N00357:283
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 Pastor to the church of North-Hampton in New-England. ; [Nine lines from Philippians]The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ: opened and applied. By Solomon Stoddard Pastor to the church of North-Hampton in New-England. ; [Nine lines from Phillipians]
Boston: printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Phillips, 1687
Title page typeset from the transcription.
The Safety of Appearing in the Righteousness of Jesus Christ. › Chapter 5
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.
2. It would be self-flattery for us to believe in the righteousness of Christ; if it were not safe appearing in it, it could not be lawful to trust in it: to trust in it would be presumption, what would it be, but to delude our selves, and to please our selves with an idle dream, which would deceive us: men are blamed in the Word of God for such confidences, Isa. 29.8. it is not lawful or warrantable for us to believe in that which we have not sufficient encouragement to believe in; but we have not sufficient encouragement to believe in the righteousness of Christ; if it be not safe to appear be•ore God in it: what can encourage us to depend upon, and be satisfied in that which it is not safe to depend upon.
2. If it be commanded that we belie•• ••on the righteousness of Christ, then it is duty so •o do: then we are bound in conscience to come unto Christ, we cannot without sin stay away from Christ: and therefore surely it is safe […] in the righteousness of Christ: the holy God would never make ⟨p. 109⟩it our duty to trust in that which is not a sufficient ground of faith: it were an hard lesson to be bound in conscience to do that, which we could not satisfy our consciences in doing: it were wildness for any man to imagine that God should command us to love that which is not lovely, or to mourn for that which is not matter of sorrow, or to rejoice in that which is not matter of joy: so it is to think that God should require us to trust in that which is not a ground of confidence: that would be very hard for God to bind us to put our confidence in that which we could not put our confidence in, except we were out of our wits: if it were not safe to trust in Christs righteousness, what could induce us to do it, except we were under a delusion: it is against nature for man to put confidence in any thing but under this notion, that there is ground of confidence in it: what persuasions can prevail to make men rest on that, which they could not safely rest upon: the Lord is a righteous God, and gives no such unequal command, all his commands are righteous, he requires but what is equal,