N01151:42
The falseness of the hopes of many professors, showed in a sermon preached in…The falseness of the hopes of many professors, shewed in a sermon preached in…
The falseness of the hopes of many professors, showed in a sermon preached in Boston, the 8th. of July, 1708. Being the lecture day. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton.The falseness of the hopes of many professors, shewed in a sermon preached in Boston, the 8th. of July, 1708. Being the lecture day. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton.
printed by Bartholomew Green. Sold by Samuel Phillips, 1708
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE Falseness of the Hopes Of Many PROFESSORS. › Application 2 › Here consider two things.
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.
Here consider two things.
1. You may deceive men, but not GOD. Men that have not a spark of Grace in their hearts may carry it so, that men may take them for very holy men: They talk Religiously, abstain from vicious courses, have an orderly and religious ⟨p. 23⟩Conversation, and so they may pass currently among men for Godly men; and live Twenty or Thirty years in good Reputation: Men do not discern what their ends be, what their Spirit is, nor those Secret practises that they are guilty of. Men may have blemishes on their bodies, and others know nothing of them: Men may be very poor and others not know it: So men may be Spiritually blind & dead, and others be ignorant of it: but there is no hiding of the thing from God; the hearts of men are under his eye; God has a Window into every mans heart: Men may cheat other men; but they cannot cheat God. Men don't know the thoughts of Gods heart any further than he reveals them, but God knows their hearts; neither the Spirituality of the Soul, nor the darkness of the Night; nor the false shows that men make, can be a cover to hide the heart from God: all thoughts, desires, purposes and ends are open unto God: God seeth not as man seeth: Jer. 17.10. I the Lord search the heart and try the reins, to render to every man according to his works▪ though the heart is very deceitful, yet it is not so deceitful as to deceive GOD.
1. You may deceive men, but not GOD. Men that have not a spark of Grace in their hearts may carry it so, that men may take them for very holy men: They talk Religiously, abstain from vicious courses, have an orderly and religious