A29368:395
The freeness of the grace and love of God to believers discovered in reference…
The freeness of the grace and love of God to believers discovered in reference to 1. their services and suffering, 2. their consolations, and 3. their salvation and eternal glory : together with the excellency of the fear of God, the goodness and pleasantness of brotherly love, the wisdom of hearing the voice of the rod, repentance the only way to prevent judgements / delivered in several sermons by the late reverend and faithful minister of Christ, Mr. William Bridge ...The freeness of the grace and love of God to believers discovered in reference to 1. their services and suffering, 2. their consolations, and 3. their salvation and eternal glory : together with the excellency of the fear of God, the goodness and pleasantness of brotherly love, the wisdom of hearing the voice of the rod, repentance the only way to prevent judgements / delivered in several sermons by the late reverend and faithful minister of Christ, Mr. William Bridg ...
London: printed for Nath. Crouch, 1671
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, If you ask what lessons this rod teacheth: I answer in the General; the Rod teacheth the same Lesson that the word teacheth, the rod teacheth no new Doctrine; but more particularly, the rod hath a lesson for The Converted, and for The Unconverted,
First, If you be unconverted, the rod calls upon you to turn to God: If a drunkard be sick, the rod of sickness says, O Drunkard leave off thy Drunkenness, and turn to the Lord, this Lesson the rod teacheth; and it taught the Jailer, and Paul, and the Prodigal; when the rod of misery and poverty was upon the Prodigal, why then says he, I will return to my Father, for in my Fathers house is bread enough: Thus the rod teacheth the Unconverted to turn to the Lord; Art thou in thy sins still therefore, O poor sinner, and hast thou gone on a great while in thy sins, and hath God warned thee often by his word to turn to him, and doth he now come upon thee with his rod? why this is all but to teach thee the same lesson still, though in another way, ⟨p. 140⟩and the lesson is, Hear and your souls shall live, but if you will not hear the whipping, the correcting rod you shall hear, and feel the breaking, and the destroying rod; this is the lesson which the rod teacheth the Unconverted,
First, If you be unconverted, the rod calls upon you to turn to God: If a drunkard be sick, the rod of sickness sayes, O Drunkard leave off thy Drunkenness, and turn to the Lord, this Lesson the rod teacheth; and it taught the Jaylor, and Paul, and the Prodigal; when the rod of misery and poverty was upon the Prodigall, why then saies he, I will return to my Father, for in my Fathers house is bread enough: Thus the rod teacheth the Unconverted to turn to the Lord; Art thou in thy sins still therefore, O poor sinner, and hast thou gone on a great while in thy sins, and hath God warned thee often by his word to turn to him, and doth he now come upon thee with his rod? why this is all but to teach thee the same lesson still, though in another way, ⟨p. 140⟩and the lesson is, Hear and your souls shall live, but if you will not hear the whipping, the correcting rod you shall hear, and feel the breaking, and the destroying rod; this is the lesson which the rod teacheth the Unconverted,