A73600:31
The beginning of the doctrine of Christ. Or A catalogue of sins showing how…The beginning of the doctrine of Christ. Or A catalogue of sinnes shewing how…
The beginning of the doctrine of Christ. Or A catalogue of sins showing how a Christian may find out the evils, he must take notice of in his repentance. With rules, that show a course, how any Christian may be delivered from the guilt and power of all his sins. By N. Bifield preacher of Gods Word, at Isleworth in Middlesex.The beginning of the doctrine of Christ. Or A catalogue of sinnes shewing how a Christian may finde out the euils, hee must take notice of in his repentance. With rules, that shew a course, how any Christian may be deliuered from the guilt and power of all his sinnes. By N. Bifield preacher of Gods Word, at Isleworth in Middlesex.
London: printed for R. Rounthwaite, 1619
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.
1. The first thing which ⟨p. 3⟩any man, disposing himself1 for the kingdom of God, will, and ought to enquire after, is, What he should do to be rid of those many sins he hath been, and is guilty of: rid (I say) from the guilt & danger of them, and from the power and dominion of them. For the satisfaction of thy Conscience in this most needful question, I have in this first Treatise gathered for thee, out of the whole Bible, a Catalogue of those sins, which in our repentance God will have with special notice to be confessed and avoided: and these sins I have set ⟨p. 4⟩down, as near as I could, in the express words of the Text, that thou mightest see the Lord himself describing thy offences, and so mightest have no excuse or doubt to imagine, that it was but the judgement of some men, that made such things to be thought to be sins. By this course of surveying the whole Scriptures, I have both found out divers particular offences plainly proved to be so, which I could not observe to be mentioned in any exposition of the commandments which I had, and also divers things proved ⟨p. 5⟩clearly to be sins, which were only barely affirmed to be so in other writers. I have likewise plainly showed thee by express Scriptures, what course thou mayest distinctly take to be rid of thy sins, a course that cannot fail thee, being grounded on the most evident directions, which God himself hath prescribed unto thee, if thy own slothfulness and procrastination, or wilful perverseness hinder thee not; and I doubt not, but by experience thou wilt confess, the course is comfortable and easy, considering the great ⟨p. 6⟩benefit and rest thou mayest bring to thy Conscience thereby.
1. The first thing which ⟨p. 3⟩any man, disposing himself1