1. *To suppose that this is one and the same in all cases, is a great and fatal mistake: and yet extremely common even among many who pass for experienced Christians; yea, perhaps take upon them to be _teachers in Israel_, to be the guides of other souls. Accordingly they know and use but one medicine, whatever be the cause of the distemper. They begin immediately to apply the promises, to _preach the gospel_, as they call it. To give comfort is the single point at which they aim: in order to which they say many soft and tender things, concerning the love of God to poor, helpless sinners, and the efficacy of the blood of Christ. Now this is _quackery_ indeed, and that of the worst sort, as it tends, if not to kill men’s bodies, yet without the peculiar mercy of God, to _destroy both_ their _bodies and souls in hell_. It is hard to speak of these _daubers with untempered mortar_, these promise-mongers, as they deserve. They well deserve the title which has been ignorantly given to others: they are _spiritual mountebanks_. They do, in effect, make _the blood of the covenant an unholy thing_. They vilely prostitute the promises of God, by thus applying them to all, without distinction. Whereas indeed the cure of spiritual, as of bodily diseases, must be as various as are the causes of them. The first thing therefore is, to find out the cause, and this will naturally point out the cure. 2. For instance. Is it sin which occasions darkness? What sin? Is it outward sin of any kind? Does your conscience accuse you of committing any sin, whereby you grieve the Holy Spirit of God? Is it on this account that he is departed from you, and that joy and peace are departed with him? And how can you expect they should return, till you put away the accursed thing? _Let the wicked forsake his way; cleanse your hands, ye sinners; put away the evil of your doings._ So shall your _light break out of obscurity: the_ Lord _will return and abundantly pardon_.