and hath not this fastened on your heart, and been working in you by Degrees ever since? If it be so, then you cannot expect that you should have such deep terrors as those that never hear of sin and Christ till the news come upon them suddenly in the ripeness of their sin. There is a great deal of difference betwixt the Conversion of a Jew or any other Infidel, who is brought on the sudden to know the doctrine of Sin, Misery, and Salvation by Christ; and the Conversion of a Professor of the Christian Religi•• ▪ who hath known this doctrine in some sort from his Childhood, and who hath a sound Religion, though he be not sound in his Religion, and so needs not a Conversion to a sound faith, but only to a soundness in the faith. The suddenness of the News must needs make those Violent Commotions and Changes in the one, which cannot ordinarily be expected in the other, who is acquainted so early with the truth, and by such degrees. 5. But suppose you heard nothing of Sin and Misery, and a Redeemer in your Childhood, or at least understood it not (which yet is unlikely) yet let me ask you this: Did not that Preacher, or that Book, or whatever ⟨p. 415⟩other Means God used for your Conversion, reveal to you Misery and Mercy both together? Did not you hear and believe that Christ dyed for sin, as soon as you understood your Sin and Misery? Sure I am that the Scripture reveals both together: and so doth every sound Preacher, and every sound Writer (notwithstanding that the slanderous Antinomians do shamelessly proclaim that we preach not Christ, but the Law.) This being so, you may easily apprehend that it must needs abate very much of the Terror, which would else have been unavoidable. If you had read or heard that you were a sinner, and the Child of Hell and of Gods […] ▪ and that there was no Remedy (which is […] a Preaching of the Law, as we must not use to any in the world, nor any since the first promise to Adam must receive;) Yea or if you had heard Nothing of a Saviour for a year, or a day, or an hour after you had heard that you were an Heir of Hell; and so the Remedy had been but Concealed from you, though not denied (which ordinarily must not be done) then you might in all likelihood have found some more terrors of soul that hour.
and hath not this fastned on your heart, and been working in you by Degrees ever since? If it be so, then you cannot expect that you should have such deep terrours as those that never hear of sin and Christ till the news come upon them suddenly in the ripeness of their sin. There is a great deal of difference betwixt the Conversion of a Jew or any other Infidel, who is brought on the sudden to know the doctrine of Sin, Misery, and Salvation by Christ; and the Convertion of a Professour of the Christian Religi•• ▪ who hath known this doctrine in some sort from his Childhood, and who hath a sound Religion, though he be not sound in his Religion, and so needs not a Conversion to a sound faith, but onely to a soundness in the faith. The suddenness of the News must needs make those Violent Commotions and Changes in the one, which cannot ordinarily be expected in the other, who is acquainted so early with the truth, and by such degrees. 5. But suppose you heard nothing of Sin and Misery, and a Redeemer in your Childhood, or at least understood it not (which yet is unlikely) yet let me ask you this: Did not that Preacher, or that Book, or whatever ⟨p. 415⟩other Means God used for your Conversion, reveal to you Misery and Mercy both together? Did not you hear and believe that Christ dyed for sin, as soon as you understood your Sin and Misery? Sure I am that the Scripture reveals both together: and so doth every sound Preacher, and every sound Writer (notwithstanding that the slanderous Antinomians do shamelesly proclaim that we preach not Christ, but the Law.) This being so, you may easily apprehend that it must needs abate very much of the Terrour, which would else have been unavoydable. If you had read or heard that you were a sinner, and the Child of Hell and of Gods 〈…〉 ▪ and that there was no Remedy (which is 〈…〉 a Preaching of the Law, as we must not use to any in the world, nor any since the first promise to Adam must receive;) Yea or if you had heard Nothing of a Saviour for a year, or a day, or an hour after you had heard that you were an Heir of Hell; and so the Remedy had been but Concealed from you, though not denied (which ordinarily must not be done) then you might in all likelyhood have found some more terrours of soul that hour.
