A65309:371
Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachi the…Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachy the…
Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachi the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen verses : seasonable for the times / by Thomas Watson ...Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachy the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen verses : seasonable for the times / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed by J. Astwood for Tho. Parkhurst, 1682
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.
4. If the Lord be on our side he can save us in that very way in which we think he will destroy us. Would not any have thought the Whales belly should have been Jonahs Grave? but God made the fish a ship, in which he sailed safe to shore. Paul got to Land by the breaking of the ship, Acts, 28.44. God can make the adverse Party do his Work; he can ⟨p. 161⟩cause divisions among the Enemies, and turn their own Weapons against themselves*, Isa. 19.2. I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians.
5. If the Lord of Hosts be on our side, he can make the Churches affliction a means of her Augmentation, Exod. 1.12. The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. The Church of God is like that Plant Gregory Nazianzen speaks of, which lives by dying, and grows by cutting†. Persecution propagates the Church: the scattering of the Apostles up and down, was like scattering of seed, it did tend much to the spreading of the Gospel, Acts 8.1.4.
- †[Greek or Hebrew].〈non-Latin alphabet〉.