3.17 be it known unto thee O King we will not serve thy gods c. Acts 1.20 We cannot but speak a necessity is laid upon me I must preach c. Jer. 20 9. The Word was in him as fire he could not forbear it is the impulse of Conscience that was the cause there is a double necessity Externa interna c. Now according unto this order and subordination of the faculties so shall the torment be Conscience is subject to none but God therefore the spirit of bondage shall come into the Conscience and trouble that and this shall torment the whole man and as God does usually set up Governours and they become Instruments of wrath over the kingdoms where they dwell if they be good they are a special blessing they are the breath of our Nostrils the stay of our Tribes the Chariots and Horsemen but if they be wicked they ruine the kingdom Psal 75.3 Saul had even destroyed the Nation they are ravening Lyons and evening Wolves Zeph. 3.3 So it is in the government of the inward man if the Conscience be good it s the greatest blessing and if evil the greatest curse for as none has the Power the Authority and the Opportunity to undo a people like those that have the Rule over them so it is with the Conscience there is nothing hath that Authority and Oppertunity to undo a man like it because it is alwayes with him where soever he goes and therefore 〈◊〉 Mala domestica Austine compare an evil Wife and an evil Conscience because they are both intolerablâ— burdensome evils a continual droping none have the Opertunity 〈◊〉 Torment like these Thirdly Conscience here has 〈◊〉 great hand in corrupting the whoâ— man and therefore it is no wondeâ— if hereafter it should have the greâ— hand in Tormenting him First Here Conscience is blinâ— and does not shew a man what is 〈◊〉 Duty and so many men Sin igâ—rantly for want of an inlightneâ— Conscience when the eye of 〈◊〉 man is darkned Math. 6. Hoâ— great is that darkness Secondly Conscience is dead a spirit of slumber is upon it that though it know things to be evil yet it stirs not against them or if it does it is but faintly but a good Conscience exerciseth Authority over the whole man and smites him when ever he does evil as 1 Sam. 24.17 Thirdly it is erroneous and carries men unto evil violently under a pretence of good a zeal not according to knowledg Joh. 16.2 For zeal persecuting the Church Tantus eram Saulus â—hat he thought him worthy of eternal death that descented from the Authority of his Religion in any thing it is from a deceived heart an erroneous Conscience Fourthly Conscience will be bribed by Lust takes in carnal reason and corrupt principles and will be satisfied in them Rom 1. imprisons truths in unrighteousness 1 Tim. 4.2 And it is insensible of any thing and it is just with God that that Officer in the man that had the great hand in corrupting should also have the great hand in tormenting the whole man Quest 4. Fourthly Why is not Conscience a Worm here as well as hereafter in Hell First Because Conscience cannot work of it self unless the Spirit of God awaken it c. Secondly Here is the working time of Conscience its suffering time shall be hereafter Here Conscience has great workes to do and great talents to imploy Heb. 13.18 The charge of the whole Life lies upon the Conscience and the Lord haâ— here a great house 2 Tim. 2.20 Understand it of the World or of the Church yet he has in it Vessek of Honour and some to Dishonour Now Why does God suspend the torment of the Devils It is because Christ has much work for them to do and they would have no pleasure in Sin if their Torments were fuller so it is with wicked men also and therefore the Lord has appointed a working time for Conscience to perform its viatory office and he has a pointed a suffering time for Conscience allo and he will not Torment them before that time Thirdly Hereby the Lord does exalt his own patience and long suffering so much the more for Sin being an infinite evil and a man that is but dust to provoke God to his Face and to do it the rather because God forbears them and sin the more because God forbears them and because of his patience because sentence is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the children of men are fully set to do evil now that God should bear with much patience and long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction and that the Lord should not stretch forth his own hand against them but that he should also suspend the working of their one Consciences and should not let loose the reins upon them which would bring them down in the midst of their galantry as Belshazer Felix Judas c. And that God should keep a hand upon their Consciences and withhold their own thoughts from flying upon them it does wonderfully set forth the patience of God The Lord knows how to reserve the wicked to the day of wrath Fourthly Many things here which stop the mouth of Conscience shall hereafter be removed and then Conscience will speak The Worm of Conscience is to the Soul as they say the disease of the Wolf is to the Body If it be fed with something from without will eat the less inwardly but take away all supplies from without and it destroys inwardly as all the good things of this Life will be gone and then the Soul turns in upon it self and will be its own Tormentor foâ— ever Rev. 20.12 And I saw thâ— dead small and great stand before God and the Books were openedâ— and another Book was opened which is the Book of Life and the Deaâ— were judged out of those things whicâ— were written in the Books according to their works It is an allusion to the day of judgment That 's granted by all The books opened are First the book of the Law and Gospel Secondly of Gods Omnisciency Thirdly of his Decre Fourthly the book of Conscience All those ancient Records that lay hid as Colours in the dark Rom. 2.15.16 or as something that is written with the juice of a Lemon you may read it when you bring it to the fire but not till then But we will now set forth those Tormenting acts of Conscience hereafter which shall be as the gnawings of this never dying worm but before we come to speak unto them perticularly it 's necessary that these four things be premised First That after this Life the Spirit of God shall come into the Conscience of a wicked man as a spirit of bondage fully for ever Conscience is but a subordinate power and acts allways with reference to a higher Law as a rule and a higher power as a Judge it is Regnum sub graviore Regno And therefore it never works by it self
no more about these streightned objects but about the vast things of Eternity for ever The things of Eternity pass knowledg and pass fear 1 Cor. 13.12 This life in grace is but childhood to Heaven the faculties and abilities of our souls are streightned so this life in sin and misery is but childhood unto Hell for there shall the soul be inlarged for God has made the soul capable of greater joyes and greater sorrows greater blessings and greater sufferings then there are in this Life and he would never have prepared such vessels either for wrath or glory but that he means to fill them and this inlargement shall be by degrees as he will fill them by degrees and as grace inlarges and prepares the heart for glory Col. 1.12 so does sin inlarge and prepare the heart for wrath and therefore they are said Rom. 9.23 To be vessels fited for distruction as well as prepared for glory c. Fourthly After this Life all comfortable affections and actings of the soul shall have an end There be some acts of soul that are comforting and cheering and there are some acts that are afflicting and tormenting the comforting acts are in refference to good things either present or to come if present the soul loves them and rejoyceth in them and if absent the soul loves them desires them and hopes for them and all these do cheer the soul and in the exercise of these the life of the soul comes in but after this Life all good things of this Life in present fruition or future reversion shall have an end From the creatures all good things at Death shall take their leave they are but this worlds goods and for all good things from God there shall be none for they shall have Judgment without mercy pure and utter darkness there shall not be a beam of light or the hope of any good thing for the soul to live upon unto Eternity for if a man were to lye in Hell a million of years and were to expect then a release his soul would live but being swallowed up in eternity of misery without hope the soul dyes These affections shall still remain in the soul but because they have no object therefore shall never be exercised as fear and sorrow are in the Saints in Heaven but never are exercised because there is no object upon which it should be exercised Therefore in Hell there never shall be an act of love or joy or hope more to eternity the hope of the wicked is as the giving up of the Ghost he breaths it out with his last breath and he shall never hope more for ever and there are in the soul some tormenting and afflicting acts in reference unto evil things present or to come if it be present there is sorrow and if to come fear and if it be looked upon as an insuportable and inseparable no way to escape it there is dispair for ever Now seeing there shall be the absence of all good at present and in hope and the presence of all evil and a mans condition under it helpless and hopeless therefore after this life to ungodly men all comforting acts of soul shall cease and all the tormenting acts shall take place and act in their full power and vigour for ever Now let us come to the particulars wherein Conscience doth apear to be a worm after this life manely There is a four fold act of Conscience and in every one of them it does hereafter become a worm First There is an act of Accusation Secondly of Conviction Thirdly of Condemnation Fourthly of Execution The torments that follow the soul after all these and in these does this furious reflection of the soul upon it self consist First An act of accusation Rom. 2.15 Conscience accusing and excusing and this consists in two things First A reviewing and reflecting upon the rule that a man did and should have walked in Secondly Upon the unanswerableness of a mans wayes unto this rule and so Conscience shall charge upon a man all the errours of his way for an accusation does suppose and lay down a Law and then charges a man with the breach thereof there is a double book of Conscience the first is a book of precepts and rules secondly a book of practises First For the book of rules and precepts there shall be manifested three things after this life First There are many rules of duty that we are ignorant of and so there are many sins of ignorance committed that men know not to be a sin because they are unacquainted with the rule of duty for we know in part and prophecy in part 1 Cor. 13. There is a vail upon the hearts of men in many things that they know not what they do Now to this end the book of Law and Gospel shall be opened and thereby a mans Duty discovered and Conscience inlightned in those things which here it never knew Rom. 2.16 for he will judge the secrets of all men according unto my Gospel c. Secondly There are several sins commited out of errour and mistake and upon false rules The Lord will bring forth and discover unto a man all these false and erroneous principles by which he has been led in his whole course John 16.2 1 Cor. 2.8 had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Rom. 10.2 they have a zeal but not according to knowledg many things they did from an erroneous Conscience now all these false principles that mislead a man in his wayes shall be brought forth also and the falshood of them discovered Thirdly There are many true principles which Conscience does receive here from the word and the ministery thereof which are called truth Rom. 1.18 Who withhold the truth in unrighteousness All these rules in their authority holiness and equity shall be set before a man and how all of them were required of man for his good Thus the book of precepts being opened and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Conscience inlarged now follow the opening of the second book and that is that of practises First Conscience does charge upon a man sins of ignorance this thou hast done through ignorance of such a rule as Paul knew not Lust to be a sin before that the Commandment said thou shalt not Lust and then thy ignorance shall be discovered unto thee before men and angels and that with all thy means and opertunities of knowledg you to whom the Lord wrote the great things of his Law that had the Scriptures in your own Language and freedom and liberty to use them you that had all manner of helps publickly and privately preaching and writing wherein men do transcribere aias you that dwelt in the valley of Vision and yet of these things you are wilfully ignorant and in the things you know not in them you have corrupted your selves now they that counted it matter of shame to be instructed by a
prize of the high calling and it is some ground that I have got already something that I have attain'd but yet it is but a little but upon a hope that I shall have him that indeed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my eye therefore I strive with all my might and press hard to the mark c. And thus the blood of Christ gives an efficacy unto all the precepts and the promises of the Gospel and they are all of them by this means of a cleansing nature they do purge the Conscience they have all a cleansing property Fifthly The blood of Christ doth purge the Conscience by sprinkling all means that it shall tend unto a mans purification that as by sin all things do become means to defile the Conscience so by the blood of Christ all things shall become means to purge the Conscience Tit. 1.15 Unto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled For under the law the sprinkling of the blood was not onely upon the person but upon the book and the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministery Heb. 9.19 Implying that none of these would have been instruments of purging of the Conscience if they had not themselves been first purged by the blood of Christ But what are the means that thus purge the Conscience First The word of God Ephes 5.26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of Water by the word and John 15.3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you c. Mens Consciences are purged by it but yet in it self it will increase the defilement as unto all unregenerate men it does Heb. 6.7 The ground that drinks in the rain that comes oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God But that which bears thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh to cursing And yet if Christ sprinkle it with his blood it will surely purge the Conscience and all the purging vertue that the word has is because his blood was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice Secondly All other ordinances also 2 Cor. 3 3. First that of the ministery ye are our epistle and though ye have Ten thousand instructers yet not many Fathers but I have begotten you through the Gospel Now even this ordinance that was appointed for their cleansing will but increase their pollution of themselves if their uncircumcised heart should rise against the message they bring them to believe in the blood of Christ and then God in judgment says to his ministers go make the heart of this people fat let their hearts be hardened and their spirits rise against it that hearing they may hear and not understand least they be converted and I should heal them the Lusts of men are thereby the more exasperated and drawn forth as it did in the Pharisees under Christs ministery their enmity did rise to the sin against the Holy Ghost besides Blasphemy against the son of man but that the ministery is effectual to any souls it is onely the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon all the ordinances thereof and it will purge if Christ in it sit as a refiner of silver in his shop and do concurr in the ordinances to their refinement Thirdly The example of the Saints are a means of purging the Conscience Phil. 3.17 Be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample c. When a man doth observe unto what a pitch of holiness and purification the Saints of God have attained as the example of Christ so of the saints also such pressing forward to more spirituality such growth in grace and in knowledg such love to all Saints this is a great means to raise the hearts of them that fear God to give all diligence to be as they were holy in all manner of conversation But yet they will be a means of pollution of themselves even these glorious examples of Christ and his followers if not sprinkled with the blood of Christ and as the Pharisees looking upon the holyness of the Saints they were the more inraged so the more lively men do see holyness in the practise of it they hate it so much the more Fourthly Hos 2.6 Jer. 31.18 Isa 18. Afflictions When the Lord sends it upon any of his children this is all their fruit to take away their sin but yet afflictions will of themselves purge no mans Conscience but rather defile it as we see how the rage of mens spirits are drawn out by it as King Ahaz sin'd yet more the more he was afflicted and Revel 16.9.10 They did gnaw their tongues with pain and did blaspheme the God of Heaven but repented not of their evil deeds bray a Fool in a Morter and yet his folly will not depart from him but yet if Christs blood do sprinkle our crosses they shall be as corasives to eat out the proud flesh and they shall tend to heal him whom they had wounded Fifthly Sometimes the Lord will do it by sins in giving him up to some publick open and scandulous fall as he did with David lets him fall into that great evil of murder and adultery and that made him to wash himself throughout and it was a means to keep him low and to preserve him from sin all his life time after and we have the like instance in Peter in denying the Lord and cursing and swearing that he never knew him when thou art converted says Christ to him strengthen thy bretheren for he would be the stronger afterwards as a bone broke c. and the less apt to fall into sin Surely sins of themselves being filthiness it self cannot purge but will defile but yet sprinkled with the blood of Christ they shall be an occasion of purging Sixthly Sometimes the Lord will do it by leaving a man to the winnowings of Satan in some furious and violent temptation Satans aim is thereby to sift out all grace and to leave nothing but chaff in the soul for we fight not against flesh and blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things that concerne Heaven and Eternity and commonly men are foiled by them and are the more filthy by a touch of the wicked one 1 John 5.19 But when the Lord doth sprinkle a temptation with the blood of Christ it shall be a means to purge the soul and the poyson of it shall be tempered into a wholesome medicine as it was unto Paul * A Messenger of Satan c. 2 Cor. 12.7.8 It is sometime purging and sometimes preventing Physick to keep the soul from being lifted up c. The same may be said of mercies and of all the dispensations of providence for all shall work together for good that is for a mans spiritual and eternal good because they are all yours Creatures and providences
spiritual unto the souls of men No man can do good to the soul but God and no man can inflict punishment upon the soul but God men may hurt the body and they have no more that they can do and in eternal good things or evil things those that concerne the life to come for truely a man cannot know love or hatred by all that is before him here the soul must have an eternity to be punished in all evils in this life which have an end are too low and too short to punish the soul with as all good things in this life are too narrow to cover the soul with c. Secondly The Covenant by which they are bound over unto this wrath is an eternal Covenant an everlasting Covenant there are two heads or two publick persons a first and a second Adam under whom as by the sons of Noah the whole Earth is over spread and with these two Covenants made as with two heads and there are two sorts of men the elect and the unregenerate children of the bond-woman and of the free and there are two destinct places Heaven and Hell answerable unto these and one Covenant is everlasting as well as the other not only the covenant of Grace but the covenant of Works also and therefore the curse of the Covenant remains upon men unto eternity and they are bound over unto eternal wrath Gal. 10. Deut. 29.21 as the Lord Christ has put an end unto this Covenant and abolished it unto all that are in him being himself made under it and satisfying the precept and the curse of it and so he did cancel it as a hand-writing against us nailing it unto his Cross Col. 2.14 And so they that are in Christ are freed from the Law as a Covenant but unto all other men it remains a Covenant still and they remain under the curse of it for ever and the wrath of God abides upon them Joh. 3.36 for the Gospel doth not properly bring them under wrath but leaves them under it for ever Thirdly The guilt and stain of sin upon the soul is eternal also the act of sin is transient momentum quod delectat c. But the guilt of sin is permanent the relation between God and the creature is eternal and 〈◊〉 is an eternal obligation upon the creature because he is bound unto God by an eternal Law and the transgression of that Law carries with it an eternal guilt there is not a sin that a man commits but it is laid up amongst the Lords Treasures Deut. Jer. 17.1 and it is also laid up in their own Consciences sin is a debt Mat. 6.12 Which will as all other debts are be ever due till it be paid if it be a thousand years since it was committed yet it due still and the continuance of the time will never wear it out amongst men much less will it being before the Lord and God keeps his debt-debt-books Isa 65.6 Behold it is written before me I will recompence it even recompence it into their bosome c. And there is an utter inability in us to pay the debt we owe to God or to make him any satisfaction we have nothing to pay and not one drop of the blood of Christ shall go to pay any part of thy debt â—â—ing once cast into prison and thou shalt not come out thence being once cast into Prison till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing and satisfaction thou canst never make for the offence is against an infinite God and thou art but a finite creature and here is thy misery that because thou canst never satisfie fully therefore thou must be for ever satisfying all that thou canst do will not blot out one sin there is nothing but the blood of Christ can do it when all the world was drowned by a floud it could not wash away the guilt of sin and when it shall be on fire it shall not be able to purge one sin and when a man shall lye in Hell for ever even the fire of Hell cannot purge the soul of one sin Ignis infernalis non est purgatorius sed punitorius c. Fourthly God after this Life shall not only reward men according to their actions but their intentions and the desires of their hearts Now mens desires unto sin are infinite and eternal if they could live for ever they would sin for ever and they are never satisfied with sinning and therefore it is compared unto drunkenness Deut. 29. a man adds drunkenness unto thirst and none do call in for Wine so fast as they that have had too much already and it is as Hell that cannot be satisfied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lust is infinite and the more a man is glutted with it the less he is satisfied and could he live for ever he would sin for ever and if he could do more wickedly against God he would as the Lord says thou hast spoken and done evil things against me as thou couldest doing evil with both hands earnestly Mich. 7.3 in every sin they have infinite and eternal desires after sinning even in that short time that they have to live in it voluissent sine fine peccare Greg. Breve fuit opere sed longum esse constat pertinaci voluntate Bern. Fifthly Because they never repent but are hardned in the same way of sinning they remain the same men still and have the same will unto evil unto eternity in Hell that they had when they were here upon earth so that if God should take a man out of Hell and set him upon the earth again with a possibility of mercy he would go on in the same way of sinning with as much greediness and more then ever he did in the time of his Life for this is a rule amongst many of the School-men voluntas morientis confirmatur in eo statu in quo moritur And therefore as the Saints in Heaven dying in a state of grace are in bono confirmati so the wicked dying in a state of sin are in malo obfirmati that whereas in this life in wicked men there is an inability to repent yet there is a possibility of repenting and of returning from sin and there is a restraint upon their Lust and there be here many common graces and common workings of the spirit of grace but then all restraint upon mens Lusts shall be taken away all the Law of nature shall cease and God shall let out mens Lusts unto the utmost in judgment and whereas in Heaven all acts of grace habent rationem praemii so in Hell all acts of sin shall have rationem poenae and God will say he that is filthy let him be filthy still c. And therefore Divines do say that in this Life men are servants unto sin but it is but servitus inchoata but in Hell there shall be servitus consummata for here there is some restraint unto sin but there shall be none hereafter but a man shall be given over to it and the more a man is given over to sin in this Life the neerer to Hell he comes Lastly Men shall be companions after this Life with the Devil and his Angels for that is the sentence Matt. 25.41 Depart into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels they that have been servi in culpa must be socii in poena c. They that have all their days fulfilled the Devils Lusts they must expect to have his reward they that have followed the Lamb and have suffered with him and been persecuted for him shall reign with him and they that have followed Satan and have sinned with him they shall suffer with him Now the Devil has had a long time of sinning from the beginning of the World to the end of it he is the last enemy that shall be destroyed when death and Hell shall be cast into the Lake and therefore surely as he hath had a long time of sinning so he must have a long time yea even an eternity in suffering and therefore let no wicked man deâ—eive himself for the same torâ—ent the same fire for the naâ—â—re of it though not for the â—egree of it is reserved for thee â—nd thou shalt be tormented with â—he Devil and his Angels to all eâ—ernity FINIS ERRATA PAge 25. line 8. a fullpoint after cause p. 37. l. 18. after child a fulpoint p. 61. l. 7. for Ainon read Hinnoâ—â— p. 80. l. 1. hostile congressu p. 100. l. 17. for wayges read wages p. 107. l. 22. for act read out p. 133. for ire read irae p. 138. for nulle read nullae and for panitentia read paenitentiâ— p. 151. for book read book p. 238. l. 12. for my sins read thy p. 249. for caesa read laesa p. 260. l. 4. for access read excess