N01446:62
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.
2. That it is a great mercy that those confidences are taken away from him; had they continued, they would have ruined him; false confidence is better lost than kept. His condition is the more hopeful now those confidences are lost; while he had those confidences he was like a Ship that stuck in the Sand, and now he ⟨p. 11⟩is delivered from them, there is more ground of encouragement.
AFTER he has had affection and enlargements for a while, he is wont to complain that he grows more dull, and he is afraid that his Convictions are about to leave him: In this Case he may be told,
AFTER he has had affection and inlargements for a while, he is wont to complain that he grows more dull, and he is afraid that his Convictions are about to leave him: In this Case he may be told,
1. That there is no reason to expect that his Convictions should always be in the like degree. Persons in such a Condition, are subject to many alterations, as it is with a Ship at Sea, sometimes it has a fair Wind, sometimes it blows more moderately, sometimes it is becalmed; yea, sometimes it has Storms and cross Winds: There be many Changes that pass over such men. So men in a Journey, have sometimes good way, sometimes bad; they meet with Rivers and miry places, where they cannot make speed.
1. That there is no reason to expect that his Convictions should always be in the like degree. Persons in such a Condition, are subject to many alterations, as it is with a Ship at Sea, sometimes it has a fair Wind, sometimes it blows more moderately, sometimes it is becalmed; yea, sometimes it has Storms and cross Winds: There be many Changes that pass over such men. So men in a Journey, have sometimes good way, sometimes bad; they meet with Rivers and miery places, where they cannot make speed.