A28620:1194
The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in several treatisesThe dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in severall treatises
The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in several treatises ... : never before published / by Samuel Bolton ...The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in severall treatises ... : never before published / by Samuel Bolton ...
London: printed by Robert Ibbitson for Thomas Parkhurst, 1657
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
A man cannot believe till his understanding be enlightened, and his will changed, and this is not before Grace.
A man cannot beleeve till his understanding bee enlightened, and his will changed, and this is not before Grace.
Again, to believe is an Act of a living man, not of a soul dead in sin, and therefore the soul must first be endued with the life of Grace, before it can perform this living action.
Again, to beleeve is an Act of a living man, not of a soul dead in sin, and therefore the soul must first bee indued with the life of Grace, before it can perform this living action.
Indeed we are said to be sanctified by Faith, and so it might seem that our Sanctification were a fruit of Faith, an effect of Faith, but we are not to understand this as meant of the first work of Sanctification, which is not acquired or put forth by us, but infused by God, together with Faith, as being a part of it: But it is meant of the second or further work of Sanctification, and so Faith sanctifieth us, as it lends a hand to help forward, and to perfect our Sanctification; for so Faith doth strengthen and increase Grace in us, by drawing down strength and life from Christ daily; and in this sense, as to their been or melius esse, all our graces have a kind of dependence upon Faith; as a Mediatory grace (as I may say) as our Mediator to our Mediator; in fetching down influence and strength, for the strengthening and increasing of grace in us.
Indeed we are said to be sanctified by Faith, and so it might seem that our Sanctification were a fruit of Faith, an effect of Faith, but wee are not to understand this as meant of the first work of Sanctification, which is not acquired or put forth by us, but infused by God, together with Faith, as being a part of it: But it is meant of the second or further work of Sanctification, and so Faith sanctifieth us, as it lends a hand to help forward, and to perfect our Sanctification; for so Faith doth strengthen and increase Grace in us, by drawing down strength and life from Christ daily; and in this sense, as to their bene or melius esse, all our graces have a kind of dependance upon Faith; as a Mediatory grace (as I may say) as our Mediatour to our Mediatour; in fetching down influence and strength, for the strengthening and increasing of grace in us.