N04231:108
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.
2. For the Second. And secondly, it bids check to thine own Heart for meddling with God's Secrets, and for prying so into his Closet of hidden Counsels. For no Man should go beyond his Bounds; and it appertains not to thee to look into this Ark of Matters sealed up. Deut. 29.29. Secret Things belong to God, but revealed Things belong to us. And who hath known the Mind of God? saith Paul, 1 Cor. 2.16. Mark this, you that will be climbing up the Ladder of God's eternal Predestination, and going up into the Skies to know what God's secret Mind is. Keep your Stations wisely; for neither the Devil, nor all the Devils in Hell, ever knew the Mind of the Lord. When Jonah cried against ⟨p. 50⟩Nineveh, saying, Within forty Days all you; that is, all you Drunkards, and Adulterers, and Murderers, and others, shall be destroyed: Mark here how the King resolves; his Words are, Jonah 4.19. Who can tell if the Lord will repent, and stay his fierce Wrath that we perish not? Therefore when the Devil tells thee thus much, and saith, God hath appointed a Way to Salvation, and you have had the Means, and did not profit by them, therefore God will never show you Mercy, nor give you Grace. Thus the Devil. But how can he tell that? Surely all the Devils in Hell cannot tell it: Say with thy self, Let me walk in that Course which God hath appointed and commanded, and do that which I ought; and then I may say, and with Comfort say it, Who knows but God may break the Heart of a proud, rebellious, contrarying Sinner, such as mine is, and such as I am? None verily but God knows whether or no. The third and last Rule follows.
2. For the Second. And secondly, it bids check to thine own Heart for meddling with God's Secrets, and for prying so into his Closet of hidden Counsels. For no Man should go beyond his Bounds; and it appertains not to thee to look into this Ark of Matters sealed up. Deut. 29.29. Secret Things belong to God, but revealed Things belong to us. And who hath known the Mind of God? saith Paul, 1 Cor. 2.16. Mark this, you that will be climbing up the Ladder of God's eternal Predestination, and going up into the Skies to know what God's secret Mind is. Keep your Stations wisely; for neither the Devil, nor all the Devils in Hell, ever knew the Mind of the Lord. When Jonah cried against