I will not judge a person to be spiritually dead whom I have judged formerly to have had spiritual life, though I see him at present in a swoon (faint)as to all evidences of the spiritual life. And the reason why I will not judge him so is this — because if you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him; but if you judge him in a swoon,(faint) though never so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of his life.

The Works of John Owen (ed. 1990)