A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

232 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGtreacherous insinuation of thy own false heart, and furiousreassault of thy former bosom sin, thou shouldst be overtakengrossly with some grievous sin and scandalous fall,and then upon illumination, remorse, and meditation ofreturn, reason thus within thyself— : "Alas', what shall 1do now ? I have undone all. I have wofully again defiledmy soul, so fairly washed in my .Saviour's blood, with thatdisavowed sin of my unregenerate time. I have shamedmy profession, disgraced religion for ever ; I have broke myvows, lost my peace, and my wonted blessed communionwith God : and therefore what hope can I have of any acceptanceagain at the throne of grace?"— I say in this case,to keep thee from sinking, cast thine eye upon Aaron,David, Peter, who, returning with sound and hearty repentance,were mercifully received into as great favour asthey were before. But God forbid that any professor ofreligion should ever fall so foully, especially in this gloriousmid-day of evangelical light.(3.) Art thou languishing under the heavy desolations ofa spiritual desertion, and deprived of thy former comfortablefeelings of God's favourable countenance 1 Look upon David:" I remembered God, and was troubled. I complained,and my spirit was overwhelmed. I am so troubledthat I cannot speak. My soul refused to be comforted"(Psalm Ixxvii). Nay, upon Jesus Christ himself, crying,"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me 1" (Matt,xxvii, 46.)(4.) Art thou haunted with some of Satan's most hatefuland horrible injections, grisly to the eye even of corruptednature ; thoughts framed by himself immediately and putinto thee, perhaps tending to atheism, or to tlie dishonourof God in the highest degree, or of his blessed word ; toself-destruction, or the like?— thoughts which thou canstnot remember without horror, and darest not reveal or namefor their strange and prodigious monstrousness ? If it bethus with thee, consider how this malicious fiend dealt withthe Son of God himself. He offered to his most holy andunspotted imagination these propositions: First, murderand make away with thyself (Matt, iv, 6). Secondly, falldown and worship the devil (ver. 9) ; thaa which, a foulerthought I think was never injected ; that Jesus Christ,blessed for ever, in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily, shouldfall down and worship the devil, the vilest of creatures.And yet this was suggested to our blessed Saviour ; towhich his purest heart, infinitely incapable of sin, was as abrass wall to an arrow, beating it back presently with infinitecontempt, and himself did utterly conquer and confound