When they begin to seek salvation, they are commonly profoundly ignorant
of themselves; they are not sensible how blind they are; and how little
they can do towards bringing themselves to see spiritual things aright,
and towards putting forth gracious exercises in their own souls. They
are not sensible how remote they are from love to God, and other holy
dispositions, and how dead they are in sin. When they see unexpected
pollution in their own hearts, they go about to wash away their own
defilements, and make themselves clean; and they weary themselves in
vain, till God shows them that it is in vain, and that their help is not
where they have sought it.
But some persons continue wandering in such a kind of labyrinth, ten
times as long as others, before their own experience will convince them
of their insufficiency; and so it appears not to be their own experience
only, but the convincing influence of God's Holy Spirit with their
experience, that attains the effect. God has of late abundantly shown
that He does not need to wait to have men convinced by long and often
repeated