A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

INTRODUCTION.xixof their own hearts, have even many years afterwardssought the melancholy relief to be derived from confessionand submission to justice." Fortune," says Seneca*, " may free men from vengeance,but it cannot free them from fear : it cannotfree them from the knowledge of that general scornand disgust which nature has so deeply fixed in allmankind against the crimes which they have perpetrated.Amid the security of a thousand concealments,they cannot think themselves secure from that hatredwhich seems ever ready to burst upon them ; for conscienceis still with them, like a treacherous informer,pointing them out to themselves."To these may be added the testimony of a modernwriter f, who was scarcely less under the influence ofChristianity.*' The wicked man fears and flies himself. He endeavoursto be gay by wandering out of himself. He turnsaround his unquiet eyes in search of some object ofamusement, that may make him forget what he really is.Even then his pleasure is only a bitter raillery ; withoutsome sneer or contemptuous sarcasm he would forever be sad. On the contrary, the serenity of a goodman is internal. His smile is not a smile of malignitybut of joy. He bears the source of it within himself.He is as gay when in the midst of the gay as whenalone. He does not derive his contentment from thosewho approach him, he communicates it to them."But these emotions, so prompt, so vivid, so independent,seem to render it probable that they arise,not from any acquired, but from an original suscepti-* Epistle 97. t Hoiisseaii.