N01446:200
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 in this Decree, God does but use his Sovereign Liberty. If God will make a multitude of Men and Angels, must he be bound to bring them all to Eternal Life? Who shall lay a prohibition upon God, that he shall not make use of some of them for the Glory of his Justice? If it be injurious for God to Decree that men shall sin, and then punish them for their sin, then he is utterly cut off from all opportunity for the glorifying of his Justice; but it is worth the while for Men and Angels to suffer for the manifestation of Gods Vindictive Justice.
2. If the man OBJECTS that the sin of ADAM is imputed to him, and upon that account he is deprived of Original Holiness; whereas he was not at all active in it, and gave no consent unto it. He may be told,
1. That men in many cases have a power to appoint others to represent them; and they are accordingly bound to stand or fall according to the carriage of those Representatives. Yea, ⟨p. 64⟩men have a power to make Representatives for others; these things are common in matters of a Civil Nature. Why then may not God, who hath more power over men, than they have over themselves, appoint one to represent them, to act on their behalf, according to whose carriage, they should stand or fall?