (I say) is here brought in, lest the Reader should be troubled, as though the same things which are mentioned here, had been now done after the death of Joshua, which are set down there to have been in his lifetime. And this is done that there might be no stumbling nor offence thereat, we may therefore note out of all these verses in general, the great care that the holy Ghost had in setting down the Scriptures, freeing them from error, and making one to agree with the other: so that if men were able to discern, they might ever see it to be so. It is true indeed, that many things in them are hard to be ⟨p. 29⟩understood, which the wicked pervert, as S. Peter saith, to their own destruction: 2but where care is joined with gifts of knowledge, (which gifts some attain 3to,) there may be seen a most sweet agreement betwixt them, and no one either to jar with another, or any one to be frivolous, or absurd, as some are bold to affirm, but seven times tried in the fire, and, pure and holy, as the Psalmist 4saith: and therefore to all good uses of knowledge, and confuting of error, or practise in life, and comfort, profitable. For though all Scripture is not alike, but some plain and some obscure; yet, first, they are plainest which are more necessary for faith and life; and, they that have obscurity in them, serve to exercise and sharpen our understanding rather, and to provoke an appetite, in us to diligence and care for attaining the true meaning of them, then to drive us from in reading them. To the shame of Popery, this that I have said is to be marked, for the professors thereof do challenge them for their difficulty and hardness, so as they are not to be suffered in the hands of the common people, whom if they withheld not from the true unfolding of them, they might reap great profit by reading them.
Now this repetition out of the booke of Ioshua here brought in, vnto the