A17384:1557
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.
The first thing then to be considered of, is the misery of men by nature expressed in the word darkness.
The first thing then to be considered of, is the misery of men by nature expressed in the word darknes.
Darkness.]
Darknesse.]
The darkness that is in the world, is not all of a sort:1 For there is, first, darkness upon the earth, which is nothing but the absence of the light of the Sun. Secondly, there is darkness upon the outward estates of men in the world, and that is the darkness of affliction: Now afflictions are called darkness in divers respects: As, first in respect of the cause: when they fall upon men by the anger of God: The want of the light of Gods countenance, is miserable darkness: the absence of the Sun cannot make a worse darkness. Secondly, in respect of the effects, because afflictions darken the outward glory of mans estate, and withal breed sorrow and anguish, and the clouds and storms of discomfort and grief; and, for the time, deprive the heart of lightsomeness and joy. Of both these respects, may the words of the Prophet Isaiah be understood, Isaiah 5.30. and 8.22. And so God creates darkness as a punishment, upon all occasions, for sin, Isaiah 45.7. Afflictions may be compared to darkness in respect of another effect, and that is the amazement bred in the heart; by which, the afflicted is unable to see a way out of distress, and unresolved either how to take it, or what means to use for deliverance. Thus it is a curse upon wicked men, that their ways are made dark, Psal. 35.6