A85783:852
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, That ye may be able to withstand in the evil day; But what is this evil day? Some take this evil day to comprehend the whole life of a Christian here below in this vale of tears; and then the argument runs thus: Take to your selves the whole Armour of God, that you may be able to persevere to the end of your life, which you will find, as it were, one continued day of trouble and trial, Thus Jacob draws a black line over his whole life, Few and evil have the days of my life been, Gen. 47. What day shines so fair that over casts not before night, yea, in which the Christian meets not with some shower or other, enough to deserve the name of an evil day? Every day hath its portion, yea, proportion; Sufficient is the evil of the day. We need not borrow and take up sorrows upon use of the morrow, to make up our present load; as we read of daily bread, so of a daily cross, Luke 9.23. which we are bid to take, not to make, (we need not make crosses for our selves, as we are prone to do) God in his Providence will provide one for us; and we are bid to take it up, but we hear nothing of laying it down, till cross and we lie down together; our troubles and our lives are coetaneous, live and die together; ⟨p. 350⟩here when joy comes sorrow is at its heel, staff and rod go together. Job himself, (whose prosperity the devil so grudged, and set forth in all his bravery and pomp, Job 1.10. as if his Sun had no shadow,) hear what account this good man gives of this his most flourishing time, chap. 3. 26. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet. There were some troubles that broke his rest, when his bed was (to thinking) as sort as heart could wish, even now this good man tosses and tumbles from one side to the other, and is not quiet. If one should have come to Job and blessed him with his happy condition, and said Surely, Job, thou couldest be content with what thou hast for thy portion, if thou mightest have all this settled on thee and thy heirs after thee, he would have said, as once Luther, that God should not put him off with these. Such is the Saints state in this bottom, that their very life here, and all the pompous entertainments of it, they are their cross, because they detain them from their crown. We need nothing to make our life an evil day more then our absence from our chief good;