A03611:285
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.
The next thing is this, we think of all things our sin most pleasant, and nothing so grievous as Gods commandments, and therefore will these sins wherein we have taken so much content, will these so wound the soul; why should sin so wound and pierce the soul? The reasons are these three.
The next thing is this, we thinke of all things our sinne most pleasant, and nothing so grievous as Gods commandements, and therefore will these sinnes wherein we have taken so much content, will these so wound the soule; why should sinne so wound and pierce the soule? The reasons are these three.
The first is this, the soul must be pierced with sin, because it is the greatest evil of the ⟨p. 159⟩soul, and therefore if the heart do but truly apprehend it, it cannot but it must be most of all burdened with it: If a man bear two weights on his back, that is most grievous which is most heavy; if he feel the burden, as the nature of it requires, it will most press the shoulders of him that bears it; if the one be thirty and the other forty pound weight, nature will be most burdened with the greatest weight: so there is no evil so properly and directly evil to the soul, as the evil of sin: Punishment deprives the soul of ease and quiet, but sin deprives the soul of God, and the main end for which it was created, through which the soul must be happy, or for the want of this it must be accursed. Now sin is as it were ten thousand weight, when as sorrow and shame and punishment, they are but a hundred weight: if it were possible for a man to have all the ease and quiet in the world, and to be in heaven, yet if he had a foul heart and a sinful soul, he were a miserable cursed creature, and if it were possible to be in hell, free from sin, he were a happy man. There is nothing that can do properly good to the soul but God, and nothing can properly do any hurt to the soul but sin, which estrangeth the heart from God, which is the chiefest good. If a man had all the pleasures and contents the world could afford, nothing will satisfy the soul but God, and if the soul were in horror, and had the presence of God with it, it would not but be comforted and quieted therewith, it is possible; Nay, God doth it also,