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 encouragement and hope; and that it is indeed the mercy of God
through Christ that is discovered in them, and that it is depended on in
Him, and not in any wise moved by any thing in them.

Sometimes disconsolate souls have been rev