A86531:138
The saints dignity and duty· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardness. /…The saints dignitie and dutie· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardnesse. /…
The saints dignity and duty· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardness. / Delivered in several sermons: by that reverend divine, Thomas Hooker, late preacher in New-England.The saints dignitie and dutie· Together with the danger of ignorance and hardnesse. / Delivered in severall sermons: by that reverend divine, Thomas Hooker, late preacher in New-England.
London: printed by G.D. for Francis Eglesfield, 1651
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.
Thirdly, It is a perpetual ransom, he hath for ever redeemed you.
Thirdly, It is a perpetuall ransome, he hath for ever redeemed you.
Fourthly, It is an undeserved ransom. What did you deserve when Christ gave himself to ransom you from sin? you were enemies to Christ, you hated him, you persecuted him, you rejected him. There is no nation in the world so bitter an enemy to our nation, as you were to Christ when he gave himself to ransom you.
Fourthly, It is an undeserved ransome. What did you deserve when Christ gave himself to ransome you from sin? you were enemies to Christ, you hated him, you persecuted him, you rejected him. There is no nation in the world so bitter an enemie to our nation, as you were to Christ when he gave himself to ransome you.
On then behold a costly ransom, a perfect ransom, a perpetual ransom, an undeserved ransom! What doth this deserve but wonderful love at your hands? If there were a man that were to lie in prison all his life long for debt, and one should come to him that he never knew, of whom he never deserved any kindness; if this man should set him free, how would he love that man? and truly, there were great cause that he should. Suppose a man were a slave to the Turk, and there for ought he knew he was to spend all his days in that drudgery, and a man comes and pays an exceeding great ransom even as much every farthing as is desired; would that man that is thus redeemed think it too much to be a servant to him that set him free? No surely, I remember what the men of Israel said once to Gideon, Judg. 8.22. Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy sons son, for thou hast delivered us out of the hand of Midian. Because he had delivered them, they give their Crown and Sceptre to him, and to his posterity for divers generations, and Gideon deserved it. These persons shall rise up in judgement against you that will not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Never did any Creditor, never did any redeemer that ransomed a slave from drudgery, never did this Gide on do half so much for them, as Christ hath done for you. They did not give themselves, Christ hath given himself, and that to redeem you from iniquity, therefore as the work is of infinite worth, so your love should be abundant.