The unbelievers preparing for Christ. By T.HThe vnbeleevers preparing for Christ. By T.H

And for this purpose we have chosen this text, that so we may have some footing for that which we speak out of Scripture, and my purpose, is not to handle all particulars in the Text, which are many, but to choose those that do concern our present purpose, and best fit us in our proceeding. And the two main points which I mean to discover out of the Text are these: First, that every man in his natural condition is fastened and settled in the state of sin and corruption. Secondly, that the Lord by a holy kind of violence plucks off the soul from sin, and draweth it to himself. These are the two things which in the Text I aim at, but the second is the main thing I look at: & we must handle them both, because the drawing of a thing from another implieth that the thing which is drawn was fastened to some thing from whence it is to be drawn; and therefore when the Lord saith, he will draw a poor sinner to himself, it implies that we were stuck fast and glued to our corruptions, from whence we must be drawn; and when this is once done, then the face is towards heaven, towards Zion; then it is fitted to receive mercy from the Lord Jesus: and because this drawing unto God doth imply a fastening of the soul unto sin, from whence it must be drawn, the point therefore is this; namely, that every mans natural estate and condition is fastened, and settled, and riveted ⟨p. 4⟩to his sins and corruptions▪ a poor creature by nature is not only ingrafted into sin, but he is rooted into the rebellions of Adam, and is grown strong with sinful corruptions and distempers of his own soul; nay a man is not able to express the strong combination, between sin and the soul; it is screwed into sin, and riveted into corruptions, which have been conveyed thereunto and derived from our first parents: and that the so••le is thus fastened, and settled, and glued to sin, we may observe it in two particulars; Partly in the dominion that sin and Satan hath over the soul: Partly in the amity that the soul hath to sin. First then, consider the dominion that sin hath over the soul, that sovereign and uncontrollable command which sin exerciseth over the soul of every poor creature under heaven, which is in a natural estate, in the bond of iniquity and under the power of Satan; and we shall see that the soul is fastened to sin, Acts 26.18.