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A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

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AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 85good, which is objectively infinite, there answeieth pain ofloss, privati<strong>on</strong> of God's glorious presence, and separati<strong>on</strong>from those endless joys above, which is an infinite loss,'J'o the inordinate c<strong>on</strong>versi<strong>on</strong> to transitory things, there answerethpain of sens.', which is intensively finite, as is thepleasure of sin ; and yet so extreme, that n<strong>on</strong>e can c<strong>on</strong>ceivethe bitterness tlieveof but the soul that suffers it ; nor thatneither, except it could comprehend the almighty wisdomof him that did create it. To the eternity of sin, remainingfor ever in stain and guilt, answereth the eternity of punishment.7oT we must know, that " every impenitentsinner would sin ever, if he might live ever, and castethhimself by sinning into an impossibility of ever ceasing tosin of himself; as a man that casteth himself into a deeppit can never of himself rise out of it again : and thereforenaturally eternity of punishment is due to sin." fiow prodigiousa thing then is sin, and how infinitely to be abhoriedand avoided, that by a malignant meritorious pois<strong>on</strong>and provocati<strong>on</strong> doth violently wrest out of the iiands ofthe '' Father of mercies and God of all comfort " the fullvials of that unquenchable wrath, which brings easeless,endless, and remediless torments up<strong>on</strong> his own creatures,and those originally most excellent !10. <strong>The</strong> height and inestimableuess of the price that waspaid for the expiati<strong>on</strong> of it, doth clearly manifest, nay infinitelyaggravate the execrable misery of sin, and extrememadness of all that meddle with it. 1 mean the heart'sblood of Jesus Christ, blessed for ever, which was of suchpreciousness and power, that being let out by a spear, itc<strong>on</strong>vulsed the whole frame of nature, darkened the sunmiraculously (for at that time it stood in direct oppositi<strong>on</strong>to the mo<strong>on</strong>), shook the earth, which shrunk and trembledunder it, opened the graves, clave the st<strong>on</strong>es, rent the vailof the temple from the bottom to the top, &c. Now it wasthis al<strong>on</strong>e, and nothing but this could possibly cleanse thefilth of sin. Had all the dust of the earth been turned intosilver, and the st<strong>on</strong>es into pearls : should the main andboundless ocean have streamed nothing but purest gold ;would the whole uorld and all the creatures in heaven andearth have offered themselves to be annihilated before hisangry face ; had all the blessed angels prostrated themselvesat the foot of their Creator : yet in the point of redempti<strong>on</strong>of mankind and purgati<strong>on</strong> of sin, not any, norall of these could have d<strong>on</strong>e any good at all. iXoy, if theS<strong>on</strong> of God himself, which lay in his bosom, should havesupplicated and solicited (1 mean without suffering andshedding his blood) the Father of all mercies, he could not1

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