68 FORGIVENESS OF SI3+T. draw not -nigh to him effectually to their consolation. This is the first evil that the soul, in this condition, is enabled to avoid. We know how God rebukes it in Zion: " Zion said, The Lord bath forsaken me, and my Lord bath forgotten me." Isa. 49 : 14. But how foolish is Zion, how froward, how unbelieving in this matter! what ground bath she for such sinful despondencies, such discouraging conclusionsl " Can a woman," saith the Lord, " forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee." Such a reproof be gives to Jacob upon a similar complaint, chap. 40 : 28, 29, 30. There is nothing more provoking to the Lord, or more disadvantageous to the soul, than such sinful despondency. It insensibly weakens the soul and disables it both for present and future endeavors. Hence some poor crea- tures mourn, and even pine away in this condition, never getting one step beyond a perplexing sense of sin all their days. Some have dwelt so long upon it, and have so entangled themselves with a multitude of perplexing thoughts, that at length their natural faculties have been weakened, and rendered utterly useless; so that they have lost sense of sin and every thing else. Against some Satan bath taken advantage to cast so many en- tangling objections into their minds, that their whole time bath been taken up in proposing doubts and ob- jections against themselves; with these they have gone up and down, toone and another, and, being never able to come to a consistency in their own thoughts, have spent all their days in a fruitless, withering, comfort- less condition. Some, with whom things come to a bet- ter issue, are yet for a season brought to such discom- posure of spirit, or are so filled with their own appre- hensions, that when things which are most proper to their condition are spoken to them, they make no im-
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