A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

208 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGconscience by their insatiable surfeit in sin, and greedy" drinking in iniquity like water," grows so strong and tosuch a strange bigness, that taking advantage, especiallyin the time of terror, of their weakness and confusion ofspirit upon the bed of death, at some season of irrecoverabledanger, it surprises them upon the sudden with unexpectedhellish armies of guiltiness and horror, and overthrowsthem quite, horse and man, never to rise again inthis world or the world to come. Then would those wofulwretches who would never be warned betinie, give tenthousand worlds, if they had them, for one moment of thatmerciful time of grace which they have cursedly long abused,for the benefit of the ministry which they have insolentlyscorned, for a drop of that precious blood which by theirdesperate villanies and hatred to be reformed they havetrampled under foot. But, alas ! no mercy, no blessing,no comfort will then be had, though, with profane Esau,they seek it with tears, and throw their rueful and piercingcries into the air with hideous groans and yelling. Andtherefore turning their eye upon their torments will roarout like those sinful hypocrites, Isaiah xxxiii, 14, with unutterableanguish of spirit, " Who among us shall dwellwith the devouring fire 1 who among us shall dwell witheverlasting burnings'?" "In the morning they shall say,Would God it were even ; and at even they shall say,Would'God it were morning ; for the fear of their heartswherewith they shall fear, and for the sight of their eyeswhich they shall see" (Deut. xxviii, 67). In their lifetimethey behaved themselves like cruel beasts and bloodygoads in the sides of the saints and against their sincerity ;and now at last themselves are caught with a witness, andlie upon their beds of extremity and terror " like wild bullsand beasts in a net, full of the fury of the Lord."JI. Others there are, who finding their sins discovered,and their consciences wounded by the light and power ofthe word, and now feeling sadness, heavy-heartedness,uncouth terrors, much perplexity and anxiety of spiritcoming upon them, address themselves presently and havespeedy recourse to the "arm of flesh," outward mirth,carnal contentment, and such other miserable comforters.They falsely suppose, and to their own utter and everlastingoverthrow, that these spiritual pangs that are now uponthem, which if rightly managed might prove a happy preparativeand legal artillery, as it were, to break the ironbars and open the everlasting doors of their souls that theKing of Glory might come in, be nothing but fits of melancholy,or sour and unseasonable eflects and impressions of