A64642:272
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.
2. But what's become of the soul now? why, if thou didst but see the cursed soul that thou carriest in thy body, it would amaze thee. These outward curses are but flea bitings to the blow that is given to the soul of an unregenerate man, that deadness of spirit that is within: didst thou but see the curse of God that rests upon the soul of this man, even while he is above ground, it would even astonish thee.
2. But what's become of the soul now? why, if thou didst but see the cursed soul that thou carriest in thy body, it would amaze thee. These outward curses are but flea bitings to the blow that is given to the soul of an unregenerate man, that deadnesse of spirit that is within: didst thou but see the curse of God that rests upon the soul of this man, even while he is above ground, it would even astonish thee.
1. Consider there are two kinds of blows that God gives unto the soul of an unregenerate man. ⟨p. 127⟩The one is a terrible blow. The other, which is the worst of the two, is an insensible blow. The sensible blow is when God lets the conscience out, and makes it fly into the face of a man, when the conscience shall come and terribly accuse a man for wh•t he hath done. This blow is not so usual as the insensible blow; but this insensible is f•r more heavy. But as it falls out, that as in this world, sometimes before the glory in heaven, the Saints of God have here a glimpse of heaven, and certain communion with God and Christ, certain love tokens, a white stone, a new name in graven, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it: And this is the testimony of a good conscience, which is hidden joys: Privy intercourse is between Christ and them, secret kisses: And as Gods children do as it were meet with a heaven upon earth sometimes, and are, as we read of Paul, caught up into the third heaven, which to them is more then all the things in the world besides: So the wicked have sometimes flashes of hell in their consciences. If you had but seen men in the case that I have seen them in, you would say they had an hell within them; they would desire rather, and they have expressed it, to be torn in pieces by wild horses, so they might be freed from the horrors in their consciences. When the conscience recoils and beats back upon it self, as a musket o'er charged, it turns a man over and over: And this is a terrible thing. This sometimes God gives men in this world: And mark, where the word is most powerfully