N00357:589
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 9
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.
3. If the sinner could stay away from Christ, the corruption of his heart would make him stay away from Christ•: if men were able to stay away, they would not be able to come: there is a great deal of opposition in the heart of a sinner to believing in Christ, men are as great enemies to the gospel as they are to the law,: sinners are dreadful averse to come to Christ: how many objections and cavils have men to keep them from Christ: how many by-paths will they turn into before they come to Christ: how much sorrow will they endure before they come to Christ? Phil. 3.18 Rom. 10.3. and this opposition of heart would not suffer them to come except they were made to come: if they were nor under a necessity of coming they would stay away.
4. It is against nature when men have this inward light let into them to stay away from Christ: there is a principle put into every man in his first creation to seek his own happiness: and however the nature of ⟨p. 229⟩man be corrupted, yet that principle is not lost, but remains strong in men: however they mistake the way, yet the desire of all men is happiness: the Devil blinds men, and tells one that this is the way, and another that that is the way, but still they are driving an end that design, Psal. 4.6 who will show us any good? and therefore when the Spirit of God shows a man, that Christ is the way to happiness, that there is salvation in Christ, he cannot but come to him, Joh. 6.6▪ 8 to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal Life.