N04105:288
The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…
The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit, in reconciling of a sinner to God. / By Thomas Shepard, sometime of Emanuel-College in Cambridge, since preacher of God's word in New-England. ; [One line from Matthew]
Boston: printed by Green for D. Henchman, 1742
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE Sound Believer. › Chapter 1 › Section 5 › Explication 2: II. The Subject or Matter of Faith.
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.
II. The Subject or Matter of Faith.
This is the second Thing in the Description of Faith, the Soul of an humbled Sinner is the Subject or Matter of Faith. I do not mean the Matter out of which Faith is wrought, (for there is nothing in Man out of which the Spirit begets it) but that wherein Faith is seated. I mean also the Habit of Faith, not the Principle of it; for that is out of Man in the Lord Jesus, who is therefore called our Hope, as well as our Strength; the Soul therefore is the Subject of Faith, called the Heart, Rom. 10.9. compared with Matth. 6.21. For we cannot go or come to Christ in this Life with our Bodies, we are here absent from the Lord, 2 Cor. 5. but the Soul can go to him, the Heart can be with him, as the Eye can see a thousand Miles off, and receive the Species or Image of the Things it sees into it, so the Soul enlightened by Faith, can see Christ afar off, it can long for, choose, and rest upon the Lord of Life, and receive the lively Image of Christ's Glory in it; 2 Cor. 3. ult.
This is the second Thing in the Description of Faith, the Soul of an humbled Sinner is the Subject or Matter of Faith. I do not mean the Matter out of which Faith is wrought, (for there is nothing in Man out of which the Spirit begets it) but that wherein Faith is seated. I mean also the Habit of Faith, not the Principle of it; for that is out of Man in the Lord Jesus, who is therefore called our Hope, as well as our Strength; the Soul therefore is the Subject of Faith, called the Heart, Rom. 10.9. compared with Matth. 6.21. For we cannot go or come to Christ in this Life with our Bodies, we are here absent from the Lord,