A25247:134
Prima the first things, in reference to the middle and last things
Prima the first things, in reference to the middle and last things: or, the doctrine of regeneration, the new birth, the very beginning of a godly life. Delivered by Isaac Ambrose, minister of the Gospel at Preston in Amounderness in Lancashire.
London: printed by J.F. for I.A., 1650
Appendix › Chapter 1: The occasion and method of this Treatise.
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.
CHAP. I. The occasion and method of this Treatise.
Some there are, who hearing the new birth (or first repentance) to be so necessary to salvation, but never feeling in themselves any such change or conversion, have therefore desired further helps, though naturally thou art blind, and wretched, and miserable, and poor, and naked; yet the Lord hath not left thee without means and helps: to this purpose he hath set up his ordinances; not that man of himself can dispose himself unto grace, but that the Spirit of Christ in the use of the ordinances (without any habitual or sanctifying grace in mans heart) can dispose of man to the reception of habitual or sanctifying grace. True it is, I advised them in the former Treatise to be frequent in prayer, and in hearing of the word: But so we have done, say they, and yet we feel no conversion: it may be so, for not always the doing of them, but perseverance in them through Christ obtains the blessing desired. And yet if they will out of hand settle themselves to the work, It is the Lord that saith, Break up the fallow ground, Jer. 4.3. (i.) seek to the Lord to break them for thee: Be in the use of the means, and the Lord may come in, and break thy heart. I shall, for their further satisfaction, give them a more particular Method, and without a Text taken, take my self more liberty to put them in the way.
SOme there are, who hearing the new birth (or first repentance) to be so necessary to salvation, but never feeling in themselves any such change or conversion, have therefore desired further helps, though naturally thou art blinde, and wretched, and miserable, and poor, and naked; yet the Lord hath not left thee without means and helps: to this purpose he hath set up his ordinances; not that man of himself can dispose himself unto grace, but that the Spirit of Christ in the use of the ordinances (without any habitual or sanctifying grace in mans heart) can dispose of man to the reception of habitual or sanctifying grace. True it is, I advised them in the former Treatise to be frequent in prayer, and in hearing of the word: But so we have done, say they, and yet we feel no conversion: it may be so, for not always the doing of them, but perseverance in them through Christ obtains the blessing desired. And yet if they will out of hand settle themselves to the work, It is the Lord that saith, Break up the fallow ground,