N01446:239
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.
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.
6. When men submit to God as looking upon him not very angry. Some Sinners submit to God, and at the same time they think they have some love to God, and some care of his Glory; and accordingly they look upon their peace half made; truly this is no difficult matter; it is easy for a man to put his life into the hands of his friend: there is no great opposition to submit to God, when a man is pretty confident that God will save him; but it is another thing to submit to God, when a man does not see a spark of goodness in himself, when he looks upon God as bitterly angry with him, and is much afraid that God will utterly destroy him: When men submit under such circumstances, it is evident that God has conquered them, and that their Wills are broken.
6. When men submit to God as looking upon him not very angry. Some Sinners submit to God, and at the same time they think they have some love to God, and some care of his Glory; and accordingly they look upon their peace half made; truly this is no difficult matter; it is easie for a man to put his life into the hands of his friend: there is no great opposition to submit to God, when a man is pretty confident that God will save him; but it is another thing to submit to God, when a man does not see a spark of goodness in himself, when he looks upon God as bitterly angry with him, and is much afraid that God will utterly destroy him: When men submit under such circumstances, it is evident that God has conquered them, and that their Wills are broken.