The sound believer, or, A treatise of evangelical conversion discovering the work of Christs…The sound beleever, or, A treatise of evangelicall conversion discovering the work of Christs…

5. You may be confirmed in this, if lastly you consider the many ways the Lord takes to beget great mourning, if the soul will not be sorrowful: as, sometimes great afflictions; Manasseh must be taken in the bushes,¹ and cast into chains. Sometimes strange temptations, hellish blasphemies, Is there a God? Are the Scriptures his Word? Why should the Lord be so cruel as to reprobate any of his creatures, to torment it so long? &c. Sometimes long eclipsing of the light of Gods countenance; no prayers answered,² but daily bills of indictment; And sometimes it thinks it hears and feels a secret testimony from God, that he never had thought of peace toward it, and that his purpose is immutable. Sometimes it questions, ⟨p. 79⟩Can God forgive sins so great? Can it stand with his honour to put up so much wrong? Sometimes it feels its heart so extremely hard and dedolent, that it thinks the Lord hath sealed it up under this plague till the judgement of the great day. And sometimes the Lord makes melancholy a good servant to him to further this work of sorrow. But thus the Lord rebukes many a hard hearted sinner, that will not bear the yoke, nor feel the load; and now the Lord turns the beauty of the proudest into ashes, and withers the glory of all flesh. Nay sometimes you shall observe the Lord though he comes not out as a Lyon to rend, yet as a moth he frets out by secret pinings and languishings; the senseless security of man, that he shall mourn to purpose before he leave him.³

5. You may be confirmed in this, if lastly you consider the many wayes the Lord takes to beget great mourning, if the soule will not be sorrowfull: as, sometimes great afflictions; Manasseh must be taken in the bushes,¹ and cast into chaines. Sometimes strange temptations, hellish blasphemies, Is there a God? Are the Scriptures his Word? Why should the Lord be so cruell as to reprobate any of his creatures, to torment it so long? &c. Sometimes long eclipsing of the light of Gods countenance; no prayers answered,