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…

2. By irritating or stirring up of original corruption, in making more of that to appear then ever before; that if the soul thinks, all I do is defiled with sin, yet my heart is good, and so it rests there; the Lord therefore stirs that dunghill, and lets it see a more hellish nature then ever before, in that the holy & blessed command of God (to its feeling) makes it worse, more rebellious, more averse from God;¹ When the commandment came sin revived, saith Paul, and that which was for life was death to him, sin taking occasion by the law; and hence Paul came to be slain and dye to all his self-confidence. It was one of Luther's first positions in opposing the Popes indulgences, that Lex & voluntas sunt duo adversarii sine gratiae irreconciliabiles; for the law and mans will meeting together, the one holy, the other corrupt, make fierce opposition when the soul is under any lively work of ⟨p. 132⟩the law; and by this irritation of the law, the Lord hath this end in his elect, to make them feel what wretched hearts they have, because that which is in it self a means of good, makes them (through mans corruption) more vile to their feeling then ever before; and hence come those sad complaints on a soul under the humbling hand of Christ, I am now worse then ever I was, I grow every day worse and worse, I have lost what once I had, I could once pray, and seek God with delight, and never well but when one duty was done, to be in another; but now, I am worse, all that joy and sweetness in seeking of him, and in holy walking is gone; I could once mourn for sin, but now a hard heart takes hold of me, that I have not so much as a heart to any thing that is good, nor to shed a tear for the greatest evil. It is true, I confess you may grow (to your feeling) worse and wor•, and it is fit you should feel it; that the Lord hereby might pull down your proud heart, and make you lye low; it is the Lords glorious wisdom to wither all your flowers, which refreshed you without Christ, that you might feel a need of him; and therefore I say the Lord pulls away all those broken planks the soul once floated and rested upon, that the soul may sink in a holy despair of any help from any good it hath; the ⟨p. 133⟩Lord shakes down all building on a sandy foundation: and then the soul cries out, It is ill resting here.