A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

118 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGvines speak not unfitly who say, "It is given unto us, asfathers give lands and inheritance to their children; askings give pardons to their subjects, having merited death.They give them, because they will, out of the freeness oftheir minds.'' All those who would come unto Christ, anddesire to take him as their wisdom, rigliteousness, sanctification,and redemption, must be utterly unbottomed ofthemselves, and built only on the rich and free mercy ofGod revealed in the gospel. They must be emptied first ofall conceit of any righteousness or worth in themselves atall. Secondly, of all hope of any ability or possibility tohelp themselves. Nay, tilled, thirdly, with sense of theirown unworthiness, naughtiness, nothingness. Fourthly,and with such a thirst after that water of life, that they aremost willing to sell all for it, and cry heartily. Give medrink, or else I die. And then when they are thus most nothingin themselves, and do so long for the " rivers ot livingwater," they are certainly most welcome unto Jesus Christ,and may take him most freely. Hear how sweetly he callsthem ": Ho ! every one that thirsteth, come ye to thewaters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat ;yea come, buy wine and milk, without money, and withoutprice" (Isa. lv,l). "In the last day, that great day ofthe feast, Jesus stood, and cried, saying. If any man thirst,let him come unto me and drink. lie that believeth on me,as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow riversof living water" (John vii, 37, 38). "It is done: I amAlpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will giveunto him that is atliirst, of the fountain of the water of lifefreely " ( Revel, xxi, 6). " And let him that is athirst come,and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely"(Rev xxii, 17). We must therefore by no means conceiveof the forenamed preparative humiliations and precedentworks of the law and gospel as of any meritorious qualificationsto draw on Christ (for he is given most freely), butas of needful predispositions to drive us unto Christ. Fora man must feel himself in misery before he will go aboutto find a remedy ; be sick before he will seek the physician ;be in prison before he will sue for a pardon ; be woundedbefore he will prize a plaister and precious balsam. Asinner must be weary of iiis former wicked ways, and tiredwith legal terror, before he will have recourse to JesusChrist for refreshing, and lay down his bleeding soul in hisblessed bosom. He must be sensible of his spiritual poverty,beggary, and slavery under the devil, before hethirst for heavenly righteousness, and willingly take upChrist's sweet and easy yoke. He must be cast down, con-