A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

—;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 185highly prizeth Jesus Christ far above the riches, pleasures'and glory of the whole earth ; thirsts and longs for him infinitely: fourthly, that he is most willing " to sell all," topart with all sin, with his right eye and right hand, those lustsand delights which stuck closest to his bosom, not to leaveso much as a hoof behind ; fifthly, that he is content withall his heart to take Christ, as well for a lord and husband,to serve, love, and obey him, as for a Saviour to deliverhim from the miseries of sia ; to take upon him his yoke ;to enter into the narrow way and walk in the holy pathto associate himself to that sect which is " so spoken againsteverywhere" (Acts xxviii, 22); I say, when it is thuswith the afflicted party, and most happy is he when it isthus with him yet, notwithstanding, because God aloneis the;searcher of the heart, and the heart of man is deceitfulabove all things, we can assure mercy and pardononly conditionally, though by the mercy of God we do itmany and many times with strong and undeceiving confidence.We must ever add, either expressly or impliedly,such forms of speech as these : If all tliis which you professbe in truth ; if you be thus resolved indeed ; if these thingsbe so as you have said, why then we assure you in the wordof life and truth, your case is comfortable ;you maysweetly repose your troubled and truly humbled soul uponJesus Christ as your " wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,and redemption ;" upon all the promises of life, God'sfree grace, &c. as truly belonging unto you and certainlyyours for ever.Hear two master builders upon the matter, confirming thepresent point :1. "To think that it lieth in the power of any priest trulyto absolve a man from his sins, without implying the conditionof his believing and repenting as he ought to do, isboth presumption and madness in the highest degree *."2. " In the pardon whereby a priest pardonetht a sinner* Dr. Usl:er, in his Answer to a Jesuit's Challenge ; Of the Priest'spower to forsrive sins.t By pardoning here understand not any sovereis^nty of remittingsins; we leave that error to the Luciferian pride of that '• man of sin,who exalteth himself above all that is called God: " whom if we follow,we must say that in this high priest there is the fulness of all grace,because he alone giveth a full indulgence of all sins, that that mayagree unto him which we say of the chief prince our Lord, that "ofhis fulness all we have received " (De Regimine Principuura, lib. iii,cap. X, inter Opuscula Thoma;, num. 20). Nay, we nmst acknowledge,that the meanest in the whole army of priests that follows this king ofpride, hath such fulness of power derived unto him for the opening andshutting of heaven before men, "that foruiveness is denied to themR 3