w
of all the notable encouragements to believe, wherewith the whole gospel
aboundeth.

7. And withal fix on him, as the only "author and finisher of faith."

8. And, in a word, they should cast a wonderfully unbelieving and
atheistical soul on him, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in
working, and is wonderful in mercy and grace, and in all his ways. And
thus may he at length, in his own time, and in the way that will most
glorify himself, raise up that poor soul out of the grave of infidelity
wherein it was stinking; and so prove himself to be indeed "the
resurrection and the life, to the praise of the glory of his grace."

We come now to speak to another case, which is,

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW CHRIST IS MADE USE OF AS THE LIFE, BY ONE THAT IS SO DEAD AND
SENSELESS, AS HE CANNOT KNOW WHAT TO JUDGE OF HIMSELF, OR HIS OWN CASE,
EXCEPT WHAT IS NAUGHT.

We spake something to this very case upon the matter, when we spoke of
Christ as the Truth. Yet we shall speak a little to it here, but shall
not enlarge particulars formerly mentioned. And therefore we shall speak
a little to those five particulars; and so,

1. Shew what this distemper is. 2. Shew whence it proceedeth, and how
the soul cometh to fall into it. 3. Shew how Christ, as the Life,
bringeth about a recovery of it 4. Shew how the soul is to be exercised,
that it may obtain a recovery; and, 5. Answer some questions or
objections.

As to the _first_, Believers many times may be so dead, as not only not
to see and know that they have an interest in Christ, and to be
uncertain what to judge of themselves, but also be so carried away with
prejudices and mistakes, as that they will judge no otherwise of
themselves than that their case is naught; yea, and not only will deny
or miscall the good that God hath wrought in them by his Spirit, but
also reason themselves to be out of the state of grace, and a stranger
to faith, and to the workings of the Spirit: and hereupon will come to
call all delusions, which sometime they had felt and seen in themselves,
which is a sad distemper, and which grace in life would free the soul
from.

This proceedeth (which is the _second_ particular) partly from God's
hiding of his face, and changing his dispensations about them, and
compassing them with clouds, and partly from themselves and their own
mistakes: as,

1. Judging their state, not by the unchangeable rule of truth, but by
the outward dispensations of God