N01446:180
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.
That it is all one from what occasion his troubles did arise, provided that he be but convinced of the absolute necessity of present Reconciliation, and be but earnest in his endeavours after that: Though the Word be a principal means of Conversion, yet God may bless what means he will to do the work, Luke. 3.10, 12, 14. Jer. 2.24. Examples fails, and Afflictions have a great tendency this way. Whatever be the means of mens Reformation, yet if men be reformed it is well: God would have men to make use of Providences as well as Ordinances, there is a voice of God in them, Mic. 6.9.
Another Argument is, Because he does not see the evil of Sin. He sees a great deal of danger, but he does not see the evil of sin, he thinks that other men see more than he sees; but he may be told,
That other men do never see the great evil of sin, until they are Converted. Men may see a moral evil in sin, and a great deal of the vanity and folly of it, though they are not under a preparatory work of the Spirit; but they never come to see the great evil of sin, until they are Converted. Men have not a Spiritual Understanding ⟨p. 55⟩given them, till they are Converted; they don't hate sin, until they are Converted; so long as they remain under the preparatory work of the Spirit, no such things can be expected from them, as are peculiar to Saints: When once men come to see the evil of sin, they also see the Glory of God; they do mortify their sins, and are brought into a state of Sanctification.