The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

First, All these evils threatened, and under which they lay, were external, bodily, temporary: read the Chapter in Leviticus, read the Lamentations from the first Chapter to the Texts quoted, and observe other verses in the same Chapter, the next verse to the 29. which carrieth the fairest proofs, if the question were the same, 30, 31, 32, 33, &c. so the verses after 39. which is his other proof, read from the 29. verse to the 55. verse, where the matter they complain of was not the question in hand, but external judgments, under which they were humbled: yet we find in the 24. verse, this Soul saying, The Lord is my portion, ⟨p. 113⟩saith my Soul, therefore will I hope in him, and raiseth up it self by sweet promises afterwards: And is this the frame of them who are under the state of our question? So Micah 7. speaks of outward judgments, as the eighth verse shows, which goeth immediately before the verse Mr. Shepherd quotes; and in the seventh verse the Soul could say, My God will hear me: quite contrary to what Mr. Hooker and Mr. Shepherd have said: To that in 1 Peter 5 6. the Apostle in verse 5. had been exhorting Believers unto humility, be clothed with it: this respects the humble carriage of Christians one to another: he gives a reason to force his exhortation, For God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble: upon this follows an Illation, Therefore humble your selves, &c. What was the question in the fifth verse upon which this Therefore depends? Not the question in hand, I am sure: then how doth it prove the question? Learned Gerhard gives the Connection thus: The Apostle repeats his exhortation to humility, and confirms the argument, which he brought to force his exhortation, from the power of him that requires humility, and promiseth he will exalt the humble. God hath power enough to resist the proud, and exalt the humble; therefore, be clothed with humility: This Connection the illative Particle [Greek or Hebrew], therefore, proves, which shows this sentence is deduced from the former: Thus he, Mr. Dicson makes the words the fourth and fifth reasons to humility and mutual submission. The fourth, This humility and mutual submission required, doth not so much respect men as God, who hath commanded this submission. The fifth, The power of God ought to move you: So that I can see nothing in this proof: