The application of redemption

The looking over, and skilful discerning of these first §3impressions left upon us, may, nay in truth will stand by us, and relieve us in the darkest days of our greatest distresses; & we may find some foot-hold here, when all the rest seem to be gone from us, to our own sense & apprehension. It's Gods usual way many times to put his Servant ⟨p. 379⟩to it, as he tried Abraham, to make them sacrifice their Isaacs, even to burn the […] and pledges he hath given them for the […] of the Covenant, and established their hearts therein. For Isaac was all the pledge that the Lord had given, That in his Seed, all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed: now he commands him to cast his Evidence into the fire, brings him to his beginnings, Gen. 22. 1, 2. So the Lord doth often with his: Enlargements fail, the heart is dead, their Graces bed-rid, their peace disturbed, their assurance gone; so that they find nothing, feel nothing in their own sense and apprehension, all is in the ashes; God begins with them upon the bare board, as we say, they sit down with a heart yielding and melting, a heart burdened with sin, though it cannot disburden it self, a heart loosened from his lusts, willing that God should remove them, though he cannot subdue them.

The looking over, and skilful discerning of these first §3impressions left upon us, may, nay in truth will stand by us, and relieve us in the darkest daies of our greatest distresses; & we may find some foot-hold here, when al the rest seem to be gone from us, to our own sence & apprehension. It's Gods usual way many times to put his Servant ⟨p. 379⟩to it, as he tried Abraham, to make them sacrifice their Isaacs, even to burn the 〈…〉 and pledges he hath given them for the 〈…〉 of the Covenant, and established their hearts therein. For Isaac was all the pledg that the Lord had given, That in his Seed, all the Nations of the Earth should be blesfed: now he commands him to cast his Evidence into the fire, brings him to his beginnings,