A81235:182
Correction, instruction or, a treatise of afflictions
Correction, instruction or, a treatise of afflictions: first conceived by way of private meditations: afterward digested into certain sermons, preached at Aldermanbury. And now published for the help and comfort of humble suffering Christians. By Tho. Case, M.A. sometimes student of Ch. Ch. Oxon. now preacher of the Gospel in London.Correction, instruction or, a treatise of afflictions: first conceived by way of private meditations: afterward digested into certain sermons, preach'd at Aldermanbury. And now published for the help and comfort of humble suffering Christians. By Tho. Case, M.A. sometimes student of Ch. Ch. Oxon. now preacher of the Gospel in London.
London: printed by J.M. for Luke Fawn, 1652London: printed by J.M. for Luke Favvn, 1652
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.
He might, Answ. and doth: whence that gloss of Augustin upon Rom. 8.28. [All things work together for good to them that love God, 1] even sin it self; and in as much as he saith, All things, it is evident he excepteth nothing, that doth not co-operate for good to the Called according to Gods purpose: All things do work, but all things do not work alike: Sin works for good, but it is by absolute Omnipotence, by pure Prerogative; for sin is properly the Devils creature, and in its own natural tendency works merely to destruction: 2no thank to sin that any good comes of it; God beats Satan with his own weapons. But Affliction is an Evil of Gods making, as Amos 3.6. and he hath so tempered the nature of it, and doth so ingredient it by his divine skill, that there is some fitness and disposition in it ⟨p. 161⟩to serve and promote his own gracious designs in the children of promise. It is true, there is need of an arm of Omnipotence to make Chastisement to have a saving influence upon the heart; and so there doth also even in the Word it self, and divine Ordinances: they do not save ex opere operato, by any intrinsical virtue, or power of their own; but yet there is a passive fitness in them to serve Omnipotence for divine and saving ends; 3a fitness of instrumentality: as there is in a Saw to cut, and in a wedge to cleave, &c. The instrument can do nothing alone, but there is a fitness in it to serve the hand of the work-man. And thus it is, in a proportion, with Affliction; It is true, there is not so immediate and direct a tendency in the Rod, as there is in the Word, to teach and instruct the children of God; yet there is in Chastisement a subserviency to prepare the heart of man, and to put it into a better disposition to close with divine Teaching, then naturally it is capable of. ⟨p. 162⟩The hot furnace is Christs workhouse, the most excellent vessels of honour are formed therein: Manasseh, Paul, the Jailer, were all chosen in this fire; as God saith, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,