EVER since mankind had a being upon earth, the malicious apostate spirits have been their enemies: If it was the will of our Creator that we should be Militaries in our Innocency, and keep our standing, and attain our Confirmation and Glory by a Victory, or else come short of it if we lost the day: No wonder then that our lapsed condition must be militant, and that by conquest we must obtain the Crown. But there is a great deal of difference between these combats. In our first state we were the sole Combatants against the Enemy our selves, and we fought in ⟨p. 2⟩that sufficient strength of our own which was then given us, and by our wilful yielding we were overcome. But since our fall we fight under the banner of another, who having first conquered for us, will afterward conquer in us and by us. All the great transactions and bus•es of the world, which our Fathers have reported to us, which have filled all the Histories of ages, and which our eyes have seen, or our ears have heard of, are nothing but the various actions and successes of this great war, and all the persons in the world are the soldiers of these two Armies, whereof the Lord of Life, and the Prince of Darkness are the Generals: The whole Inhabited world is the field. The great on-set of the Enemy was made upon the person of our Lord himself. And as oft as he was assaulted or did assault, so oft did he overcome. In the wilderness he had that first appointed conflict with Satan himself hand to hand: Through his whole life after, he was assaulted by the inferior sort of enemies: And a leader in his own Army; even Peter himself is once seduced to become a Satan, Mat. 16. 22. and a Traitor Judas is the means of his apprehension, and then the blinded Jews and Rulers of his Crucifixion, and there had he the last and greatest Conflict; in which when he seemed conquered he did overcome, and so his personal war was finished. When the Captain of our salvation was thus made perfect through sufferings, Heb. 2. 10. that he might bring many sons to glory, his next work was to form his Army; which he did, by giving first Commission to his Officers, and appointing them to gather the common soldiers, and to fill his bands. No sooner did they set themselves upon the work, but Satan sendeth forth his bands against them: Persecutors assault them openly:
EVER since mankind had a being upon earth, the malicious apostate spirits have been their enemies: If it was the will of our Creator that we should be Militaries in our Innocency, and keep our standing, and attain our Confirmation and Glory by a Victory, or else come short of it if we lost the day: No wonder then that our lapsed condition must be militant, and that by conquest we must obtain the Crown. But there is a great deal of difference between these combats. In our first state we were the sole Combatants against the Enemy our selves, and we fought in ⟨p. 2⟩that sufficient strength of our own which was then given us, and by our wilfull yielding we were overcome. But since our fall we fight under the banner of another, who having first conquered for us, will afterward conquer in us and by us. All the great transactions and bus•es of the world, which our Fathers have reported to us, which have filled all the Histories of ages, and which our eyes have seen, or our ears have heard of, are nothing but the various actions and successes of this great war, and all the persons in the world are the souldiers of these two Armies, whereof the Lord of Life, and the Prince of Darkness are the Generals: The whole Inhabited world is the field. The great on-set of the Enemy was made upon the person of our Lord himself. And as oft as he was assaulted or did assault, so oft did he overcome. In the wilderness he had that first appointed confl•ct with Satan himself hand to hand: Through his whole life after, he was assaulted by the inferiour sort of enemies: And a leader in his own Army; even Peter himself is once seduced to become a Satan, Mat. 16. 22. and a Traytor Iudas is the means of his apprehension, and then the blinded Jews and Rulers of his Crucifixion, and there had he the last and greatest Conflict; in which when he seemed conquered he did overcome, and so his personall war was finished. When the Captain of our salvation was thus made perfect through sufferings, Heb. 2. 10. that he might bring many sons to glory, his next work was to form his Army; which he did, by giving first Commission to his Officers, and appointing them to gather the common souldiers, and to fill his bands. No sooner did they set themselves upon the work, but Satan sendeth forth his bands against them: Persecutors assault them openly:
