N01446:191
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. 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.
2. That it is not so usual with God to take men away when they are under earnest endeavours to be Converted. God threatens Sinners to take them away in the time of their security: When they say peace, peace, 1 Thes. 5.3. Mat. 24.48. ⟨p. 60⟩Though sometimes men do dye that are seeking after peace with God, and to all appearance have not found; yet this is not an ordinary dispensation. When he is striving by his Spirit to bring them to Repentance, it is an hopeful sign that God will wait a while upon them; if we knock at a mans door, and they be all fast and don't stir to open the door, we are wont to go away; but if we perceive that they are rising and preparing to open the door, we are content to wait a-while. God generally stays to see what work men will make of it.