A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 339evea with some of Christ's champions, that surprising theirwatch, cooling the tervour of their first love, and stealingaway byhttle and little their spiritual strength, it supplantsthem at length and throws them upon the earth ; whereonit labours might and main to keep them down and doating,that so they may root in the mud andmire tuereof,to the greatdisgrace ot divine pleasures, their high aud exLellent calling,and so raising the spirit of railing in unregenerate inento cast unworthy aspersions upon the glory of profession,for their sakes. Aay, too often by its subtle insinuationsand syren's songs, it lulls them so long upon her lap thatthey are cast into a heavy slumber even of carnal security.And that so deep and dangerously, that though the LordJesus, the beloved of their soul, cry aloud in their ears bythe shrill and piercing sound of his spiritual trumpeters, andby the more immediate and inward motions of his HolySpirit, entreat them fairly upon all loves for his own dearpa>sion's sake, and all those bloody sufferings, to shake offthat carnal drowsiness, and to delight again in God ; to letthe earth fall out of their minds, and again to mind heavenlythings — "Open to me, my sister, my love, ray dove, myundehled : for my head is filled with dew, and my lockswith the drops of the night" (Cant, v, 2) : — Yet for allthis, full loaih they are to leave their beds of ease, andtherefore frame many shifts, excuses, and delays to pass byand put oft" these compassionate calls of love and mercifulimportunities: " 1 have put oft" my coat, how shall 1 put it on I1 have washed my feet, how shall 1 defile them "I (ver. 3.)Whereupon their blessed spouse, so unworthily repelled withsome notorious unkindness and ingratitude, scattering onlyin iheii hearts some sense and glimmerings of his spiritualsweetness ana beauty, to breed the more shame and sorrowfor so foul neglect, departeth from them for a time, withdrawsthe life and lightsomeness of his gracious presence,hides, as it were, in an angry cloud, the comfortable beanisof his former favour, and so leaves them to the darknessof theirown spirits, and in the comfortless damp of a justly-deserveddesertion, that thereby they may be schooled to prize JesusChrist before gold and silver, and to prefer, as is most meet,one glimpse of his pleased face before the splendour of allearthly imperial crowns ; to listen with more reverence,cheerfulness, profit, and holy greediness to his heavenlyvoice in the ministry of the word, and to make more dearaccount of godly comforts when they shall recover andre-enjoy them. For the purpose we may find (Cant, v) theChristian soul laid too soft and lazily upon the bed of easeand earthly-raindedness, andslipt into a slumber of security