A59669:101
The Sincere Convert
The sincere convert discovering the paucity of true believers and the great difficulty of saving conversion by Tho. Shepherd ....The sincere convert discovering the paucity of true beleevers and the great difficulty of saving conversion by Tho. Shepheard ....
London: printed by T.P. and M.S. for Humphrey Blunden, 1641
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.
Hence learn,1 how justly God may require perfect Obedience to all the Law, of every man, and curse him if he cannot perform it: because man was at first made in such a glorious estate, wherein he had power given him to please God perfectly: God may therefore require this debt of perfect obedience. Now man is broke and in prison: in Hell must he lie for ever, if he cannot pay justice every farthing, because God trusted him with a stock, which if he had well improved, he might have paid all.
Hence learne,1 how justly God may require perfect Obedience to all the Law, of every man, and curse him if he cannot performe it: because man was at first made in such a glorious estate, wherein hee had power given him to please God perfectly: God may therfore require this debt of perfect obedience. Now man is broke and in prison: in Hell must he lie for ever, if hee cannot pay justice every farthing, because God trusted him with a stocke, which if hee had well improved, hee might have payd all.
- 1Use 2.Vse 2.
See what cause every man hath to lament his miserable estate he is now1 ⟨p. 31⟩fallen into. For beggars children to live Vagrants and poor, is not so lamentable, as for a great Princes children to become such. One never in favour with the Prince grieves not as he doth, that was once in favour, but now cast out. Man is now rejected of God, that was beloved of God: he is now a runagate up and down the earth, that was once a Prince, and Lord of all the world. This is one aggravation of the damned's sorrows; oh the hopes, the means, the mercies that once I had! Can these, do these lament for the loss of their bare hopes and common mercies? Lord, what hearts then have men that cannot, do not, that will not lament the loss of such special high favours, now gone, which once they had. It is said, that those that saw the glory of the first Temple, wept when they saw the glory of the second, and how inferior it was to the first. You that either have the Temple of GOD begun to be repaired in you, or not begun at all, Oh think of the Temple burnt, the