2. Certain it is, that the condition wherein these are, has a right to the tenderest compassion. They labour under an evil and sore disease; though one that is not commonly understood. And for this very reason it is the more difficult for them to find a remedy. Being in darkness themselves, they cannot be supposed to understand the nature of their own disorder. And few of their brethren, nay perhaps, of their teachers, know either what their sickness is, or how to heal it. So much the more need there is to enquire, _first_, What is the nature of this disease; _secondly_, What is the cause, and _thirdly_, What is the cure of it. I. And, _first_, What is the nature of this disease, into which so many fall, after they have believed? Wherein does it properly consist? And what are the genuine symptoms of it? It properly consists in the loss of that faith which God once wrought in their heart. They that are _in the wilderness_ have not now that divine _evidence_, that satisfactory _conviction of things not seen_ which they once enjoyed. They have not now that inward demonstration of the Spirit, which before enabled each of them to say, _The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of_ God, _who loved_ me _and gave himself for_ me. The light of heaven does not now _shine in their hearts_, neither do they _see him that is invisible_: but darkness is again on the face of their souls, and blindness on the eyes of their understanding. The Spirit no longer _witnesses with their spirits, that they are the children of_ God; neither does he continue, as the Spirit of adoption, _crying in their hearts, Abba, Father_. They have not now a sure trust in his love, and a liberty of approaching him with holy boldness. _Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him_, is no more the language of their heart: but they are shorn of their strength, and become weak and feeble-minded, even as other men.