ove loose
and wandering without an engagement: the engagement may be hypocritical
and sinister, if it be not of the heart; but the one implying stability,
the other sincerity, both together complete it as an action of piety.

2. The object of this action, "to approach unto Me." Sin may be the
object pursued, and God may be beheld at a distance: in this, we do not
approach; in that, we approach not to God; but either is needful. God
abhors those that approach to sin: He minds not those that look to Him
at their distance: except then thou approach, and approach unto God, thy
endeavour is either cold or cursed.

3. The inquiry into both, who is this? into the act of engagement,
because it is not usual, into the part engaged, because it is subtile;
and what we seldom see, or groundedly suspect, we have cause to inquire
after.

Of the first; this engagement is a degree of the heart's motion towards
any object, good and bad; for it was an engagement, though a bad one,
when more than forty men bound themselves with an oath from eating and
drinking, till they had killed Paul. To this degree of engagement we
ascend by these steps, and the heart of man perfects a motion towards
God and good things thus gradually.

1. By an inclination or hankering, a propensity in the mind to this or
that: this naturally is evil, and to evil; he that follows his
inclination goes wrong, the whole frame of a man's disposition being
continually ill-disposed. It is called in scripture the speech or saying
of the heart, and used indifferently both of good and bad, yet with a
notable mark of diversity in the original, though translations mind it
not. Eight times in the Old Testament is this phrase, "Said in his
heart," used: four times by the wicked, and as oft by the righteous; but
constantly, whensoever a wicked man useth it, as David's fool, Esau,
Haman, Satan, it is in his heart; when a good man, as Hannah, David, it
is to his heart; and teacheth: 1. That the heart and courses of a wicked
man are subject to his inclinations; they dictate to him; they command,
and he obeys. 2. But the inclinations of a good man are subject to him;
he dictates to them, commands them as things subdued, and fit to be kept
under.

Both these different inclinations, different, I say, in respect of
subject and object, are strengthened with nothing more than the often
reiteration of suitable acts; an evil inclination with evil acts, a good
with good. 1. Sin gathereth