A69234:400
Lectures upon the four first chapters of the prophecy of Hosea Wherein the text…Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea Wherein the text…
Lectures upon the four first chapters of the prophecy of Hosea Wherein the text is expounded and cleared, and such profitable instructions observed, and applied, as naturally arise out of this holy Scripture, and are fit for these times. By John Downame Bachelor in Divinity, and preacher of Gods word.Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea Wherein the text is exponded and cleered, and such profitable instructions obserued, and applied, as naturally arise out of this holie Scripture, and are fit for these times. By Iohn Dovvname Bacheler in Diuinitie, and preacher of Gods word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston and T. East for William Welby, 1608
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.
And this is the meaning of these words. The doctrines which from hence arise are divers. First, here we learn, that The Do∣ctrines. when we have assurance of those main benefits, our effectual 1calling and union with Christ, our redemption, justification, sanctification, and eternal salvation, more to rejoice in them, then if we were made owners of the whole world: neither must we smother this joy in our selves, but with mutual congratulations communicate it with our brethren. For this is a consequent duty and effect of the former benefits received; as appeareth in this place, as also Rom. 5. 1, 2, 3. To which 2duty we shall easily be moved, if we often call to mind our passed misery and present happiness. For if beggars when they attain to great riches, bondmen when they are redeemed ⟨p. 147⟩out of miserable servitude, and every one who escapeth out of desperate & deadly dangers, are even so ravished with such tickling joy, that their hearts, like too strait and weak vessels, would break to contain it, unless they did unburden them by communicating them unto others; then if we consider our former beggarliness and baseness, and our present honours and preferments, our cruel and miserable servitude under sin and Satan in time past, and our glorious and happy liberty, unto which we have now attained; the great and mortal dangers of plagues and grievous punishments, the anger of God, the curse of the law, and eternal death and condemnation; all which we have fully escaped, being not only delivered from the evil which we feared, but possessed in the certainty of assurance, of such happiness that we could not hope for, nor so much as conceive and wish for: how can our hearts contain such ravishing joys? how can our tongues be silent, and not unburden our minds, by congratulating them with those who are made partakers of the like happiness? And if thus we not only joy in our selves, but all rejoice with others, then shall we hereby be stirred up to praise the Lord, who is the chief and only cause of all our joy and happiness; and by this holy exercise of our thankfulness, we shall more and more confirm our assurance of the former benefits; for these are mutual causes one of an other.