B10086:683
The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ
The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ: opened and applied. By Solomon Stoddard ...
Boston: printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Phillips, 1687
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.
Discouragement 2.
The many sins that he has been guilty of: sometimes a Saint has a dismal frightful apprehension of his sins: they appear to him as a dark cloud: he knows that God is an holy and a jealous God: he speaks dreadfully in his Word against sinful practices, and has brought dreadful judgment upon angels and men for their sins: and hence he is fearful that God will not pardon him: his sins proves his great temptation, hence his heart is still harping upon that string, that God is an holy sin-revenging God: and that he hath been guilty of abundance of sin, Psal. 40.12. mine iniquities take hold of me, so that I am not able to look up, they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me.
And there are two things especially that prove matter of temptation, and make him afraid to believe.
One thing is, the many aggravations that he sees in his sins, he sins against light, against covenant, not withstanding abundance of mercy, with a great deal of perverseness; they have reiterated sins, after bewailing of the same, they have sinned with deliberation, their sins seem to have exceeded the limits of pardoning mercy.