Steps to Bring Comfort to our Hearts (3)

(7) And because there can be no more comfort than there is care of duty, therefore, together with innocence, let us be careful of all duties in all our several relations. Let us consider in what relations we stand, and what duties we owe, and be careful to satisfy them all. Neglect of duty is a debt, and debts are troublesome. When the soul reflects upon the omission of a necessary duty; I owe such a duty to such a person; I should have done such a thing, in such a relation, but I have omitted it, it is a disquieting thing, and that upon good grounds. If you have been negligent, there must be a setting upon the duty, with fresh endeavour to make amends for former negligence; or else the soul will have no comfort, nor will God suffer it to admit of comfort.
(8) But above all, that we may receive comfort, let us labour for a spirit of faith. Surely there is nothing that can stay the soul more, especially when it is deeply humbled, than to consider God in the second person incarnate, and abased and crucified, and made a curse and sin for us; to see the great God of heaven and earth, whose excellencies we cannot comprehend, to take our nature, and in our nature to suffer for us those things which he did endure. This will establish the soul indeed. Can the soul think that this was done for any small or to little purpose? Or can there be any grief or sin that should hinder comfort, or persuasion of the possibility of pardon, when the great God became man on purpose to die for sin? We may set this against all discouragements whatsoever.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Sibbes's Last Two Sermons: First Sermon, Works, vol. 7, pp. 345-46
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