N04231:6
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.
The PREFACE.
MR. THOMAS HOOKER was one of the most esteemed Divines in England, Holland, and New-England, in his Day; for great Abilities, a piercing Judgment, solid Learning, extraordinary Sanctity, deep Acquaintance with the Scriptures and experimental Divinity, and for awakening and successful Preaching: And his Name and Writings were very dear to Multitudes of the most serious Christians in those distant Countries.
Dr. Cotton Mather tells us, —That He was born at Marfield, in Leicestershire in ENGLAND, about the Year 1586. His natural Temper was cheerful and courteous; but accompanied with such a sensible Grandeur of Mind, as caused his Friends to prognosticate that he was born to be considerable: His Parents gave him a liberal Education, and sent him to Cambridge; where he was chose a Proctor of the University, [whose Office is to see good Orders and Exercises duly performed there.] where the Influence he had on the Reformation of some growing Abuses, signalized him; and he became a Fellow of Emanuel College: The Ability and Fidelity wherewith he acquitted himself in his Fellowship, was sensible to the ⟨p. 2⟩whole University; and while he was in this Employment, the more effectual Grace of GOD gave him the Experience of a true Regeneration. It pleased the SPIRIT of GOD very powerfully to break into the Soul of this Person, with such a Sense of his being exposed to the just Wrath of Heaven, as filled him with the most unusual Degrees of Horror and Anguish, as broke not only his Rest but his Heart also, and caused him to cry out, While I suffer thy Terrors, O LORD I am distracted: He long had a Soul harassed with such Distresses. He afterwards gave this Account of himself; That in the Time of his Agonies, he could reason himself to the RULE, and conclude there was no Way but Submission to GOD, and lying at the Foot of his Mercy in CHRIST JESUS, and waiting humbly there, 'till he should please to persuade the Soul of his Favour: Nevertheless, when he came to apply this RULE to himself, in his own Condition, his Reasoning would fail him, he was able to do nothing. Having been a considerable while thus troubled with such Impressions from the SPIRIT of Bondage, as were to fit him for the great Services and Employments which GOD intended him; at length he received the SPIRIT of Adoption, with well-grounded Persuasions of his Interest in the New-Covenant. It became his Manner at his