A20752:1060
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.
§. Sect. 4 Fourthly,1 we are to consider that desperation it self is a most heinous and outrageous sin, for it causeth men to deny Gods truth in his promises & to account him a liar, as the Apostle plainly speaketh, 1. Joh. 5.10. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believed not the record, that God witnessed of that his Son, it maketh them to deny the infiniteness of his mercies as being overmatched with the multitude of their sins, and the sufficiency of Christs merits, as though they were not a full satisfaction for their horrible offences: yea it maketh them to deny Gods justice in thinking that he will punish that sin again in them, which hath already been punished in Christ, and exact that debt which he hath already discharged. Now to deny the truth, mercy, and justice of God is to deny God himself, for his attributes are his essence, the truth of God is the true God, the mercy of God is the merciful God, and the justice of God is the just God. So that he who despaireth falleth into the most horrible and capital sin of Atheism even the highest degree of wickedness, and therefore more heinously offendeth God by this sin alone, then by all his other sins whatsoever, though they appear never so monstrous and abominable in his own eyes. For example the sin of Cain in despairing of Gods mercy, was far more horrible then his monstrous sin which he committed in murdering his own brother: the sin of Judas in despairing of Gods mercy, was without comparison greater then his sin in betraying his Lord and master, in a word to commit Idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, & ⟨p. 544⟩such like are heinous sins, but utterly to despair of Gods mercy is greater then they all. Though then we have committed other horrible wickedness against the Lord, yet in no case let us despair, for this were to add sin unto sin, and to clog our consciences more with the last then with all the former, till with their intolerable weight they press us down unto hell; you would count him worse then mad who being oppressed with a heavy burden should (in stead of using other means to ease himself) add thereunto a double or treble weight, till he were pressed down grovelling unto the earth;
§. Sect. 4 Fourthly,1