N01446:143
A guide to Christ. Or, The way of directing souls that are under the…
A guide to Christ. Or, The way of directing souls that are under the work of conversion. Compiled for the help of young ministers: and may be serviceable to private Christians, who are enquiring the way to Zion. / By Solomon Stoddard, A.M. and Pastor of the church in Northampton. ; With an epistle prefixed, by the Reverend Dr. Increase Mather.
Boston: printed by J. Allen for N. Boone, 1714
Directions How to guide Souls through the Work of Conversion.
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.
2. That his Nature is so corrupted, that those injections do less or more taint him. The heart is like tinder, and these, temptations will make some impression, though he has a detestation of those thoughts, and labours against them, yet there is a principle in the heart to fall in with them; and generally upon such occasions, persons do contract guilt; and it is but •re if ever, that men are merely passive at such a time: The Sin that is in men, does easily beset them, Heb. 12.1. And therefore it becomes him to be confessing before God the wretchedness of his own heart, in soldering in any degrees with those temptations.
2. That his Nature is so corrupted, that those injections do less or more taint him. The heart is like tinder, and these, temptations will make some impression, though he has a detestation of those thoughts, and labours against them, yet there is a principle in the heart to fall in with them; and generally upon such occasions, persons do contract guilt; and it is but •re if ever, that men are meerly passive at such a time: The Sin that is in men, does easily beset them, Heb. 12.1. And therefore it becomes him to be confessing before God the wretched•ess of his own heart, in sodering in any degrees with those temptations.
3. That such temptations are no sign that God don't love him; he may not gather from thence, that God has given him up to Satan; for this has been the condition of some very Godly men. This is an exercise that God has brought upon some that have been dear to him: As Satan is wont to tempt the best of men, so •me of the choicest with these suggestions; •his is not too great an affliction to be brought