N01446:238
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.
4. When men say they have been brought to that many a time. When some men are enquired of, whether they were brought to submit to God's Sovereignty? Yes, they say many a time. Sinners in trouble of Conscience say it has been so oftentimes with them; this shows it is not a right submission. Godly men after their Conversion, may submit many times to God, but that submission differs much from this; that is a gracious submission, and they don't see at the same time themselves utterly destitute of all grace; but that submission that goes before the closing with Christ, is never wrought any more than […]; when it's wrought it may continue some ⟨p. 76⟩little time, till God reveals Christ to a man; but this work is never wrought over and over again in the Soul.
4. When men say they have been brought to that many a time. When some men are enquired of, whether they were brought to submit to God's Sovereignty? Yes, they say many a time. Sinners in trouble of Conscience say it has been so oftentimes with them; this shews it is not a right submission. Godly men after their Conversion, may submit many times to God, but that submission differs much from this; that is a gracious submission, and they don't see at the same time themselves utterly destitute of all grace; but that submission that goes before the closing with Christ, is never wrought any more than 〈…〉; when it's wrought it may continue some ⟨p. 76⟩little time, till God reveals Christ to a man; but this work is never wrought over and over again in the Soul.
5. When men are afraid they are not humbled enough. Some men that do pretend to submission, are afraid that they are not humbled enough, and they wish they may be humbled more; this makes it evident that they do not indeed submit, it is a sign that they make a righteousness of their submission. When men do indeed submit to God, they are never exercised with any such scruples, because they don't look upon their submission as a thing that commends them to God. When a man submits, he absolutely resigns up himself as a prisoner to God, is wholly broken off from his own righteousness and sufficiency, and leaves himself with God, and does not do it under a notion that there is any excellency in it, but out of necessity leaves himself with God.