A short treatise

threatening not with rack or gibbet, but eternal death if they disobey. Joel. 1. 1, 2. Jo. 3. 16. 1. Sam. 12. 25. 4. That the Ministers of the Lord of Hosts do require attention, faith, and obedience, to whatsoever they speak in the name of the Lord, whether it were prophecy, commandment, or rebuke; whether they called to repentance, and reformation of things amiss, or exhorted to obedience. 1. Cor. 11. 23. Mic. 1. 1. 2. The low and humble manner of speech, used in holy Scripture, cannot justly offend any man; for it was penned to the use and behoof both of the learned and unlearned. Rom. 1. 14. though the phrase be plain, the matter is high and excellent, profound and unutterable. Hos. 8. 12. Act. 2. 11. Easiness and plainness doth best beseem the truth: a pearl needs not painting, nor truth to be underpropped with foreign aids, it is of it self sufficient to uphold and sustain it self: it becomes not the Majesty of a Prince to play the Orator; and though the Scripture ⟨p. 19⟩be simple in word, it is great in power: no writings of Man though never so well set forth, with wit, words, order, or depth of learning, can so enlighten the mind, move the will, pierce the heart, or stir up the affections, as doth the word of God. Neither do the Scriptures want eloquence, if the matter be well weighed; no writing doth, or can equalize them in pithiness of prophesying, or ferventness of praying. The song of Moses, and the beginning of Isaiah, in variety and force of eloquence, do far exceed all authors, Greek & Latin; if comparison be made betwixt those places & whatsoever is most excellently indited by man, either in Greek or Latin, you may easily discern, the one was written by a divine, the other by an humane spirit.