N03999:231
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.
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.
2. Man had a freedom or liberty of will, to will and to do what God did require from him.
3. A freedom from all misery, calamity and punishments. Man had then a freedom from sickness, from sorrow and from affliction and death; for all these are the fruits of sin: Man had never been in bondage to these; if he had not become a bondslave to ⟨p. 175⟩Satan and to sin. And in this state man had no need of a Redeemer, because he was not then a captive.
2. Man might be considered in a state of Corruption, and so his condition is quite contrary to what it was in his first estate; as before he was free, so now he is a slave, before at liberty, but now in bondage; and this bondage is opposite to the former three fold Liberty.
1. In man there is now a bondage to sin, in slavery to his own lusts and to his own vile affections, that there is no part in him free from sin; his understanding is not free from ignorance, darkness and error, his will is not free from obstinacy and rebellion, his affections are not free from disorder and confusion, hating what he should love, and loving what he should hate, shunning what he should desire, and desiring what he should shun, rejoicing in that which should be the matter, cause and reason of his sorrow, and grief, and grieving and being weary of that which should be the matter of his delight and joy. This is man's sinful bondage.