A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

:AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 315most pait," saith a great divine, " the violence of humiliationin the calling of a sinner, is according to the continuanceand greatness of his actual transgressions. Accordingto the same is the rent in the conscience and soul. Therefore,if there be any who hath been a great and grievoussinner, and hath not with violence been pulled fromhis sin, he may do well to suspect and search himselfsoundly."(2.) He may sometimes suffer a notorious sinner to passsomething more easily and with less terror though the pangsof the new birth. But then such a one is wont to walkmore humbly before God all his life after, for that he wasnot humbled with more remarkableness of penitent remorseand spiritual anguish in his conversion ; and so extensionand continuance of godly grief that he was not more grieved,makes up as it were that desired intensity and extremity ofpangs which might justly have pained him in his passingfrom death to life. Every hearty and sensible complaintthat the pangs of the new birth were not more painful andproportionable to the pollutions of his youth, is, as it were,and in the sense 1 have said, a pang of the new birth. Orelse upon some occasion afterward in his Christian coursehe may be revisited and vexed afresh with more terror andtrouble of conscience than in his first change ;as in suchcases as these :— 1st. If he should (which God forbid !) bysome violent enticement and snaring opportunity be entangledagain and reinfected with any former sensual pleasureof his unregenerate time ; or by neglect of his care andwatchfulness over his ways be suddenly surprised with somenew scandalous sin. 2diy. Upon the assault of some extraordinaryfrighting temptation, or pressing of hideous thoughtsupon his melancholic imagination. 3dly. When some heavycross or sickness* after many prosperous days shall seize uponhim, which may lie sore and long. 4thly. Upon his bed ofdeath ; especially if he fall upon it immediately after some relapse,backsliding, or new wound ofconscience. There is a kindof natural power besides God's special hand in sickness,sorrow, darkness, melancholy, the night, extraordinarycrosses, the bed of death, to represent the true number and* David, Psalm xxxviii, beinsr put in mind by his sickness of Ciod'swrath against sin, was full sorely afflicted in soul ; so that lie cries" There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger : neither isthere any rest in my bones, because of my sin. For mine iniquitiesare gone over mine head; as a heavy burthen they are too heavy forme. I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all theday long. I am feeble and sore broken ; I have roared by reason ofthe distjuietiiess of my heart. My sorrow is continually before me."