A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

170 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGwill wake them, and dry up the besotting humours; so inour dead security before our conversiou, God is pleased tolet the law, sin, conscience, and Satan loose upon us, andto kindle the fire ofhell in our souls, that so we might beroused. Our sins stick close unto us as the prisoners' bolts,and we are shut up under them as in a strong prison ;andtherefore, unk ss as once in Paul and Silas's case an earthquake,so here there come a mighty heart-quake, violentlybreaking open the prison doors and shaking oft' our fetters,never shall we get our liberty," *5lC.Thus we see what a mighty work of the law and of thespirit of bondage there must be to prepare for Christ, andhow requisite ii is both for the glorifying of God's justiceand mercy, and also for the furtherance of our justificationand sanctihcation. For illustration of which point, besidesall that hath been said before, 1 have more willingly in thislast passage pressed at large the authority of so great a divine(in which I hope I have not swerved from his sense),because he is without exception, both for holiness andlearning ; and so his sincere and orthodox judgment morecurrent and passable.CHAP, XI.Objection against the former Doctrine. Differences between legalTerrors in Ihe Elect and others.Object. But hence, it may be, some troubled soul maytake up a complaint and say : Alas ! if it be thus, whatshall 1 think of myself f I do not remember that ever 1tasted so deeply of such terrors and legal troubles as youseem to require. 1 have not been so humbled and terrified,nor had such experience of that state under the " spirit ofbondage " as you talk of, &c. ; and therefore you have castscruples into my conscience about the truth and soundnessof my conversion.Answer. I answer : in this work of the " spirit of bondage" ; in this case of legal terrors, humiliations, and otherpreparative dispositions, we do not prescribe precisely justsuch a measure and quantity : we do not determine peremptorilyupon such or such a degree or height ; we leave thatto tlie wisdom of our great Master in heaven, the " onlywise God/' who is a most free agent ; but sure we are aman must have so much, and in that measure, as to bringhim to Christ. It must make him weary of all his sins, andof Satan's bondage wholly ; willing " to pluck out his right