A17384:46
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.
First, For humiliation to all such, as find this vile poison in themselves:1 they are in a miserable case, and extremely and dangerously diseased; especially, if men be guilty of the aggravation of malice:2 Malice is evil in any, and in any measure, and toward any: but it is extremely evil, first, when men put on a resolution not ⟨p. 9⟩to amend, but confirm themselves in their malicious courses, and will not be entreated or persuaded to peace and love: Secondly, when men suffer their malice to carry them into suits, and quarrels and open contentions. Thirdly, when men malice the Godly, and such as fear God, and love the truth. 1. Joh. 3.15. Fourthly, when they malice their friends and familiars, the men of their peace. To hate them that love us is abominable, so is that domesticall hatred between brethren: Prou. 18.19. and between Man and Wife, Parents and Children, Masters and Servants. Fifthly, when men hate those that reprove their sins: Amos 5.10. as some do their Ministers. Sixthly, to hide hatred with dissembling lips, and to lay up deceit in his heart: Prou. 26.24.25. and 10.28. Seventhly, to sow discord among brethren: this is one of the six things God hates, Prou. 6.19. Eighthly, to conceive malice against whole states of men, to hate whole Churches and Assemblies that profess the Name of Christ, this is the devilish malice of Heretics and Schismatics:3 and the beginning of these loathings must be looked-to in such as yet have not proceeded so far as to a separation. If to hate one man be so ill, what is this offence of base estimation, inward loathing, and distempered censuring of the Churches of Christ? Ninthly and lastly, it is one monstrous aggravation of malice, for a man to rejoice in it, boast of it, account it his honour to contend, and overcome in contending, to triumph in malice.