N01446:165
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.
1. To reprove him for his backsliding, and set before him the sinfulness of what he has done, and the danger that he has exposed himself unto: he has quenched the Spirit, the tendency of whose motions was for his good; he has sinned against a great deal of light; when he was in a more hopeful way, he has relapsed into a sorrowful condition; he has lost ground, and has a great deal of his work to do over again: God must needs be greatly provoked with him.
1. To reprove him for his backstiding, and set before him the sinfulness of what he has done, and the danger that he has exposed himself unto: he has quenched the Spirit, the tendency of whose motions was for his good; he has sinned against a great deal of light; when he was in a more hopeful way, he has relapsed into a sorrowful condition; he has lost ground, and has a great deal of his work to do over again: God must needs be greatly provoked with him.
2. To encourage him notwithstanding, by assuring of him, that he is capable of mercy. God invites Backsliders to return unto him: Persons are ⟨p. 48⟩sometimes cured of relapses: God has mercy enough to pardon such sins, several persons have had experience of it: sometimes the first attempt is not successful; (as when David attempted to bring the Ark into the place prepared for it) but the next time he prospered.
3. To warn them that they do not so again. They are in great danger, because they have done so already: A Beast that has once tired, is more ready to do so again: Those temptations that have prevailed upon them, are more like to prevail again; and if they get an habit of backsliding, they will be the more incurable: Custom in any evil way, naturalizes it to men: They run more readily into the same.