The Godly Man's Picture

3. A Child of God weeps that he is sometimes overcome by the prevalency of Corruption, Rom. 7. 19. The evil I would not, that do I. Paul was like a man carried down the stream: How oft is a Saint overpowered with pride and passion! When David had sinned, he steeped his Soul in the brinish tears of Repentance: It cannot but grieve a regenerate person to think he should be so foolish, as after he hath felt the smart of sin, yet to put this fire in his bosom again.

3. A Childe of God weeps that he is sometimes overcome by the prevalency of Corruption, Rom. 7. 19. The evil I would not, that do I. Paul was like a man carried down the stream: How oft is a Saint overpowred with pride and passion! When David had sinned, he steeped his Soul in the brinish tears of Repentance: It cannot but grieve a regenerate person to think he should be so foolish, as after he hath felt the smart of sin, yet to put this fire in his bosom again.

4. A godly heart grieves that he can be no more holy; it troubles him that he shoots so short of the Rule and Standard which God hath set: I should, faith he, love the Lord with all my heart: But how defective is my love? how far short do I come of what I should be, nay, of what I might have been: What can I see in my life, but either blanks or blots?

5. A godly man weeps sometimes, out of the sense of Gods love: Gold is the finest and most solid of all the metals, yet is soonest melted with the fire: Gracious hearts, which are golden hearts, are the soonest melted ⟨p. 73⟩into tears by the fire of Gods love. I once knew an holy man, who walking in his garden, and shedding plenty of tears, a friend coming to him accidentally, asked him, why he wept? He brake forth into this pathetical expression, O the love of Christ, the love of Christ, Thus have we seen the Cloud melted into water by the Sun-beams.