A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 381and so thy torments in hell more horrible hereafter. If itbe once done, it will appear to have been God's decree, andI hope thou wilt not oppose the accompMshment of that.Do what thou canst, thou wilt be damned when all isdone *." Now in this case if thou debate the matter withthe devil, and begin to confer, thou art likely enough to bemore and more confounded and entangled with inextricableastonishment and danger to be utterly undone, and suddenlyblown up by the mine of his soul-murdering sophistry. Butif, according to tiie example and practice of thy Lord andMaster, who hath begun unto thee in this bitter cup, "isafflicted in all thy afflictions," and ever stands by thee as avictorious commander and conqueror in all such assaults;first abominate and beat back this base and bloody motion'*with infinite indignation and loathing, " Avaunt, Satan !and then immediately lay hold on the sword of the Spirit,and keep him at the point of it, and then assuredly all thedevils in hell cannot hurt thee. Tell him, that against hisvile and villanous suggestions and all the subtleties andsophistry with which he seconds it, this is thy only answer,even the precise, holy, and everlasting countermand of hisand thy Creator, the mighty Lord of heaven and earth,"Thoushalt not kill." Now if it be a crimson and cryingsin, the most deadly opposite and desperate cut-throat ofcharity to kill another, and fasteneth such a deep and inexpiablestain upon the face of a whole kingdom, that it cannotbe razed out "but by the blood of him that shed it"(Numb. XXXV, 33) ; how execrable and heinous then isthis, and what depth of hell and height of horror doth thatabhorred miscreant deserve and may expect, who naakes* Here if thou answer— Yea, but in the mean time it is better tospend the remainder of my few and evil days upon earth than in hell,he will reply, But so thou shall increase thy sins here, and by consequencethy hellish pains hereafter; to which if thou rejoin, But theheinousness of self-murder and horribUness of despair may appear morevile and execrable in the eyes of God than all the other sins I maycommit to the last period of my natural course ;—he may then hideouslyroar, But so thou mayest both go on lo increase thy sins and makeaway thyself at last, and where art thou then ? &c. I know him tohave thus thrown his fiery darts into tremblinir hearts one after anotherwith extreme subtleness and cruelty; and therefore in these cases donot admit of any dispute or conference with him; but upon the veryfirst assault (for who would hear him talk that will tell never a trueword, and is thy sworn enemy ?) be ever sure presently to lay hold uponthe word of God, that weapon of proof which serves like a sword, notonly for defence, as all the other pieces of armour, but also for uiTence.Beat liack with undaunted resolution and confidence this devilish dart,^and stop for ever the mouth of the tempter with the contrary chai'geol'the most holy and all-powerful God — " Thou shalt not kill."