Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

Secondly, Upon such a conviction of sin, ensue great straits and humiliations of soul. When the poor sinner sees things as they are, an host of sins round about the soul, nay and within it, an hell flashing out of the guilt thereof, a defiling filthiness ⟨p. 73⟩in it, such as makes him ashamed to lift up his soul to God, and withal, such bonds and fetters therein, as he cannot break by his own power, then he becomes a Magor-missabib, terror round about, his heart more or less bleeds in tears, & travels in pangs of conscience, & breaks under a damning Law, and droops and swoons away in fits of self-confusion and self-desperation, and at last is ready to cry out Oh sin! Oh wrath! what shall I do? whither go? can I fly from the Omnipresent, grapple with the Almighty, or stand before the holy One? all's impossible: can I endure an hell, abide a never-dying worm, or dwell with consuming fire? 'tis intolerable. May my time be unravelled, my sins undone, or my self unborn, it cannot be. Oh! sinful forlorn creature that I am, woe woe unto me for ever. Such straits as these make way for resignation; all the sons of God come out of Egypt, out of the straits of sin, and pass through a wilderness of wants and extremities towards the Land of promise; the valley of Achor, trouble and perplexity for the accursed thing, is a door of hope; husks and hunger make the Prodigal come to himself and his father.

Secondly, Upon such a conviction of sin, ensue great straits and humiliations of soul. When the poor sinner sees things as they are, an host of sins round about the soul, nay and within it, an hell flashing out of the guilt thereof, a defiling filthiness ⟨p. 73⟩in it, such as makes him ashamed to lift up his soul to God, and withall, such bonds and fetters therein, as he cannot break by his own power, then he becomes a Magor-missabib, terror round about, his heart more or less bleeds in tears, & travels in pangs of conscience, & breaks under a damning Law, and droops and swoons away in fits of self-confusion and self-desparation, and at last is ready to cry out Oh sin! Oh wrath! what shall I do? whither go? can I fly from the Omnipresent, grapple with the Almighty, or stand before the holy One? all's impossible: can I endure an hell, abide a never-dying worm, or dwell with consuming fire? 'tis intolerable. May my time be unravelled, my sins undone, or my self unborn, it cannot be. Oh! sinful forlorn creature that I am, wo wo unto me for ever. Such straits as these make way for resignation; all the sons of God come out of Egypt, out of the straits of sin, and pass through a wilderness of wants and extremities towards the Land of promise; the valley of Achor, trouble and perplexity for the accursed thing, is a door of hope; husks and hunger make the Prodigal come to himself and his father.