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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.
Are no Self Righteous Persons, yet Convicted? Let a Fourth Question then do its part upon us.
Fourthly. Deal Sincerely; Is it not merely some little piece of your own Righteousness, that serves to quiet your Minds, when your own Guiltiness does astonish you? We Establish our own Righteousness, if our own Righteousness, be that which doth Establish us. When our ⟨p. 36⟩Souls, and Hopes are shaken with an horribl• Tempest, from the Eternal Anger of God, what is it that settles our Souls, and allays the Horror and Fury of the Tempest? The Thoughts of a Sinner usually run in that Channel; As I have Provoked God by Sinning, so will I now Appease Go• by Mending. The Roused Conscience of a Sinner, will sometimes Roar upon him, That he hath been a Rebel against God, all his days, and that the Damnation due to him, for his Rebellion, Slumbereth not. But then the Sinner throws his Conscience into a Slumber, with purposes to be a New Man, and lead a New Life, and he fancies, that his Reformation will quit scores with the Almighty, and make amends for all his former Disobedience. As we read in Hos. 5.13. When Ephraim saw his Sickness, and Judah saw his Wound, than he went unto the King that should plead for him; yet he could not heal you: Thus, when a Sinner sees himself Sick and Wounded, by the Wrath of God, for Sin, he goes unto his own Resolutions and Reformations, to plead for him; so the uneasiness of his mind, is as by an Opiate, a little checked without ever being Healed at all. Such a Sinner, let him alone, to tell the Story of his own pretended Conversion, his Relation will be, That he saw himself a Sinner, and was in Trouble of Spirit for his own Sinfulness; but God helped him to set upon Religious Du•ies, and keeping better Company: And so, all is now come to Rights, without one word of being driven to the Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all. And ⟨p. 37⟩