A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 875jected them with all the power and prayer thou canst possibly,canst not choose but, out of a pang of infinite detestationand heart-rising, turn thus, or in the like manner,upon the tempter ": Most malicious enemy to the gloryof my God and good of my soul, thou troublest thyself andme in vain. I do infinitely acknowledge my blessed Creator,Redeemer, and Sanctifier, to be one incomprehensible,glorious, wise, gracious God : heaven to be wholly filled, embroidered,impaled, with nothing but holiness and happiness :all the creatures to be good, as they issued out of the hands ofGod, and remembrancers to us of his power, wisdom, andgoodness : God's blessed book to be all most holy, most true,a rich treasury of heavenly wisdom and sweetest knowledge,6cc. And thy cursed self to be the only author andbroacher of all sin, hurt, and uncomeliness ;and to theeand thine alone they belong. Mingle not, then, thy malicewith my lowliest, most dear, and reverend thoughts of myFather, my Saviour, my Comforter," ike*. And thou artalso wont presently to press in private into God's gloriouspresence, and prostrate thyself before his righteous throne,there to discover this hellish malice, to complain hoAy villanouslythe devil deals with thee, to protest thine innocency,and infinite hatred of these horrible blasphemies, tocry heartily for pardon, patience, and power against them.And therefore it being thus with thee, thou mayest upongood ground be more than infinitely assured, that they arenot imputed unto thee at all, but wholly set upon Satan'sscore. Hence it is, and from this ground, that 1 have manytimes told some, thus tempted, that when they have passeda duty, pressed upon violently, and pestered with tlie furiousintrusion of such unutterably foul and fearful injections,they have in all likelihood spent that day with farless sin in their tlioughts, and more freedom from guilt andprovocation of divine anger, than if they had been free;because they being so earnestly and vehemently deprecated,withstood with such aversion and loathing, protested againstunfeignedly, and that upon such terms that they wouldrather be torn in pieces with wild horses, die ten thousanddeaths, do or suffer any thing, than yield the least assentor approbation thereunto ; they are then, 1 say, not theirtransgressions, but affiictions ; not their iniquities, but miseries; not their sins, but crosses. Nay, and further fortheir comfort, if they should be haunted by them until theirending hour (which God forbid, and beat back such accursedand hateful spite from every humble soul!) yet* These very words were forced, by fury of temptation, from onetempted in this kind.