A20752:130
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.
1Secondly, the cause of our war is of great weight, as namely for the glory of God and our own salvation; for in all Satan's skirmishes, he seeketh to impeach Gods glory with false imputations, and to bring us to utter destruction. And this may appear by his first conflict with our mother Eve, 2Gen. 3.4.5. where he accuseth God of a lye, who is truth it self; and of impotency and envious disdain, saying, that the cause why he did forbid them to cate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was not (as he had said) because they should die, but because he knew that when they should eat thereof, their eyes should be opened, and they should be as Gods knowing good and evil. Where first he seeketh to dim the beams of Gods glory by accusing ⟨p. 11⟩him of a lie, and to persuade them that he was not omnipotent, seeing that he was not able to hinder them from being Gods, if they tasted of this fruit: lastly, that he therefore forbade them to eat thereof, because he envied them so glorious an estate. And secondly he laboureth to destroy our first parents both body and soul, by tempting them to disobedience and the transgression of Gods commandment: and therefore our Saviour Christ Joh. 8.44. doth very fitly join these two together, saying,3 that he was a liar and a manslayer from the beginning. A liar, in that he falsely accused God of lying; a manslayer, because he did it to this end, that he might murder our first parents and all their posterity both body and soul. So that you see that the end of Satan's fight is to dishonour God and destroy us, and therefore if we have any regard of Gods glory (which should be more dear unto us then our own souls) or any respect of our own salvation, if we would not treacherously betray them both by our slothfulness or cowardice into the hands of Gods and our enemy; let us valiantly enter the field, and never cease our courageous fight till we have obtained a full victory.