A85783:72
The Christian in Complete Armour
The Christian in complete armour. Or, A treatise of the saints war against the Devil, wherein a discovery is made of that grand enemy of God and his people, in his policies, power, seat of his empire, wickedness, and chief design he hath against the saints. A magazine opened: from whence the Christian is furnished with spiritual arms for the battle, helped on with his armour, and taught the use of his weapon, together with the happy issue of the whole war. The first part. / By William Gurnall, Minister of the Gospel in Lavenham. Imprimatur, Edmund Calamy.The Christian in compleat armour. Or, A treatise of the saints war against the Devil, wherein a discovery is made of that grand enemy of God and his people, in his policies, power, seat of his empire, wickednesse, and chiefe designe he hath against the saints. A magazin open'd: from whence the Christian is furnished with spiritual armes for the battel, help't on with his armour, and taught the use of his weapon, together with the happy issue of the whole warre. The first part. / By William Gurnall, Minister of the Gospel in Lavenham. Imprimatur, Edmund Calamy.
London: printed for Ralph Smith, 1655
A TREATISE Of the whole Armour Of God. › Introduction › Chapter 2 › Section 2
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.
SECTION. 2.
Use 1 Is the Christians strength in the Lord, not in himself, Surely then the Christless person must needs be a poor impotent creature, void of all strength and ability of doing any thing of it self towards its own salvation. If the ship launched, rigged, and with her sails spread cannot stir, till the wind come fair and fills them, much less can the timber that lies in the Carpenters yard, hew and frame it self into a ship. If the living tree cannot grow, except the root communicate its sap, much less can a dead rotten stake in the hedge, which hath no root, live of its own accord. In a word, if a Christian, that hath this spiritual life of grace, cannot exercise this life, without strength from above; then surely, one void of this new life, dead in sins and trespasses, can never be able to beget this in himself, or concur to the production of it. The state of unregeneracy is a state of impotency, When we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly, Rom. 5.6. And as Christ found the lump of mankind covered with the ruins of their lapsed estate, (no more able to raise themselves from under the weight of Gods wrath which lay upon them, then one buried under the rubbish of a fallen house, is to free himself of that weight without help) so the Spirit finds sinners in as helpless a condition, as unable to repent, or believe on Christ for salvation, as they were of themselves to purchase it. Confounded therefore for ever be the language of those sons of pride, who cry up the power of nature, as if man with his own brick and slime of natural abilities were able to rear up such a building, whose top may reach heaven it self. It is not of him that willeth or runneth, 1but God that showeth mercy. God himself hath scattered such Babel-builders