A plain and familiar exposition of the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Proverbs…A plaine and familiar exposition of the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Prouerbs…

Confutation of them that take impiety and frowardness to be Use. 1 a help to greatness and glory: they use it as stirrup whereby they hope to mount up to wealth and preferment: they doubt not but to purchase prosperity with the sale of salvation. Foolish men they are (and yet how many then do we censure for folly?) Is glory bequeathed by thy devil, and is hell become the place of happiness, that they will have nothing to do with God, least they should live in reproach, & fly from wards heaven, as though the very way to it would be their undoing?

Confutation of them that take impiety and frowardnes to be Vse. 1 a helpe to greatnes and glory: they vse it as stirrop whereby they hope to mount vp to wealth and preferment: they doubt not but to purchase prosperity with the sale of saluation. Foolish men they are (and yet how many then doe we censure for folly?) Is glory bequeathed by thy diuell, and is hell become the place of happines, that they will haue nothing to doe with God, least they should liue in reproche, & fly from wards heauen, as though the very way to it would be their vndoing?

Instruction to them that are in want, and ignominy, to examine §2well from whence their poverty and disgrace ariseth, and how their harts and ways are disposed. Are they godly? are they religious? have they an hearing ear? have they a tractable mind to be ruled by the word? There is no cause why they should be troubled with their afflictions: the same is meant to them which was spoken to the Smirnians. I know thy works, and tribulation, and ¹poverty, but thou art rich. And that also wherewith Isaiah did animate the despised saints of his time: Fear ye not the reproach of ²men, neither be ye afraid of their rebukes. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But are their hearts empty of grace, as well as their houses of substance? have they no goodness in their lives, as they have no goods to live by? Then it goeth hard with them, and it may be truly said that they are shamefully behind hand, and in miserable want. What though Paul did rejoice in his poverty, and the more commended some of the Churches for theirs? Yea what though Jesus Christ himself became poor, and had not such store of possessions as many other men have? yet it doth not lessen the shame of these irreligious unthrifts, whom God plagueth with beggary for their sinfulness, & they by sinfulness make themselves to be beggars.