N01749:182
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.
1. This show, that there was at the time a principle of grace. The habits of grace are not immediately to be seen, but only by their workings. If there a gracious act, there must be a gracious principle; if there be no• an antecedent one, there must be at least a concomitant one; for while a man remains in his natural condition, he cannot act graciously; Rom. 8.7. The natural mind is enmity to God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. If a man loves God, he is disposed to love him; if he believes in Christ, he is disposed to believe in Christ. It is impossible to do those actions without a disposition to do them; and that disposition is a principle or habit of grace. Every man that acts graciously is a new creature: Until the heart be changed, it will not carry gra•••usly. Any act or •ace is a sure tok•• […] ••tion: If a man believes in Christ o• i• […] •ly born of God; Joh. 1.12 […] him gave he power to […], even to them that believ• […] •o were born not of ⟨p. 137⟩blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. If a man breaths, and sees, and hears, and walks, he is certainly a living man. Where there is an act of life, there is a principle of life; 1 Joh. 37. He that doth righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Every effect must have a proper cause. If the heart were utterly opposite to believing, loving or repenting, he would not believe, love or repent. The heart of a man is always inclined to what he chooses. The Mind may understand a thing that he is not inclined to understand; but the Will never chooses without an inclination so to do. If there be a change in the behaviour of the heart, there is a change in the disposition of the heart.