A12177:28
The Christians end. Or, The sweet sovereignty of Christ, over his members in life…The Christians end. Or, The sweet soveraignty of Christ, over his members in life…
The Christians end. Or, The sweet sovereignty of Christ, over his members in life and death Wherein is contained the whole scope of the godly mans life, with divers rules, motives and encouragements, to live and die to Jesus Christ. Being the substance of five sermons preached to the honourable society of Gray's Inn, by that learned and faithful minister of Gods Word, Richard Sibbes, D.D. and sometimes preacher to that honourable society.The Christians end. Or, The sweet soveraignty of Christ, over his members in life and death VVherein is contained the whole scope of the godly mans life, with divers rules, motives and incouragements, to live and die to Iesus Christ. Being the substance of five sermons preached to the honorable society of Grayes Inne, by that learned and faithfull minister of Gods Word, Richard Sibbes, D.D. and sometimes preacher to that honorable societie.
London: printed by Thomas Harper and Eliot's Court Press for Lawrence Chapman, 1639
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 first thing he begins in the general is, to take us off from false ends, None of us liveth to himself.
The first thing hee begins in the general is, to take us off from false ends, None of us liveth to himselfe.
First, to live to our selves, is not altogether to be taken in a civil sense. A man liveth to himself, when he liveth privately, or retiredly, Benè vixit, qui bonè latuit. So a man may do in some things, especially in times of persecution, but this ordinarily is not good. A man is a creature for communion, ⟨p. 11⟩& God hath fitted him for communion by speech & other endowments, that there may be preserved a communion of Saints. But because a retired life is sometimes good, it is not here mainly aimed at.
First, to live to our selves, is not altogether to be taken in a civil sense. A man liveth to himself, when he liveth privatly, or retiredly, Benè vixit, qui bonè latuit. So a man may do in some things, especially in times of persecution, but this ordinarily is not good. A man is a creature for communion, ⟨p. 11⟩& God hath fitted him for communion by speech & other endowm•nts, that there may be preserved a communion of Saints. But because a retired life is sometimes good, it is not here maynly aymed at.
Again, secondly, We live to our selves, when we mind our selves altogether, and not one another. When we have more respect to our selves, then to God, or to our Christian brother. And this is even contrary to nature, we see in nature, that a particular nature will in some cases yield to a general, and thwart it self. The fire is a light body, and in the natural motion of it, mounteth upward, yet this body will go downwards to preserve whole the universal nature from a vacuum from emptiness, that the fullness and solidity in nature may not be disturbed. And we see heavy bodies go upward for the same end. As a man will venture the hand to save his head, and to save his body; so it should be in society and government, particular