are not so troublesome to the sea as guilt is to the Conscience Therefore as the way to calme the Sea is to calme the winds so the way to quiet and calme the Conscience is to purge and take away the guilt Guilt is in the Conscience as Ionas in the Ship out with him and Sea and Ship are both quiet But how then shall the guilt be purged out of the Conscience That we find Heb. 9. 14. How much more shall the bloud of Christ purge our Consciences from dead works We cannot have a good conscience till we be freed from an evill one The way to be freed from an evill Conscience is to have our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience Heb. 10. 22. But what is that wherewith the conscience must be sprinkled to be made good with peace and quietnes the same which we find 1 Pet. 1. 2. The sprinkling of the blood of Iesus Christ Heb. 12. 24. The blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than that of Abel So then the Conscience sprinkled with Christs bloud ceases to be evill becomes good and peaceable The same Christ that calmed the rage of the Sea by stilling the winds Mar. 4. 39. He arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the Sea peace and be still and the wind ceased and there was a great calm the same Christ it is that stils the rage of the conscience by taking and purging away the guilt thereof with the sprinkling on of his bloud His bloud speakes Heb. 12. 24. And speakes not only to God but speakes to the conscience The voyce which it speakes is Peace and be still the same voyce which to his Disciples after his resurrection Peace be with you and then followes a great calme and peace makes the Conscience good But heare the Conscience will inquire how it may come to get this bloud sprinkled upon it to make it thus peaceably good and what is it that applies this calming bloud of Christ I answer therfore That it is the grace of faith therfore it was said before that faith in Christs blood makes peace in the Conscience Faith is the hand of the soule and as the hyssope sprinkle by which Christs bloud is sprinkled upon our Consciences Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw neere with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience And being justified by faith we have peace towards God Rom. 5. 1. Hence that conjunction of faith and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1. 5. of a good Conscience and of faith unfayned and ver 19. Holding faith and a good Conscience For faith it is that makes a good conscience by making a quiet consciēce Faith is not only a purifying grace Act. 15. 9. but it is also a pacifying grace Rom. 5. 1. It not onely purges our corruption by applying the efficacie of Christs bloud but specially purges our guilt by applying the merit of his bloud So that no faith no peace and no peace no good Conscience A defiled Conscience can be no good Conscience and what defiles the Conscience See Tit. 1. 15. Vnto them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled They that be defiled have their consciences defiled but how come they and their Consciences so To them that are defiled and unbelieving Therefore an unbelieving Conscience is a defiled conscience and a defiled conscience is no good conscience because it can have no peace so long as it is clogged with defiling guilt But contrarily faith purifying not onely from corruption but from guilt by the application of Christs bloud makes the conscience pure and peaceable both There can be no peace of conscience but where there is the righteousnesse of the person There is no peace to the wicked Isa 57. 21. as if he should say an evill unrighteous person cannot have a good conscience where the person is evill there the conscience cannot be good Now faith in Christs bloud makes a mans person good so the conscience becomes good It makes the person righteous and the person being righteous the conscience is at peace for the worke of righteousnesse is peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever Isa 32. 17. with which that of the Apostle sweetly sutes Revel 7. 2. First King of righteousnesse and after that King of peace Our persons must first find Christ a King of righteousnesse by justifying them from their guilt before our consciences can find him King of Salem pacifying them from their unquietnesse Our persons once justified by Christs blood from their guilt and unrighteousnesse our consciences are pacified and freed from their unquietnesse Wouldst thou then have a good conscience Get the peace of conscience Wouldst thou have Peace in thy conscience Get faith in thy soule Believe in the Lord Iesus and get thy soule sprinkled with his bloud and then Heb. 10. 2. Thou shalt have no more conscience of Sin thy Conscience shall be at quiet no more accusing thee nor threatning thee condemnation for thy Sin 2. Repentance from dead workes Though Christs bloud be that which purges the conscience from dead works and so workes peace yet that peace is not wrought in our apprehension neither do we get the feeling of this faith without some further thing Therefore to our faith must be joyned our repentance though not in the making of our peace yet for the feeling of it Many are ready to catch at Christs bloud and if that will make a good conscience they are then safe enough But as thou must have Christs bloud so Christ will have thine heart also bleed by repentance ere he wil vouchsafe the sense of peace A cōscience therefore that would be a conscience having peace must not onely be a believing but a repenting conscience Mat. 3. 2. Repent ye for the Kingdome of heaven is at hand the Kingdome of heaven shall be yours if you will repent ye shall have it immediately upon your repentance But wherein stands this kingdome offered to repentant consciences The Kingdome of God stands in peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Repent and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Gbost Act. 3. 38. And what may that gift be The fruits of the Spirit are love joy peace Gal. 5. 22. Which though it be to be understood of peace betweene man and man yet also that peace which is betweene God and man is the fruit of the spirit and the love of God shed abroad into our hearts by the holy Ghost Rom. 5. 5. is the gift of the holy Ghost which he gives to all that by repentance seeke to get a good conscience Blessed are they that mourne that is which repent for they shal be comforted Mat. 5. 4. they shall have the peace of a good conscience which is the greatest and sweetest comfort in the world Many doe trust all to their supposed faith as a short cut and compendious
to the defiled their conscience is defiled and that being defiled it defiles all it meddles with as under the Law the Leaper defiled all he touched The best meat disht and dressed with defiled and dirty hands is loathsome to us The honest works of a mans calling are good workes in themselves but no good workes to him that doth them without a good conscience Pro. 21. 4. An high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is Sin The calling of Husbandry is counted the most honest calling of all others yet where a good cōsciēce is wanting a mans very plowing is Sin Come to holy duties of Religion and Gods service and how is it with a man wanting a good conscience in them That curse of Davids Psal 109. 8. Let his prayer be turned into Sin lies upon the services of all evill consciences See Pro. 15. 8. The sacrifice of the wicked that is of him that hath an evill conscience is an abomination but the prayer of the upright that is of a man that hath a good and upright conscience is his delight Observe the opposition Hee sayes not the prayer of the wicked and the prayer of the upright nor the sacrifice of the wicked and the sacrifice of the upright but the sacrifice of the wicked and the prayer of the upright A sacrifice had prayer with it but yet it was more sumptuous more solemn then single prayer Now who would not thinke but such cost should make a man welcom yet the single prayer of the upright is accepted whilst his sacrifice is an abomination yea and that a vile abomination Is 66. 3. A man of evill conscience delighting in his abominations makes his holiest services such Let such an one come to the Sacraments and how will it be with him there even as in the former To the impure even the pure Sacraments are impure Simon◠Magus rather defiles the waters of Baptisme then they clense him and it is not carnall baptisme that availes any thing without the answer and stipulation of a good conscience 1 Pet. 3. 21. And for the Sacrament of the Supper whether doth it profit an uncleane conscience or such a conscience pollute it It may be judged by a like case resolved Hag. 2. 11 14. The uncleane person by a dead body touching the Bread or Wine or Oyle makes these to be uncleane The ceremoniall uncleannesse by the touch of a dead body typified the morall uncleannes of an evill conscience unpurged from dead works God looks specially at the cōscience in all our services and if hee finds that foule and filthy he throws the dung of mens sacrifices in their faces that come with the dung of their filthy consciences before his face See therefore how Paul serves God 2 Tim. 1. 3. Whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience It is an impure service that is not performed with a pure conscience as sleight as the world make of puritie How much more shal the blood of Christ purge your consciences from dead workes Heb. 9. 14. But to what end are they purged To serve the living God Therfore marke that till the conscience be purged and made good there is no serving of God So Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw neere that is in prayer and the like duties But how Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill conscience Otherwise it is but a folly for us to draw neere for God will not be neere when a good conscience is far off And therfore we are bid to purifie our hearts when wee are bid draw nigh to God Iam. 4. 8. Behold here then a speciall motive to make a good conscience beautifull in our eye As we would be loath our services of God our prayers and holy performances should be abominable in Gods eye so labour for good consciences As we would have cōfort in alour duties of obedience so labor to make our conscience good It is a great deale of confidence that silly ignorant ones have in their good prayers their good serving of God as they call it yea it is all the ground of their hope of salvation when they are demanded an account of their hope now alas your good prayers and your good serving of God! why what do you talking of these things Hath Christ purged your consciences from dead workes Have you by faith got your consciences sprinkled and rinced in Christs blood and so have ye made them good If not never talke of good prayers and good serving of God your prayers cannot be good whilst your consciences are naught An evill conscience before God and a good service to God cannot stand together But would you have your prayers good indeed and your service acceptable indeed then let your first care be to make your conscience good Fourthly let this worke with us as a The fourth motive to a good conscience maine motive to a good conscience That it is the Ship and the Arke wherein the faith is perserved The faith is a rich commoditie a precious fraught and a good conscience is the bottome and the vessell wherein it is caried So long as the ship is safe and good so long the goods therin are safe but if the ship split upon the Rocks or have but a leake therein then are all the goods therein in danger of being lost and cast away So long as a man keeps a good conscience there is no feare of losing the faith the integrity and soundnes of the doctrin therof Constancie in the truth is a fruit of good conscience Psalm 119. 54 55. I have kept thy Law he had not declined from nor forsaken the truth of God but what held and kept him This I had because I kept thy precepts Keeping of a good conscience will keepe a man in the truth It is that which is the holy preservative to save from all errors heresies false doctrins The better conscience the sounder judgment the sounder heart the sounder head As the better digestion in the stomach the sreer the head is from ascēdent fumes that would distemper and trouble the same Iohn 7. 17. If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God How shall a man come to have a sound and a good judgement to be able to judge what is truth and what is not Let him get a good conscience and make conscience of doing the will of God Iohn 14. 21. Hee that hath my commandements and keepes them c. such a man hath and keepes a good conscience And what benefit shall such a one have by keeping of a good conscience I will love him and I will manifest my selfe unto him And Ps 50. 23. To him that orders his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God God doth communicate himselfe and his truth to such as make conscience of their wayes The pure in heart shall see God and the secret of the Lord is with them that feare
my choice of your Patronage of this Treatise It would have bin an incongruity to have had the name of a person of an evill Conscience prefixed before a booke of good Conscience I desired a Patron sutable to my subject I presume the very subject shall make the Treatise welcome to you Be you pleased to afford your acceptance as I will afford you my poore prayers that the Lord who hath already set upon your head the crowne of the Elders Prov. 17. 6. Childrens Children and one Crowne of glory here one earth Age found in the Prov. 16. 1. wayes of righteousnes would also in his due time give you that incorruptible crowne of righteousnes and eternall glory in the heavens which that righteous Judge shall give to you and to all those that in the wayes of a good Conscience waite for the blessed appearance of the Lord Iesus Your Worships in all Christian observance IER DYKE The Contents of this TREATISE The Text containes thee Maine Heads The first maine head Pauls Protestation of a good Conscience where five things are considered 1. What Conscience is 2. What a good Conscience is It is good with a twofold goodnesse 1. With the goodnesse of Integritie and this integrity is threefold 1. When being rightly principled by the VVord it sincerely judges and determines of good evill 2. VVhen it doth excuse for good and accuse for evill 3. VVhen it urges to good restraines from evil 2. VVith the goodnesse of Tranquillitie and Peace Here are three sorts of Conscience discovered not to be good viz. 1. The Ignorant Conscience 2. The Secure 3. The Seared 3. The means of getting keeping a good Conscience 1. To get and keepe the Conscience good peaceably or with the goodnesse of peace three things required 1. Faith in Christs blood 2. Repentance from dead workes 3. The conscionable exercise of Prayer 2. To get and keepe the Conscience good with the goodnesse of integrity and to have it uprightly good five things required viz. 1. VValking before God 2. Framing ones Course by the Rule of the VVord 3. Frequent examination of the Conscience 4. Hearkning to the voice of Conscience 5. In cases of questionable nature to take the surest and the safest side 4 The markes and notes of a good Conscience and they be seven 1. To make Conscience of all sinnes and duties 2. To make Conscience of small sinnes duties 3. To effect a Ministery that speakes to the Conscience 4. To doe duties and avoid sin for Conscience sake 5. Holy boldnesse 6. To suffer for Conscience 7. Constancie and Perseverance in Good 5. The Motives to a good Conscience and they are five 1. The incomparable comfort and benefit of it in all such times and cases as all other comforts faile a man and wherein a man stands most in need of comfort The Cases or times are five 1. The Time and case of Disgrace and Reproach 2. The Time of common feare cōmon calamity 3. The Time of sicknesse or other Crosses 4. The Time of Death 5. The Time and day of Iudgement 2. That a good Conseience is 1. A feast for 1. Contentment and satisfaction 2. Ioy and Mirth 3. Societie 2. Better than a feast for 1. The Cotinuance 2. Independency 3. Vniversalitie 3. Without a good Conscience all our best duties are nought 4. It is the Ship and Arke of Faith 5. The misery of an evil one 1. In this world in respect of 1. Feare 2. Perplexitie 3. Torment 2. in the world to come The second Maine Head Ananias his insolent injunction Whereout is observed 1 What is the respect a good Consciēce finds in the world 2. The impetuous injustice of the enemies of good consciēce 3. Who cōmonly be the bitteest enemies of good conscience 4. That Vsurpers are Smiters 5. What is a sad fore-runner of a Nations Ruine The third maine head Pauls Answere and Contestation Whereout is observed 1. That Christian patience muzzels not a good Conscience from pleading its owne Innocencie 2. The severitie of Gods Iudgements upon the Enemies and Smiters of good Conscience 3. The equity of Gods administration in his execution of Iustice GOOD CONSCIENCE ACTS 23. 1. And Paul earnestly beholding the Councell said Men and brethren I have lived in all good Conscience untill this day 2. And the high Priest Ananias commanded them that stood by to smite him on the mouth 3. Then said Paul unto him God shall smite thee thou whited wall CHAP. I. The Introduction of the Discourse following THere is no complaint so generall as this that the world is naught His experience is short and slender which will not justifie the truth of this complaint And what think we may the Cause be of the generall wickednes of our Times Surely nothing makes Ill Times but Ill men and nothing makes Ill men but Ill consciences Ill Conscience is the source and fountaine Hominum sunt istae non Temporum Sonec ep 98. from whence comes all iniquities which makes times here so ill How well should hee deserve that could amend ill times There is a course if it would be taken that would do the deed and so cease the common complaint Elisha's course in healing the waters of Iericho must be taken They said of their waters as wee of our times The water is naught and the ground barren 2 King 2. 19. What course now takes Elisha for healing of the waters He went out unto the spring of the waters and cast the Salt in there ver 21. So the waters were healed ver 22. The spring and fountaine of all actions good or evill is the Conscience and all actions courses of men are as their Consciences Out of the heart are the issues of life Prov. 4. 23. the heart and Conscience is the fountaine every action of a mans life is an Issue a little rivelet and a water passage thence Are these waters then that issue thence Naught The way to heale them Nō erit fructus bonus nisi arboris bonae Mutacor mutabitur opus Aug. de ver Dom. Serm. 12. is to cast the Salt into the spring Mend the Conscience and all is mended Good Consciences would make Good men and Good men would make Good Times Lo here a project for the reformation of evil times Were this Project set on foot and a good Conscience set up how should we see prophanation of Gods holy Name and Day Injustice Bribery Oppression Deceit Adulteries and Whoredomes and all other Iniquities how should wee see all these as our Savior saw Satan falling downe like lightning from heaven How should we see them come tumbling downe like so many Dagons before Gods Arke yea tumbled downe and broken to the stumps The onely Arke that must dash and ding downe these Dagons is a good Conscience And if we would well weigh the matter what is there equally desirable with a Ecce quid prodest plena bonisarca cum sit inanis
way to a good conscience but he whose faith doth not as well purifie the heart as pacifie it hath neither faith nor a good conscience It is idle to hope for peace by faith whilst thou livest impenitently in a sinfull course Thou canst have no peace of conscience so long as thou hast peace with thy sins Peace with conscience will be had by war with sin in the daily practise of repentance It it is but a dreame to think of a good cōscience in peace whilst a man makes no conscience of sin They that have a good conscience by Christs bloud may be indeed said to have no conscience of sin as Heb. 10. 2. But yet there is a great difference betweene having no conscience and making no conscience of sin To have no conscience of sin is to have a peaceable good conscience not accusing of sin being sprinkled with Christs blood To make no conscience of sin is for a man impenitently to live and ly in any sin Now let any judge whether these two can stand together that a man may live as he list and make no conscience of any sin and yet have such peace by faith as that he hath no Conscience of sin It is an unconscionable thing in this sense to lay all upon Christ an unconscionable request to have him take away our guiltinesse and yet wee would wallow in our filthinesse still How shall faith remove the sting when repentance removes not the Sin Men seeking peace by faith in Christs blood yet living and lying in their sins without repentance God will give them Iehues answer to Iehoram 2 King 9. 22. What peace so long as the whoredomes of thy mother Iezebel and her witchcrafts are so many So what peace of conscience so long as thine oathes Sabbath-breaches whoredomes drunkennes c. do remain and remaine unrepented of and unreformed It is true of all Sin which is spoken of Romish Idolatry Apoc. 14. 11. They have norest day nor night that is no peace of conscience to any of that religion so of all that live in any Sin they have no true rest day nor night that is as Isaiah interprets it There is no peace to the wicked Peace and wickednesse live not together under one roofe Wouldst thou then have a peaceable heart Get an humbled a mourning and a repentant heart for Sin The lesse peace with Sin the more peace with God and our owne Consciences 3. The constant and conscionable exercise of prayer An excellent meanes to helpe us to the sense of that peace which makes the conscience good Hee that hath a good conscience will make conscience of prayer And prayer will helpe to make a good conscience better Phil. 4. 7. In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made knowne unto God and marke what shall be the fruit thereof And the peace of God that passes all understanding shall keepe your hearts and minds through Iesus Christ See Iob 33. 26. He shall pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him and he shall see his face with joy It is many times with mens consciences as it was with Saul hee was vexed and disquieted with an evill spirit but Davids Harpe gave him ease Prayer is a Davids Harpe the musicke whereof sweetly calmes and composes a distempered and disquieted conscience and puts it into frame againe As in other disquiets of the heart after prayer David bids his soule returne unto her rest Ps 116. 4. 7. So we may in these disquiets of conscience do no lesse The way to get a good peaceable conscience is to have acquaintance with God and when wee have acquaintance with him then shall we have peace Iob 22. 21. Acquaint thy selfe now with him and be at peace Now acquaintance is gotten with God by prayer Zech. 13. 9. They shall call on my name and I will heare them I will say it is my people and they shall say the Lord is my God Loe how in prayer acquaintance is bred betweene God and his people and acquaintance breedes love and peace and peace a good Conscience Iudge then what pitious conscience they must needs have that make so little conscience of seeking God in this duty of wicked ones the Psalme speakes They call not upon God Psal 14. as much as Isaiah sayes There is no peace to the wicked they are utterly voyd of good Conscience CHAP. V. Integrity of Conscience how procured ANd thus we have seen how the conscience may be good for peace It followes to consider how it may become uprightly good with the goodnesse of Integrity The goodnesse of Integrity is gotten and kept by doing five things 1. Walke and live as Paul in this Text Before God Set thy selfe ever in all thy wayes as in the sight and presence of God who is the Iudge and Lord of conscience Of Moses it is said that he saw him that was invisible Heb. 11. 27. Therfore it is that men walke with such loose and evill consciences because they think they walke invisibly And they think that God sees not them because they see not God An upright conscience is a good conscience and this is the way to get an upright one Gen. 17. 1. Walke before me and be upright To have God alwayes in our eye will make us walke with upright hearts So Psal 119. 168. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies that is in effect I have kept a good Conscience but how came he to doe it for all my wayes are before thee Conscience as we saw before is a knowledge together that is together with God Now then this is an excellent meanes to get and keepe a good conscience to be carefull to doe nothing but that which we would be content God should know as well as our selves Think with thy selfe before every evill action Am I content that God should know of this But how then may a man bring himself to this Set thy self alwayes in Gods presence and see the invisible God and see thy selfe visible in his eye and know that thou doest nothing which he takes not notice of This well thought upon and laid to heart would make men make much conscience of their wayes The contrary to this is rash walking Lev. 26. when a man walkes so loosely and heedlesly as if there were no eye upon him to view him in his actions 2. Frame thy whole Course by the Dirige gressus secundū verbum tuum Quid est Dirige secundum verbum tuum Virecti sint gressus mei quia rectum est verbum tuum Ego inquit distortus sum sub pondere iniquitatis sed verbum tuum est regula veritatis me ergo distortum à me corrige tanquam ad regulam hoc est ad verbum tuum Au. de ver Apo. ser 12. rule and shape it by the directions of the word of God Gods Word is the Rule of conscience Gal. 6. 16. As many as walk according to
latitude within the compasse whereof I will bring both those forenamed and all other materiall points which this Protestation doth afford CHAP. II. Conscience described THe maine subject of this Protestation and the ayme of this following discourse being concerning a good Conscience for the more orderly handling thereof consider these specialls 1. What Conscience is 2. What a good Conscience is 3. How a good conscience may be gotten and kept The meanes of it 4. How a good Conscience may be knowne The marks of it 5. The Motives to get and keepe a good Conscience 1. What Conscience is It may be thus described Conscience is a power and faculty of the soule taking knowledge and bearing witnesse of all a mans thoughts words and actions and accordingly excusing or accusing absolving or condemning comforting or tormenting the same I know there be other definitions given by others more succinct and neat but I rather chuse this though it may be not altogether so formall to the rules of Art The rules of love and profit many times may make bold to dispence with rules of Art So I may be profitable I care the lesse to be artificiall It may suffice that this description is answerable to that Auditory for whose sake it was first intended A plaine familiar description agrees well enough with such a people For the better conceiving of it let it be taken in pieces and every parcell viewed severally It is a faculty or power of the soule It is therefore called the Heart 1 Ioh. 3. 20. If our heart condemne us Eccl. 7. 22. Thine own heart knows that thou thy selfe likewise hast cursed others that is thine own Conscience knowes It is also called the spirit of man 1 Cor. 2. 11. For what man knowes the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him And Rom. 8. 16. The spirit it selfe beares witnesse with our spirit that is with our Conscience Not that Conscience is a spirit distinct from the subject of the soule as Origen mistooke but because it is a faculty of the soule therefore the name that is oft given to the soule is given to it If it be asked in what part of the soule this facultie is placed we must know that Conscience is not confined to any one part of the soule It is not in the understanding alone not in the memory will or affections alone but it hath place in all the parts of the soule and according to the severall parts thereof hath severall Offices or acts Taking Knowledge Eccl. 7. 22. Thine owne heart knowes Conscience is placed in the soule as Gods spy and mans superiour and overseer and inseparable companion that is with a man at all times and in all places so that there is not a thought word or worke that it knowes not and takes not notice of So that that which David speakes of God himselfe Psa 139. 3 4. Thou compassest my heart and my lying downe and art acquainted with all my wayes for there is not a word in my tongue but loe thou knowest it altogether Whither shall I goe from thy spirit If I ascend up to heaven c. The same may be also said of conscience Gods deputy it is acquainted w th al our waies not a motion in the mind nor a syllable in the mouth to which it is not privy yea it is thus inseparably present with us not only to see but also to set downe to register and to put downe upon Record all our thoughts words and works Conscience is Gods Notary and there is nothing passes us in our whole life good or ill which Conscience notes not downe with an indeleble character which nothing can raze out but Christs Nam quocuÌ„que me verto vitia mea me sequuntur ubicunque vado conscienscia mea me non deserit se praesens adsistit quicquid facio scribit Idcirco quaÌ„quam humana subterfugiam judicia judiciuÌ„ propriae cons â—ugere non valeo Et si hominibus celo quod egi mihi tamen qui novi maluÌ„ quod gessi celare nequeo Bern. de inter Com. cap. 31. bloud Conscience doth in this kind as Iob wishes in another Iob 19. 23 24. Oh that my words were now written Oh that they were printed in a booke That they were graven with an iron pen laid in the rock for ever Conscience prints and writes so surely so indelebly yea it writes mens sins as Iudah his sin was with a pen of iron with the point of a Diamond and they are graven upon the Table of their hearts Ier. 17. 1. Conscience doth in our pilgrimage as travellers in their journey it keepes a Diary or a journall of every thing that passes in our whole course it keepes a booke in which it hath a mans whole life pend In regard of this office conscience is placed in the memory and is the Register and Recorder of the soule And bearing witnesse This we find Rom. 2. 15. Their conscience also bearing witnesse Rom. 9. 1. My conscience also bearing me witnes 2. Cor. 1. 12. This testimony of our conscience And this the end of the former office of the conscience For therefore it is exact and punctuall in setting downe the particulars of a mans whole life that it may bee a faithfull witnesse either for him or against him For a faithfull witnesse cannot lie Prou. 14. 5. This office it is ready to doe at all times Peccata mea celare non possum quoniam quocuÌ„que vado coÌ„sc mea mecum est secum portans quod in ea posui sive bonum sive malum servat vivo restituet defuncto depositum quod servanduÌ„ accepit Bern. Med. de vot cap. 14. of triall affliction and most of all at the last day the day of iudgement when it shall be more solemnly called in to give in evidence Rom. 2. 15. 16. Their conscience bearing witnes c. In the day when God shall iudge secrets of men At that day it shall especially witnes either for or against a man if our life and actions have beene good it will then doe like the true witnesse Pro. 14 25. A true witnes delivers soules If wicked ungodly it will deale with it as Iob complaines God did with him Iob 10. 17. Thou renewest thy witnesse against me It will testifie according to every mans deeds And this testimonie of conscience is without all exception for in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand and conscience as our common saying is is a thousand witnesses for it is an eye-witnesse of all our actions yea a pen-witnes bringing testimonie from the authentique Records and Register of the Court of Conscience Concerning this testifying office of Conscience that place is worth the noting Esa 59. 12. For our transgressions are multiplied before thee our sins testifie against vs for our transgressions are with vs and as for our iniquities we know them By which place wee may know the
meaning of the word Conscience Conscience is a knowledge together How together First a knowledge together with another person namely with God when God and a mans heart know a thing there is Conscience knowledge together Rom. 9. 1. My conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Co-witnessing witnessing together How together God knows it and witnesses and my conscience together with him knowes witnesses Secondly a knowledge ioyned together with another knowledge for there is a double act of the vnderstanding First that wherby wee thinke or know a thing Secondly there is a reflecting act of the soule wherby we thinke what we thinke and know what we know and this is the action of the Conscience and this ioyning of this secōd knowledge to the first giues it the name of Conscience As here in this place As for our iniquities wee know them that is we know that wee have had evill thoughts and our knowledge tels vs witnesses to vs that we have done so This agrees with Bernards definition that Conscientia est cordis scientia Conscience is the knowledge of the heart namely passively It is the knowing of what the heart knowes which others in better termes have expressed thus Conscience is the recoiling of the soule vpon it self Sutable to that of the Apostle 1. Cor. 4. 4. I know nothing by my selfe As if he had said I know not any thing that I know against my selfe my Conscience doth not witnesse against mee And this second office of Conscience in bearing witnesse is also in the memory And accordingly accusing or excusing absolving or condemning These acts of Conscience we finde Rom. 2. 15. Their thoughts accusing or excusing one another Rom. 12. 22. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that he allows The ground of these acts is this Conscience before actions are to be done determines of their lawfulnesse and unlawfulnesse iudges of them whether they be good or evill And if it iudge them good it inuites stirres vp vrges and bindes to the doing of them Rom. 13. 5. Ye must be subiect for conscience sake that is because Conscience determines it to be good vrges bindes thereunto Hence that phrase in common speech my conscience vrgeth me to it or he was vrged in conscience to do it and I am bound inconscience to doe it Certainly if it judge determine actions to be evill unlawfull then it binds from them So much that speech implies 1 Cor. 10. 27. Eate asking no question for conscience sake So that conscience hath a power to bind to and to bind from Now then when a man in his particular actions doth follow the Prescriptions Dictates Injunctions Prohibitions and Determinations of Conscience and hearkens to the incitements therof then conscience excuses him acquits and absolves him But if in his actions he go against any of these then Conscience accuses him of offence condemns him for that offence The accusation of conscience hath respect unto a mans guilt the condemnation of it unto a mans punishment Accusation is an act of Conscience passing sentence upon a mans action as when conscience tels him This was ill done this action was sinfull Condemnation is an act of conscience passing sentence not onely upon a mans action but upon a mans person as when it tels him Thou deservest Gods wrath for this Sin Conscience in accusing shewes what is the quality in condemning what is the desert of a mans actions And these actions of conscience are in the mind and understanding part of the soule The act of the conscience in the memory determins de facto and tels us what wee have done or not done The act of Conscience in the understanding determines de jure and tels us whether we have done well or ill and so accordingly either excuses or accuses acquits or condemns Comforting or tormenting the same these be the last acts of conscience following the former If Conscience determining prescribing and inciting to good be hearkned unto then it excuses acquits thereupon followes comfort joy hope 2 Cor. 11. 2. This is our rejoycing the testimony of our Conscience Contrarily if Sic in domo propria ◠propria familia habeo accusatores testes judices tortores Accusat me conscientia testis est memoria volūtas carcer timor tortor oblectamentum tormentum Bern. Med. de vot cap. 13. the dictates of Conscience be not regarded it accuses and condemnes and then torments with feare griefe dispaire and violent perturbations in all which is that worme Mar. 9. 44. And these actions of the conscience are in the will and in the affections And thus according to the divers parts of the soule the acts and office of conscience are divers In the memory it hath the office of a Notary Register Witnesse In the understanding it hath the office of a Iudge and an accuser of a Felix and a Tertullus In the affections either of a Comforter or Tormenter The summe of all may be thus knit up Conscience containes three things 1. Knowledge practicall 2. Application of that knowledge to our particular estates and actions 3. Those affections which arise thereupon Now the speciall worke of Conscience consists in the second in the applying our knowledge to our estates actions Now in this application it looks on things past or present simply as things and so it witnesses of them to be done or not done Eccl. 7. 22. Or else it looks at the good or evill of things past present and to come Super nos etiam posuit ad custodiēdum si deliquissent qui accusarent qui testificarentur qui judicarent qui punirent consc quippe est accusatrix memoria testis ratio judex timor carnifex Bern. hom de vill iniq If things past or present seeme good it excuses if evill it accuses bites Rom. 2. 15. If things to be done seeme good it excites urges and bindes to the doing thereof If evill it urges and binds therefrom Now according to these severall acts there follow in us divers affections joy hope feare griefe and the like The whole processe of the worke of Conscience fals within the frame a of practicall Syllogisme as for example Every one that sins in betraying innocent Conscientia Synteresisest qua victi voluptatibus vel furore ipsaque interdum rationis decepti similitudine nos peccare sentinuis Hieronym in Eccl. ca. 1. Synteresis est promptuarium principiorū seu regularum practicarum ejus officium est regulas legis divinae proferre cōsc subministrare ut illarum ope possit censorem agere de propriisactionibus Alsted Theol. Cas cap. 2. bloud is worthy of Gods wrath But I saith Iudas have sinned in betraying innocent bloud therefore I am worthy of Gods wrath Here the Major is knowledge practicall the rule law by which conscience keeps her Court This is Synteresis The Minor that is Syneidesis the proper worke of Conscience applying that knowledge and generall
rule for a mans particular estate or action Here Conscience witnesses concerning the fact judges of the quality of it and accordingly accuses or excuses The Conclusion is the sentence of conscience absolving or condemning and accordingly cheering or stinging comforting or tormenting a man CHAP. III. A good Conscience what it is false ones discovered VVHat Conscience is wee have seene The second thing considerable is what a good Conscience is The Conscience that is good must be good with a double goodnesse 1. With the goodnesse of Integrity 2. With the goodnes of Tranquillity Vprightnesse and Peace these two are required to the constitution of a good Conscience First it is good with the goodnesse of Integrity when it is an upright cōscience This is that which Paul cals A pure Conscience 2 Tim. 1. 3. which Phrase a man would almost think in his conscience that the Holy Ghost used on set purpose to stop the mouth of the iniquity of the latter times that should seeke to disgrace all good Conscience with the sarcasme of purity Now the conscience is good with the goodnesse of Integritie and Puritie three wayes 1. When it being informed and rightly principled by the word of God the only rule and binder of Conscience it doth truly and sincerely judge and determine evill to be evill and good to be good As contrarily the conscience is sinfully evill when it doth not determine that to be evill which is evill nor that to be good which is good but call evill good and good evill Such as are the consciences of Ignorant persons who wanting the knowledge of Gods Word and having their consciences blinded through ignorance are not able to judge of good or evill nor to discerne and determine which is which So that knowledge is necessarily required to the goodnes of conscience Rom. 15. 14. Yee also are full of goodnes filled with all knowledge The conscience cannot be good where the soule is naught and that the soule be without knowledge it is not good Prov. 9. 2. 2. When it doth excuse for that which is good and accuse for that which is evill being sanctified by the spirit of grace for the accusation of conscience though it follow upon sin yet it is not sinfull and evill in it selfe but only painfull and troublesome and so opposed to the goodnes of peace not to the goodnesse of uprightnesse according to that trite distinction of Bernard of a good Conscience and not quiet a quiet conscience not good It is the property of a conscience uprightly good to accuse upon any sin committed As contrarily the conscience is sinfully evill when it doth not excuse for good nor accuse for evill The superstitious person omitting his fopperies should be excused by his Conscience wheras he rather receives blame from his Conscience therefore his Conscience is sinfully evill The secure persons conscience is naught because he having cōmitted sin his Conscience is silent and lets him alone and brings in no accusation against him therefore it is sinfully evill It is a witnesse that hath seene and knowne evill and doth not utter it therfore it shall beare its iniquity Levit. 5. 1. 3. When it doth incite and urge us to doe good and doth stay and hinder from evill It is uprightly good when it spurs to good and bridles from evill Heb. 13. 18. For we are assured that we have a good Conscience viz. A conscience that is neither silent to perswade to that which is good or disswade from that which is evil If a man go about or be ready to yield to any thing that is sinful how wil it muster up legions of Arguments how will it wrastle and struggle with a man It will say as Abner to Ioab 2 Sam. 2. 26. knowst thou not that it wil be bitternes in the later end or as Abigail to David 1 Sam. 25. 31. It shall be no griefe nor offence of heart unto thee another time not to have done this evill If a man be negligent or carelesse and drowsie in good duties it comes to him with that voice Ephes 5. 14. Awake thou that sleepest or with that Isa 30. 21. This is the way walke in it When it doth thus it is uprightly good Contrarily it is sinfully evill when it doth not incite us to that which is good nor hinder us from doing evill This is a dead and a seared conscience 1 Tim. 4. 2. Having their consciences seared with an hot yron 2. It is good with the goodnesse of Tranquility And that is when the conscience is at peace and doth not accuse us because it hath not wherewith to accuse us either because not guilty of such or such a particular fact 1 Cor. 4. 4. I know nothing by my selfe or else because it is assured of pardon in the bloud of Christ by which we come to have no more Conscience of Sins Heb. 10. 2. That is no more Conscience to accuse or condemne for Sin it being done away in the blood of Christ and this is the purged Conscience Heb. 9. 14. which brings Hope Ioy Comfort and confidence with it 2 Cor. 1. 12. This is our rejoycing the testimony of our Conscience Then is the Conscience good when it is peaceable As contrarily then it is evill painfully evill when it is turbulent and troublesome in the accusations thereof and binds over to judgement and so leaves us in shame feare perplexity and griefe 1 Ioh. 3. 20. If our heart condemne us This is a wounded a troubled conscience This is oft the evill conscience of evill men Isa 57. 21. There is no peace to the wicked saith my God Yet may a man have his Conscience uprightly good which is painfully evill for a good mans Conscience may be unquiet and troubled Thus then wee see what a good conscience is that which is uprightly honest and quietly peaceable This being so it serves to discover the dangerous errour of divers sorts of people that are in a dreame of having good consciences and yet having nothing lesse There be three sorts of consciences which because they are in some sort quiet and sting not their owners would have to goe for good ones and yet are starke naught and they are the Ignorant the Secure and the Seared Conscience 1. The Ignorant Conscience Men judge of their ignorant consciences as they do of their blind dumbe and ignorant Ministers Such neither doe nor can Preach can neither tell men of their sins nor of their duties Aske such a blinde guides people what their cōceit is of him what a kind of man their Minister is ye shall have him magnified for a passing honest harmlesse man and a man wondrous quiet amongst his neighbors They may doe what they will for him hee is none of those troublesome fellowes that will be reproving their faults or complaining of their disorders in the Pulpit oh such a one is a quiet good man indeed Thus judge many of their Consciences If their
and a cessation of Armes for a season so as during the same there is still provision of more Force and a preparation of greater strength A truce is but a breathing time to fit for fiercer impressions The truce being ended the assaults are rather fiercer than they were before The secure Consciences are quiet not because there is peace for there is no peace to the wicked Quomodo tranquilla cum mundi hujus prosperitas alludit illudit cum laudatur peccator in desiderijs animae suae Born de Conse saith my God Isa 57. 21. But because there is some truce the world smiles upon them and they have outward hearts ease and this brings them asleepe but if any affliction crosse or sicknesse come then they see how far they are from peace Conscience is sometime at truce with secure sinners but during this truce Conscience is preparing Armes and Ammunition against them is levying of fresh forces against them and assoone as the truce is ended be it sooner or be it later have at them with more violence fury fiercenes than ever before And the truce once ended it will easilie appeare what a wide breadth of difference there is between a secure and a good Conscience 3. A Seared Conscience That which Paul speakes of 1 Tim. 4. 2. A cauterized Conscience That is as Beza translates and expounds it A Conscience cut off as it were with a Chirugions Instrument An arme or a leg cut off from the body stab it gash it chop it into gobbets do what you will with it it is insensible it feeles it not Or else as our translation hath it Having their Consciences seared with an hot iron A comparison borrowed from Chirurgerie When a limbe is cut off Chirugions use to seare that part of the Body from whence the other is taken with an hot iron and sometimes they do cures by searing the affected parts with hot irons Now these parts upon their searing have a kind of crusty brawninesse which is utterly insensible which though it be cut or pricked it neither bleeds nor feeles Thus is it with many mens Consciences commit they whatsoever sins they will yet their hearts are so hardned through long custome in sin that they feele no gripings pinches or bitings at all but are growne to that dead and dedolent disposition Ephes 4. 19. Who being past feeling c. It is with such mens consciences as with labouring mens hands which through much labor have a brawny hardnesse growing upon them which is without any feeling One may thrust pins into it pare it with a knife and yet without any trouble or griefe at all Such callous Consciences have many that though they be wounded and gashed with never such foule sins yet their consciences shrink not feele not awhit Their Consciences are like Gally-slaves backs so bebrawned over with often lashing that an ordinary lash will not make them so much as once shuck in their shoulders You have many that can sweare not onely your more civill oathes of faith and troth but those ruffianly and bloudy oathes of bloud and wounds and it never wounds their hearts awhit You have many that can commit foule sins with lesse touch than others can heare of them You shall have black Smiths that are used to the frequent and daily handling of hot iron hold an hot firecoale in their hands and laugh whilst another would roare out There be those that can be drunke day after day that consecrate whole Sabbaths to Venus Bacchus and give themselvs up to foule villanies yet not one twitch at the heart not a snib not a crosse word from their Consciences Estrich-like they can concoct iron and put it off as easily as another weake stomacke can doe gelly They have brought their hearts to that passe the drunkards body is in Pro. 25. 35. They have striken me and I was not sick they have eaten me and I felt it not Their seared Consciences have no more feeling than our sotted Drunkards have in their drunkennesse who though they have many a knocke and sore bruise yet feele it not To this fearefull condition and senselesse and seared stupiditie of Conscience many growe and when they have thus crusted and brawned the same then they have their Consciences at a good passe becavse they heare them not brawling within them Alas how farre are such from goodnesse of Conscience In some sense those have worse Consciences than the Devill himselfe who beleeves and trembles whose Conscience yet is not so seared but it trembles at the thoughts of his deserved damnation And howsoever these seared Consciences are quiet yet there will come a day that this seared crustinesse shall bee scaled off and those Consciences which were not sensible of sinne shall be most sensible of paine though they were past feeling in the committing of sinne yet they shall be all feeling in suffering punishment for sinne God will pare off that brawninesse from their Consciences and will pare them so to the quicke that they shall feele and most sensibly feele that which here they would not feele Tremble therefore at the having of such a Conscience in which there is neither uprightnesse nor peace neither integrity nor tranquility but a senslesse and fearfull stupidity Thus we have seen what a good Conscience is CHAP. IV. Peace of Conscience how gotten IT followes now to know how a man may get and keepe a good one which is the third point which was propounded to be handled A point well worth our inquiring after A good Conscience is the most precious thing that a Christian can have a thing of that esteeme that where it is wanting wee account a man without a Conscience So of a man that hath an ill Conscience we use to say he is a man of no conscience Not that he hath no Conscience the Devils themselves have a conscience and happy it were for them they had none but when a man hath not a good one we esteeme of him as having none at all There is no greater good we can seeke after than a good conscience Let us enquire then how we may get and keepe this so great a good A good Conscience then consisting in Peace and Integrity these two being gotten and kept wee shall get and keepe a good Conscience First then to make the Conscience peaceably good these things are required 1. Faith in Christ and his blood The conscience cannot be at peace till it be purged from its guilt An impure conscience cānot but be an unquiet conscience and every guilty Conscience is impure Guilt is the same to the Conscience that the winds are to the seas Isa 27. 20. 21. The wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up myre and dirt there is no peace to the wicked Now that which makes the sea so troublesome and ragingly restlesse is the violence of the blustering winds that trouble tosse it to and fro The winds
and will dog and haunt men so much the more Yea it deals like the blind men Math. 20. 31. who when the multitude rebuked them they cryed the more Now then when conscience growes thus clamorous and will not be silenced then they will stop their owne eares that if it will needs be prating it shall but tell a tale to a deafe man To this end men put a double tricke upon their consciences 1 Sauls trick Saul is vexed with an evill spirit what must be the cure seeke him out a minstrell Thus many when the cry of conscience is up betake them to their merriments and jollities They try whether the noise of the Harps and Viols and the roarings of good fellowes will not drowne the voyce and noise of conscience They will try whether the dinne of an Ale-house or the ratling and clattering of the Dice and Tables cannot deafe their eares against the clamours of conscience Thus doe many in the accusations of conscience give themselves wholly up to all manner of pleasures and delights that so their minds being taken up with them there might bee no leasure to give conscience any the least audience 2 Cains trick Cain had a mark of God upon him Gen. 4. 15. And what might that marke be Chrysostome thinks it was a continuall shaking and trembling of his Chrys in â— ep Cor. Hom. 7. body If that were his marke why might not that trembling come from the horrour of his guilty conscience following him with a continuall hue and and cry for murther and reproching him for a bloody murtherer How-ever no question but his conscience continually haunted him and the cry of blood was ever in his eares Now then what course takes he ye shall see Gen. 4. 17. That hee falls a building of Cities betakes himselfe to a multitude of imployments that the noise of the sawes axes and mallets might be lowder then the noise of his Conscience If Conscience bee out of quiet with them will not cease to urge and pinch them then have among their sheepe and oxen that their bleating and bellowing may keepe under the voice of conscience they do so possesse their heads and their thoughts and so overload them with much dealings in the world that there is no spare time wherein their eare can be free to heare the voice of conscience The clutter of their many businesses make too great a noyse for Conscience to have audience They deale with their consciences as the Ephesians dealt with Alexander Act. 19. 33. 34. And Alexander beckned with the hand and would have made his defence unto the people But when they knew that he was a Iew all with one voice about the space of two houres cryed out Great is Diana of the Ephesians If Alexander had had never so good lungs and strong sides hee might have strained his voyce till hee had crazed the organs of language and might have spoken till he had been hoarse againe before he could have beene heard to have spoken one syllable though he had spoken all the reason in the world Such a noise of an outragious bellowing multitude had bin almost enough to have drownd the voice of a Canon Thus deale men with their conscience if she but prepare to speak and give but a becke with the hand presently thrust themselves into a crowd of busines that may out-cry and over-cry the bawling noise therof It was an hideous noise that the shricking infants of Israel made when they were offred up alive in fire unto Moloch Now lest their parents bowels should earne with compassion and be affected with the shrickes of their poore babes therfore they had their drums and trumpets strucke up and sounded in the time of sacrifice to make such a noise that in no case the lamentable cryes of the infants should be heard The same trick do too many put upon their consciences if they will be clamouring they will have some Drum or other whose greater noise may deafe their eares from hearing the cries of conscience But alas what poore projects are these The time will come when men shall have neither pleasures nor profits neither delights nor businesse to stop their eares Though now men beate upon these Drum-heads and with the noise of their pleasures and profits keepe conscience voice under from being heard yet the day will come when God will beat out these Drum-heads and then the cries and horrid and hideous shrickes of conscience shall bee heard God will one day strip thee of all thy pleasures and imployments and will turne thee single and loose to thy conscience and it shall have full liberty to bait thee and bite thee at pleasure Oh how much better is it to be willing to hearken to the voice of Conscience here than to be forced to heare it in hell when the time of hearkning will be past and gone Hearken to it now and thou shalt not heare it hereafter Hearken to the admonitions and reproofes of it now and thus shall thou get Integrity here and shalt be free from hearing the dolefull clamours of it in hell hereafter 5. To get and keepe a good Conscience ever in cases of a doubtfull and questionable nature be sure to take the surest side Many things are of a questionable nature and much may bee said on either side in such cases if thou wouldst have a good Conscience take the surest side that side on which thou mayst be sure thou shalt not sinne As for example There be divers games and recreations whose lawfulnesse are questioned yet much may be said for them and possibly they may have the judgement of divers reverend and learned men for their lawfullnesse Now what shall a man doe in this case Take the sure side If I use them it is possible I may sinne it may be they are not sinnefull yet I am not so sure of it that I shall not sinne if I use them as I am sure I shall not sin if I doe not use them I am sure that not to use such sports breakes none of Gods commandements a man may bee bold to build upon that Tutiores igitur vivimus si totum Deo daraus non autem nos illi ex parte nobis ex parte committimus Aug. de dono persev cap. 6. He that lives by this rule shall keepe his Conscience from many a flaw He that sailes amongst Rockes it is possible hee may escape splitting but hee is not so sure to keep his vessell safe and whole as he that sailes in a cleare sea where no rocks are at all It is good in matter of life and practice to doe as Augustine speakes in case of doctrine Wee live more safely saith he if wee attribute all wholly to God and doe not commit our selves partly to God and partly to our selves In doctrines it is good to hold the safest side wherein there can be no danger yea Bellarmine himselfe after his long dispute for justification by
Propter incertitudinem propriae Iustitiae periculum inanis gloriae tutissimum est fiduciam totam in sola Dei misericordia benignitate reponere Bellar. de Iustific lib. 5. cap. 7. merit comes to this at last That by reason of the uncertainty of our owne righteousnesse and the danger of vaine-glory it is the most safe way to repose our whole confidence in the mercie and goodnesse of God alone Which way soever Bellarmine is gone himselfe or any of his religion I thinke common reason will teach a man so much wisdome to go the safest way to heaven and that the safest way is the best way The Lord that would have us make our calling and election sure 2 Peter 1. 10. would not have us put so great a matter as the salvation of our soules upon Bellarmines hazard and confessed uncertaintie of our owne righteousnesse Now as in case of doctrine so in case of practise it is great wisedome and a great meanes of keeping a good conscience to doe that wherein we may Tutioris vivere and to take to that which Tutissimum est to follow that which is safest and to take to that side which is the surest and the freest from danger CHAP. VII Two markes if a good Conscience THus wee see how a good conscience may be had it followes we consider how it may be knowne and be discerned to be had The markes and notes by which a good conscience may bee knowne are seven 1. This in the Text. In all good conscience 1. Note of good conscience Conscience in all things It is a good note of a good conscience when a man makes conscience of all things all duties and all Sins There be that have naturall consciences principled by some generall grounds of nature and it may bee so farre as these rules carry them may make some conscience but their principles comming short they must needs also come as short of a good conscience I have lived saies Paul here in all good conscience and Heb. 13. 18. Wee trust wee have a good Conscience in all things It is a good conscience when a mans life all his life is a life of conscience when in all his life and the whole tenour thereof he makes conscience of all that God commands and forbids Psal 119. 6. Then shall I not be ashamed what breeds shame but evill conscience when I have respect unto all thy Commandements When all are respected there is no shame because where all are respected there is good conscience and where good conscience is there is no shame That argued Davids good conscience Psal 119. 101. I have refrained my feet from every evill way Try mens consciences by this and it will discover a great deale of evill conscience in the world Many a morall man makes conscience of doing his neighbour the least wrong hee will not wrong or pinch any man payes every man his owne deales fairly and squarely in his commerce there is no man can say blacke is his eye you shall have him thank God that he hath as good a conscience as the best These are good things and such things as men ought to make conscience of but yet here is not enough to make a good conscience A good conscience must be all good conscience or it is no good conscience Now indeed these men may have good consciences before men but my Text tels us that we must live in all good conscience before God And Paul joines them two together Act. 24. 13. And herein I doe exercise my selfe to have a good conscience voyd of offence towards God and towards men Now be it that these have good conscience before men yet what have they before God Alas they are miserably ignorant in the things of God no consciences to acquaint themselves with his truth no conscience of prayer in their families of reading the Scriptures no conscience of an oath and as little of the Sabbath and the private duties thereof How far are these from good conscience Others againe seeme to make conscience of their duties before God but in the meane time no conscience of duties of Justice in the second Table make no conscience of oppression racking rents covetousnesse over-reaching c. these are no better consciences then the former neither are good because they live not in all good conscience Thus may ◠man discover the naughty consciences of most Iehu seemes wondrous zealous for the Lord and seemes to be a man of a singular good conscience in the demolishing the Tēple of Baal putting to death his Priests I but if Iehu make conscience of letting Baals Tēple stand why doth he not as well make conscience of letting Ieroboams Calves stand If Iehu had had a good conscience hee would as ill have brookt Ieroboams as Iezebels Idolatry he would have purged the land of all Idols Herod seemes to make some conscience of an Oath Marke 6. 26. For his Oaths sake hee would not reject her It is joy of him that hee is a man of so good conscience I but in the meane time why makes hee no conscience of incest and murther Hee feares and makes conscience to breake an unlawfull Oath but makes no conscience to cut an holy Prophets throate Who would not have thought Saul to have beene a man of a very good conscience see how like a man of good conscience hee speakes 1 Sam. 14. 34. Sinne not against the Lord in eating with the blood Hee would have the people make conscience of eating with the blood and indeed it was a thing to be made conscience of I but he that makes conscience of eating the flesh of Sheepe and Oxen with the blood like a bloody hearted tyrāt as he was he makes no conscience of sucking and shedding the blood of fourescore and five of Gods Priests Iust the conscience of his blood-hound Doeg 1 Sam 21. 7. Doeg was there that day deteined before the Lord. How deteined either out of a religious conscience of the Sabbath or by occasion of a vow the man made conscience of going before the Sabbath were ended or the dayes of his vow finisht A thing indeed to be made conscience of men ought not to depart from Gods house till holy services bee finisht a duety that even the Prince must make conscience of Ezek. 46. 10. Who therefore would not judge this Edomite a conscionable Proselyte I but why then makes hee no conscience of Lying Psalm 25. Why no conscience of being instrumentall to Sauls injustice in that barbarous villany of slaying not onely innocent men but innocent Priests of the Lord such were the Consciences of the Chiefe Priests Matth. 27. 6. How like honest conscionable men they speake It is not lawfull for to put them into the treasury because it is the price of blood Sure it is great conscience ought to bee made of bringing the price of blood into the Temple treasurie Are they not then men of good conscience It is not lawfull
ye see they will not doe that which is not lawfull It is well but tell me is it not lawfull to take the price of blood and is it lawful to give a price for blood Ought there Qualis haec innoceÌ„tiae simulatio pecuniaÌ„ sanguinis non mitâ—â—e in Arâ—â—â— et ipsum sanguinem mitieâ—e in ConscientiaÌ„ August not a Conscience to bee made of blood as well as of the price of blood They make a Conscience of receiving the price of blood into the Treasury but make no Conscience of receiving the guilt of blood into their Consciences Iust such Consciences as they had Ioh. 18. 28. They would not go into the Iudgement Hall lest they should bee defiled but that they might eate the Passover Indeed a man should make great Conscience of preparation to the Sacrament and take great heede that he come not thither defiled but see their naughty Conscience they make Conscience of being defiled by going into the judgement Hall but make no Conscience of being defiled with the blood of an Innocent Such was the conscience of the Iewes Ioh. 19. 31. they make Conscience of the body of Christ hanging on the Crosse on the Sabbath but with what conscience have they hanged it on the Crosse at all This was just like to those that Socrates speaks of who made great conscience of keeping Holy-dayes yet made no conscience of uncleannesse that was but an indifferent thing with them As if conscience were not rather to be made of keeping our vessels in holinesse our bodies then dayes holy Remarkable in this kind is that dealing of the Iewes with Paul 2 Cor. 11. 24. Of the Iewes five times received I forty stripes save one If we looke into the Law Deut. 25. 1 2 3. it runs thus If there be a controversie c. and it shall be if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten the Iudge shall cause him to lye downe and to be beaten before his face according to his fault by a certaine number forty stripes hee may give him and not exceed Now see the good consciences of these Iewes they might give forty stripes but not beyond that number might they goe Now they make so much conscience of exceeding the number of forty that they give Paul but nine and thirty Thus they make conscience of the number but no conscience of the fact They make conscience of giving above fortie but with what conscience doe they give him any at all The Text not onely prescribes the number of stripes but the condition of the person namely that he be worthy to be beaten and he must be punished according to his fault Now see these men make Conscience of the law for the number but make no conscience of the Law that will have onely wicked men and such as are worthy to be beaten to be so used These be the consciences of wicked men they make seeme of making conscience in some one thing but make no conscience of ten others it may be of farre greater weight and necessity and herein discover they the naughtinesse of their consciences The conscience therefore is not to be judged good for one or some good actions Ioab turned not after Absolom but hee turned after Adoniah 1 King 1. 28. Whereas a good conscience that turnes neither to the right hand not the left would have turned neither after Adoniah nor Absolom A good conscience and a good conversation must goe together 1 Pet. 3. 16. Having a good Conscience that they may be ashamed that falsly accuse your good conversation One good action makes not a good conversation nor a good conscience but then a mans conversation may be said to be good when in his whole course he is carefull to do all good duties and to avoyd all sinnes and such a good conversation is a signe of good Conscience Nunc autem in hoc maior offensa est quod partem sententiae sacrae pro commodorum nostrorum utilitate deligimus parrem pro dei iniuria praeterimus Et maxime cum terrestres domini nequaquam aequo animo tolerandum putent si iussiones suas serui ex parte audiant ex parte contemnant Si enim pro arbitrio suo servi dominis obtemperant ne ijs quidem in quibus obtemperaverint obsequuntur c. Savian de Provid To doe some good things and not all is no more a signe of good conscience then to doe some things onely which his master requires and to neglect other some is no signe of a good servant A good servants commendation is to do all his Masters businesse hee enjoynes him Wee would hold him but an holy-day servant and an idle companion that when his master hath set him his severall workes to doe hee will doe which him pleases and leave the other undone This were not to doe his masters but to doe his owne will and to serve his owne turne rather then his masters So for a man to make choyce of duties and to picke out some particulars wherein hee will yeeld obedience to God and to passe by others as not standing with his profits pleasures and lusts this will never gaine a man the commendation of a good conscience whose goodnes must bee knowne by making conscience of all things Then have Gods servants good consciences when it can be sayd of them as Shaphan speaks of Iosiah his servants 2 Chron. 34. 16. All that was committed to thy servants they doe it 2. To make conscience of small Duties and small sinnes This also rises out of the Text. All good Conscience If of all things then of small things It might have beene comprehended under the former but yet for Conviction sake I distinguish them The good conscience makes not conscience onely of great duties and sinnes but even of the least knowing that as Gods great power and omnipotence is the same in the making of an Angell and a worme so Gods authority wisedome and holinesse is the same in the least Commandements as in the greatest of them all It makes conscience specially of Judgement and the weighty matters of the law but yet doth not therefore thinke it selfe discharged of all care in smaller things doth not thereupon challenge a dispensation from obedience in meaner matters as if it were needlesse scrupulosity as too much precisenesse to ty the Mint Anise and Cummin A Cummin-seede indeede is but a small thing a very toy but yet as small a thing and as light as it is yet will it ly heavie upon a good conscience being injuriously and fraudulently detayned from the Levites The Pharisees tythed Mint Anise and Cummin but they neglected the weighty matters of the Law It is no good conscience that lookes to small and neglects great duties neither is it a good conscience on the other side that lookes after the great and weighty duties and makes no reckoning of Mint and Anise Our Saviour sayes both ought to bee done Pharaoh could bee content that
then should a man do in such a hard case Heare what is the resolution of a good conscience Act. 20. 24. My life not deare unto me so that I may fulfill my Ministration with joy And wherein lay his joy but in his good conscience 2 Corinth 1. 12. It is all one as if hee had said I care not to lose my life to keepe a good conscience A good conscience in that passage of the Apostle 1 Tim. 1. 19. is secretly compared to a ship Now in a tempest at Sea when the question is come to this whether the goods shall be cast out or the Ship be cast away what doe the Marriners See Act. 27. 18. 38. They lightned the Ship and cast out the wheat into the Sea The Marriners will turne the richest Commodities over-board to save the Ship for they know if the Ship be cast away then themselves are cast away Thus it is with a man that hath a good conscience when the case comes to this pinch that either his outward Comforts or his inward Peace must wrack hee will cheerfully cast the wheat into the sea will part with all earthly commodities and comforts before he will rush and wrack his conscience upon any rock He knowes if the ship be wrackt if his conscience be crackt that then himselfe and his soule is in danger of being cast away and therefore hee will throw away all to save conscience from being split upon the rocks and being swallowed up in the sands There is as great a difference between a good conscience and all outward things even unto life it selfe as is betweene the arme and the head or heart The braine and the heart are vitall parts therefore when the head is in danger to be cleft or the heart to be thrust through a man will not stand questioning whether hee were best adventure his hand or his arme to save his head or his heart but either of these being in danger the hand and the arme presently interpose themselves to receive the blow and put themselves in danger of being wounded or cut off rather than the head or heart should be pierced A man may have his hand or arme cut off and yet may live but a wound in the braine or heart is mortall It is so in this case A good conscience values its owne peace above all the world It is that wherin a Christians life lyes therfore he will suffer the right hand or foot to be cut off and lose all rather than expose conscience to danger A man may go to heaven with the losse of a limbe and though he halt Math. 18. 8. but if a man lose his life if conscience be lost all is lost A man may goe to heaven though hee lose riches liberty life but if a good conscience be lost there is no comming thither All things compared to conscience are as far beneath it as the least finger beneath the head He were a mad man that would suffer his skull to be cleft to save his little finger nay but the paring of his naile And yet the world is full of such mad men that suffer conscience to receive many a deepe wound and gash to save those things which in comparison of good conscience are but as the nayle parings to the head Try mens consciences here and we shall find them exceeding short A good conscience will endure any griefe and suffer any wrong rather then suffer the losse of its owne peace God commands Amaziah 2 Chron. 25. to put away Israel oh but what shall I doe for mine hundred Talents Tush what are an hundred Talents A good conscience in yielding obedience to God is a richer treasure than the East and West Indies And yet how many be there that will craze their conscience an hundred times before they will lose one Talent by obedience to God out of a care to keepe a good conscience A talent nay that is too deepe never put them to that cost they will sell a good conscience not for gaining but for the taking of a farthing token God and good conscience say Sanctifie the Sabbath Possibly some halfe-penny customer comes to a Tradesmans Shop on a Sabbath and askes the sale of such or such a commoditie Now the mans conscience tels him of the commandement tels him what God lookes for tels him it cannot stand with his peace to make markets on that day c. But then he tels conscience that if hee be so precise hee may lose a customer and if hee lose his customers he may shutte up his Shop-windowes An Inne-keepers conscience tels him that it is fitter that hee should bee attending Gods service at his house on his day than that hee should be waiting on his guest But then he replies to conscience that then his takings will be but poore and this is the next way to pluck downe his signe So here lyes a dispute between Conscience and Gaine which of these two must be parted with If now in this case a man will grow to this resolution By Gods helpe I am resolved to keepe a good conscience in keeping Gods Commandement and Sabbath I will rather lose the best customer I have and the best guest I have then the peace of a good conscience If I beg I beg I will say of my customers as Iacob of his children Gen. 43. 14. If I am bereaved of them I am bereaved I will trust God with my estate before I will hazard my conscience Give me such a man such a Tradesman and I will be bold to say he is a man of a good conscience But contrarily when men are so set upon gaine that so they may have it they care not how they come by it they will dispense an hundred times with their obedience to God if any thing be to be had if these have good consciences let any judge How would such lose their blood and lives that will not lose such trifling gaines for the safety of their conscience Wee have not yet resisted unto blood the more we owe to God that know not what that resistance meanes Alas how would those resist unto blood that set conscience to sale upon so base prices as they doe Peter speakes of a fiery triall 1. Pet. 4. 12. If God should ever bring that triall amongst us that a company of drossie consciences would it find out Wee have no fiery tryall we have but an airy tryall onely and yet how many evill consciences it discovers Many a man could find in his heart to pray in his family to frequent good exercises and company hee is convinced in his conscience that thus he should doe and conscience presses him to it But why then are not these things done A Lyon is in the way Hee shall lose the good word and opinion of the world he shall have so many frowns and frumps and censures and scoffes that he cannot buckle to this course Many are in Zedekiah his case he was convinced in his
this poyson No buckler against these swords Yes there is the soveraigne balme and the impenetrable buckler of a good conscience It is a balsome that will allay the poyson of these Adders that it shall never burst a mans heart or if these swords pierce the very innermost bowels yet this will so salve these wounds that they shall not ranckle nor become mortall Oh! how mortall is this adders poyson how fatall are these swords how keene their edge and how full of paine their wounds where inward guilt gives strength unto them But integrity and goodnesse of conscience is a precious balme of Gilead that takes away the venome of this poyson the stinging smart of the wounds of these swords Let Paul live with ever so good a conscience before God and man Act. 24. 16. yet Tertullus will play the spitting adder and hee will spit yea spue forth his poyson in his face and in the face of an whole Court will not spare openly to slander him for an arrant varlet a lewd pestilent and a villanous fellow Such drivel will the malicious world spit in the face of Godlinesse But mark now the benefit and comfort of a good conscience Either a good conscience with Stephens Angelicall face will dazle and shame the devils Oratours 1 Pet. 3. 16. Having a good conscience that they may be ashamed or else like Paul it can shake off those vipers without swelling or falling downe dead Yea if Satans orators will needs be opening their mouthes against Paul yet so good is his conscience that as Iohn Hus appealed from Pope Alexander to Pope Alexander namely from him in his anger to him in his cold blood and better advised so dares Paul appeale from Tertullus to Tertullus David from Shimei to Shimei from enemies to enemies from their tongues to their hearts from their mouthes to their Consciences as knowing their owne integritie to bee such as that their enemies owne hearts give their tongues the ly and tels them that against their Conscienses possessed with meere malice they are hurried on in Satans service Tertullus knowes he lyes and his owne Conscience tells him hee lyes in his throate that Paul is an honester man that himselfe yea and the comfort is that Pauls Conscience comforts him and assures him that Tertullus his Conscience assures him all this So unspeakably sweet is the comfort of a good conscience David complaines of a great affliction Psal 35. 11. False witnesse did rise up they layd to my charge things that I knew not What should a man do in such a case if he had not the comfort of a good conscience witnessing for him But now at such a pinch appeares the benefit of a good conscience Let ever so many rise up falsly to witnesse against him yet his conscience will witnesse as fast for him My friends scorne mee sayes Iob Iob 16. 20. They witnessed against him to be a wicked person and an hypocrite they censured and condemned him but what was Iobs comfort That same vers 19. Behold my witnesse is in heaven and my record is on high That was one comfort but that was not all hee had also a witnesse on earth and his record below Vpon whose record and witnesse see with what solemnitie and with what confidence he stands Iob 27. 2 6. As God liveth who hath taken away my judgement and the Almighty who hath vexed my soule All the while my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my nostrills my lips shall not speake wickednesse nor my tongue utter deceit God forbid that I should justifie you till I dye I will not remove mine integrity from me my righteousnesse I will hold fast and will not let it goe mine heart shall not reproach me so long as I live As if he had said As the Lord lives whilst Nam si in his in quibus me criminantur testimonium Conscientiae meae non stat contra me in conspectu Dei quo nullus oculus mortalis intenditur non solum contristari non debeo verumetiam exultare gaudere quia merces mea multa est in coelis Neque enim intuendum est quam sit amarum sed quam falsum sit quod audio quaÌ„ verax pro cujusnomine hoc audio Aug. contra lit Petil. l. 3. there is breath in my bodie I will not yield unto your accusations nor yet acknowledge my selfe guilty of that you doe charge mee withall Vrge mee and presse me what you will yet I will never let goe mine hold Why what is it that makes Iob thus stiffe and resolute what is it that supports him with such an excellent spirit that ver 6. Mine heart shall not reproach me so long as I live Indeed you reproach censure and condemne mee you lay heavie things to my charge But I have searched the records of my conscience I have called that unpartiall witnesse to testifie the truth and I find conscience witnessing strongly on my side and therefore do what you can you shall never beare mee downe Iobs friends may prove fickle and false but his own conscience will prove true to him that will plead for him animate him and comfort him against all their calumnious and injurious reproches and give him cause of much joy and triumph Iob then had his witnesse in heaven and Iob had his witnesse on earth God and his owne conscience two witnesses beyond all exception and in the mouth of two witnesses every truth shall stand Conscience is a thousand witnesses and God is above conscience And what Consciences witnesse concerning matter of fact God himselfe will justifie the same He that hath a good conscience hath a sure friend that will never slinke nor shrinke at any hand Nay he hath two good friends and two substantiall witnesses whose testimonies though secret yet are such as sweetly solace the heart of man against open reproaches slanders false witnesses and all wrongs and injuries of that kinde whatsoever The testimony of conscience is full of comfort because of the vndoubted certaintie and the vnquestioned infallibility thereof so that it voycing on a mans side strangely cheares his heart Pro. 27. 19. As in water face answers to face so doth the heart of a man unto man That is as some expound it As a man may see his face by looking in the water so a man may set himselfe and what hee is by looking into his conscience If a man should be told that hee had some filth or bloach on his In speculo Conscientiae status interioris hominis exterioris cognoseitur Non immorito Conscientiam speculo comparavit quoniam in eâ— tanquam speculo rationie oculus tam indecens quam quod decens in se â—st claro aspectu appredere potest Ber. de Consc face if he would goe looke into the water or specially into a looking-glasse hee should easily see whether it were so or no. And if looking into the water or glasse hee
few that can marry with that joy wherewith a good conscience dies It enables a man not onely to looke Ananias and the Councel in the face but even to look death it selfe in the face without those amazing terrours yea it makes the face of death seeme lovely and amiable Hee whose conscience is good and sees the face of God reconciled to him in Christ hee can say as Iacob did when he saw the face of Ioseph Gen. 46. 30. Now let me dye since I have seene thy face It is the priviledge of a good conscience alone to goe to the grave as Agag did to Samuel and to say that truly which he spake besides the booke 1 Sam. 15. 32. Hee came pleasantly and hee said Surely the bitternesse of death is past Hee was deceived and therefore had no such cause to be so pleasant but a good conscience can yea cannot chuse but be so pleasant even when going out of the world because the guilt of sinne being washed away in Christs blood it knowes that the bitternesse of death is past and the sweetnesse of life eternall is at hand A man whose debts are paid he dares goe out of doores dare meet and face the Sergeants and the conscience purged by the blood of Christ can look as undauntedly on the face of death He that hath forgotten the sting that is the guilt of conscience taken away by faith in Christ he lookes not upon death as the Israelites upon the fiery Serpents but lookes upon it as Paul doth 1 Cor. 15. O death where is thy sting Who feares a Bee an Hornet a Snake or a Serpent when they have lost their sting The guilt of sinne is the sting of conscience it s the sting of death that stings the conscience The sting of death is sinne 1 Cor. 15. Plucke then sin out of the conscience and at once the conscience is made good and death made weake and disarmed of his weapon And when the conscience sees death unstinged and disarmed it is freed of feare and even in the very act of death can joyfully triumph over death oh Death where is thy sting A good conscience lookes upon death as upon the Sheriffe that comes to give him possession of his Inheritance or as Lazarus upon the Angels that came to carry his soule into Abrahams bosome and therfore can welcome death and entertaine him joyfully And whereas an ill conscience makes a man see death as if he saw the Devill a good conscience makes a man see the face of death as Iacob saw Esau's face Gen. 33. I have seene thy face as the face of God they see the face of death with unspeakeable joy ravishment of heart and exultation of spirit Well now what a motive have wee here to make us labour for good conscience Even Balaam himselfe would faine make a good end and die in peace and who wishes not his death-bed may be a mount Nebo from whence he may see the heavenly Canaan Lo here Balaam the way to dye the death of the righteous I have lived in all good conscience untill this day They that have conscience in their life shal have comfort at their death they that live conscionably they shal dy comfortably they that live in all good conscience till their dying day shall depart in the abundance of comfort at their dying day There will come a day wherein wee must lay downe these Tabernacles the day of death will assuredly come How lamentable a thing will it then be to be so destitute and desolate of all comfort as to be driven to that extremity as to curse our birth day oh what would Comfort be worth at our last houre at our last gaspe whilst our dearest friends shall be weeping wringing their hands and lamenting then then what would inward comfort be worth Who would not hold the whole world an easie price for it then Well then would wee then have Comfort and Ioy oh then get a good conscience now which will yield comfort when all other comforts shall utterly faile and shall be life in the middst of death How happy is that man that when the sentence of death is passed upon him can say with Hezekiah Is 38. 3. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight Indeed the text sayes that Hezekiah wept sore but yet not as fearing death for hee could not feare death who had thus feared God but because the promise was not yet made good to him in a Son and Heire of his kingdome hence came those teares It is otherwise an unspeakable joy that such a conscience as Hezekiahs was will speake to a man upon his death-bed Every one professes a desire to make a good end Here is the way to make good that desire to live in all good conscience Alas how pittifull and miserable a condition live most men in All the dayes of their life and health they have no regard of a good conscience Notwithstanding that men are pressed continually to this one care by the instancie and importutunitie of Gods Ministers yet how miserably is it neglected Well at last the day of death comes and then what would not they give for a comfortable end If the gold of Ophir would purchase comfort it should flie then Then poast for this Minister and run for the other as in the sweating sicknesse in King Edwards dayes then for Gods sake but one word of comfort then O blessed men of God one word of peace Now alas what would you have them to doe Are they or your own courses in fault that you want comfort at your death What would you have us doe Wee must referre you to your owne consciences we cannot make oyle of flint nor crush sweet wine out of sowre Grapes we dare not flatter you against your cōsciences If you would give us a world we cannot comfort you when your owne consciences witnesse against you that such comforts belong not to you Doe not idely in this case hope for comfort from Ministers be it knowne unto you you must have it from your owne consciences Many on their death-bed cry to the Minister as she did to the King 2 King 6. 26 27. Helpe my Lord O King But marke what hee answers If the Lord doe not helpe thee whence shall I helpe thee out of the barne floore or out of the Wine presse So must wee answer to such as cry Helpe helpe O man of God If God and your owne consciences helpe you not whence shall we help you If there had beene Corne within the barnes the King could easily have helped her but he could not make corne So if men have carryed any thing into their consciences if they themselves have inned any provision and comfort by being conscionable in their lives then we can helpe and comfort them but otherwise doe not thinke that we can make comforts and make
blood in what feares yea what idle feares lived hee Hee is so haunted with feares that though he had lived in Paradice yet had he lived in a land of Nod in a land of agitation yea of trepidation Iudge what case his evill conscience made him in by that speech Gen. 4. 14. It shall come to passe that every one that finds me shall slay me Surely there could not bee many yet in the world and those that were in the world were either his parents brethren sisters or neere kindred his feare seemes to imagine multitudes of people that might meete him yea and that every one hee meets would murther him What will his Father or Mother be his executioners What if any of his sisters meet him shal they slay him is not such a swash-buckler as he able to make good his party with them Lo what fearfull and terrible things a guilty conscience projects As an evill conscience is miserable in its feares so in those perplexities which this feare breeds These perplexities doe miserably and restlessely distract a man Isay 57. 20. The wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt What is the reason of these trouble some perplexities The want of peace of a good conscience verse 21. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked The winds make the sea restlesse and stirre it to the very bottome so as the waters cast up mire and dirt See in the troubled Sea the Emblem of a troubled conscience But the Torment exceeds all and the maine misery of an evill conscience lies in that It is a misery to be in feare a misery to have inward turbulencie and commotions but to be alwayes on the racke alwayes on the Strapado this is far more truly the suburbs of Hell than is the Popish purgatory Oh! the gripes and girds the stitches and twitches the throwes and pangs of a galling and a guilty conscience So sore they are and so unsufferable that Iudas seeks ease with an halter Poena autem vehemens multo saevior illis Quas Ceditius gravis invenâ— Radamanthus Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem Iuvenal Satyr 3. and thinks hanging ease in comparison of the torture of his evill conscience All the racks wheeles wild horses hot pincers scalding leade powred into the most tender and sensible parts of the body yea all the mercilesse barbarous and inhumane cruelties of the holy house are but flea-bitings meere toyes and May-games compared with the torment that an evill conscience wil put a man to when it is awakened It is no wonder that Iudas hangs himselfe it had been a great wonder rather if hee had not hangd himselfe The Heathen fabled terrible things of their hellish furies with their snakes and Nolite enim putare queÌ„admodum in fabulis saepenumero videtis eos qui aliquid impie scelerateque coÌ„miserint agitari perterâ—ori furiarum taedis ardentibus Sua quemque fraus suus terror maximevexat suum queÌ„que scelus agitat amentiaque afficit Suae malae cogitationes conscientiaeque animi terrent Hae sunt impiis assiduae domesticaeque furiae quae dies noctesque parentum poenas à consceleratissimis filiis repetant Cicero pro Rosc Amor Suum quemque facinus suum scclus sua audacia de sanitate ac mente deturbat Haec sunt impiorum furiae flammae hae faces Idem L. Pison fiery torches vexing and tormenting hainous and great offenders These their furies were nothing else but the hellish torments of guilty conscience wherewith wicked persons were continually haunted as some of the wiser of themselves have well observed All snakes and torches are but idle toyes and meere trifles to the most exquisite torment of a guilty and accusing conscience The sting of conscience is worse than death it selfe Apoc. 9. 5 6. Their torment was as the torment of a Scorpion when hee strikes a man And in those dayes shall men seeke death and shall not find it and shall desire to dye and death shall flee from them Popish ones tormented in their consciences by the terrible and uncomfortable doctrines of satisfactions Purgatory fire c. which those Locusts doe so terrifie them withall should rather chuse death than live in such an uncomfortable condition The sting of death not so smart as the sting of a Scorpion in the conscience The sting of an accusing conscience is like an Harlot Pro. 7. 26. More bitter than death And as Salomon there speaks of the Harlot so may it be said of a tormenting conscience Who so pleases God shall escape from it but the sinner shall be taken by it Gods deare children themselves many of them are not freed from trouble in their consciences but they have their hels in this life Ion. â— 2. Out of the belly of hell I cryed unto thee God for their triall speaks bitter things unto them and not only denies them peace but causes their consciences to be at war with them Now when God puts his owne children to these trials and disquiets of conscience they are so bitter and so biting that had they not the grace of God to uphold and preserve them even they could not be saved from dangerous miscarriage Iob was put to this triall and his conscience apprehended Gods anger and we shall see what a case he was in Iob 6. 8 9. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing I long for even that it would please God to destroy me that hee would let loose his hands and cut me off Nay worse Iob 14. 15. Thou scarest me with dreames terrifiest me through visions so that my soul chooses flrangling and death rather than life Gods grace preserves his Saints from selfe-murther but yet not alwayes from impatient wishes Iob wishes strangling and chuses it of the two but goes no further What wonder then that Iudas doth strangle himselfe when his conscience stares him in the face when as Iob with whom God is but in jest in comparison chuses strangling If Iob wish it what wonder that Iudas doth the deed Conscience doth chastise the godly but w th whips but it lashes the wicked with scorpions Now if the whips be so smarting to Iob as makes him chuse strangling what wonder that the scorpions be so cutting as makes Iudas seek reliefe at an halter Yea and that which addes to the misery of an evill conscience being awakned it is such a misery as no earthly comfort can asswage or mitigate Diseases and distempers of the body though they bee terrible yet Physick sleep and rest upon a mans bed yields him some ease and some comfort Sometime in some griefes the coÌ„fortable use of the creatures yields a man some refreshments Prov. 31. 6 7. Give wine unto those that be of heauy hearts let him drinke and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more But conscience being disquieted finds no
dies If the worme of Hell would die the fire of Hell would go out For if there were no guilt there should be no punishment So that the very Hell of Hell is that self-torment which an evill conscience breeds Now then all this considered how powerfully should it move us to labour for a good conscience Thou that goest on in thine evill courses and hatest to be reformed and reclamed do but bethinke thy selfe if God should awaken thy conscience in what misery thou shouldst live Vt ex cruditate febres nascuntur vermes quaÌ„do quis cibum sumit intemperanter ita si quis peccata peccatis accumulet nec deco quot ea poenetentia sed misceat peccata peccatis cruditatem contrahit veterum recentium delictorum igne aduâ—etur proprio vermibus consumetur Ignis est queÌ„ generat moestitia delictorum vermis est eo quod irrationabilia animi peccata mentem pungunt viscera exedant vermes ex unoque nascuntur tanquam ex corpore peccatoris hic vermis non morietur c. Ambr. lib. 7. in Luk. c. 14. here what an hell to have a palsie conscience what a hell on earth to be alwayes under the accusations inditements and terrors of conscience and to live Cain like in the land of Nod in a continuall restlesse agitation But especially as thou fearest that everliving and ever grabbing worme so have a care to get a good conscience Greene raw fruits breed Chestworms which if heed be not taken will eate the very maw thorow A dead body and a putrified corrupt carcasse breeds worms that ly gnawing at it in the grave The forbidden and raw fruits of Sin are those which breed Chestwormes in the conscience The corruptions of the soule and dead workes are those that breed this living worme take heed therfore of medling with these fruits that will breed this worme and get thy conscience purged from dead works get this worme killed with the soonest for if thou lettest it live till thou dye it will never die at all and will put thee to those exquisite torments from which to be freed thou wouldst willingly suffer ten thousand of the most cruell deaths that the wit of man were able to invent As then I say thou fearest this worme of Hell so get a good conscience Drink downe every morning a hearty draught of Christs blood which may make this worme burst And when once this worm is burst and voyded and the conscience well purged by Christs blood take heed ever after of eating those raw fruits that will breed new wormes Lead so holy so upright and so conscionable a life that thou mayest not by thy fresh Sins clog thy conscience with fresh guilt Get thy conscience purged by Christs blood and thy conversation framed by Gods Word Thy words were found by me and I did eate them Ier. 15. 16. Do thou so eat no more the unwholesome and worme-breeding fruits of Sin but drinke Christs blood and eate Gods Word and they both shall purifie and scoure thy conscience from all such stuffe as may breed and feed the Hell-worme of an evill conscience CHAP. XVI The portion and respect that a good conscience finds in the world ANd thus have we hither to seen Pauls Protestation The second point followes namely Ananias his insolent and impetuous Injunction Verse 2. And the high Priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth Paul had begun his defence in the former verse and that by authoritie and speciall command as appeares in the former Chapter at the 30. ver But he had no sooner begun but he is interrupted cut off and hath not onely his mouth stopt but stopt with Ananias fist He commanded to smite him on the mouth Out of which carriage and violence of his wee may observe divers things First learne What is the Reward and portion of a good conscience from the world It is the portion of a good conscience full oft to be smitten either on the mouth or with the mouth Blowes either with the fist or with the tongue To be smitten one way or other is full often the lot of a good conscience Smite him on the mouth sayes Ananias But let us a little expostulate the matter with Ananias Smite him on the mouth But yet as Pilate speaks in Christs case But what evill hath he done or what evill hath hee spoken Smite him on the mouth But as our Saviour answers Ioh. 18. 23. If he have spoken evil take witnesse of the evill and proceed legally and formally If he have spoken well or no manner of evill why commandest thou him to be smitten What hath he spoken any treason against Caesar or the Roman government If he have then as the town-clark of Ephesus speaks Act. 19. 38. The Law is open and there are Deputies let them accuse him and bring him to his answer It is a base usage of an ingenuous person to be smitten on the mouth in a Court of Iustice a dishonourable usage of a Roman Surely it should seeme by such base and bitter usage that Paul hath some way or other fouly forgotten and overshot himselfe that Ananias his spirit is thus embitered and provoked against him What hath Paul given him any exasperating and disgracefull termes hath he given him any open and personall girds before the whole Councell No no No such matter at all Why what then is the matter that Paul must be thus basely and thus despitefully used Will ye know the cause Men and brethren I have lived in all good conscience Loe here is the quarrell He hath made a profession of a good conscience and for his good conscience sake are Ananias fists about his eares There is nothing so mads men of wicked consciences as the profession practice of a good conscience doth The very name mention of a good conscience makes Ananias halfe mad like one besides himselfe he fals not onely to foule words but to blowes also and Paul must have it on the mouth for good conscience sake Paul might have blasphemed the blessed name of Christ and rayled upon the odious Sect of the Nazarens hee might have beene a drunkard an adulterour or a murtherer and none of all these things would have stirred Ananias his blood for none of all these should Paul have been smitten but let him but once speak or treate of or any way meddle with good conscience and Ananias his blood is presently up hee cannot hold his hands but Paul must have on the mouth there is no remedy So odious a thing is good conscience and the profession of it to wicked men Therefore this is that which a good coÌ„scieÌ„ce must expect even Ananias his dole fists blowes smiting hard injurious measure from the world This is no new thing It was our Saviours case before it was Pauls Ioh. 18. 22. And when he had thus spoken one of the officers which stood by strucke