A73023:263
M. Perkins, his Exhortation to repentance, out of Zephaniah preached in 2. sermons in…
M. Perkins, his Exhortation to repentance, out of Zephaniah preached in 2. sermons in Stourbridge Fair. Together with two treatises of the duties and dignity of the ministry: delivered publicly in the University of Cambridge. With a preface prefixed touching the publishing of all such works of his as are to be expected: with a catalogue of all the particulars [sic] of them, diligently perused and published, by a preacher of the word.M. Perkins, his Exhortation to repentance, out of Zephaniah preached in 2. sermons in Sturbridge Faire. Together with two treatises of the duties and dignitie of the ministrie: deliuered publiquely in the Vniuersitie of Cambridge. With a preface præfixed touching the publishing of all such workes of his as are to be expected: with a catalogue of all the perticulers [sic] of them, diligently perused and published, by a preacher of the word.
London: printed by T. Creede for William Welby, 1605
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.
Now follow the causes of his fear, which are two. The first is, his own pollution and sinfulness, and the sinfulness of his people: his own he freely 1confesseth in these words; I am a man of polluted lips: that is, I am a miserable and sinful man, and therefore I fear and tremble to stand in Gods presence: nay, I dare not look upon the Lord, for my sins. But it may be demanded, how could the Prophet say thus truly, for he was a holy man, and justified 2in Gods presence, by his true faith in the Messiah, and sanctified by repentance: can a man justified and sanctified, say, he is a man polluted? I answer, 3It is doubtless, he was so, he therefore complaineth here not of any great and enormous sins, which he had committed to the public scandal of the ⟨p. 70⟩Church, but first of the corruption of his 4nature, which in him as in all men is a very sea of iniquity, & which always appears the more, the nearer a man comes to God, and therefore did now most apparently discover it self in the prophet, when he was in the presence of the Lord himself. Secondly, he complaineth of some actual sins of his life, and it is more likely of some sins of omission, 5then of commission: for we find not that the prophet was ever touched with any great sin, & where we know it not, we are in charity not to imagine it. So that it is most probable, he complaineth of some smaller faults, or negligences in his Ministry: as not preaching to the people at some time when he ought, or not preaching so willingly or cheerfully as he should, or desire to leave preaching, because the people were stubborn & disobedient, or some impatience in his Ministry, when the people were rebellious and resisted his doctrine, which passion might the rather vex him (as we read it did Jeremiah) ⟨p. 71⟩the Jews were so stubborn & stifnecked a people: or it may be some want of zeal or forwardness, these, or some such were the cause of his fear: And the conscience of these makes him here cry out that he cannot stand in the sight of God. Where we learn, first, what a tender