A85783:739
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 11 › Section 3
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. III.
A third privilege is, when God flows in with more then ordinary manifestations of his love, then the Christian is in danger of having his heart secretly lift up in pride. Indeed the genuine and natural effect, which such discoveries of divine love ⟨p. 303⟩have on a gracious soul, is to humble it. The sight of mercy increaseth the sense of sin, and that sense dissolves the soul kindly into sorrow, as we see in Magdalen. The heart which possibly was hard and frozen in the shade, will give and thaw in the Sun-shine of love, and so long all pride is hid from the creatures eye. Then (saith God) Ezek. 36.31. ye shall remember your ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath your selves in your own sight, &c. And when shall this be, but when God would save them from all their uncleannesses, as appears? v. 25. yet notwithstanding this, there remain such dregs of corruption unpurged out of the best, that Satan finds it not impossible, to make the manifestations of Gods love an occasion of pride to the Christian: and truly God lets us see our proneness to this sin in the short stay he makes, when he comes with any greater discoveries of his love. The Comforter ('tis true) abides for ever in the Saints bosom, but his joys they come, and are gone again quickly. They are as exceedings, with which he feasts the believer, but the cloth is soon drawn; and why so, but because we cannot bear them for our every day food? A short interview of heaven, and a vision of love now and then upon the mount of an ordinance or affliction, cheers the spirits of drooping Christians, who might they have leave to build Tabernacles there, and dwell under a constant shine of such manifestations, would be prone to forget themselves, and think they were Lords of their own comforts. If holy Paul was in danger of falling into this distemper of pride from his short rapture, to prevent which God saw it needful to let him blood with a thorn in the flesh, would not our blood much more grow too rank, and we too crank and wanton, if we should feed long on such luscious food? And therefore, if ever (Christian) thou hadst need to watch, then is the time when comforts abound, and God dandles thee most on the knee of his love, when his face shines with clearest manifestations, lest this sin of pride (as a thief in the candle) should swale out thy joy.