A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 361that if he had been in the deepest pit of hell, he could almosthave despaired no more of his salvation. " Beingyoung (saith Fox ), 1 remember 1 was once or twice withhim, whom partly by his talk I perceived, and partly bymine own eyes saw, to be so worn and consumed by thespace of five years, that neither almost any brooking ofmeat, quietness of sleep, pleasure of lile, yea and almostno kind of senses was leit in him. Who in such intolerablegriefs of mind, although he neither had nor could haveany joy of his meat, yet was he compelled to eat againsthis appetite, to tlie end to defer the time of his damnationso long as he might, thinking with himself no less, but thathe must needs be thrown into hell, the breath being onceout of the body. Albeit Christ he thought did pity hiscase and was sorry for him, yet he could not (as he imagined)help, because of the verity of the word which said,'It is impossible ' &c.* " But what was the happy issueand effect of those extraordinary spiritual terrors and terribledesertion? The same blessed man of God, whowrites the story and was himself with the party, tells us :" Albeit he suffered many years so sharp temptations, andstrong buffetings of Satan, yet the Lord who graciouslypreserved him all the while, not only at last did rid him outof all discomfort, but also framed him thereby to such mortificationof life, as the like lightly hath not been seen.In such sort as he, being like one placed in heaven already,and dead in this world, both in word and meditation, leda life altogethei- celestial, abhorring in his mind all profanedoings." i hus a spiritual desertion, or some other afflictionof spirit, doth that alone many times, which varietyand a long continued succession of ordinary outwardcrosses, one upon the neck of another, is not able to effect.For troubles of soul sooner take, and are of a quicker andstronger operation, than those which afflict the body." The spirit of a man will sustain his intirmity ; but awounded spirit who can bear 1 " Prov. xviii, 14. All otherafflictions are nothing to this ; they are but flea-bitings tothe liery scorpion. The stoutness of a man's spirit willstand under a world of outward miseries many times ; butif the eye, which is the light of the body, be in darkness,how great is that darkness ! If the spirit itself be crushed,which should support the whole man, how great is the confusion? Hence it was that faithful David waded througha world of troubles ,yet all that time no malice of Saul,no hatred of the Philistines, no rebellion of Absalom, no* Fox's Acts and Monuments.