A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 213tlie Son hath everlastins life" (John iii, 36) Yea, but justifyingfaith purifies the heart (Acts xv, 9), fills it with dearaffections unto heavenly things, deadens it to the world, anddivorces it quite from all former carnal pleasures and companionship." I will give unto him that is athirst of thefountain of the water of life freely" (Revel, xxi, 6). Yea,but they thirst only for salvation, not for sanctification ;for mercy, not for grace ; for happiness, not for holiness,&c. These men, as well as the second sort, will by nomeans pass through the pangs of the new birth into theholy path. They wickedly misconceive, out of the rottenprinciples of their own worldly wisdom, prejudice againstthe power of godliness, and pestilent persuasions of " pillowsewersunder their elbows," that in so doing they shall beutterly undone and never have a good day afterward ; but,to speak in their own language, fall presently into the handsof the puritans, into the strict tortures and hypocriticalmiseries of preciseness, into sourness, unsociableness,nielancholy; and indeed into a state only a step short of distractionand madness. And these therefore cast about to getout of trouble of mind and sense of Divine terror with asgreat impatiency and precipitation as the former, only moreplausibly and with seemingly fairer, but truly false satisfactionto their own souls. For the former rush with furiousindignation out of these spiritual dejections of conscience,as unmanly fears not fit for worthy spirits and men of jovialresolution, into greater excess and variety of vyorldly delightsand sensual looseness ; and so ordinarily becomeafterward very notorious and more desperate enemies to thekingdom of Christ. Jiecause the power of the word hathonce stung their carnal hearts with some remorseful terror,they ever after heartily hate the sound and searchingministry, and managers thereof, the inflicters of theirsmart ; for no other reason in the world but that they tellthem the truth, and thereupon torment them before theirtime, that so, if they be not wanting unto themselves, theymay escape the torments of eternity hereafter. And theyset themselves against godly Christians with incompatibleestrangement and implacable spite, only because they areprofessors of self-denial, holy strictness, nonconformity tothe world, repentance, mortification, .Stc. ; the entertainmentand exercise whereof they furiously more detest andfly from, than the death of their bodies and damnation oftheir souls. But these latter pass more plausibly out oftrouble of conscience, and take a fairer course of the two,though it prove but an imaginary and counterfeit cure. Forthey labour to close up their spiritual wourwl with comfort