A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 209some puritanical ministry and dangerous temptations todespair. And therefore they hie out of them as fast as theycan, by posting after worldly pleasures, pastimes, plays,music, gaming, merry company, jovial meetings of goodfellowship, taverns, ale-houses, visits, entertainments, improvementof their chief carnal contentment, &,c. ; if not towizards and even to light a candle at the devil for lightsomenessef heart. Thus, I know not whether with moresin or folly, they endeavour to come unto themselves againby the mirth and madness of wine, earthly joy, carnalcounsel, &c. ; wherein they are not unlike those idolatrousIsraelites, who while they burnt up their children in sacrificeto Moloch, filled iheir ears with noise of instruments,lest by the rueful cries of their little babes they should bemoved to pity, and so stayed in the cruel service of thatblood-sucking idol. Just so these men of pleasure and perditiondo sinlully seek to stop the guilty clamours of theirvexed consciences with the comforts of this life and sensualjoy, while their souls are sacrificing to Satan, and makingfit fuel for the fire of hell, lest by listening to their criesand controlments they should be stirred up to take compassionof their own poor immortal souls, and be stoppedin the pursuit of their fugitive follies and delights of sense.But, alas ! in so doing they are also like a man in a burningfever, who lets down cold drink eagerly and merrily,because in the extremity of thirst it cools him a little ;butafter a wliile he shall find the heat, the pain, and thedanger all doubled upon him. Earthly pleasures may forthe present still the noise of an accusing conscience, andseem somewhat to allay its guilty rage, but assuredly theywill afterwards kindle such a fire in the bowels of thesemiserable men as will burn even to the very bottom of hell,and blow them up body and soul with irrecoverable ruinfor ever. He that goes about to cure the wound of his consciencefor sin with sensual delight, is as if to help thetoothache he should knock out his brains, or when he isstung with a wasp siiould rub with a nettle the smartingplace, or finding no good by physic should run unto wizardsas if in extremity of thirst he should drink rank poison toquench it, apply a venomous plaister to his sore, and propup his falling roof with burning firebrands ; remedies farworse and more pestilential than the malady, for theyeither plunge them deeper into the dungeon of melancholyand heavy-heartedness, or else draw a skin only over thespiritual wound, whereby it festers and rankles underneathmore dangerously. For thus stopping the mouth of that1 3