The truly blessed man, or, The way to be happy here, and forever being…

2. Nay, on his withholding, the means have a con•••y operation. Instead of softening, they will harden; instead of drawing you nearer to God, they will put you at a farther distance from him. There are two contrary effects of the means on men, 2 Cor. 2. 15, 16. And where the one is not, the other is. God by the same means ripens •••e for ruin, by which he fits others for glory. Not that it is the natural tendency of the Gospel, but the Judicial Dispensation of God towards men who despise his Spirit, striving in it, who for this ••ves them to their hearts lusts, to their hardening in […], and encouraging themselves in their wicked courses, and by presumption to put from them the fear of God, and the awe of his Judgments, and so to heap up wrath against themselves; and in such a •• soil, to ripen the faster for destruction.

2. Nay, on his witholding, the means have a con•••y operation. Instead of softning, they will harden; instead of drawing you nearer to God, they will put you at a farther distance from him. There are two contrary effects of the means on men, 2 Cor. 2. 15, 16. And where the one is not, the other is. God by the same means ripens •••e for ruine, by which he fits others for glory. Not that it is the natural tendency of the Gospel, but the Judicial Dispensation of God towards men who despise his Spirit, striving in it, who for this ••ves them to their hearts lusts, to their hardning in 〈…〉, and encouraging themselves in their wicked courses, and by presumpion to put from them the fear of God, and the aw of his Judgments, and so to heap up wrath against themselves; and in such a •• soil, to ripen the faster for destruction.