The application of redemption

This settling upon the heart appears in a three-fold work.

It affects the heart with the Truth attended, and leaves §1an Impression upon the Spirit answerable to the Nature of the thing which is taken into Meditation: 2 Pet. 2. 8. It's said of Lot, in seeing and hearing, he vexed his ⟨p. 215⟩righteous soul. Many saw and heard the hideous abominations, and were not touched nor affected therewith. No more had he been, but that he vexed and troubled his own righteous soul, because he was driven to a daily consideration of them which cut him to the quick. The word is observable, it signifies to try by a touch-stone, and to examine, and then upon search to bring the soul upon the rack: therefore the same word is used, Matth. 14. 24. The Ship was tossed by the waves; the consideration of the abominations of […] place raised a tempest of trouble in Lots righteous soul. This the wise man calls laying to the heart, Eccles. 7. 1, 2. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter; for this is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart. When the Spectacle of Misery and Mortality is laid in the grave, yet savoury Meditation lays it to a mans heart, and makes it real there in the work of it. The Goldsmith observes that it is not the laying of the fire, but the blowing of it that melts the Metal: So with Meditation, it breaths upon any Truth that is applied, and that makes it really sink and soak into the soul; and this is the reason why in an ordinary and common course of Providence, and Gods dealing with sinners, (leaving his own exceptions to his own good pleasure) that the most men in the time and work of Conversion have that scorn cast upon them, that they grow melancholy. And it's […] thus far in the course of ordinary appearance; The Lord usually never works upon the soul by the Ministry of the Word to make it effectual, but he drives the sinner to sad thoughts of heart, and makes him keep an audit in his own soul by serious meditation, and pondering of […] ways; otherwise the Word neither affects throughly, nor works kindly upon him.