N01446:261
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.
3. That it is dangerous to stand it out long against God. If they do not yield, they are in danger either to be left of God to a senseless spirit, or to get a false confidence, or to be snatched away out of the world; men stand in slippery places that continue to be stubborn against great Conviction: it is not like to be long before the scale turn; if they do not quickly submit, there is danger of their rejection.
3. That it is dangerous to stand it out long against God. If they do not yield, they are in danger either to be left of God to a senseless spirit, or to get a false confidence, or to be snatcht away out of the world; men stand in slippery places that continue to be stubborn against great Conviction: it is not like to be long before the scale turn; if they do not quickly submit, there is danger of their rejection.
SOMETIMES the man says, that now he can justify God, however he deals with him, and yet it is evident that he is not brought off from his own righteousness. In this Case he may be told,
1. That he must beware that he don't make a righteousness of this. Pride will feed upon any appearance of good qualifications, and if he lots upon it that now his heart is better than it was, and that God is taken with him, he will greatly deceive himself; his justifying of God, is no justification of himself; his justifying of God, will not make God to justify him; though he justifies God, yet God condemns him.
1. That he must beware that he don't make a righteousness of this. Pride will feed upon any appearance of good qualifications, and if he lots upon it that now his heart is better than it was, and that God is taken with him, he will greatly deceive himself; his justifying of God, is no justification of himself; his justifying of God, will not make God to justifie him; though he justifies God, yet God condemns him.