N04231:127
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.
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.
Now for the second; 1and secondly, Labour to have thy Conscience settled and established in that Truth, which now out of the Word thou hast gotten to bear Witness of the Work of Grace in thee. For if there be any Want of the Assurance of God's Love, and if the Evidence of the Work of Grace come not roundly in, but there be some Guilt of Sin still remaining, Conscience will make new Stirs, and breed new Broils, and continually move and unquiet the Heart: Therefore as it is good to have our Judgment informed by the Word, when we see the Good that is in us, so it is meet we should make Conscience persuaded of if, so as Conscience may speak for us, and all be made strait. Otherwise, as ⟨p. 62⟩the Debtor that is indebted to many Creditors, if he agree not with all, or with all save one, that one may come upon him as well as all the rest: So for the poor distressed Soul that lies at the Mercy of the Lord, and is so deep in Arrearages to the Law, that he cannot wind out; if he labour not to still Conscience, and what is else against him, in every Point as well as in some; if he leave one undischarged, that one may set his Conscience against him, as well as an hundred.
- 1Rule 2.
The Want of this, is the Cause why new Suits and new Bills are daily put in against us: Only because Conscience is not pacified, nor all quieted. And now take a poor Sinner that hath all his Doubts and Objections answered; come to him, and say, Are all these all your Doubts and Objections? he will say, Yea. And are they all answered? here he will say, Yea too. And have you now any Thing to say against that which hath been made known unto you? No not now. But say to him again, Did your Conscience say to you, It is a Sin to say you have no Grace? Here he demurs and stops, and says, No, I dare not say so, but I rather say the contrary. And now mark what he says: All the Books are crossed, and all Objections answered, and yet Conscience puts in a new Plea, because haply it was not satisfied to the full, and in every Parcel of Aberration.