A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 115scatter his dearest and most orient pearls amongst swine!To warrant salvation to any unhumbled sinner! "Tostrengthen the hands of the wicked," who never yet tooksin to heart to any purpose ; and thirst far more (such trueGadarenes are they) after gold, satisfying their own lustsand perking above their brethren, than for the blood ofChrist, by promising them life ! To assure mere civil men,and Pharisees, who are so far from the sense of any spiritualpoverty, that they are already swoln as full as the skin willhold with a self-conceit of their own rotten righteousness,that they shall be saved as well as the most strict discipleof Christ I Especially since there is such a cloud of witnessesto the contrary, as you have heard before. Besidesall which, upon this occasion take two or three more. Heara most faithful and fruitful workman in the Lord's harvest,of great skill, experience, and success in the most gloriousart of converting souls, which makes me more willing tourge his authority, and esteem his judgment in points ofthis nature*. "None," saith he, "can prove or showprecedent, that faith was wrought in an instant at first,without any preparation going before. Nor can it be conceivedhow a man should believe in Christ for salvation,that felt not himself before in a miserable estate, andwearied with it, and desired to get out of it into a better.As the needle goes before to pierce the cloth, and makesway for the thread to sew it, so is it in this case." Afterwardhe tells us how and in what inanner and order thesepredispositions and preparative acts, required for the plantationof faith and so securing us of the right season, anda comfortable calling to assure men of spiritual safety, arewrought in such as God is drawing unto Jesus Christ. Herequires from the law, first, illumination ;secondly, conviction; thirdly, legal terror. From the gospel, by the help ofthe Spirit : first, revealing the remedy ; secondly, belief of itin general ; thirdly, present support from sinking under theburthen and falling into despair ; fourthly, contrition, whichis attended with some kind of, first, desire ; secondly, request; thirdly, care ; fourthly, hope ; fifthly, joy ; sixthly,hungering and thirsting after mercy and after Christseventhly, resolution to sell all, to wit, all sins, not to leavea hoof behind, &c. " And thus," saith he, " God bringsalong the man that he purposeth to make his ;and when heis at this pass, God seals it up to him and enables him tobelieve ; and saith. Since thou wilt have no nay, be it untothee according to thy desire ; and God seals him up by the* Uogers of Deilhain, in his Doctrine of Faith.