A86531:537
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.
Wilful Hardness: OR, The Means of Grace Abused.Willful Hardness: OR, The Means of Grace Abused.
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.
1. What is meant here by hardening the neck? 2. What it is to be a man of admonitions. We will not be long in either, only (as I said) a little to make way for the evident discovery of the point, which we mean to treat of.
1. What is meant here by hardning the neck? 2. What it is to be a man of admonitions. We will not be long in either, onely (as I said) a little to make way for the evident discoverie of the point, which we mean to treat of.
To harden the neck then, it is a similitude taken from Oxen that are to draw in the yoke, that when they are to come and bow their necks to the yoke, they begin to grow stubborn and stiff-necked, and refuse to come under the yoke as the Master requireth, and as he expects they should do, and as those that are taught will do, whole nature it is to take the yoke willingly and kindly. To harden the neck therefore is, to be stubborn and rebellious, not to come ⟨p. 221⟩under the Commandments of God, which in the Scripture are compared to a yoke, so Christ speaks, Take my yoke upon you; That is, Submit your selves to the Laws of God, to the Statutes and Commandments of God. Now we are said to harden our necks, when as the Heifer in his kind, so our souls in their kind, withdraw our shoulders (as it were) from the commands of God, that when the will of God is revealed, we will not stoop, we will not yield and submit to the truths of Christ, but take up arms against him, and become rebellious to the blessed word of God. This is the stiffening of the neck; In a word, to be rebellious, to resist, to gainsay the truth of God, the word of God, and whatsoever is revealed to us, and ought to be done by us.
To harden the neck then, it is a similitude taken from Oxen that are to draw in the yoke, that when they are to come and bow their necks to the yoke, they begin to grow stubborn and stiffe-necked, and refuse to come under the yoke as the Master requireth, and as he expects they should doe, and as those that are taught will doe, whole nature it is to take the yoke willingly and kindly. To harden the neck therefore is, to be stubborn and rebellious, not to come