A03611:269
The Soul's Preparation for Christ
The souls preparation for Christ. Or, A treatise of contrition Wherein is discovered how God breaks the heart and wounds the soul, in the conversion of a sinner to Himself.The soules preparation for Christ. Or, A treatise of contrition Wherein is discovered how God breaks the heart and wounds the soule, in the conversion of a sinner to Himselfe.
London: printed by M. Flesher for Robert Dawlman, 1632London: printed by M. Flesher for Robert Davvlman, 1632
THE SOULS PREPARATION FOR CHRIST.THE SOVLES PREPARATION FOR CHRIST.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Thus the heart complains as sometimes the lamenting Church did, Woe to us that we have sinned, not because we have deserved plagues, but because we have sinned, woe to us, for the God of grace is gone from us, and the God of mercy is gone from us, because we have sinned; ⟨p. 149⟩and the God of blessedness is gone from us because we have walked in cursed ways. Hold here and then your sorrow goeth right, if the soul can say, though I have no horror of heart, yet if I have this sinful heart, I am a miserable man.
Thus the heart complaines as sometimes the lamenting Church did, Woe to us that we have sinned, not because we have deserved plagues, but because we have sinned, woe to us, for the God of grace is gone from us, and the God of mercy is gone from us, because we have sinned; ⟨p. 149⟩and the God of blessednesse is gone from us because we haue walked in cursed waies. Hold here and then your sorrow goeth right, if the soule can say, though I have no horrour of heart, yet if I have this sinfull heart, I am a miserable man.
Then thy sorrow is right. Sometimes God deals thus punctually with a man; first, he drives it to an amazement, Secondly, he works in him marvellous fear of evil that is to come; Thirdly, he possesseth the soul with the feeling of the evil, and so forth, as in the former particulars, but yet is bound to no time, and therefore we must not limit the holy One of Israel: it is true, the Lord may press in upon the soul, and work all this on the sudden, but yet experience hath proved, and reason will confirm it, when God works never so suddenly, he affecteth the soul, thus when a poor soul cometh in the congregation, he layeth some truth upon him, that is new and terrible, so that the soul dare not deny it, nor yet fully resist it, but is in a maze, and by and by it may be the Lord opens his eyes and awakens his conscience, and makes that more evident to the soul, and so immediately arrests the soul, and then sorrow falls in a main upon it; and the heart thinks God meant my courses, and the minister spake against him; and he must go down to hell suddenly; so that sometimes the sinner cries out in the congregation, and though he contain himself for a time, yet he buckles under the burden; all this may be done at one sermon, in one doctrine, or in one part of an use; but usually this is