A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 279tell thee, these hearty longings and lorkging desires in themean time, until God give more strength, be right dear tothat tender-hearted Father of thine, who doth infinitelymore esteem one groan or sigh from a broken spirit, than" a thousand rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil," and aremost precious and piercing to that compassionate heart, thatpoured out its warmest and dearest blood to purchase thesalvation and refresh the sadness of every truly humbledsoul. Ground upon it then, and be of good cheer. If thytroubled spirit, filled with the sense of the want of its formersweet and joyful feelings, find in itself a true and heartylonging after the supply of that want; a constant and conscientiouspursuit of all holy means for the procurement ofthat supply, I can assure thee in the word of life and truth,in God's season thou shalt be satisfied. " He will fulhl thedesire of them tliat fear him ; he also will hear their cryand will save them" (Psalm cxlv, 19). And this blessedpromise for the accomplishment of thy desire is as surelythine as the breath in thy body. He must sooner cease tobe God, and deny himself, which is more than infinitelyimpossible and prodigious blasphemy to imagine, than failin the least circumstance or syllable of all his love and promisesof life to any one that heartily loves him. All thesacred sayings in his holy book, and all those promises ofsalvation, are signed with the hand of truth itself, and sealedwith the blood of his beloved Son ; and so are far surer thanthe pillars of the earth, or poles of heaven : for heaven andearth must pass away before any tittle of his word fall untothe ground ; and therefore, as he will most certainly pourupon the hairy pate of every one which hates to be reformedall the plagues and curses threatened there, even to theleast spark of the flames of hell ; and the last drop of thefull vials of his infinite, endless, unquenchable wrath ; sowill he abundantly make good to every upright soul, sincerelythirsting after Jesus Christ, in the best time, all thepromised good in his blessed book, and that above all expectation,expression, or imagination.Fourthly. Thou mayest be in many ways distressed uponthy bed of death.1. Casting thine eye back upon thy whole life, all thysins from Adam to that hour, and willing, as thou mustnow take thy farewell so to take thy fill of repentance ;theyappear to the eye of thy conscience far more in number, andmore ugly than ever before. And no marvel ; for beingnow sequestered for ever from all worldly comforts andcompany, distractions and diversions, and the clouds ofnatural fear, raised by the dreadful circumstances of ap-