A81235:78
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.
A twelfth Lesson, 1which they learn in the School of Affliction, is, The necessity and excellency of the life of Faith.
- 112 Lesson, A life of Faith.
1. The necessity of living by faith: 1where Sense endeth, Faith beginneth. The vision is for an appointed time: I, but what shall we do in the mean time? why the just shall live by Faith; live by Faith, or dye in despair: when God pulls away the bulrushes of Creature-supports, the Soul must either swim or sink. God teacheth this Lesson, Partly by the uncertainty of second causes, the vicissitudes that are in creature-expectations; a little hope to day, to morrow reduced to despair: good news to day, Pharaoh says Israel shall go; bad news to morrow, he rageth, and swears that if Moses see his face any more, he shall dye, &c. O the ebbs & flows of sublunary hopes! one speaks a word of comfort, another speaks words of soul-wounding ⟨p. 54⟩terror; now a promise, anon a threatening: The sick man is in hopes of reviving to day, to morrow at the gates of death. What a woeful heart-dividing life is a life of Sense, a life which is worse then death it self, to be thus bandied up and down between hopes and fears, to be baffled to and fro between the may-be's of second Causes! to be like Mariners upon the billows and surges of the tempestuous sea! 2They mount up to Heaven, they go down again to the depths; their Soul is melted because of trouble: they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits end; Heb. all their wisdom is swallowed up. And partly God teacheth the necessity of a life of Faith by the disappointment of the Creature: How often doth the Creature totally fail, and abuse our expectation!