A85783:794
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
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.
First of the first, the repetition of the same exhortation, and that in so short a space. Sure it was not for want of matter, but rather out of abundance of zeal, that he harps the second time on the same string. Indeed he is the better Workman, who drives one nail home with reiterated blows, then he which covets to enter many, but fastens none. Such Preachers are not likely to reach the conscience, who hop from one truth to another, but dwell on none. Every hearer is not so quick as the Preacher, to take a notion as 'tis first darted forth, neither can many carry away so much of that Sermon, which is made up all of varieties, (where a point is no sooner named, but presently pulls back its hand, and another makes a breach and comes forth, before the fi•st hath been opened and hammered upon the conscience by a powerful application) As where the discourse is homogeneal, and some one necessary truth is cleared, insisted on, and urged home with blow upon blow. Here the whole matter of the discourse is a kin, and one part ⟨p. 331⟩remembered brings the memory acquainted with the other, whereas in the former one puts out the other in a weak memory. Short hints and away may please a Scholar, but not so profitable for others, the one more fit for the Schools, but the other for the Pulpit. Were I to buy a garment in a shop, I should like him better, that lays one good piece or two before me that are for my turn, (which I may fully peruse) then him, who takes down all his shop, and heaps piece upon piece, (merely to show his store) till at last for variety I can look wishly on none, they lie so one upon another.
FIrst of the first, the repetition of the same exhortation, and that in so short a space. Sure it was not for want of matter, but rather out of abundance of zeal, that he harps the second time on the same string. Indeed he is the better Workman, who drives one naile home with reiterated blowes, then he which covets to enter many, but fastens none. Such Preachers are not likely to reach the conscience, who hop from one truth to another, but dwell on none. Every hearer is not so quick as the Preacher, to take a notion as 'tis first darted forth, neither can many carry away so much of that Sermon, which is made up all of varieties, (where a point is no sooner named, but presently pulls back its hand, and another makes a breach and comes forth, before the fi•st hath been opened and hammered upon the conscience by a powerful application) As where the discourse is homogeneal, and some one necessary truth is clear'd, insisted on, and urged home with blow upon blow. Here the whole matter of the discourse is a kin, and one part