N01911:73
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.
Answ. 1. T•y by that Character which the Text doth afford, viz. That Converted persons become as little childr••. Look as little children are come into a World, where they never were afore; so 'tis in Conversion, the Soul begins the World anew, as it were, and the sinner leads a new life, which before he was not acquainted with. Hence is that Expression Rom. 6 4. Walk in newness of life. Particularly, there are divers properties in little Children which set forth a Converted person; e. g.
Answ. 1. T•y by that Character which the Text doth a•ford, viz. That Converted persons become as little childr••. Look as little children are come into a World, where they never were afore; so 'tis in Conversion, the Soul begins the World anew, as it were, and the sinner leads a new life, which before he was not acquainted with. Hence is that Expression Rom. 6 4. Walk in newness of life. Particularly, there are divers properties in little Children which set forth a Converted person; e. g.
1. Humbleness of mind: A Child hath no ambitious high designs in his heart, only minds lesser matters. Hence David saith; ⟨p. 46⟩Psal. 131.1, 2. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise my self in great matters, or in things too high for me: Surely I have behaved my self as a weaned child that is weaned, my soul is as a child. David was accused, as if he had had ambitious aspirings after Saul's Kingdom; But saith he, I am as free from those Imputations as a child that is but a weanling, who hath no such aspirings in his thoughts. Now this humbleness of mind, is a special thing intended in the Text by Conversion. Unmortified Pride is a Soul-damning sin; yet there is no sin more natural, or more hard to subdue than Pride; it's the first that liveth, and the last that dyeth. Hence the work of Conversion is well expressed in the Text, by the Mortification of that one lust. And oft in the Scripture, a Natural man and a Proud man are the same,