A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 273vour to action ; from action to habit ; from habit to somecomfortable perfection and stature in Christ. If it bequite quenched and extinguished when the spiritual anguishand agony is over, or stand at a stay, never transcendingthe nature of a naked wish, it is to be reputedrootless, heartless, graceless. There are Christians that lieas yet, as it were, struggling in the womb of the church,who, for a time at the least, live spiritually only by grievingsand groans, by hearty desires, eager longings, and affectionatestirrings of spirit : there are also babes in Christyoung men in Christ; strong men in Christ ; old Christians.A perpetual infancy argues a nullity of sound and savingChristianity. The child that never passeth the stature andstate of an infant will prove a monster. He that grows notby the sincere milk of the word is a true changeling, nottruly changed. He that rests with contentment upon a desireonly of good things, never desired them savingly. Buthere, lest any tender conscience be unnecessarily troubled,1 must confess, it is not so growing as I have said, or not sosensibly, at certain times— as while the pangs of the newbirthare upon us, in times of desertion, temptation, thougheven then it grows in a holy impatiency, restlessness, andlonging, which is well-pleasing unto the Father of mercies,and which he accepts graciously until he give morestrength.CHAP. X.Two especial Times wlierein the former Principle is to be applied.The point thus cleared is very sweet and sovereign ; butso that no carnal man must come near it, no stranger meddlewith it, much less swine trample upon it. It is a jewel forthe true-hearted Nathanael's wearing alone. Nay, theChristian himself, in the time of his soul's health, height offeeling, and flourishing of his faith, must hold off his handonly let him keep it fresh and orient in the;cabinet of hismemory, as a very rich pearl against the day of spiritualdistress. As precious and cordial waters are to be givenonly in swoonings, faintings, and defection of the spirits ;so this delicious manna is to be ministered specially, andto be made use of in the straits and extremities of the soul,at such times and in such cases as these : In1. The strugglings of the new-birth.2. Spiritual desertions.