on some one thing at first, and afterwards a sense is given of
others; in some with a swifter, and others a slower succession, and
sometimes with interruptions of much darkness.
The way that grace seems sometimes first to appear, after legal
humiliation, is in earnest longings of soul after God and Christ: to
know God, to love Him, to be humble before Him, to have communion with
Christ in His benefits; which longings, as they express them, seem
evidently to be of such a nature as can arise from nothing but a sense
of the superlative excellency of divine things, with a spiritual taste
and relish of them, and an esteem of them as their highest happiness and
best portion. Such longings as I speak of, are commonly attended with
firm resolutions to pursue this good for ever, together with a hoping,
waiting disposition. When persons have begun in such frames, commonly
other experiences and discoveries have soon followed, which have yet
more clearly manifested a change of heart.
It must needs be confessed that Christ is not always distinctly and
explicitly thought of in the first sensible act of grace (though most
commonly He is), but sometimes He is the object of the mind only
implicitly. Thus sometimes when persons have seemed evidently to be
stripped of all their own righteousness, and to have stood
self-condemned as guilty of death, they have been comforted with a
joyful and satisfying view, that the mercy and grace of God is
sufficient for them-that their sins, though never so great, shall be no
hindrance to their being accepted; that there is mercy enough in God for
the whole world, and the like-when they give no account of any
particular or distinct thought of Christ. But yet, when the account they
give is duly weighed, and they are a little interrogated about it, it
appears that the revelation of mercy in the gospel is the ground of
their encouragem
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