An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Thirdly, Such experienced ones are only able to deal with tempted souls, ¹to instruct and comfort them, because the afflicted find such only real. Such are in earnest: He that hath experimentally felt the bitterness of sin, maketh it manifest to others, that it's not mere Oratory or Eloquence, that sets him against sin, but something within, that he feeleth burning like fire within. The very Heathen could say, Si vis me flere dolendum est primo tibi, A man that hath not inwardly felt the power of truth upon his heart, he is so cold, so formal, so lazy, that you cannot tell whether he believeth the things he preacheth to be true, or no. And so also for comfort, must it not much satisfy the dejected soul to meet with one under the same temptations, under the same fears, and yet now prayeth with joy, heareth with joy? Thou canst find all thy heart (as it were) in him, and yet he is delivered, he is comforted, who thought it as impossible as I do: Whereas if a man be a stranger to these workings of God, the tempted soul flieth off, saying, He knoweth not how to judge of these things; I can give no credit to him.

Thirdly, Such experienced ones are only able to deal with tempted souls, ¹to instruct and comfort them, because the afflicted find such only reall. Such are in earnest: He that hath experimentally felt the bitternesse of sinne, maketh it manifest to others, that it's not meer Oratory or Eloquence, that sets him against sinne, but something within, that he feeleth burning like fire within. The very Heathen could say, Si vis me flere dolendum est primo tibi, A man that hath not inwardly felt the power of truth upon his heart, he is so cold, so formall, so lazy, that you cannot tell whether he believeth the things he preacheth to be true, or no. And so also for comfort, must it not much satisfie the dejected soul to meet with one under the same temptations, under the same fears, and yet now prayeth with joy, heareth with joy? Thou canst find all thy heart (as it were) in him, and yet he is delivered, he is comforted, who thought it as impossible as I do: Whereas if a man be a stranger to these workings of God, the tempted soul flyeth off, saying, He knoweth not how to judge of these things; I can give no credit to him.

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