A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

204 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGthe Holy Ghost, spiritual joy unspeakable and glorious,nearer familiarity with God, dearer communion with JesusChrist, &ic. ; to which the pleasures ot ten thousand worlds,were they all to be enjoyed at once, were but extremestpain. If thou lose thine husband, he that made thee willbe in his stead unio thee, " Thy Maker is thine husba:id,the Lord of Hosts is his name " (Isa. liv, 5). Jf thou losethy father, the all-sufficient Jehovah, blessed for ever, " willpity thee as a father pitieth his children " (Psalm ciii, 13).if thou lose thy friends and the world's favour, thou shalthave all and the only excellent upon earth to love theedearly, and to pray heartily for thee (Psalm xvi, 3) ; in aword, if thou lose all for Christ's sake, he will be unto thee" all in all" (Coloss. iii, 11). And in him all things shallbe thine in a faj more sweet and eminent manner. " Allthings are yours, whether Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, orthe world, or life, or death, or things present, or things tocome; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ isGod's" (1 Cor. iii, 21, 22, 23).VI. When the spiritual physician shall see the soil of hispatient's heart well softened with sorrow for sin, comfortablywarmed with refieshing beams of favour from the faceof Christ, and so seasonably fitted to enter a Christiancourse, and to " bring forth fruits meet for repentance," lethim throw in some timely seeds of zeal, holy preciseness,undaunted courage, and unshaken resolution about theaffairs of heaven, and in the cause of God ; from suchquickening scriptures and excellent examples as these,Luke xiii, 24 ; Rom. xii, 11, 12 ; Kphes. v, 15 ; Phil, i, 10,11; Matt, xi, 12; Revel, iii, 16; Ruth iv, 11; Esther iv,16; Nehem. vi, 11 ; 1 Kings xxii, 14; Heb. xi, 24, 25;1 Sam. XX, 32 ; Acts xxi, 13, &c. that it may be happilypreserved from the rank and flourishing, but rotten andfruitless weed of formality and lukewarmness ; which pestilentcanker, if it once take root in the heart, it will neversuffer the herb of grace, if 1 may so speak, the heavenlyunfading flowers of saving grace, to grow by it while theworld stands. Nay, and will prove one of the strongestblots to bar them out ; and the most boisterous cart- rope topull down extraordinary vengeance upon the head of theparty. For as a loathsome vomit is to the stomach of himthat casts it out, so are lukewarm professors to the LordJesus (Revel, iii, 10). 1 marvel many times what suchmen mean, and what worship, service, and obedience theywould have the mighty Lord of heaven and earth to accept.He offers to us in the ministry his own blessed Son to beour dear and everlasting husband, his person with all the