A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

!384 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGreligious duties, honest workers of their lawful callings,Company of skilful experienced soul physicians, or one orother comfortable employment.4. Settle in thy heart a peremptory impregnable resolutionnever to entertain any thought of that great majestyand glory above, of the most holy and ever-blessed Trinity,or any thing thereabout, but such only as is revealed andrepresented unto thee in God's book. Whatsoever is objectedby carnal reason to the contrary, or injected by thedevil any ways to deprave the divineness of that glorioustruth, ought to be rejected as cursed, false, and execrable.And therefore, when that hellish Nimrod shall at any timehunt and chase thine affrighted soul with these blasphemoushell-hounds, be sure ever to take sanctuary in the oraclesof God, and keep thee close and safe under this covert.Whatsoever is not comprehended within the confines of thatsacred pale, warranted by holy writ, the sovereign touchstoneof all heavenly truth, let it be abhorred, and retortedas dung upon the face of the tempter. That sense and apprehensionof the Deity and divine things which is notsucked from the breasts of the two Testaments, is in thisregard to be reputed rank poison, repelled and abominatedwith infinite indignation and disdain. And for further helpherein, when thou findest thyself thus followed with theviolent and incessant incursions of this furious folly, callotten and seriously to mind that accursed brand which thebook of God hath set upon the adversary, that he is the*' father of lies," and let that still continue a more resoluterejection and contempt of whatsoever comes from him.Suppose a raging madman should follow thee up and downall the day long, and tell thee that thy father or specialfriend were a stone, a bird, a tree, a toad, or whatsoever isviler or more absurd ; wouldst thou hereupon entertain andharbour in thy mind any mis-impression or monstrous persuasionof the party ? I trow not (only his senseless clamourand restless raving would be very irksome, troublesome, andunwelcome) ; especially since thou art furnished with a cleardemonstrative light out of natural philosophy, that he is areasonable creature, and thyself seest in him the face andfavour, the shape and proportion of a man. ProportionablySatan, that bloodthirsty maniac of hell, out of that madnessat which heaven and earth may stand amazed, solicitsthee to admit such and such horrible and hideous conceitsof thy dearest Lord, his Son, and sacred word. (Ahcursed fiend, that ever thou shouldst discover such prodigiousmalice against thy glorious Maker!) Now God infinitelyforbid that this should cause the least alteration, or