A10933:2087
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.
Whereby we may see, that when men give themselves liberty and full 1scope to talk too and fro of things dangerous and hurtful, and take liking therein, and will avoid no occasions, nor resist no tentations drawing and leading thereto, they shall not choose but be snared and caught therewith, though they intend no such thing, (as it came to pass to him) and so they 2shall hardly forbear and contain themselves from running headlong, and being given over thereto. For when they are led away of their own concupiscence, as Saint James saith, they are enticed also, and snared, so that they 3cannot well go off nor on, but more ready to consent, as we see Samson did afterward, telling his whole heart unto her. Even so I say, men shall by oft and long tampering with the sin whereto they are too nearly affected, come more readily and speedily to the consenting to it, and the committing of it, who should rather turn away, and wean themselves, and that betimes, from the least liking or longing after it, much less should they hasten it on by liberal talking of it. For if we will suffer our selves to be importuned ⟨p. 747⟩in all cases, meddling with them when we need not, who doubteth but that we shall much easilier yield thereto. Those whom commonly we call men of good natures, being once tainted by lewd company, grow first dissolute, and by degrees desperate: but they wax rotten by degrees, as we see fruit by long lying doth. And as we see in the running out of the hourglass, that every part of the sands course is the hastening of the hour to an end, though the last passage of it be the actual ending the reof: so may we say of Samson his dallying, and hovering replies, that even the first, second, and third were the preparations to the final bewraying of the secret, though the fourth only confessed it actually. If the fourth had been away, the matter had been whole, but the fourth was in the first, in the second, and in the third (though more obscurely) enfolded. Alas, at his first shifting he thought he might have proceeded still. But as the secret at the first dash was too weighty to utter: so after two or three dalliances, the tentation prevailed, and was too strong for him any longer to shift off, withhold, or resist. And the like let us know, even as this also is, to be spoken unto us.