Prima the first things, in reference to the middle and last things

neither is it any new thing in Philosophy to say, Those causes which produce an effect, though they be in time together, yet are mutually before one another in order of nature, in diverse respects to their several causalities. Thus a man must have repentance before he have saving and justifying faith; and yet a man must have faith before the work of repentance be perfect in the soul. As we maintain repentance to be a precedent work; so we deny it not to be a subsequent effect: Sorrow is before the birth too, as the Apostle intimates, 2 Cor. ¹7.10. Godly sorrow works repentance, that is, sorrow prepares a man for repentance, it goes afore it, and prepares for it. And now it is, that Gods spirit begins to renew his heart, as God himself proclaimeth, I will put a new spirit within them, and I ⟨p. 31⟩will take the stony heart out of their bodies, and will give them an heart of flesh, Ezek. 11.19. ²his heart that before was hard as flint, now begins to relent, and soften, and break in pieces: ³How so? it is Gods Spirit that pricks the heart, and this pricking softens it, Dumb pungit, ungit, saith Jerome, ⁴Compunction softens and supples the heart, so that be it never so stony, presently it becomes an heart of flesh; you know those that are apt to weep, or yearn, or sorrow, we call them tender-hearted; you may be sure then he that is pricked, till his heart bleed inwardly, he that weeps blood (which every heart doth that is pricked on this manner) sure his heart is tender indeed; I say, tender, for as the very word imports, ([Greek or Hebrew]) his heart weeps, why? his heart is broken: David joins these together, A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, Psalm 51.17.