this effectual persuading, it is the meaning of that place: Act. 3.19. Amend your lives, repent and turn, that your sins may be done away; repent and be converted, that is, be truly prepared in the work of humiliation; and be converted, that is, have a through heat of the heart for grace in vocation, that your sins may be done away in justification: so then when the soul is first humbled in preparation, and the heart now all for the Lord Jesus Christ, and can taste nothing but ⟨p. 292⟩Christ, and nothing in regard of him, and God hath gotten his good will, then follows justification, that your sins may be blotted out: this was the practice of the repenting Church, when the Lord had hedged her way, and built a wall that she could not find her old lovers, Hos. 2.7. at last the Church saith, I will return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now; as if the Church had said, Oh the mercies of God, and the consolation of Christ, are better than all my delights in sin! the soul comes now to see a bettering in Christ; Oh to have my heart purged, and my sins remitted, it were better than to wallow in my lusts still! now the heart is going out of the world to the Lord Jesus Christ, when there is an overpowering virtue of the sweetness of the promise, that prevails with the soul above all, and affects the heart with the good thereof, more than all the rest, this is then to be effectually persuaded. Now the will and the heart is gone that way, let all the temptation and the darling delights of sin come in never so fast: yet the prevailing power of the promise out bids, and goes beyond all these, and affects the heart more than all these: I would have you retain those things, that ye may try whose hearts are sound: many pretend to have a lingering desire after Christ, and to seem to be for Christ, and yet the work was never sound, they were never persuaded, powerfully, as I now speak: and as there is a strong and effectual persuading so there is a kind of hourly and feeble persuading, ⟨p. 293⟩and a slight motion of it: the heart may seem to make out toward Christ, & yet never get •ut, because it was never effectually persuaded; •hese slight motions and hourly persuasions are •ike the untimely birth of a woman, that vanisheth away, and comes to nothing in the end.
this effectuall perswading, it is the meaning of that place: Act. 3.19. Amend your lives, repent and turne, that your sinnes may be done away; repent and be converted, that is, be truly prepared in the worke of humiliation; and be converted, that is, have a through heat of the heart for grace in vocation, that your sinnes may be done away in justification: so then when the soule is first humbled in preparation, and the heart now all for the Lord Jesus Christ, and can taste nothing but ⟨p. 292⟩Christ, and nothing in regard of him, and God hath gotten his good will, then followes justification, that your sinnes may be blotted out: this was the practice of the repenting Church, when the Lord had hedged her way, and built a wall that she could not finde her old lovers, Hos. 2.7. at last the Church saith, I will returne to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now; as if the Church had said, Oh the mercies of God, and the consolation of Christ, are better than all my delights in sinne! the soule comes now to see a bettering in Christ; Oh to have my heart purged, and my sinnes remitted, it were better than to wallow in my lusts still! now the heart is going out of the world to the Lord Jesus Christ, when there is an overpowering vertue of the sweetnesse of the promise, that prevailes with the soule above all, and affects the heart with the good thereof, more than all the rest, this is then to be effectually perswaded. Now the will and the heart is gone that way, let all the temptation and the darling delights of sinne come in never so fast: yet the prevailing power of the promise out bids, and goes beyond all these, and affects the heart more than all these: I would have you retaine those things, that ye may trie whose hearts are sound: many pretend to have a lingering desire after Christ, and to seeme to bee for Christ, and yet the worke was never sound, they were never perswaded, powerfully, as I now speake: and as there is a strong and effectuall perswading so there is a kinde of hourly and feeble perswading, ⟨p. 293⟩and a slight motion of it: the heart may seem to make out toward Christ, & yet never get •ut, because it was never effectually perswaded; •hese slight motions and hourly perswasions are •ike the untimely birth of a woman, that vanish•th away, and comes to nothing in the end.
