N00766:113
The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis…
The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis held and preached in the churches of New-England: expressed in a brief discourse on that important article; made at Boston in the year, 1699. / By Cotton Mather. ; And, asserted with the attestations, of several Reverend and eminent persons, now most considerable in those churches.The everlasting Gospel. The Gospel of justification by the righteousness of God; as 'tis held and preach'd in the churches of New-England: expressed in a brief discourse on that important article; made at Boston in the year, 1699. / By Cotton Mather. ; And, asserted with the attestations, of several Reverend and eminent persons, now most considerable in those churches.
Boston: printed by B. Green for Nicholas Buttolph, 1700
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.
Admonition I.
Many, Many, and some of them very Curious, are the ways wherein the Deceived Souls of men, go to Establish their own Righteousness. In that Soul-undoing Vanity, whereby men go to Establish their own Righteousness, there is a Mystery of Iniquity. Original Sin, which is Deceitful above all Things, indeed spins a fine thread in this Mystery. A world of caution is necessary to preserve a man, from this path of the Destroyer, 'tis a path ⟨p. 31⟩so fine, so fair, so clean! and yet it leads a man down to the Chambers of Death.
Many, Many, and some of them very Curious, are the ways wherein the Deceived Souls of men, go to Establish their own Righteousness. In that Soul-undoing Vanity, whereby men go to Establish their own Righteousness, there is a Mystery of Iniquity. Original Sin, which is Deceitful above all Things, indeed spins a fine thred in this Mystery. A world of caution is necessary to preserve a man, from this path of the Destroyer, 'tis a path ⟨p. 31⟩so fine, so fair, so clean! and yet it leads a man down to the Chambers of Death.
We all have occasion for this Admonition ▪ but none have more occasion for it, than those who under the Influence of a Good Education, have been visibly Blameless, and perhaps Pious, from their Early Childhood: The Young man that could say, I have kept all the Commandments from my Youth, was one that yet Lacked this One Thing; A Faith in the Obedience of the Messiah, as his only Righteousness, after all. It may be there […] those among us, that have Lived free from ••y known Scandal all their days: They have known the Holy Scriptures from their Childhood, and worshipped God, and Honoured their Parents, and abhorred every thing that looked vicious, and been full of concern about their Salvation, ever since they can remember. You, O Souls in Peril, You above any under Heaven, have cause to beware, lest by a Reliance on some Righteousness of your own, you fall short of Heaven at the last. O follow the Pattern of the Excellent Psalmist, who could say,