N01446:257
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.
That the best Saint in the world can do nothing of himself, Joh. 1•.4. Those that do a great deal for God, and have a gracious principle, do yet know that they can do nothing of themselves: And a Natural man may stand convinced of this, that he can do nothing of himself, though he be very proud, and imagines that he does God a great deal of choice service; when he says, he can do nothing of himself, he only means, that he can do nothing without assistance from God. This a man may see, and yet be a great •anger to his own heart. The thing that he wants to see is, that he has no principle of doing any good, that there is no power nor inclination in him, but that he is totally and everlastingly dead in sin, unless God infuse a new principle into him.
SOMETIMES men have great discoveries of their own hearts for a pretty while together, and yet don't come to lye at Gods foot, they say themselves they can't do it. In this Case they may be told,
1. That they cannot deliver themselves; that it is utterly impossible for them to mend their own hearts. For men may see themselves bad and insufficient, yet not be brought to despair as to their own power; be nourishing a secret hope, that in time with some advantages their heart will be brought to a better pass; therefore it is best to possess them with a sense of their utter insufficiency to help themselves; they may as well make a world, as make their own hearts good; they can't work faith in themselves, Joh. 6.44.