A treatise of effectual calling and election. In XVI. sermons, on 2 Pet. 1.10…

Secondly, after the people of God have been tossed and tumbled, and turmoiled with the violent assaults and temptations of the devil, then is Gods time of filling his people with greatest joy and most comfort. You know at the Mill, at the Floodgate, when the stream goes strongest, then the Mill goes fastest. Beloved, God lets the stream of temptation grow strong against thee, but to make thy Mill to go, to make thee grind thy lusts to powder, and to make thee grind thy sins as corn under the Millstone. God doth but make the flood to be strong at the gate, to make thy comforts to be more strong, and thy graces to be ⟨p. 139⟩more firm. When God lets in a flood of temptation, and tosseth thee upon those waves and billows, then is the time for God to give thee in strongest comforts. Esa 54.10, 11, 12, 13, 14. O thou afflicted, tossed with Tempest, and not comforted. Mark their estate. Now what will God do with a soul thus tossed with a Temptation? Read the verse before, My Covenant of peace shall not depart from the•, O thou afflicted. God doth here speak most peace, and tenders most freely his Covenant in this condition, when they were most tossed and tumbled. And verse 13. Thy children shall be all taught of God, and great shall be their peace. And verse 14. In righteousness thou shall be established, and thou shalt not fear. Here you see how God as it were bolsters and bears up a dejected heart; O thou tossed with a Tempest, Behold, I have made a Covenant of peace with thee, and Behold, thy children shall have peace, and Behold, thou shalt not fear. See how God keeps up the hearts of his people in this condition; when you are most tossed and tumbled with the tempest of temptation, then doth God ordinarily speak to you most inward peace and strongest assurance. As you know it is with an Oak, the more they are shaken by tempestuous winds, the firmer and faster are they rooted in the bowels of the earth: It is so with Christians; they are compared in Scripture to an Oak, whose fruit and sap is in them: Now a Christian, the more he is shaken by a tempestuous temptation, the Lord makes him by that to be the more firm, and to be the more fastened and settled in strong comforts and assurance.

Secondly, after the people of God have been tossed and tumbled, and turmoiled with the violent assaults and temptations of the devil, then is Gods time of filling his people with greatest joy and most comfort. You know at the Mill, at the Floodgate, when the stream goes strongest, then the Mill goes fastest. Beloved, God lets the stream of temptation grow strong against thee, but to make thy Mill to go, to make thee grinde thy lusts to powder, and to make thee grinde thy sinnes as corn under the Millstone. God doth but make the flood to be strong at the gate, to make thy comforts to be more strong, and thy graces to be