A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

'326 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGthereby thoroughly cured, I hope thou hast no great causeto complain. It may be so in the present point.(2.) Two sons are punished for their offence ; the onecries, and roars, and grieves extraordinarily ; the othermakes no great noise, but resolves silently with himself,and in sincerity, upon a new course as well as the former.Is not the change and reformation of them both equallywelcome and accepted of the father, who only aims at andexpects their amendment?(3.) Two malefactors, equally guilty of high treason, bothapprehend their danger, acknowledge that they are utterlyundone, hold themselves for dead men ; to the one a pardoncomes, not yet cast, condemned, or carried to the placeof execution ; to the other, ready to lay down his head uponthe block. There is great difference in all likelihood intheir terrors and deiections*; but they have equal parts inthe pardon, and both their lives are saved.(4.) Two men are arrived at their wished-for port : theone was tossed with many roaring tempests and ragingwaves; the other hath a reasonably calm passage. Howsoeverthey now stand both safe upon the shore, and haveboth escaped destruction and drowning in that great mercilessdevouring gulf.(5.) Suppose a man dead for some days, and then revived; he perceives his change with a witness ; anotheris not so, but himself only alive walks amongst a multitudeof dead men ; he also may clearly enough see the difference,and both acknowledge and praise God for his life*.Yet for conclusion, let all those who have passed throughthe pangs of the new-birlh not so terribly, but more tolerably,especially having been formerly notorious, take counseland be advised to ply more carefully the great and graciouswork of humiliation still, to "humble themselves inthe sight of the Lord " yet more and more unto their dyingday. The humblest Christians are ever highest in favour* Those who are so happy, as by the benefit of religious parents, agodly family, good education uu^ier po\ver%I means, have never enteredupon any nctoiioiisness, but by God's blessing upon those meanshave sucked in grace in their younger years, as is saii of Timothy ;andsuch also as after a profuie course have been turned unto God somewhatmore easily than ordiniry ; and so both comp'ain of tiie wantof that testimony of terrible paiigsin their conversion, which they hearothers talk of; yet, I say, being now upright-hearted, and in the holypath, they may" take comfort by comparing themselves with and castingtheir eyes upon a world of unregeuerate people about them, fromwhich by the mercies of God they di&er as far as living men from anumber of rotten dead carcasses ; and so may assure themselves ofsoundness.