A69449:212
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.
Hitherto of the first part of the souls implantation; to wit, of the putting of the soul into Christ: We are now come to the second, which is, The growing of the soul with Christ. These two take up the nature of ingrafting a sinner into the stock Christ Jesus. Now this growing together is accomplished by two means:
HItherto of the first part of the souls implantation; to wit, of the putting of the soul into Christ: We are now come to the second, which is, The growing of the soul with Christ. These two take up the nature of ingrafting a sinner into the stock Christ Jesus. Now this growing together is accomplished by two means:
1. By an union of the soul with Christ. 2. By a conveyance of sap or sweetness (all the treasures of grace and happiness) that is in Christ to the soul.
First, Every believer is joined unto Christ, and so joined or knit, that he becomes one spirit. 1. He is joined; as a friend to a friend; as a father to a child; as an husband to a wife; as a graft to a tree; as the soul to a body: So is Christ to a believer, ⟨p. 67⟩I live, not I, but the Lord Jesus liveth in me: Hence the body 1of the faithful is called Christ, 1 Cor. 12. 12. 2. So joined, that the believer comes to be one spirit with Christ; this mystery is great, and beyond the reach of that little light I enjoy: Only I shall communicate what I conceive, in these three following Conclusions: 1. That the Spirit of God (the third person in the Trinity) doth really accompany the whole Word, but more especially the precious promises of the Gospel: 2. The Spirit (accompanying the promise of grace and salvation) it doth therein, and thereby leave a supernatural dint and power, a spiritual, and over-powering virtue upon the soul, and thereby carries it, and brings it unto Christ: it is not so much any thing in the soul, as a spiritual assisting, and moving, and working upon the soul, by virtue whereof it is moved and carried to the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. The Spirit of grace in the promise working thus upon the heart, it causeth the heart to close with the promise, and with it self in the promise; and this is to be one spirit. As it is with the Moon (the Philosopher observes, That the ebbing and flowing of the Sea, is by virtue of the Moon) she flings her beams into the sea, and not being able to exhale as the Sun doth, she leaves them there, and goes away, and that draws them, and when they grow wet, they return back again; Now the sea ebbs and flows, not from any principle in it self, but by virtue of the Moon: so the heart of a poor creature is like the water, unable to move towards heaven, but the Spirit of the Lord doth bring in its beams, and leaves a supernatural virtue by them upon the soul, and thereby draws it to it self.