A17384:3675
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.
Use. The use may be, to show the fearful negligence of worlds of people, that are exceeding careful to help their bodies to health, but never think of the poor soul, that lieth lamentably full of diseases. And withal it shows, that all wicked ⟨p. 894⟩men are men of ill natures, because their dispositions are all diseased, though there be degrees of ill nature, or of this evil in mens natures, as there is difference of sicknesses in mens bodies. And godly men should be compassionate, when they see the grievous diseases in the natures and lives of other men; remembering, that they also were by nature subject to the same diseases as well as they.
Vse. The vse may bee, to shew the fearfull negligence of worlds of people, that are exceeding carefull to help their bodies to health, but neuer think of the poor soule, that lieth lamentably full of diseases. And withall it shewes, that all wicked ⟨p. 894⟩men are men of ill natures, because their dispositions are all diseased, though there be degrees of ill nature, or of this euill in mens natures, as there is difference of sicknesses in mens bodies. And godly men should be compassionat, when they see the grieuous diseases in the natures and liues of other men; remembring, that they also were by nature subiect to the same diseases as well as they.
Doct. 2. The diseases in the souls of men, by nature are very grievous; which is here also implied, in that God was fain to send his own Son to help and heal us. Now, that the diseases of mens souls are so grievous, may appear many ways.1 First, because such a multitude of men are infected, not some one person in the whole world; in the body of mankind, not on some part, but from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, all full of sores and diseases. There is no man that sinneth not; and so, no man that is not sick: and that is the reason why men fear the pestilence, because it makes so many sick. Secondly, because the soul of man by nature is sick of a multitude of diseases at once; for, even sin is a sickness: and so our sicknesses are innumerable, because our sins are so. And hence it is, that in Scripture so many metaphors are used to express the sickness of the soul; as, leprosy, wounds, plagues, poison, gall, &c. Thirdly, because the disease lieth in the soul it self. Of diseases, those are most mortal, that get into the spirits, and do most enfeeble man: how much more when it is in the soul? Fourthly, because, in respect of our selves, our sins or our diseases