Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Evid. 4. Whatever good impressions are made upon him they do not last. Tho' his heart be firm as a stone, yea, harder than the nether mill-stone, in point of receiving of them; it is otherwise unstable as water, and cannot keep them. It works against the receiving of them; and, when they are made, it works them off, and returns to its natural bias; Hos. vi. 4. Your goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away. The morning cloud promiseth a hearty shower; but, when the sun ariseth, it evanisheth: the sun beats upon the early dew, and it evaporates; so the husbandman's expectation is disappointed. Such is the goodness of the natural ⟨p. 64⟩man. Some sharp affliction, or piercing conviction obligeth him in some sort▪ to turn from his evil course: but his will not being renewed, religion is still against the grain with him, and therefore this goes off again, Psal. lxxviii. 34, 36, 37. Tho' a stone, thrown up into the air, may abide there a little while; yet its natural heaviness will bring it down to the earth again: and so do unrenewed men return to the wallowing in the mire; because although' they were washed, yet their swinish nature was not changed. It is hard to cause wet wood take fire, hard to make it keep fire: but it is harder than either of these to make the unrenewed will retain attained goodness; which is a plain evidence of the natural bent of the will to evil.

Evid. 4. Whatever good impressions are made upon him they do not last. Tho' his heart be firm as a stone, yea, harder than the nether mill-stone, in point of receiving of them; it is otherwise unstable as water, and cannot keep them. It works against the receiving of them; and, when they are made, it works them off, and returns to its natural bias; Hos. vi. 4. Your goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away. The morning cloud promiseth a hearty shower; but, when the sun ariseth, it evanisheth: the sun beats upon the early dew, and it evaporates; so the husbandman's expectation is disappointed. Such is the goodness of the natural ⟨p. 64⟩