A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

REV. ROBERT BOLTON.xxixHe was, according to his own confession,at this periodmuch addicted to the amusements of the theatreand of gaming ;practices, which although not condemnedby any explicit declaration of scripture, areyet infallibly renounced by the regenerated mind asinconsistent with its sympathies and desires. Healso discloses, for the purposes no doubt of glorifyingthe mercy and favour of God in his conversion,that he had been addicted to the sins of profaneswearing and sabbath-breaking; that he hailedthe festivals of the church as occasions on which hemight run into excesses, and derive a miserable anodyneto his conscience from the fact that they wereinstituted as seasons of joy. He describes in terms ofgenuine humiliation his regret when they ended, andhe could no longer mingle with society, and derivefrom the occasion a plea of unrestrained sensual enjoyments.Along with this absence of goodness inhimself he evinced the utmost disdain and contemptfor those who illustrated in their character the conductof the sincere Christian. He expressed his spleen bythe usual method of calling names, and says, that heconsidered when he could include a person within theappellation of Puritan, that he had succeeded in divestinghim of all claim to sincerity, talent, or learning.He describes himself to have peculiarly illustrated thisdisposition upon a commencement Sunday at Cambridge.An eminent minister of that day, of the nameof Perkins, was to preach. His remaining works showthat the estimation in which he was held was trulydeserved. He appears to have been regarded withmuch veneration by several prelates of the church, and