P DIALOGUE XIII. Four wholesome Counsels, for a wounded TIMOTHEUS. ERFORM your promise, which is the first counsel you commend unto me. * PHIL. Take heed of ever renouncing thy filial interest in God, though thy sins deserve that he should disclaim his paternal relation to thee. The prodigal, returning to his father, did not say I am not thy son, but I am no more worthy to be called thy son. Beware of bastardising thyself, being as much as Satan desires, and more than he hopes to obtain. Otherwise thy folly would give him more than his fury could get. TIM. I conceive this a needful caution. PHIL. It will appear so if we consider what the apostle saith,† that we wrestle with principalities and powers. Now wrestlers in the Olympian games were naked, and anointed with oil to make them sleek and glibbery, so to afford no holdfast to such as strove with them. Let us not gratify the devil with this advantage against ourselves, at any time to disclaim our sonship in God: if the devil catches us at this lock, he will throw us flat, and hazard the breaking of our necks * Luke xv. 21. + Ephes. vi. 12. Y with final despair. Oh no! still keep this point: a prodigal son I am, but a son, no bastard; a lost sheep, but a sheep, no goat; an unprofitable servant, but God's servant, and not absolute slave to Satan. TIM. Proceed to your second counsel. PHIL. Give credit to what grave and godly persons conceive of thy condition, rather than what thy own fear (an incompetent judge) may suggest unto thee. A seared conscience thinks better of itself, a wounded worse, than it ought: the former may account all sin a sport, the latter all sport a sin melancholy men, when sick, are ready to conceit any cold to be the cough of the lungs, and an ordinary pustule no less than the plague sore. So wounded consciences conceive sins of infirmity to be of presumption, sins of ignorance to be of knowledge, apprehending their case more dangerous than it is indeed. TIM. But it seems unreasonable that I should rather trust another saying, than my own sense of myself. PHIL. Every man is best judge of his ownself, if he be his ownself; but during the swoon of a wounded conscience, I deny thee to be come to thy ownself: whilst thine eyes are blubbering, and a tear hangs before thy sight, thou canst not see things clearly and truly, because looking through a double medium of air and water; so whilst this cloud of pensiveness is pendent before the eyes of thy soul, thine estate is erroneously represented unto thee. TIM. What is your third counsel ? PHIL. In thy agony of a troubled conscience, always look upwards unto a gracious God to keep thy soul steady; for looking downward on thyself thou shalt find nothing but what will increase thy fear, infinite sins, good deeds few, and imperfect: it is not thy faith, but God's faithfulness thou must rely upon; casting thine eyes downwards on thyself to behold the great distance betwixt what thou deservest and what thou desirest, is enough to make thee giddy, stagger, and reel into despair: ever therefore lift up thine eyes unto the hills,* from whence cometh thy help, never viewing the deep dale of thy own unworthiness, but to abate thy pride when tempted to presumption. TIM. Sir, your fourth and last counsel. PHIL. Be not disheartened as if comfort would not come at all, because it comes not all at once, but patiently attend God's leisure: they are not styled the swift, but the+ sure mercies of David: and the same prophet says, the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward: this we know comes up to secure and make good all the rest: be assured, where grace patiently leads the front, glory at last will be in the rear. Remember the prodigious patience of Elijah's servant. TIM. Wherein was it remarkable? last PHIL. In obedience to his master: he went several times to the sea; it is tedious for me to tell what was not troublesome for him to do, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times sent down Psalm cxxi. 1. + Isaiah lv. 3, and lviii. 8. steep Carmel, with danger, and up it again with difficulty, and all to bring news of nothing, till his last journey, which made recompense for all the rest, with the tidings of a cloud arising. So thy thirsty soul, long parched with drought for want of comfort, though late, at last, shall be plentifully refreshed with the dew of consolation. TIM. I shall be happy if I find it so. PHIL. Consider the causes why a broken leg is incurable in a horse, and easily curable in a man: the horse is incapable of counsel to submit himself to the farrier, and therefore in case his leg be set, he flings, flounces, and flies out, unjointing it again by his misemployed mettle, counting all binding to be shackles and fetters unto him; whereas a man willingly resigns himself to be ordered by the surgeon, preferring rather to be a prisoner for some days, than a cripple all his life. Be not like a horse or mule, which have no understanding; but let patience have its perfect work in thee. When God goes about to bind up the broken hearted, tarry his time, though ease come not at an instant, yea, though it be painful for the present, in due time thou shalt certainly receive comfort. * 1 Kings xviii. 43. + Psalm xxxii. 9. Isa. lxi. 1. DIALOGUE XIV. Comfortable Meditations for wounded Consciences to muse upon. F TIMOTHEUS. pray, with some comfortable URNISH me, I meditations; whereon I may busy and employ my soul when alone. PHIL. First, consider that our Saviour had not only a notional, but an experimental and meritorious knowledge of the pains of a wounded conscience when hanging on the cross. If Paul conceived himself happy being to answer for himself, before king Agrippa, especially because he knew him to be expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews; how much more just cause has thy wounded conscience of comfort and joy, being in thy prayers to plead before Christ himself, who hath felt thy pain, and deserved that in due time by his stripes thou shouldst be healed? TIM. Proceed, I pray, in this comfortable subject. PHIL. Secondly, consider that herein, like Elijah, thou needest not complain that thou art left alone, seeing the best of God's saints in all ages have smarted in the same kind: instance in David indeed sometimes he boasts how he lay in green pastures, and was led by still waters; * Psalm xxiii. 2. |