K:JNWTS 29/1 (May 2014): 8

Thomas Hooker on the All-Sufficiency of Christ [1]

Grace is merely in God’s hands to dispose of . . . [T]he heart of the poor sinner sees an absolute necessity of a change . . . and he goes to himself and his self-sufficiencies, and finding no succor there, he falls down before the Lord and begs mercy; and yet he sees himself unworthy of mercy, without which he must perish. He has nothing and he can do nothing to merit it; yet he is content that God should dispose of him as he thinks good— only (if it be possible) he prays that the Lord would show mercy to a poor forlorn creature. Now the sinner is prepared and fitted for Christ, as a graft for the stock. He is come [to be]. . . as little as [he] may be. All his swelling sufficiency is pared away. For he is not only brought to renounce his sin, but even his sufficiency and all his parts and abilities (which Adam did not need to do, had he stood in his innocence). In a word, [the poor sinner] is plucked from the first Adam . . . so that now the second Adam, Christ Jesus, may take possession of him “and be all in all in him” (as the apostle says). Now, the soul is a fit matter for Christ to work upon, namely, to make him a vessel fit to receive mercy and grace. When he has fitted him for mercy, he will give it to him; and when he has given him grace, he will maintain it, and increase it, and then quicken it, and crown it, and perfect it in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. And lastly, he will glorify himself in all these. Here is a right Christian indeed that expresses Christ in all. Christ preparing, Christ giving, Christ maintaining and increasing, and Christ quickening, and Christ crowning.[2]