§. 5. Yet mistake not what I have said, as if all the affection furthered by Novelty, and abated by Commonness and use, were a sign that the person is but an Hypocrite. I know that there is something in the Nature of man, remaining in the best, which disposeth us to be much more passionately affected with things when they seem New to us, and are first apprehended, than when they are old, and we have known or used them long. There is not, I believe, one man of a thousand, but is much more delighted in the Light of Truth when it first appeareth to him, than when it is trite and familiarly known; and is much more affected with a powerful Minister at first, than when he hath long •ate under him. The same Sermon that even transported them at the first hearing, would affect them less, if they had heard it preached an hundred times. The same Books which greatly affected us at the first or second reading, will affect us less when we have read them over twenty times: The same words of Prayer that take much with us when seldom used, do less move our affections, when they are daily used all the year. At our first conversion we have more passionate sorrow for our sin, and love to the godly, than we can afterwards retain. And all this is the case of learned and unlearned, the sound and unsound, though not of all alike. Even Heaven it self is spoken of by Christ, as if it did participate of this, when he saith that Joy shall be in Heaven over One sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, that need no repentance, Luke 15. 7, 10. And I know it is the duty of Ministers to take notice of this disposition in their hearers, and not to dull them with giving them still the same, but to profit them by a pleasant and profitable variety: Not by preaching to them another Christ, or a new Gospel: It is the same God, and Christ, and Spirit, and Scripture, and the same Heaven, the same Church, the same faith, and hope, and repentance and obedience, that we must preach to them as long as we live: Though they say, we have heard this an hundred times; Let them hear it still, and bring them not a new Creed. If they hear so oft of God, and Christ, and Heaven, till by Faith, and Love, and Fruition they attain them as their end, they have heard well.
§. 5. Yet mistake not what I have said, as if all the affection furthered by Novelty, and abated by Commonness and use, were a sign that the person is but an Hypocrite. I know that there is something in the Nature of man, remaining in the best, which disposeth us to be much more passionately affected with things when they seem New to us, and are first apprehended, than when they are old, and we have known or used them long. There is not, I believe, one man of a thousand, but is much more delighted in the Light of Truth when it first appeareth to him, than when it is trite and familiarly known; and is much more affected with a powerful Minister at first, than when he hath long •ate under him. The same Sermon that even transported them at the first hearing, would affect them less, if they had heard it preach'd an hundred times. The same Books which greatly affected us at the first or second reading, will affect us less when we have read them over twenty times: The same words of Prayer that take much with us when seldom used, do less move our affections, when they are daily used all the year. At our first conversion we have more passionate sorrow for our sin, and love to the godly, than we can afterwards retain. And all this is the case of learned and unlearned, the sound and unsound, though not of all alike. Even Heaven it self is spoken of by Christ, as if it did participate of this, when he saith that Joy shall be in Heaven over One sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, that need no repentance, Luke 15. 7, 10. And I know it is the duty of Ministers to take notice of this disposition in their hearers, and not to dull them with giving them still the same, but to profit them by a pleasant and profitable variety: Not by preaching to them another Christ, or a new Gospel: It is the same God, and Christ, and Spirit, and Scripture, and the same Heaven, the same Church, the same faith, and hope, and repentance and obedience, that we must preach to them as long as we live: Though they say, we have heard this an hundred times; Let them hear it still, and bring them not a new Creed. If they hear so oft of God, and Christ, and Heaven, till by Faith, and Love, and Fruition they attain them as their end, they have heard well.
