This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
IT is a kind of Catholicon of univer∣sal Use and Conveniency, in refe∣rence to this Life. Am I in Want, in Prison, in Contempt, in Banishment, in Sickness, in Death? this Know∣ledge gives Contentedness, Patience, Chearfulness, Resignation of my self to his Will, who hath Sealed my Peace with him, and Favor from him, in the great Covenant of his Son: I could
live upon this, tho' I were ready to Starve, when I am assured that it is for my Good, and the glory of his Name, I shall be delivered; if not, I can be contented if my Jewel, the Peace of God and my own Conscience, by the Blood of Christ, be safe, if not in Wealth, Honor, greatness in Esteem in the World. This Knowledge teacheth me Humility, as knowing of whom I have received it: Fidelity, as know∣ing to whom I must account for it; and in all, it teacheth me not to over∣value it, nor to value my Self the more by it or for it: It makes Death not Terrible, because a most sure Passage to Eternal Life. Here I find a way to get my Sins Pardoned; whereas, all the World, without this, cannot con∣trive a Satisfaction for me: I find such a Way to obtain such a Righteousness as is valuable with God, and perfect before Him, even the Righteousness of God in Christ; and here I find the means, the only means, to avoid the
Wrath to come, the Terror of the Judgment of the Last-Day. Ever∣lasting Life to all Eternity, which the blessed God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, all the blessed Angels, and the Spirits of Just Men made perfect.
The knowledge of Christ above all other Knowledge, and Christ Crucified above all other Knowledge of Christ; being the highest manifestation of his Love. J. Hale.
With all my Heart (saith Calvin) I embrace the Mercy of God, which he hath used towards me, for Jesus Christ's sake, recompencing my Faults with the Merits of his Death and Passion, that satisfaction being made, by this means, for all my Sins and Crimes, and the re∣membrance of them may be blotted out. I witness also, and profess, that I humbly beg of him, that being washed and clean∣sed in the Blood of that highest Redeemer, shed for the Sins of Mankind, I may stand at his Judgments-Seat, under the Image of my Redeemer.
Had Christ been God only, he could not have Suffered; had he been Man only, he could not have Merited. Christ's Blood was shed as well for Oblution, as for Absolution.
Diffidence of ones Self and Depen∣dance of Christ is the Motto of a Christian.