A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

374 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGby day, and the moon that walketh by night, they neversaw the like, &c.*" " It was of such prodigious monstronsness,that before now, the tongue of man never delivered,the ear of man never heard, the heart of man never conceived,nor the malice of hellish or earthly devil ever practisedt." "It is beyond all example, whether in fact orfiction, even of the tragic poets, who did beat their wits torepresent the most fearful and horrible murders t." " Theplot whereof Livy speaks, of dispatching the whole senateof Rome in an hour ; the device at Carthage to cut off awhole faction by one enterprize ; the conspiring of Brutusand Cassius to kill Caesar in the senate : the project of destroyingin one conjclave the greatest part of the cardinals ;the Sicilian even-song, and the Parisian matins ; nay, thewish of Nero, that Home had but one head which he mightcut off at one blow, came far short of this invention, whichspared neither age, sex, "nor degree §." Well then, if thoushouldst have approved and consented unto the suggestionof this most execrable and unheard-of villany, for whichhell hath not a fit name, nor the world a sufficient punishment,thou hadst made thyself the most prodigious beastthat ever breathed, an abhorred monster of mankind, andjustly merited to have passed presently from most exquisitetortures here, to endless torments in another world.But now, if all the while the motion was making thy hearthad risen against it with indignation and loathing, thouprotestedst to the party thy abominating any thought thatway from the heart root to the pit of hell ; and immediatelyrunning to the king shouldst have discovered and disclaimedit as a most detestable and hellish plot ; I say then, whatman could have justly blamed thee, or wherein could thyconscience any way accuse thee 1 It is so in the presentpoint. As that other incarnate devil in his kind, so thedevil himself throws into thine imagination most hideousthoughts and horrible blasphemies, even against the dreadfulMajesty of heaven, the thrice-blessed and ever-gloriousTrinity, the holy humanity of the Lord Jesus, &c. Towhich if thou shouldst understandingly assent and approveindeed, thou mightest expect most worthily to become tentimes fouler than the ugliest fiend in hell. But since thouknowest in thine own conscience, that thy heart trembleswith horror and amazedness, when they are offered, nayviolently thrust into thy mind, that thou resisted and re-* Dr. King, in his Sermon at MTiitehall.1 Sir Edward Fiiilips, in the proceedings against the l:it^ Tniitors.t Sir Edward Coke, ibid.i The Earl of Northampton, ihid.