N04105:468
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 3: Thirdly, Adoption.
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.
If Sons, then the Lord surely will take Care for you as for Sons; a godly Father hath a double Care of his Children. First, of their Temporal, Secondly, and chiefly of their eternal Estate: We are ready to question in Times of Want, what we shall eat, drink, how we shall live; Oh consider, art thou a Son of God, and will not he that feeds the Ravens, and clothes the Lilies, Mat. 6.31, 32. provide for thee? Yes verily, he will take Care for thy temporal Good. It is true, you may be brought into outward Straits, Wants, Miseries, yet then the Lord is thereby plotting for thy eternal Good, for hence come all God's Corrections, Deut. 8.5. Heb. 12.8. the Lord took all they had from them by their Enemies in War, and carried them away Captive into a strange Land, yet Jer. 24.5. this was for their Good; we think the Lord many Times takes no Care for us, and so make him of a worse Nature than the savage Beasts, or bloody Men toward their young, but this is certain, he never denies any Thing to us in outward Things, but it is to further our eternal Bliss with him, to do us Good in our latter End: What say godly Parents? It is no Matter what becomes of my Children, when I am dead, if the Lord will but give them himself to be their Portion; if at last they may see the Lord in Glory: Do not wonder then if the Lord keeps you short sometimes.
If Sons, then the Lord surely will take Care for you as for Sons; a godly Father hath a double Care of his Children. First, of their Temporal, Secondly, and chiefly of their eternal Estate: We are ready to question in Times of Want, what we shall eat, drink, how we shall live; Oh consider, art thou a Son of God, and will not he that feeds the Ravens, and cloaths the Lillies, Mat. 6.31, 32. provide for thee? Yes verily, he will take Care for thy temporal Good. It is true, you may be bro't into outward Straits, Wants, Miseries, yet then the Lord is thereby plotting for thy eternal Good, for hence come all God's Corrections, Deut. 8.5.