N04231:140
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.
Object. But what saith the poor Soul to this? Must I eat my own Words? Must I say and unsay? Say I have Grace, when before I said, I had none?
Answ. Yes, and be thankful too to God that you may say so. Is it not better for you to cross your own Flesh, than to cross God's Spirit? Take Notice of this, and fear least that proud and peevish Soul of yours (which now refuseth Consolation when God offers it) be forced to fare as a Man that eats his own Flesh, and so to come upon her Knees for Comfort, and get none to her dying Day. For tho' God will save you at last, yet (mean while) you shall have an Hell upon Earth before this be.
One would have thought it had been great Humility in Peter to refuse to let Christ wash his Feet; but it was no such Matter. Indeed nothing less; therefore Christ takes him up roundly for it (which is indeed the only Way to cure such a Distemper as this) John 13.8, 9. If I wash thee not, thou hast no Part in me. If you will needs have your own Way, and humour yourself, & will not be persuaded; you may go down to Hell in the Mind. Peter might have paused here, and taken Breath, but did not: His stout Stomach quickly came down, and he presently said, Then, Lord, not only my Feet, but my Hands, and my Head, and all. It is the Humility of a good Heart, to take what God offers. Most Christians think they are humble-hearted, when yet they are so far proud, as to give Way to this sullen Disposition. Therefore labour to over-master ⟨p. 71⟩this over-soaring Heart of thine, with the Authority of the Word of God; and be sure to receive Mercy while God offers it, lest he draw in, and take away the Comfort of his Spirit from thee, and make thee go howling and roaring to thy Grave. Tho' he bring thee to Heaven in the End; yet thou mayest have an uncomfortable Hell before thou comest thither. So for the third Rule, the last followeth.