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

First, From the greatness of the things a man concludes. If once I conclude, Christ is mine, what will this imply? Then God is my God, his Love is mine, Peace, Pardon, Justification, Adoption, all the benefits of the new Covenant, yea, Heaven, Glory, all are mine, for in Christ all the Promises are Yea and Amen, 2 Cor. 1.20. I must conclude all these, which are so infinitely great in themselves and my esteem, and which is yet more, how few are they that ever shall partake of these things, and must I be one of these few, to whom these great things do belong? I dare not apply them, I tremble at the Conclusion: The greatness, the glorious splendour of the Sun; dazzles the eye, the eye cannot look on it, so do the greatness, the glory of these things, the eye of a mans reason, puts by the actings of Reason, that it cannot conclude here as in other things: When Jacob's Sons told him, Joseph is yet alive, and is Governor over all the Land of Egypt, Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not, Gen. 45.26. the old man had not heard of him above two or three and twenty years together, but supposed he was dead long since, he could not believe them, the news was too good, and too great for Jacob; they told him a lye ⟨p. 279⟩before, when they made him believe he was dead; so that this conflict between hope and doubt, joy and fear, but fear prevailing (partly from the greatness of the thing they spake of, and partly because of what they told him long before of his death, whence he could not believe them) put old Jacob into a swooning fit. It is the same with this Believer, tell him Christ is yours, pardon is yours, God and all that he hath purposed and promised for his elect-believers all yours, you make the heart of the believer to faint with the report of these great things, he cannot believe you, nor dare conclude himself, whatever the premises infer.

First, From the greatness of the things a man concludes. If once I conclude, Christ is mine, what will this imply? Then God is my God, his Love is mine, Peace, Pardon, Justification, Adoption, all the benefits of the new Covenant, yea, Heaven, Glory, all are mine, for in Christ all the Promises are Yea and Amen, 2 Cor. 1.20