Lever:

For unto thee, even unto thee, saving health is provided, and proffered of God, in him, and by him which says:

They that be in health have no need of a Physician, but they that be sick and diseased: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners unto repentance: Come thou therefore unto me, which labors, and are heavy laden, and I shall ease thee. I shall help, deliver thine own sins. Come therefore in sorrowing thine own sins, and pitying all men’s misery, and I will not refuse the sacrifice of thy oblation of thy humble spirit and contrite heart. I would not have set forth the abomination of thy sins so openly, and showed so many tokens of plagues and vengeance coming presently, but to make thee more willing to come at this my earnest calling because now thy danger is great, thy time is short, and thou can have no refuge or remedy, if thou do not speedily come unto me, which am willing and able to heal all thy diseases, to forgive all thy sins, to deliver thee out of all dangers, and to turn perilous plagues of vengeance from thee, into plentiful provision of all comfortable commodities unto thee.

Remember and consider the example of the children of Jacob, which by envying of their brother Joseph, casting him into a dungeon, and telling him unto strangers, deserved such a plague of famine and hunger, as forced them to seek for food in a strange country: and there when as they pitying Benjamin their youngest brother with charitable love one towards another, did all together humble themselves in prayer before the ruler of the country, which did speak sharply: then the ruler, being in deed Joseph their brother, could no longer use himself strangely towards them, but with loving pity did forgive them all their former faults against him, and did make most comfortable and plentiful provision for them, their father, their wives, and children. And if you, whose sins have caused Christ to be bought and sold, to die and suffer, which have falsely pretended, faintly favored, yea shamefully slandered, and cruelly persecuted the gospel of Christ, which willfully and wittingly in manifest and manifold perjuries, have provoked the wrath and vengeance of GOD, which have envied, hated, and slandered one another, and so deserved dangerous plagues: if you will now pity them that be in misery, and in unity of Faith and brotherly charity, altogether humble yourselves in prayer before your heavenly Father, then Christ which has all authority, of tender heart will embrace you with loving pity, take you as his own brethren, forget and forgive all that has been done against him, and provide plentifully all things commodious or necessary for you and yours. He will fetch you from far into that wealthy place, where as he is a ruler: he will gather you out of all quarters, into that church, whereof he is the head, that which you did mean evil towards him, will he so order as shall be best for you. I say surely, for all you your being thus now called, will come after this manner, yea if you be many all the rest also shall be spared for your sakes, if you be but few in number, yet ever one of you shall be so provided for, that if there remain upon earth any godly comfort for you, ye shall be reserved and kept to see and enjoy it: and if nothing shall remain but misery and mischief, then shall ye be preserved and delivered out of the grief and danger of it, unto joy and glory with Christ.

Thomas Lever, A Treatise of the right way from Danger of Sinne & veneance in this wicked worlde, unto godly wealth and salvation in Christ, (Printed by Henrie Bynneman for George Byshop, 1575), chap. 10, [pp., 108-111] [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; no original pagination; pages numbered manually from chapter 1; and underlining mine.]

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 8:56 am and is filed under The Well-Meant Offer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 comments so far

 1 

I knew that Treatise would be productive ;-) Excellent find! Lever is clearly speaking to unbelievers indiscriminately when he says their sins caused Christ to be bought, sold, and to die and suffer, i.e. an unlimited imputation of sin to Christ.

November 19th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
CalvinandCalvinism
 2 

How about “barely productive” ;-)

David

November 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

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