N04231:30
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.
1. Blind, Careless, or Presumptuous Security; whereby Men content themselves with their present Condition, presuming all is well with them, when there is no such matter.
2. Being convinced of this, they bethink how to save themselves by their own Strength; and thereupon set upon a Reformation of Life, thinking to make God amends by reforming some Sins which they hear themselves reproved of by the Ministers.
3. The Sinner being convinced of his utter inability to please God in himself, at length gets up a Stair higher, and sees all his Performances, and Prayers, and Duties to be of no power in themselves, but that he must leave all, and cleave only unto Christ by Faith; and this he thinks he can do well enough, and so thrusts himself upon Christ, thinking all the work is then done, and no more to be looked after.
4. If he sees this fails him too, then he goes yet further, and confesseth he cannot come to Christ, except Christ give him his Hand, and help him up; therefore now he will attend on the Ordinances, and labour and bestir himself hard in the use of all good Means, conceiving thereby to hammer out at last a Faith of his own to make him happy. And here he rests, hanging as it were upon the outside of the Ark so long, till