N01446:32
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.
WHEN a Sinner wounded in Spirit, does apply himself unto a MINISTER of the Gospel for Counsel, it is profitable, after some Enquiries concerning the time, means and degree of their Convictions and Terrors to use this method with him.
1. To confirm and establish him more in the apprehensions of the dangerousness of a Natural Condition: showing him that every man that dies in a State of Nature; will certainly be damned, that a State of Damnation is intolerable, that the continuance of his opportunities for deliverance is very uncertain: for there is danger that if his convictions be not cherished, they may by degrees wear off: many mens terrors are but short lived: they harden their ⟨p. 2⟩hearts by company, clogging themselves with worldly business, and their natural disposition to flatter themselves.
1. To confirm and establish him more in the apprehensions of the dangerousness of a Natural Condition: shewing him that every man that dies in a State of Nature; will certainly be damned, that a State of Dammation is intollerable, that the continuance of his opportunities for deliverance is very uncertain: for there is danger that if his convictions be not cherished, they may by degrees wear off: many mens terrours are but short liv'd: they harden their ⟨p. 2⟩hearts by company, clogging themselves with worldly business, and their natural disposition to flatter themselves.
2. To encourage him to be in the use of means, in order to his Conversion: for if they have not hopes of obtaining mercy; either they will not seek after it, or they will do it in such a careless & dull way that it will come to nothing: God leads men through the whole work of preparation partly by fear, and partly by hope. If they run into either extreme, to have fear without hope, or hope without fear, they are like a Ship that goes beside the Channel, and is in danger to be broken to pieces; a mixture of fear and hope makes men diligent: they may be encouraged from such considerations as these: that God has provided a glorious way of Salvation through Christ, that all that do believe in him shall be saved; that there is an infinite Ocean of mercy in the heart of God; that God has had compassion on many greater Sinners than they, that the day of grace is not yet gone: that God is now striving with them by h Spirit, which is many times the forerunner of Conversion.