N04231:104
The poor doubting Christian drawn to Christ. Wherein the main hindrances, which keep men…
The poor doubting Christian drawn to Christ. Wherein the main hindrances, which keep men from coming to Christ, are discovered. : With special helps to recover God's favour. / By Thomas Hooker. ; With an abstract of the author's life. ; [Four lines from Isaiah]
Boston: printed by Green for D. Henchman, 1743
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE Poor doubting Christian Drawn to CHRIST. › Chapter 2 › How to see Sin aright.
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.
And now for a third Help, let us be marvellously wary and watchful that we enter not into the Lists of, and dispute with Satan, upon Points which are beyond the Reach of Man, as thus to say; I am ⟨p. 48⟩not elected, therefore God will not look upon me to do me any Good. Or, it is a vain Thing for me to use the Means of Mercy, my Time of Mercy being out. Oh the Days of Grace that I have seen, when the Lord knocked sweetly at my Heart, and was pleased to reveal my Sins unto me at such a Time: But then (hard-hearted Wretch that I was) I shut the Door upon him, and now he is gone and past, and now there is no Hope for the Visit of Grace, or that Christ should return again to show me any Mercy. If the Devil can have thee here, all thy Comfort is gone; for upon this Ground a Man shall never receive Rest to his Soul, come what Days will. And how can he? For if he cannot judge of, or know Comfort, how shall I the Minister, be able to give, or he, the Hearer, to take it?
And now for a third Help, let us be marvelously wary and watchful that we enter not into the Lists of, and dispute with Satan, upon Points which are beyond the Reach of Man, as thus to say; I am ⟨p. 48⟩not elected, therefore God will not look upon me to do me any Good. Or, it is a vain Thing for me to use the Means of Mercy, my Time of Mercy being out. Oh the Days of Grace that I have seen, when the Lord knocked sweetly at my Heart, and was pleased to reveal my Sins unto me at such a Time: But then (hard-hearted Wretch that I was) I shut the Door upon him, and now he is gone and past, and now there is no Hope for the Visit of Grace, or that Christ should return again to shew me any Mercy. If the Devil can have thee here, all thy Comfort is gone; for upon this Ground a Man shall never receive Rest to his Soul, come what Days will. And how can he? For if he cannot judge of, or know Comfort, how shall I the Minister, be able to give, or he, the Hearer, to take it?
And here look as it is with a poor travelling Man, one that falleth among Thieves, who come and promise to carry him a nearer Way, but bring him into a Wood whither no Passengers come, and there they do what they will unto him: So it is with a poor Soul, when the Devil gets him into these unwarranted Disputes, as it were, large Wildernesses of God's eternal Counsel, where are no Passengers, and therefore he cannot but be void of Helps and Succour, and so as that Satan may now exercise his full Pleasure, and whole Malice, by terrifying his poor desolate Soul.