A85953:684
Gospel-revelation in three treatises, viz, 1 The nature of God. 2 The excellencies of…
Gospel-revelation in three treatises, viz, 1 The nature of God. 2 The excellencies of Christ. And, 3 The Excellency of mans immortal soul. By Jeremiah Burroughs, late preacher of the gospel at Stepney, and Giles-Cripple-gate, London. Published by William Greenhill. William Bridge. Philip Nigh. John Yates. Matthew Mead. William Adderly.Gospel-revelation in three treatises, viz, 1 The nature of God. 2 The excellencies of Christ. And, 3 The Excellency of mans immortal soul. By Jeremiah Burroughs, late preacher of the gospel at Stepney, and Giles-Cripple-gate, London. Published by William Greenhill. William Bridge. Philip Nye. John Yates. Matthew Mead. William Adderly.
London: printed for Nath. Brook, 1660
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Treatise 3 › Sermon 8: The Eighth SERMON ON The Excellency of the Soul.
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.
First, Such hopes as are not Scripture-hopes, if they be not Scripture hopes, they must be razed down; Rom. 15.4. Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope. We have hope through patience and comfort of the Scripture; how doth the hopes of those that shall be saved arise? — Why, they rise thus, either by reading, or hearing something out of the Word of God, and God darting some light, some truths into their souls through his Word, they come to receive it, and there it lies working in them, till at length their souls relish it, and they taste the sweetness of the Word, and come to have comfort in it, and so through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, their hope comes to be raised; the Scripture in raising hopes, first it works patience, it usually beats down the soul first, and speaks hard things to it, and the soul that God over-powers to himself, it is willing to lye under the power of the Scripture, and be patient, notwithstanding the Scripture doth reveal such hard things, and puts it upon never such hard duties, the heart, I say, yields to it, and at length the soul comes to find sweetness out of the Scripture, and so hopes comes to be raised, that is, the soul sees some eternal truth out of the Word of God, the truth of God himself that is eternal, a divine truth that it dares venture its eternal estate upon, and upon this it doth raise its hope; it is able to give an account from some place of the Scripture, upon what grounds it doth hope. — I hope that God will show mercy to me, and save my soul in the day of Christ; will some say, I but what ground have you for your hopes? Now, if your hopes be right, then there is somewhat in this Book of God to be showed as the ground of this; and indeed you can have but little comfort of your ⟨p. 322⟩hopes, except you be able to hold forth some Scripture of other upon which you build your hopes, for when you say you hope, you may not mean that you think and a•e persuaded that it is so, but what Scripture have you for i••• you will say, what Scriptures have any to ground their hop•s of salvation upon? what Scriptures? a great many; I will give you but this one that many have to ground their hope• upon,