A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 183uiirth, carnal advice, soul -slaying flatteries of men-pleasingministers, plunging desperately into variety of sensualpleasures, 6cc.7. He who after the boisterous tempest of legal terrors,hath happily arrived at the port of peace, 1 mean thatblessed peace " which passeth all understanding," madewith God himself in the blood of his Son, enters presentlythereupon into the good way, takes upon him the yoke ofChrist, and serves him afterwards "in holiness and righteousnessall the days of his life," and ordinarily his deeperhumiliation is an occasion of his more humble, precise,holy, and strict walking, and of more watchfulness overhis heart and tenderness of conscience about lesser sins also,all occasions of scandal, appearances of evil, even aberrationsin his best actions and holiest duties. But aliens,when once they be taken off the rack, and their torture determine,either become just the same men they were before,or else reform only some one or other gross sin which stuckmost upon their consciences, but remain unamended andunmortified in the rest; or else, which often comes to pass,grow a great deal worse : for they are, as it were, angrywith God that he should give them a taste of hell-fire beforetheir time ; and therefore knowing their time but short, fallupon earthly delights more furiously, and engross and graspthe pleasures of the world with more greediness and importunity.CHAP. XII.Instructions for the avoiding this fault of applying comfort too soou.These things thus premised, I come to tell you, that for therectifying of the forementioned error, and prevention of thedanger of daubing and undoing for ever in a matter of soweighty importance, I would advise the spiritual physicianto labour with the utmost improvement of all his divineskill, heavenly wisdom, best experience, heartiest prayers,most piercing persuasions pressed out of the word for thaipurpose, wisely to work and watchfully to observe the seasonwhen he may warrantably and upon good ground applyunto the wounded soul of his spiritually sick patient assuredcomfort in the promises of life, and that sovereign bloodwhich was spilt for broken hearts, and assure him in theword of truth, that all those rich compassions which liewithin the compass of that great covenant of everlasting mercyand love, sealed with the painful sufferings of the Son of