A25247:49
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
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.
And should we consider man in his parts, every part must bear a part in this birth; his body must be regenerated, his soul must be renewed: we will begin with the body; As you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, 1even so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness, Rom. 6.19. As every member of the old man is full of sin, so every member of the new born man is to be renewed by grace: To instance in some of them; The heart, 2that in the old man is full of evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; in the new man it is the member that must first be renewed, here grace first seats it self, and after is dispersed over all; as in natural generation the heart is first framed, so in spiritual regeneration the heart is first reformed. Some call it the first mover of all mens actions, for as the first mover carrieth all the spheres of heaven with it, so doth the heart carry all the members of the body with it: and therefore it is, that the new man begins first with his heart; for if that fountain be right, all the streams of his desires, purposes, affections, speeches, actions, conversations, run sweet, and clear, and pleasant. Again, the eye that in the old man is the Broker, that goes between the heart and the object, to make up the sinful bargain, 3that which our Saviour calls an evil eye, S. Peter, an adulterous eye; in the new man it must be exercised on other objects, I made a covenant with mine eye (saith Job) why then should I think upon a maid? I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills (saith David) from whence cometh mine help. Again, the ear, 4that in the old man is stopped against the voice of the Charmer, charm he never so wisely; or if it be open, like Deaths Porter, it lets in sin and Satan at every occasion; in the new man it must be the gate of life, or the door of faith; therefore there is not a member that the devil more envieth than the ear, as we see in the man possessed with a deaf Devil, Mark 9.25.