A09466:284
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.
Euseb. A true saying it is that the right way to go unto heaven, is to sail by hell, and there is no man living that feeleth the power and virtue of the blood of Christ, which first hath not felt the strange pains of hell. But yet in these pains there is a difference: and it is the will of God that his children in their conversion shall some ⟨p. 131⟩of them feel more and some less. Hezekiah 1on his death bed complaineth that the Lord breaketh his bones like a Lion, that he could not speak by reason of pain, but chattered in his throat like a Crane, and mourned like a Dove. Job saith, that God is2 his enemy and hath set him up as a mark to shoot at, and that the arrows of the almighty are upon him, and that the poison of them hath drunk up his spirit. David 3bewaileth his estate in many Psalms, but especially in the 130. Psalm, where he beginneth on this manner: Out of the deep places have I called unto thee O Lord, which is as though he should say; O my poor soul fall not flat down, vex not thy self out of measure: the burden of thy sins press thee sore indeed but be not for all that quite overwhelmed: thou art thrust down so low into the depth of deeps that thou had need cry aloud to be heard of him which dwelleth in the highest heights: and the everburning hell fire is not far from that lake whither thine iniquities have plunged thee, •o that thou mayest perceive as it were the Echo of their cries and desperate how•nges which be there cast out of all hope ⟨p. 132⟩of ever coming forth. But the Lord which bringeth forth even to the borders of hell his best beloved when they forget them selves, knoweth also how well to bring them back again. Go no further then downward, but li•t up thy heart together with thine eye, and seek unto the Lord, to reach unto thee his merciful and helping hand. Again in the scriptures we find examples of men converted unto the Lord without any vehement sorrow of their sins. What anguish of conscience had the thief upon the cross for his former life in his present conversion at the hour of death?