A20752:1022
The Christian warfare wherein is first generally showed the malice, power and politic stratagems…The Christian warfare wherein is first generally shewed the malice, power and politike stratagems…
The Christian warfare wherein is first generally showed the malice, power and politic stratagems of the spiritual enemies of our salvation, Satan and his assistants the world and the flesh, with the means also whereby the Christian may withstand and defeat them : and afterwards more specially their particular temptations, against the several causes and means of our salvation, whereby on the one side they allure us to security and presumption, and on the other side, draw us to doubting and desperation, are expressed and answered : written especially for their sakes who are exercised in the spiritual conflict of temptations, and are afflicted in conscience in the sight and sense of their sins / by I. Downame ...The Christian warfare wherein is first generally shewed the malice, power and politike stratagems of the spirituall ennemies of our saluation, Sathan and his assistants the world and the flesh, with the meanes also whereby the Christian may vvithstand and defeate them : and afterwards more speciallie their particvlar temptatiions, against the seuerall causes and meanes of our saluation, whereby on the one side they allure vs to security and presumption, and on the other side, draw vs to doubting and desperation, are expressed and answered : written especially for their sakes who are exercised in the spirituall conflict of temptations, and are afflicted in conscience in the sight and sense of their sinnes / by I. Dovvname ...
London: printed for Cuthbert Burby, 1604
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.
But this will more manifestly appear, if we consider the contrary affections and actions which plainly show themselves in this battle, for we find our faith assaulted with doubting and infidelity, & these also again beaten back after they have gotten some ground and subdued with the strength of faith; we discern also our affiance in God shrewdly shaken with diffidence and distrust, and afterwards this distrust ⟨p. 522⟩vanquisheth again by affiance, so as after we have uttered through the violence ostentation some diffident and impatient speeches, yet at the length we grow to Jobs resolution: Though he kill me yet will I trust in him. 1We may also discern our zeal sometime so hot in Gods service that it expelleth coldness and the fruit thereof dullness and drowsiness of spirit, and sometimes by them it is cooled and in outward appearance quenched; and the like may be said of all the other fruits of the flesh and the spirit. Besides which fight and stirring between them and their fruits the christian may observe in himself a misliking of the corruptions of the flesh, great grief and vexation of mind, because he is still subject unto them and an earnest desire to be freed from them, joined with an holy endeavour in the use of the means which are ordained of God for this purpose; and howsoever through the violence of Satan's tentations and his own corruptions ye be sometimes led captive into sin yet afterwards he is grieved for it, he hateth and abhorreth it, and earnestly desireth and endeavoureth for the time to come to leave and forsake it, and to serve the Lord in newness of life. Now whence doth all this opposition and contrariety proceed? shall we say from the flesh, why it is against all reason;2 for as the Apostle James disputeth Jam. 3.11. Doth a fountain send out at one place sweet water and bitter? can the fig tree bring forth olives, or a vine figs? or rather as our saviour Christ reasoneth Mat. 7.16. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? 3so may I demand can the flesh in the which as the Apostle affirmeth dwelleth no good thing,