not so perfect as to be given but that the very giving mends them; not so desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifies them. This is a melting heart,[161] and a troubled heart, and a wounded heart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerful working of thy piercing Spirit such a heart I have. Thy Samuel spake unto all the house of thy Israel, and said, _If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord_.[162] If my heart be prepared, it is a returning heart. And if thou see it upon the way, thou wilt carry it home. Nay, the preparation is thine too; this melting, this wounding, this breaking, this contrition, which I have now, is thy way to thy end; and those discomforts are, for all that, _the earnest of thy Spirit in my heart_;[163] and where thou givest earnest, thou wilt perform the bargain. Nabal was confident upon his wine, but _in the morning his heart died within him_.[164] Thou, O Lord, hast given me wormwood, and I have had some diffidence upon that; and thou hast cleared a morning to me again, and my heart is alive. David's heart smote him when he cut off the skirt from Saul;[165] and his heart smote him when he had numbered his people:[166] my heart hath struck me when I come to number my sins; but that blow is not to death, because those sins are not to death, but my heart lives in thee. But yet as long as I remain in this great hospital, this sick, this diseaseful world, as long as I remain in this leprous house, this flesh of mine, this heart, though thus prepared for thee, prepared by thee, will still be subject to the invasion of malign and pestilent vapours. But I have my cordials in thy promise; _when I shall know the plague of my heart, and pray unto thee in thy house_,[167] thou wilt preserve that heart from all mortal force of that infection; _and the peace of God, which passeth all understandings shall keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus_.[168] XI. PRAYER.