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…

Fourthly, what is that measure of compunction the Lord works in all the elect?

Fourthly, what is that measure of compunction the Lord workes in all the elect?

¹So much compunction or sense of sin is necessary as attains the end of it: now what is the end of it? no other but that the soul being humbled might go to Christ (by faith) to take away his sin; the finis proximus or next end of compunction is humiliation, that the soul may be so severed from sin, as to renounce it self for it; the finis remotus, or last end is, that being thus humbled, it might go unto Christ to take away sin: for beloved, the condemnation of the world lies not so much in being sinful under guilt and power of sin, as in being unwilling the Lord Jesus should take it away: this I say is the greatest hinderance of salvation, John 3.19. John 5.40. Oh Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean? Jer. 13.27. that was their great evil, they were not only polluted, but they would not be made clean: the Lord Jesus therefore rolls away this stone from the Sepulchre, beats down this mountain; and because it must first believe in Christ before ⟨p. 85⟩it can receive Grace from Christ, it must come to Christ to take away sin, before the Lord will do it. Hence, so much loosening from sin as makes the soul thus to come, is necessary. So much fear and sorrow as loosens from sin, and so much loosening from sin as makes the soul willing, or at least not unwilling that the Lord JESUS should take it away, is necessary: For who ever comes to Christ, or is not unwilling Christ should come to him to take away all his sin, hath (what ever he thinks) some antecedent loosening and separation from sin.