N01446:74
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 Course of Sin, not any particular act of sin, which a man breaks off from, and is troubled for, but a way of evil that he does continue impenitently in.
3. That it is one particular sort of sin, committed with great aggravations; namely, A rejecting of the Profession of the Gospel: There be many other grievous sins, but none of them ⟨p. 15⟩however aggravated, are the Unpardonable Sin; it is a rejecting of the Truth of the Gospel, and renouncing the Profession thereof: they are said to fail away, Hebr. 6.6. they are said to forsake the Assemblies of the People of God, Heb. 10.25. they are said to tread under feet the Son of God; and to deny their Baptism, Heb. 10.29. So that if any person among us should turn Papist or Heathen, having a blasphemous spirit against the Ways of God, and a bloody persecuting spirit towards the People of God, there might be reason to fear that he was guilty of the Unpardonable Sin; but there be no footsteps in the Scripture to judge that men that are following after God, and labouring to get into a Converted Condition, have committed that Sin, tho' they are guilty of much Unbelief, of many decays and backslidings, and of very vile thoughts and risings of heart; for multitudes of men that have been guilty of such things, have had experience afterwards of the Pardoning Grace of God.
3. That it is one particular sort of sin, committed with great aggravations; namely, A rejecting of the Profession of the Gospel: There be many other grievous sins, but none of them ⟨p. 15⟩however aggravated, are the Unpardonable Sin; it is a rejecting of the Truth of the Gospel, and renouncing the Profession thereof: they are said to fail away,