A69449:75
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, Clearly: It is not a general sight, and confused sight of ⟨p. 19⟩Sin that will serve the turn; it is not enough to say, It is my infirmity, and I cannot amend it, we are all sinners: no, this is the ground why we mistake our evils, and reform not our ways; a man must search narrowly, and prove his ways, as the Goldsmith doth his gold in the fire: I considered my ways, (saith David) 1and turned my feet unto thy testimonies; in the Original, I turned my sins upside down, he looked all over his ways. And this clear sight of Sin appears in two particulars:
1. A man must see his Sin nakedly in its own proper colours, we must not look on Sin through the Mediums of profits, and pleasures, and contentments of this world, for so we mistake Sin: but the soul of a true Christian that would see Sin clearly, he must strip it of all content and quiet that ever the heart received in it; as the Adulterer must not look upon Sin in regard of the sweetness of it, nor the Covetous man on his Sin in regard of the profit of it: you that are such, the time will come when you must dye, and then consider what good these sinful courses will do you: How will you judge of Sin then, when it shall leave a blot on your Souls, and a guilt on your Consciences?
2. A man must look on Sin in the venom of it; and that you may do partly, if you compare it with other things, and partly, if you look at it in regard of it self. 1. Compare Sin with those things that are most fearful and horrible; as suppose any soul here present were to behold the damned in Hell, if the Lord should give any one of you a little peep-hole into Hell, that you saw the horror of the damned, then propound this to your heart, What are those pains which the damned endure, and your heart will shake and quake at it; yet the least Sin that ever you did commit, is a greater evil (in its own nature) then the greatest pains of the damned in Hell. 2. Look at Sin simply as it is in it self, what is it, but a profest opposing of God himself? A sinful creature joins side with the Devil, and comes in battle Array against the Lord, and flies in the face of the Lord God of Hosts. I pray you in cold blood consider this, and say, Good Lord, what a sinful wretch am I? that a poor damned wretch of the earth, should stand in defiance against God! that I should submit my self to the Devil, and oppose the Lord God of Hosts!