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The man blows the trumpet but all the sound come from the man's breath: the ship sails; the pilot fills not the sails, but it is the wind that fills the sails. Our Lord begins and works upon the will and the heart, and changes it, and lets us see the excellency of our new Husband and Lord, and when we make ourselves ready, we follow on to the smell of his garments. If God draw and ye stand still if God blow upon you, and strike and work, and cast you down, and yet ye are as hard as a rock or a stone under his hand you have not made yourself ready; so ye are not at all married to Christ.
O! my dearly beloved make some preparation less or more for him; ye must be changed, and manswear your old Adam, and forget your father's house; cast off your ilk-days' garments, and get a wedding-garment, and think not that Christ and your old ragged garments. your lusts, will agree together. And many, on the other hand having that, there must be a preparation for the marriage; they must not come to Christ in their sin and guilt, and not knowing but he is angry; especially after a great out-cast, ye will stand afar off from Christ, and not seek after him at all because ye are not prepared. The Lamb's wife doth make herself ready. but I have not made myself ready, say ye; may I know not but if I go in my guilt, I shall be put away in his anger: And there ye stick, like a ship on the sand bed of fears and doubtings, lest God be angry, and not a foot can ye win nearer hand to Christ. What then all unprepared souls do under these doubtings and unrepented-of sins that anger Christ? So I shall labour to answerwhat
