A64642:135
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crab. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanley Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crabb. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanly Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.
London: printed by S. Griffin for Will, 1660
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.
1. He is nothing. And for a man to be brought before Gods Judgment-seat, and have nothing to answer, how will it fare with him then? but yet this man cannot but think he is something: well then something he is, but nothing to the purpose: As we say of an Idol, An Idol is nothing in the world: that is, Nothing that can help or succour those that bow to them, and adore them, nothing that they should have in them. An Idol is something indeed, for it is silver, or gold, or brass, or stone, ⟨p. 42⟩&c. but it's nothing, that is, is nothing to the purpose, nothing that can plead for a man when he holds up his hand at Gods bar.
2. He thinks himself to be something, though he be nothing: He thinks he shall come to Heaven, though he be not in the way; as the foolish Virgins, that thought they should be let in, feared not the contrary, till they came there: So these men walk in their way all their life, and yet fear not entrance into Heaven, till they receive sentence to the contrary. If these men knew themselves to be nothing, they would seek something for themselves; but now they are nothing, though they think themselves something. This is the Disease.
2. The Remedy is in the next verse, Let him pro•e his own work. Let him look himself in a true glass, and that is the point we shall insist on. If then Satan shall not delude us in deferring and putting off our repentance; so let him not deceive us with a false conceit of our ways and estate; that we may not make our selves something, when we are nothing. Therefore let us see what false glasses they are that men get to themselves. If Satan bring us to have a good opinion of our selves, and our condition, and persuade us that it is not with us as precise Preachers tell us; that it's no such matter to go to Heaven, but that it may be done with less pains and more ease: when, I say, Satan lulls a man asleep with such plausible things as these, he hath him where he would have him. Why then no marvel if this