A20752:317
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. 7 And thus have I showed Satan's disguised and subtle manner of fight,1 wherein like a Pirate he hangeth out flags of truce, to signify peace and friendship, till he have gotten us within his reach and command: and then he grappleth with ⟨p. 99⟩us, and ransacketh us of all Gods graces, and casteth us over board into the sea of destruction. And therefore it behooveth us with no less care to withstand Satan when he fawneth, than when he frowneth; when he fighteth by ambushment, than when he assaulteth us by open violence; when he offereth to stab us to the heart, than when he doth but (as it were) prick a vain, letting us blood to death without sense of pain; when he tempteth us to outrageous sins, than when he enticeth us to secret and hidden sins; when he allureth us like a friend to commit sin, by offering pleasure, riches, or honours, than when like an enemy a roaring lion, or cruel dragon he rangeth about and rageth against us; Nam cum delectabile proponit, molestum supponit, & dumb ungit pungit; He propoundeth things delightful to bring us to grief and misery, he fawneth on us that he may bemire us, and killeth while he embraceth us. Neither doth man know his time, but as the fishes which are taken in an evil net, 2and as the birds which are caught in the snare, so are the children of men snared in the evil time, when it falleth upon them suddenly, as it is Eccles. 9.12. Nay, seeing this fight is far more dangerous, because he covereth his hook with an alluring bait; and those snares of sin more pernicious which lie hidden, than those which lie in open view;3 seeing we are more easily tempted to those sins which are secret and disguised in the habit of virtue, than unto those gross sins which have their names as it were branded in their foreheads; seeing also we can more hardly repent of them, both because they do not appear so horrible and grievous unto us, as the other open and outward sins, and also because they work in us no shame after we entertain and live in them, neither can any of our christian brethren admonish or rebuke us for them, they being secret & unknown: