A09466:43
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.
XIII
After he hath committed a sin, he rsorroweth and repenteth: yet this repentance hath two wants in it. First he doth not detest his sin, and his former conversation when he repenteth: he doth bewail the loss of many things which he once enjoyed: he crieth out through very anguish, and through the perplexities which God in his judgement layeth on him: yet for his life, he is not able to leave his filthy sin: and if he might be delivered, he would sin as before. sEsau wept before his father with great yelling & ⟨p. 8⟩crying, but after he was gone from his fathers presence he hated his brother, who had got his blessing, and in contempt of his father, chose him a wife against his fathers liking. Pharaoh, as oft as the Lord laid any calamity on him, the evermore desired to be delivered from it, yet afterward always he returned to his old bias again. Felix trembled before Paul: for all that he could not leave his covetousness, but even then he sought for a bribe. Secondly, the reprobate, when he repenteth, he can not come unto God, and seek unto him: he hath no power, no not so much as once to desire to give one little sob for the remission of his sins:4 if he would give all the world he cannot so much as give one rap at Gods mercy gate, that he may open to him. He is very like a man upon a Rack, who crieth and roareth out for very pain, yet cannot desire his tormentor to ease him of his pain. u