The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…

1. A Resistance of the Lord, by a secret Unwillingness that the Lord should work Grace: Now this the Lord removes in Compunction, and no more Brokenness for Sin or from Sin is necessary there than that.

2. A Resistance of the Lord by sinking Discouragements, and a secret Quarrelling with him, in Case the Soul imagines he will not come to work Grace, or manifest Grace. Now this the Lord takes away in Humiliation; and no more is necessary here, than the Removal of the Power of this which makes the Soul in the Sense of its own infinite Vileness and Unworthiness not to quarrel at the Lord, and Devil-like grow fierce and impatient before and against the Lord, in Case he should never help it, never pity it, never succour it; the Lord will not forsake for ever, if the Soul thus lies down, and puts its Mouth in the Dust, Lam. 3.30, 31.

Which Consideration is of unspeakable Use and Consolation, to every poor empty Nothing, that feels it self unable to believe, and the Lord forsaking it, from helping it to believe. And I have seen it constantly, that many a chosen Vessel never hath been comforted till now, and ever comforted when now; they never knew what Hurt them till they saw this, and they have immediately felt their Hurt healed, when this hath been removed. In comforting Christians under deep Distress, tell them of God's Grace and Mercy, and the Riches of both, you do but torment them the more, that there should be so much, and they have no Part, nor Share in it, and think they never shall, because this is not the immediate Way of Cure; tell them rather, when they are full of those Complaints, that they are as they speak, vile and sinful, and therefore worthy never to be accepted of ⟨p. 106⟩