A17384:1217
A commentary
A commentary: or, sermons upon the second chapter of the first epistle of Saint Peter wherein method, sense, doctrine, and use, is, with great variety of matter, profitably handled; and sundry heads of divinity largely discussed. By Nicholas Byfield, late preacher of God's Word at Isle-worth in Middlesex.A commentary: or, sermons vpon the second chapter of the first epistle of Saint Peter vvherein method, sense, doctrine, and vse, is, with great variety of matter, profitably handled; and sundry heads of diuinity largely discussed. By Nicholas Byfield, late preacher of God's Word at Isle-worth in Middlesex.
London: printed by Humphrey Lownes for George Latham, 1623London: printed by Humfrey Lownes for George Latham, 1623
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.
For the first.1 To be grieved in heart for the reproofs of the Word, is not an offence, but a grace: so we are troubled not with dislike of the Word, but of our own sins. Secondly, to inquire of the truth, and that which is delivered, and to try the doctrine, by turning to the Scriptures as the Bereans did: this is not condemned here; nor is it a stumbling at the Word, to put a difference between the teaching of Christ, and the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees.
For the first.1 To bee grieued in heart for the reproofes of the Word, is not an offence, but a grace: so we are troubled not with dislike of the Word, but of our owne sinnes. Secondly, to inquire of the truth, and that which is deliuered, and to try the doctrine, by turning to the Scriptures as the Bereans did: this is not condemned heere; nor is it a stumbling at the Word, to put a difference betweene the teaching of Christ, and the teaching of the Scribes and Pharises.
- 1How & wherein men take offence at the Word.
Secondly, but men are said to be offended at the Word, when their harts rise against it, or they ensnare themselves through their own corruption ⟨p. 274⟩by occasion of the Word. To speak distinctly, wicked men are offended at the word with a three-fold offence. First, with the offence of anger, when they rage and fret at the Word, or the teachers thereof, because their sins are reproved, or their miseries foretold. And this offence they show, either when they envy the success of the Word, Acts. 4.2. or rail and revile Gods Saints, as Ahab did Michaiah for telling him the truth: or when they mock at the Word, as the Pharisees did,