The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

This we observe is the ordinary way of the Spirit in persons adult, living in sins against light especially, he doth so set home sins and follow his work so close, that the sinner hath not leisure to turn aside to the by-paths of his own righteousness [which he hath none] and duties, but is pursued so hard, that he is glad to fly for refuge to Christ, though the sense of his original sin as yet hath not seized upon him, as it will afterwards: and therein I do heartily agree with Mr. Shepherd, that first or last God doth convince His of original sin. Hence for any Christian to call into question the truth of his Conversion, because he was not convinced of his original sin, in the first snoke of Conversion, [though adult when God first began to work] this is but a needless troubling of himself; but of this more hereafter.

By this work of Illumination and Conviction, those vain hopes, wherewith so many delude themselves, that their case is not so bad as some of these censorious Ministers would make men believe, but they may do well enough: Their quarrellings with the Word and Ministry; their extenuations of sin; their shiftings of the Word from themselves to others, as not belonging to them; the slight thoughts they had of a man in his natural state; the fickleness and unconstancy of mind, whence nothing would fasten or hold upon them; these and such like things are removed, and way made for further workings.

By this work of Illumination and Conviction, those vain hopes, wherewith so many delude themselves, that their case is not so bad as some of these censorious Ministers would make men believe, but they may do well enough: Their quarrellings with the Word and Ministry; their extenuations of sin; their shiftings of the Word from themselves to others, as not belonging to them; the slight thoughts they had of a man in his natural state; the fickleness and unconstancy of mind, whence nothing would sasten or hold upon them; these and such like things are removed, and way made for further workings.