N04231:131
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.
And here it should be with a poor Sinner, as with a wise Man, when he would make his Lands sure unto him and his Posterity by ⟨p. 64⟩Evidences and Writings sealed: He is not content here only to have his Evidences in his own keeping, but will have them enrolled in Chancery, such a Year, and such a Day: That if he should lose his Deeds, he might be sure where to find them. So it should be with the distressed Soul; it should not only be willing to have all Objections to the contrary of it answered; but it should further get them recorded in the Court of Conscience, as in Chancery; that when Sense and Feeling are lost, yet it may readily go to that high Court of Conscience, and there find the Day and Year when God's Love was made sure unto it. This for the second Rule.
And here it should be with a poor Sinner, as with a wise Man, when he would make his Lands sure unto him and his Posterity by ⟨p. 64⟩Evidences and Writings sealed: He is not content here only to have his Evidences in his own keeping, but will have them inrolled in Chancery, such a Year, and such a Day: That if he should lose his Deeds, he might be sure where to find them. So it should be with the distressed Soul; it should not only be willing to have all Objections to the contrary of it answered; but it should further get them recorded in the Court of Conscience, as in Chancery; that when Sense and Feeling are lost, yet it may readily go to that high Court of Conscience, and there find the Day and Year when God's Love was made sure unto it. This for the second Rule.
1For the third: Thirdly We should strive, and that mightily, to have our Hearts over-powered with the Evidence that Reason and Conscience make good unto us; that so we may quietly receive, and calmly welcome it; yea, and yield and subject our Hearts to the Truth of it. But here we all stick: And there are three Things in the Soul of a Man; three, I say, that abet all these Quarrels and Oppositions against the Evidences of the Word in that Man. The first, for 1. Reason objects. 2. The second, then Conscience accuseth. And the third, 3. The Will of Man will not submit. And here we find by Experience, that when a Man hath stilled