Is it not ravishing, melting, overwhelming, and amazing, to tliink thus with thyself! Here sit I with a joyful plenary free pardon of sin in my hand, whilst many, who never sinned to that height and degree I have, lie groaning, howling, sweating, and trembling under the indignation of God, poured out like fire upon their souls in hell. A greater sinner saved, and lesser damned. Oh how un- speakably sweet is that rest into which my terrified and disquieted soul is come by faith ! Rom. v. 1. Heb. iv. 3. " We which have *' believed, do enter into rest.'' Oh blessed calm after a dreadful tempest ! This poor breast of mine was lately panting, sweating, trembling under the horrors of wrath to come, terrified with the visions of hell. No other sound was in mine ears, but that of fiery indignation to devour the adversaries. Oh what price can be put upon my quietus est ! What value upon a pardon, delivered as it were at the ladder's foot ! Oh precious hand of faith that receives it ! But oh the most precious blood of Christ which purchased it ! If Satan now come with his accusations, the lav/ with its commina- tions, death with its dreadful summons, I have in a readiness to answer them all.
Here is the law, the wrath of God, and everlasting burnings, the just demerit of sin upon one side, and a poor sinful creature on the other : But the covenant of grace hath solved all. An act of obli- vion is past in heaven, " I will forgive their iniquities, and their " sins and transgressions will I remember no more." In this act of grace my soul is included ; I am in Christ, and there is no con- demnation. Die I must, but damned I shall not be; My debts are paid, my bonds are cancelled, my conscience is quieted : let death do its worst, it shall do me no harm ; that blood which satis- fied God, may well satisfy me.
Infer. 5. Hozo aviazingly sad and deplorable is the security and stillness of the consciences of sinners, under all their ozvn guilt, and the immediate dangler ofGod^s everlasting' zcTath!
Philosophers observe that before an earth-quake the wind lies, and the weather is exceeding calm and still, not a breath of wind going. So it is in the consciences of many, just before the tempest and storm of God's wrath pours dovvn upon them. What a golden morning opened upon Sodom, and began that fatal day! Little did they imagine showers of fire had been ready to fall from so pleasant and serene a sky as they saw over their heads. How secure, still, and unconcerned are those to-day, who it may be shall rage, roar, and tremble in hell to-morrow ! Cassar hearing of a citizen of Rome who was deep in debt, and yet slept soundly,
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX. 145
"would needs have his pillow, as supposing there was !»ome strange, cliarming virtue in it.
It is wonderful to consider what shifts men make to keep their consciences in that stillness and quiet they do, under sucli loads of guilt, and threatenings of wrath, ready to be executed u})on them. It must be strong opium that so stupifies and benumbs their con- sciences ; and upon inquiry into the matter we shall find it to be the effect of,
1. A strong delusion of Satan.
2. A spiritual judicial stroke of God.
1. This stillness of conscience, upon the brink of damnation, pro- ceeds from the strong delusions of Satan, blinding their eyes, and feeding their false hopes : lie removes the evil day at many years imaginary distance from them, and interposeth many a fair day betwixt them and it, and in that interposed season, time enough to prepare for it ; without such an artifice as this, his house would be in an uproar, but this keeps all in peace, Luke xi. 21. " By pre- " suming he feeds their hopes, and by their hopes destroys their " souls *.'''' Some he diverts from all serious thoughts of this day, by the pleasures, and others by the cares of this life ; and so that day Cometh upon them unawares, Luke xxi. 34
2. This stillness of conscience, in so miserable and dangerous a state, is the effect of a spiritual, judicial stroke of God upon the cliildren of wrath. That is a dreadful word, Isa. vi. 10. " Make " the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut " their eyes :" The eye and ear are the two principal doors or in- lets to the heart ; when these are shut, the heart must needs be in- sensible, as the -f fat of the body is. Tiiere is a spirit of a deep sleep poured out judicially upon some men, Isa. xxix. 10. such as that upon Adam when God took a rib from his side, and he felt it not : But this is upon the soul, and is the same as to give up a mail to a reprobate sense.
Infer. 6. The case of distressed consciences upon earth is excecch hig sad, and calls upon all for th,e tenderest pity, and utmost help from men.
You see the labourings of conscience, under the sense of guilt and wrath, is a special part of the torments of hell, of which there is not a livelier emblem or picture, than the distresses of conscience in this world.
It must be thankfully confessed there arc two great differences betwixt the terrors of conscience here, and there: One, in the
* Prfrsumcyido spcrani, et sperandn pcrcunt.
t Naturalists agree that fat not only makes animals unruly, but also, is void of sen salion. Glass,
146 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
degrees of anguish, the other, in the reliefs of that anguish. The ordinary distresses of conscience here, compared with those of the damned, are as the flame of a candle to a fiery oven, a mild and gentle fire ; or as the sparks that fly out of the top of a chimney, to the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius, or mount Etna. Besides, these are capable of relief, but those are unrelievable : Their hearts die, because their hope is perished from the Lord.
But vet of all the miseries and distresses incident to men in this world, none Hke those of distressed consciences ; the terrors of God set themselves in array, or are drawn up in battalia against the soul. Job vi. 4. " Whilst I sufi'er thy terrors (saith Henian) I am " distracted,"" Psal. Ixxxviii. 15. Yea, they not only distract, but cut off the spirit, as he adds, ver. 16. They lick up the very spi- rit of a man, and none can bear them, Prov. xviii. 14. for now a man hath to do immediately with God ; yea, with the wrath of the great and dreadful God : And this wrath, which is the most acute and sharp of all torments, falls upon the most tender and sensible part, the spirit and mind which now lies open and naked before him to be wounded by it. No creature can administer the least relief, by the application of any temporal comfort or refreshment to it. Gold and silver, wife and children, meat and melody, sig- nify no more than the drawing on of a silk stocking to cure the paroxysms of the gout.