N04105:447
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 2 › Section 2: Secondly, Reconciliation.
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. In our Peace with God, whereby the Lord lays by all Acts of Hostility against us, Rom. 5.1.
2. In the Love and Favour of God. I do not mean God's Love of Good-will, for this is in Election, but his Love of Complacency and Delight, for 'till we are justified, the Lord behaves himself as an Enemy and Stranger to us who are polluted before him, but then he begins thus to love us, 1 John 4.10, 16. Col. 1.21, 22. A Gardiner may intend to turn a Crab-tree Stock into an Apple-tree, his Intention doth not alter the Nature of it until it be actually engrafted upon: So we are by Nature the Children of Wrath, Eph. 1.3. The Intention of God the Father, or his Love of Good-will, doth not make us Children of Favour and Sons of Peace, until the Lord actually call us to and ingraft us into Christ, and then as Christ is the Delight of God, so we in him are loved with the same Love of Delight, Isai. 4.1, 2. Peace with God, and Love of God, are different Degrees of our Reconciliation: A Prince is at Peace, or ceaseth War, against a Rebel, yet he may not bring the Rebel before him, into his Bosom of special Favour, Delight, and Love; but the Lord doth both, towards us Enemies, Strangers, Rebels, Devils, in our Reconciliation with him.
2. In the Love and Favour of God. I do not mean God's Love of Good-will, for this is in Election, but his Love of Complaisency and Delight, for 'till we are justified, the Lord behaves himself as an Enemy and Stranger to us who are polluted before him, but then he begins thus to love us, 1 John 4.10, 16