A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

—;210 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGnever-dying worm, that insatiable wolf in the mean timedoth make it, when there is no more supply of carnal pleasureswhereupon it feeds for a while, to fall more furiouslyupon the conscience that bred it, and to gnaw more raginglyby reason of its former restraint and enforced diversion.I know full well, Satan is right well pleased, and dothmuch applaud this pestilent course of theirs, and thereforehe helps forward this accursed business all he can, of abandoningand banishing all trouble of mind for sin withworldly toys. For ordinarily out of his cruel cunning thushe proceeds in these cases :1. In the first place, and above all, he labours mightand main to detain men in that height of hard-heartedness,that they may not be moved at all with the ministry, orsuffer the sword of the Spirit to pierce. And then like " astrong man armed" he possesseth their bodies and souls,which are his palace, with much peace, and disposeth themwholly in any hellish service at his pleasure. Thus heprevails with a world of men amongst us. They hear sermonafter sermon, judgment upon judgment, and yet are nomore stirred with any penitent astonishment for sin or savingwork of the word, than the very seats whereon they sit, thepillars to which they lean, or dead bodies upon which theytread. They are ordinarily such as these:—First; Ignorantsof two sorts :(1.) Unskilled both in the rules of reasonand religion ; such are our extremely sottish and grosslyignorant people, which swarm among us in many places,to the great dishonour of the gospel, by reason of the wantof catechising and other discipline. (2.) Led by the lightof natural conscience to deal something honestly, but idiotsin the great mystery of godliness ; such are our merelycivil honest men. Secondly ; Those that are wise in theirown conceits (Isa. v, 21), being strongly persuaded of theirgood estate to God-ward, whereas, as yet, they have nopart at all in the first resurrection : such as those,Matt, vii, 22; and xxv, 11. Thirdly ; All such as are resolvednot to take sin to heait (See Isa. xxviii, 15). Theseeither, (1.) iMake God all of mercy; (2.) Or preserve asecret reservation in their hearts to repent hereafter(3.) Or have so prodigiously hardened their hearts that theyfear not the judgment to come (4.) Or with execrablevillany desire to extinguish;the very notions of a Deity bya kind of an affected atheism, and, being drowned in sensuality,labour not to believe the word of God, that theymay sin without all check or reluctance.