A09466:253
A treatise tending unto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of…A treatise tending vnto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of…
A treatise tending unto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of damnation or in the estate of grace and if he be in the first, how he may in time come out of it: if in the second, how he may discern it, and persevere in the same to the end. The points that are handled are set down in the page following.A treatise tending vnto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of damnation or in the estate of grace and if he be in the first, how he may in time come out of it: if in the second, how he maie discerne it, and perseuere in the same to the end. The points that are handled are set downe in the page following.
London: printed by R. Robinson for T. Gubbin, 1590
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
LIX.
Hence ariseth a notable difference, between the godly & the wicked, in the suffering of afflictions. A reprobate the more the Lord layeth his hand on him, the more he pmurmureth & rebelleth against God: it is contrary with the true christian: None feeleth more the power & rebellion of sin then he: none is more assaulted by satan then he, & often times it cometh to pass that God withdraweth the signs of his favour from him, & lets him feel his wrath. And this is the greatest temptation of all other, when a man shall see the Lord to be his enemy, & to his thinking to arm himself against him to his destruction. As qHezekiah did, whor saith that the Lord did crash his bones like a Lion: Or as Job saith, that the arrows of the almighty were in him, & the venom thereof drunk up his spirit, & the terrors of god did fight against him. Yet the true Christian when the world, the flesh, & the devil, & God himself too are against him, doth even then most of all rest in the Lord, & by faith cleave to him *Though God should destroy me, yet would I trust in him (saith Job. sAnd David saith, my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me. When he saith ⟨p. 102⟩that God had forsaken him, it may seem to be the complaint of a desperate man, not having so much as one spark of faith: yet then he saith: my God, my God: which words contain a confession proceeding from true faith: so that in David it appeareth, that the faithful when they feel themselves forlorn, & utterly rejected of god, according to the sense & judg meant of the flesh, yet by faith they can apprehend his hidden mercy, & behold it a far off in the glass of his promise. And so they do often show contrary affections in their prayers as David doth.