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exercise
of grace, in saving repentance, and evangelical humiliation. For there
is in it a sort of complacency of soul in the attribute of God's
justice, as displayed in His threatenings of eternal damnation to
sinners. Sometimes at the discovery of it, they can scarcely forbear
crying out, It is just! It is just! Some express themselves, that they
could see the glory of God would shine bright in their own condemnation;
and they are ready to think that if they are damned, they could take
part with God against themselves, and would glorify His justice therein.
And when it is thus, they commonly have some evident sense of free and
all-sufficient grace, though they give no distinct account of it; but it
is manifest, by that great degree of hope and encouragement they then
conceive, though they were never so sensible of their own vileness and
ill-deservings as they are at that time.
Some, when in such circumstances, have felt that sense of the excellency
of God's justice, appearing in the vindictive exercises of it, against
such sinfulness as theirs was; and have had such a submission of mind in
their idea of this attribute, and of those exercises of it-together with
an exceeding loathing of their own unworthiness, and a kind of
indignation against themselves-that they have sometimes almost called it
a willingness to be damned; though it must be owned they had not clear
and distinct ideas of damnation, nor does any word in the Bible require
such self-denial as this. But the truth is, as some have more clearly
expressed it, that salvation has appeared too good for them, that they
were worthy of nothing but condemnation, and they could not tell how to
think of salvation being bestowed upon them, fearing it was inconsistent
with the glory of God's majesty,
Zoab
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