A10933:1583
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 to go forward: by these words of Jephthah, (Oh my daughter thou art of them that trouble me) and by the deep and sudden sorrow which 1they testify to have then possessed him, by them I say we may see and observe another thing, that the best delights and greatest pleasures of this life, in which we have had exceeding comfort, as he had in his daughter, may possibly and do often turn to our great sorrow and discontentment. We see the same in Jacob, when his sons hating their brother Joseph, had dipped 2his coat in blood, to hide their own sin, and brought it to their father, to make him think that he had been slain by some wild beast; when he saw it, he brake out in a great passion, and said, This is my sons coat, an evil beast hath devoured him. Oh what heaviness took hold of him, even from and by him who was his joy and most dear unto him? And thus it is with us, as it was with them. So consider how dear Absalom was 3to his father David: and when word was brought him of his death, how ⟨p. 578⟩heavily did he take it? how did he wish and desire that he might have lost his own life, to have saved his, as his words uttered in most pathetical and lamentable manner, do testify, where he thus crieth out: Oh Absalom, my son, my son: would God I had died for thee, oh Absalom my son, my son. Even so what sore disquiets and corrosives, are many children to their parents, wives to their husbands, and these again to them, and one dear friend to another? And what vexations have many mens goods been to 4them, as their house and land, when they have brought them to naught, and when they have seen they must forgo them? And how have other mens pleasures stung them at the heart, when they having been the joy thereof, they have forsaken them? Oh if men durst or could be persuaded to bewray it, when they have seen they must dye, and leave all, how have they been wrapped in deadly sorrow and thraldom thereby, so near were their hearts knit to their earthly delights, that they have been able to think of no good thing to help them to salvation, and to make their account well to God, no nor to entertain any good advice and instruction, if it had been offered them. And what may be the reason of all this?