A44342:1685
The application of redemption
The application of redemption by the effectual work of the word, and spirit of Christ, for the bringing home of lost sinners to God ... by that faithful and known servant of Christ, Mr. Thomas Hooker ...
London: printed by Peter Cole, 1656
The Application of Redemption, by the effectual work of the Word an… › Book 10: The Tenth Book.
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.
The […] operation of the Word, the breaking, 1and so converting the heart of a sinner depends not upon any preparation a man can work in himself, or any thing he can do in his corrupt estate for the attaining of life and Salvation. For had the Lord expected the good use of a mans free will in the employment and exercise of the works of civility and outward moral behaviour, had he looked for the husbanding of the stock of those moral abilities which are left in corrupt nature, or […] by the […] of providence in the restraining strokes of common grace, or had the Lord stayed until these […] had either valued the worth of the Apostles and their administrations, and painfully improved the advantages, of the means of grace and […] now brought home to their doors, or brought a teachableness of spirit to the ordinances. If either the preparation and saving conversion of the souls of men had depended upon any such improvement of themselves, it's certain ⟨p. 298⟩they had not now been made broken-hearted sinners, or savingly brought unto the Lord, and for ought any man can. tell had never attained it. But when cross to the course of humanity they mocked and scorned both […] persons & message of the Apostles contrary to truth, they cast reproaches and contumelious contempt upon them, […] men are full of new wine, nay when they were carried with professed opposition, malignant enmity against their persons and dispensations, yet now the Lord presseth in upon them, by the prevailing power of his spirit and word and doth good to them, when they set themselves by all the policy and rage they could to oppose the work of the Lord and their own everlasting welfare; clear it is therefore that this spiritual dispensation of breaking or calling of them home depends not upon any preparation which was done, nor any performances all which for the present were professedly opposite to their own welfare; but merely upon the power and good pleasure of the Lord, and the work of his spirit which he puts forth when it seems best unto himself its not in him that wills or runs says the Apostle, he puts both together and denies success unto both, that so he may take off all the cavils that could be made or indeed pretended.
The 〈…〉 operation of the Word, the breaking,