A81235:203
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.
I come now to the Use, for the improvement of the point. And it may serve for Information, Exhortation.
First, For Information, and that in these particulars.
First, 1If they only be blessed whom God chasteneth and teacheth; then Affliction alone is not enough to evidence a man to be an happy man: no man is therefore blessed because he is chastened: blows alone are not enough, 2either to evince or to effect a state of blessedness: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, crieth repenting Ephraim; q. d. I have had blows enough, if blows would ⟨p. 181⟩have done me good: nay, but under all the strokes and smitings of thy displeasure, I have been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; unteachable and untractable; thou hast drawn one way, and I have drawn another; thou hast pulled forward, and I have pulled backward; all thy chastisements have left me as they found me, brutish and rebellious: Surely blows only may break the neck sooner then the heart: They are in themselves the fruit of divine wrath, a branch of the curse, and therefore cannot possibly of themselves make the least argument of Gods love to the Soul. Bastards have blows as well as Children, and Fools because of their transgression are afflicted. 3And yet it is very sad to consider that this is the best evidence that the most of men have for Heaven; because they suffer in this world, they think they shall be freed from sufferings in the World to come; and because they have an hell here, they hope they shall escape Hell hereafter, they hope they shall not have