selfish and worldly love is reduced; and the concupiscences thence derived are kept in continual restraint. When these purposes are accomplished, a superior degree of illumination takes place, together with a sensible increase of benevolence in the disposition, and man daily advances in understanding, wisdom, and love.
XXVII. Difficulty of Regeneration gradually overcome.
DURING the first stages of regeneration, while man has to oppose all his natural inclinations to evil, with the false pleasures and delights accompanying them, the work is indeed difficult, and resembles a voluntary martyrdom: on which account the Lord says, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it," Luke ix. 23, 24. But in the future progress of the work, after a man has for some time successfully combated against his own natural propensities, and when with the return of temptation his delight in the evil excited is sensibly abated, as it will be after a few cases of determined opposition, the difficulty, which was at first experienced, is gradually overcome, and is at length succeeded first by an aversion to the evil which was before pleasing, and secondly by a delight in doing good, and in every possible way promoting the kingdom of the Lord.
In this new state of mind he comprehends and experiences the truth of these divine words, "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden,
