A09466:306
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. No, no. This my faith which I have in Christ is even fought against with doubting, & ever assailed with desperation, not when I sin only but also in tentations of adversity, into which God bringeth me to nurture me & to show me mine own heart, the hypocrisy & false thoughts that there lie hid, my almost no faith at all, and as little love, even then happily when I thought ⟨p. 143⟩my self most perfect of all; for when tentations come I cannot stand, when I have sinned faith is feeble, when wrong is done unto me I cannot forgive, in sickness, in loss of goods, in all tribulation I am unpatient, when my neighbour needeth my help that I must depart with him of mine own, then love is cold. And thus I learn & feel that there is no power to do good but of God only. And in all such tentations my faith perisheth not utterly, neither my love and consent to the law of God: but they be weak, sick, wounded & not clean dead. As I dealt with my parents being a child, so now deal I towards God my loving father. When I was a child my father and mother taught me nurture & wisdom, I loved my father & all his commandments, and perceived the goodness he showed me, that my father loved me, and all his precepts are unto my wealth and profit, and that my father commandeth nothing for any need he hath thereof, but seeketh my profit only, and therefore I have a good faith unto all my fathers promises, and love all his commandments and do them with good will, and with good will go every day to the school: And by •he way happily I saw company play, ⟨p. 144⟩and with the sight was taken and ravished of my memory, and forgot my self, and stood, and beheld, and fell to play also forgetting father and mother & all their kindness, all their laws, and mine own profit also. How be it the knowledge of my fathers kindness, the faith of his promises, and the love that I had again unto my father, and the obedient mind were not utterly quenched, but lay hid, as all things do when a man sleepeth or lieth in a trance. And as soon as I had played out all my lists, or else by some had been warned, in the mean season, I came again to my old profession.
Euseb. No, no. This my faith which I haue in Christ is euen fought against with doubting, & euer assailed with desperation, not when I sinne onely but also in tentations of aduersitie, into which God bringeth me to nurture me & to shew me mine owne heart, the hypocrisie & false thoughts that there lie hid, my almost no faith at al, and as litle loue, euen then happily whē I thought