The Soul's Preparation for Christ

It is with the word as with a Slave, if a man have never so good a salve, which will help a sore in four and twenty hours, if a man shall do nothing but lay this salve to the wound, and take it off, it would never heal the wound, and no wonder: Why? he will not let it lie on; the best salve under heaven will not heal a sore, and eat out a corruption, unless it be bound on, and let lie: So it is with the good word of God: many a soul heareth the word of God, and his heart is touched for his sin, and his conscience begins to be awakened, but when he goeth out of the Church, all is gone, his affections die, and his heart dies, and his conscience is not touched: no wonder, you will not hold the word to your souls, you hear sin, and not hear it: you will see sin, and not apprehend it; and therefore it is, that the word over-powers not your corruptions: Do you think the salve will work when you keep it not on? The word of God is the salve, conviction of Conscience is like the binding on of the salve, meditations like the binding of it to the sore, remember the truth which touched thee first, and keep that on, let nothing ⟨p. 90⟩take it away from thy mind, hold that good word close to the soul; and it will keep thy heart in the very same temper, after the delivery thereof; as it was in the delivery. The Apostle James compares, a slight hearer to a man that looks his face in a glass slightly,¹ that forgets himself what visage he had; but saith, Who so looketh unto the law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deeds: the Law of liberty is the Law of God; and this Law being a glass; You must not only hear, and be gone, and slight and neglect it, but you must continue in looking, and then you shall see the complexion of your sins, and the vileness of your corruptions: when the drunkard heareth the baseness of his sins, and the adulterer the baseness of his abominations, they look themselves slightly in the glass of the Law; But they must carry away the glass with them, and look themselves still, & the adulterer must say, I am a profane creature, and my heart is polluted, Conscience defiled, and this soul hardened, and I shall be damned;

It is with the word as with a Slave, if a man have never so good a salve, which will helpe a soare in foure and twentie houres, if a man shall doe nothing but lay this salve to the wound, and take it off, it would never heale the wound, and no wonder: Why? he will not let it lie on; the best salve under heaven will not heale a sore, and eate out a corruption, unlesse it be bound on, and let lie: So it is with the good word of God: many a soule heareth the word of God, and his heart is touched for his sinne, and his conscience beginnes to be awakened, but when he goeth out of the Church, all is gone, his affections die, and his heart dies, and his conscience is not touched: no wonder, you will not hold the word to your soules, you heare sinne, and not heare it: you wil see sinne, and not apprehend it; and therfore it is, that the word over-powers not your corruptions: Do you thinke the salve will work when you keepe it not on? The word of God is the salve, conviction of Conscience is like the binding on of the salve, meditations like the binding of it to the sore, remember the truth which touched thee first, and keep that on, let nothing