N01446:190
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.
SOMETIMES the man is afraid that he shall dye quickly, and lives in a great deal of torment upon that account. He is in anguish of spirit; this frame rises either merely from his sense of Gods anger, he thinks God will presently pour out his Wrath; or sometimes besides this, there is something in Providence that looks that way, or some would come to him that makes him fear it; as that, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt dye and not live. In this Case he should be told by the Minister,
SOMETIMES the man is afraid that he shall dye quickly, and lives in a great deal of torment upon that account. He is in anguish of spirit; this frame rises either meerly from his sense of Gods anger, he thinks God will presently pour out his Wrath; or sometimes besides this, there is something in Providence that looks that way, or some would come to him that makes him fear it; as that, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt dye and not live. In this Case he should be told by the Minister,
1. That he ought not to take up such a Conclusion. No man should believe any thing that may be false: He has no sufficient grounds to draw up any such peremptory conclusion, for the thing it self is uncertain; Gods anger does not show it; God has been angry with him a long time, yet he lives; neither do those other signs show that it shall be; such things have oftentimes failed.
1. That he ought not to take up such a Conclusion. No man should believe any thing that may be false: He has no sufficient grounds to draw up any such peremptory conclusion, for the thing it self is uncertain; Gods anger does not shew it; God has been angry with him a long time, yet he lives; neither do those other signs shew that it shall be; such things have oftentimes failed.