Whether Man Be in the Estate of Damnation or Grace

A searching Elizabethan treatise on the central Puritan question: how can a soul know whether it stands under divine wrath or divine favor? Perkins maps the inward marks of saving faith step by step — humiliation, sorrow for sin, holy despair, desire of Christ, lively assurance — and distinguishes the true Christian from the temporary professor who seems converted yet perishes. Along the way the book exposes how far a reprobate may outwardly imitate grace, supplies arguments against Rome's religion, and offers consolations for weak and troubled consciences pressing into full assurance of election.