N01446:278
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.
1. Because such sorrow is inconsistent with the work of Humiliation When the Sinner is humbled, he sees himself emptied of himself, and sees his own heart dead in sin; this could not be, if he had any gracious sorrow for sin; if there were true sorrow for sin, there must be love to God, a spiritual understanding, a new heart, a divine principle put into the man; for nature cannot produce any such effect.
1. Because such sorrow is inconsistent with the work of Hum•liation When the Sinner is humbled, he sees himself emptied of himself, and sees his own heart dead in sin; this could not be, if he had any gracious sorrow for sin; if there were true sorrow for sin, there must be love to God, a spiritual understanding, a new heart, a divine principle put into the man; for nature cannot produce any such effect.
2. Because Faith is the first act of Grace. If the man had a gracious principle, he would immediately Entertain Christ and the Gospel; after a man has received a principle of Regeneration, the first way that it works in is by drawing the heart to Christ; when mens hearts are changed, and a new Nature put into them, it does not first work in a way of sorrow for sin, or thirsting after Gods Glory, or delighting in Holiness; but always the first act of Grace is to close with Christ: God leads him into the exercise of this, that he may be justified, Rom. 5.1. If he did any other gracious act before this, it could not be accepted, for the person is not accepted before Faith: All Sanctification is the fruit of Faith, Acts 26.18.