Paxton Hood on Puritan Adams 2

More from Edwin Paxton Hood Lamps, Pitchers, and Trumpets; lectures ... on the vocation of the preacher. Illustrated by anecdotes, ... of every order of pulpit eloquence, from the great Preachers of all ages 1867
... But while he performed this task well, it required a loose and rapid manner and tongue to give effect to the delineations. He draws with a bold hand the pictures of the manners of the times. Indeed, it is impossible to read Adams attentively without feeling that the writers whose names we have just mentioned, not only knew, but felt themselves beneath the influence of his portraitures. He is, perhaps, rather a divine moralist than a theologian. He follows no thought out in the spirit of Aquinas and the schools, or even in the spirit and manner of St. Augustine. He is a man of quick impulses, and often seems to be mastered by words and forms. He never ventures into the region of abstract thought; is never tormented by the causes of things. He is a preacher, and as such, he holds up the mirror to his hearers. He is never far from them in heights or in depths. There is often a cheerful, easy garrulity about him. He preached in stirring times, and he knew how easily to turn the popular feelings by hints and references to the political events of the day. He lived and preached in the day of the gunpowder plot; preaching from the text, “Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads,” he exclaimed, “They love fire still: they were then for faggots, they are now for powder. If these be Catholics, there are no cannibals.” The point of many of his allusions lay in the memory, and, therefore, in the ready sympathy of the people.

Of illustrative aphoristic words the reader may take the following: -

A beast hath one kind of eye, a natural man two, a Christian three. The beast hath an eye of sense; the natural man of sense and reason; the Christian of sense, of reason, and faith. To want the eyes of angels is far worse than to want .the eyes of beasts.
Riches are called bona fortuna, the goods of fortune; not that they come by chance, but that it is a chance if they ever be good.
Philip was wont to say, that an ass laden with gold would enter the gates of any city; but the golden load of bribes and extortions shall bar a man out of the city of God. All that is to follow is like quicksilver; it will be running.
Not seldom a russet coat shrouds as high a heart as a silken garment. You shall have a paltry cottage send up more black smoke then a goodly manor. It is not, therefore, wealth, but vice, that excludes men out of heaven.
There are some that “kiss their own hands ” (Job xxxi. 12) for every good turn that befals them. God giveth them blessings, and their own wit or strength hath the praise.
It is usual with God, when he hath done beating his children, to throw the rod into the fire. Babylon a long time shall be the Lord’s hammer to bruise the nations, at last itself shall be bruised. Judas did an act that redounds to God’s eternal honour and our blessed salvation, yet was his wages the gallows. All these hammers, axes, rods, saws, swords, instruments, when they have done those offices they never meant, shall, for those they have meant, be thrown to confusion. .
The five senses are the Cinque Ports, where all the great traffic of the devil is taken in.
When the heart is a good secretary, the tongue is a good pen; but when the heart is a hollow bell, the tongue is a loud and lewd clapper. Those undefiled virgins admitted to follow the Lamb have this praise, “ In their mouth was found no guile."
Ask the woman that hath conceived a child in her womb will it be a son? Peradventure so! Will it be well-formed and featured? Peradventure so! Will it be wise? Peradventure so! Will it be rich? Peradventure so! Will it be long-lived? Peradventure so! Will it be mortal? Yes, this is without peradventure, it will die!

The following passage upon the almost casual expression in 2 Peter i. 17 - "Such a voice" - well illustrates how a word caught him, and often carried him away upon a stream of learned and gorgeous fancy and discourse :—

such a voice

Tully commends voices: Socrates’ for sweetness; Lysias’ for subtlety; Hyperides’ for sharpness; Aeschines’ for shrillness; Demosthenes‘ for powerfulness; gravity in Africanus; smoothness in Loelius - rare voicesl, In holy writ, we admire a sanctified boldness in Peter; profoundness in Paul; loftiness in John; vehemency in him and his brother James, those two sons of thunder; fervency in Simon the zealous. Among ecclesiastical writers, we admire weight in Tertullian; a gracious composure of well-mattered words in Lactantius; a flowing speech in Cyprian; a familiar stateliness in Chrysostom; a conscionable delight in Bernard; and all these graces in good Saint Augustine. Some construed the Scriptures allegorically, as Origen; some literally, as Jerome; some morally, as Gregory; others pathetically, as Chrysostom; others dogmatically, as Augustine. The new writers have their several voices: Peter Martyr, copiously judicious; Zanchius, judiciously copious. Luther wrote with a coal on the walls of his chamber: Res et verba Philippus; res, sine verbis Lutherus; verba, sine re Erasmus: nee res nee verba Carlostadius. Melancthon had both style and matter; Luther, matter without style; Erasmus, style without matter; Carlstadt, neither the one nor the other. Calvin was behind none, not the best of them, for a sweet dilucidation of the Scriptures, and urging of solid arguments against the Anti-Cliristians. One is happy in expounding the words; another in delivering the matter; a third for cases of conscience; a fourth to determine the school doubts. But now put all these together: a hundred Peters and Pauls; a thousand Bernards and Augustines; a million of Calvins and Melanchthons. Let not their voices be once named with this voice: they all spake as children. This is the voice of the Ancient of Days. (Commentary 2 Peter) 

Thus he rang the changes very effectively on a word, as in

Dust

Dust, the matter of our substance, the house of our souls, the original grains whereof we were made, the top of all our kindred. The glory of the strongest man, the beauty of the fairest woman, all is but dust. Dust, the only compounder of differences, the absolver of all distinctions. Who can say which was the client, which the lawyer; which the borrower, which the lender; which the captive, which the conqueror, when they all lie together in blended dust?
Dust; not marble nor porphyry, gold nor precious stone, was the matter of our bodies, but earth, and the fractions of the earth, dust. Dust, the sport of the wind, the very slave of the besom. This is the pit from whence we are digged, and this is the pit to which we shall be resolved. “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return again," Gen. iii., 19. They that sit in the dust, and feel their own materials about them, may well renounce the ornaments of pride, the gulf of avarice, the foolish lusts of concupiscence. Let the covetous think, What do I scrape for? a little golden dust,- the ambitious, What do I aspirc for? a little honourable dust; the libidinous, What do I languish for? a little animated dust, blown away with the breath of God’s displeasure.
Oh, how goodly this building of man appears when it is clothed with beauty and honour! A face full of majesty, the throne of comeliness, wherein the whiteness of the lily contends with the sanguine Of the rose; an active hand, an erected countenance, an eye sparkling out lustre, a smooth complexion, arising from an excellent temperature and composition ; whereas other creatures, by reason of their cold and gross humours, are grown over, beasts with hair, fowls with feathers, fishes with scales. Oh, what- a workman was this, that could raise such a fabric out of the earth, and lay such orient colours upon dust! Yet all is but dust, walking, talking, breathing dust; all this beauty but the effect of a well concocted food, and life itself but a walk from dust to dust. You, and this man, or that woman, is never so beautiful as when they sit weeping for their sins in the dust: as Mary Magdalene was then fairest when she kneeled in the dust, bathing the feet of Christ with her tears, and wiping them with her hairs; like heaven, fair sightward to us that are without, but more fair to them that are within. The dust is come of the same house that we are, and when she sees us proud and forgetful of ourselves, she thinks with herself, Why should not she that is descended as well as we bear up her plumes as high as ours ? Therefore she so often borrows wings of the wind, to mount aloft into the air, and in the streets and highways dasheth herself into our eyes, as if she would say, Are you my kindred, and will not know me? Will you take no notice of your own mother?  To tax the folly of our ambition, the dust in the street takes pleasure to be ambitious.
(Commentary 2 Peter) 

Lowndes' British Librarian

In 19th century editions of Lowndes' British Librarian we find this entry

1166. Commentary or Exposition upon the Second Epistle of Peter, by Thomas Adams. London, 1633, foL, 84t.

The writings of Thomas Adams abound in illustrations, many of which are so far fetched and foreign to those usually employed, that his works are frequently read as much for amusement as for instruction.

Google Books

Books by Adams available on Google Books
Exposition of 2 Peter
Three Divine sisters etc

Adams on John 3:16

This extract was found here and is from Adams' Exposition upon the Second Epistle General of St. Peter (London, 1633, revised by James Sherman, reprinted: Soli Deo Gloria, 1990), 179.

Take the sum of this application. We have heard much of God’s Son, and of his dearness to the Father. Now join with it another text; “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” John iii. 16. Here meditate, wonder, and weigh the sentence; who, what, how, to what end. Who Loved? God; that made us his friends by creation; whose enemies we made ourselves by prevarication. What did he love? The world; a bad world , a mad world, a blind world, a bloody world; that hated him and all his, John xv. 19. It was no wonder that he should love the angels, for they serve him; or the very reasonless creatures, for they obey him; but that he should love the rebellious and hateful world, this is boundless mercy! How did he love it? So that he gave his only begotten Son. If, like Gideon, he had had threescore and ten sons, Judg. viii. 30, it had been much to part with one of them; but his only Son! Jacob rent his clothes, and went mourning in sackcloth many days, for losing one son of twelve, Gen. xxxvii. 34. Even a harlot pitied the fruit of her womb, and her bowels yearned upon her son; “O lord, give her the living child, and in nowise slay it,” 1 Kings iii. 28: but God gave the only Son his love. To what end? That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life! Where observe two things; the felicity that is gotten, and the facility to get it. The felicity consists of two things; deliverance, and an inheritance. He shall not perish; there is the deliverance. He shall have everlasting life; there is the inheritance. For the facility; it is not to keep the law, but only to believe. Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst so regard him? Ps viii. 4. Yea, that to regard him, thou didst not regard thyself? It is reported of a great soldier, that the very jingling of his spur was a terror to his enemies. So the very sound of this text makes all the devils in hell roar, all the foes of man’s salvation to quake. This is the Christian’s armoury, that tower of David, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men,” Cant. iv. 4. If thy conscience be assaulted with guiltiness of thy sins, remember first that this Christ his only Son. If Satan now object, Yes, but he gave him only for the holy and just; answer, Nay, he so loved the world; mundum immundum: mundum, therefore mundanum: he gave him not for the righteous, but for sinners. I am of that number, therefore I have my part in that favour. Paul says, “Put on the whole amour of God,” Eph. vi. 1; and, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” Rom. xiii. 14. In the one place, all those pieces of armour is but the Lord Jesus taken asunder; in the other, the whole armour is but the Lord Jesus put together. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,” Ps ii. 12. To make peace with the Father, kiss the Son. “Let him kiss me,” was the church’s prayer, Cant. i. 2: let us kiss him, that be our endeavour. Indeed, the Son must first kiss us by his mercy before we can kiss him by our piety Lord grant us these mutual kisses interchangeable embraces now, that we may come to the plenary wedding supper hereafter; when the choir of heaven, even the voices of angels, shall sing epithalamiums, nuptial songs at the bridal of the spouse to the Lamb.

Publications 18

Title: A commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written by the blessed apostle St. Peter. By Thomas Adams

Imprint: London: Printed by Richard Badger [and Felix Kyngston] for Iacob Bloome, MDCXXXIII. [1633]

Date: 1633

No. pages: [8], 764, [2], 801-1634, [28] p.

Notes: The second "volume" has separate title page with imprint "London, imprinted by Felix Kyngston for Iacob Bloome, 1633"; pagination recommences at 801 and register at 4A1.; Includes index.; The first leaf and the last leaf are blank.; Running title reads: An exposition upon the second epistle generall of S. Peter.

Copy from: British Library

The commentary has a three page dedication 'To the truly noble and worthily honoured Sir Henry Marten, Knight, Judge of His Majesty's High Court of the Admiralty and Dean of the Arches Court, Canterbury'. This would be Henry Marten (1562-1641).

This large commentary was reprinted in the 19th Century and is currently back in print.

2 Peter Reviews

Here are two reviews from the 1860s of

AN EXPOSITION UPON THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST PETER by the Rev THOMAS ADAMS, Rector of St Gregory's, London, AD 1633. Revised and corrected by JAMES SHERMAN, Minister of Surrey Chapel, Edinburgh: James Nichol 1862

1. From The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 1862 (see p 682)

The works of Thomas Adams are now completed in three volumes. They are of singular excellence. Dr Angus, in his interesting memoir of Adams - who must be distinguished from Thomas Adams of Wintringham, a man who came into the world a century after his namesake -speaks of him as equal sometimes to Latimer or Baxter for pungency, and to be compared with Taylor for fancy, and Fuller for wit; and in one sermon, "The Temple", to Howe for grandeur. Southey leads the way in this eulogium.

We cannot follow either critic to this length of praise, but assuredly Adams was a wonderful man; and his style, for beauty and rhythm, far exceeds that of most of the Puritans. We wish emphatically to say - what is often said as mere commonplace - that we count these volumes a very valuable contribution to our revived Puritan literature. We hope that Adams' works will not be placed on the minister's or student's shelf to remain there unopened. Sibbes' works, in two volumes, have also appeared. He is better known than Adams, but we do not like him so well. Still, his writings are worthy of his fame, and this edition is enriched by a memoir of singular merit for its painstaking care and liveliness of composition.

2. From The United Presbyterian Magazine 1863 (see p 129)
CONSIDERED strictly as an exposition, this work cannot be rated high; nevertheless, it is a work of great value, and deserving of a place in every considerable theological library. The reader will find in Adams a rich variety of intellectual refreshment, and of spiritual instruction. Though not a Nonconformist, he was a Puritan; though a Churchman in the days of Laud, he was a Calvinist; though not an ecclesiastical dignitary, or distinguished by university honours, he abounded in deep and varied learning. Adams very much resembled Bishop Hall, of whom he was by some years the senior. In both we have not only the same learning somewhat ostentatiously displayed, but the same fondness for antithesis and quaint conceits; the same richness of scriptural illustration; the same pungency and pathos in appealing to the heart and affections; the same fervour and soundness of doctrine. Inferior to Barrow and to Jeremy Taylor in many respects, he may yet be fitly compared to the former in the thoroughness which exhausts his subjects, and to the latter in the poetic splendour of his imagery. One of the attractions of Adams is his curious and admirable portraitures of the manners of his times. He is remarkable, too, for his power and skill in the detection of motives and characters; and for the mingled wit and scorn with which he denounces fashionable vices and errors. Yet, along with burning rebukes, we have sweet and gentle comfortings. Doubtless the modern reader will find in some parts of the writings of this racy old divine something like tediousness; but, at the same time, he will acknowledge that he is always original, fresh, hearty, honest, full of matter, and plentiful in ornament. Hisquaintness will be often a relief from the monotony of modern writing, and his ingenuity cannot fail to delight. The commentaries of the Puritans (of which this is the first) are furnished by Mr Nicliol at as cheap a rate as the series of Puritan Divines. He is enabled to confer this boon on the theological world in consequence of the gênerons gift of the stereotype plates made by the late Mr Sherman, by whom they were originally issued at a much higher figure. We hope the encouragement given by the public will ensure the completion of the plan.