A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 22&3. By this time, being thus told and truly informed in themystery and mercy of the gospel, the poor wounded andweary soul begins to be deeply and dearly enamoured ofJesus Chi ist. 'l"o advance him highest in his thoughts, asthe only jewel and joy of his heart, without which he hathbeen heretofoie a dead man, and shall hereafter be sunk mendless perdition ; to prefer and pnze him far above thepleasures, riches, and glory of the whole earth ; to set his.eye and longing so upon him, as to hold himself lost foreverwithout his love. Nay, in the case in which he now stands,he is most willing for a sound and saving cure to passthrough a piece of hell, if need were, to such a heavenlyphysician, in whose blessed person alone, as he hears, allthe riches of mercy, goodness, compassion, and comfort areto be found, and in whom are hid and heaped up the fulnessof grace and treasures of all perfection. So that now thecurrent of his best affections, and all the powers of his humbledsoul are wholly bent and directed towards him, as thesunflower towards the sun, the iron to the loadstone, andthe loadstone to tlie pole star : to whom the nearer he draws,the more heartily it grieves him that ever he pierced sosweet and dear a Saviour with such a former impure, loathsomelife, and so many abominable and now most abhorredprovocations.4. I'pon this discovery, survey, and admiration of this" pearl of great price," this rich treasure, the now trulybroken and contrite heart doth cast about by all means howto compass it. Oh ! what would he now give for the sweetfruition and ravishing possession of it ! Heart's blood, life,lying in hell for a season, were nothing in this case. Theimperial crowns and command of ten thousand worlds,could they be all enjoyed at once, would be in his thoughtsbut as dust in the balance laid in the scale against JesusChrist. But these things are not required at his hands. Atlast he happily hits upon that which God would have him ;he even resolves to " sell all that he hath," to part with allsin, though it should be as dear and as much doated upon asthat compared to a right eye or right hand ; be it that whichhath kept him longest in hell, most wasted the conscience,and stuck closest to his bosom ; I mean his captain corruption,master lust, or dearest delight, he will spare none, hewill quite depart from Sodom, he will not leave so much asa hoof behind. For he well now remembers what he hathoften heard heietofore, though then he took no heed, thatthe Lord Jesus and any one allowed lust are never wont tolodge together in the same soul.