conscience How effectuall a motive should this bee how strongly should this work with us As we should be glad to hold up our heads when the glorious ones of the earth shall hang them down to leape for joy when others shall howle for bitter anguish of spirit so now whilest wee have the day of life and grace labour we to get and keepe good consciences CHAP. XIII A second motive A good conscience is a continuall feast THus have wee seene the first motive con- The second motive to a good con-con-conscience from the benefit and comfort of a good conscience in such cases and times as a man stands most in need of comfort A second motive followes and that is that we find Prov. 15. 15. A good conscience is a continuall feast 1. It is a feast 2. Better than a feast It is a continuall feast 1. It is a feast The excellencie of a good conscience is set forth by the same Quo enim melius epulantur animi quam bonis factis aut quid aliud tam facile potest explere justorum mentes quā boni operis cōscientia Ambro. de offic l. 1. c. 31. thing by which our Saviour sets forth the happinesse of heaven Luk. 14. And well may both be set forth by the same Metaphor considering what a neere affinitie there is between heaven and a good conscience and that there is no feasting in heaven unlesse there be first the feast of a good conscience here on earth But why a feast A feast for three regards 1. For the selfe sufficiencie and sweet satisfaction and contentment that a good conscience hath within it selfe Feasting and fasting are opposite In fasting upon the want of food there is an emptinesse and a griping hunger which makes the body insatiably to crave But at a feast there is abundance and variety of all dishes and dainties ready at hand to satisfie a mans appetite to the full he can have a mind to nothing but it is before him The very best of every thing that is to be had is at a feast A feast of fat things Isa 25. 6. of fat things full of marrow Such is the sufficencie of satisfaction the abundance of sweetnesse and contentment that is to be found in a good conscience It is a table richly furnisht with all varieties and dainties There is no pleasure comfort or contentment that a mans heart can wish but it may be abundantly had in a good conscience as at a feast there is a collection of all the dainties and delicacies that sea and land can afford 2. For the mirth and joy of it A feast is made for laughter Eccl. 10. 19. At a feast there is mirth musick and delight in the comfortable use of the creatures Heavinesse of heart pensivenesse and sorrow these are banisht from the house of feasting Fasting and feasting are opposite in fasting indeed there is weeping mourning and sorrowing but in a feast contrarily there is mirth merriment and joy There were under the Law appointed solemn holy feasts anniversarily to be celebrated and at those solemn feasts were the silver trumpets sounded Num. 10. 10. and the sound of the trumpets was a joyfull sound Ps 89. 15. For their Festivities were to be kept with speciall joy Deut. 16. 10 11 13 14 15. Thou shalt keepe the feast of weekes unto the Lord c. and thou shalt rejoyce before the Lord c. Thou shalt observe the feast of Tabernacles seven dayes c. And thou shalt rejoyce in the feast c. Therefore thou shalt surely rejoyce And that extraordinary feast on the fourteenth fifteenth of Adar in memorial of their deliverance from Haman see how it was kept Esth 9. 19. 22. They kept them dayes of gladnesse and feasting of feasting and joy Even such is the excellencie of a good conscience All the merriment and musick wine and good chear will not make a mans heart so light and so merry as the wine which is drunke at the feast of a good conscience will doe This takes away all heavinesse and sadnesse of spirit and hath the like effects with naturall wine It makes a man forget his spiritual poverty and remember that misery no more Pro. 31. 7. Nay as wine not only takes away sadnes but withal brings a naturall gladnesse with it Ps 104. 15. Wine that makes glad the heart of man so doth this wine at this feast Psal 97. 11 12. Light is sowne for the righteous and gladnesse for the upright in heart Rejoyce in the Lord ye righteous None so glad an heart as the upright in heart Nay such is the vigour and strength of this wine at this feast that it not onely glads a mans heart but makes a man as not able to containe even to shout for joy Psalm 32. 11. Shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart yea shout aloud for joy Psal 132. 16. That look as it is said of the Lord Ps 78. 65. The Lord awaked like a mighty man that shouts by reason of wine So such is the plenty abundance sweetnesse and strength of the wine of this feast that it makes men in a holy jollity even to break forth into shouting and singing This wine being liberally drunken wherein there is no excesse fils a mans heart with such an overflowing exuberancie of joy as hee cannot hold but hee must needs shew it in Psalmes Hymnes and spirituall songs and hence it is that the righteous do sing and rejoyce Pro. 29. 6. So that what joy a feast can yield that can a good conscience yield much more 2 Cor. 1. 12. This is our rejoycing the testimonie of our conscience Yea and that joy commanded Deut. 16. at the feast of Tabernacles what was it but a Type of that spirituall joy that the faithful under Christ should have in keeping the feast of a good conscience The feast of a good conscience is the true feast of Tabernacles in which as in the other there shall need no charge to rejoyce and be merry this feast will put such spirit and life into a man as shall make him sing skip and shout for joy The feast of a good conscience is not like a funerall feast where mirth and joy are unseemely and unseasonable guests there are heavie hearts and lookes teares and mourning which by the way how well they suit with feasting let the world judge but the feast of a good conscience is a nuptiall feast a marriage feast and the day of marriage is the day of the joy of a mans heart Cant. 3. 11. Such a feast even a joyfull marriage feast doth a good conscience make Oftentimes these bodily feasts are but heavie feasts many for all their good cheere company and musicke cannot put away the heavinesse of their hearts but even in their feast are sad hearted and Sampsons wife wept all the dayes of the feast Iudg. 14. 17. yea though a marriage feast But in this feast of a good cōscience here
is no sorrow heavinesse or sad melancholly but all joy and gladnesse 3. For the society and company A feast is a collection and a convention of many good friends together whose society and friendship is sweet each to other There is no feast can afford the like company that a good conscience hath Woe to him that is alone Ecc. 4. that is the wofull and solitary condition of evill consciences But a good conscience hath ever good company is not alone for the Father is with it Ioh. 16. 23. yea the Son is with it and Christ and the man with a good conscience they sup and feast together Revel 3. 20. yea and the spirit is with it 1 Cor. 13. 13. The Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you What feast in the world can shew such company And good company is the chiefe thing in a feast Thus a good conscience is a feast 2. It is better than a feast And that in three regards 1. In regard of the continuance and perpetuity of it A continuall feast Nabal made a feast a feast like a King 1 Sam. 25. but that feast lasted but one day Sampson at his marriage had a feast that lasted seven daies Iudg. 14. 17. but yet that feast had an end Ahashuerosh his feast was the longest feast that ever we read of Esth 1. 4. Hee made a feast many dayes an hundred and fourscore daies But yet v. 5. it is said And when those dayes were expired So this long feast had an end It was continued for many dayes but yet no continuall feast it had an end The feast of a good conscience is not like an Vniversity Commencement feast Great exceedings and extraordinary good cheere and company for one night but the next morrow to their bare Commons againe Not like the feast of the Nativity at which time there is great feasting and great cheere every where for twelve dayes but when those dayes are over many a man is glad of bread and cheese glad to skip at a crust But this is a continuall feast all the yeare long all a mans life long Therfore 1 Thes 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore keep open house and feasting all the yeare long The joy of a good conscience was figured by the joy at the feast of Tabernacles That feast lasted seven dayes The joy must bee as long Seven the number of perfection denoted the whole course of a mans life and so their seven dayes joy the continuall joy and jollity of this continuall feast of a good conscience Conscience and a wife as they agree in many things be they good be they ill so in this also If the conscience be evill it is like an evill wife and she a continuall evill Prov. 27. 15. A continuall dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike The contentions of a wife are a continuall dropping Prov. 19. 13. A shrewish waspish wife is a continuall vexation and disquiet Such is an evill conscience a continuall sorrow Contrarily a good conscience is like a good wife a good wife is a continuall comfort a comfort in health in sicknesse in peace in distresse Pro. 31. 12. She doth him good and not evill all the dayes of her life Not some good and a great deale of evill withall but all good good not evill Not good at sometime and none at other times but all the daies of her life she is a continuall comfort So is the comfort of a good conscience It keepes holy-day and feasting every day It is all feast a feast for ever there is no Lent or fasting dayes that interrupt this feast This is the peculiar privilege of this feast to be continuall belly feasting cannot be so for 1. A man cannot alwayes feast though he would a mans revenues would bee exhaust his expences would soone sink his estate Continuall feasting would soone begger and undoe a man of good estate Pro. 21. 17. Hee that loves Wine and Oyle shall not be rich It is not so here the revenue of a good conscience is bottomlesse it cannot be spent and therfore is able to keepe a rich and a full furnisht Table all the yeare long Here is a mysterie in this feast the larger expences to day the more laid in to keepe the feast the better to morrow a man growes rich by feasting 2. Suppose a man might be able to feast alwayes or might feed at another mans Voluptas tune cum maxime delectat extinguitur Nec multum loci habet iatque cito implet taedio est post primum impetum marcet Seneo de vir beat c. 7. Table continually yet would it weary a man beyond measure It would but gug and cloy a man All earthly pleasures have a satietie and breed a loathing by frequent use But this is the admirable excellencie of this feast of a good conscience here a man may feed and eate with continuall delight At this continual feast heere is a continuall fresh appetite and fresh delights here is continuall feasting without loathing and satiety 3. Neither may belly feasting be continuall There be some times wherein it is inconvenient and unlawfull To speake with the fairest that day which God hath sanctified for his service is not so convenient for feasting It may be no lesse dangerous to devour sanctified time than sanctified things And in this case hath that saying a truth It is not meet that we should leave the Word of God and serue Tables Act. 6. 2. But now this feast without any doubt may bee on the Sabbath yea it is the speciall festivall and high day of the weeke wherein this feast is best kept Againe there be times wherein God calls to solemne fasting and humilation as when the Church is either in danger or distresse but this feast is not hindred by fasting it will stand well with it and many a speciall dainty dish is served in to this feasting from a fast 4. Suppose a man could and might feast alwayes yet were it a brutish thing and hog-like allwayes for a man to be cramming and crowding in belly cheere allwayes to bee pauncing and gutting It is that for which the rich Glutton is taxed Luk. 16. That he fared deliciously every day But here to feast at this Table every day is that which makes a man every whit as Angel like as belly-feasting every day makes a man swine-like Here it is a mans happinesse to be a holy Epicure 2. It is better then other feasts in regard Nunquam credideris faelicem qui adventitio loetus est exibit gau dium quod intravit Seâ—â—â— ep 9â— of the Independencie of this feast vpon any other out-ward thing This feast is able to maintaine it selfe of it selfe and within it selfe A man that hath a good conscience hath a feast though he have nothing else but it A good conscience though it have nothing but browne bread and water yet this hard fare marres not the feast For this feast stands
Company to the full The twelve dayes feast of the Nativitie how is it longed for before hand how welcommed when it is come And what may the reason be But only because it is a feasting time This is counted a blessed good time and why a blessed good time As Christ was a blessed good man the prophet that should come into the world and therefore should be made a King because hee had fed and filled their bellies Iohn 6. So the most make that a blessed time not for the memorial of Christs Incarnatiō but because of the loaves Christ shall be a King because of the feast the time is blessed Well then is the world so desirous and so glad of feasting Are feasting times such blessed times Lo then I invite you to a feast to a blessed good feast indeed that will make you blessed and truly happy Not to a feast of twelve daies but to a feast that lasts al the twelve moneths of the yeare to a continuing and a continuall feast How glad are many when they may goe to a feast Lo a way to make feasts for your selves What a credit is it counted in the world for a man to keep a good and great house to keep feasting and open-house for all commers during the Festivity of the twelve dayes Would we have this credit of good hous-keeping not for twelve dayes but for all the yeare long Get good consciences keepe good consciences There is no such good house-keeper as is the good conscience-keeper for a good conscience is a feast a continuall feast There is nothing that men desire more then to live merrily and how many stumble at Religion and keeping of a good conscience under an idle conceit that it is the way to marre all their mirth and to make a man lumpish and melancholly Do not believe the devill do not believe his lying agents It is a prophane Proverbe that Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus A good conscience is a feast a feast with all dainties musick and wine Can a man be melancholly at a feast at so joyfull and so sweet a feast doth feasting make men melancholly or make men merry make men weepe or laugh If a man should cry downe feasting with this argument That it makes men melancholly would not all men laugh him to scorn And why then should a man feare melancholly more from a good conscience than from a feast There is none lives so merry a life as hee that keepes a good conscience hee is every day at a feast hee is alwayes banquetting Yea the worst dishes of this feast even those at the lower end of the Table are better than the most choice rarities of other feasts The very teares that a good conscience sheds have more joy and pleasure in them than the worlds greatest joyes And if the teares of a good conscience be such what is the mirth and laughter of it If weeping be so sweet what is singing If the courser dishes be so dainty what are the best services Would wee then live merrily and passe our dayes jocundly indeed Get a good conscience and thou keepest a continuall feast and that continuall feast will keepe thee in continuall mirth and continuall joy Yea though thou be in affliction and under crosses so as thy dayes unto the world may seeme exceedingly evill shalt thou live merrily as at a feast Yea this is the scope of the Scripture All the dayes of the afflicted are evill namely in the eye and judgement of the world but a good conscience namely to the afflicted is a continuall feast A good conscience feasts then and turnes fasting dayes into feasting dayes A good conscience feasts a man in his poverty in his sicknesse in the prison and cheeres up a man with many a dainty bit The wine of this feast makes them forget all their sorrow Now then that we would be so wise as to hearken to Gods invitation to this feast Let us keep the feast with the bread of sincerity and truth 1 Cor. 5. 8. Take heed now that we put not off God as those did Luke 14. invited to the feast with the excuses of Farmes Oxen and the like So doe many urge them to the keeping of a good conscience and their answer is If they should be so precise how should they live they shall have but poore takings if they take such a course I pray have me excused I must live Thus they answer as many good husbands when invited to frequent feastings doe No believe mee it will not hold out if I goe every day a feasting I may goe one day a begging I must follow my businesse and let feasting goe And so say men here But take heed of putting off God thus The time will come that thou wouldst give all thine oxen to have but the scraps crums of this feast and thou shalt not have them God will serve thee as hee did them Luk. 14. 24. None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper Those that care not to keep the feast of a good conscience shall never come to Gods feast in heaven If you refuse to come to his feast now God will at the last day thrust you out of doores when you will be pressing and crowding in and shall say to you Get you hence ye despisers of a good conscience you scorned the feast of a good conscience and therefore now the feast and guests of heaven scorne you here is no roome for such to feast here who have made their consciences fast heretofore CHAP. XIV A third and a fourth motive to a good conscience Come wee now to a third motive that The third motive to a good conscience may yet helpe to stir up our minds to this necessary duty of getting and keeping of a good conscience Besides what hath beene said it is worthy of our consideration that without a good conscience all our actions yea our very best services to God are so farre from goodnesse and acceptance that they are abominable and distastefull unto the Lord. The formall goodnesse of every mans actions is to be judged and esteemed by the goodnesse of his conscience which being evill and defiled makes all a mans actions to be such 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the commandement is love But what kind of love doth the commandement require will any shewes or shadowes of obedience serve the turn will the bare dutydoing passe for currant No but such love to God and man and such performance of obedience as proceeds from a pure heart and a good conscience So that let a man doe all outward actions of obedience yet if a good conscience be wanting all is nothing For the end of the Commandement is love out of a good conscience As is a mans conscience so are all his workes and therefore nothing acceptable that a wicked man doth because hee doth it with an ill conscience To the pure all things are pure but
III. A good Conscience what it is False ones discovered 19 CHAP. IV. Peace of Conscience how gotten 35 CHAP. V. Integrity of Conscience how procured 46 CHAP. VI. Two further meanes to procure Integrity of a good Conscience 57 CHAP. VII Two marks of a good Conscience 73 CHAP. VIII Three other Notes of a good Conscience 90 CHAP. IX The two last Notes of a good Conscience 103 CHAP. X. The comfort and benefit of a good Conscience in the case of disgrace and reproach 128 CHAP. XI The comfort and benefit of a good Conscience in the times of cōmon feares and calamities and in the times of sicknes other personall evils 147 CHAP. XII The comfort and benefit of a good conscience at the dayes of Death and Iudgement 165 CHAP. XIII A second Motive to a good conscience That it is a continuall feast 180 CHAP. XIV A third fourth Motive to a good cōscience 201 CHAP. XV The last Motive to a good conscience viz. The misery of an evill one 213 CHAP. XVI The portion and respect that a good conscience finds in the world 232 CHAP. XVII The impetuous injustice and malice of the adversaries of a good conscience 243 CHAP. XVIII The severity of Gods justice upon the enemies of good Conscience and the usuall equity of Gods administration in his execution of Iustice 253 FINIS THE MISCHIEFE And Miserie of Sandals Both Taken and Giuen By IER DYKE Minister of Epping in Essex Wherfore let him that thinks he stands take heed least he fall 1. Cor. 10. 12. Aug de verb. Dom. Serm. 53. Imo vtinam terruerim vtinam aliquid egerim Vtinam qui sic filerat vel quae sic fuerat non sit vlterius Vtinam verba ista infuderim non effuderim LONDON Printed by W. S. for R. Milbourne in Pauls Church-yard at the Greyhound 1632. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE Ladie the Ladie ELIZABETH Countesse of Winchelsey his Noble PATRONESSE MADAM IT is not vnknowne vnto your Honour what first occasioned mee to meddle with this Subiect That which first moued me to preach it in mine owne Charge hath also induced mee to make it more publique I conceiued it might bee a worke well worth the while to vindicate as much as in mee lay the Honour of God from that impeachment it commonly receiues from Scandals to heale the bleeding wounds they vsually giue to the profession of Godlinesse to stop the mouth of iniquity which they set so wide open and to giue men notice of the great danger that both the taking and giuing of Scandal may bring them into J obserue that men doe with the Scandals of Professours as the Leuite did with the twelue partes of his Concubine they send them Iudg 19. 29. thorough all the quarters of Israel It were happie that such foule actions as trench to the dishonour of God and Religion might be buried in eternall silence and neuer be published Publish it not in 2. Sam. 1. Gath But since that is impossible but that they will be published in Gath What inconuenience is it that something bee published in and sent into the Coasts of Israel that may stop the mouthes of the men of Gath that may salue the Honour of God and Religion and that may discouer and preuent the danger of Scandalous euils J confesse that when I considered how frequently Scandals haue fallen out and what a world of mischiefe hath beene done by them I wondred that no man for ought I know or can learne had hitherto medled with this Argument so needfull and so vsefull and therefore thought it would not be lost labour to doe something in this kind And what I haue done I now make bold to present vnto your Honour as presuming that that shall be welcome to you that pleades for the Honour of God and his Truth I acknowledge my selfe many wayes deeply engaged to your Honour and the many fauours I haue receiued from you binde mee to a thankefull acknowledgement of them May it please you therefore to accept of this small Treatise as a publike testimoniall of my thankefulnesse Which if you shall please to doe I shall reckon it as a superadded fauour to all the rest and to my thankefulnesse to your selfe shall adde my daily prayers to the God of all Grace for his blessing vpon your noble Family both roote and branch and that he would not onely continue to you the blessing of the left hand Riches and Honour Prou. 3. 16. but giue you the blessing of the right hand also length of dayes and with them both the best of his blessings All spirituall blessings in heauenly places in Christ Iesus This shall bee the daily suite of Your Honours Seruant in the Gospell of Christ Iesus Jer. Dyke To the Reader THere is not any one thing that Satan the professed enemie of Mankind labours and endeauours more then the hindrance of the saluation of man There is but one way to Heauen that which Peter cals the way of Truth 2. Pet. 2. 2. which Salomon cals the way of good men Prou. 2. 20. which Isaie cals the way of Holinesse Isai 35. 8. which Ieremie cals the old and the good way and the ancient pathes Ier. 6. 16. 18 15. Now Sathan to keepe men from Heauen doth his vtmost to make men stumble at and from the ancient pathes that by taking offence at the waies of God disliking and distasting them the saluation of their soules might become impossible To effect their stumbling at those wayes Sathan layes many and sundrie kinds of stumbling blocks in the wayes of men But yet amongst those many ones I find there bee some more dangerous then others and by which the Deuill preuayles much more then by the rest And those I obserue and conceiue to be specially these three 1. The Reproach Contempt and Obloquie that by some men is vsually cast vpon Religion and the conscionable profession and Professours thereof Sathan tels men that if they will needs goe this way they shall haue a deale of filth and dirt flung in the faces of them that they must looke to be scorned and Reproached as if they were the very Of scourings of the earth And this very thing starts and stumbles not a few Some will better abide a stake then some others can a mocke Zedekiah could happily haue found in his heart to haue hearkened to the Prophets counsell but that this lay in the way I am afraid of the Iewes least they deliuer me into the Caldaeans hands and they mocke me Ier. 38. 19. It was death to him to be mocked But all considered we shall see how little reason any haue for this to stumble at Religion For doe but consider who they are commonly that mock at Godlinesse Doe but obserue their Character in the Scriptures and you shall finde them such as these A company of Hypocrites Hypocriticall mockers Psal 35. 16. A crue of Drunkards Psal 69. 12. I am the song of Drunkards A sort
not in meates and drinks but in righteousnesse peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Quietnesse and a dry morsell is better then an housefull of good cheare with strife Pro. 17. 1. Though it be but outward quietnesse when a man is free from vnjust vexations and the molestations of froward and contentious disposition even such quietnesse makes a dry morsell good cheere makes a feast of a crust But when there is inward quietnesse of a good conscience and a mans heart is at quiet from his peace with his God what excellent cheere is a dry morsel then Though a man have ever so good fare yet to have it sawced with the bitternesse of contention and to live in a continuall wrangling with pevish people what poore content would a well furnisht Table afford such a man And what poore cheere especially would all these feasts in the world make where there is brawling and contention from the conscience Here then is the excellencie of this feast above all other feasts This feast is able to subsist and to maintaine it selfe without other feasting other feasting is nothing without this of a good conscience Other feasting often hurts and hinders this feast whilest men by their vaine and licentious carriage therein Feasting without all feare Iude. 12. Doe make the conscience fast and starve and whilest their Quailes are betweene their teeth Leannesse enters into their soule Psalm 106. 5. So farre is bodily feasting from helping that it hinders this feasting rather Conscience can have mirth enough without a feast but little is the comfort and content that a feast can give where the Conscience is not good Men may Sed non est ista hilaritas longa Observa videbis cosdem in exiguum tempus atergime ridere acerrime rudere Senec ep 92. set a face vpon it and bragge laugh and be jolly in their feasting but yet in the middest of their laughter the heart is sorrowfull and the end of that mirth is heavinesse Prov. 14. 13. Conscience awakened even in the middest of the greatest jollitie gives men many a bitter twitch at the heart and in the middest of all their revellings gives them Vineger and Gall to drinke A good conscience is it that sweetens and seasons all the dishes of a feast that is the sawce that makes meat savoury the sugar that sweetens Wine that is the musicke that makes a mans heart dance But let a man goe to the most sumptuous and delicious feasts without a good conscience and how is it with him then Iust as with Belshazzar Dan. 5. Where the hand writing on the wall marred all his mirth or else it is in such a case as it was with Haman The foole brags that he alone is invited to Esters banquet with the King Esth 5. 12. Oh how happy a man was he under how fortunate a Planet was he borne to be the King and Queenes Favorite both But see what little reason hee had to brag Chap. 7. 2. Even at the banquet of Wine Esther gives him a cup of gall at the banquet of Wine doth she accuse Haman to the King Oh! how many glory in their banquetting and their feasting but how often doe their consciences put Esthers tricke vpon them even accuse them to God and gall and gird them in the midst of their wine conscience serves many as Absoloms villaines served Amnon when his heart was merry at Absoloms feast then they stabd him to the heart Cōscience deales with them as the Israelites were dealt withal in their quaile feast They had their Quailes and their dainties but a man would rather want their good cheere than have their sawce Their sweet meat had sharpe sawce Whilst the flesh was between their teeth Gods anger brake in upon them So whilst many are chewing their dainties conscience fils their mouth with gravell and so sawces and spices their dishes that they find but little content therein So miserable are all feasts and merriments of this world when a man wants the independent feast of a good conscience So happy also are they that have the feast of a good conscience although they never taste bit of other feast whilst they live although they be denied the crums that fall under the feasting Gluttons table 3. It is better in regard of the Vniversality of it As for belly feasts it stands not with every mans condition and purse to make them It belongs onely to the richer and abler sort to feast Feasting is a matter of charge and cost and so is out of the reach of the poorer sort But here is the excellencie of this feast The poorest that is may make it and the poore have as good priviledge to make it as the rich and the poore in this respect may keepe as good an house as the best Nobleman yea for the most part the poorer sort keep this feast best Nabal makes a feast like a king but wretched man in the mean time what feast keepes his conscience It may be many a poore Carmelite neighbour of his that went in a poore russet coat and lived in a poore thatcht cottage kept that feast abundantly richly whilst he poore sot had not the crums that fell from their tables Lazarus could not have the crums that fell from the gluttons table but how happy had it been with the glutton if in stead of this delicious fare he might have had but the reversions of Lazarus boord Lazarus may not come to his feast no nor yet to his fragments neither will Lazarus condition permit him to feast it as the glutton did but yet this feast of a good conscience Lazarus may make as well as hee and can and doth keepe it whilst the glutton feeles many an hunger-biting gripe What an excellent feast is this above all other feasts wherein the russet hath as much priviledge as the velvet the beggar as the King the poore tenant as the rich Landlord The rich Landlord often so feeds upon and eates up his poor tenant by oppression that the tenant is kept low enough for feasting It is well with him if hee have food hee had not need thinke of feasting But loe now the excellent feast of a good conscience here may the Tenant keep as good cheere as the Landlord yea and it may be may feast whilst the rich Landlord is ready to starve for want of this provision Now then all this considered what a Motive should it be to make us in love with a good cōscience How powerfully should this perswade us therto whē God would perswade men to come to the joyes of heaven hee uses no other argument than this to invite them to a feast as in the Parable Luk. 14. Behold here is the same argument to move you to be in love with a good conscience behold the Lord invites you to a feast and to a feast where ye shall have sufficiencie without want or loathing where ye shal have wine mirth musick and good
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
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
shall not be able to draw thee from the faith of the Lord Iesus Prov. 6 20 22 24. My Son keep thy Fathers commandement c. And it will keep thee So I may say here keep a good conscience and it will keepe thee it will keepe thee sound in the faith it will keepe thee from being drawne away by the error of the wicked and it will keepe thee from the Wine of the fornications of the Whore of Babylon CHAP. XV. The last Motive to a good conscience The misery of an evill one THe last Motive remaines and that is The fift motive to a good conscience The horrour and misery of an evill Conscience If men did but truly know what the evill of an evill conscience were and how evill a thing and bitter it will be when conscience awakens here or shall bee awakened in hell a little perswasion should serve to move men to live in a good conscience We may say of the evill conscience as Solomon speakes of the drunkard Pro. 23. 29. Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath contentions who hath wounds but not without a cause Even the man whose conscience is not good even he that liues in an evill conscience An evill conscience how miserable it is we may see by considering the miserie thereof either in this world or the world to come 1. In this life When an evill conscience is awakened in this life the sorrow and smart the horror and terror is as the joy of a good conscience unspeakable An evil conscience in this life is miserable in regard of feare perplexity and torment To live in a continuall feare and to have a mans heart alwaies in shaking fits of feare is misery of miseries And such is the misery of an evill conscience Prov. 28. 1. The wicked flees when none pursues Onely his owne guilt pursues him and makes him flee His owne guilt causes a sound of feare in his eares Iob 15. 21. Which makes Proprium autem est nocentium trepidare Male de nobis actum erat quod multa seelera legem judicem effugiunt scripta supplicia nisi illa naturalia gravia de presentibus solverent in locum patientiae timor cederet Sonec ep 91. him shake at the noise of a shaken leafe Levit. 26. 36. yea that so scares him that terrours make him afraid on every side and drive him to his feet Iob 18. 11. Yea there are they in great feare where no feare is Ps 53. 3. So that a man with an evill conscience awakened may be named as Pashur is Ier. 20. 3. Magor-Missabib feare round about as being a terror to himselfe and to all his friends ver 4. An evill conscience even makes those feare fearefull feares of whom all other stand in feare How potent a Monarch and how dreadfull a Prince was Belshazzar who was able to put him into any feare whom all the earth feared And yet when his guilty conscience lookes him in the face awakened by the palme writing on the wall see where his courage is then Dan. 5. 6. Then the Kings countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joynts of his loynes were loosed and his knees smote one against another Who would have had his feare to have had his kingdome Let him now cloath himselfe with all his Majestie let him looke and speak as terribly as he can let him threaten the vilest vassall in his Court with all the tortures that tyranny can inflict and let him try if he can for his heart put his poorest subject into that fright and feare that now his conscience puts him into in the ruffe and middst of his jollity But I pray what ayles he to be in this feare in this so extraordinary a feare Hee can neither reade nor understand the writing upon the wall Indeed it threatned him the losse of his kingdome but hee cannot reade his threatning hee knowes not whether they be bitter things that God writes against him why may he not hope that it may bee good which is written and why may not this hope ease and abate his feare No no. Though he cannot reade nor understand the writing yet his guilty conscience can comment shrewdly upon it and can tell him it portends no good towards him His conscience now tells him of his godlesse impieties in profaning the vessels of the Temple of the true God and that for this his sacrilegious impropriation and abuse of holy things God is now come to reckon with him Thus can his conscience doe more than all his wise men All the wise men came in but they could not reade the writing nor make knowne to the King the interpretation thereof Dan. 5. 8. But his conscience is wiser than all his wise men and when they are as puzzeld that interprets to him that this writing meanes him no good and though he cannot reade the syllables yet his conscience gives a shrewd neere guesse at the substance of the writing and therefore hence comes that extasie of feare and those paroxysmes of horror It was better with Adam after his fall After his Sin committed we find him in a great feare Gen. 3. 8 10. and hee hides himselfe for feare Now observe how his feare is described from the circumstance of the time They heard the voyce of the Lord God walking in the garden in the coole of the day Luther layes the Emphasis of the aggravation of his feare upon this word the wind or coole of the day The night indeeed is naturally terrible and darknesse is fearfull whence that phrase Ps 91. The terrors of the night But the day and the light is a cheerfull and a comfortable creature Ec. 11. 7. Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun How is it then that in the faire day light which gives courage and comfort that Adam feares and runs into the thickets Oh his conscience was become Gravis malae conscientiae luxest Senec. ep 123. come evill and full of darknesse and the darknesse of his conscience turned the very light into darknesse and so turned the comforts of the day into the terrours of the night So that in this sense it may be said of an evill conscience which of the Lord is said in another Ps 139. 12. Vnto it the darknesse and the light are both alike As full of feare in the light as in the dark And besides the Lord came but in a gentle wind the coole breath of the day now what a small matter is a coole wind and that in the day time to to put a man in a feare Such small things breed great feares in evill consciences In what a wofull plight would Adam thinke we have beene if the Lord had come to him at the dead and darke midde-night with earth-quakes thunder and blustring tempest We may see the like in Cain After he had defiled his conscience with his brothers
ease in these Darius against his conscience suffers innocent Daniel to be cast into the Lyons den What cheere hath hee that night He passed the night in fasting Dan. 6. 18. Not in fasting in humiliation for his Sin but conscience now began to gall him and hee having marred the feast of his conscience conscience also marres his feasting none of his dainties will now downe his wine is turned into gall and wormewood no joy now in any thing He had marred the musick of his conscience and now he brookes not other musicke The Instruments of musicke were not brought before him His guilty conscience was now awakened and now he cannot sleepe His sleepe went from him So Iob in his conflict for conscience hoped for ease in his bed Iob 7. 13. My bed shall comfort me my couch shall ease my complaint But how was it with him Either he could not sleep at all ver 3. 4. Wearisome nights are appointed unto me When I lye downe I say when shal I arise and the night be gone and I am full of tossing to and fro unto the dawning of the day Needs must he tosse whose conscience is like the Sea waves tossed with the winds or else if Iob did sleepe yet did not conscience sleepe ver 14. but even in his sleepe presented him with ghastly sights and visions When I say my bed shall comfort me then thou scarest me with dreames and terrifiest mee through visions At other times when conscience hath beene good Gods people though their dangers have beene great yet neither the greatnesse nor neernesse of their dangers have broken their sleepe Ps 3. 5. 7. I laid me downe and slept I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against mee round about And yet if wee looke to the title of the Psalme A Psalm of David when he fled from Absolom his Son one would thinke David should have had little list or leasure to have slept Peter thought to have been executed the next morrow by Herod though hee also lodged betweene a company of ruffianly soldiers that happily one would feare might have done him some mischiefe in his sleep yet how soundly sleeps he that night Act. 12. And holy Bradford was found a sleepe when they came to fetch him to be burnt at the stake These feares brake not these mens sleepe How might this come to passe They did as Ps 4. 8. I will lay me downe in peace and sleep He that can lie downe in the peace of conscience may sleepe soundly whatsoever causes of feare there be otherwise But contrarily he that cannot ly downe with the peace of conscience will find but little rest and sleepe though his heart bee free from all other feares Evill conscience being awakened will fill the heart with such feares as a man shall have little liberty to sleep Oh the sweet sleep that Iacob had and the sweet dreame when he lay upon the cold earth and had an hard stone under his head for his pillow An hard lodging and an hard pillow but yet sweet rest and sweet communion with God A good conscience makes any lodging soft and easie but downe-beds and down-pillowes if there be thornes in the conscience are but beds of thornes and beds of nettles The bitternesse of an evill conscience distastes all the sweets of this life as when the mouth and tongue is furred in an hot Ague all meates and drinks are bitter to the sicke party This is the misery of an evil conscience awakened in this life 2. But it may be many never feele this misery here there is therefore the more misery reserved for them in hell in the world to come Indeed more by many thousands go to hell like Nabal than like Iudas more die like sots in Security than in despaire of conscience Death it selfe cannot awaken some consciences but no sooner come they into hel but conscience is there awakened to the full never to sleep more and then she lashes and gashes to the quick and lets men learne that forbearance was no payment Tel many men of conscience and they are ready to slap one on the mouth with that profane proverbe Tush conscience was hanged many yeares agoe But the time will come that they who have lived in evill conscience shall find the conscience which they have counted hanged shall play the cruell hangman and tormentor with them They shall find conscience unhanged when it shall hang them up in hell when day and night it shall stretch them there upon the racke The torments which an evill conscience puts the damned to in hell are beyond the expression of the tongue and the comprehension of mans conceit There be two speciall things in the torments of Hell wee have them both thrice repeated together Mark 9. 44 46 48. Where their worme dies not and the fire is not quenched There is an ever-living worme and never-dying fire And marke that in all the three verses the worme is set in the first place as it were to teach us that the prime and principal torment in hell is the worme rather than the fire And what is the worme but the guilt of an evill conscience that shall lye eternally gnawing and grasping twitching and griping the heart of the damned in hell Men talke much of hell fire and it were well they would talke more of it but yet there is another torment forgotten that would be thought on too There is an Hell worm as well as there is an Hell fire And it may be a question whether of the two is the greatest torment And yet no great question neither For as the Heaven of Heauen is the peace and joy of a good so the very Hell of Hell is the guilt and and worme of an evill conscience A man may safely say it is better being in hell with a good conscience than to be in heaven if that might be with an evill one Heaven without a good conscience what is it better than hel Paradice was an heaven on earth but when Adam had lost the Paradice of a good conscience what joy did paradice the pleasures of the gardē afford him more than if he had beene in some sad and solitary Desert A good conscience makes a Desert a Paradice an evill one turnes a Paradice into a Desert A good conscience makes Hell to be no Hell and an evil one makes Heaven to be no Heaven Both the happines and misery of Heaven and Hell are from the inward frame of the conscience The Hell of Hell is the worm of Hell and that worm is the worm of an evill conscience which if it be not wormed out and so the conscience in this life made good it will be an immortall worme in Hell The hellish despaire wherewith the damned are overwhelmed comes rather from this worm than from the fire Whose worm dies not and whose fire is not quenched The fire of Hell never quenches because the worme of Hell never
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