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…

All the out-runnings of the hearts of the faithful and their disquietness of spirit thereby, make them to return to their rest again, and give them the more rest in the conclusion:¹ David was a Bird out of his nest for a time, and therefore when he considered how the Lord had saved his eyes from tears, his soul from hell, returns again, and saith, Return to thy rest oh my soul; Psal. 25.13. it is said, his soul shall dwell at ease, or (as the word signifies) shall lodge in goodness; some hard work full of trouble, some strong lust, or sad temptation, desertion, affliction, the Lord exerciseth the soul withal for some time, and so long the soul is in heaviness and much weariness of spirit, as it is 1 Pet. 1.6. yet when this days work is done, when the sin is subdued, and the temptation hath humbled him, then a believers soul shall lodge in goodness; he shall have an easy bed, and a soft pillow ⟨p. 197⟩to rest on at night; When have the faithful sweeter naps in Christs bosom then after sorest troubles, longest eclipses of Gods pleased face? when do their souls cleave closer to the Lord, then when they are ready to forsake the Lord, and the Lord them? Certainly fire is wholly carried upward, when that which suppresseth it, makes it at last break out into greater flame; Peter falls from Christ, yet he is Peter, a stone cleaving most close unto Christ, above all other the Apostles; because his fall being greater, his faith clave the closer to the Lord Christ for ever after it: Solomons heart certainly never clave so unseparably unto the Lord, as after his fall, wherein he did more experimentally find and feel the emptiness and vanity of those things, wherein he did imagine before something was to be found; but he that hath a double heart, never enters into rest, but the longer he lives the more common Christ, his truth, and promises grow; they are but fading flowers, whose beauty and sweetness affect him for a time; but they wither before the Sun set: and therefore the longer he lives, the less savour he finds in these things, and therefore takes less contentment therein; the Lord Jesus and all his ordinances grow more flat and dry things to him, and therefore though at first he might rejoice (as Johns hearers,