This man is in the wilderness among wild beasts. Here he sees a bear, there a lion, yonder a leopard, a wolf, a dragon. Devils of all sorts, doubts of all sorts, fears of all sorts haunt and molest his soul. This man feeleth the infirmity of his flesh; he findeth a proneness in himself to be desperate. Now he chides with God, flings and tumbles like a wild bull in a net, and still the guilt of all returns upon himself to the crushing of him to pieces. Yet he feeleth his heart so hard that he can find, as he thinks, no kindness under any of his miscarriages. Now, he is a lump of confusion in his own eyes, whose spirit and actions are without order. "Now, I see I am lost," says the sinner; "this is not coming to Jesus Christ; such a desperately hard and wretched heart as mine is, cannot be a gracious one," saith the sinner. And bid such a one be better, he says, "I cannot; no, I cannot." QUESTION. But what will you say to a soul in this condition? ANSWER. I will say, that temptations have attended the best of God's people; I will say that temptations come to do us good; and I will say also, that there is a difference betwixt growing worse and worse, and thy seeing more clearly how bad thou art. There is a man of an ill-favored countenance who hath too high a conceit of his heauty, and wanting the benefit of a glass, he still stands in his own conceit. At last a limner is sent unto him, who draweth his ill-favored face to the life. Now, looking thereon, he hegins to be convinced that he is not half so handsome as he thought he was. Coming sinner, thy temptations are these painters; they have drawn out thy ill-favored heart to the life, and have set it before thine eyes, and now thou seest how ill-favored thou art. Some that are coming to Christ cannot lie persuaded, until the temptation comes, that they are so vile as the scripture saith they are. True, they see so much of their wretchedness as to drive them to Christ. But there is an over and above of wickedness which they see not. Peter little thought that he had had in his heart cursing and swearing and lying, and an inclination to deny his Master, before the temptation came; but when that indeed came upon him, then he found it there to his sorrow. It may be that thy graces must be tried in the fire, that that rust which cleaveth to them may be taken away, and themselves proved, both before angels and devils, to be far better than gold that perisheth. It may be also, that thy graces are to receive special praises and honor and glory, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to judgment, for all the exploits that thou hast acted by them against hell and its infernal crew, in the day of thy temptation.