A09466:315
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.
He was sent from the Land of Israel, where he was a Prophet to go amongest an Heathen people ⟨p. 152⟩and the greatest city of the world, then called Nineveh to preach that within forty days they should be destroyed for their sins: which message the free will of Jonah had as much power to do as the weakest hearted woman in the world had power, if she were commanded to leap into a tub of living snakes and Adders: as haply if God had commanded Sarah to sacrifice her son Isaac, as he did Abraham, she would have disputed with God ere she had done it, or though she were strong enough. Well Jonah heartened by his own imagination, and reasoning after this manner; I am here a prophet unto Gods people the Israelites: which though they have gods word testified unto them daily, yet despise and worship God under the likeness of Calves & after all manner of fashions save after his own word, and therefore are of all nations the worst and most worthy of punishment. And yet God for love of a few that are among them, & for his names sake spareth and defendeth them: how then shall God take so cruel vengeance on so great a multitude of them to whom his name was never preached, & therefore are not the tenth part so evil as these. If I therefore shall go ⟨p. 153⟩preach, I shall lie & shame my self, and God too, & make them the more to despise God. Upon this imagination he fled from the presence of GOD, and from the country where God is worshipped. When Jonah entered into the ship, he laid him down to sleep: for his conscience was tossed between the commandment of God which sent him to Nineveh, and his fleshly wisdom which dissuaded and counselled him to the contrary, & at last prevailed against the commandment, and carried him an otherway as a ship caught between two streams as the Poets feign the mother of Meleager to be between divers affections? while to adventure her brothers death she sought to slay her own son: whereupon for very pain and tediousness she lay down to sleep to put the commandment out of mind, which did so gnaw and fret her conscience: as the nature of all the wicked is, when they have sinned in earnest, to •eeke all means with riot, revel, and pastime to drive the remembrance of sin •oorth of their hearts, as Adam did to co•er his wickedness with aprons of figge•eaves.