A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

;AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 385any diminution at all of thy lowliest, most reverent, adoring,and divinest thoughts of so great a God. For have recourseto the holy records of all sound, supernatural, a.ndsaving knowledge ; I mean, the word of life with whichthou oughtest to consult, and to which only thou art confinedin this case ; and thou shalt find him to be the " onlyone living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts,or passions ; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness ; themaker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.And in unity of this Godhead there be three persons, ofone substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son,and the Holy Ghost *." And besides thou mayest graspas it were, and feel between thy fingers as it were, even inevery creature, his greatness and goodness, majesty andmight, power and providence. " In the glorious lights ofheaven," saith a noble writer, " we perceive a shadow ofhis Divine countenance ; in his provision for all that live,his manifold goodness ; and lastly, in creating and makingexistent the world universal by the absolute art of his ownword, his power and almightiness ; which power, light,virtue, wisdom, and goodness, being all but attributes ofone simple essence, and one God, we in all admire, and inpart discern per speculum creatumrnm, that is in the disposition,order, and variety of celestial and terrestrial bodies ;terrestrial in their strange and manifold diversities ; celestialin their beauty and magnitude, which in their continualand contrary motions are neither repugnant, intermixed,nor confounded. By these potent eflfects we approach tothe knowledge of the omnipotent Cause, and by these motionstheir almighty Mover." Whensoever therefore thatmost implacable and everlasting enemy to God's glory andthe good of his children shall go about to pervert and crossby his blasphemous injections these sober and sacred conceptionsof the thrice-glorious and ever-blessed Deity,planted in thy mind by his own word and this visible world,bid him, by the example of thy Lord and Master, " avoidandavaunt;" trample upon his hellish spite, appeal untoGod's righteous throne with protestations of thine innocency ;damning them unto the pit of hell in thy judgment, andhating them not without horror from the very heart-rootand so truly resisting them, crying mightily unto God for* Articles of Keli?ion ; Art. 1. — Exod. xx, 3 ; Deut. vi, 4 j Psalinxvlii, 31 ; Mai. ii, 10; J Cor. viii, 4; Psalm IxxxiV, 2 ; 2 Cor. vi, 16 ;2 Chron. xv, 3 ; Jer. x, lOj John xvii, 3 ; 1 Tlies. i, 9 ; Psalm cii,24,26,27; Dan. vi, 26 ; Psalm civ; .John iv, 24; 2Cor. iii. 17;1 Sam. XV, 29 ; Hos. xi, 9 ; Ezek. x, 5 ; 2 Cor. vi, 18 ; Revel, xi. 17 ;1 Tim. i, 17; Rom. xvi, 27; Psalm cxlvij, 5 ; cvi, 1 ; and cvii, 1.2 L