A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 155Hear that great doctor in the art of rightly comforting afflictedconsciences, Greenhara, in his Grave Counsel andGodly Observation ": But what if you should die in thisdiscomfort? For my part (as I myself look for no great thingsin my death ) 1 would not think more hardly of you ;neitherwould I wish any to judge otherwise of God's child inthat state of death. For we shall not be judged accordingto that particular instant of death, but according to ourgeneral course of life ; not according to our deed in thatpresent, but according to the desireof our hearts ever before.And therefore we are not to mistrust God's mercy in death,be we never so uncomfortable, if so be it hath been beforesealed in our vocation and sauctification."On the other side, a notorious wretch, who hath swamdown the current of the times, and wallowed in worldlypleasures all his life long, may seem to die penitently, andresolvedly to be reformed if he recover ; and yet his sorrowof mind may be such only as the terrors of an awakenedguilty conscience produce ; and his resolution to cast awayhis sins, only such as a man hath in a storm to cast away hisgoods, not because he doth not love them, but because hefeareth to lose his life ifhe part not with them. Or a mere civilman, or formal professor, may upon his bed of death be veryconfident and seem to be full of comfort, and yet that confidenceno other than the strong imaginary joyful conceit of acovetous man grasping a great deal of gold in a dream, butwhen he awaketh, behold his hands are empty.For a more full and clear apprehension of my meaningand judgment in the point, let us take a survey of the differentand several kinds of death which ordinarily befal thegodly and the wicked.The deaths of God's children are divers —:(1.) Some of their holy and zealous lives do determineand expire sweetly, fairly, and gloriously, even like a clearsun in a summer's evening, without any storm or cloud oftemptation and discomfort. The darksome and painfulpassages and pangs oi death are enlightened and sweetenedwith the shining beams of God's glorious presence, and fasterabracement of Jesus Christ in the arms of their laith. Sothat to them the very joys of heaven and exultations of everlastingrest mingle themselves with those last agonies andexpirations of death. Their heads are, as it were, crownedwith immortality and endless peace upon their beds of death.Luther, that blessed man of God, died sweetly and triumphantlyover hell, the pope, and the devil. " My iieavenlyFather," said he at his death, "eternal and merciful God,thou hast manifested unto me thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus