A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

The way or means to stir up faith in these promises,¹ is;

The way or meanes to stirre vp faith in these promises,¹ is;

1. 1The means to stir up faith in these promises.The meanes to stirre vp faith in these promises.

First, to humble our selves unfeignedly in respect of our miserable and accursed estate by sin, and former carelessness to seek mercy, enter possession and get assured evidence of that everlasting inheritance. Woe is me, how I am fallen from that state of blessedness wherein I was first created, into a most miserable and accursed condition? I have grievously sinned, and God is highly provoked, the sentence of the Law is already gone forth, I am shut up under wrath, and if I have my desert, I can expect nothing but the terrible execution of fearful vengeance denounced. Mortality as a worm corrupteth my body: ignorance and lust tyrannize in my soul: my condition is exposed to a thousand vanities and wearisome courses; and through ⟨p. 270⟩fear of death the upshot of evils,¹ I am subject to bondage all my life. In my first estate I was made far above all visible Creatures, and by free bounty lifted up to be the Favourite of the most High God: but by wilful disobedience, I am fallen into Gods displeasure, and lie prisoner under the revenging justice of the law. Nor is my wretched condition worse then my carelessness to be delivered from it. The brute beasts take it as a grievous thing to be ensnared and taken: but I have delighted in bondage, and counted it a liberty to live a slave to Satan, and to follow things and courses pleasing corrupt nature. Thou Lord of thine infinite grace hast proclaimed liberty, published peace, and made offer of a better state and condition in Christ, then what I formerly lost in Adam: But I preferred spiritual thraldom to libe tie, death to life, and chose rather to follow the temptations of Satan, and to fulfil the lusts of the flesh, then to come unto Christ that I might be saved. The men of this world are wise in their generation to accept of earthly commodities when they be offered, and not to put by the opportunity: but when the Lord hath made promise of everlasting life, if I would renounce the pleasures of sin, and forego the vanities of this world, I have followed vanity and neglected mercy, I have despised the great salvation, and walked in the paths of death and condemnation. O Lord, it is thine own work of grace in me, that ever I did bethink my self of the danger of my course, and repent to lay hold upon the promises of life.