A34599:10
A conference Mr. John Cotton held at Boston with the elders of New-England 1.…
A conference Mr. John Cotton held at Boston with the elders of New-England 1. concerning gracious conditions in the soul before faith, 2. evidencing justification by sanctification, 3. touching the active power of faith : twelve reasons against stinted forms of prayer and praise : together with the difference between the Christian and antichristian church / written by Francis Cornwall ...A conference Mr. John Cotton held at Boston with the elders of New-England 1. concerning gracious conditions in the soule before faith, 2. evidencing justification by sanctification, 3. touching the active power of faith : twelve reasons against stinted forms of prayer and praise : together with the difference between the Christian and antichristian church / written by Francis Cornwell ...
London: printed by J. Dawson, 1646
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.
Sir,
1The Churches of the Saints and the World, may not be unfitly compared to the Pearl and the Pebble: though both of one natural substance, earth; yet the one of rare price, whose beauty is the sunbeams enclosed; the other wanting ⟨image 3⟩it, is cast away as refuse. What maketh the Saint more excellent then his neighbour, seeing both are borne of flesh, both subject to the same corruptions, sickness, death, but this?2 The Saints excellency is nothing else but the Image of Jesus Christ the Sun of righteousness shining in him: For as the moon and stars derive their light from the sun;3 so all the wisdom, righteousness, holiness a Saint hath, he deriveth from Christ. Hence David the King doth so prize their fellowship, All my delight is in thy Saints, 4thine excellent ones that are in the earth, and them that excel in virtue. Yea, it is a sure note of a Citizen of Zion, that he honours them that fear the Lord: 5Whereas worldly men without grace, are rendered in his eyes as vile. Hence the Spouse acknowledgeth that all her excellency cometh from plantation; Let my Beloved come into his garden, 6and eat his pleasant fruit. Yea, Christ ⟨image 3⟩declareth to Nicodemus that a believers holiness cometh from regeneration; 7that in Christ he may only glory. How doth the Lord discover this his excellency to a believer, by his calling, till that time he lieth amongst the refuse of the world,