A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

96 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COxMFORTINGof an axe, and their rejection, and entertainment of otherchildren, and by doubling the punishment, to wit, of beinghewed down and cast into the fire: when he had thusevery way tamed and taken down their stubbornness, andfrom fear of so many evils had stirred them up to a desireof deliverance, then at length he makes mention of Christ."" God pours not the oil of his mercy," saith Bernard," save into a broken vessel."So also all our modern divines, who are iiiStmcted untothe kingdom of heaven.Peter Martyr* magnifies Nathan's method of preaching,and commends it to all the ministers of God. He first proposetha parable, as we do doctrines, for the illuminationand conviction of the understanding. 1 hen he applies itmore particularly, and to the present case, where he dothnotably expose and aggravate the sin by recounting andopposing God's extraordinary bounty and most mercifuldealing with David, by the cause of it, contempt of theLord's commandment, and dreadful things ensuing thence.Afterward, that he might strike the heart through witha.'^tonishmeat and dread, he threatens terribly. At last,upon compunction, and crying " I have sinned," he sweetlycomforteth and raiseth to the assurance of God's favouragain.If this course must be taken with relapsed Christianswhy not much more with those who are;" dead in trespassesand sinsi "" Christ is promised to them alone," saith Calvin " t, whoare humbled and confounded with a sense of their ownsins.""Then is Christ seasonably revealed," saith Musculust,when the hearts of men being soundly pierced by preaching•'repentance, are possessed with a desire of his graciousrighteousness."" The way to faith," saith Beza§, "is penitence (legalcompunction) ; because sickness enforceth men, howeverunwilling, to fly unto the physician."" Men are ever to be prepared for the gospel by thepreaching of the law 1|."" A sermon of the law," said Tilenus, while he was yetorthodox^, " must go before the doctrine of the gospel, thatthe oil of mercy may be poured into a coritrite vessel."" In our exhortations to follow Christ," saith Kolloc**," the minds of men are ever to be prepared with a sense of* On 2 Sam. xii. 1 On Isa. Ixi. t On Matt. iii.§ On Matt, xxi, 32. ||Ibid, on 2 Cor. iii, 11.