N04231:161
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 the Means are of divers Kinds: As, Hearing, and Prayer, and Sacraments, which are the Conduit-Pipes through' which God communicates Faith. But I let them pass, and fasten upon those which are needful for feeble Christians, to the bringing of them into this blessed State of rightly believing. And these are such as follow.
Now the Means are of divers Kinds: As, Hearing, and Prayer, and Sacraments, which are the Conduit-Pipes thro' which God communicates Faith. But I let them pass, and fasten upon those which are needful for feeble Christians, to the bringing of them into this blessed State of rightly believing. And these are such as follow.
1. Means. First; We must, as much as in us lies, labour to pull away all those carnal outward Stays that the Soul leans upon, and all other like Succours, and whatsoever Contentment it is, which a poor Sinner doth betake himself to, as to his Refuge for Relief and Help; that when all these are taken from us, we may be forced to go for Succour thither, where right Succour is to be had. It is a Thing natural to us all, even from our first Parents, a Desire to have the Staff in our own Hands, and to be able to supply our selves of all Necessaries, without being beholden to others, or to any.
Now therefore, the Way to make the Soul to lean upon CHRIST, is, to pluck away all those deceiving Props. The last Thing we fly unto is the Promise; which if we could find Good any where else than in CHRIST, we would never go to him for it. GOD hears last of us: And therefore here we should do with ourselves, as the Enemy doth with a City besieged, when he would make the Inhabitants, or those that keep it, to yield; The Way he takes is to famish them, to cut off all Provision, and stop all Passages, so that none can come to relieve them; then they presently yield themselves to the Mercy of the Assailant: So it is with our Nature. And seeing it is so that we are still trusting to our own Strengths, and relying upon something of