A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

168 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGagainst thee ; and this threefold cord is hardly broken ;these three giants will be mastered with very much ado. Thefarther thou waikest in the ways of death, the more unwillingand more unable wilt thou be to return and be reformed.Thine understanding will be more darkened withhellish mists ; tliy judgment more perverted ; thy will morestubborn ; thy memory more stufted with sensual notions ;thine affections will become more rebellious ; thy thoughtsmore earthly ; thine heart more hardened ; thy consciencemore seared ; thyself more sold to sin ; and every day thatcomes over thine head in this state of darkness, much morethe child of the devil than thou wast before. To refuseChrist upon this point so freely and fairly offered, is to receiveGod's curse under seal, and to make sure thy covenantwith hell and league with death, until thou be slainby the one and swallowed up of the other, without all mercyor recovery. For in this time of delay God grows moreangry, Satan more strong, thyself more unable to repent,sin more unconquerable, thy conversion more hard, thy salvationmore impossible. A ruinous house, the longer thoulettest it run, the more labour and charge will it require inrepairing. If thou drive a nail with a hammer, the more blowsthou givest to it, the more hard will it be to draw it out again.It isjust so in the case of continuing in sin; and every new sinis a new stroke with a hammer that drives the nail in farther.Secondly, with what possibility art thou likely to passthrough the great work of saving repentance ] or with whatheart canst thou address thyself unto it ^ when upon thysick bed thou art set upon at once, if thy conscience bewaking, with the ugly sight of all thy sins charging uponthee vvith insupportable horror, with the pangs of death,with Satan's utmost malice and his very powder-plot, andwith the terror of that approaching strict tribunal ;winch dreadful encounter is able to put to it the spiritualstrength of many years gathering. Thirdly, resolution todefer repentance, when grace is offered, doth justly meritto be deprived for ever after of all opporunity and ability torepent. Fourthly ; it is just vvith God, that tliat man whodoth purposely put off repentance and provision for his souluntil his last sickness, should for that sin alone be snatchedout of the world in great anger, even suddenly, so that therebe scarce a moment betwixt the height of his temporal happinessand the depth of his spiritual misery. That his foolishhope may be frustrated and his vain purpose come to nothing; he may be cut off as the top of an ear of corn, andput out like a candle, when he least thinks of death, anddreams of nothing less than departure from his earthly