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

Be this Refuge Christ, or God pacified in his Son, or the Covenant of Grace, sure I am, that the way unto this Refuge hath as much need to be kept clear from stumbling blocks, offences, or whatever might hinder the Soul under the sense of its sin and misery, full of fears, in danger of death eternal, through an angry God, or the Curse of the Law pursuing it, now flying for Refuge, as there was need of that way to be prepared to the City of Refuge, to which the man-slayer was flying. But whether some eminent Divines, whose names are very precious in the Church, have not laid some blocks in the way, which have caused much trouble of spirit to loaden and afflicted Souls, who have been flying to Christ for Refuge, in the day of their fears and sorrows? Ask, and experience will tell you. Let us see a little.

Be this Refuge Christ, or God pacified in his Son, or the Covenant of Grace, sure I am, that the way unto this Refuge hath as much need to be kept clear from stumbling blocks, offences, or whatever might hinder the Soul under the sense of its sin and misery, full of fears, in danger of death eternal, through an angry God, or the Curse of the Law pursuing it, now flying for Refuge, as there was need of that way to be prepared to the City of Refuge, to which the man-slayer was flying. But whether some eminent Divines, whose names are very precious in the Church, have not layed some blocks in the way, which have caused much trouble of spirit to loaden and afflicted Souls, who have been flying to Christ for Refuge, in the day of their fears and sorrows? Ask, and experience will tell you. Let us see a little.

Here is a sinner whom God hath awakened, hath set his fins in order before him. He that before could say, God is a merciful God, say these Preachers what they will, now he feels and finds God to be an angry God, and one that is as good as his word, one that will not endure iniquity, he will not clear the guilty; and this poor Creature seeth nothing but guilt and iniquity in himself, no Creature under ⟨image 23⟩heaven so miserable as himself; to abide here he cannot, the Law speaks nothing but death, and dye he must, if there be no other way to save him then what he can find in himself: Hearing of Christ and a Covenant of Grace revealed in the Gospel, for such poor sinners to run to; and hearing Christ calling of such to him,