A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

198 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGOther-upon it as the small rain upon the parched grass.wise—(1.) Thou ofFerest dishonour and disparagement as itwere to the dearness and tenderness of God's mercy, whois ever infinitely more ready and forward to bind up abroken heart, than it to bleed before him*. Consider forthis purpose the parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv, 11) ;he is there said to go, but the father ran.(2.) Thou mayest by the unsettledness of thy heavyheart unnecessarily unfit and disable thyself for the dutiesand discharge of both thy callings.(3.) Thou shalt gratify the devil, who will labour mightilyby his lying suggestions (if thou wilt not be counselled andcomforted when there is cause) to detain thee in perpetualhorror here, and in an eternal hell hereafter. Some findhim as furiously and maliciously busy to keep them fromcomfort when they are fitted, as from fitness for comfort.(4.) Thou ait extremely unadvised, nay, very cruel to thineown soul. For whereas it might now be filled with " unspeakableand glorious joy" (1 Pet. i, 8), with " peace thatpasseth all understanding" (Phil, iv, 7), with evangelicalpleasures, which are such as " neither eye hath seen norear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man"(1 Cor. ii, 9), by taking Christ, to which thou hast a strongand manifold calling— " Ho ! every one that thirsteth, comeye to the waters," &c. (Isa. Iv, 1) " Come unto me ; all yethat labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"(Matt, xi, 28) "; If any man thirst, let him come unto meand drink'* (John vii, 37) ; "and let him that is athirst,come : and whosoever will, let him take the water of lifefreely" (Revel, xxii, 17) yea, a commandment —;"Andthis is his commandment, that we should believe on thename of his Son Jesus Christ" ( 1 John iii, 23) :—and yet,for all this, thou as it were wilfully standest out, will not" believe the prophets," forsakest thine own comfort, andliest still upon the rack of thy unreconcilement unto God.Secondly. On the other hand, when the anguish of thyguilty conscience is upon sure ground something allayedand suppled with the oil of comfort, and thy woundedheart warrantably revived with the sweetness of the proraises,as with " marrow and fatness," thou must not then* "And therefore will the LorJ wait that he may be gracious untoyou" (Isa. XXX, 18). "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and notcomforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundationswith sapphires" (isa. liv, II). "He rctaineth not his angerfor ever, because lie delighteth in mercy" (Micah vii, 18).