Prima the first things, in reference to the middle and last things

The first is a sight of sin, and this our Saviour reckons for the first work of the Spirit, When he is come, ¹he will reprove the world of sin, John 16.8. Of sin? how? why thus: no sooner begins this blessed change from nature to grace, but the conscience (wrought on by Gods word) opens its book, and presents to the soul a bed-roll of those many, mighty, heinous sins, committed against God and man, there he may read in bloody burning lines the abominations of his youth, the sins of all his life; and to bring them into method, the Commandments of God stand as a remembrancer before his eyes: the first tells him of his loving somewhat above God: the second, of his worshipping a false God, or the true God after a false manner: the third, of his dishonouring the great and mighty name of God: the fourth, of his breaking the Lords days, either in doing the works of the flesh, or leaving undone the works of the Spirit; nor is this all: as against God, so against his neighbour hath he sinned: the fifth tells him of his stubbornness and disobedience: the sixth, of his passions, and desire of revenge: the seventh, of his lewdness and lustful courses: the eighth, of his robberies and covetous thefts: the ninth, of his lies and and slanders, back-bitings and rash judgements: the tenth, of his covetous thoughts, and motions ⟨p. 28⟩of the heart to all manner of evil. Good Lord! what a number of evils, yea, what innumerable swarms of lawless thoughts, and words, and actions doth he read in his conscience? But above all, his darling-delight, his beloved sin is writ in greatest characters, this he finds to have bewitched him most, and to have domineered above all the rest in his wasted conscience; this sin in some is worldliness, wantonness, usury, pride, revenge, or the like; in others it is drunkenness, gluttony, gaming, scurrile jesting, simony, or the like; whatsoever it is, the conscience tells him of it again and again; where that he may read it together with his other sins, the Spirit of God now opens the eyes of his mind, and lets him see the very mud and filth of his soul, that lay at the bottom before unseen, and undiscerned. Thus is the first working of the new life, to wit, a feeling of the old death of his soul in sins and trespasses; and here the axiom is true, no generation without corruption, a man must first feel this death, before he is born again.]