(1.) Man, when the Lord Jesus takes him in hand to make him partaker
of the benefit, is found an enemy to his redeemer; nor doth all
the intelligence that he has had of the grace and love of Christ
to such, mollify him at all, to wit, before the day of God's power
comes (Rom 4:5, 5:7-10). And this is a strange thing. Had man,
though he could not have come to Christ, been willing that Christ
should have come to him, it had been something; it would have shewn
that he had taken his grace to heart, and considered of it: yea,
and that he was willing to be a sharer in it. But verily here is
no such thing; man, though he has free will, yet is willing by no
means to be saved God's way, to wit, by Jesus Christ, before (as
was said before) the day of God's power comes upon him. When the
good shepherd went to look for his sheep that was lost in the
wilderness, and had found it: did it go one step homewards upon
its own legs? did not the shepherd take her and lay her upon his
shoulder, and bring her home rejoicing (Luke 15). This then is
not love only, but love to a degree.

(2.) When man is taken, and laid under the day of God's power:
When Christ is opening his ear to discipline, and speaking to him
that his heart may receive instruction; many times that poor man
is, as if the devil had found him, and not God. How frenzily he
imagines? how crossly he thinks? How ungainly he carries it under
convictions, counsels, and his present apprehension of things?
I know some are more powerfully dealt withal, and more strongly
bound at first by the world; but others more in an ordinary manner,
that the flesh, and reason may be seen, to the glory of Christ.
Yea, and where the will is made more quickly to comply with its
salvation, 'tis no thanks to the sinner at all (Job 4:18). 'Tis