A59036:580
The doubting believer, or, A treatiseThe doubting beleever, or, A treatise
The doubting believer, or, A treatise containing 1. the nature, 2. the kinds, 3. the springs, 4. the remedies of doubtings, incident to weak believers by Obadiah Sedgwick ...The doubting beleever, or, A treatise containing 1. the nature, 2. the kinds, 3. the springs, 4. the remedies of doubtings, incident to weak beleevers by Obadiah Sedgwick ...
London: printed by M.F. for Thomas Nicols, 1641
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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 tenth cause of doubtings, was, disputation against the Promises.
O, saith the troubled and fearful soul, all these promises which you produce and apply to my condition, they are nothing to me; they belong not to me: There is indeed goodness, and truth, a wonderful worth in them, and they suit with my condition exactly, but I may not lay hold on them; I should but presume to take the bread which belongs to children, but not to dogs, not to such a sinner as I am.
O, saith the troubled and fearfull soule, all these promises which you produce and apply to my condition, they are nothing to me; they belong not to me: There is indeed goodnesse, and truth, a wonderfull worth in them, and they suit with my condition exactly, but I may not lay hold on them; I should but presume to take the bread which belongs to children, but not to dogs, not to such a sinner as I am.
Good Christian, do but track thine own spirit, or the spirit of any distressed in conscience, ⟨p. 269⟩thou shalt find this to be the last hold usually of unbelief, namely, a reasoning against Gods Promises; the which reasoning is sometimes through mere tenderness of spirit: as when the soul hath arguments to it self of that force, to represent a present incapacity of any good which God hath promised, and till they be removed, it dares not lay hold on the Promises; but if they could be satisfied, then it is drawn in to believe: But sometimes there is a reasoning against the Promises, through wilfulness of spirit, as when all the arguments of a doubting sinner are so clearly resolved and answered by the express words of God, that the person cannot gainsay it; yet the person rather bends still against the Promises, then labours to honour God in them by believing.