A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 107which the Pharisees had of Christ's followers, that theywere a contemptible and cursed generation, a company ofbase, rude, illiterate underlings. Nay, sometimes whenthe rnad fit is upon them, they will not stick to charge God'speople in some proportion most wickedly and falsely, asthe ancient heathens did the primitive Christians — withconventicles and meetings of hateful impurities, faction,disaffection to Cesar, and jnany other horrible things ;vvhereas, poor souls, they were most innocent, and infinitelyabhorred all such villanies ; and they met in themorning, even before day, not to do, God knows, any suchill, but for the service of God (even their most ingeniousadversaries being witnesses), to sing praises to Christ.God, to confirm their discipliae, forbidding all manner ofsin, (Sec;— with all the miscarriages, miseries, and calamitiesthat fell upon the state, as though they were the causes.Whereas those few neglected ones which truly serve Godare the only men in all places where they live to make upthe hedge, and to stand in the gap against the threatenedinundations of God's di'eadful wrath ; and all the oppositesto their holy profession are the real enemies of kingdoms,able by their dissoluteness and disgracing godliness to dissolvethe sinews of the strongest state upon earth. Lookupon Amos iv, 1, 2, and there you shall find who they arewhich cause God to enter a controversy with the inhabitantsof a land.Hear how Austin describes some of these self-seeking andsoul-murdering daubers in his days ": Far be it from us,"saith he, " that we should say unto you, live as you list, donot trouble yourselves, God will cast away none, only holdthe Christian faith. He will not destroy that which hehath redeemed, he will not destroy those for whom he hathshed his blood; and if you please to recreate yourselves atplays, you may go ; what hurt is there in it 1 And youmay go to those feasts which are kept in all towns by jovialcompanions, making themselves merry, as they suppose, atthese public meetings, but indeed rather making themselvesmost miserable ;I say you may go and be jovial,God's mercy is great and may pardon all. Crown yourselveswith roses before they wither. You may fill yourselveswith good cheer and wine amongst your good-fellowcompanions ; for the creature is given unto us for that purpose,that we may enjoy it.—If we say these things, peradventurewe shall have greater multitudes applaud andadhere unto our doctrine. And if there be some, whichthink, that speaking these things we are not well advised,we offend but a few, and those precise ones ; but we win