A30345:429
A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the gradual breakings out of Gospel…A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the graduall breakings out of Gospel…
A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the gradual breakings out of Gospel grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differences betwixt the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers errors of Arminians and others are confuted, the nature of uprightness, and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion with himself ... are solidly handled / by that faithful servant of Jesus Christ, and minister of the Gospel, John Ball ; published by Simeon Ash.A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the graduall breakings out of Gospel grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differences betwixt the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers errours of Arminians and others are confuted, the nature of uprightnesse, and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion with himself ... are solidly handled / by that faithfull servant of Jesus Christ, and minister of the Gospel, John Ball ; published by Simeon Ash.
London: printed by G. Miller for Edward Brewster, 1645
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.
2. Thorny cares, vain pleasures, sinful delights must be stocked up and digged out of the heart. Weeds will grow of themselves, if the roots be not plucked up, good corn requireth tillage and sowing both. Perverseness is natural to man corrupt and sinful, and will increase of it self: but uprightness will not prosper, if the fallow ground of the heart be not ploughed, and the roots of worldliness and voluptuousness killed in them. If the world be our treasure, our heart cannot be true and upright with God, for where our treasure is, there will our hearts be.
2. Thornie cares, vaine pleasures, sinfull delights must be stocked up and digged out of the heart. Weeds will grow of themselves, if the roots be not plucked up, good corne requireth tillage and sowing both. Perversenesse is naturall to man corrupt and sinfull, and will encrease of it selfe: but uprightnesse will not prosper, if the fallow ground of the heart be not ploughed, and the rootes of worldlinesse and voluptuousnesse killed in them. If the world be our treasure, our heart cannot be true and upright with God, for where our treasure is, there will our hearts be.
3. A third means is to possess our hearts with this, and to have it ever in our thoughts, that in all things, especially in matters of Religion, we have to do with God, and are ever in his sight and presence. In our common daily duties to labour thus to perform them with our heart, as in the sight of God, to his glory, is a ready way to get this grace of truth deeply rooted. It is ⟨p. 188⟩the very main ground of all hypocrisy, that this one thing is not duly thought on. Men forget him that seeth in secret, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, wherewith he pierceth further then the outward face: and hereupon they are not to imagine, that when they have carried the matter smoothly and fairly before men, all is well. The world either applauds them, or accuseth them not, and hereupon they flatter themselves, as if nothing more were to be looked after. Let us then remember this, if we would be true and sincere in our hearts; The ways of man are before the eyes of