A69449:145
The doctrine & directions but more especially the practice and behaviour of a man…The doctrine & directions but more especially the practice and behavior of a man…
The doctrine & directions but more especially the practice and behaviour of a man in the act of the new birth A treatise by way of appendix to the former. By Isaac Ambrose, minister of Christ at Preston in Amounderness in Lancashire.The doctrine & directions but more especially the practice and behavior of a man in the act of the nevv birth A treatise by way of appendix to the former. By Isaac Ambrose, minister of Christ at Preston in Amounderness in Lancashire.
London: printed by J.F. for Nathanael Webb and William Grantham, 1650
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
First, the Spirit of the Lord meeting with an humble, broken, lowly, self-denying sinner (he that is a proud stout-hearted wretch knows nothing of this matter) it opens the eye, and now the humbled sinner begins to see (like the man in the Gospel) some light and glimmering about his understanding, that he can look into, and discern the spiritual things of God.
2. Then the Lord says before him all the riches of the treasure of his grace; no sooner hath he given him an eye, but then he ⟨p. 42⟩lays colours before him (the unsearchable riches of Christ) that he may see and look, and fall in love with those sweet treasures; 1and then saith the soul, O that mercy, and grace, and pardon were mine! O that my sins were done away! the Lord saith, I will refresh them that are heavy laden; then saith the soul, O that I had that refreshing! you shall have rest, saith God; O that I had rest too, saith the soul! And now the soul begins to look after the mercy and compassion which is laid afore it.
3. The Spirit of the Lord doth witness or certify throughly and effectually to the soul, that this mercy in Christ belongs unto him; and without this, the soul of an humble broken-hearted sinner hath no ground to go unto Christ: what good doth it an hungry stomach to hear that there is a great deal of cheer and dainties provided for such and such men, and he have no part therein? Take a Beggar that hath a thousand pounds told before him (he may apprehend the sum of so much gold and so much silver) but what is all that to me (saith he) if in the mean time I dye and starve? It falls out in this case with a broken-hearted sinner, as with a prodigal child: The Prodigal he hath spent his means, and abused his Father, and now is there a Famine in the Land, and poverty is befallen him; he knows indeed there is meat and clothes enough in his Fathers House, but (alas) what can he expect thence but his Fathers heavy displeasure? if a man should say, Go to your Father, he will give you a portion again; would he (think you) believe this? No (would he say) it is my Father I have offended, and will he now receive me? yet should a man come and tell him, that he heard his Father say so, and then show him a Certificate under his Fathers hand that it was so, this would sure draw him into some hope that his Father meant well towards him: So it is with a sinner when he is apprehensive of all his rebellions; if a man should tell such a soul, Go to God, and he will give you abundance of mercy and compassion; the soul cannot believe it, but thinks, What, I mercy? no, no: Blessed are they that walk humbly before God, and conform their lives to his word, let them take it; but for me, it is mercy I have opposed, it is grace I have rejected; no mercy, no grace for me: But now if God send a Messenger from Heaven, or if it come under the hand of his Spirit, that he will accept of him, and pass by all his sins, this makes the soul grow into some