Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself

and turn luke-warm, be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked, and ⟨p. 97⟩yet believe the contrary of themselves, Revel. 3.16, 17. All these may come, and often do come to that low condition of spirit, after Justification, as to say and think that all men are liars, their faith is no faith, that they are forsaken of God, to their own sense, and cast out of his sight, and question whether they ever did believe, or no: And why would the Apostle say, Patience bringeth forth experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, Rom. 5.4. if experience that ever God loved me, or that ever I believed, to my present sense, cannot be removed? But this is but the Doctrine of ^(a)Famulists; who teach, That after the revelation of the Spirit, neither devil nor sin can make the soul to doubt. And ^(b)To question whether God be my dear Father, after, or upon the committing of some heinous sins, (as murder, incest, &c.) doth prove a man to be in the Covenant of works. Do not they then teach us a way of despairing, who say, that ^(c)We find not in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the Disciples, that any asked the question, whether they believed, or no; whether their faith were true faith, or no? What then shall thousands of smoking flaxes and weak reeds do, who often ask this question,⁴ and say and think, Ah, I have no faith; my faith is but counterfeit metal? And then by this Doctrine of despair, believers ought to conclude, I am not under Grace, but under the Law, and a Covenant of works, and so not in Christ; yea, whatever lustres were in me before, I am in no condition of any we read of in the New Testament, who were hearers of Christ and the Apostles; for Libertines, never true believers, doubted whether their faith was true, or not.