Yet he
feeleth his heart so hard that he can find, as he thinks, no
kindness under any of his miscarriages. Now, he is a lump of
confusion in his own eyes, whose spirit and actions are without
order. "Now, I see I am lost," says the sinner; "this is not coming
to Jesus Christ; such a desperately hard and wretched heart as mine
is, cannot be a gracious one," saith the sinner. And bid such a one
be better, he says, "I cannot; no, I cannot."
QUESTION. But what will you say to a soul in this condition?
ANSWER. I will say, that temptations have attended the best of God's
people; I will say that temptations come to do us good; and I will
say also, that there is a difference betwixt growing worse and
worse, and thy seeing more clearly how bad thou art.
There is a man of an ill-favored countenance who hath too high a
conceit of his heauty, and wanting the benefit of a glass, he still
stands in his own conceit. At last a limner is sent unto him, who
draweth his ill-favored face to the life. Now, looking thereon, he
hegins to be convinced that he is not half so handsome as he thought
he was. Coming sinner, thy temptations are these painters; they have
drawn out thy ill-favored heart to the life, and have set it before
thine eyes, and now thou seest how ill-favored thou art.
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