The application of redemption

Meditation doth not only pinch the heart with the §2present apprehension of sin committed, but by the daily attendance upon the evil of iniquity now considered, it holds the heart upon the rack under […] and unsupportable pressures; 2 Pet. 2. 8. Lot daily seeing and hearing of the loathsomeness of their hideous and unnameable abominations, vexed his righteous soul: Many saw and heard as much as Lot, and happily more, and yet were never troubled thereby; no more would he have been, but that he tormented his righteous soul by the daily consideration, of these abominations practiced. The word [Greek or Hebrew] is marvellous pregnant: It signifies, 1. To prove and examine by means of the rack, or by way of torment, to make inquisition touching the Truth. So Lot kept his soul upon the rack of restless vexation, as by the continual hearing, so by the constant consideration of the hellish villainy of the Sodomites; and therefore the Evangelist useth it to signify the boisterousness of a storm when the Sea is raged by the wind to the height of violence and rage: Matth. 14. 24. Meditation raiseth a storm or tempest of distress in the soul. A sudden and present apprehension, a flashy thought of the evil of sin, is like the flourish of a Sword afar off, which a man neither feels nor […] at the utmost; it's but like the glance and fall of a blow, ⟨p. 220⟩which it may be ripples the skin, whereas deep and through Meditation is as it were doubling of the blow, that steady recoiling of a mans thoughts, is the stabbing of the heart through, and through again, makes the sinner bleed inwardly and abundantly. When the sinner would put by the stroke of the Truth, and shake off the danger of the sin now discovered, and applied, and set on, Meditation follows the blow home, and puts the soul beyond its sense, nay, it is so, it must be so, it will be so: believe it, and expect it, for you shall find it worse than others do express, or you can conceive; for this is the voice and verdict which Meditation gives in. The Prophet Jeremiah expresseth the nature of the departure of the people from the Lord, thus: It is an evil and a bitter thing that thou hast departed away from the living God,