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

The Major is plain, For the essence of a thing cannot possibly be missing, and yet the thing be, the essence must be constant, though there may be many changes in the thing. Let a man be never so sick, or let him have such sore eyes, that his sight is so impaired that he cannot read, yet he is a man still, his essence is constant: So though a believer may fall very sick spiritually, as God knows we have sickly times, let his eye be so dim that he cannot read his evidence, Christ is mine, but concludes the contrary, thinks verily he reads other lines, God hath written bitter things against him: Doth he therefore cease to be a believer? No verily, that which is the essence of faith will be found in him at that time; essences are not fluctuating, come and gone, but abiding so long as the things essentiated by them are.