A55301:64
Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day showing how Christians…Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day shewing how Christians…
Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day showing how Christians are to bear sufferings, and what graces are requisite thereunto : suited for all good Christians in this present time / by Edward Polhil ..., Esq.Armatura Dei, or, A preparation for suffering in an evil day shewing how Christians are to bear sufferings, and what graces are requisite thereunto : suited for all good Christians in this present time / by Edward Polhil ..., Esq.
London: printed for Tho. Cockerill, 1682
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.
O let us adhere to the holy ⟨p. 49⟩Truths in the Word; these came down from Heaven, and like their Original are nothing but pure Truth without any mixture of Error in them; these appear to us in the light of the first Truth, and lead to the bliss-making Vision of him in Heaven; and as we desire to be there, let us firmly adhere to them, especially to the word of Christs Patience; The Truth that must be suffered for at such at time as this, to that we must cleave closest, because in that will be the greatest stress and trial. It is good to be established in all Truth, but now it is in a special manner necessary to be well fixed in the Truth that concerns the Pure Religion, which runs very low in the Christian World, while in the mean while the Idolatrous one is like to be triumphant.
2. It must be a right estimating Knowledge that will prepare us for suffering, Every Notion of the things of God will not do it; he, that hath an high notion of them, but a low estimation, hath but a knowledge falsely so called; he knows them not as he ought to know them, because he knows them only to know them, but not to value them: We must so know them, as to rate them above a World; this is of great moment in order to Suffering: A man is capable to suffer, or not, according as his estimate of Spiritual things is higher ⟨p. 50⟩or lower. When the Martyr Polycarp was urged by the Proconsul to deny Christ,1 his answer was, A potioribus non esse transeundum ad pejora; we must not pass from better things to worse. He esteemed Christ better then the World, and therefore he suffered for him: But if he had esteemed the World better then Christ, he had never been a Martyr: As the estimation is so is the man. We know the Evangelical Truth, but if we do not rate it higher then all the World, we shall never be able to suffer for it: It is indeed in itself a glorious Beam let down from Heaven, a pure discovery of the great Salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and in that respect incomparably more worth then all the World; but if we do not so account it, we shall fall from it to embrace the World as being better in our eyes. It is very remarkable, that when the Emperors Prefect allured the great Basil to the Arian Doctrine,