Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the…

2. But they have taken up short of a good foundation: The work hath not been carried through, but hath stopped in the way, and they have rested in something else, before they have come over to Christ, which hath prevented their coming: and this is a frequent deceit. The conviction of some leads them to a Legal Reformation: they have seen some of their actual sins, and the Law that hath been broken by them, and the threatening out against such sins written in it, but have not been led to the fountain of original sin from which these streams do flow; and so they were never concerned for a new heart, but thought if they took up a new life, abstained from those sins in practice, & set upon the practice of neglected duties, they should herein please God, and hereupon they have pacified their Consciences; this was the farthest reach of the Pharisee, Luk. 18.11. or possibly their ⟨p. 116⟩trouble for sin hath been met with the general offer of pardon, upon believing in Christ, and they have entertained it with joy, as the stony ground hearers are represented, Mat. 13.20. they accept of the offer, and now they are secure: but they never knew the utter impotency to believe which they labour of: never understood the truth of that, Joh. 6.44 No man can come unto me, except the father that hath sent me draw him; and so they rest in a faith of their own, and have not that which is of the operation of the spirit, being never humbled out of their own Sufficiency and Sovereignty.

2. But they have taken up short of a good foundation: The work hath not been carried through, but hath stopped in the way, and they have rested in something else, before they have come over to Christ, which hath prevented their coming: and this is a frequent deceit. The conviction of some leads them to a Legal Reformation: they have seen some of their actual sins, and the Law that hath been broken by them, and the threatning out against such sins written in it, but have not been led to the fountain of original sin from which these streams do flow; and so they were never concerned for a new heart, but thought if they took up a new life, abstained from those sins in practice, & set upon the practice of neglected duties, they should herein please God, and hereupon they have pacified their Consciences; this was the farthest reach of the Pharise,