A34679:724
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent…
An exposition upon the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation by that reverend and eminent servant of the Lord, Mr. John Cotton ... ; taken from his mouth in short-writing, and some part of it corrected by himself soon after the preaching thereof ; and all of it since viewed over by a friend to him ... wherein some mistakes were amended, but nothing of the sense altered.
London: printed for Tim. Smart, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION Upon the thirteenth Chapter of the REVELATION. › Part
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.
What think you might be the cause that Christians do complain of so much deadness, under such plenty, and (as some say) power of Ordinances? I might as justly blame the world for as great part, that men think they are forced to launch out in building and planting; an evil haunt and custom hath been riveted into mens spirits, that they have ⟨p. 240⟩much ado to be content any where; but this is not all: Nor can I lay it wholly upon over-much confidence in Ordinances; we have heretofore thought men happy that had liberty of Ordinances, though out in a duty of humiliation; God will let you see the emptiness of all Ordinances, & that there is no life in them further then he puts in them; but I will not put in neither of both these, though both these may challenge a part of the deadness of the Country, and may because of humiliation: But give me leave to say, I fear this chiefly, that men thought it enough that they were got out of the reach of Summoners, and Pariters, and such like, whose offices have been by the power of the beast, the remnants whereof hang in those places where they should not stand; I fear men have rested in turning their backs upon such troubles as they were put unto, when they have not been serious in judging themselves for these Images of jealousy, when they are so loft to be rent from them, I fear the Lord hath not humbled them for their old contagion, and therefore they are not so dead, for what is an Image but deadness? truly because we are rather in bodily presence, then in heart departed from them, therefore there is such deadness: what's the reason, that upon the least motion, men are ready to remove to a new Plantation, as if they removed from old England to New in a pang: If men had a calling upon just grounds to come hither, then when we come where the Ordinances of God are, we should sit down under the Ordinances, under the shadow of the Almighty, and never look for more: But when that doth not satisfy that we enjoy Ordinances, all that liberty we did desire, we do enjoy, and yet it doth not satisfy;
What think you might be the cause that Christians do complayn of so much deadnesse, under such plenty, and (as some say) power of Ordinances? I might as justly blame the world for as great part, that men think they are forced to lanch out in building and planting; an evill haunt and custome hath been rivetred into mens spirits, that they have ⟨p. 240⟩