A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

12BINSTRUCTIONS FOR COxMFORTINGsome mcasuie to shadow out and represent unto us the m-comparal)lo excellency of inward graces, the dignity, theglory, the spiritual fairness of Jesus Christ, that we mayknow that he is wholly and altogether lovely, delightful, andprecious. If our hearts are set upon ease and contentment,he can lead us to " fulness of joy and pleasures at God'sright hand for evermore." If we desire honourable alliance,he will bring us to " an innumerable company of angels, tothe general assembly and church of the firstborn, which arewritten in heaven ; and to God the judge of all, and to thespirits of just men made perfect." If we stand upon wealth,we shall have all things with him, which is a large possession.If we respect love, "greater love hath no manthan thii, that a man lay down his life for his friends"(John XV, 13): and he, " being the brightness of his Father'sglory, and the express image of his person," came downfrom his bosom, the well-spring of immortality and bliss,the fulness of joy and unapproachable light, into a house offlesh upon this base and miserable earth. He passed througha life lull of all manner of vexations, miseries, persecutions,indignities, slanders, speaking against of sinners, iS:c. Hewas so prodigiously slandered that they said he had a devil(John viii, 48) ; whereas " tlie fulness of the Godheaddweltin him bodily " (Col. ii, 9). He was cunningly huntedlong, and at last violently haled by a pack of hell-hounds toa cruel and bloodly death, which for the extremity andvariety of pains, for the enraged spite of the executioners,for the innocency and excellency of the person suffering,the like never was, shall, or can be endured. His passionswere such, so bitter and insupportable, that they wouldhave made any mere creature to have sunk down under theburthen of them to the bottom of hell. He was torturedextremely, and suffered grievous things both in body andsoul, from heaven, earth, and hell. His blessed body wasgiven up as an anvil to be beaten upon by the violent andvillanous hands of wretched miscreants, without all measureor mercy, until they had left no one part free from someparticular and special torment. His skin and flesh wererent with scourges, his hands and feet pierced with nails,his head with thorns, his very heart with a spear point. Allhis senses, all his parts, indeed his whole sacred body, wasmade a rueful spectacle to angels and to men, of all themost base and barbarous usage which malice could deviseand cruelty execute. Yet all this was but a shadow of hissuti'ering ; the substance of his suffering was the agony ofhis soul. Give me any affliction save the affliclion of themind; "for the spirit of a man," saith Solomon, "will