A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

11-2 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGover us to give us the bread of life, but they have not givenit us. Our tongues and the tongues of our children havestuck to the roof of our mouths for calling and crying, andthey would not take pity on us. We have given tbem thetenths v^hich thou appointedst us, but they have not givenus thy truth which thou hast commanded them. Rewardthem, O Lord, as they have rev/arded us. J>et the breadbetween their teeth turn to rottenness in the boweh. Letthem be clothed with shame and confusion of face as with agarment. Let their wealth, as the dung from the earth, beswept away by their executors ; and upon their gold andsilver, which they have falsely treasured up, let continuallybe written, The price of blood, the price of blood ; for it"is the value of our blood, O Lord. If thou didst hear theblood of Abel, being but one man, forget not the blood ofmany, when thou goest into judgment *.'CHAP. III.A general Direction for avoiding the former Error.I NOW leturn to rectify and tender a remedy against the firstaberration, which I told you was this : \Vhen mercy, Christ,the promises, salvation, heaven, and all are applied handover head, and falsely appropriated to unhumbled sinners,whose souls were never rightly enlightened with sight of sinand weight of God's wrath, nor afflicted to any purposewith any legal wound or hearty compunction by the spiritof bondage ; in whose hearts a sense of their spiritual miseryand want hath not yet raised a restless and kindly thirstafter Jesus Christ ; in this case my advice is, that all thosewho deal with others about their spiritual states, and undertaketo direct in that high and weighty affair of men's salvation,cither publicly or privately, in their ministry, visitationsof the sick, or otherwise ; that they would follow thatcourse of which I largely discoursed a little before, takenby God himself, his prophets, his Son, the apostles, and allthose men of God in all ages who have set themselves withsincerity, faithfulness, and all good conscience to seek God'sglory in the salvation of men's souls, to discharge arighttheir dreadful charge, and " to keep themselves pure fromthe blood of all men ;" to wit, that they labour with allearnestness, in the first place, by the knowledge, power,and application of the law, to enlighten, convince, and* Godly Observations, concerning divers Arguments and CommcitPliices illReligion, chap. xiii.