The Soul's Preparation for Christ

Secondly, the soul must be set down with the audience of truth, and the conscience of a sinner should be so convicted as to yield and give way to that which is known, as not seeking any shift or way to oppose that truth which is revealed, his particular apprehension of sin is like the indictment of a sinner before God, and his conviction is that which brings the soul to such a pass, that the heart will not, nay it dares ⟨p. 27⟩not, nay (which is more) it cannot escape from the truth revealed: As when a man is only arrested and no more, he may escape, therefore it is not enough particularly to arest the soul, and bring it under command that it cannot shift from the truth revealed: When the Lord comes to make racks in the hearts of such as he means to do good unto, the text saith, he will reprove the world of sin, that is, he will convince the world of wickedness, he will set the soul in such a stand, that it shall have nothing to say for it self, he cannot shift it off; for there is in every mans heart naturally such corrupt carnal pleading, that it labours to defeat, and put by the work of the word, that it may not come home to the heart. As a man in battle array labours to put by the blow that it may not hit his body, so it is with a corrupt heart when the word comes home to the soul, as it doth sometimes into the heart of a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a murderer, and the word of God seems to stab the heart, they put by the word of God by carnal shifts, and so break the power of it that it cannot have its full blow upon the soul, and so the word takes no place to any purpose in them.

Secondly, the soule must be set downe with the audience of truth, and the conscience of a sinner should be so convicted as to yeeld and give way to that which is knowne, as not seeking any shift or way to oppose that truth which is revealed, his particular apprehension of sin is like the inditement of a sinner before God, and his conviction is that which brings the soule to such a passe, that the heart will not, nay it dares ⟨p. 27⟩not, nay (which is more) it cannot escape from the truth revealed: As when a man is only arested and no more, he may escape, therefore it is not enough particularly to arest the soule, and bring it under command that it cannot shift from the truth revealed: When the Lord comes to make rackes in the hearts of such as he meanes to doe good unto, the text saith, he will reprove the world of sinne, that is, he will convince the world of wickednesse, he will set the soule in such a stand, that it shall have nothing to say for it selfe, he cannot shift it off; for there is in every mans heart naturally such corrupt carnall pleading, that it labors to defeat, and put by the worke of the word, that it may not come home to the heart. As a man in battaile array labours to put by the blow that it may not hit his body, so it is with a corrupt heart when the word comes home to the soule, as it doth sometimes into the heart of a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a murtherer, and the word of God seemes to stabbe the heart, they put by the word of God by carnall shifts, and so breake the power of it that it cannot have its full blow upon the soule, and so the word takes no place to any purpose in them.