We have to end this chapter on a note of hope. “It is the sin of upright persons sometimes,” says Flavel, “to exercise an unreasonable severity against themselves.”9 He goes on to reassure his readers that while they may look inside themselves and see all kinds of filth and plenty of unbelief and a variety of disordered loves, yet seeing also a spark of desire for God, a glimmer of longing for Christ, may put them at ease. Best of all, they should stop looking within themselves at all and look out to Christ. In any case, his point is that the struggle itself reflects life. If we were not
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