A09466:84
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.
XXXIII
Besides this, reprobates have some prerogatives of God: kas that he is patient towards them: that before he will destroy them, he useth many means to win them: that they commonly spend all the days of their lives in prosperity: insomuch, ▪that it is said of them in the Psalm: lthat they go in continual prosperity unto their death, and pine not away as the children of God do. mBut after a certain time God in his just judgement hardeneth their harts, blindeth the eyes of their minds, he maketh their heads giddy with a spiritual drunkenness, and by the strength of their inward lusts, as also by the effectual operation of Satan, they fall to open infidelity, and contempt of Gods word, and so run headlong to their own damnation, and perish finally. nJulian the Apostate was first a man learned and eloquent, and professed the Religion of Christ, but afterward he fell and wrote a book against the religion of Christ, answered by Cyril: and on a time, in a battle against the Persians, was thrust into ⟨p. 23⟩•he bowels with a dart, no man then knew •ow, which dart he pulled out with his own •and, and presently blood followed, which •s it gushed out, he took it in his hand, and loong it into the air, saying, Vicisti Galilaee, icisti. O thou Galilean (meaning Christ) thou art the conqueror, thou art the conqueror: thus he ended his days in blaspheming Christ whom he had professed.