A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 239strengthen our consolation ; and therefore every heart trueunto Christ ought hence to hold fast, not a faint, wavering,inconstant ; but a strong, stedfast, and unconquerable comfort.Otherwise it sacrilegiously, as it were, robs God ofthe glorious end for which he swore.5. The free love of God ; which, how rich and glorious,how bottomless and boundless a treasure it is of all gracioussweetness, abundant comfort, and endless bounty, appearsin this ; that Jesus Christ blessed for ever, that invaluable,incomparable jewel, came out of it. " For Godso loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, buthave everlasting life" (Johniii, 16): and therefore everysincere servant of Christ, who upon a serious and sad surveyof his Christian ways, finds himself to come so farshort of that which God requires and himself desires, thathis prayers are very faint, his sorrow for sin very scant,his love unto the brethren too cold, his spending the sabbathsvery unfruitful, his spiritual growth since he gave hisname to Christ very poor, his profiting by the means he enjoysmost unanswerable to the power and excellency thereof,his new obedience almost nothing, &c. (for so he iswont to vilify himself) : whereupon he is much cast down ;and out of this apprehension of his manifold unworthinessconcludes against himself, that he hath little cause to beconfident in the promises of life ; or to presume of any partand interest in Jesus Christ ; and so begins to retire the .trembling hand of his already very weak faith from anymore laying hold of comfort :— I say, in such a case, beingtrue hearted, he may safely and upon sure ground have recourseto this ever-springing fountain of immeasurablemercy ; and raise up his drooping soul against all contraryoppositions, with unspeakable and glorious refreshing, fromsuch places as these: "I will love thee freely" (Hos.xiv, 4)"; Ho ! every one that thirsteth, come ye to thewaters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eatyea, come, buy wine and milk, without money, and withoutprice." " I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressionsfor ray own sake, and will not remember thy sins "(Isa. Iv, 1 ;and xliii, 25) "; I will give unto him that isathirst of the fountain of the water of life fieely " (Revel,xxi, 6). God never set the promises on sale, or will eversell his S n to any. He never said, just so much sorrow, somuch sanctity, so much service, or no Christ ; but he evergives him freely. Every truly humbled heart, which willtake him at the hands of God's free love, as a husband tobe saved by him and to serve him in truth, may have him