A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

:366 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGbeams of their fatherly favour, under some aflfected angryfrowns,as when things are carried more currently and comfortablybetwixt them without any great distaste and discontentment,or occasion to discover the mutual impatiency oftheir loves one unto another 1 And shall not the Father of ourspirits, who loves us with the same love with which he lovesthe Lord Jesus himself; surpass as far in affectionate compassiontowards us in the like case as an Almighty Goddoth a mortal manl He cannot choose, because the vvordis already gone out of his mouth ": Like as a father pitiethhis child, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him " (Psalmciii, 13). I am persuaded God's bowels of compassionatetender-heartedness and love did yearn within him towardsJob with more dearness and delight at that cry, " Though heslay me, yet will I trust in him " ( Job xiii, 15), than at anytime else, even in the spring of his spiritual prosperity, orfullest tide of most heavenly feelings. Here then is comfort,raorethanthy heart canhold, if thou wilt be counselled by theprophets, that thou mayest prosper. For when thou thinkestthat all is gone, that thou art a lost man, and utterly forsaken, even in the depth of thy spiritual darkness (thoubeing so spiritually disposed as 1 have said, and which thoucanst not deny), I say even then (and thou oughtest so toapprehend and believe) the love of God is, as it were,doubled towards thee, much more endeared by reason of thydistress, and cannot hold, but breaks out many times intoextraordinary pangs and expressions thereof, as we maysee Isa. liv, 11, " O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, andnot comforted," &c. ; and into profession of resolution andwaiting to do us good, which he will superabundantly performin the best time. " Behold; I will lay thy stones with faircolours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires." (ibid.)" And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be graciousunto you ; and therefore will he be exalted that he mayhave mercy upon you ; for the Lord is a God of judgmentblessed are all they that wait for him " (Isa. xxx, 18).Withdrawing the effects and exercise of our love from himwhom we love dearly, makes it return with redoubled fervourinto our own bosoms, and there grow into a more vehementflame, which never rests until it break out again with dearerpangs upon the beloved party. Even as when the sun suffersan eclipse, and its beams are driven back and reflectedfrom the face of the moon interposed directly between it andour sight, so that they shine not upon us, then is the heat *and light thereof multiplied and much intended toward the* Or at least virtual power of heatiug.