A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

68 INSTRUCTIONS FOLl COMFORTINGthan aione. Mistake me rot, they can walk by themselvesta feed upon contemplative filth, speculative wantonness,and adulteries of the heart ; to plot revenge,preferment, enlargement of their estate ; to renew upontheir sensual hearts their youthful pleasures ; but to bealone purposely to deal with God and their own consciencesabout their spiritual state they abhor, they cannot endure ;it is to them a torture, a rack, the very beginning of hell jand that is the reason, to decline the stings of guiltinessand torment before their tim.e, why they have so often recourseunto the arm cf flesh for refreshing, to the mirth andmadness of wine, pleasures, and many other fugitive follies ;that they cast themselves into such knots of c ood-fellowship,appoint so many set matches of jovial meetings, and huntafter such variety of the times' entertainment (as they callit), which they account the very life of their life, and withoutwhich they would rather be underground than aboveit. For the second, hear how swaggeringly they cry untotheir companions in iniquity, to make haste with themtowards hell. "Come with us, let us lay wait for blood,let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause ; let usswallow them up alive, as the grave, and whole, as thosethat go down into the pit ; we shall find all precious substance,ue shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast in thy lotamong us, let us all have one purse." (Prov. i, 11— 14.)Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are*'present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, andlet no flower of the spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselveswith rose-buds belore they be withered. Let noneof us go without his part of our voluptuousness. Let usleave tokens of our joyfulness in every place ; for this isour portion, and our lot is this." And in all these cursedconventicles of good-fellowship, and furious combinationsfor profaneness and against piety, the devil himself is everpresent amongst them as their chief director ; and theredisposeth, inclines, manageth and accommodates all opportunities,circumstances, occurrents, men's several corruptions,and pregnancy of tlieir wicked wits, to make theirn actings as merry as may be, and to put all possible sensualsweetness into their carnal delights.(3.) Lastly, that which is principally for my purpose,besides that like acrafty juggler he casts a mist before the eyesof his slaves, and like a false merchant puts a counterfeit glossupon the face of sin, he also hides away the sting from them,and withholds the horror until afterward. Every sin in itsown nature ever looks fouler than the devil himself. Ohthat the ugly, fearful, and filthy shape of it could be seen