A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

—AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 387them at that great and last day, and thou go free. It ishis malicious madness, of such a prodigious nature andnotoriousness as is beyond imagination and above all admiration,only fit for a devil. That he may trouble theetemporally, he mightily aggravates his own eternal tormentCHAP. XXII.The Experimental ^^'ay of caring the former Malady.In a second place let me tender unto thee an antidote,which hath been found sovereign and successful thisway.The sum of it is this :— Let the tempted Christian labourto work and extract by the blessing of God some spiritualgood out of the liorrible hell of these most hateful, abominable,blasphemous suggestions. And if Satan once seethat thou suckest honey out of his poison, comfort out ofhis cruelty, medicine out of his malice, he will have noheart nor hope to go on ; no courage nor contentment tocontinue the temptation.Take it in the sense, if not in the same words, without anyvariation, or enlargement, as it was applied and prospered:" Spiteful and malicious fiend, cursed enemy to heavenand earth ; by the mercies of God, though thy purpose bemost pestilent, yet thou shalt not hurt or have any advantageagainst me hereby. Thy base and dunghill injections,tending to the dishonour of my God, and my Christ, &c.shall make me,"1. More hate thine infinitely hateful and revengefulmalice against that thrice-glorious and ever-blessed Majestyabove." 2. With more feeling and dearness to adore and lovethe glory and sweetness of my God and my Redeerner.For the more excessive and endless I feel thy spite againsthim, the more I know is his incomprehensible excellencyand worth." 3. To pray oftener and more fervently that ray God wouldrebuke thee, and cast this extreme malice of thine as dungupon thine own face." 4. To be still more humbled under the hand of mymighty Lord ; because 1 cannot be more humbled, and withmore resolution and abhorrence abominate and abandon