A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

REV. ROBERT BOLTON.xxxvword of God, which arms their discoursesthroughoutwith a divine authority, while the utmost clearness ofstatement without it, insensibly aflfects the hearer asthe mere excellent advice of a human being? Thepractice may possibly be objected to, as producing aroughness of style inconsistent with the finished characterof an elaborate sermon ; but experience has demonstrated,that the absence of these comparatively triflingqualities has been compensated by the achievement ofthe great end of the ministry, the conversion of souls.Another excellence of his ministry appears to haveconsisted in his free and full offers of salvation to mankindthrough Christ, and in his thorough and perpetualexplanation of the nature and oflSces of the Mediator.Often would he declare to his people, that it grievedhim to preach against their sins, to trouble and annoytheir consciences ; that he would be happy indeed topreach the riches of the love and power of Christ allbis days ; but that he knew no other mode of disengagingthem from the dominion of Satan, than byurging upon them the consciousness of their unworthinessand liability to perdition.His piety towards God appears to have been so genuineand full of love, that his entire character, fromhis conversion to his death, was unmarred by any deviationfrom the spirit of devotion.His other excellent volume, " Directions for comfortablywalking with God," is said to have been composedby him as a guide for himself, and was not originallyintended for publication.His eminent attainments seem to have originated inhis extraordinary habits of devotion. His constanthabit was to pray six times in the day. He also kept