A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 119founded, condemned, a cast-away, and lost in himself, beforelie will look about for a Saviour. He must cry heartily," 1 am unclean, 1 am unclean," before he will longand labour to wash in that most sovereign and soul-savingfountain, opened to the house of David and to the inhabitantsof Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness " (Zech.xiii, 1). He must sell all, before he will be willing andeager to buy the treasure hid in the field.CHAP. IV.Four particnlar directions for the avoiding this error. I. How theLaw is to be pressed. II. How the Gospel to be preached. III. HowChrist to be proposed. IV. How pardon to be assured. Am! waysto be used for the putting of these directions in practice.Now thus to prepare, wound, afflict, and humble the soulthat it may be fitted for Jesus Christ, and so for comfortupon good ground, let ministers, or whosoever meddle inmatters of this nature, publicly or privately, use all warrantablemeans, let them press the law, promise mercy,propose Christ, &cc., do what they will seasonably andwisely. Let them improve all their learning, wisdom, discretion,mercifulness, experience, wit, eloquence, sanctifiedunto them for that purpose, so that the work be done.I. In pressing the law, besides other dexterities and directionsfor managing their ministry in this point successfullyby God's blessing, let them take notice of this particular,which may prove very available to begin this legalwork.It is a principle attended with much success.Pressing upon men's consciences with a zealous, discreetpowerfulness their special, principal, fresh bleeding sins,is a notable means to break their hearts and bring them toremorse. That most heinous and bloody sin of killingJesus Christ, in which they had newly imbrued their hands,pressed upon the consciences of Peter's hearers, breaks andtears their hearts in pieces (Acts ii, 23, 36, 37). So adultery,secretly intimated by Christ's words unto the womanof Samaria (John iv, 18), seems to have struck her tothe heart (ver. 19). So the Jews having idolatry pressedupon their consciences by Samuel (1 Sam. vii, 6) ; thesin of asking a king (1 Sam. xii, 19) ;usury by Nehemiah(chap. V, 12) ; strange wives by Ezra (chap, x, 9), werethereupon mightily moved and much softened in theirhearts, as appears in the cited places. Consider for thispurpose that work upon David's heart by Nathan's minis-