N01749:75
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.
Before God converts men, it is his manner to prepare them for it by a common work of his Spirit, which is called Preparatory, which puts men upon it to be sensibly seeking after reconciliation. Men are called upon to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; to labour not for the meat that perishes, but for that meat that doth endure unto eternal life. And men are blamed for slighty seeking, Luk. 13.24. Many seek and are not able to enter. And that was the happiness of some, their hearts were mightily set in seeking the kingdom of God, Mat. 11.13. Men are labouring, some a long while for peace with God before they are converted: They are convinced of the vanity of the world, and of the necessity of the favour of God and eternal life: They are convinced ⟨p. 54⟩also of the insufficiency of their own righteousness, so as to relinquish hopes from that, but when God lets in spiritual light to convert men, that doth discover the same that they saw under the work of preparation; and that after a better manner than they saw them before.
BEfore God converts men, it is his manner to prepare them for it by a common work of his Spirit, which is called Preparatory, which puts men upon it to be sensibly seeking after reconciliation. Men are called upon to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; to labour not for the meat that perishes, but for that meat that doth endure unto eternal life. And men are blamed for slighty seeking, Luk. 13.24. Many seek and are not able to enter. And that was the happiness of some, their hearts were mightily set in seeking the kingdom of God, Mat. 11.13. Men are labouring, some a long while for peace with God before they are converted: They are convinced of the vanity of the world, and of the necessity of the favour of God and eternal life: They are convinced ⟨p. 54⟩also of the insufficiency of their own righteousness, so as to relinquish hopes from that, but when God lets in spiritual light to convert men, that doth discover the same that they saw under the work of preparation; and that after a better manner than they saw them before.