2.  When they cannot confidently assert and avow their interest in him, as the church did, Isa. xii. 2, saying, “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.”

3.  When they much question, if ever they have indeed laid hold on Christ, and so cannot go to him for the supplies of their wants 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.