A69028:1799
The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…
The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as it affordeth both milk for babes, and strong meat for such as are at full age / by ... Nicholas Bifield ; ... now published ... by his son, Adoniram Bifield.The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as it affordeth both milke for babes, and strong meat for such as are at full age / by ... Nicholas Bifield ; ... now published ... by his sonne, Adoniram Bifield.
London: printed by G.M. for Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith, 1626
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.
3. We may hence learn what is necessary to true repentance, viz. First, to get out from the society of wicked men: a man cannot repent, and yet remain still by the High-Priests fire. Secondly, to bewail our sins by true godly sorrow in secret: without mourning for sin, there can be no true repentance for sin; and therefore the afflicting of our soul for our sins is peremptorily required, Joel 2. 12. Jam. 4. And the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart, Psal. 51.
3. We may hence learne what is necessarie to true repentance, viz. First, to get out from the society of wicked men: a man cannot repent, and yet remaine still by the High-Priests fire. Secondly, to bewaile our sinnes by true godly sorrow in secret: without mourning for sin, there can be no true repentance for sinne; and therefore the afflicting of our soule for our sinnes is peremptorily required, Ioel 2. 12. Iam. 4. And the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart, Psal. 51.
4. Here are divers things worthy the marking about the means of a mans conversion: For first hence we may learn, that the Doctrine a man hears, though it do not presently work upon him, yet the remembrance of it in after-times may be very powerful to turn a mans heart to God: as here Peter is turned by remembering what Jesus said unto him, though when he said it, Peter made no good use of it. Again, we may gather hence, that God can awaken the conscience of a man by strange operations, by very simple and unlikely means; as here the conscience of Peter is excited by the crowing of a Cock; but especially the heart of Peter is dissolved, and ground almost to powder, with the very looks of Christ: Jesus looked back upon him, and he went out and wept bitterly.