The Christian in Complete Armour

¹That the Christian should have an especial care to repair his broken Armour to recover his decaying graces. This Armour may be battered; I might show sad examples in the several pieces. Was not Jacobs girdle of truth and sincerity unbuckled, when he used that sinful policy to get the blessing? he was not the plain man then, but the supplanter; but he had as good have stayed Gods time: he was paid home in his own kind. He puts a cheat on his father, and did not Laban put a cheat on him, giving Leah for Rachel? What say you to Davids breast-plate of righteousness in the matter of Uriah? was it not shot through, and that holy man fearfully wounded? who lay almost a year (for ought we read of him,) before he came to himself, so far as to be thoroughly sensible of his sin, till Nathan a faithful Chirurgeon was sent to search the wound, and clear it of that dead ⟨p. 335⟩flesh, which had grown over it? And Jonah, (otherwise a holy Prophet) when God would send him on an errand to Nineveh, he hath his shoes to seek, I mean that preparation and readiness with which his mind should have been shod, to have gone at the first call. Good Hezekiah we find how near his helmet of hope was of being beaten off his head, who tells us himself what his thoughts were in the day of his distress, that he should not see the Lord in the land of the living, expecting that God would never let go his hold, till like a Lion he had broke his bones, and at last made an end of him. Even Abraham himself, famous for faith, yet had his fits of unbelief and distrustful qualms coming over his valiant heart; now in this case the Christians care should be to get his armour speedily repaired. A battered helmet is next to no helmet in point of present use; grace in a decay, is like a man pulled off his legs by sickness; if some means be not used to recover it, little service will be done by it, or comfort received from it. Therefore Christ gives this Church of Ephesus (to whom Paul wrote this Epistle) this counsel, To remember from whence she was fallen, to repent and do her first works, How many does a declining Christian wrong at once?

¹That the Christian should have an especial care to repaire his broken Armour to recover his decaying graces. This Armour may be battered; I might shew sad examples in the several pieces. Was not Jacobs girdle of truth and sincerity unbuckled, when he used that sinful policy to get the blessing? he was not the plain man then, but the subplantour; but he had as good have stayed Gods time: he was paid home in his own kinde. He puts a cheat on his father, and did not Laban put a cheat on him, giving Leah for Rachel? What say you to Davids breast-plate of righteousnesse in the matter of Ʋriah? was it not shot through, and that holy man fearfully wounded? who lay almost a yeare (for ought we reade of him,) before he came to himself, so far as to be thoroughly sensible of his sin, till Nathan a faithful Chirurgion was sent to search the wound, and clear it of that dead