N04231:40
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 here the poor Sinner is at a stand, and can go no further: For tell him of the Mercy ⟨p. 7⟩of God, and of the plenteous Redemption in Christ, and of the Riches of the Freeness of God's Grace: What (saith he) should I think there is any Mercy for me, and that I have any Interest in Christ? That were strange. And thus the Soul is always poring, and always too much fastened and settled upon his Corruptions, ever stirring the Sore, without ever going to the Physician. Where note, That a Man is as well kept from looking to Christ by Despair, as by Presumption. Before he sees his Sin, he thinks his Condition is good, and that he hath a Sufficiency of his own, and needs not go to Christ; and when he sees his Sin, then he beholds so much Vileness in himself, and in it, that he dares not go to Christ, lest when he comes before him, he sends him down to that ever-burning Lake of Fire and Brimstone. Herein the Devil is very subtle: But this doth not hinder our Title to Christ; neither ought it to discourage us from laying hold on Salvation. For,
Now here the poor Sinner is at a stand, and can go no further: For tell him of the Mercy ⟨p. 7⟩of God, and of the plenteous Redemption in Christ, and of the Riches of the Freeness of God's Grace: What (saith he) should I think there is any Mercy for me, and that I have any Interest in Christ? That were strange. And thus the Soul is always poring, and always too much fastned and settled upon his Corruptions, ever stirring the Sore, without ever going to the Physician. Where note, That a Man is as well kept from looking to Christ by Despair, as by Presumption. Before he sees his Sin, he thinks his Condition is good, and that he hath a Sufficiency of his own, and needs not go to Christ; and when he sees his Sin, then he beholds so much Vileness in himself, and in it, that he dares not go to Christ, lest when he comes before him, he sends him down to that ever-burning Lake of Fire and Brimstone. Herein the Devil is very subtile: But this doth not hinder our Title to Christ; neither ought it to discourage us from laying hold on Salvation. For,