A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 349moveable martyr. Hear some passages from his ownpen —:" The night after I had subscribed I was sore grieved,and for sorrovv of conscience could not sleep. For in thedeliverance of my body out of bonds which I might havehad, 1 could find no joy, nor comfort ; but still was in myconscience tormented more and more," &c." And I said (to Harpesfield, iicc), that my consciencehad so accused rrie through the just judgment of God andhis word, that I had felt hell in my conscience, and Satanready to devour me ; and therefore 1 pray you, Mr. Harpesfield,said 1, let me have the bill again, for I will notstand to it."" When the Lord had led me to hell in my consciencethrough the respect of his fearful judgments against me formy fearfulness, mistrust, and crafty cloaking in such spiritualand weighty matters, yet he brought me from thenceagain," &c.*Tenthly. God is many times forced by their frowardness,lukewarraness, worldly-mindedness, cowardliness, selfconfidence,falling from their first love, and other such spiritualdistempers, to visit and exercise his children withvariety and sometimes severity of crosses and corrections ;as losses in their outward state, afflictions of body, disgracesupon their good name, oppression by great ones, discomfortsin wives, neighbours, friends, children, &c. purposelyto put life, quickness, fruitfulness, and forwardnessinto them, that thereby they may be more gloriously serviceableto himself, more profitable to others, and moreprovident to treasure up peace unto their own souls againstan evil day. " God humbleth us," saith a worthy divine," by afflictions, and pricketh the swelling of our pride.He cutteth and loppeth us, to the end we may bring forththe more fruit. He filleth us with bitterness in this life,to the end we might long for the life to come. For thosewhom God afflicteth grievously in this world, leave it withless grief. He who hath formed us to fear him, knoweththat our prayers are slack and cold in prosperity, as proceedingfrom a spirit that is cooled by success, and as beingonly indited by custom. The cries which our own willproduced are feeble in comparison of those which grief expresseth.Nothing so ingenious to pray well as sorrow,which in an instant formeth the slowest tongues to a holyeloquence, and furnisheth us with sighs which cannot be* Fox's Acts and Monuments. See also in the same book the accountof James Abbes and Thomas Benbridge.•2H