Effectual Calling

Effectual Calling
48. As grace is not of our own getting, this should teach us patience and hope towards others, waiting, if God at any time will give them repentance. Though God work not effectually the first time of conviction, nor the second, yet we must still wait, as the man that lay at the pool of Bethesda for the moving of the water.
49. It is over-curious to be exact about the first beginnings of grace because it falls by degrees like the dew undiscernably, and further, there is a great deal of wisdom as well as power in the working of grace. God offers no violence to the soul, but works sweetly yet strongly, and strongly yet sweetly. He goes so far without nature that we shall freely delight in grace. So that now the man sees great reason why he should alter his course. God does not overthrow nature; the stream is but changed, the man is the same.
50. The love of God in Christ is not barren kindness; it is a love that reaches from everlasting to everlasting; from love in choosing to love in glorifying us. In all the miseries of the world, one beam of this lovingkindness of the Lord will scatter all.