The application of redemption

The Heart must be broken and humbled, before¹ the Lord will own it as His, take up his abode with it, and rule in it.

1. 1Doct.

There must be Contrition and Humiliation before the Lord comes to take possession; the House must be aired and fitted before it comes to be inhabited, swept by brokenness and emptiness of Spirit, before the Lord will come to set up his abode in it. This was typified in the passage of the Children of Israel towards the promised Land; they must come into, and go through a vast and a roaring Wilderness, where they must be bruised with many pressures, humbled under many overbearing difficulties, they were to meet withal before they could possess that good Land which abounded with all prosperity, flowed with Milk and Honey. The Truth of this Type, the Prophet Hosea explains, and expresseth at large in the Lords dealing with his People in regard of their Spiritual Condition, Hos. 2. 14, 15. I will lead […] into the wilderness, and break her heart with many bruising Miseries, and then I will speak kindly to her heart, and will give her the Valley of Achor ⟨p. 6⟩for a door of hope; the story you may recall out of Jos. 7. 28. when Achan had offended in the execrable thing, and the hearts of the Israelites were discomfited and failed, like water spilt upon the ground, because they had caused the Lord to depart away from them, the Text says, they having found out the offender by lot, they stoned him, and they said thou hast troubled Israel, we will trouble thee, and they called it the Valley of Achor, and after that God supported their hearts with hope, and encouraged them with success, both in prevailing over their Enemies, and in possessing the Land. So it shall be Spiritually, the Valley of Consternation, perplexity of Spirit, and brokenness of heart, is the very gale and entrance of any sound hope, and assured expectation of good. This I take to be the true meaning and intendment of the place, and part of the description of a good Hearer,