N01446:236
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. When men make a righteousness of their submission. When men have got a false submission, they are wont to be proud of that, and to think that God will be taken with them: they look upon it a choice frame of spirit, and rejoice in it as a thing pleasing to God; but when men do indeed submit to God, they see nothing in it to be proud of; they see themselves all over defiled like Lepers; empty of all good, and look upon this submission as having nothing at all of goodness in it; they see they are merely ⟨p. 75⟩forced to it: That they have no other way to take, but to fall into the hands of God.
2. When men make a righteousness of their submission. When men have got a false submission, they are wont to be proud of that, and to think that God will be taken with them: they look upon it a choice frame of spirit, and rejoyce in it as a thing pleasing to God; but when men do indeed submit to God, they see nothing in it to be proud of; they see themselves all over defiled like Lepers; empty of all good, and look upon this submission as having nothing at all of goodness in it; they see they are meerly ⟨p. 75⟩forced to it: That they have no other way to take, but to fall into the hands of God.
3. When, notwithstanding their submission, they are still striving to make their hearts better. If you ask them whether they are striving to love God, and to do duties for his Glory? They say yes, they are labouring after it; you may be sure they don't submit to God, but are labouring to get some goodness of their own to commend them to God; they are not sensible of their own impotency. But if a man do indeed submit to God, he sees himself dead in trespasses and sins; ask him whether he be striving to make his heart better; he will say he can as easily remove a mountain as do it; that he has been striving after it a great while, but now he finds that he has no power; his heart is as dead as a stone, there is no disposition to any thing that is good in him, it is quite out of his reach; if God don't make him better, it will never be effected.