A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 323jects. Much ado many times and a great measure of humiliationwill hardly fright such vain over-valuers of themselvesand idolizers of their own sufficiency from their admiredfollie^. And here also Satan interposeth most furiously,and hinders this hai)py work all he can possibly ; forhe well knows, that if such noble and worthy parts shouldbe sanctified to the owners and turned the right way, hiskingdom would fare the worse and he should be a greaterloser. Suppose a Christian prince should with his armybreak into the Turk's dominion, would not the Turk fortifythose castles best, out of which being won, ihe enemymight do him most harm ? So whom the devil seeth to bethe likeliest instruments for the overthrow of his kingdom,if once they become temples of the Holy Ghost, those he ismost loath to lose, and labours mightily to keep in his slaverystill. And therefore he opposes with all his power and policy,raising as.many tempests of terror as he is able, that hemay either drive them back in their passage to the holypath, or swallow them up in the abhorred gulf of despairby the way.5th. A more searching and piercing ministry, which isordinarily wont to awake the conscience with more terror,to irradiate and fill it with more universal and clearer light,to quicken it with more apprehension, and so proportionablyto aftect and afflict it with a more feeling and fearfulsense of God's most just and holy wrath against sin.Whereupon they become excellent and everlasting Christians.6th. Biting it in, as it may be called, and not openingthe wound of conscience betimes to some skilful soul physician,may be an unhappy means, much to enlarge boththe continuance and extremity of a man's spiritual trouble.Shame, bashfulness, pretence of want of opportunity, hopeto get through by himself, ice., are ordinary keys to lock uphis tongue at such a time. But sure I am, Satan hathachief stroke and principal part to persuade concealment.For, alas ! he wins by it wofully. All the while he plieswith great advantage and much subtlety his hideous temptationsto self- killing, despair of mercy, returning again tofolly, &c. ; and it is to be feared, which is a most grievousthing, that sometimes by this cruel silence he conquersand casts some poor souls upon the bloody and most abhorredvillany of self-murder. Let such a one then be eversure most resolutely to break through the devil's accursedsnare in this kind, and to pour out his soul secrets betimesinto some faithful holy bosom. J have heard many afterthey have escaped tell what strange tricks and variety of