A75287:313
Media: the middle things, in reference to the first and last things: or, The…
Media: the middle things, in reference to the first and last things: or, The means, duties, ordinances, both secret, private and public, for continuance and increase of a godly life, once begun, till we come to Heaven. Wherein are discovered many blessed medium's or duties, in their right method, manner and proceedings; that so a Christian (the spirit of Christ assisting) may walk on in the holy path, which leads from his new birth to everlasting life. / Drawn, for the most part, out of the most eminently pious, and learned writings of our native practical divines: with additionals of his own, by Isaac Ambrose, minister of the Gospel at Preston in Amoundernes.Media: the middle things, in reference to the first and last things: or, The means, duties, ordinances, both secret, private and publike, for continuance and increase of a godly life, once begun, till we come to Heaven. Wherein are discovered many blessed medium's or duties, in their right method, manner and proceedings; that so a Christian (the spirit of Christ assisting) may walk on in the holy path, which leads from his new birth to everlasting life. / Drawn, for the most part, out of the most eminently pious, and learned writings of our native practical divines: with additionals of his own, by Isaac Ambrose, minister of the Gospel at Preston in Amoundernes.
London: printed by John Field for Nathanael Webb and William Grantham, 1649London: printed by John Field for Nathanaell Webb and William Grantham, 1649
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.
1. We may be deceived, in supposing that we are utterly divorced, and quite delivered from this bosom-sin, when it is nothing so; as thus:—
1. We may change only in the outward form, and not in truth: For instance, whereas the same sin of Covetousness doth utter and express it self by Usury, Simony, Sacrilege, Bribery, Grinding the faces of the poor, Detaining ill-gotten goods, without restitution; we may perhaps insensibly glide out of one gulf of griping cruelty into another, or it may be from one of these more notorious, to some other less observed, and less odious in the world, and yet still abide in the chambers of Death, and under the tyranny of this reigning sin.
1. We may change onely in the outward form, and not in truth: For instance, whereas the same sin of Covetousness doth utter and express it self by Usury, Symony, Sacriledge, Bribery, Grinding the faces of the poor, Detaining ill-gotten goods, without restitution; we may perhaps insensibly glide out of one gulf of griping cruelty into another, or it may be from one of these more notorious, to some other less observed, and less odious in the world, and yet still abide in the chambers of Death, and under the tyranny of this reigning sin.
2. We may surcease, and refrain from the outward gross acts of such hateful villainies, and yet our inwards be still defiled with insatiable, sensual hankerings after them: For instance, Whereas the foul sin of Uncleanness doth actuate it self by Fornication, Adultery, Self-pollution, immoderate abuse of the Marriage-bed, Speculative wantonness, we may perhaps forbear the external acts of uncleanness, and yet lie and languish in the delightful revolvings of them in our mind, in adulteries of thought.