N03999:244
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.
5. Christ doth not free us from afflictions nor from troubles from men. Christ hath no where told us, he came to free us from scorns and from reproaches; from prisons, and from tribulations; but the contrary, Joh. 16. last. All God's Freemen will be hated by the Devil's Slaves; and we shall not be freed from them, till we be out of their reach, and that will not be till we get to Heaven. Those that have spiritual liberty might lose their civil liberty: as a man might have a civil liberty, but not spiritual; a man might be free of a City, free of a Company, and yet not free by Christ: so a man might be in prison, bound in chains there, and yet be spiritually free; Joseph in the prison, Daniel in the den, Jeremiah in the dungeon, and yet all the Lord's Free-men. When Christ calls to many in their bondage to come to him to be made free, they would indent with Christ that they should enjoy freedom from crosses and troubles, and sufferings; which because Christ doth not free his followers from, they had rather have their freedom from sufferings in their bondage, than sufferings with spiritual freedom.
6. Christ doth not give us freedom from temptations of the Devil, that we should be no more buffeted by that wicked one. ⟨p. 181⟩Christ himself was not free from temptations from Satan, nor from persecutions from men. Resist the Devil, watch and pray against his temptations, for you are not like to be freed from them, 'till you get to Heaven.
6. Christ doth not give us freedom from temptations of the Devil, that we should be no more buffetted by that wicked one. ⟨p. 181⟩Christ himself was not free from temptations from Satan, nor from persecutions from men. Resist the Devil, watch and pray against his temptations, for you are not like to be freed from them, 'till you get to Heaven.