N00946:60
Soul-saving Gospel truths. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is showedSoul-saving Gospel truths. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is shewed
Soul-saving Gospel truths. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is showed: I. The unreasonableness of those excuses which men make for their delaying to come to the Lord Jesus for salvation. II. That for men to despair of the forgiveness of their sins because they have been great, is a great evil. III. That every man in the world is going into eternity. / By Increase Mather. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]Soul-saving Gospel truths. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is shewed: I. The unreasonableness of those excuses which men make for their delaying to come to the Lord Jesus for salvation. II. That for men to despair of the forgiveness of their sins because they have been great, is a great evil. III. That every man in the world is going into eternity. / By Increase Mather. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]
Boston : Sold by Eleazer Phillips., 1703
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.
Quest. 2. Whence is it then that Sinners are so apt to Excuse and Delay their coming to Christ?
For Answer,
1. It is from that Ignorance which is in them. There is a double ignorance which does keep men from closing with the Lord Jesus Christ. First, They are ignorant of themselves, they know not how sinful they are. They are not sensible of that exceeding Guiltiness that is upon ⟨p. 48⟩on them. Especially if they have been kept from gross scandalous Sins, they are apt to think all is well with them, and that they have no such need of a Saviour as indeed they have. Thus it was with Paul before his Conversion, Rom. 7. 9 I was alive without the Law, but the Commandment came, Sin revived and I dyed. He thought himself alive, that he was in the way unto Eternal Life. Before his Conversion he lived very blamelessly, he was a Pharisee and a strict one too. But when the Commandment, when the Law was set home on his Conscience in the power and spiritual Nature of it, then he saw himself a thousand times more guilty and sinful than once he apprehended. Then I Dyed, (says he) he saw himself a Dead and and a Damned Creature, and was e'en ready to dye away with the terrible sight of his sins. And Sinners are ignorant ⟨p. 49⟩of their Misery, Rev. •. 17. Thou knowest not that thou art Miserable. A man that is very sick if he does not know it, he will not go to the Physician. So it is with sinners, Mat. 9. 12