nts and
necessities.

4. When, moreover, they question if they be allowed of God, and
warranted to come to him, and lay hold upon him; yea, and they think
they have many arguments whereby to maintain this their unbelief, and
justify their keeping a-back from Christ.

5. Or, when, if they look to him at all, it is with much mixture of
faithless fears that they shall not be the better, or at least doubting
whether it shall be to their advantage or not.

6. This unbelief will advance further, and they may come to that, not
only to conclude, that they have no part or portion in him, but also to
conclude that their case is desperate and irredeemable; and so say there
is no more hope, they are cut off for their part, as Ezek. xxxvii. 11,
and so lie by as dead and forlorn.

7. Yea, they may come higher, and vent some desperate thoughts and
expressions of God, to the great scandal of the godly, and the dishonour
of God.

8. And yet more, they may come that length, to question all the
promises, and to cry out with David, in his haste, Psalm c. 11, that
"all men are liars."

9. Yea, they may come to this, to scout the whole gospel to be nothing
but a heap of delusions, and a cunningly-devised fable, or but mere
notions and fancies.

10. And at length come to question, if there be a God that ruleth in the
earth.

These are dreadful degrees and steps of this horrible distemper, and
enough to make all flesh tremble.

Let us see next whence this cometh. The causes hereof we may reduce to
three heads:

_First._ The holy Lord hath a holy hand in this, and hath noble ends and
designs before him in this matter; as,

1. The Lord may think good to order matters thus, that he may magnify
his power and grace, in rescuing such as were returned to the very brink
of hell, and seemed to many to be lost and irrecoverably gone.

2. That in punishing them thus, for giving way to the first motions of
unbelief, he might warn all to guard against such an evil, and not to
foster and give way to groundless complaints, nor entertain objections,
moved against their condition by the devil.

3. To warn all to walk circumspectly, and to work out their salvation
with fear and trembling, not knowing what may befall them ere they die.

4. To teach all to walk humbly, not knowing what advantage Satan may get
of them eve all be done; and to see their daily need of Christ to
strengthen their faith, and to keep their grips of him fast.

5. So t