A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

88 INSTRLCTIOiNS FOR COMFORTINGvours from God's bountiful hand, which thine own consciencecan easily lead thee unto, and readily run over, fromthine infancy to the present, wonderful protections in thineunregenerate time ;that miracle of mercies, thy conversion,if thou be already in that happy state ; all the motions ofGod's holy Spirit in thine heart ; many checks of conscience,fatherly corrections ; excellent means of sanctification, asworthy a ministry in many places as ever the world enjoyed; sermon upon sermon, sabbath after sabbath ; bearing with thee after so many times breaking thy covenants ;opportunities to attain the highest degree of godliness thatever was; — Isay, how can it be, but that the review ofthese and innumerable mercies more should so soften thyheart, that thou shouldst have no heart at all ; nay, infinitelyabhor to displease or any way dishonour that high and dreadfulMajesty, whose free- grace was the well-head and firstlountain of them all.Let this meditation of God's mercies to keep from sin bequickened by considering : (1.) That thou art far worthierto be now burning with the most abominable wretch in thebottom of hell, than to be crowned with any of these lovingkindnesses ; that if thou wert able to do him all the honour,service, and worship, which all the saints both militant andtriumphant do, it would come infinitely short of the merit ofthe least of all his mercies unto thee in Jesus Christ.(2.) How unkindly God takes the neglect of his extraordinarykindnesses unto us. 2 Sam. xii, 7 — 9; 1 Sam. ii,27 — 30; i.zekxvi.16. Mark well, and be amazed at thine own fearful anddesperate folly. When thou fallest deliberately into any sin,thou layest as it were in the one scale of the balance theglory of Almighty God, the endless joys of heaven, the lossof thine immortal soul, the precious blood of Christ, &c.;and in the other, some rotten pleasure, earthly pelf, worldlypreferment, fleshly lust, sensual vanity ; and sufferest this(prodigious mad i;es5! " Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this,and be horribly afraid "! j to outweigh all those.17. Upon the first assault of every sin, say thus unto thyself.If I now yield and commit this sin, 1 shall either repe.itor not repent. If I do not repent, 1 am undone : if I dorepent, it will cost me incomparably more heart's grief thanthe pleasure of the sin is worth.l^. Consider, that for that very sin to which thou art nowtempted (suppose lying, lust, over- reaching thy brother,tec), many millions are already damned, and even nowburningin hell. And when thy foot is upon the brink, stayand think upon the wages, and know for a truth, that if