A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

yet126 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGNay, and besides the horribleness and heinousness of thesin, what height and perlection of madness is it? Thatwhereas a man but renouncing his base, rotten, transitory,sinful pleasures, followed continually at the heels withvengeance and horror, and only taking Jesus Christ, inwhom are hidden and heaped up the fulness of grace andtreasures of all perfection, might have thereupon (to saynothing of the excellency of his person, purchases of hispassioij, and possession of the most blessed Deity) a fulland free discharge thereby at the hands of so happy a husband,from every moment of the everlastingness of hellishtorments, and a deed presently sealed with his own heart'sblood, for an undoubted right to every minute of the eternityof heavenly joys -, should in cool blood most wickedlyand willingly, after so many entreaties, invitations, importunityonly for the good of his poor immortal soul, refusethe change! Heaven and earth may be astonished ; angelsand ail creatures may justly stand amazed at this prodigioussottishness and monstrous madness of such miserable men !The world is wont to call God's people precise fools, becausethey are willing to sell all they have for that one pearl ofgreat price ; to part with profits, or pleasures, preferments,their right hand, their right eye, every thing, any thing,rather than to leave Jesus Christ. But who do you thinknow are the true and great fools of the world ; and who arelikeliest one day to groan for anguish of spirit, and saywithin themselves, " This was he whom we had sometimesin derision, and a proverb of reproach 1We fools accountedhis life madness, and his end to be without honour. Nowis he numbered among the children of God, and his lot isamong the saints ; therefore have we erred from the way oftruth, andthelightof righteousness hath not shined unto us;and the sun of righteousness hath not rose upon us. Wewearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction.Yea, we have gone through deserts where there lay no way.But as for the way of the Lord, we have not known it. \\ hathath pride profited us, or what good hath riches with ourvaunting brought us 1 All these things are passed away likea shadow, and as a post that hasteth by."Nay, and yet further, besides the extraordinariness of theiniquity and folly in refusing Christ freely offered, it shallmost certainly be hereafter plagued with extremest tormentingfury, and most desperate gnashing of teeth. For withwhat infinite horror and restless anguish will this thoughtrend a man's heart in pieces, and gnaw upon his conscience,when he considers in hell, that he hath lost heaven for alust ; and whereas he might at every sermon had even tlie