N03999:104
Captives bound in chains, made free by Christ their surety
Captives bound in chains, made free by Christ their surety: or, The misery of graceless sinners, and their recovery by Christ their Saviour. By T. Doolittel [sic]. ; [Three lines from Isaiah]
Boston: printed by Rogers & Fowle for J. Edwards, 1742
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Liberty to the Captives. › Chapter 5: The Third Chain is the love of the World.
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.
3. Can these things comfort thee at thy departure? Or will it not then wound thy Soul that thou hast loved the world, but not God and Christ? didst thou never stand by the bedside of a dying man, who in the anguished of his Soul hath roared and cried out, Woe is me, that I have spent my time, in labouring for the world, for this vain and empty world, while God and Christ, and Heaven have been neglected by me? Oh if I had loved God and Christ, as I have loved the world, I had been now an happy, blessed man, though I am a dying man, yet I had been now an happy blessed man. God would now have comforted me, and Christ would now have comforted me and solid lively hopes of Heaven would now have comforted me, but the things that had my heart, and all my love, they do not comfort, I find, I feel they do not comfort me. Shalt thou neither stay to enjoy them here, and canst thou not take them with thee whether thou art going, nor yet will they comfort thee in thy passage to Eternity, and is it reasonable then thou shouldst be thus fettered and bound in thy love unto them, as to keep thee from God and Christ, here and hereafter too?
3. Can these things comfort thee at thy departure? Or will it not then wound thy Soul that thou hast loved the world, but not God and Christ? didst thou never stand by the bedside of a dying man, who in the anguished of his Soul hath roared and cried out, Wo is me, that I have spent my time, in labouring for the world, for this vain and empty world, while God and Christ, and Heaven have been neglected by me? Oh if I had loved God and Christ, as I have loved the world, I had been now an happy, blessed man, though I am a dying man, yet I had been now an happy blessed man. God would now have comforted me, and Christ would now have comforted me and solid lively hopes of Heaven would now have comforted me, but the things that had my heart, and all my love, they do not comfort, I find, I feel they do not comfort me. Shalt thou neither stay to enjoy them here, and canst thou not take them with thee whether thou art going, nor yet will they comfort thee in thy passage to Eternity, and is it reasonable then thou shouldst be thus fettered and bound in thy love unto them, as to keep thee from God and Christ, here and hereafter too?