Sacramental meditations upon divers select places of scripture

I know the excitations and exercises of grace are attended with great difficulties. They are not things within our command, and at our beck. O! 'tis hard 'tis hard indeed, Reader, even after God hath taken the heart of stone out of thee, and given thee an heart of flesh, to mourn actually for sin, even when so great an occasion and call is given thee to that work at the Lords Table; for the same power is requisite to excite the act that was required to plant the habit. Gratia gratiam postulat.

However, the duty is thine, though the power be Gods; why else are his people blamed, because they stirred not up themselves to take hold of him? Isa. 64. 7.

To assist thee in this work, some help is offered in the following Meditations. 'Tis true, it is not the reading of the best Meditations another can prepare for thee, that will alter the temper of thy heart, except the Spirit of God concur with these truths, and bless them to thy soul: But yet these helps must not be slighted, because they are not self-sufficient. Man lives not by Bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; yet it were a fond Vanity and Sin for any man upon that ground to cast away Bread, and expect to live by a miracle without it. We must lift up our hearts to God for a Blessing, and then eat; do the same here, first pray, then read, and the Lord quicken thee by it for duty.