A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 137joy, peace, and refreshing? Now the Lord rebuke thee,Satan, and return as dung upon thine own face this villanous,base, and wicked slander, which by thy graceless instrumentsthou labourest to cast upon the glorious face ofChristianity, the incomparable sweetness of the ways ofgrace, and that one necessary thing- 1 have known, whenthe cnly wise God hath suffered, for ends seen and seeminggood to his heavenly wisdom, the hideous and raging humourof melancholy to darken the native clearness of theanimal spirits in the brain, requisite to a due discretion ofthings apprehended, and to blunder and disorder the objectsand operations of the imagination in ins dearest child,even to distraction and breaking out into that inordinatepassion against reason;— 1 say, then, the concurrent cryand clamour of the enemies of the power of godliness to be," This it is now to be so bookish, to follow preachers somuch, to be more holy than their neighbours, never to havedone in serving of God." " Her so much reading thescriptures, and such poring upon precise books (so they callthose which most pierce the conscience, and guide theclearest in the holy path) hath made her stark mad. Thepuritan is now beside herself," 6lC. Now I say again, theLord rebuke thee, Satan, who sits vinth such extreme maliceand soul-killing folly in the hearts and heads of suchmiserable men, whom thou so sottishly hoodwinks, andhardens to the height for a most desperate downfal andhorrible confusion at last.Were now the glorified soul of that blessed saint consultedwith and asked, Didst thou ever receive hurt by readingGod's blessed book ; by searching sweetly into the greatmystery of Christ ciucified ; by meditation upon heavenlytilings 1 Did th.e sacred sense of those divine oracles unsettlethy noble faculties, or ever make sad thy heart 1 6cc.Oh ! with what infinite indignation would it fly in the faceof such cursed cavillers and wranglers against the truth.Is it possible for the sole and sovereign antidote sent fromheaven by God himself against the sting and venom of allheart grief and horror, the sacred sun of saving truth, whichis only able to ennoble and glorify our understandings withwisdom from the breast of the everlasting counsel of JesusChrist, should become the cause of discomfort and dissettlementof the soul 1 No, no. There is such a quickening,healing, and mighty efficacy and vigour shed into it fromthe Father of lights, and shining in it from the face of Christ,that by the heli of the blessed Spirit, it can turn darknessinto light, death into life, hell into heaven, the deepesthorroJ" into height of jov- 1 ell me of any misery upon theN 3