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

Only here, that I may leave nothing to trouble any tender Christian, when I say these things are found, my meaning is not, that they are found in all before grace or union with Christ; for, as I said, some the Lord sanctifies in their infancy, others he drops into insensibly under the means; the seed of Grace is cast in, they cannot tell when nor how, but the Lord got into them by degrees: There may be clearer discoveries of a mans sin, vileness, loathsomeness, after a man is in Christ; as Ezek. 36.31. Then shall you remember your ways, &c. and loath your selves. Then, when? Read the 25, 26, 27. verses before, and so on. Then you shall loath your selves; grows sick of ⟨p. 131⟩himself; his stomach turns when he views himself. This is truth.

Only here, that I may leave nothing to trouble any tender Christian, when I say these things are found, my meaning is not, that they are found in all before grace or union with Christ; for, as I said, some the Lord sanctifies in their infancy, others he drops into insensibly under the means; the seed of Grace is cast in, they cannot tell when nor how, but the Lord got into them by degrees: There may be clearer discoveries of a mans sin, vileness, loathsomness, after a man is in Christ; as Ezek. 36.31. Then shall you remember your wayes, &c. and loath your selves. Then, when? Read the 25, 26, 27. verses before, and so on. Then you shall loath your selves; grows sick of ⟨p. 131⟩himself; his stomach turns when he views himself. This is truth.

Secondly, In all these there are degrees; some have had stronger lusts then others, acting, rebelling, and there is reason they should feel more; though that which makes the truth in all to be known, is the sense and sight of original sin, the workings of that in the heart, the woeful defilement it makes in all a man doth, the steam, the vapours that rise from that nasty dunghill; hence a Christian abominates himself, ashamed to come into the company of Christians, though none know any thing of these inward motions but God and himself.