A cabinet of choice jewels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…A cabinet of choice jevvels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…

Fourteenthly, Consider you must never judg your selves §14unsound, or hypocrites for such things, or from such considerations, or by such Arguments or reasonings, which being admitted and granted to be true, will necessarily and unavoidably prove the whole generation of the faithful,¹ the whole body of them that fear the Lord, to be unsound, and to be a pack of notorious hypocrites; he that shall judg himself unsound or an hypocrite, because his thoughts and imaginations are, that he is not sincere,² for because he is thus and thus tempted, or because he is at particular times and in particular cases thus and thus worsted and captivated by sin, (notwithstanding all the resistance that he is able to make against it, and notwithstanding his hatred of it, and his loathing ⟨p. 78⟩and judging of himself for it) or because he is thus and thus afflicted in his Family,³ or in his Relations, or in his own person; or because he is thus and thus distracted in Prayer, and straitened in Prayer; or because he is sometimes troubled with sad, hard, hideous, and blasphemous thoughts of God; he does in so judging, judg and condemn the whole Generation of the Righteous, for there are none of them but first or last, more or less, have been exercised even as he is, or as he has been exercised: Who dare judg his neighbour, his brother, his friend, an hypocrite, because the hand of the Lord has been various ways lifted up against him, or because Satan has been let loose to play with his grand battery upon him? Now if thou darest not judg thy neighbour an hypocrite upon these accounts, how darest thou to judg thy self an hypocrite upon the very same accounts? When thy neighbour, thy brother, thy friend is thus and thus afflicted, tempted, distressed, &c. thou canst tell them that this has been the common lot of the People of God in all the Ages of the World; thou canst tell them that no man knows love or hatred by these things; and that all things come alike to all;