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 so fearefull for nothing Phil. 4. 6. To bee fearefull in nothing is indeed an excellent happinesse of a well composed minde How might one attaine thereto How might a man bring his heart to that fixed and stablisht temper See vers 7. The Peace of God that passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and mindes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall keepe with a guard as Kings have their guards about them to save their persons from violence shall guard your hearts that is your affections that they run not into extremities of impatience distraction desparation when feares and terrours shall come yee shall not be transported with such distracting thoughts as shall deprive you of the freedom of your minds but that you shall have them to attend upon God in the greatest of your dangers So that a man with a good conscience in the middst of all feares and combustions can sing with David Psal 116. 7. Returne unto thy rest O my soule The peace of a good conscience is like the ballast of a Ship Let a Ship goe to Sea without ballast in the bottome and every blast of wind is ready to overturne it but being wel ballasted though the winds blow strong yet it sayles steddily and safely Every blast of ill newes and tidings of feare how full of terrible apprehensions it fils an ill conscience it miserably unsettles and distracts it whilst a good conscience what blasts soever blow hath its heart steddy and at good command Mee thinkes when I consider Noah in his Cabbine or nest in the Arke with what security and quiet of heart hee sits there notwithstanding the clattering of the raines upon the Arke the roaring of the waters and the hideous howling and out-cryes of those that were drown'd in the flood I see the Embleme of a good conscience Tubalcain Lamech Iabal Iubal with what horrid perplexities are their soules distraught Some climbe up this house top some this high tree others flee to some high mountaine and there in what horror and amazement are they whilst one sees his Children sprawling another his wife strugling for life upon the face of the mercilesse waters but especially whilst they behold the waters rising by little and little and pursuing them to the house tops and threatning to sweepe them off from the heads of the Mountaines to which they had betaken themselves These feares and amazements were worse then an hundreth deathes But now all this while how is it with Noah hee sits dry in his cabbin and litterally was the saying of the Psalme verified of him Surely in the floods of great waters they came not nigh unto him Ps 32. 6. He hath his Ark pitcht within and pitcht without neither can the raines from above beat in nor the waters from beneath leake in let all fountaines of the great deepe be broken up and the flood-gates of heaven be opened yet not one drop of water comes at him and though the waters prevayle fifteene Cubits above the high hils and mountaines so that they bee covered yet Noah hee is out of all feare let them rise as high as they will yet shall hee keepe above them still Iust such is the condition and happinesse of a man with a good conscience in sad times Whilest the high hils and mountaines are covered the great and brave spirits of the world are overwhelmed with feare are possest with dreadfull apprehensions so as they know not which way to looke nor which way to take even then a man with a good conscience hath a strange quiet of heart is full of sweet security and resolution and amids all the shrikes howlings and wringing of hands of earthly men by patience possesses his soule is master of himselfe and composes his soule to rest His Arke is pitcht within and without The peace of God and the peace of a good conscience keepes the water-floods from comming into his soule The raine and the waves they beat upon the Arke but yet they pierced it not A man with a good conscience may fall into and may be swept away with common calamites yet how ever it fare with his outward man yet his soule is free from that horrour and those madding perplexities wherewithall wicked ones are overtaken The peace of a good conscience shall keepe off these distracting feares from his minde Though he cannot be free happily from the common destructions yet shall be free from the common distractions of the world There be two things in common calamities The sword without and terror within Deut. 32. 25. and the latter of the two is the worse by far Now here is the benefit of a good conscience though it doth not save alwaies from the sword without yet it delivers alwaies from the terror within which gives a terrible edge to the sword and which being removed the sword is nothing so terrible When the Canaanites were destroyed by Israel there was a double sorrow and smart upon them The sword of the Israelite and Gods Hornet Iosh 24. 12. What was that Hornet Nothing else but that distracting and perplexing feare and terrour wherewith God filled their hearts as appeares Exod. 23. 27 28. There is no Hornet can so vex with his sting as these terrors vex evill consciences in evill dayes Now here is the priviledge of good consciences though they may smart with the sword yet the Hornet shal not sting them nor fill their hearts with that throbbing anguish that these terrors in times of calamitie put evill consciences to A sweet motive to make any in love with a good conscience Whilest we look upon the evills of the times wee cannot but looke for euill times Looke we upon our sinnes and Gods administration abroad upon the malice and policies of the adversaries of Gods grace and what doe these but prognosticate heavy things Now suppose a flood should come would we not be glad of an arke and such a cabbin therein as should keepe out the waters from our soules Get then the pitch of a good Conscience and thou shalt fit like Noah if not free from the waters yet free from the feares of Lamech and Tubal-cain which are worse than the waters For the feares of such evills are more bitter and insufferable than the evils themselves Suppose I say a flood should come who would not give a kingdome for an Arke well pitcht Suppose calamitie should come who would not give a world for a good Conscience then Iabel Gen. 4. 20. he is busie in building of tents and he is among his flockes and cattell and Iubal Genes 4. 21. hee is wholly upon his merry pins as his Harpe and Organs He and his take the Timbrel and the Harpe and rejoyce at the sound of the Organ Iob 21. 12. And these jolly joviall lads give poore Noah many a drie flout many a scornfull scoffe whilest hee is building his Arke and aske what this brainsicke mad fellow meanes to make such a vessell whether he meant to sayle on the
dry land or to make a sea when he had made his ship I but when the flood is come and the waters begin to bee chin deepe then aske Iabel whether building of tents or building of an Arke bee the wiser worke then whether is better Noahs Arke or Iubals Pipes Now that the flood is come these come perhaps wading middle deep to the Arke side and bellow and howle to Noah to open the arke to them Now would not Iabel give all his tents and all his cattell but to bee where Noahs dog lyes would not Iubal now give all his pipes and merriment to have but the place that an hogge had in the Arke Now Iubal let us heare one of your merry songs pipe now and make your selves merry with gybing at Noahs folly in making a ship to saile on dry land What ailest thou Iubal to howle wring thine hands thus where is thine Harpe Organs now cheere up thy soule now with these vanities Now the Flood is come now Noah is in the Arke now Sirs you that are such men of renowne Gen. 6. 4. you that were the brave gallants of the earth now tell me who is the foole and who is the wise man now How many in the dayes of peace make light of a good Conscience yea if they see others to be but carefull in rigging of their Ship and pitching and trimming up such an Arke how ready are they to spend their byting scoffes and their tart jests upon them but if ever times of trouble calamitie and a fire flood of Gods wrath Nah. 1. 6 8. should breake in then would a good Conscience hold up the head with much comfort and resolution whilest those that formerly made a jeast of a good conscience should have aking and quaking hearts by reason of those unmeasurable feares that shall seize upon them A good conscience will make a man musick when Iubal shal be glad not only to put up but with indignation and anguish of heart to throw away and curse his pipes Well fare a good conscience in evill dayes Pitch and trim up this Ark there is no such provision against evill dayes as is a good conscience It will do a man service and support him when all the brave spirits of the earth shal be blank and at their wits end In the third place the benefit and comfort 3. The comfort of a good conscience in time of Sicknesse of a good conscience is conspicuous in the time of sicknesse or a mans private and personall crosses in his estate c. A sicke man with an hayle conscience is a cheary and a comfortable man Prov. 13. 14. The spirit of a man will sustaine his infirmity that is the spirit it selfe being hayle and sound it wil enable him to bear any bodily sicknesse But a wounded spirit who can beare yea a wounded or a sicke body who can comfortably beare if the spirit or conscience be sicke But let the conscience bee good and sound and it helpes a man with great ease and comfort to beare the sicknesse of the body It is a shrewd burthen to beare two sicknesses at once to have a sicke body and a sicke conscience A man shall find enough of the easiest of them single and alone But yet an hayle conscience in an infirme body sweetly helpes our infirmitie Let a man have ever so hayle and heathfull a body yet if the conscience be naught and withall awakened fals to galling and griping he shall find but little joy in his bodily health so contrarily let a mans conscience be good and though his body be sicke and weake yet it is a great deale of sweet refreshment that it shall receive from the conscience Sicknesse in it selfe is exceeding uncomfortable and in the time of sicknesse commonly all bodily comforts the comforts of meates drinkes and sleepe faile yea but then here is the benefit of a good conscience that will not then fayle but as it is said Eccl. 10. 9. Money answers all things so a good conscience answers all things the comfort of it supplies the wants of all other comforts When in sicknesse the comfort of meat drink and sleepe is gone they are all found againe in the comfort of a good conscience that will be meat and drinke that will be rest and sleep that will make a mans sick-bed soft and easie that shall be as the Angels were to Christ in his hunger in the Wildernesse they ministred unto him and so will a good conscience minister comfort in the want of all other comforts so that a man may say of a good conscience as we use to say of some solid substantiall dish that there are Partridge Phesants and Quailes in it so though outward comforts cease their office and their worke be suspended yet a good conscience comes in its roome and in it are meat drinke sleepe ease refreshment and what not A good conscience is an Electuary or a Cordiall that hath all these ingredients in it There is no such Cordiall to a sicke man as the cordiall of a good conscience All Physicians to this Physician are but such Physians as Iobs friends Iob 13. 4. Yea are Physicians of no value A motive of great weight to make men in love with a good conscience Who can be free from sicknesse and how tedious and wearisome a time is the time of sicknesse Now who would not make much of a Cordiall that might cheare him then of a receipt that might feed him then As then we would bee glad of a chearfull and comfortable spirit upon our sicke beds so make much of a good conscience Whence is it that most men in their sicknesses have such drooping spirits lye groaning altogether under their bodily paines or lye sottishly and senslesly no sense of any thing but paine and sicknesse Meerely from the want of a good conscience they have laid up no Cordial no comfortable Electuary for themselves in their health time against the day of sicknesse Indeed you shall have the miserable comforters of the world on this manner cheering them why how now man where is your heart Plucke up a good heart man never feare for a little sicknes c. True indeed they should not need to feare if they could plucke up a good heart But they that will plucke it up when they are sicke must lay it up when they are well Hee that hath a good conscience to get when he lyes upon his sicke bed is like a man that hath his Aqua-vitae to buy when hee is fallen into a swoune A wise man that feares swouning would have his hot-water-bottle hanging alwayes ready at his beds-head But as in other crosses by sicknesse and the like so is the comfort of a good conscience never more sweet then when a man is under the crosse for conscience sake and suffers affliction and vexation to keepe a good conscience Then above all other times will conscience doe the office of a Comforter and will
good consciences upon your death-beds If your consciences can say for you that you have beene carefull in your life time to know God to walke holily and religiously before him c. then wee dare be bold to comfort and cheere you then dare wee speake peace confidently to you But if your consciences accuse you of your ignorance your oathes Sabbath-breaches worldlinesse rebellion uncleannesse oppression drunkennesse c. and finally impenitencie What is it you would have us to doe What can wee say but as the Prophet to Zedekiah Ier. 37. 19. Where are now your Prophets that prophesied unto you saying the King of Babylon shall not come against you So where be those that in your life time told you ye need not to be so careful and precise to keep good consciences lesse ado will serve the turne now what think ye of them now what peace have you in those wayes what comfort can these give you now Or else what can we say when men in anguish of conscience lye tossing upon their beds but what Reuben said to his brethren when they were in distresse Gen. 42. 21 22. Did not I warne you saying Sin not c. So must wee what doe ye call to us for comfort did not wee warne you many a time and oft saying Sinne not nor live in those dangerous courses Did not wee warne you Oh to have our consciences and Gods Ministers thus to grate upon us what an uncomfortable condition will this be Would wee then prevent such sorrow and be cheerfull and cheered at our latter ends lay up a good conscience then lay in somewhat for conscience and Gods Ministers to worke upon and from which they both may be able to raise comfort to you Get a good conscience and live in it all thy dayes and then though thou shouldest want the benefit of a comforting Minister yet thy conscience shall doe the office of a comforting Minister and shall be the same unto thee that the Angel was unto Christ in his agony Luke 22. 43. and shall minister such comfort unto thee as shall make thee ready to leap into the grave for joy This shall be as another Iacobs staffe for thee to leane rest upon when thou shalt be upon thy death-bed If men knew but the worth of a good conscience at the houre of death wee should need no other motive to worke mens hearts to be in love therewith Fiftly and lastly the benefit and comfort 5. The comfort of a good conscience at the day of Iudgment of a good conscience is great at the day of judgement Oh the sweet comfort and confidence of heart that a good conscience will yield unto a man at that day What will become of all the Gigantean spirits and the brave fellowes of the earth then Alas for their yellings and cursing of themselves and their companions what howling and crying to the mountaines as they did Revel 6. Hide us Cover us yea dash and quash us in a thousand pieces When an ill conscience is awakened it is not to be imagined how small a thing will gastre it The sound of a shaken leafe shall chase them and they shall fly as flying from a sword and they shall fall when none pursues Levit. 26. 36. A dreadfull sound is in his eares Iob. 15. 21. Hee heares nothing but he thinkes he heares alwaies some terrible and dreadfull noise And then if a shaken leafe shall chase and shall put them into a shaking feare what case will such be in when as Iob speakes Iob 26. 11. The pillars of heaven shall tremble and when the powers of heaven shall be shaken Luke 21. 26. When the heavens shall shake and flame above them when the earth shall quake and tremble under them what case will they be in then If meere imaginations fill their eares with dreadfull sounds where there is no sound at all Oh what a dreadfull sound shall be in their eares when the Sea shall roare Luk 21. 25. when the last trumpe shall sound 1 Cor. 15. when they shall heare the shout and voyce of an Angel 1 Thes 4. 16. what dreadfull sounds will these be in the eares of ill consciences How will these dreadfull sounds confound their soules with horrour and amazement But now for a good conscience how is it with it then Even amiddst all these dreadfull sounds it lookes up and lifts up the head Luke 21. 28. and enables a man with a cheery confidence to stand before the Son of man Luke 21. 36. The Malefactor who looks for the halter how dreadful is the Iudges cōming to the Assises attended with the troopes of halberds in his eye but the prisoner that knowes his owne innocencie and that he shall be quit discharged his heart leaps at the Iudges approach how terrible soever he come attēded to the bench it glads his heart to see that day which shal be the day of his liberty release An hypocrite shall not come before him Ioh. 13. 16. much lesse shal look up lift up his head or stand before him Ps 1. 5. But the righteous and the man with a good conscience he shall hold up and cheerfully lift up his head when all the surly and proud Zamzummins of the earth that here lifted up their heads and nebs so high shall become howling and trembling suitors to the deafe mountaines to hide them from the presence of the Lambe on the throne Oh! they that feare the Lambe on the throne how dreadfull unto them will be the Lyon on the throne It will be with good and evill consciences in that day as it was with Pharoahs Butler and Baker on Pharaohs birth-day The Butler he knew hee should be restored to honour and go from the Prison to the Palace therefore he comes out of the prison ful of joy jollity he holds up his head and outfaces the proudest of his enemies But the Baker hee knowes his head shall be lift from off him and therefore when Pharaohs birth-day comes wherein all others are in jollity yet hee droopes and hangs downe the head hee knowes it would prove an heavie day of reckoning with him Such will the apparition of Christ unto judgement be unto good and evill consciences as was the apparition of the Angel Math. 28. 2 3 4 5. There was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended frō heaven his countenance was like lightening and his rayment white as snow Here was a terrible sight but yet not alike terrible to all the beholders For for feare of him the keepers did shake became like dead men But the Angel said unto the women feare not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus So at the last day when Christ shall come to judgment evill consciences shall be as the Keepers whilst all good consciences shall heare that comfortable voice Feare not yee for I know that you have sought for God all your daies ye have sought to keepe a good conscience How effectuall a motive should
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
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
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
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
Conscientia Bona vis habere bonus non vis esse tum quid est quod vis habere malū Nihil omnino non uxorem nō filium non ancillā villam tunicā postremo nō caligam tamē vis habere malam vitam Rogo te praepone vitam tuam calige tuae sic Conscientiam Aug. Ibid. good Conscience What is that men would have but they desire to have it Good And yet amongst all other things they desire to have Good what little care to have the Conscience such Wife children servants houses lands ayre food raiment who would not have these good And yet that without which none of all these are good nor will yield us any true good that alone is neglected and whilst men would have all other things good yet their cōsciences themselves are naught Now alas what good wil all other goods do us whilst this one and this maine Good thing is wanting How excellent is this Good above all other good things A good wife good children good land c. these Vbi supra Ipsae ergo divitiae bonae sunt sed ista omnia bona a bonis malis haberi possunt Et cum bona sint bonos tamen facere non possuut Aug. de verb. Do. Serm. 5. may a man have and yet he himselfe not Good these find men sometimes Good but make none so these goods may a man have and yet himselfe be naught Not so with good Conscience which no evill man can have which whosoever hath it makes him and all he hath Good So great and so good a Good why is it so much neglected Try we therefore and let us assay if by any meanes Gods good blessing giving assistance we may be able to stir up men and to worke them to regard so great and excellent a good It may be at least some few may be perswaded and may set upon this work of getting a good Conscience If but some few if but one be wrought upon the labour is not in vaine If none yet our worke is with our God to whom we are a sweet sauor in Christ in them that are saved in them that perish 2 Cor. 2. 15 This portion of Scripture then which I have chosen for the ground of the following Discourse consists of three parts 1. Pauls sober and ingenious Profession and Protestation ver 1. 2. Ananias his insolent and impetuous Injunction ver 2. 3. Pauls zealous Answer and Contestation ver 3. 1. The first is Pauls Protestation in these words Men and brethren I have lived in all good Conscience untill this day With this Protestation of a good Conscience Paul begins his Plea And however to distinguish our selves frō Papists we beare the name of Protestants yet we shal never be sound and good Protestants indeed till we can take up Pauls Protestation that our care indeavor and course is to live in All good Conscience A Protestant with a loose and a naughty Conscience hath no great cause to glory in his desertion of the Romish Religion As good a blind Papist as a halting Protestant The blind and the halt were equally abominable unto the Lord. Paul was here brought forth to answer for himselfe before the chiefe Priests and the Councell And his Preface as I said to his intended Apology if hee had not been injuriously interrupted is a Protestation of the goodnes of his conscience and this his good Conscience or the goodnes of his Conscience he sets forth 1. From his Conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have lived or conversed A good conversation is a good evidence of a good Conscience indeed there can be no good conscience where there is not a Conversing in good It is not some moods and fits in some good actions duties from whence conscience gaines the reputation of goodnesse but a good conversation godly and religious in the generall tenour thereof proves the cōscience worthy such an honor as to be holden good He may be said to have a good cōscience that can be said to live in a good conscience Many a man is frequent in the City yet cānot be said to live there There a man lives where he hath his Converse Residence A mans life is not to be measured by some few actions in which at sometime he may be found but by his general course and conversation God will judge every man not according to his steps but according to his wayes It were over-rigid censoriousnesse to condemn a righteous man and to question whether his Conscience were good because some steps of his have bin beside the way We know for the generall his way is good wherein he walkes and therefore according to his good way we judge his Conscience good Contrarily when we see a mans way for the generall to be evill though sometime hee may tread a right step or two and chance to chop into the faire road for a rod or two for this to judge a mans Conscience good were a bottomlesse and a boundlesse Charitie Every mans Conscience is as his life is 2. From the Generalitie of his care and obedience In all good Conscience It must be All good or it is no good Conscience at all There be that live in some good Conscience yea Herod seemes to have much good Conscience hee did many things gladly but yet Paul goes further and lives not in some not in much but in All good Conscience 3. From the Sincerity and Integrity of it before God Before men how many have their consciences exceeding good yet their consciences are farre short of goodnes because they are not good before God the judge of Conscience Whilst Conscience is made onely of the Capitals of the second Table or of the externals and ceremonials of the first which duty is not done out of obedience to God and his Commandements but a mans self either in his gaine or in his praise is sought and base ends are the first movers to good duties here the Conscience what ever applause it hath from or before men for it goodnesse yet of God shall not be so esteemed For that is not a good cōscience which is one outwardly but which is one inwardly whose praise is not of men but of God And that hath its praise of God which is before God 4. From his continuance and constancie untill this day To begin a good life and course and to live in all good conscience that before God are excellent things but yet one thing is wanting to make up this goodnesse compleat To be so for a day or some dayes will not serve but when a man can say at his last day I have lived in all good Conscience untill this day that man may be safely judged to have a good Conscience indeed Thus in these foure particulars doth the goodnes of Pauls Conscience appeare It is not my purpose to confine my selfe and to keep mee within those bounds alone but to take a larger
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
Consciences be quiet and lie not grating upon them and telling them that their courses are sinfull damnable and that their persons are in a dangerous condition but rather by their silence ignorance and vaine pretences doe justifie them and tell them all will be well enough Oh then what excellent good Consciences have these men They make no Conscience of Family duties once in the yeare to come to the Sacrament serves the turne they are common swearers in their ordinary communication make no conscience of sanctifying Sabbaths c. and their consciences let them alone in all these doe not give them one syllable of ill language oh what gentle good natured Consciences think these men they have But alas what evill consciences have they A good Conscience must be upright as well as peaceable And an upright Conscience is enlightned with the knowledge of the Word and by that light judges what is good what evil when it finds mens actions not to be good and warrantable deales plainly and lets them heare of it A good Conscience hath good eyes and is able to discerne betweene good and evill Now these mens Consciences are quiet and have their mouths shut but whence is it Because their eyes are shut and they are dumbe because they are blind Right Idoll Consciences they want mouths to speake because they want eyes to see So that it may be said of such Consciences as the Prophet speaks of those Watchmen Isa 56. 10. His watchmen are blind they are all ignorant they are all dumbe dogs they cannot barke Their blindnesse bred dumbnesse and their ignorance silence Thus it is with ignorant Conscience What is the reason they barke not but are dumbe and are thus quiet Meerly because they are blind and ignorant But yet as good as men account these consciences now the time will come that it shall fare with them as it did with Adam and Eve after they had eaten the forbidden fruit Then their eyes were opened So the time will come when these Consciences shall have their eyes opened and then also shall their mouths be opened yea wide and loud opened and these now quiet consciences shall both bark and bite too Doe not therefore flatter thy selfe in thine ignorance as if thy condition and Conscience were good because quiet Never account that true Peace which is not joyned with uprightnesse Integrity and ignorance can no more stand together than light and darknesse Integrity of Conscience may be without Peace Peace can never be without Integrity Dumbe Ministers go in the world for good Ministers because quiet ones but the day will come that men shall curse them for having been so quiet So ignorant and tongue-tyed consciences go for good ones but the time will come that men will curse this peace of their Conscience for bringing them so quietly to hell The Masse goes for an excellent good Service because Missa non mordet honest toothlesse devotion it never fastens fang in the hearers flesh So many have Masse-like Consciences toothlesse and tonguelesse Consciences but yet the time will come that as Masse-mongers shall curse their toothlesse Masse so ignorant persons that now glory in their peace shall curse their toothlesse Conscience yea they shall gnash their teeth because Conscience had no teeth and shall gnaw their tongues for anguish of heart because their consciences wanted tongues to tel them of the danger of their wicked wayes that have brought them to so miserable a condition 2. The Secure Conscience As the blind Conscience was like the dumbe Minister so the secure Conscience is like the flattering Minister that Ier. 6. 13. heales the hurt of his people with sweet words and cries peace peace where there is no peace This Conscience wants not an eye but only a good tongue in the head It sees its master to doe evill and knowes it to be evil but either cares not to speak or else is easily put off from speaking sometime it cares not to speake being sleepy heavie and drowsie like those Prophets Isa 56. 10. They are all dumbe dogs they cannot barke What is the Reason Sleeping lying downe loving to slumber A sleepy and heavy-eyed Curre though he see one come into his masters yard or house that should not yet barkes not as loath by his barking to disquiet himselfe A sleepy secure conscience sees many a Sin to enter the soule that should not and yet lies still and sayes nothing is loath to breake his sleepe And yet such Consciences men count good Sometimes it may be it offers to speak as a sleepy dog may open once or twice at a strangers entrance yet is soone snibd the least word of the master of the house makes him whist and quiet So secure Consciences upon the greene wound begin to smart and upon the fresh commission of Sin begin to mutter and to have some grudgings but their master answers them as the friend in his bed did his neighbor desiring to borrow three loavs Luk. 11. 17. Trouble me not for I am in bed I pray thee be quiet let us have no wrangling and brawling it shal be so no more I will cry God mercy I will hereafter find a time for repentance c. and so Conscience being secure is easily put off with a few good words and so closing her eyes and mouth againe gives her master liberty to take his rest And thus the secure Conscience because it is so easily husht and stilled is counted a good Conscience as Nurses counted them good children which though they are ready to cry at every turne yet are easily quieted with some toy But this Conscience is as far from a good Conscience as Securitie is from Integrity Sin indeed sleeps but yet it sleeps but dogs sleepe yea though it sleepe soundly yet it cannot sleepe long Gen. 4. 7. Sin lies at the doore Sin lies asleepe in the Conscience as a Mastife lies at the doore A place where a dog cannot sleep long The doore is the common passage into and out of the house every one is passing to and fro that way and keep such a clattering with the opening and shutting of the doore that there can be no sound or at least no long sleepe No better is the sleepe of secure Consciences which at length like mad band-dogs and fell mastifes will fly in the face of the sinner ready to pluck out the very throat and heart of him The secure conscience can be no good Conscience because it hath neither uprightnesse nor peace both which were before required to the temper of a good one Vprightnesse hath it none for it is not faithfull in its office it doth not witnesse it doth not accuse as it becomes an honest upright conscience to doe Peace it hath none There is a great difference between a peace and a truce in peace there is a totall deposition both of Armes and Enmitie all hostile affections are put off In a truce there is but a suspention
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
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
this Rule Men must then walke by rule and the Word must be this rule Ps 30. 23. To him that orders his conversation all Christians must be regulars and must live orderly But what is that Rule by which their conversation must be ordered That same Ps 119. 133. Order my steps in thy Word Hee that orders his course by that rule which is the rule of conscience shall be sure to keepe and get a good conscience Hee that will make good worke will work by his rule wheras hee that workes by guesse must needs make but ill worke Whatsoever is not of faith is Sin Rom. 14. 23. That is whatsoever a man doth and hath not warrant for it out of and from the rule of the Word makes a mans conscience in that particular to be evill And therefore v. 5. Let a man be fully perswaded in his owne mind How happy should men be in getting and keeping good consciences if they would lay their lives actions to the Rule The want of this is it that makes men men of so ill consciences Some live by no Rule some by false Rules hence come mens consciences to be so Anomalous Some live by no Rule but doe whatsoever seemes good in their owne eyes goe as their lusts lead them and follow his beck that rules in the Ayre This is also to walk rashly Lev. 26. He that doth things without rule goes rashly to worke Hee that walkes irregularly walkes rashly and no marvell if men have crooked wayes and crooked consciences when they will not live by Rule Some againe live by false Rules and that not onely Popish fictitious Regulars that live by superstitious Rules of their Dominick Francis c. But amongst our selves many have a Rule they doe live by but that Rule is not the Word but some false Rules of their owne devising Such as are these Great mens practice or some learned Inter causas maloruÌ„ nostrorum est quod vivimus ad exeÌ„pla nec ratione coÌ„ponimur sed coÌ„suetudine Quod si pauci facerent nollemus imitari cum plures facere coeperunt quasi honestius sit quia frequentius sequimur recti apud nos locum tenet error ubi publicus factus est Sen. Ep. 124. mans opinion the custome of times and places wherein they live the example of the multitude or some secret blind and self-conceived principles which they keepe to themselves and by which they live All which being crooked Rules must needs make crooked Consciences wheras if men would live by Davids Rule Ps 119. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and in every action would have an eye and a respect unto the Commandements as he had Psal 119. 6. then should they make straight paths for their feet Heb. 12. 13. and keepe upright Consciences in every spirituall action therefore have an eye to the Word question it whether it be justifiable and warrantable by the Word or no and meddle no further than that will authorize and beare thee out If this course were taken such a good course would make and keep a good Conscience And why should not men be willing to take this course why will we not make that Word our Rule which must be made our Iudge The word which I speak shall judge you in the last day Ioh. 12. 48. The Word shall judge our consciences therfore let it rule and order them And if it have the ruling of our consciences it will make them good consciences and when they are good they need not feare what Iudge they come before nor what judgement they undergoe In summe if we would have good consciences we must make more conscience than is commonly made of reading and searching the Scriptures The ignorance and neglect of this duty is it which banes so many consciences in the world Integritatis tuae curiosus explorator vitam tuam in quotidiana discussione examina Attende diligenter quaÌ„tum proâ—icias vel quantum deficias qualis sis in moribus qualis sis in affectibus quam similiâ— sis Deo vel quam disimilis qua prope vel quam longe c. Redde ergo te tibi si non semper vel saepe aâ— saltem interdum Bern. med de vot cap. 5. 3. Keep a daily and a frequent Audit with thy conscience often examination of the conscience conduces much to the goodnes of it The Prophet complains of his people Every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel Ier. 8. 6. Here were men far from a good conscience but what was the reason of it He gives it in the former words No man repenteth him of his wickednesse saying what have I done There was no examination of their consciences and courses what they were nor how they were and from hence comes this mischiefe This was Davids course Psa 119. 51. I considered my waies and turned my feet unto thy testimonies When a mans feet are in the wayes of Gods testimonies then hee walkes with an upright conscience and marke how David came to doe so I considered my wayes he used to examine his Conscience The first step to get a good conscience is for a man to know that his conscience before reformation is evill How shall that be knowne without a search When a search hath discovered what it is that makes the conscience and course evill then will Conscience be ready to labour a man to the reformation of that which is amisse and will not cease to urge and ply a man till it be done Frequent examination as it helps to the making of Scholars so to the making of Consciences good Hence mens lying in so grosse neglects of good duties in so many great evils because men and their consciences never reckon Men take not themselves aside into their closets and chambers and there set not up a privie Sessions to make inquiry into their own hearts and wayes and therefore are their wayes and consciences so much out of order Many a man thinks his estate in the world to be very good and thinkes hee growes rich and wealthy when his estate indeed is weak and growes every day worse than other Now what is it that causes so great a mistake Nothing but this that hee never lookes over his bookes nor casts over his reckonings If he had done this he should have seene that his estate was not answerable to his conceit and the knowledge of his misconceit would have made him have lived at a more wary and thrifty rate and have kept himselfe within such a compasse as might have kept up his estate whereas now the not examining his books puts him into a conceit of wealth and this conceit beggers and undoes him It fares no better with too many in their Consciences Laodicea thought well of her selfe Thou sayest I am rich If she had examined her conscience she should have seene that which Christ saw that she was poore blind
naked and miserable and the sight of this would have made her to have sought after that counsell which Christ there gives her Revel 3. Men would have far better consciences if they knew in what ill case their Consciences stand and examination would help them to the knowledge of this If men would but over-looke the booke of their Conscience and see how many omissions of good how many sinfull cōmissions stand registred there it would both make them marvellous sollicitous how to get them wiped out and wondrous wary how any more such Items came there Often reckonings Omni die cum vadis cubitū examina diligenter quid cogitasti quid dixisti indie quomodo utile tempus spatium quod datum est ad acquirendū vitam aeternam dispensasti Et si bene transavisti lauda Deum si malè vel negligēter lugeas sequenti die non differas confiteri Si aliquid cogitasti dixisti velfecisti quod tuam conscientiam multum remordeat non comedas antequam confitearis Bern. form vit honest Suavius dormiunt qui relinquunt curas in calceis would blot out and keep off the score Here is then wisedome for such as desire to keepe good consciences Doe with the workes of thy conversation as God did with the works of his Creation He not onely surveyed at the sixt dayes end the whole worke of the weeke but at each dayes end made a particular survey thereof Doe thou so not onely at the weekes end at thy lives end search thine heart and examine thy course but at every dayes end looke backe into the day past and examine what thy carriage and behaviour hath beene This being done a man shall find his workes either good or evill If good how shall his conscience cheere him with its peace If evil then if conscience have any life or breath in it it will make a man fall to humiliation and to a godly resolution of watching over his waies for the future so shall conscience bee much holpen for integrity Davids counsell is good Ps 4. 5. Examine your hearts upon your beds and his resolution is also good vers 8. of the same Psalm I wil lay me down and sleep in peace Who would not be glad so to sleepe and to take his rest so would we sleep upon Davids pillow sleep in peace then hearken we to Davids counsel to examine our selves upon our beds There is nothing makes a mans bed so soft nor his sleep so sweete as a good conscience It is with Sins as with Cares both trouble a mans sleep both are troublesome bed-fellows as they therefore sleep sweetly that leave their cares in their shooes so they sleepe with most peace that let not sin ly downe to sleepe with them who are so farre from lying downe in their sinnes that by their good will will not let the Sun go downe upon their sin but by examination ferret out the same This being done it may be said as Prov. 3. 24. Thou shalt ly downe and thy sleep shall be sweet Nay further examine thy conscience upon thy bed and thou shalt not onely sleepe in peace but thou shalt awake and arise the next morning with an upright frame of heart disposed to the more caution against Sinne the day following So much David seemes to intimate in that forenamed place Tremble and sinne not That is be afraid to sin take heed ye sin no more But what course may one take to come to that integrity of conscience as to feare to sinne Take this course Examine your hearts upon your beds But alas how rare a practice is this and therefore are good consciences so rare Many thinke this an heavy burden and a sore taske and count the remedy a great deale worse than the disease there is nothing they tremble at more than a domesticall Audit and this reckning with their consciences They say of conscience as Ahab of Micaiah and care as little to meddle with conscience as Ahab with Micaiah I hate him for he never speakes good to me 1 King 22. So they thinke the conscience will deale with them They know their conscience will speake as Iob sayes God wrote Thou writest bitter things against me Conscience hath such a stinging waspish tongue that by no meanes they dare indure a parly with it It is with many and their consciences as with men that have shrewish wives Many a man when hee is abroad hath no joy at all to come home nay he is very loath to come within his owne doores he feares he shall have such a peale rung him that hee had rather be on the house top as Solomon speakes or in some out house and lodge as our Savior at Bethlem in a cratch or a Manger than come within the noise of her clamorous and chattering tongue So many thinke conscience hath such a terrible shrewish tongue that if they shall but come within the sound thereof they shall be cast into such melancholly dumpes as they shall not be able in haste to claw off againe How much and how seriously are they to be pitied that to prevent a few houres or dayes supposed sorrow and sadnesse by which they might come to procure both peace and integrity of Conscience will adventure the rack and eternal torture of conscience in Hell Remember that there is no melancholly to the melancholly of Hell CHAP. VI. Two further meanes to procure integrity of Conscience IN the fourth place deale with thy conscience as God would have Abraham doe by Sarah Gen. 21. 12. In all that Sarah shall say unto thee hearken unto her voice So here if we would get and keep a good conscience in all that it shall say unto us being enlightned and directed by the word hearken unto it Conscience being enlightned hath a voyce and no man but sometime or other shall heare this voyce of conscience Conscience is Gods Monitor to speake to men when others cannot or dare not speak Sometimes men cannot speak as not being privie to other mens necessities and failings Sometimes they may not be suffered to speak as Ahab will not indure Micaiah to speake to him Sometime if a man speake hee may have rough and angry answers as the Prophet had from Amaziah 2. Chron. 26. 16. Art thou made of the Kings Counsell forbeare why shouldst thou be smitten God hath therefore provided every man even great men which may not be spoken to he hath provided them a bosome Chaplein that will round them in the eare and will talk roundly to them one that will be of their counsell in despight of them one that feares no fists dreads no smiting yea one that fears not to smite the greatest 2 Sam. 24. 10. And Davids heart smote him after that he had numbred the people It may be many there were about David that had not the hearts to smite Dauid with a grave reproofe though hee gives leave to the righteous to doe so Ps 141. Let the
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
the people should goe Sacrifice but hee cannot abide that Moses should bee so peevishly precise that not an hoofe should be left behind Alas an hoofe is but a toy not worth the mentioning what need Moses bee so strict as to stand upon an hoofe Yet a good conscience will stand upon it having Gods Commandement and will make conscience as well of carrying away hoofes as of whole bodies of Cattell It is with a good conscience as it is with the apple of the eye of all the parts of the body it is the most tender not onely of some great shives or splints under the eye-lid but even the smallest haire and dust grieves and offends it It is so with a tender good conscience not onely beames but also moates disquiet the eye of a good conscience and not onely greater and fouler Sinnes but even such as the world counts veniall trifles doe offend it A good conscience straines not onely at a Camell but at a Gnat also Neither doth our Saviour blame the Pharisees simply for straining at a Gnat but for their hypocrisie who would pretend conscience in smaller things and meane while made none in the greater for otherwise a good conscience indeed hath a narrow passage for a Gnat as well as for a Camell The least corne of gravell galls his foot that hath a strait shooe but hee that hath a large wide shooe slopping about his foot it is no trouble to him It is just so with consciences good and evill A Gnat is but a small thing yet Pope Bol. pag. of Popes pag. 97. Hadrian the fourth was choakt with a Gnat and one Flye though but a small thing to a whole boxe of oyntment yet dead Flies as small things as they are cause the oyntment of the Apothecarie to send forth a stinking savour Ec. 10. 1. and so doth a little folly though but little doe a great deale of hurt And therefore a good conscience lives by Salomons rule Give not water passage no not a little And take not onely the Foxes but the little Foxes which spoyle not onely the Vines but the tender Grapes Cant. 2. 15. It knowes a little will make way for much Pharaoh is content that the people the men should go sacrifice Ex. 10. but their little ones should not goe he knew if hee had but their little ones with him he should be sure enough of their return therefore Moses will not onely have the men goe but their little ones also And therefore a good conscience deales with Satan as Marcus Arethusius dealt with Putantes pauperem vel medietatem petebant pecuniarum novissime vel paueum aliquid exigebant Quibus ait nec obolum unum pro omnibus dabo Hist Tripart lib. 6. cap. 12. his tormentours who having pulled downe an Idolatrous Temple and being urged by them to give so much as would build it up againe refused it They urged him to give but halfe hee still refused they urged him at last to give but a little towards it but he refused to give them so much as one halfe-penny No not an halfe-penny sayes he for it is as great wickednesse to conferre one Ad impietatem inquit obulum conferre unum perinde valet ac si quis cōferat omnia Theodor. lib. 3. cap. 7. halfe penny in case of Impiety as if a man should bestow the whole What was a poore halfe-penny it was a very small matter specially considering in what torture he was from which an half-penny gift would haue released him Indeed an half-penny is but a little but yet it is more then a good Conscience dares give to the maintenance of idolatrous worship A good conscience will not give so much as a farthing token to such an use as little a thing as it is For he that is faithfull in that which is least is faithfull also in much and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much Luke 16. 10. Even the least things are as great trials of a good conscience as the greatest A good Conscience will not greatifie Satan nor neglect God no not in a little Put mens consciences now vpon this triall Who crakes not of his good conscience there be none if they may bee beleeved but they have good Consciences But why are they good They can swallow no Camells Well yeeld them that though if their entrals were well searcht a man might finde huge bunch backt camells that have gone downe their gullets They can swallow no camells but what say they to gnats can they swallow them Tush Gnats are nothing whole swarmes of them can goe downe their throats and they never once cough for the matter Foule and grosse scandalls such as are infamous amongst meere heathen such Camells they swallow not but what say they to unsavorie and naughtie thoughts which their hearts prosecute with delight what say they to them Gnats doe not swarme more abundantly in the fennes then such vile thoughts doe in their hearts The prodigious oaths of wounds blood the damned language of Ruffians and the Monsters of the earth Oh their hearts would tremble to have such words passe out of their mouths but yet what say they to the neater and civilified Complements of Faith and Troth Tush these are trifles meere Gnats alas that you shall stand upon such niceties To rob a man upon the high way or to breake up a mans house in the night this is a monstrous Camell but in buying and selling to over-reach a neighbour a shilling or two a penny or two what say they to that Oh God forbid they should be so strictly dealt withall that is a small thing their throats are not so narrow but these Gnats will goe downe easily enough To beare false witnesse in an open Court of Iustice or to be guilty of pillory-perjury these bee foule things but to lye a little for a mans advantage or to make another man merriment what thinke they of this This is a very Gnat they are ashamed to straine thereat Tell many a man of his sinne in which he lyes that his sinne and a good conscience cannot stand together what is his answer but as Lot of Zoar Is it not a little one Gen. 19. 20 But the truth is that these little ones are great evidences of evill conscience It is but a dreame to thinke our consciences good that make no conscience of small sinnes and duties The conscionable Nazarite now did not only make conscience of guzling and quaffing whole cups of wine but of eating but an huske and a kernell of a Grape What a trifle is the kernell of a Grape and yet a good conscience will care to please God as well in abstinence from the kernell as from the cup. Indeed when David had defiled and hardned his conscience with his adultery then hee could cut Vriahs throat and his heart smites him not for it but when under his affliction his conscience was tender and good his heart smites him
but for cutting Sauls coat 1 Sam. 24. 5. See the nature of a good conscience it will smile not onely for cutting Sauls throat but for cutting Sauls coat but for an appearance vpon a suspicion and but a iealousie of evill Paul speakes of a pure Conscience 2 Tim. 1. 3. Now it is with the pure conscience as it is with pure Religion Iam. 1. 17. Pure religion and undefiled is to keepe á mans selfe unspotted of the world It hates not onely wallowing with the Sow in the mire but is shie of very spots and hates not only the flesh but the garment not onely that is grosely besmeared but which is but spotted with the flesh Iude 23. according to that Ceremonial Levit. 15. 17. And this is that which differences civility and a good Conscience Civility shunnes mire but is not so trim as to wash off spots this is the pure Religion of a pure Conscience Pure Religion and nndefiled is to keep a mans selfe unspotted therefore they who are not unspoted are not undefiled but if their consciences be but spotted yet are they defiled Mens consciences are as their Religion is and pure Religion is spotlesse Yea to close this point the greatest evidence of a good conscience is in making Conscience of small things Whilst Probat enim etiam in majoribus si res exigat executorem se idoneum fore à quo minora compleantur Salvian de provid l. 3. men feare great sinnes or are carefull of maine duties it may bee their reputation and credits may sway them which otherwise would be impeached So that in them it may be a question whether it be Conscience or Credit that is the first mover but in smaller things where there is no credit to be had nay for scrupling whereof a man may rather receive some discredit from the world here it is more evident that good Conscience sets a man on This then is a note of a good Conscience to make Conscience as of small duties so of small sinnes as hee that feares poison feares to take a drop as well as a draught and men feare not onely when a firebrand is thrust into but when a sparke lights upon their thatch CHAP. VIII Three other notes of a good Conscience A Third note of good conscience may be this It loves and likes a Ministry and such Ministers as preach and speake 3. Note of good conscience To love a Ministry that speaks home to the conscience to the Conscience It likes such a dispensation of the Word as comes home to it whether for direction or reproofe The Word is the rule of conscience and a good conscience is desirous to know the rule it must live by The Word must judge the conscience this every good conscience knowes and therefore grudges not to be reproved by it as knowing that if it will not abide the Words reproofe it must abide the Words iudgement Therefore a man with a good conscience speakes as Samuel Speake Lord thy servant heares He can suffer the words of exhortation and not count himselfe to suffer whilst it is done He is of Davids minde Let the righteous smite me and it shall be a kindnesse let him reproue me and it shall bee an excellent oyle which shall not breake mine head Psal 141. 5. It is with good conscience as with good eyes that can abide the light and can delight in it whereas sicke and sore eyes are troubled and offended therewith A sound heart is like sound flesh that can abide not onely touching but also rubbing and chafing and yet a man will not bee put into a chafe thereby whereas contrarily if the least thorne or vnsoundnesse bee therein Tu scis Deus noster quod tunc de Alipio ab illa peste sanando non cogetaverim At ille in se rapuit meque illud non nisi propter se dixisle credidit quod alias acciperet ad succensendum mihi accepit honestus adolescens ad succensendum sibi ad meardentius diligendum Aug. conf lib. 6. ca. 7. a touch at vnawares provokes a man if not to smite yet to angry words and language of displeasure Vnsound flesh loves to be stroakt and to be handled gently the least roughnesse puts into a rage That is the ingenuity of a good conscienence which was the good disposition of Alipius when hee was vnwittingly taxed by Augustine for his Theatricall vanities hee was so sarre from being angry with him though he conceived him purposely to ayme at him that hee was rather angry with himselfe and loved Augustine so much the better Put mens consciences vpon this triall and we shall see what the consciences of most men are Let a man preach in an vnprofitable maner let him spend himselfe in idle curiosities and speculations let him be in combate with obsolete or forraine heresies so long their Minister is a faire and a good Churchman But let him doe as God commands Ezekiel to doe Ezek. 14. 4. Answer them according to their Idols preach to their necessities let him call them and presse them to holy duties and reprove them for their vnholy practises and make knowne vnto them what evill consciences they have what then is Scio me offensurum quam plurimos qui generalem de vitiis disputationem in suam referunt contumeliam dum mihi irascuntur suam judicant conscientiam multoque prius de se quam de me judicant Hieron ad Rustic Monach. their carriage and behaviour Even that Amos. 5. 10. They hate him that rebukes in the gate and they abhorre him that speaks vprighly This Ministry that comes to the conscience will not downe with them It lets in too much light vpon them and Ahab hates Micaiah for drawing the curtains so wide open he cannot endure such punctuall and particular preaching that clappes so close to his conscience A plaine signe that Ahab hath a rotten and an vnsound Conscience Micaiah could not be more punctuall with Ahab then Isaiah was with Hezekiah Isa 39. 6 7. And yet what sayes Hezekiah Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken as if he had said a good Sermon a good Preacher all good Whence comes this good entertainment of so harsh a message Hezekiah had a good Conscience and therefore though the message went against the haire yet he could give good words Let the righteous smite mee and it shall be a kindnesse Psal 141. I but that is whē the righteous smites the righteous what if the Prophet smite Amaziah he will threaten to smite him againe 2 Chron. 25. 16. Forbeare why shouldest thou be smitten Why if Paul preach of a good Conscience and so make Ananias his Conscience to smite him Ananias will commaund the standers by to smite him on the mouth Now let all the standers by judge whether Ananias have any good Conscience in him who cannot brook the preaching of good Cōscience Let men professe they know God as long as they
will yet if they slight the word or swel at it or be disobedient to it when it is laid to their Conscience Paul makes it a manifest signe of a defiled conscience Tit. 1. 15 16. Their mind and their conscience is defiled How appeares that They professe they know God but they are disobedient When therfore the Ministry of the Word shall charge thee with dutie or reproove thee for sinne and then thou shalt charge the Minister with railing and girding and that this Sermon was made for the nonce for thee thou likest not that Ministers should be so particular c. In Gods feare bee advised to looke to thy Conscience and know it that thou hast a naughtie conscience when the Ministry of the Word smites thy conscience then for thee to smite the Minister with reproachfull and disgracefull tearmes to smite him with thy mouth How is thy conscience better then Ananias his that commands to smite Paul on the mouth he that cannot brooke that Gods Ministers should not discharge a good conscience in preaching to the conscience be bold to challenge that man for a man of an evill conscience 4. That is a fourth note of a good conscience 4 Note of a good conscience To doe duty for conscience sake Rom. 13. 5. ye must be subject for conscience sake To doe good or abstaine from evill meerly for conscience sake is a note of a right good conscience indeed Conscience as we saw before doth excite and stirre up and bind to the doing of good and bind from the doing of evill Now when the conscience upon just information from the Word shall presse and forbid and then a man shall because conscience forbids forbeare or because it presses performe obedience thus to doe good or not to doe evill for conscience sake is a note of a good conscience It evidences a good conscience when the maine weight that sets the wheeles on worke is conscience of Gods coÌ„mandement When it is that Ps 119. 4. that sets a man on work Thou hast coÌ„manded us to keep thy precepts diligently The end of the commandement is love 1 Tim. 1. 5. and love is the fulfilling of the commandement Rom. 12. But what love From a pure heart and a good conscience 1 Tim. 1. 5. When conscience of the commandement carries a man to the fulfilling of the end of it then doth such love come froÌ„ a good conscience Salomons description of a good man Eccl. 9. 2. is that he fears an oath He saies not that swears not but that feares an oath For a man not to sweare may be the fruit of good education and of the awe a man hath stood in of his Governours but to feare an oath argues that a man feares the commandement Prov. 13. 13. and to feare the commandement is the note of a good conscience Here let mens consciences be tried Thou prayest in thy family hearest the Word keepest the Sabbath c. Now search thine heart and make inquirie what it is that carrieth thee to these duties Doest thou do them for conscience sake Doest thou find conscience to urge and presse thee and to give satisfaction of the conscience and obedience to the injunctions thereof Are these things done If so it is a signe of a good conscience But this discovers the naughtinesse of mens consciences who though they be sound in some good duties or in the avoyding of some evils yet is it not conscience that workes them thereto Yee must be subject not onely for wrath that is for feare of the Magistrates wrath and revenge but for conscience sake Rom. 13. 5. It is no good conscience when a man will be subject for his skins sake and lest hee smart by the Magistrates sword but then a mans conscience is good when in obedience to Gods Word and in conscience of his commandement he subjects The like may be said of all by-ends Ye must doe good duties not for profit not for credit not for vaine-glory not for â—aw but for conscience sake or else evill consciences ye have in that ye doe The Shechemites receive circumcision Gen. â—4 And is not circumcision Gods Ordinance And is it not joy of them that they will joyne to the Church and professe the true Religion Yes surely if it were done for conscience I but it is not done for conscience sake Alas no such matter but for Hamors sake the Lord of the Towne and for Shechems sake their young Master and for the hope of gaines sake Shall not their cattell and their substance and every beasts of theirs be ours Gen. 34. 23. For the oxen sake and not for conscience sake are the Shechemites circumcised Shechem for Dinahs sake receives the Sacrament Oh the zeale and forwardnesse that some will professe on a sudden What frequenters of holy exercises But what is it for conscience sake No such matter but Shechem is in hope of a match with Dinah and all these showes of Religion are neither for Gods sake nor conscience sake but all for Dinahs sake all under hope of preferment by a rich marriage They were goodly shewes of zeale Ioh. 6. 22. 24. in seeking and following after Christ but it was neither for Christ nor conscience sake but ver 26. for the loaves and the bread and their bellies sake Many of the heathens Esth 8. 17. turned Iewes Was there not joy of such Proselytes not a whit for not the fear of God but the feare of the Iewes fell upon them as many frequent the publicke assemblies more for feare of the statute then for fear of the commandement The officers of the King helped the Iewes Esther 9. 3. Was it for conscience sake Nothing lesse but for wrath sake and for feare because the feare of Mordecai fell upon them If the Pharises had done all that Mat. 6. for conscience sake which they did for vaine-glory sake they had had the glory of good consciences Many preached the Gospel in Pauls daies Phil. 1. Does not so good a worke argue a good conscience Yes if it had beene done for conscience sake but that was done for contention sake not to adde soules to the Church but to adde sorrowes to Pauls afflictions It is a note of a good conscience when that which we doe is done with a respect unto the commandement of God Psal 119. 6. and not with a squint respect unto our owne private for praise or profit It Vtrine majores heretici illine qui pictas ligneas an qui aureas argenteas imagines è templis exigerent ad conflandam monetam igne adurerent Dubro hist Bohe. l. 24. was a good argument of those Bohemians good consciences in plucking downe Images that they beate downe onely painted and wooden Images whilst Sigismund the Emperour pulled downe silver and golden ones to melt into money for pay of his Souldiers as they plead for themselves when they were held Heretikes for their fact If they had pulled downe such Images as
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
yet all could not make them shake hands with a good coÌ„science The raine floods and winds could not bring downe the house founded upon the rocke Mat. 7. Notwithstanding all trials a good conscience stands to it and holds it owne and speakes as once Father Rawlins did the Bishop Rawlins you left mee Acts and Mon. Rawlins you find me and Rawlins by Gods grace I will continue Try yet a good conscience farther with the tentations on the right hand which commonly have as much more strength in them above the other as the right hand hath above the left and yet we shall find the right hand too weake to plucke a good conscience out of its station It was a sore tentation wherwith Moses was assaulted The treasures and pleasures the honors favors of the Aegyptian Court Princesse All these wooe him not to goe the people of God Had that people been setled and at rest in Canaan yet had it beene a great tentation to prefer Aegypt before Canaan But the people are in Aegypt in affliction in bondage therfore so much the more strength in the tentation What will you be so mad to leave all for nothing certaine honours for certaine afflictions who can tell but you may be raised to this greatnesse to be an instrument of good to your people You by your favour in the Court may bee meanes to ease them of their bondage and so you may doe the Church service with your greatnesse c. Here was a tentation on the right hand and with the right hands strength Well and how speeds it Is Moses able to withstand it See Heb. 11. 24 25 26. He refused to be called the Son of Pharaohs Daughter c. All would not doe nor stir him a whit Those faithfull Worthies before mentioned could not be stirred with all the cruelties their adversaries could invent I but it may be a tentation on the right hand might have made them draw away the right hand of fellowship from a good conscience Well their enemies therefore will try what good they can do that wayes Heb. 12. 37. They were tempted that is on the right hand they were sollicited and inticed and allured with faire promises of honours favours preferments as Bonner used to deale with the Martyrs hee had sometimes butter and oyle as well as fire and faggot in his mouth Thus were they tempted but yet what availed these tentations Iust as much as their stones sawes swords prisons all a like They for all these tentations keepe a good conscience to their dying day and hold fast the faith and truth unto the end A good conscience is of the mind of those trees in Iothams parable Iudg. 9. It will not with the Olive lose its fatnesse nor with the Fig-tree lose its sweetnesse nor with the vine its wine of cheerfulnes to have the fattest and sweetest preferments and pleasures of the world no though it were to raigne over the trees It was an excellent resolution of Benevolus Benevolo Iustina praecepit ut adversus fidem patrum imperialia decreta dictaret Illo vero se impia verba prolaturum abnuente celsiorem honoris gradum spopondit si maÌ„data perficeret cui Benevolus Quid mihi pro impietatis mercede altiorem promittis gradum hunc ipsum quem habeo auferte dunt inâ—gram fidei conscientiam tuear Ac protonus cingulum ante pedes ejus abjecit Sâ—gon de occid Imp. l. 1. pag. 200. in his answer to Iustina the Arrian Empresse profering preferments to him to have beene instrumentall in a service which could not be done with a good conscience What doe ye promising mee an higher degree of preferment for a reward of impiety yea even take this from me which already I have so that I may keepe a good conscience And so forthwith hee threw at his feet his girdle the ensigne of his honour Thus doth a good conscience throw and trample honour and preferment under foot to maintaine its owne integritie Thus can nothing corrupt a good conscience I have beene young and now am old and yet never saw I the righteous forsaken to wit of God Psalm 37. David out of his experience could have said as much in this point I have beene young and now am old yet never saw I God and godlinesse forsaken by the righteous by the man that had a good conscience But the man that had a good conscience when hee was young will hold out and have it when he is old It is the great honour and grace of a good Conscience which Walden thinks he spake to the disgrace of Wickliffe Ita ut cano placeret quod inveni complacebat He was young and old one and the same man Old age decayes the body the strength the senses but conscience it touches not that holds out sound to death As of Christ in another sense Heb. 13. So may it be said of a good conscience in this Yesterday and to day and the same for ever A good conscience is no changeling but let a mans estate change from rich to poore from poore to rich or let the times change from good to evill or from evill to worse or a mans dayes change from young to old let his haires and head change yet among all these changes a good coÌ„science wil not change but hold it owne untill its last day Now put mens consciences upon this triall their inconstancie either in good causes or courses will discover their naughtines In a good cause how many are like Darius his coÌ„scieÌ„ce struggles a great while for Daniel he knew he was innoceÌ„t he knows the action to be unjust and therfore labours all day till the setting of the Sun for his deliverance Dan. 6. 14. but yet overcome with the Presidents Princes urgencie ver 16. he coÌ„mands him to the Lions den Here was a natural conscience standing for equity and justice but yet no good conscience it holds but till Sun set and his conscience went downe with the Sun His coÌ„science yields is overcome though it know the act to be unjust Pilats conscience makes him plead for Christ In his conscience he acquits him and thrice solemnly professes that hee finds no fault in him and therefore cannot in conscience condemne him yea withall seekes to release him Iohn 19. 12. Is not here now a good conscience Indeed it had beene so in this particular fact if his conscience had beene inflexible and had held out But when Pilate heares them say that if he be his friend he is no friend to Caesar Iohn 19 12. and whilest withall hee is willing to content the people Marke 15. 15. Now that there is feare on the one side and desire to curry favour on the other where now is his conscience Now hee presently delivers him to be crucified though he knowes in his conscience that there is no fault in him What a good conscience hath many a Iudge and Lawyer How stiffely will they stand
in and prosecute a just case till a bribe come and puts out the very eies of their conscience Their consciences are of so soft a temper that the least touch of silver turnes their edge presently They hold out well till there come a tentation on their left hand that is in their right hand Psal 144. 8. Whose mouth speakes vanity and their right hand is a right hand of falshood If once the right hand be a right hand of falsehood the mouth will soone speake vanity though before it speake conscience Who would not have thought Balaam to have beene a man of an excellent conscience If Balak would give mee his house full of silver and gold I cannot goe beyond the word of the Lord my God to doe lesse or more Num. 22. 18. But yet besides that faltering in those words I cannot goe whereas the language of a good conscience would have beene I will not goe besides that I say before hee ends his speech see how the hope of promotions works and works his conscience like wax before the fire ver 19. Now therfore I pray you tarry heere also this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more A faltering inference If his conscience had beene good it would have inferred strongly thus Now therefore I pray get you gone and trouble me no longer Hee knew in his conscience the people ought not to be cursed and that he ought not to goe and yet comes in with I pray tarry all night c. Truly Balak needed not to have beene so lavish and so prodigall as to offer an house full one handfull of his silver and gold will frame Balaams conscience to any thing The like triall may be made of mens consciences by their inconstancie in good courses and this will condemne three sorts as guilty of evill consciences 1. Such as sometimes being convinced of the necessity of good courses doe set upon the practice of them and begin to looke towards Religion and religious duties till meeting with some of their supposed wiser neighbours they be advised to take heed they may bring themselves into greater note then they are aware of they will incur sharper censures then they thinke of c. and suddenly all is dasht all is quasht and quencht There is a disease among beasts they call the Staggers and it is a disease too frequent in mens Consciences who sometimes are on sometimes off one day begin and next day cease good courses That may be said of many mens conscices which Iacob speakes of Reuben Gen 49. 4. Vnstable as water The water moues as the winds blow If the wind blow out of the East then it moves one way if out of the west then it moves another the cleane contrary and upon every new winde a new way So many let them heare a convincing and a good perswading Sermon moving to good duties then they will set upon them let them againe heare either some mocks or reproches for those wayes or some sage advise from one they count wise against the way of conscience they are as far off againe as ever These staggering irresolute and watry Consciences are farre from good ones 2. Such as in their youth or when the world was low with them were very zealous and forward But what are they now at this day True downeright Demasses zealous when they were young but now old and cold zealous when they were meane but now the world is come vpon them Demas-like they have forsaken goodnes and embraced the world have gotten now worme-eaten and world-eaten consciences The zeale of Gods house was wont to eat them up but now the world hath eaten up them and all their good conscience 3. Those that have made good the prophane Proverb Young Saints and old Devills whose hatred of Religion and good conscience is greater then ever was their love thereto as Ammon was towards Thamar 2 Sam. 13. 15. They were zealous and forward frequenters of Gods house and Ordinances zealous enemies against Swearing and Sabbath-breaking c. But what are they at this day yesterday indeed zealous professors of holines but what are they to day to day malicious scoffers of godlinesse haters and opposers of goodnes the only swearers and drunkards in a country What kind of cōsciences are these none of Pauls conscience I have lived in all good conscience untill this day What then just the consciences of Hymenaeus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. 18 19. They once made great profession of conscience but now enemies to Paul and blasphemers men as Paul speaks that had put away good conscience they did not through want of watchfulnesse let it slip or steale away but as if it would never have been gone soone enough they put and drave it away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beza translates it Qua expulsa They used their consciences as Ammon did Thamar after his lust satisfied 2 Sam. 13. 15 17. Arise be gone sayes hee to her and when shee pleads for her selfe hee cals his servant and sayes unto him Put out this woman and bolt the doore after her put her out so as shee may be sure not to come againe They dealt with their Consciences as Colleges deale with Rake-hels expelled them without all hope of re-entry Thus many prophane Apostating backsliders cannot be content to lose good conscience unlesse Ammon-like they may put it away with violence and expell it And how can they have good conscience that have put it away Hee hath not his wife that hath put her away and given her a bill of divorce In the dayes of Popery and darknesse the Devill it seemed walked very familiarly amongst them and hence we have so many stories of Fayries and of children taken out of cradles and others laid in their roomes whom they called Changelings Since the light of the Gospell these Devils and Fayries have not beene seene amongst us but yet we are still troubled with Changelings Some Priests and Iesuites have changed some the world hath changed some Good-fellowship and the Ale-house hath changed These have played the Fayries have taken and stolne away goodly forward and fervent Christians and have layd in their roomes Earthlings Worldlings Popelings Swearers Drunkards Malicious scorners of all goodnesse Thus have these Fayries in stead of faire and comely children brought in these lame blind deformed and wrizzled faced Changelings that any one may easily see them to be rather the births of some Hobgoblins then the Children of God If therefore we would evidence our consciences good labour to hold to the last and rest not in youth but labor to have age found in the way of righteousnesse This is a Crowne of glory and this is right good conscience to live therein untill our dying day All the former sixe are nothing without this last CHAP. X. The comfort and benefit of a good conscience in the case of Disgrace and Reproach VVEe are now come to the fift and last point which was propounded
The Motives to perswade us to get good consciences The Motives therunto may be many I will keepe my selfe within the compasse of five 1. Motive The incomparable and unspeakable 1. Motive to a good conscience comfort and benefit thereof in such cases and times as all other comforts faile a man and wherin a man stands most in need of comfort These cases or times are five 1. The Time and Case of Disgrace and Reproach 2. The Time of Common feare and Common calamitie 3. The Time of Sicknes or outward crosses in a mans goods 4. The Time of Death 5. The Time and Day of Iudgement In all these or in any of these times it is good to have such a friend or companion that will sticke to a man and be faithfull Interim elige socium qui cum omnia subtracta fuerint fidem servat dilectoribus suis nec recedit in tēpore angustiae Bern. de Consc to him when all other things faile him Such a friend and such a companion is a good conscience A friend loves at all times and a brother is borne for adversitie Proverb 17. 17. But in some of these cases a brother and friend may be false and will not or may be weake and cannot helpe nor pleasure a man but a good conscience is better then all friends and brethren whatsoever when they will not or cannot or may not yet then will a good conscience sticke close to a man and be a sure friend to him Let us see in the particulars the truth of it 1. In the time and case of Disgrace Infamie Reproach and wrongs of that The comfort of a good conscience in case of disgrace and reproach kinde the comfort and benefit of a good conscience is unspeakeable When a man shall be traduced slandered falsely accused and condemned then in such wrongs will a good conscience doe the office of a faithfull friend will sticke to and stand by a man and will comfort and hearten him against all such injuries Paul is heere convented before the Councell as a Malefactor hee hath an whole Councell bent against him What now is his comfort and his defence against such an heape of accusers as doe affront him This it is Men and brethren I have lived in all good conscience As if hee had said Impeach traduce accuse and condemne mee as you please yet be it knowne unto you that I have a good conscience and this my good conscience is it which shall comfort and uphold me against all your injurious and unequall proceedings You may bring forth false witnesses against me but my conscience doth and will witnesse for me you may condemne me yet my conscience acquits and absolves me And thus doth Paul shelter himselfe under his good conscience The like we may see in the next Chapter Ananias and the Elders come and bring Tertullus and he is feed to be Pauls accuser and he layes heavie and hainous things to Pauls charge vers 5. Wee have found this man a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Iews throughout the world a ring-leader of the sect of the Nazarens c. Here be foule things what will Paul be able to say to all this Will not this bee enough to sinke him downe utterly to see so many banded together and such great ones combined to countenance such an accusation How will he be able to subsist Now then behold the benefit and comfort of a good conscience He holds up his former buckler and smites Ananias and the rest with his former weapon vers 16. Herein doe I exercise my selfe to have alwaies a conscience voyd of offence towards God and towards men Ananias and the Elders have a mercenary Tertullus to accuse him Paul hath no man dares be seene to plead for him none will be retained in his cause but yet now conscience steps out and stops the foule mouth of this slanderous Oratour and puts spirit and heart into Paul to plead his own Cause against them all Conscience seemes on this manner to animate him Feare not Paul the accusations of this Tertullus I witnesse for thee thine Innocencie I justifie it to the teeth of Tertullus that he is one whose malice and covetousnesse hath made him set his conscience to sale stand up therefore and speake boldly for thy selfe dread them not Well fare a good conscience yet that will speake comfort to Paul and make Paul speake with courage when none else dare be seene in his cause It was an ill case David was in Psalm 69. 20. 21. Reproach hath broken mine heart and I am full of heavinesse and I looked for some to take pitty but there was none and for comforters but I found none they gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave mee vineger to drinke A very hard case indeed Where was now Davids familiar friend his acquaintance with whom hee was wont to take sweet counsell what was become of him now Possibly some of his acquaintance were at this time like a broken tooth and a foot out of joynt Prov. 25. 19. Confidence in an unfaithfull man is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joynt Others it may be that had profest him loue were ready to fasten a poysoned tooth in him This was Davids case and this may be any mans case but now at such a time and in such a pinch appeares the excellency and benefit of a good Gonscience Though all a mans friends should prove Iobs friends like the Winter brooks of Teman that in winter overswell the bankes but in the scorching heat of Sommer prove drie ditches yet then even then well fare a good conscience That will heale Davids heart broken with reproach that will cheere him up in his heavinesse that will sweeten the gall and take away the sharpenes of the vineger which his enemies have given him to drinke There is a generation Prov. 30. 14. whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives and Pro. 12. 18. that generation speakes as the piercing of a sword There is a generation whose words are woūds that go down into the innermost parts of the belly Pro. 18. 8. These be dangerous generations But what generation are they Generations of vipers Psal 140. 3. Adders poyson is under their lips Iunius translates it Venenum ptyados The poison of the spitting Serpent They be then generations of spitting serpents even of fiery serpents that have their tongues set on fire from hell and so they spit fiery poyson in the faces of Innocents Now there is no man can live in this world at whom these adders will not spit no man can be free from the sprinckling of their poyson The disciple is not above the master If these snakes have hissed at the Lord of the house and if these spitting Serpents have cast their poison in his face why would they feare to do it to the servants But is there then no balme against
could not see any such filth in his face though an hundred should offer to beare him downe to the contrary yet would hee beleeve his owne eyes before them all So here when at any time foule mouths are open and spare not to cast aspersions upon innocency and to lay scandalous things to a mans charge then a man by looking into his conscience can see himself and can find whether he be guilty or not and seeing himselfe in that water or in that glasse to be cleare from that dirt and filth which malice would cast in his face it so fils his heart with comfort and confidence as makes him treade all reproach and false judgement of man vnder his foot This appeares by the contrary Let man bee praised and magnified ever so â—et ever so much good be spoken of him and ever so much worth be attributed to him yet if his owne heart tell him that all is falsely spoken of him and there is indeed no such matter in him he Non ideo bona est coÌ„scientia mea quia vos illam laudatis Quid enim laudatis quod non videtis Aug. de ver dom ser 49. Si autem noÌ„ aureÌ„ solam percutit iracundia criminantis verumetiam coÌ„scientiam mordet veritas criminis quid mihi prodest si me coÌ„tinuis laudibus totus mundus attollat Ita nec malam coÌ„scientiam sanat praeconium laudaÌ„tis nec bonam vulnerat conviciantis opprobrium Aug. contra lit petil l. 2. In omni quod dicitur semper tacite occurrere debemus ad mentem interiorem testem judicem requirere Quid enim prodest si omnes laudant conscientia accusat aut poterit obesse si omnes derogent sola conscientia defendit Greg. sup 125. hom 6. hath at all no true comfort in all the good words of the world Prov. 27. 21. As the sining pot for silver the furnace for gold so is a man to his praise that is a man is to try his praise that is given him and if his conscience tell him it is undeserved hee is to separate this drosse of flattery from himselfe All the commendations and admirations of the world what comfort can they yield whilest a mans conscience tels him that they are all but lying and glavering flatteries what though the poore multitude feeling the swette and refreshment of a Pharisees almes doe canonize a Pharise for a Saint yet what is he the better or what comfort hath hee the more whilest his owne conscience reproaches and reproves him and tells him that hee is a vain-glorious hypocrite and that though these whom hee feeds send him to heaven yet hee shall have his portion with hypocrites and unbelievers What is a man the better for a flattering Funeral commendation whilst in the meane time he is under the reproach and torture of his conscience in the place of torment How many a man is there that hath the good word of all men no man speakes well of him but yet in the meane time his owne heart gives him bitter words and rates him to his face How well contented would such a one be and what an happy exchange would he hold it to have all the world raile on him and slander him so his own conscience would but speake friendly and kindly to him so he could find hony from his conscience he would not care what gall he had from the world Experience lets us see that such as have beene malevolent and injurious against others innocencie though they have been abetted and borne out by their umpires and advocates that for handfulls of barley and scraps and crusts have laboured to maintaine ill Causes and worse persons yet they have had no peace nor rest of heart Their advocates have bid them sit downe with rest and victory the day is theirs they have cheered them and striven to deserve their fee and yet their guilty Clients being netled with the inward guilt of their consciences have still beene haunted with a restlesse and perplexed unquiet spirt which others made guilty and censured for offenders by such mercenarie umpires have possessed their soules in patience and have been cheerfull and merry-hearted from the comfort of their owne innocent and cleare consciences So that looke as the naughty conscience can speake no comfort though all the world speake well of it so contrarily though all the world reproach censure slander c. yet a good conscience Foelix conscientia non sibi in aliquo conscia quae non proprium judicium nec alienum veretur Bern. de Consc Beata plane quae non alienis aestimatur judiciis sed domesticls percipitur sensibus tanquam sui iudex Neque enim popularis opiniones pro mercede aliqua requirit neque pro supplicio pavet Ambros de offic l. 2. c. 1. Non possunt aliena verba crimen affigere quod propria non recepit conscientia Ambros in Psal 38. can and will speake peace and comfort to a mans heart The Corinthians did exceedingly slight Paul Hee was this and hee was that but how was he affected with it See how 1 Cor. 4. 3 4. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you I know full well what your censures are and what sentence you passe upon me but know ye that I no whit at all regard the same I make no reckoning thereof at all Why might the Corinthians say do ye count us so silly and so injudicious Nay sayes Paul I speake it not as if you were sillier than others with me it is a small thing to bee judged of you or of mans judgement let them be the most wise and judicious that are in the world or of mans Day though by men convened in solemne manner for judgement I passe not what their censure is I regard not their mis-judgings of mee I but what makes Paul thus slight mens judgement of him That in the fourth verse I know nothing by my selfe mine owne conscience judges me not nor sentences mee that layes no such thing to my charge and therefore so long as my conscience is on my side I regard not a whit what the world judges Now then see what a Motive this is to get and keepe a good conscience As we would be glad to have comfort and confidence against the malice of opprobrious tongues as wee would have a counterpoison against their venome so get a good conscience Here is that which may make us in love with a good conscience Reproach must full often be the portion of Gods deare children Israelites shall be for ever an abomination to Aegyptians And though the Aegyptian dogges moved not their tongues against Israel Exodus 11. 7. yet dogged Aegyptians will move their tongues and their teeth too The Apostles must be counted the filth of the world and the off-scowrings of all things 1 Corinth 4. 13. The Lord Iesus himselfe dranke of this cup Psal 22. 6 7. I am a
worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people All they that see me laugh me to scorne c. The way to heaven is a narrow way and this narrow way is beset with snakes spitting adders barking and biting and mad dogs and a man must passe to heaven through good and evill report 2 Corrinth 6. 8. Well then it being so hard a passage Currentem attrites super aspidas basiliscos declâ—naresenem vipera non poterit Prosp do Aug. Conscia mens recti fama mendacia ridet Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus Ovid. how may a man get himselfe so armed that he may passe cheerfully through all these get a good conscience and thou shalt regard these snakes serpents vipers and dogs no more than a straw under thy foot If thou have a good conscience thou shalt laugh at the reproaches of enemies as Eliphaz speakes of destruction Iob 5. A good conscience will say unto thee Go on cheerily in the wayes of God what ever discouragements the Devill raises by reproaches and slanders feare them not behold I acquit excuse thee I will beare thee out I will witnesse at Gods tribunall for thee Lo I give thee balme against their poyson a buckler against their swords Let them curse yet I will blesse thee let them reproach yet I will comfort let them condemne yet I will absolve thee let them defame thee yet I will be thy compurgator let them cast dirt in thy face yet I wil wash it off let them disquiet yet behold I am ready to cheere thee Oh the sweet and unconceivable comfort that a good conscience wil speak even in the middst of the cruell speakings of ungodly men Iude 15. that will speake comfortably when they speake cruelly and most comfortably when they speak most cruelly Such is the benefit of a good conscience in case of reproach and disgrace CHAP. XI The comfort and benefit of a good conscience in the times of common feares and calamities in the times of personall evils as sicknesse and afflictions for conscience sake IN the second place let us see what 2. The comfort of a good conscience in the times of common feares and calamities the benefit and comfort of a good conscience is in the times of Common feares and Common calamities When the world is full of feares and dangers and calamities breake in how fares it then with an evill conscience in what taking are they that want a good conscience They are absorpt with feares and the very tydings puts them to such perplexities Isa 7. 2. Ahas is told of a confederacie betweene Syria and Ephraim and see in what feares hee and his people were His heart was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind So deeply doe reports and and evill tidings affect them the trees in the wood are not so shaken with the blustering windes as evill consciences are with evill tydings When ill newes and ill consciences meet there is no small feare The signes that prognosticate sorrowfull times see how deeply they affect evill consciences Luke 21. 25. There shall be signes in the Sun and the Moone and in the stars and upon the earth distresse of Nations with perplexity mens hearts failing them for feare and for looking after those things which are comming in the earth But when calamitie indeed comes and not ill newes but ill times and ill consciences meet how are they then They are then either in the case the Aegyptians were in the famine Gen. 47. 13. They were at their wits end or as those in a storme at Sea Ps 107. 26 27. Their soule is melted because of trouble They reele to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and all their wisedome is swallowed vp Excesse of feare puts them into as great distempers as excesse of wine it utterly stupifies them and they by feare are as much bereft of the use of their senses wit and wisedome as a drunkard is in his drunkenesse Yea their feares make them not onely drunke but starke madde Deut. 28. 34. Thou shalt be oppressed and cursed alway so that thou shalt bee madde for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see The perplexities of an evill conscience in evill times are vnspeakeably grievous Isay doth exceeding lively describe them Isay 31. 7 8 9. Therefore shall all hands be faint and every mans heart shall melt And they shall be afraid pangs and sorrowes shall take hold of them they shall be in paine as a woman that travells they shall be amazed one at another their faces shall bee as flames c. Hence that same strange question of the Prophet Ierem. 30. 6 Aske ye now and see whether a man doth travell with childe A strange question what should make the Prophet aske it Because he foresaw such strange behaviour amongst them carrying themselves in the same fashion in the day of calamitie that women vse to doe in the extremity of the pangs of childbirth Wherefore doe I see every man with his hands on his loynes as a woman in travell and all-faces are turned into palenesse Alas for that day is great so that none is like it it is even the time of Iacobs trouble When such wofull dayes befall a man all his riches will not yeeld him a jot of comfort Pro. 11. 4. Riches availe not in the day of wrath No that will no whit cheere a man at such a time They shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be removed c. Ezek. 7. 19. This shall be the miserable pickle a man shall bee in at such a time that wants a good Conscience But now looke upon a man with a good conscience in such times and how fares it with him Let evill tydings and times come how is he affected therewithall He will not be afraid of evill tydings for his heart is fixed Psalme 112. 7. Fe re he may but yet his Heart shall be free from those restlesse and perplexing distractions wherewith all others are vexed Luke 22. 9. When ye shall heare of warres and commotions be not terrified And Prov. 3. 25. Be not afraid of sudden feare There is nothing so armes and resolves the heart against feares and evill tydings as doth the peace and integrity of a good conscience For let there bee outward peace abroad in the world and freedome from all feares of warres and combustions yet little joy and comfort can a man have therein whilest his conscience proclames warre against him and as Gods Herald summons him to battell Those inward warres and rumours of warres wofully distract him in the midst of his outward peace So contrarily let there be peace within in the conscience and all warres and feares of warres husht there and then what ever feares and troubles are like to be without yet there will bee a calme a serenity and a sweet security within Bee carefull
stand to him that will stand for it When Nebuchadnezzar heares his Furnace seaven times hotter than at other times then a good conscience will speak comfort seven times sweeter than at other times Are Gods Saints for good conscience â—on Acts and Mon. Omnis nobis vilis est poena ubi pura comes est conscientia Tiburt apud Baren An. 168. sake in prison Good conscience will make their prisons delectable hort-yards So doth Algerius an Italian Martyr date a comfortable Epistle of his From the delectable hortyard of the Leonine prison a prison in Venice so called So that as he said that hee had rather be in prison with Cato than with Caesar in the Senate house so in this regard it was more comfortable to be with Philpot in the Cole-house than with Bonner in his Palace Bonners conscience made his Palace a Cole house and a Dungeon whilst Philpots made the Cole-house a Palace Are Gods Saints in the Stocks Better it is sayes Philpot to sit in the Stocks of the world then in the stocks of a damnable conscience Therefore though they be in the Stocks yet even then the righteous doth sing and rejoyce yea even in the Stocks and prison Paul and Silas sang in the Stocks Sing in the Stocks Nay Hinc est quod è contrario innocens etiam inter ipsa tormenta fruitur conscientiae securitate cum de poena metuat de innocentia gloriatur Hieron ad Demetti ad â—â— 1. more they can sing in the flames and in the middst of the fires Isay 24. 15. Glorifie God in the fires And worthy Hawks could clap his hands in the middst of the flames So great and so passing all understanding is the peace and comfort of a good conscience So that in some sense that may be said of it which is spoken of faith Heb. 11. 34. By it they quenched the violence of fire Gods servants were so rapt and ravisht with the sense of Gods love and their inward peace of conscience that they seem'd to have a kind of happy dedolencie and want of feeling of the smart of outward torments Who knowes what trialls God may bring him to Wee have no patent for our peace nor his free liberty in the profession of the Gospel Suppose we should be cald to the stake for Christs sake Would we be chearful would we sing in the flames Get a good conscience The cause of Christ is a good cause now with a good cause get a good conscience and wee shall be able with all chearfulnesse to lay downe our lives for Christ and his Gospel sake CHAP. XII The comfort and benefit of a good conscience in the dayes of Death and Iudgement IN the fourth place The time of death is a time wherein the benefit and comfort of a good conscience is exceeding great Death hath a ghastly looke and 4. The comfort of a good conscience at the day of Death terrible able to daunt the proudest and bravest spirit in the world but then hath it a ghastly looke indeed when it faces an evill conscience Indeed sometimes and most commonly conscience in many is secure at the time of death God in his justice so plaguing an affected security in life with an inflicted security at Death And the Lord seemes to say as once to the Prophet Go make their consciences asleepe at their death as they have made it asleepe all their life lest conscience should see and speake and they heare and be saved God deales with conscience as with the Prophet Ez. 3. 26. I will make thy tongue cleave to the roofe of thy mouth that thou shalt be dumbe therefore they die though not desparately as Saul and Achitophel yet sottishly without comfort and feeling of Gods love as Nabal But if conscience be awakened and have its eyes and mouth opened no heart can imagine the desparate and unsufferable distresses of such an heart Terrours take hold of him as waters Iob 27. 20. Terrours make him afrai on every side Iob 18. 11. Then is that true Iob 25. 23 24. Hee knowes that the day of darknesse is ready at hand Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid they shall prevaile against him as a King ready to the battell And no wonder for hee is now brought unto the King of Terrours as Death is called Iob 18. 14. A man that hath an ill conscience if his eyes be opened and his conscience awakened he sees death in all the terrible shapes that may bee Sometimes he sees death comming like a mercilesse Officer and a cruell Sergeant to arrest and to drag him by the throat to the prison and place of Torment Psal 55. 15. Let death seize upon them They see it comming like that cruell servant in the Parable to his fellow Math. 18. catching them by the very throat Sometimes he sees death in the shape of some greedy Lyon or some ravening Wolfe ready to devour him and to feed upon his carkasse Ps 49. 14. Death shall feed on them even as a ravenous beast shall feed upon his prey Imagine in what a terrible plight the Samaritans where in when the Lyons set upon them 2 Kin. 17. and by it imagine in what case an ill conscience is when it beholds the face of death It puts an ill conscience into that case in good earnest that David was in in the case of triall Ps 55. 4 5. My heart is sore pained within me and the terrors of death are fallen upon me fearfulnesse and trembling are come upon mee and horrour hath overwhelmed me Sometimes againe he sees death as the Israelites the fiery serpents with mortall stings Sometimes as a mercilesse landlord or the Sheriffe comming with a Writ of Firmae ejectione to throw him out of house and home and to turne him to the wide Common yea he sees death as Gods executioner and messenger of eternall death yea hee sees death with as much horrour as if hee saw the Devill In so many fearfull shapes appeares death to an evill conscience upon the death-bed So as it is indeed the King of terrors to such an one that hath the terrors of conscience within There is no one thought so terrible to such an one as the thought of death nothing that hee more wishes to avoid Oh how loath and unwilling is such an one to dye But come now to a man that hath lived as Paul did in all good conscience and how is it with him upon his death-bed His end is peace so full of joy and comfort so is hee ravished with the inward and unspeakable consolations of his conscience that it is no wonder at all that Balaam should wish to dye the death of the righteous the death of a man with a good conscience The day of a mens mariage is the day of the joy of a mans heart Can. 3. 11. and the day of mariage is not so joyfull a day as is the day of death to a good conscience There are but
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
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
him So that he that hath a good conscience hath the onely Antidote the most excellent Amulet and plague-cake at his brest that is in the world to save him from the pestilence and infection of Popery Arminianisme Brownisme Anabaptisme c. So long as the Ship of conscience is whole so long the Iewell of faith is safe Paul would have a Bishop to hold fast the faithfull Word and to be sound in doctrin Tit. 1. 9. But yet marke it that he would first have him be a man of a good conscience in the two foregoing verses And 1 Tim. 3. 9. he would have the Deacons hold the mysterie of the faith in a pure conscience Contrarily nothing so endangers the losse of the faith and truth and soundnesse of doctrine as doth the losse of good conscience A corrupt conscience soone corrupts the judgement 1 Tim. 1. 19. Holding faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwracke If the ship of conscience cracke how soone will the merchandize of faith wrack If once the conscience crack the braine will soone prove crazie and an unsound conscience makes a fearefull way for an unsound and rotten judgement 2 Tim. 3. 8. They resist the truth there is their corrupt conscience what followes upon it Men of corrupt minds unsound in their judgement concerning the faith How frequent a thing is it in experience to see men when they lose good conscience together with it either to lose their gifts as the unprofitable servant his Masters talent or else to lose the truth and to fal into pestilent and dangerous errours So those Prophets that made not conscience in faithfull and holy execution of their office see what was the fruit of their evill conscience Micah 3. 5 6 7. Therefore night shall be unto you that ye shall not have a vision and it shall be darke unto you that ye shall not divine and the Sun shall goe downe over the Prophets and the day shall be darke over them c. Their darknesse in life shall be plagued with darknesse in judgement To which purpose that is notable Zach. 11. 17. Woe to the idoll shepheard that leaves the flocke There is an unconscionable shepheard a man that makes no conscience to attend his ministery What becomes of him The sword shall bee upon his right eye his best eye And his right eye shall not be pore-blind or dimmed but shall be utterly darkened The losse of good consciences brings upon men of knowledge and learning that reproach that Nahash the Ammonite would have brought upon all Israel 1 Sam. 11. 2. It thrusts out the right eyes Ill consciences not only make men look asquint but it blinds them and takes away their sight And what is the reason that Popery gets ground so fast and so many turne Papists so easily Surely it is no wonder how should it be otherwise when men either having lost all good conscience or making no conscience of their wayes but living loosely viciously and licentiously have thereby prepared a way for Antichrist and his Religion to enter withall successe No wonder that men turne Papists so fast when long since they have turned good conscience going For that which Bellarmine speakes is in the Cum ariae ventilari incipiunt non frumenta sed paleae vento abripiente separantur ab area Ita prorsus cum Ecclesia per Ethuicorum persecutiones vel Haereticorum deceptiones Deo permittente cribratur aut ventilatur à Satana non veri sancti garves sed improbi leves curiosi lascivi ab Ecclesia avolantes ad Ethnicos haereticosue transfugiunt nec feâ—o solet accidere ut ante circa fidem aliquis naufraget quam naufragere caeperit circa mores Bellarm. Orat prefix tom 4. generall certainly true though by him falsly and maliciously applyed That they be not holy and grave men but wicked light curious wanton ones that turne Ethnickes or Heretickes and that it seldome comes to passe that any man makes shipwracke concerning the saith that first makes not shipwracke concerning manners See the truth of it in many of our backsliders to Popery especially such as have beene zealous propugners of the truth Where began the first declension where the first flaw Had not their coÌ„sciences first brusht upon some rocke was not the first leake there and when they had first put away good conscience then there was a speedy banishing of truth and a ready entertainment of errour And for the common sort of their converts consider if many times they have not beene the very riffe-raffe of our Church swearers grosse profaners of the Sabbath vncleane and debauched drunkards such as our Church was sicke of and desired even to spue forth and then when they have become a prey to all vicious courses through want of conscience through Gods just judgement they have become a prey to Romish Locusts whose commission is only to hurt such and not those whom the sap of a good conscience keepes fresh and flourishing as the greene grasse and trees of the earth Apoc. 9. 4. For as Salomon speakes of the bodily harlot Eccle. 7. 26. so it is true of that spirituall Whore of Babylon Her heart is snares and nets her hands as bands her delusions strong who so pleases God and hath a care to keepe a good conscience shall escape from her but the sinner and he that makes no conscience of his wayes shall be taken by her Well let us thinke well upon this motive we live in dangerous and declining dayes wherein men with a greedinesse turne to their Romish vomit againe Besides the Factors of Antichrist are exceeding busie and pragmaticall to draw men from the faith of Christ and the Holy Ghost tels us they shall come with strong delusions Now then all you that be the Lords people save your selves from this dangerous generation all you that have or would be knowne to have the seale of God on your foreheads save your selves from the seduction of these Locusts I but how may that be done The delusion is strong and it may be we are weake Lo then here is a remedy against their danger Get and keep a good conscience live as Paul did in all good conscience thou shalt be safe from all their delusioÌ„s I have kept the faith sayes Paul oh let it bee the care of us that that may be our closing voice at our last day and if we would keep the faith let us keep a good conscience He that in his life time can say I keepe a good conscience he at his death shall be able to say I have kept the faith Faith and a good conscience are both in a bottome Hold one and hold both As therefore thou wouldest feare to turne Papist or any other Heretick so be sure to hold a good conscience to hold on a good honest and a conscionable man So long as thou standest upon that ground thou art impregnable and the gates of hel
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
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
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