N01911:53
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.
Prop. VI. In true Conversion, there is a change, even of the whole man. The sanctifying change wrought in conversion, must be proportionable to the defilement of natural Corruption. Now that's total; what the Prophet speaketh, concerning that woeful defection and corruption of the Jewish state, Isa. 1.6. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, may truly & fitly be applied unto the corrupted estate of all men by Nature. This Corruption of Nature was Typified under the Law by the spreading Leprosy (Lev. 13.12, 13.) which covered all the skin of him that had the Plague, from his head even to his foot. Now the Plaster must be answerable to the Sore; therefore inasmuch as the Corruption of Nature is universal, as to all parts and faculties; so must Repentance & Conversion be universal. Hence a true Convert is said to be a new, and another Creature, 2 Cor. 5.17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new Creatures old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. In Conversion, Heaven and Earth is new; that is to say, all is new from ⟨p. 22⟩the top to the bottom; it's such another change as that, which shall pass upon the World at the last and Great Day; Indeed, then the materials shall be the same, but there will be a wonderful alteration as to qualities; so it is when a Soul is converted. As if a man should deface a deformed Picture, and in the room of it should draw another complete and beautiful; here the subject matter is the same, only her's a new Image. Thus the Holy Spirit draweth the blessed Lines of the Image of God on that Soul, where once was the deformed Image of Satan. But to evince the truth of this Proposition, by Induction of particulars: 1. In conversion, the head is made new. A true convert hath a renewed mind, Eph. 4 23. Hence Conversion is in the Scripture called, Illumination, Heb. 10.32. & opening of the eyes of the Soul, Acts 26.18