N00357:857
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 11
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. The people of God ought not to count it a frown that they have not the immediate light of Gods countenance frequently: we must have a care that we do not complain without cause: the sealings of Gods spirit are wonderful mercies, and special and more immediate discoveries of the love of God are glorious enjoyments: but it is not Gods manner with his people to give them frequently: when God bestows them he expects that men should go in the strength of them many days: Paul was but once caught up to Paradise in his life time, 2 Cor 12.3. God has many other ways to support the hearts of his people.
3. The people of God ought not to count it a frown that they have not the immediate light of Gods countenance frequently: we must have a care that we do not complain without cause: the sealings of Gods spirit are wonderful mercies, and special and more immediate discoveries of the love of God are glorious enjoyments: but it is not Gods manner with his people to give them frequently: when God bestows them he expects that men should go in the strength of them many dayes: Paul was but once caught up to Paradise in his life time, 2 Cor 12.3. God has many other wayes to support the hearts of his people.
4. Gods manner is, to be training up his people to live a life of Faith: to be depending upon him according to his word, he is striving to bring his saints to live upon his promise, he does in his providences put them upon that, he takes away other props that they may lean upon the promise more, they shall have time enough hereafter to see things; in heaven Faith will be swallowed up in vision: but here he would have them live by Faith upon his Word; the people of God are apt to have too much dependence upon signs, and ⟨p. 331⟩to lay more weight upon them than upon the Word of God: trusting more to signs, and sometimes to fallible ones, than they do unto the infallible testimony of God: and upon that account God many times takes signs away: Christians have enough left them to live upon when signs are gone: God many times considers the weakness of his Saints as he did the weakness of Thomas,