A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

"58 Ix^JSTRUCJ'IONS FOR COMFORTINGsin, or more smarting sense of Divine vengeance for it thanthe light of natural conscience was able to afford and representunto them;yet were wont in fiction to shadow out insome sort, and intimate unto us the insufferable extremitiesot a mind troubled in this kind, by hellish furies followingmalefactors with burning hie- brands and flames of torture.What understanding then is able to conceive, or tongue toreport, in what case that sinful conscience must needs be,when it is once awakened, which besides the notions ofnatural light, hath also the full sun of God's sacred word,and that pure eye which is ten thousand times brighter thanthe sun, and cannot look upon iniquity, to irradiate andenrage it to the height of guiltiness and depth of horror 1Both heart and tongue, man and angel, must let that alonefor ever. For none can take the true estimate of this immeasurablespiritual misery, but he that can comprehendthe length and breadth of that infinite irresistible wrath,which once implacably enkindled in the bosom of God,burns to the very bottom of hell, and there creates the extremityand endlessness of all those inexpressible tormentsand fiery plagues, which afflict the devils and damned soulsin that horrible pit.6. JNot only the desperate cries of Cain, Judas, and manyother such miserable men of forlorn hope, but also thewoful complaints even of God's own dear children, discoverthe truth of this point, to wit, the terrors and intolerablenessof a wounded conscience. Hear how ruefully threeancient worthies in their times wrestled with the wrath ofGod in this kind. " i reckoned till morning," saith Hezekiah," that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones,"(Isa. xxxviii, 13). Even as the weak and trembling limbsof some lesser neglected beast are crushed and torn inpieces by the irresistible paw of an unconquerable lion ; sowas his troubled soul terrified and broken with the anger ofthe Almighty. He could not speak for bitterness of griefand anguish of heart, " but chattered like a crane ora swallow, and mourned like a dove." " Thou writestbitter things against me," saith Job, " and makest me topossess the iniquities of my youth. The arrows of theAlmighty are within rne, the poison whereof drinketh upmy spirit : the terrors of God do set themselves in arrayagainst me. Oh that I might have my request ; and thatGod would grant me the thing that I long for ! Even thatit would please God to destroy me, that he would let loosehis hand and cut me off." Nay, yet worse : Thou scarestme with dreams and terrifiest me through visions. So thatmy soul chooseth strangling and death rather than mv " life(Job xiii, 26 ; vi, 4, 8, 9 ; vii, 14, 15). Though God in