A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

weAFFLICTED CONSCIENCES.lerrify those that they have to do with, concerning conversion,with a sensible, particular apprehension and acknowledgmentof their wretcliedness and miserable estate, byreason of their sinfulness and cursedness ; to break theirhearts, bruise their spirits, humble their souls, wound andawake their consciences ; to bring them by all means to thatlegal astonishment, trouble of mind, and melting temper,whicli the ministry of John Baptist, Paul, and Peterwrought upon the hearts of their hearers (Luke iii, 10, 12,14; Acts ii, 37; xvi, 30), that they may come crying feelinglyand from the heart to those men of God who happilylUfastened those keen arrows of compunction and remorse inthe sides of their consciences; and say, "Men andbrethren, what shall we dol Sirs, what must we do to besaved { '' As if they sliould have said, Alas ! see nowwe have been in hell all this while ; and if we had gone ona little longer, we had most certainly lain for ever in thefiery lake. The devil and our own lusts were carrying ushoodwinked and headlong towards endless perdition.Whowould have thought we had been such abominable beastsand abhorred creatures as your ministry hath made us, andin so forlorn and woful estate? Now, you blessed men ofGod, help us out of this gulf of spiritual confusion, or weare lost everlastingly. By your discovery of our presentsinful and cursed estate, we feel our hearts torn in pieceswith extreme and restless anguish, as though many fieryscorpions' stings stuck fast in them. Either lead us to thesight of that blessed antitype of the brazen serpent to cooland allay the boiling rage of our guilty wounds, or we areutterly undone. Either bring us to the blood of that justand holy One, which with execrable villany we have spiltas water upon the ground, that it may bind up our brokenhearts, or they will presently burst with despair and bleedto eternal death. Give us to drink of that sovereign fountainopened by the hand of mercy for all thirsty souls, orelse we die. There is nothing you can prescribe and appoint,but we will most willingly do. We will with all our hearts"pluck out our right eyes, cut off our right hands;" wemean, part with our beloved lusts and dearest sinful pleasures; abominate and abandon them all for ever, from theheart root to the pit of hell. If we can be rid of the devil'sfetters, welcome shall be Christ's sweet and easy yoke. Ina word, we will sell all, even all our sins, to the last filthyrag of our heretofore doted-upon and darling delight, so thatwe may enjoy our blessed Jesus, whom you have told us,and we now believe, "God hath made both Lord andChrist."L 3