June 22, 2010

Thomas Doolittle (1630–1707) Pleading with Sinners

Poor Sinner! Will the Devil save thee? Christ would. Will he help thee into the favour of God, or up to Heaven? Tell me, what dost thou in thy Conscience think, doth Christ or the Devil most desire thy real good? Did the Devil suffer for thee? Christ did. Did the Devil dye for thee? Christ hath. Hath the Devil any love unto thee? Christ had so much as to shed his Blood, that if thou wilt hearken to him, thou mightest be saved by him. Why then, when Christ, the World and Satan, are striving for thy heart and love, dost thou open to the World and Satan, and shut it against the Lord Jesus Christ?
Thomas Doolittle, Love to Christ, Necessary to Escape the Curse at His Coming (London: Printed for Tho. Cockerill, at the Three Legs in the Poultrey, over against the Stocks-Market, 1692), 113–114. He also described sinners being “well offered” in the gospel call. See Thomas Doolittle, A Complete Body of Practical Divinity; Being a New Improvement of the Assembly’s Catechism […] (London: Printed for John and Barham Clark […], 1723), 196.

Bio:
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Some biographical facts:

1. Converted by the preaching of Baxter.
2. Called Baxter his "father in Christ."
3. Baxter encouraged Doolittle to enter the ministry.
4. Doolittle was tutored by William Moses, an ejected minister.
5. He received Presbyterian ordination.
6. He was ejected for Nonconformity in 1662.
7. Thomas Vincent was his assistant.
8. Matthew Henry and Edmund Calamy (and many others) were among his pupils.
9. Buried in Bunhill Fields.
10. He was the last of the ejected London clergy to die.

This information is in Joel R. Beeke & Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 180–183.

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