N03999:259
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. Death to the Lord's Freemen hath lost its terribleness. And though all God's redeemed are not actually and totally freed from the fears of death, but sometimes kept in bondage through the fears of death; yet they have grounds and reasons why they might not fear it: But the Devil's Captives have always cause and reason to be terribly afraid of death; and if they be not, it ariseth from the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their hearts. "It is a wonder that men should be as near to hell ⟨p. 188⟩as to the grave, and yet not be afraid to dye; It is a wonder, that men should be as near to an endless miserable life, as they are to the end of this short uncertain life, and yet their fears should not prevent their sleeping in the night, and their jovial merriments in the day-time." The Devil hath blinded them as well as bound them, and that is one reason of it. But these cannot upon any solid, rational, and religious grounds be […] from the fears of death. But so may the Lord's freemen, and this they have from and through Jesus Christ, Heb. 2.14, 15.
5. Death to the Lord's Freemen hath lost its terribleness. And though all God's redeemed are not actually and totally freed from the fears of death, but sometimes kept in bondage through the fears of death; yet they have grounds and reasons why they might not fear it: But the Devil's Captives have always cause and reason to be terribly afraid of death; and if they be not, it ariseth from the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their hearts. "It is a wonder that men should be as near to hell ⟨p. 188⟩as to the grave, and yet not be afraid to dye; It is a wonder, that men should be as near to an endless miserable life, as they are to the end of this short uncertain life, and yet their fears should not prevent their sleeping in the night, and their jovial merriments in the day-time." The Devil hath blinded them as well as bound them, and that is one reson of it. But these cannot upon any solid, rational, and religious grounds be 〈…〉 from the fears of death. But so may the Lord's freemen, and this they have from and through Jesus Christ,