5. Prop. Our believing and conversion to God doth alter and change our state before God: 11.§1 Because God esteemed an unbeliever that which he was; even an unbeliever, a child of wrath, one that is disobedient, serving divers lusts, a soul unwashed, polluted in his blood before his conversion to God; but being once converted and graced to believe, his state before God is altered and changed, even in the Court of Heaven, in the Lords Books he is another man, he goeth now for a fair and undefiled soul, the Church that was in a polluted, filthy, and miserable condition Ezek. 16.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Is now in Christs ⟨p. 408⟩heart as a seal, Cant. 8.6. so fair, as her beauty ravisheth the heart of Christ; now Christ nameth §2things according to their nature: 2. The condition is so changed before God, that Hos. 1.10. It cometh to pass, That in the place, where it was said to them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God, 1 Pet. 2.10. Which in time past, were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy: 3. The words of Scripture, that importeth a real change, doth prove the same, as Col. 1.12. Who hath made us meet, or sufficiently qualified us, to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light. Christ is a qualified work▪ man, and changeth Hell, and the most untoward Timber of Hell, in Heaven and in a Vessel of glory: Its a vain thing, to dream that Christ hath no other esteem and warmness of heart to us when we are dead in sins and trespasses, and Posting as in a horse race after the Devil, who rideth, and acteth and breatheth in the children of disobedience, and when he hath raised and quickened us for his great love, and placed us in Heaven with Christ, Eph. 2.1, 2, 3, 4. And made us Kings and Priests unto God: Then the state of Hell and Death, should be the very state of Grace and Heaven before God: A new creature, 2 Cor. 5.17. Light in the Lord, Eph. 5.8. partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet. 1.4. Renewed in the spirit of the mind, Eph. 4.23. Such as are begotten again, unto a lively hope, by the resurrection ⟨p. 409⟩of Jesus Christ from the Dead, 1 Pet. 1.3. Born again not of corruptible seed, 1 Pet. 1.23. Kings and Priests unto God, Rev. 1.5. A generation of Kings & Priests unto God, 1 Pet. 2.9.
5. Prop. Our believing and conversion to God doth alter and change our state before God: 11.§1 Because God esteemed an unbeliever that which he was; even an unbeliever, a child of wrath, one that is disobedient, serving divers lusts, a soul unwashed, polluted in his blood before his conversion to God; but being once converted and graced to believe, his state before God is altered and changed, even in the Court of Heaven, in the Lords Books he is another man, he goeth now for a fair and undefiled soul, the Church that was in a polluted, filthy, and miserable condition Ezek. 16.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Is now in Christs ⟨p. 408⟩heart as a seal, Cant. 8.6. so fair, as her beauty ravisheth the heart of Christ; now Christ nameth §2things according to their nature: 2. The condition is so changed before God, that Hos. 1.10. It cometh to passe, That in the place, where it was said to them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God, 1 Pet. 2.10. Which in time past, were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy: 3. The words of Scripture, that importeth a reall change, doth prove the same, as Col. 1.12. Who hath made us meet, or sufficiently qualified us, to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light. Christ is a qualified work▪ man, and changeth Hel, and the most untoward Timber of Hell, in Heaven and in a Vessell of glory: Its a vain thing, to dream that Christ hath no other esteem and warmnesse of heart to us when we are dead in sins and trespasses, and Posting as in a horse race after the Devil, who rideth, and acteth and breatheth in the children of disobedience, and when he hath raised and quickned us for his great love, and placed us in Heaven with Christ, Eph. 2.1, 2, 3, 4. And made us Kings and Priests unto God: Then the state of Hell and Death, should be the very state of Grace and Heaven before God: A new creature,
- 1By faith and conversion to God, our state is truly before God changed.By faith and conversion to God, our state is truely before God changed.
