A29368:406
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.
Secondly, By the Rod you are humbled and broken, and made more fit and capable to receive instruction; when the young Horse is once well broke, then he is afterwards fit for the saddle; now afflictions break men, and fit them for Gods service, and for Gods work: If a narrow mouthed vessel be in continual motion and unfixed, you cannot pour any liquor into it, you must first fix the vessel, and then you may put what you will into it; so afflictions will fix you, and settle you, you have many a poor man, that no ground will hold him (as we use to say) ⟨p. 143⟩till afflictions come, and then they settle him: If you sow seed, you must first plough the ground, and then you sow the seed; now what soul is there which doth not need Gods plough; why Gods Rod is his plough, and when this Rod comes and breaks, and humbles the heart, then it will receive the good seed of Gods word into the furrows of the heart; And further,
Secondly, By the Rod you are humbled and broken, and made more fit and capable to receive instruction; when the young Horse is once well broke, then he is afterwards fit for the saddle; now afflictions break men, and fit them for Gods service, and for Gods work: If a narrow mouthed vessel be in continual motion and unfixed, you cannot pour any liquor into it, you must first fix the vessel, and then you may put what you will into it; so afflictions will fix you, and settle you, you have many a poor man, that no ground will hold him (as we use to say) ⟨p. 143⟩till afflictions come, and then they settle him: If you sow seed, you must first plow the ground, and then you sow the seed; now what soul is there which doth not need Gods plow; why Gods Rod is his plow, and when this Rod comes and breaks, and humbles the heart, then it will receive the good seed of Gods word into the furrows of the heart; And further,
Thirdly, By the Rod a man will be forced to lay hold of, and stick to those promises, which he could not lay hold on before; for when the Rod comes and brings him low, the man is glad to run to the promise; and truly it is a very great comfort to us, that we have a promise to run unto, when we are brought low with the Rod; and thus you see what lessons the Rod teacheth, and also how the Rod teacheth, it is a teaching Rod: And so I have done with the third proposition, the next follows.