N01911:100
Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D.…
Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D. teacher of a church at Boston, in New-England ; With a preface by Dr. Owen.Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D. teacher of a church at Boston, in New-England ; With a praeface by Dr. Owen.
Boston: printed by John Allen for John Edwards, 1721
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.
2. There is an outward fruitfulness; that is, when not only a mans heart, but his life also is conformable to the will of God in Christ. Thus good works are called fruit, Col. 1.10. Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work: Therefore the Scripture speaks of the fruits of righteousness, Phil. 1.11. because if a man do the works required by the Law of Righteousness, after an Evangelical manner, this is such fruit as pleaseth God. And this also is required under the Gospel; hence when John preached the Gospel, he said, Bring forth fruits meet for repentance, Matth. 3.8. See (saith John) that ye walk according to the Rule of the new Creature; let your Practices, Lives, Conversations be such, as that it may appear, that your Profession of Repentance is sound and sincere. The Gospel doth require not only Faith, but Obedience also (and indeed where the one of these is in sincerity, the other will be too) it calls both for internal and external Obedience, even for Faith and Works: Both these are here signified in the Text by that phrase of, herbs meet for him by whom it is dressed. Men are (as was said) the Earth, God is the Dresser of this Earth: ⟨p. 63⟩He is compared to an Husbandman; the Herbs or Fruits which is meet for such a Dresser, are Grace and Holiness, Faith and Obedience in heart and life.
2. There is an outward fruitfulness; that is, when not only a mans heart, but his life also is comformable to the will of God in Christ. Thus good works are called fruit, Col. 1.10. Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work: Therefore the Scripture speaks of the fruits of righteousness, Phil. 1.11. because if a man do the works required by the Law of Righteousness, after an Evangelical manner, this is such fruit as pleaseth God. And this also is required under the Gospel; hence when John preached the Gospel, he said, Bring forth fruits meet for repentance,