N01749:13
A treatise concerning conversion: showing the nature of saving conversion to God, and the…A treatise concerning conversion: shewing the nature of saving conversion to God, and the…
A treatise concerning conversion: showing the nature of saving conversion to God, and the way wherein it is wrought; together with an exhortation to labour after it. : To which is added, a lecture-sermon had at Boston, July 2. 1719. Wherein the way to know sincerity and hypocrisy is cleared up. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton.A treatise concerning conversion: shewing the nature of saving conversion to God, and the way wherein it is wrought; together with an exhortation to labour after it. : To which is added, a lecture-sermon had at Boston, July 2. 1719. Wherein the way to know sincerity and hypocrisy is cleared up. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton.
Boston: printed by J.F. i.e for D. Henchman, 1719
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.
Some have been of opinion that saving Grace and common Grace differ only in degree, that Sorrow for Sin increases till it becomes saving, and Love to God increases till it becomes saving: But certainly, saving Grace doth differ specifically from all that went before: Gracious Actions are of another nature than Religious Actions of natural men. The acts of common Grace may be very strong and powerful: The affections of the Children of Israel were very strong when they sang God's praise, Psal. 106.12. The affections of the Jews to Christ were very strong, when they cried, Hosanna to the son of David: The affections of the Galatians were strong, when if it had been possible they would have plucked out their eyes, and have given them to Paul: And sometimes the acts of saving Grace are very weak; there may be Godly Sorrow in a low degree; there may be an act of Faith ⟨image ?⟩with a great mixture of Unbelief; there may be true love to God where there is but little love to him: Grace is low and weak at first, yea, after thirty years growth it is exceeding defective: Indeed true love to God prizes God above all the world, but that doth not prove that it is in a great degree; there may be a spirit to prize God before all the world, yet but a small degree of that spirit. Inordinate love to the world is an affecting of that as the chief Good; when it is in the lowest degree, it is so; that is the nature of it. So love to God whether in a greater degree or a less degree, is an affection to God as the chief Good: The difference between saving and common Grace don't lie in the degree, but in the nature of them. This may appear,
SOme have been of opinion that saving Grace and common Grace differ only in degree, that Sorrow for Sin increases till it becomes saving, and Love to God increases till it becomes saving: But certainly, saving Grace doth differ specifically from all that went before: Gracious Actions are of another nature than Religious Actions of natural men. The acts of common Grace may be very strong and powerful: The affections of the Children of Israel were very strong when they sang God's praise, Psal. 106.12. The affections of the Jews to Christ were very strong, when they cryed, Hosanna to the son of David: The affections of the Galations were strong, when if it had been possible they would have plucked out their eyes, and have given them to Paul: And sometimes the acts of saving Grace are very weak; there may be Godly Sorrow in a low degree; there may be an act of Faith