the fittest Engine to get into Power by which by the way when they are once possessed of they generally manage with as little Tenderness as they do with Conscience Of which we have had but too much Experience already and it would be but ill venturing upon more In a word Conscience not acting by and under a Law is a boundless daring and presumptuous thing and for any one by vertue thereof to challenge to himself a Privilege of doing what he will and of being unaccountable for what he does is in all Reason too much either for Man or Angel to pretend to 3 ly The third and last Property of Conscience which I shall mention and which makes the Verdict of it so Authentick is its great and rigorous Impartiality For as its wonderfull Apprehensiveness made that it could not easily be deceived so this makes that it will by no means deceive A Iudge you know may be skilfull in understanding a Cause and yet partial in giving Sentence But it is much otherwise with Conscience no Artifice can induce it to accuse the Innocent or to absolve the Guilty No we may as well bribe the Light and the Day to represent White things Black or Black White What pitifull things are Power Rhetorick or Riches when they would terrifie disswade or buy off Conscience from pronouncing Sentence according to the Merit of a Man's Actions For still as we have shewn Conscience is a Copy of the Divine Law and though Iudges may be bribed or frightened yet Laws cannot The Law is Impartial and Inflexible it has no Passions or Affections and consequently never accepts Persons nor dispenses with it self For let the most potent Sinner upon Earth speak out and tell us whether he can command down the Clamours and Revilings of a guilty Conscience and impose silence upon that bold Reprover He may perhaps for a while put on an high and a big Look but can he for all that look Conscience out of Countenance And he may also dissemble a little forced Jollity that is he may Court his Mistress and quaff his Cups and perhaps sprinkle them now and then with a few Dammees but who in the mean time besides his own wretched miserable self knows of those secret bitter Infusions which that terrible thing called Conscience makes into all his Draughts Believe it most of the appearing Mirth in the World is not Mirth but Art The wounded Spirit is not seen but walks under a disguise and still the less you see of it the better it looks On the contrary if we consider the vertuous Person let him declare freely whether ever his Conscience checked him for his Innocence or upbraided him for an Action of Duty did it ever bestow any of its hidden Lashes or concealed Bites on a mind severely Pure Chaste and Religious But when Conscience shall complain cry out and recoyl let a Man descend into himself with too just a Suspicion that all is not right within For surely that Hue and cry was not raised upon him for nothing The spoils of a rifled Innocence are born away and the Man has stoln something from his own Soul for which he ought to be pursued and will at last certainly be over-took Let every one therefore attend the Sentence of his Conscience For he may be sure it will not dawb nor flatter It is as severe as Law as impartial as Truth It will neither conceal nor pervert what it knows And thus I have done with the Third of those four Particulars at first proposed and shewn whence and upon what account it is that the Testimony of Conscience concerning our spiritual Estate comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relyed upon Namely For that it is fully empowered and commissioned to this great Office by God himself and withall that it is extremely Quick-sighted to apprehend and discern and moreover very Tender and Sensible of every thing that concerns the Soul And lastly That it is most exactly and severely Impartial in judging of whatsoever comes before it Every one of which Qualifications justly contributes to the Credit and Authority of the Sentence which shall be passed by it And so we are at length arrived at the Fourth and last Thing proposed from the words Which was to assign some particular Cases or Instances in which this Confidence towards God suggested by a rightly informed Conscience does most eminently shew and exert it self I shall mention Three 1. In our Addresses to God by Prayer When a Man shall presume to come and place himself in the Presence of the Great Searcher of Hearts and to ask something of him while his Conscience is all the while smiting him on the Face and telling him what a Rebel and a Traitour he is to the Majesty which he supplicates surely such an one should think with himself that the God whom he prays to is greater than his Conscience and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his Heart with a much clearer and more severe Inspection And if so will he not likewise resent the Provocation more deeply and revenge it upon him more terribly if Repentance does not divert the Blow Every such Prayer is big with Impiety and Contradiction and makes as odious a noise in the Ears of God as the Harangues of one of those Rebel Fasts or Humiliations in the year Forty One invoking the Blessings of Heaven upon such Actions and Designs as nothing but Hell could reward One of the most peculiar Qualifications of an Heart rightly disposed for Prayer is a well grounded Confidence of a Man's fitness for that Duty In Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of faith says the Apostle But whence must this Assurance spring Why we are told in the very next Words of the same Verse Having our Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience Otherwise the voice of an impure Conscience will cry much louder than our Prayers and speak more effectually against us than these can intercede for us And now if Prayer be the great Conduit of mercy by which the Blessings of Heaven are derived upon the Creature and the noble Instrument of Converse between God and the Soul then surely that which renders it ineffectual and loathsome to God must needs be of the most mischievous and destructive Consequence to Mankind imaginable and consequently to be removed with all that Earnestness and Concern with which a Man would rid himself of a Plague or a moral Infection For it taints and pollutes every Prayer it turns an Oblation into an Affront and the Odours of a Sacrifice into the Exhalations of a Carcass And in a word makes the Heavens over us Brass denying all Passage either to descending Mercies or ascending Petitions But on the other side when a Man's Breast is clear and the same Heart which endites does also encourage his Prayer when his Innocence pushes on the Attempt and vouches the Success Such an one goes boldly to
those Protestants whom they most hate and whom alone they fear It being no unheard of Trick for a Thief when he is closely pursued to cry out Stop the Thief and thereby diverting the suspicion from himself to get clear away It is also worth our while to consider with what Terms of Respect and Commendation Knaves and Sots will speak of their own Fraternity As What an honest what a worthy Man is such an one And What a Good-natur'd Person is another According to which Terms such as are Factious by worthy Men mean only such as are of the same Faction and united in the same Designs against the Government with themselves And such as are Brothers of the Pot by a Good-natur'd Person mean only a true trusty Debauchee who never stands out at a Merry-meeting so long as he is able to stand at all nor ever refuses an Health while he has enough of his own to pledge it with and in a word is as honest as Drunkenness and Debauchery want of Sence and Reason Vertue and Sobriety can possibly make Him 2 ly The other way by which some Men encourage others in their Sins is by Preferment As when Men shall be advanced to Places of Trust and Honour for those Qualities that render them unworthy of so much as sober and civil Company When a Lord or Master shall cast his Favours and Rewards upon such Beasts and Blemishes of Society as live only to the Dishonour of him who made them and the Reproach of him who maintains them None certainly can love to see Vice in Power but such as love to see it also in Practice Place and Honour do of all things most mis-become it and a Goat or a Swine in a Chair of State cannot be more odious than ridiculous It is reported of Caesar that passing through a certain Town and seeing all the Women of it standing at their Doors with Monkeys in their Arms he asked whether the Women of that Country used to have any Children or no thereby wittily and sarcastically reproaching them for misplacing that Affection upon Brutes which could only become a Mother to her Child So when we come into a great Family or Government and see this Place of Honour allotted to a Murtherer another filled with an Atheist or Blasphemer and a third with a filthy Parasite may we not as appositely and properly ask the Question Whether there be any such thing as Vertue Sobriety or Religion amongst such a People with whom Vice wears those Rewards Honours and Privileges which in other Nations the Common Judgment of Reason awards only to the Vertuous the Sober and Religious And certainly it is too flagrant a Demonstration how much Vice is the Darling of any People when many amongst them are preferred for those Practices for which in other places they can scarce be pardoned And thus I have finished the Third and Last General thing proposed for the handling of the Words which was To shew the several Sorts or Kinds of Men which fall under the Charge and Character of taking pleasure in other Men's Sins Now the Inferences from the foregoing Particulars shall be Twofold 1. Such as concern particular Persons And 2. Such as concern Communities or Bodies of Men. And first for the Malignity of such a disposition of Mind as induces a Man to delight in other men's Sins with reference to the Effects of it upon particular Persons As 1. It quite alters and depraves the Natural Frame of a man's Heart For there is that Naturally in the Heart of Man which abhorrs Sin as Sin and consequently would make him detest it both in himself and in others too The first and most genuine Principles of Reason are certainly averse to it and find a secret Grief and Remorse from every invasion that Sin makes upon a man's Innocence and that must needs render the first Entrance and Admission of Sin uneasie because disagreeable Yet Time we see and Custom of Sinning can bring a man to such a pass that it shall be more difficult and grievous to him to part with his Sin than ever it was to him to admit it It shall get so far into and lodge it self so deep within his Heart that it shall be his Business and his Recreation his Companion and his other Self and the very dividing between his Flesh and his Bones or rather between his Body and his Soul shall be less terrible and afflictive to him than to be took off from his Vice Nevertheless as Unnatural as this Effect of Sin is there is one yet more so For that innate Principle of Self-love that very easily and often blinds a Man as to any impartial Reflection upon himself yet for the most part leaves his Eyes open enough to judge truly of the same thing in his Neighbour and to hate that in others which he allows and cherishes in himself And therefore when it shall come to this that he also approves embraces and delights in Sin as he observes it even in the Person and Practice of other Men this shews that the Man is wholly transformed from the Creature that God first made him nay that he has consumed those poor Remainders of Good that the Sin of Adam left him that he has worn off the very remote Dispositions and Possibilities to Vertue and in a word turned Grace first and afterwards Nature it self out of Doors No man knows at his first Entrance upon any Sin how far it may carry him and where it will stop the Commission of Sin being generally like the pouring out of Water which when once poured out knows no other Bounds but to run as far as it can 2 ly A second Effect of this Disposition of Mind is that it peculiarly indisposes a man to repent and recover himself from it For the first step to Repentance is a man's dislike of his Sin And how can we expect that a man should conceive any through dislike of that which has took such an absolute possession of his Heart and Affections that he likes and loves it not only in his own Practice but also in other men's Nay that he is pleased with it though he is past the Practice of it Such a Temper of Mind is a down-right Contradiction to Repentance as being founded in the Destruction of those Qualities which are the only Dispositions and Preparatives to it For that Natural Tenderness of Conscience which must first create in the Soul a Sence of Sin and from thence produce a Sorrow for it and at length cause a Relinquishment of it That I say we have already shewn is took away by a customary repeated Course of Sinning against Conscience So that the very first Foundation of Vertue which is the Natural Power of distinguishing between the Moral Good and Evil of any Action is in effect pluckt up and destroyed And the Spirit of God finds nothing in the Heart of such an one to apply the Means of Grace to All Tast Relish and
which is out of the Compass of any Man's Power is to that Man Impossible He therefore who exerts all the Powers and Faculties of his Soul and plies all Means and Opportunities in the Search of Truth which God has vouchsafed him may rest upon the Judgment of his Conscience so informed as a Warrantable Guide of those Actions which he must account to God for And if by following such a Guide he falls into the Ditch the Ditch shall never drown him or if it should the Man perishes not by his Sin but by his Misfortune In a word he who endeavours to know the utmost of his Duty that he can and practises the utmost that he knows has the Equity and Goodness of the great God to stand as a mighty Wall or Rampart between him and Damnation for any Errours or Infirmities which the Frailty of his Condition has invincibly and therefore inculpably exposed him to And if a Conscience thus qualified and informed be not the Measure by which a Man may take a true Estimate of his Absolution before the Tribunal of God all the Understanding of humane Nature cannot find out any Ground for the Sinner to pitch the Sole of his Foot upon or rest his Conscience with any Assurance but is left in the Plunge of Infinite Doubts and Uncertainties Suspicions and Misgivings both as to the Measures of his present Duty and the final Issues of his future Reward Let this Conclusion therefore stand as the firm Result of the foregoing Discourse and the Foundation of what is to follow That such a Conscience as has not been wanting to it self in endeavouring to get the utmost and clearest Information about the Will of God that its Power Advantages and Opportunities could afford it is that great Internal Iudge whose Absolution is a Rational and sure Ground of Confidence towards God And so I pass to the second Thing proposed Which is to shew How and by what Means we may get our Heart or Conscience thus informed and afterwards preserve and keep it so In order to which amongst many Things that might be alleaged as highly usefull and conducing to this great Work I shall insist upon these Four As 1. Let a Man carefully attend to the Voice of his Reason and all the Dictates of Natural Morality so as by no means to doe any thing contrary to them For though Reason is not to be relied upon as a Guide universally sufficient to direct us what to doe yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed where it tells us what we are not to doe It is indeed but a weak and diminutive Light compared to Revelation but it ought to be no disparagement to a Star that it is not a Sun Nevertheless as weak and as small as it is it is a Light always at hand and though enclosed as it were in a dark Lanthorn may yet be of singular use to prevent many a foul Step and to keep us from many a dangerous Fall And every Man brings such a Degree of this Light into the World with him that though it cannot bring him to Heaven yet if he be true to it it will carry him a great way indeed so far that if he follows it faithfully I doubt not but he shall meet with another Light which shall carry him quite through How far it may be improved is evident from that high and refined Morality which shined forth both in the Lives and Writings of some of the Ancient Heathens who yet had no other Light but this both to live and to write by For how great a Man in vertue was Cato of whom the Historian gives this glorious Character Esse quà m videri bonus malebat And of what an impregnable Integrity was Fabricius of whom it was said that a Man might as well attempt to turn the Sun out of his Course as to bring Fabricius to doe a base or a dishonest Action And then for their Writings what admirable Things occur in the Remains of Pythagoras and the Books of Plato and of several other Philosophers short I confess of the Rules of Christianity but generally above the Lives of Christians Which being so ought not the Light of Reason to be look'd upon by us as a Rich and a Noble Talent and such an one as we must account to God for For it is certainly from him It is a Ray of Divinity darted into the Soul It is the Candle of the Lord as Solomon calls it and God never lights us up a Candle either to put out or to sleep by If it be made conscious to a Work of Darkness it will not fail to discover and reprove it and therefore the checks of it are to be revered as the Echo of a Voice from Heaven for whatsoever Conscience binds here on Earth will be certainly bound there too and it were a great Vanity to hope or imagine that either Law or Gospel will absolve what Natural Conscience condemns No Man ever yet offended his own Conscience but first or last it was revenged upon him for it So that it will concern a Man to treat this great Principle awfully and warily by still observing what it commands but especially what it forbids And if he would have it always a faithfull and sincere Monitor to him let him be sure never to turn a deaf Ear to it for not to hear it is the Way to silence it Let him strictly observe the first Stirrings and Intimations the first hints and Whispers of Good and Evil that pass in his Heart and this will keep Conscience so quick and vigilant and ready to give a Man true Alarms upon the least Approach of his spiritual Enemy that he shall be hardly capable of a great Surprize On the contrary if a Man accustoms himself to Slight or pass over these first Motions to Good or Shrinkings of his Conscience from Evil which Originally are as Natural to the Heart of Man as the Appetites of Hunger and Thirst are to the Stomach Conscience will by Degrees grow dull and unconcerned and from not spying out Motes come at length to over-look Beams from Carelesness it shall fall into a Slumber and from a Slumber it shall settle into a deep and long Sleep till at last perhaps it sleeps it self into a Lethargy and that such an one that nothing but Hell and Judgment shall be able to awaken it For long disuse of any thing made for Action will in time take away the very use of it As I have read of one who having for a Disguise kept one of his Eyes a long time covered when he took off the Covering found his Eye indeed where it was but his Sight was gone He who would keep his Conscience awake must be carefull to keep it stirring 2. Let a Man be very tender and regardfull of every pious Motion and Suggestion made by the Spirit of God to his Heart I do not hereby go about to establish Enthusiasm or such phantastick Pretences
discourse into does not naturally engage me to prove them so but onely to shew what directly and necessarily follows upon a supposal that they are so yet to give the greater Perspicuity and Clearness to the Prosecution of the subject in hand I shall briefly demonstrate them thus It is necessary That there should be some First Mover and if so a first Being And the First Being must inferr an Infinite unlimited Perfection in the said Being For as much as if it were Finite or Limited that Limitation must have been either from it self or from something else But not from it self since it is contrary to Reason and Nature that any Being should Limit its own Perfection nor yet from something else since then it should not have been the First as supposing some Other Thing Coevous to it which is against the present Supposition So that it being clear That there must be a First Being and that infinitely Perfect it will follow that all other Perfection that is must be derived from it and so we inferr the Creation of the World And then supposing the World created by God since it is no ways reconcileable to God's Wisdom that He should not also govern it Creation must need inferr Providence And then it being granted that God governs the World it will follow also that He does it by means suteable to the Natures of the Things He Governs and to the Attainment of the proper Ends of Government And moreover Man being by Nature a free moral Agent and so capable of deviating from his Duty as well as performing it it is necessary that He should be governed by Laws And since Laws require that they be enforced with the Sanction of Rewards and Punishments sufficient to sway and work upon the Minds of such as are to be governed by them and lastly since Experience shews that Rewards and Punishments terminated only within this Life are not sufficient for that Purpose it fairly and rationally follows That the Rewards and Punishments which God governs Mankind by do and must look beyond it And thus I have given a brief Proof of the Certainty of these Principles namely That there is a supreme Governour of the World and that there is a future estate of happiness or misery for Men after this Life Which Principles while a man steers his Course by if He acts piously soberly and temperately I suppose there needs no further Arguments to Evince that He acts prudentially and safely For he acts as under the eye of his just and severe Judge who reaches to his Creature a Command with One Hand and a Reward with the Other He spends as a Person who knows that He must come to a Reckoning He sees an Eternal Happiness or Misery suspended upon a few days behaviour and therefore He lives every hour as for Eternity His future condition has such a powerfull Influence upon his present Practice because he entertains a continual Apprehension and a firm Perswasion of it If a man walks over a narrow Bridge when he is drunk it is no wonder that he forgets his Caution while he over-looks his Danger But He who is sober and views that nice Separation between Himself and the Devouring Deep so that if he should slip he sees his Grave gaping under Him surely must needs take every step with Horror and the utmost Caution and Sollicitude But for a man to believe it as the most undoubted Certainty in the World that He shall be judged according to the Quality of his Actions here and after Judgment receive an Eternal Recompence and yet to take his full swing in all the Pleasures of Sin is it not a greater Phrenzy than for a man to take a Purse at Tyburn while he is actually seeing another Hanged for the same Fact It is really to dare and defy the Justice of Heaven to laugh at right-aiming Thunder-bolts to puff at Damnation and in a word to bid Omnipotence do its worst He indeed who thus walks walks surely but it is because he is sure to be damned I confess it is hard to reconcile such a stupid Course to the natural way of the Soul 's acting according to which the Will moves according to the Proposals of Good and Evil made by the Understanding And therefore for a man to run head-long into the Bottomless Pit while the Eye of a Seeing Conscience assures him that it is Bottomless and Open and all Return from it Desperate and Impossible while His Ruin stares him in the Face and the Sword of Vengeance points directly at his Heart still to press on to the Embraces of His Sin is a Problem unresolvable upon any other Ground but that Sin infatuates before it destroys For Iudas to receive and swallow the Sop when His Master gave it him seasoned with those terrible words It had been good for that man that He had never been born Surely this Argued a furious Appetite and a strong Stomach that could thus catch at a Morsel with the Fire and Brimstone all flaming about it and as it were digest Death it self and make a meal upon Perdition I could wish that every bold Sinner when he is about to engage in the Commission of any known Sin would arrest his Confidence and for a while stop the Execution of his Purpose with this short Question Doe I believe that it is really true that God has denounced Death to such a Practice or doe I not If he does not let him renounce his Christianity and surrender back his Baptism the Water of which might better serve Him to cool his Tongue in Hell than onely to Consign Him over to the Capacities of so black an Apostacy But if he does believe it how will he acquit Himself upon the Accounts of bare Reason For does he think that if he pursues the means of Death they will not bring Him to that Fatal End Or does He think that He can grapple with Divine Vengeance and endure the Everlasting Burnings or arm himself against the Bites of the Never-dying Worm No surely these are things not to be Imagined and therefore I cannot conceive what security the presuming Sinner can promise Himself but upon these Two following Accounts 1. That God is mercifull and will not be so severe as his word and that his Threatnings of Eternal Torments are not so Decretory and Absolute but that there is a very Comfortable latitude left in them for Men of Skill to creep out at And here it must indeed be confessed that Origen and some others not long since who have been so officious as to furbish up and re-print his old Errors hold That the Sufferings of the Damned are not to be in a strict sense Eternal but that after a Certain Revolution and Period of Time there shall be a General Gaol-delivery of the Souls in Prison and that not for a farther Execution but a final Release And it must be further acknowledged that some of the Ancients like kind-hearted Men have talked
disown him before his Father and so repay one Denial with another Hereupon Christ particularly applies the Comforts of his Resurrection to him as if he had said Tell all my Disciples but be sure especially to tell poor Peter that I am risen from the Dead and that notwithstanding his Denial of me the Benefits of my Resurrection belong to him as much as to any of the rest This is the Privilege of the Saints to have a Companion and a Supporter in all their Miseries in all the doubtfull Turnings and dolefull Passages of their Lives In summ this Happiness does Christ vouchsafe to all his that as a Saviour he once suffered for them and that as a Friend he always suffers with them 4. The fourth Privilege of Friendship is that which is here specified in the Text a Communication of Secrets A Bosom secret and a Bosom friend are usually put together And this from Christ to the Soul is not only Kindness but also Honour and Advancement 't is for him to vouch it one of his Privy Council Nothing under a Jewel is taken into the Cabinet A secret is the Apple of our Eye it will bear no Touch nor Approach we use to cover nothing but what we account a Rarity And therefore to communicate a Secret to any one is to exalt him to one of the Royalties of Heaven For none knows the Secrets of a Man's Mind but his God his Conscience and his Friend Neither would any prudent Man let such a thing go out of his own Heart had he not another Heart besides his own to receive it Now it was of old a Privilege with which God was pleased to honour such as served him at the Rate of an Extraordinary Obedience thus to admit them to a Knowledge of many of his great Counsels lock'd up from the rest of the World When God had designed the Destruction of Sodom the Scripture represents him as unable to conceal that great Purpose from Abraham whom he always treated as his Friend and Acquaintance that is not only with Love but also with Intimacy and Familiarity in Genes 18. v. 17. And the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I go about to do He thought it a Violation of the Rights of Friendship to reserve his Design wholly to himself And St. Iames tells us in Iam. 2. 23. That Abraham was called the Friend of God and therefore had a Kind of Claim to the Knowledge of his Secrets and the Participation of his Counsels Also in Exodus 33. v. 11. It is said of God that he spoke to Moses as a Man speaketh to his Friend And that not only for the Familiarity and Facility of Address but also for the peculiar Communications of his Mind Moses was with him in the Retirements of the Mount received there his Dictates and his private Instructions as his Deputy and Viceroy and when the Multitude and Congregation of Israel were thundred away and kept off from any approach to it he was honour'd with an intimate and immediate admission The Priests indeed were taken into a near attendance upon God but still there was a degree of a nearer Converse and the Interest of a Friend was above the Privileges of the highest Servant In Exod. 19. 24. Thou shalt come up says God thou and Aaron with thee but let not the Priests and the People break through to come up unto the Lord lest the Lord break forth upon them And if we proceed further we shall still find a continuation of the same Privilege Psalm 25. 14. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him Nothing is to be conceal'd from the other self To be a Friend and to be Conscious are terms equivalent Now if God maintained such Intimacies with those whom he loved under the Law which was a Dispensation of greater Distance we may be sure that under the Gospel the very Nature of which imports Condescension and Compliance there must needs be the same with much greater Advantage And therefore when God had manifested himself in the Flesh how sacredly did he preserve this Privilege how freely did Christ unbosom himself to his Disciples in Luke 8. 10. Unto you says he it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God but unto others in Parables that seeing they might not see Such shall be permitted to cast an Eye into the Ark and to look into the very Holy of holies And again in Matth. 13. 17. Many Prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them Neither did he treat them with these peculiarities of favour in the extraordinary discoveries of the Gospel only but also of those incommunicable Revelations of the Divine Love in reference to their own personal interest in it In Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden Manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Assurance is a Rarity covered from the Inspection of the world A secret that none can know but God and the person that is blessed with it It is writ in a private Character not to be read nor understood but by the Conscience to which the Spirit of God has vouchsafed to decypher it Every Believer lives upon an inward provision of Comfort that the world is a stranger to 5. The fifth advantage of Friendship is Counsel and Advice A man will sometimes need not only another Heart but also another head besides his own In solitude there is not only discomfort but weakness also And that saying of the wise man Eccles. 4. 10. Woe to him that is alone is verified upon none so much as upon the Friendless person When a man shall be perplex'd with Knots and Problems of business and contrary affairs where the determination is dubious and both parts of the Contrariety seem equally weighty so that which way soever the Choice determines a man is sure to venture a great Concern How happy then is it to fetch in aid from another person whose judgment may be greater than my own and whose Concernment is sure not to be less There are some passages of a man's affairs that would quite break a single understanding So many intricacies so many Labyrinths are there in them that the Succours of reason fail the very force and spirit of it being lost in an actual Intention scattered upon several clashing objects at once in which case the Interposal of a Friend is like the supply of a fresh party to a besieged yielding City Now Christ is not failing in this office of a friend also For in that illustrious prediction of Esay 9. 6. amongst the rest of his great Titles he is called mightty Counsellor And his Counsel is not only sure but also free It is not under the Gospel of Christ as
dishonest bears to the Nature of Man but also from a secret inward fore-boding Fear that some Evil or other will follow the doing of that which a Man 's own Conscience disallows him in For no Man naturally is or can be chearfull immediately upon the doing of a wicked Action There being something within him that presently gives Sentence against him for it Which no question is the Voice of God himself speaking in the Hearts of Men whether they understand it or no and by secret Intimations giving the Sinner a fore-tast of that direfull Cup which he is like to drink more deeply of hereafter 3. The third Thing to be considered is That this distinguishing Sense of good and evil and this satisfaction or dissatisfaction of Mind consequent upon a Man's acting sutably or unsutably to it is a Principle neither presently nor easily to be worn out or extinguished For besides that it is founded in Nature which kind of things are always most durable and lasting the great important End that God designs it for which is no less than the Government of the Noblest part of the World Mankind sufficiently shews the Necessity of its being rooted deep in the Heart and put beyond the Danger of being torn up by any ordinary Violence done to it 4. The fourth and last Thing to be considered is That that which weakens and directly tends to extinguish this Principle so far as 't is capable of being extinguished is an inferior sensitive Principle which receives its Gratifications from Objects clean contrary to the former and which affect a Man in the state of this present life much more warmly and vividly than those which affect only his Nobler part his Mind So that there being a Contrariety between those things that Conscience enclines to and those that entertain the Senses and since the more quick and affecting pleasure still arises from these latter it follows that the Gratifications of these are more powerfull to Command the Principles of Action than the other and consequently is for the most part too hard for and victorious over the Dictates of Right Reason Now from these Four Considerations thus premised we naturally inferr these Two things First That no man is quickly or easily brought to take a full pleasure and delight in his own Sins For though Sin offers it self in never so pleasing and alluring a Dress at first yet the Remorse and inward Regrets of the Soul upon the Commission of it infinitely over-balance those faint and transient Gratifications it affords the Senses So that upon the whole matter the Sinner even at his highest pitch of Enjoyment is not pleased with it so much but he is afflicted more And as long as these inward rejolts and recoilings of the Mind continue which they will certainly doe for a considerable part of a Man's life the Sinner will find his Accounts of Pleasure very poor and short being so mixed and indeed over-done with the contrary Impressions of Trouble upon his Mind that it is but a bitter-sweet at best and the fine Colours of the Serpent doe by no means make amends for the smart and poison of his Sting Secondly The other thing to be inferred is That as no Man is quickly or easily brought to take a full pleasure or delight in his own Sins so much less easily can he be brought to take pleasure in those of other Men. The Reason is Because the chief Motive as we have observed that induces a Man to Sin which is the Gratification of his sensitive Part by a sinfull Act cannot be had from the Sins of another Man since naturally and directly they affect only the Agent that commits them For certainly another man's Intemperance cannot affect my Sensuality any more than the Meat and Drink that I take into my Mouth can please his Palate But of this more fully in some of the following Particulars In the mean time it is evident from Reason that there is a considerable Difficulty in a Man's arriving to such a disposition of Mind as shall make him take pleasure in other men's Sins and yet it is also as evident from the Text and from Experience too that some Men are brought to doe so And therefore since there is no Effect of what kind soever but is resolvable into some Cause We will enquire into the Cause of this vile and preter-natural Temper of Mind that should make a Man please himself with that which can no ways reach or affect those Faculties and Principles which Nature has made the proper Seat and Subject of Pleasure Now the Causes or at least some of the Causes that debauch and corrupt the Mind of Man to such a degree as to take pleasure in other men's Sins are these Five 1. A Commission of the same Sins in a Man 's own Person This is imported in the very Words of the Text where it is said of such persons that they not only doe the same things which must therefore imply that they doe them It is Conversation and Acquaintance that must give delight in Things and Actions as well as in Persons And it is Tryal that must begin the Acquaintance It being hardly imaginable that one should be delighted with a Sin at second hand till he has known it at the first Delight is the Natural Result of Practice and Experiment and when it flows from any thing else so far it recedes from Nature None look with so much pleasure upon the Works of Art as those who are Artists themselves They are therefore their delight because they were heretofore their Imployment and they love to see such things because they onec loved to doe them In like manner a Man must Sin himself into a Love of other men's Sins for a bare Notion or Speculation of this black Art will not carry him so far No sober temperate Person in the World whatsoever other Sins he may be inclinable to and guilty of can look with any Complacency upon the Drunkenness and Sottishness of his Neighbour Nor can any Chast person be his other failings what they will reflect with any pleasure or delight upon the filthy unclean Conversation of another though never so much in fashion and vouched not by common Use only but Applause No he must be first an Exercised thorough-paced Practitioner of these Vices himself and they must have endeared themselves to him by those personal Gratifications he had received from them before he can come to like them so far as to be pleased and enamour'd with them wheresoever he sees them It is possible indeed that a sober or a chast Person upon the Stock of Ill-will Envy or Spiritual Pride which is all the Religion that some have may be glad to see the Intemperance and Debauchery of some about them but it is impossible that such Persons should take any delight in the Men themselves for being so The truth is in such a case they doe not properly delight in the Vice it self though they
inwardly rejoice and after a godly sort no doubt to see another guilty of it but they delight in the mischief and disaster which they know it will assuredly bring upon him whom they hate and wish ill to They rejoice not in it as in a delightfull Object but as in a Cause and Means of their Neighbour's Ruin So gratefull nay so delicious are even the horridest Villainies committed by others to the Pharisaical Piety of some who in the mean time can be wholly unconcerned for the Reproach brought thereby upon the Name of God and the Honour of Religion so long as by the same their Sanctified Spleen is gratified in their Brother's Infamy and Destruction This therefore we may reckon upon that scarce any Man passes to a liking of Sin in others but by first practising it himself and consequently may take it for a shrewd Indication and Sign whereby to judge of the Manners of those who have sinned with too much Art and Caution to suffer the Eye of the World to charge some Sins directly upon their Conversation For though such kind of Men have lived never so much upon the Reserve as to their Personal Behaviour yet if they be observed to have a particular delight in and fondness for Persons noted for any sort of Sin it is ten to one but there was a Communication in the Sin before there was so in Affection The Man has by this directed us to a Copy of Himself and though we cannot always come to a sight of the Original yet by a true Copy we may know all that is in it 2 ly A second Cause that brings a Man to take pleasure in other men's Sins is not only a Commission of those Sins in his own Person but also a Commission of them against the full Light and Conviction of his Conscience For this also is expressed in the Text where the Persons charged with this wretched Disposition of Mind are said to have been such as knew the iudgment of God that they who committed such things were worthy of Death They knew that there was a righteous and a searching Law directly forbidding such Practices and they knew that it carried with it the Divine Stamp that it was the Law of God they knew also that the Sanction of it was under the greatest and dreadfullest of all Penalties Death And this surely one would think was Knowledge enough to have opened both a man's Eyes and his Heart too his Eyes to see and his Heart to consider the intolerable mischief that the Commission of the Sin set before him must infallibly plunge him into Nevertheless the Persons here mentioned were resolved to venture and to commit the Sin even while Conscience stood protesting against it They were such as broke through all Mounds of Law such as laugh'd at the Sword of Vengeance which Divine Justice brandish'd in their faces For we must know that God has set a flaming Sword not only before Paradise but before Hell it self also to keep Men out of this as well as out of the other And Conscience is the Angel into whose hand this Sword is put But if now the Sinner shall not only wrestle with this Angel but throw him too and win so complete a Victory over his Conscience that all these Considerations shall be able to strike no Terror into his Mind lay no Restraint upon his Lusts no Controll upon his Appetites he is certainly too strong for the Means of Grace and his Heart lies open like a broad and high Road for all the Sin and Villainy in the World freely to pass through The Truth is if we impartially consider the Nature of these Sins against Conscience we shall find them such strange Paradoxes that a man must baulk all Common Principles and act contrary to the Natural way and motive of all Humane Actions in the Commission of them For that which naturally moves a man to doe any thing must be the Apprehension and Expectation of some good from the thing which he is about to doe And that which naturally keeps a man from doing of a thing must be the Apprehension and Fear of some mischief likely to ensue from that Thing or Action that he is ready to engage in But now for a man to doe a thing while his Conscience the best Light that he has to judge by assures him that he shall be infinitely unsupportably miserable if he does it this is certainly unnatural and one would imagine impossible And therefore so far as one may judge while a man acts against his Conscience he acts by a Principle of direct Infidelity and does not really believe that those things that God has thus threatned shall ever come to pass For though he may yield a general faint Assent to the Truth of those Propositions as they stand recorded in Scripture yet for a through Practical belief that those general Propositions shall be particularly made good upon his Person no doubt for the time that he is sinning against Conscience such a belief has no place in his Mind Which being so it is easie to conceive how ready and disposed this must needs leave the Soul to admit of any even the most horrid unnatural Proposals that the Devil himself can suggest For Conscience being once extinct and the Spirit of God withdrawn which never stays with a Man when Conscience has once left him the Soul like the first Matter to all Forms has an Universal Propensity to all Lewdness For every Violation of Conscience proportionably wears off something of its Native Tenderness which Tenderness being the Cause of that Anguish and Remorse that it feels upon the Commission of Sin it follows that when by degrees it comes to have worn off all this Tenderness the Sinner will find no Trouble of Mind upon his doing the very wickedest and worst of Actions and consequently that this is the most direct and effectual Introduction to all sorts and degrees of Sin For which Reason it was that I alledged Sinning against Conscience for one of the Causes of this vile Temper and Habit of Mind which we are now discoursing of Not that it has any special productive Efficiency of this particular sort of Sinning more than of any other but that it is a general Cause of this as of all other great Vices and that it is impossible but a Man must have first passed this notable Stage and got his Conscience throughly debauched and hardned before he can arrive to the height of Sin which I account the delighting in other men's Sins to be 3 ly A third Cause of this Villainous disposition of Mind besides a man's personal Commission of such and such Sins and his Commission of them against Conscience must be also his Continuance in them For God forbid that every single Commission of a Sin though great for its Kind and withall acted against Conscience for its Aggravation should so far deprave the Soul and bring it to such a Reprobate Sense and Condition
as to take pleasure in other men's Sins For we know what a foul Sin David committed and what a Crime St. Peter himself fell into both of them no doubt fully and clearly against the Dictates of their Conscience yet we do not find that either of them was thereby brought to such an impious frame of Heart as to delight in their own Sins and much less in other men's And therefore it is not every sinfull Violation of Conscience that can quench the Spirit to such a degree as we have been speaking of but it must be a long inveterate Course and Custom of Sinning after this manner that at length produces and ends in such a cursed Effect For this is so great a Master-piece in Sin that no Man begins with it He must have pass'd his Tyrocinium or Novitiate in Sinning before he can come to this be he never so quick a Proficient No man can mount so fast as to set his Foot upon the highest step of the Ladder at first Before a man can come to be pleased with a Sin because he sees his Neighbour commit it he must have had such a long Acquaintance with it himself as to create a kind of Intimacy or Friendship between him and That and then we know a Man is Naturally glad to see his Old friend not only at his own House but wheresoever he meets him It is generally the Property of an Old Sinner to find a delight in re-viewing his own Villainies in the Practice of other Men to see his Sin and himself as it were in Reversion and to find a greater satisfaction in beholding him who succeeds him in his Vice than him who is to succeed him in his Estate In the matter of Sin Age makes a greater Change upon the Soul than it does or can upon the Body And as in this if we compare the Picture of a Man drawn at the Years of Seventeen or Eighteen with the Picture of the same person at Threescore and Ten hardly the least Trace or Similitude of one Face can be found in the other So for the Soul the Difference of the Dispositions and Qualities of the Inner Man will be found much greater Compare the Harmlesness the Credulity the Tenderness the Modesty and the Ingenuous pliableness to vertuous Counsels which is in Youth as it comes fresh and untainted out of the hands of Nature with the Mischievousness the Slyness the Craft the Impudence the Falshood and the confirmed Obstinacy in most sorts of Sin that is to be found in an aged long-practised Sinner and you will confess the Complexion and Hue of his Soul to be altered more than that of his Face Age has given him another Body and Custom another Mind All those Seeds of Vertue and good Morality that were the Natural Endowments of our first Years are lost and dead for ever And in respect of the Native Innocence of Childhood no man through Old Age becomes twice a Child The Vices of Old Age have in them the stiffness of it too And as it is the unfittest Time to learn in so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater Which Considerations joyned with that of its Imbecillity make it the proper Season for a super-annuated Sinner to enjoy the Delights of Sin in the Rebound and to supply the Impotence of Practice by the airy phantastick Pleasure of Memory and Reflection For all that can be allowed him now is to refresh his decrepit effete Sensuality with the Transcript and History of his former Life recognized and read over by him in the vitious Rants of the vigorous youthfull Debauchees of the present time whom with an odd kind of Passion mixed of Pleasure and Envy too he sees flourishing in all the bravery and prime of their Age and Vice An old Wrestler loves to look on and to be near the Lists though Feebleness will not let him offer at the Prize An old Huntsman finds a Musick in the Noise of Hounds though he cannot follow the Chace An old Drunkard loves a Tavern though he cannot go to it but as he is supported and led by another just as some are observed to come from thence And an old Wanton will be doating upon Women when he can scarce see them without Spectacles And to shew the true Love and faithfull Allegiance that the Old Servants and Subjects of Vice ever after bear to it nothing is more usual and frequent than to hear that such as have been Strumpets in their Youth turn Procurers in their Age. Their great Concern is that the Vice may still go on 4 ly A fourth Cause of men's taking pleasure in the Sins of others is from that meanness and poor-spiritedness that naturally and inseparably accompanies all Guilt Whosoever is conscious to himself of Sin feels in himself whether he will own it or no a proportionable Shame and a secret Depression of Spirit thereupon And this is so irksome and uneasie to Man's mind that he is restless to relieve and rid himself from it For which he finds no way so effectual as to get Company in the same Sin For Company in any Action gives both Credit to that and Countenance to the Agent and so much as the Sinner gets of this so much he casts off of Shame Singularity in Sin puts it out of fashion since to be alone in any Practice seems to make the Judgment of the World against it but the Concurrence of others is a Tacit Approbation of that in which they concurr Solitude is a kind of Nakedness and the Result of that we know is Shame 'T is Company only that can bear a Man out in an ill Thing and he who is to encounter and fight the Law will be sure to need a Second No wonder therefore if some take delight in the Immoralities and Baseness of others for nothing can support their Minds drooping and sneaking and inwardly reproaching them from a sense of their own guilt but to see others as bad as themselves To be Vitious amongst the Vertuous is a double disgrace and misery but where the whole Company is vitious and debauched they presently like or at least easily pardon one another And as it is observed by some that there is none so homely but loves a Looking-glass so it is certain that there is no man so vicious but delights to see the Image of his Vice reflected upon him from one who exceeds or at least equals him in the same Sin in it self is not only shamefull but also weak and it seeks a Remedy for both in Society For it is this that must give it both Colour and Support But on the contrary how great and as I may so speak how Self-sufficient a thing is Vertue It needs no Credit from Abroad no Countenance from the Multitude Were there but one vertuous man in the World he would hold up his Head with Confidence and Honour He would shame the World and not the World him For according to
Paradox in Practice and Men may sometimes doe as well as speak Contradictions There is a great Festival now drawing on a Festival designed chiefly for the Acts of a joyfull Piety but generally made only an occasion of Bravery I shall say no more of it at present but this That God expects from Men something more than ordinary at such times and that it were much to be wished for the Credit of their Religion as well as the Satisfaction of their Consciences that their Easter Devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter Dress Now that our Preparation may answer the important Work and Duty which we are to engage in these Two Conditions or Qualifications are required in it 1. That it be Habitual 2. That it be also Actual For it is certain that there may both be Acts which proceed not from any pre-existing Habits and on the other side Habits which lie for a time dormant and do not at all exert themselves in Action But in the Case now before us there must be a Conjunction of both and one without the other can never be effectual for that purpose for which both together are but sufficient And First For Habitual Preparation This consists in a standing permanent Habit or Principle of Holiness wrought chiefly by God's Spirit and instrumentally by his Word in the Heart or Soul of Man Such a Principle as is called both by our Saviour and his Apostles the New Birth the New Man the Immortal Seed and the like and by which a Man is so universally changed and transformed in the whole Frame and Temper of his Soul as to have a new Judgment and Sence of Things new Desires new Appetites and Inclinations And this is first produced in him by that mighty spiritual Change which we call Conversion Which being so rarely and seldom found in the Hearts of Men even where it is most pretended to is but too full and sad a Demonstration of the Truth of that terrible Saying That few are chosen and consequently but few save For who almost is there of whom we can with any Rational assurance or perhaps so much as likelihood affirm Here is a Man whose Nature is renewed whose Heart is changed and the stream of whose Appetites is so turned that he does with as high and quick a relish taste the ways of Duty Holiness and strict Living as others or as he himself before this grasped at the most enamouring Proposals of Sin Who almost I say is there who can reach and verifie the height of this Character and yet without which the Scripture absolutely affirms That a Man cannot see the Kingdom of God John 3. 3. For let Preachers say and suggest what they will Men will doe as they use to doe and Custom generally is too hard for Conscience in spight of all its Convictions Possibly sometimes in Hearing or Reading the Word the Conscience may be alarmed the Affections warmed good Desires begin to kindle and to form themselves into some degrees of Resolution but the Heart remaining all the time unchanged as soon as Men slide into the common Course and Converse of the World all those Resolutions and Convictions quickly cool and languish and after a few days are dismissed as troublesome Companions But assuredly no Man was ever made a true Convert or a new Creature at so easie a Rate Sin was never dispossessed nor Holiness introduced by such feeble vanishing Impressions Nothing under a total through Change will suffice neither Tears nor Trouble of Mind neither good Desires nor Intentions nor yet the Relinquishment of some Sins nor the Performance of some Good Works will avail any thing but a new Creature A Word that comprehends more in it than Words can well express and perhaps after all that can be said of it never throughly to be understood by what a Man hears from others but by what he must feel within himself And now that this is required as the Ground-work of all our Preparations for the Sacrament is evident from hence Because this Sacrament is not first designed to make us Holy but rather supposes us to be so it is not a converting but a confirming Ordinance It is properly our spiritual Food And as all Food pre-supposes a Principle of Life in him who receives it which Life is by this means to be continued and supported So the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Originally intended to preserve and maintain that Spiritual Life which we doe or should receive in Baptism or at least by a through Conversion after it Upon which account according to the true Nature and Intent of this Sacrament Men should not expect Life but Growth from it And see that there be something to be fed before they seek out for provision For the Truth is for any one who is not passed from Death to Life and has not in him that New living Principle which we have been hitherto speaking of to come to this Spiritual Repast is upon the matter as absurd and preposterous as if he who makes a Feast should send to the Graves and the Church-yards for Guests or entertain and treat a Corps at a Banquet Let Men therefore consider before they come hither whether they have any thing besides the Name they received in Baptism to prove their Christianity by Let them consider whether as by their Baptism they formerly washed away their Original Guilt so they have not since by their Actual Sins washed away their Baptism And if so Whether the converting Grace of God has set them upon their Legs again by forming in them a New Nature And that such an one as exerts and shews it self by the sure infallible Effects of a Good life Such an one an enables them to reject and trample upon all the alluring Offers of the World the Flesh and the Devil so as not to be conquered or enslaved by them and to chuse the hard and rugged Paths of Duty rather than the easie and voluptuous Ways of Sin which every Christian by the very Nature of his Religion as well as by his Baptismal Vow is strictly obliged to doe And if upon an impartial survey of themselves Men find that no such Change has passed upon them either let them prove that they may be Christians upon easier terms or have a care how they intrude upon so great and holy an Ordinance in which God is so seldom mocked but it is to the Mocker's confusion And thus much for Habitual Preparation But 2 ly Over and above this there is required also an Actual Preparation which is as it were the furbishing or rubbing up of the former Habitual Principle We have both of them excellently described in Matth. 25. in the Parable of the Ten Virgins of which the Five Wise are said to have had Oil in their Lamps yet notwithstanding that Mid-night and Weariness was too hard for them and they all slumber'd and slept and their Lamps cast but a dim and a feeble Light
Heaven Doe they not make the Narrow way much narrower and contract the Gate which leads to life to the streightness of a Needle 's Eye And now if God will fit thee for this passage by taking off thy Load and emptying thy Bags and so sute the Narrowness of thy Fortune to the Narrowness of the way thou art to pass is there any thing but Mercy in all this Nay are not the Riches of his Mercy conspicuous in the Poverty of thy Condition Thou who repinest at the Plenty and Splendour of thy Neighbour at the Greatness of his Incomes and the Magnificence of his Retinue Consider what are frequently the dismal wretched Consequences of all this and thou wilt have little cause to Envy this gaudy Great One or to wish thy self in his room For doe we not often hear of this or that young Heir newly come to his Father's vast Estate An happy Man no doubt But does not the Town presently ring of his Debaucheries his Blasphemies and his Murders Are not his Riches and his Lewdnesses talkt of together and the Odiousness of one heightned and set off by the Greatness of the other Are not his Oaths his Riots and other Villainies reckoned by as many thousands as his Estate Now consider had this grand Debauchee this glistering Monster been born to thy Poverty and mean Circumstances he could not have contracted such a clamorous Guilt he could not have been so bad Nor perhaps had thy Birth enstated thee in the same Wealth and Greatness would'st thou have been at all better This God fore-saw and knew in the ordering both of his and thy Condition And which of the Two now can we think is the greater Debtor to his Preventing Mercy Lordly Sins require Lordly Estates to support them And where Providence denies the latter it cuts off all Temptation to the former And thus I have shown by particular Instances what Cause men have to acquiesce in and submit to the harshest Dispensations that Providence can measure out to them in this life and with what Satisfaction or rather Gratitude that ought to be endured by which the greatest of Mischiefs is prevented The great Physician of Souls sometimes cannot Cure without Cutting us Sin has festred inwardly and he must launce the Impostume to let out Death with the Suppuration He who ties a Mad-man's Hands or takes away his Sword loves his Person while he disarms his Frenzy And whether by Health or Sickness Honour or Disgrace Wealth or Poverty Life or Death Mercy is still contriving acting and carrying on the Spiritual Good of all those who love God and are loved by Him To whom therefore be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen AN ACCOUNT OF THE Nature and Measures of Conscience IN Two SERMONS On 1 IOHN III. 21. PREACHED Before the UNIVERSITY at Christ-Church Oxon. The First Preached on the 1 st of Nov. 1691. 1 JOHN III. 21. Beloved if our Heart condemn us not we have Confidence towards God AS nothing can be of more moment so few things doubtless are of more difficulty than for Men to be rationally satisfied about the estate of their Souls with reference to God and the great Concerns of Eternity In their Judgment about which if they err finally it is like a man's missing his Cast when he throws Dice for his Life His Being his Happiness and all that he does or can enjoy in the World is involved in the Error of one Throw And therefore it may very well deserve our best Skill and Care to enquire into those Rules by which we may guide our Iudgment in so weighty an Affair both with safety and success And this I think cannot be better done than by separating the false and fallacious from the true and certain For if the Rule we judge by be uncertain it is odds but we shall judge wrong and if we should judge right yet it is not properly Skill but Chance not a true Judgment but a lucky Hit Which certainly the Eternal Interests of an Immortal Soul are of much too high a Value to be left at the Mercy of First of all then He who would pass such a Judgment upon his Condition as shall be ratified in Heaven and confirmed at that great Tribunal from which there lies no Appeal will find himself wofully deceived if he judges of his spiritual estate by any of these Four following Measures As 1. The general esteem of the World concerning him He who owes his Piety to Fame and Hear-say and the Evidences of his Salvation to popular Voice and Opinion builds his House not only upon the Sand but which is worse upon the Wind and writes the Deeds by which he holds his Estate upon the face of a River He makes a Bodily Eye the Judge of Things impossible to be seen and Humor and Ignorance which the generality of Men both think and speak by the great Proofs of his Justification But surely no man has the Estate of his Soul drawn upon his Face nor the Decree of his Election wrote upon his Forehead He who would know a man throughly must follow him into the Closet of his Heart the Door of which is kept shut to all the World besides and the Inspection of which is only the Prerogative of Omniscience The favourable opinion and good word of Men to some persons especially comes oftentimes at a very easie rate and by a few demure Looks and affected Whines set off with some odd devotional Postures and Grimaces and such other little Arts of Dissimulation cunning Men will doe Wonders and Commence presently Heroes for Sanctity Self-denial and Sincerity while within perhaps they are as Proud as Lucifer as Covetous as Demas as false as Iudas and in the whole Course of their Conversation Act and are Acted not by Devotion but Design So that for ought I see though the Mosaical part of Iudaism be abolished amongst Christians the Pharisaical part of it never will A grave stanch skillfully managed Face set upon a grasping aspiring Mind having got many a sly Formalist the Reputation of a Primitive and severe Piety forsooth and made many such Mountebanks pass admired even for Saints upon Earth as the word is who are like to be so no-where else But a man who had never seen the stately outside of a Tomb or painted Sepulchre before may very well be excused if he takes it rather for the Repository of some rich Treasure than of a noysome Corps but should he but once open and rake into it though he could not see he would quickly smell out his mistake The greatest part of the World is nothing but Apperance nothing but Shew and Surface and many make it their Business their Study and Concern that it should be so who having for many years together deceived all about them are at last willing to deceive themselves too and by a long immemorial Practice and as it were Prescription
will condemn him in the other And consequently he who places his Salvation upon this Ground will find himself like an imprisoned and condemned Malefactor who in the Night dreams that he is released but in the Morning finds himself led to the Gallows 4 ly and Lastly No Advantages from External Church-Membership or Profession of the true Religion can of themselves give a Man Confidence towards God And yet perhaps there is hardly any one Thing in the World which Men in all Ages have generally more cheated themselves with The Jews were an Eminent Instance of this Who because they were the Sons of Abraham as it is readily acknowledged by our Saviour Iohn 8. 37. And because they were entrusted with the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. Together with the Covenants and the Promises Rom. 9. 4. That is in other Words Because they were the True Church and Professors of the True Religion while all the World about them lay wallowing in Ignorance Heathenism and Idolatry they concluded from hence that God was so fond of them that notwithstanding all their Villainies and Immoralities they were still the Darlings of Heaven and the only Heirs Apparent of Salvation They thought it seems God and themselves linked together in so fast but withall so strange a Covenant that although they never performed their part of it God was yet bound to make good every Tittle of his And this made Iohn the Baptist set himself with so much Acrimony and Indignation to baffle this Senseless Arrogant Conceit of theirs which made them huff at the Doctrine of Repentance as a Thing below them and not at all belonging to them In Matth. 3. v. 9. Think not says he to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father This he knew lay deep in their Hearts and was still in their Mouths and kept them Insolent and Impenitent under Sins of the highest and most clamorous Guilt though our Saviour himself also not long after this assured them that they were of a very different Stock and Parentage from that which they boasted of and that whosoever was their Father upon the Natural Account the Devil was certainly so upon a Moral In like manner how vainly do the Romanists pride and value themselves upon the Name of Catholicks of the Catholick Religion and of the Catholick Church though a Title no more applicable to the Church of Rome than a Man's Finger when it is swelled and putrefied can be called his whole Body a Church which allows Salvation to none without it nor awards Damnation to almost any within it And therefore as the former Empty Plea served the sottish Iews so no wonder if this equally serves these to put them into a Fools Paradise by feeding their Hopes without changing their Lives and as an Excellent Expedient first to assure them of Heaven and then to bring them easily to it and so in a word to save both their Souls and their Sins too And to shew how the same Cheat runs through all Professions though not in the same Dress none are more powerfully and grosly under it than another Sort of Men who on the Contrary place their whole Acceptance with God and indeed their whole Religion upon a Mighty Zeal or rather out-cry against Popery and Superstition verbally indeed uttered against the Church of Rome but really meant against the Church of England To which Sort of Persons I shall say no more but this and that in the Spirit of Truth and Meekness namely That Zeal and Noise against Popery and real Services for it are no such inconsistent Things as some may imagine indeed no more than Invectives against Papists and solemn Addresses of Thanks to them for that very Thing by which they would have brought in Popery upon us And if those of the Separation do not yet know so much thanks to them for it we of the Church of England do and so may they themselves too in due time I speak not this by way of Sarcasm to reproach them I leave that to their own Consciences which will do it more effectually but by way of Charity to warn them For let them be assured that this whole Scene and Practice of theirs is as really Superstition and as false a Bottom to rest their Souls upon as either the Iews alledging Abraham for their Father while the Devil claimed them for his Children or the Papists relying upon their Indulgences their Saints Merits and Supererogations and such other Fopperies as can never settle nor indeed so much as reach the Conscience and much less recommend it to that Iudge who is not to be flamm'd off with Words and Phrases and Names though taken out of the Scripture it self Nay and I shall proceed yet further It is not a Man's being of the Church of England it self though undoubtedly the purest and best reformed Church in the World indeed so well reformed that it will be found a much easier Work to alter than to better its Constitution I say it is not a Man's being even of this Excellent Church which can of it self clear Accounts between God and his Conscience Since bare Communion with a good Church can never alone make a good Man For if it could I am sure we should have no bad ones in ours and much less such as would betray it So that we see here that it is but too manifest that Men of all Churches Sects and Perswasions are strangely apt to flatter and deceive themselves with what they believe and what they profess and if we throughly consider the Matter we shall find the Fallacy to lie in this That those Religious Institutions which God designed only for Means Helps and Advantages to promote and further Men in the Practice of Holiness they look upon rather as a Privilege to serve them instead of it and really to commute for it This is the very Case and a fatal Self-imposture it is certainly and such an one as defeats the Design and destroys the Force of all Religion And thus I have shewn four several uncertain and deceitfull Rules which Men are prone to judge of their Spiritual Estate by But now have we any better or more certain to substitute and recommend in the Room of them Why yes if we believe the Apostle a Man 's own Heart or Conscience is that which above all other Things is able to give him Confidence towards God And the Reason is because the Heart knows that by it self which nothing in the World besides can give it any knowledge of and without the Knowledge of which it can have no Foundation to build any true Confidence upon Conscience under God is the only competent Judge of what the Soul has done and what it has not done what Guilt it has contracted and what it has not as it is in 1 Corinth 2. 11. What Man knoweth the Things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him Conscience is its own Counsellor the sole Master of its own
Secrets And it is the Privilege of our Nature that every Man should keep the Key of his own Breast Now for the further Prosecution of the Words I shall do these four Things 1. I shall shew how the Heart or Conscience ought to be informed in order to its founding in us a rational Confidence towards God 2. I shall shew how and by what means we may get it thus informed and afterwards preserve and keep it so 3. I shall shew Whence it is that the Testimony of Conscience thus informed comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relied upon And 4 ly and Lastly I shall assign some particular Cases or Instances in which the Confidence suggested by it does most eminently shew and exert it self 1. And first for the First of these How the Heart or Conscience c. It is certain that no Man can have any such Confidence towards God only because his Heart tells him a Lye and that it may do so is altogether as certain For there is the Erroneous as well as the rightly informed Conscience and if the Conscience happens to be deluded and thereupon to give false Directions to the Will so that by Vertue of those Directions it is betrayed into a Course of Sin Sin does not therefore cease to be Sin because a Man committed it Conscientiously If Conscience comes to be perverted so far as to bring a Man under a Perswasion that it is either Lawfull or his Duty to resist the Magistrate to seize upon his Neighbours just Rights or Estate to worship Stocks and Stones or to lye equivocate and the like this will not absolve him before God since Errour which is in it self Evil can never make another Thing Good He who does an unwarrantable Action through a false Information which Information he ought not to have believed cannot in Reason make the Guilt of one Sin the Excuse of another Conscience therefore must be rightly informed before the Testimony of it can be Authentick in what it pronounces concerning the Estate of the Soul It must proceed by the Two grand Rules of Right Reason and Scripture these are the Compass which it must steer by For Conscience comes formally to oblige only as it is the Messenger of the Mind of God to the Soul of Man which he has revealed to him partly by the Impression of certain Notions and Maxims upon the Practical Understanding and partly by the declared Oracles of his Word So far therefore as Conscience reports any Thing agreeable to or deducible from these it is to be hearkened to as the Great Conveyer of Truth to the Soul but when it reports any Thing dissonant to these it obliges no more than the Falshood reported by it But since there is none who follows an Erroneous Conscience but does so because he thinks it true and moreover thinks it true because he is perswaded that it proceeds according to the Two forementioned Rules of Scripture and Right Reason how shall a Man be able to satisfie himself when his Conscience is rightly informed and when possessed with an Errour For to affirm that the Sentence passed by a rightly informed Conscience gives a Man a rational Confidence towards God but in the mean time not to assign any means possible by which he may know when his Conscience is thus rightly informed and when not it must equally bereave him of such a Confidence as placing the Condition upon which it depends wholly out of his Knowledge Here therefore is the Knot here the Difficulty how to state some Rule of Certainty by which Infallibly to distinguish when the Conscience is right and to be relied upon When erroneous and to be distrusted in the Testimony it gives about the Sincerity and Safety of a Man's spiritual Condition For the Resolution of which I answer That it is not necessary for a Man to be assured of the Rightness of his Conscience by such an infallible Certainty of Perswasion as amounts to the Clearness of a Demonstration but it is sufficient if he knows it upon Grounds of such a convincing Probability as shall exclude all rational Grounds of doubting of it For I cannot think that the Confidence here spoken of rises so high as to Assurance And the Reason is because it is manifestly such a Confidence as is common to all sincere Christians Which yet Assurance we all know is not The Truth is the Word in the Original which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly Freedom or Boldness of Speech though the Latin Translation renders it by Fiducia and so corresponds with the English which renders it by Confidence But whether Fiducia or Confidence reaches the full Sence of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well be disputed However it is certain that neither the Word in the Original nor yet in the Translation imports Assurance For Freedom or Boldness of Speech I am sure does not and Fiducia or Confidence signifies only a Man's being actually perswaded of a Thing upon better Arguments for it than any that he can see against it which he may very well be and yet not be assured of it From all which I conclude That the Confidence here mentioned in the Text amounts to no more than a Rational well grounded Hope Such an one as the Apostle tells us in Rom. 5. 5. Maketh not ashamed And upon these Terms I affirm That such a Conscience as has imployed the Utmost of its Ability to give it self the best Information and clearest Knowledge of its Duty that it can is a Rational Ground for a Man to build such an Hope upon and consequently for him to confide in There is an innate Light in every Man discovering to him the first Lines of Duty in the common Notions of Good and Evil which by Cultivation and Improvement may be advanced to higher and brighter Discoveries And from hence it is that the Schoolmen and Moralists admit not of any Ignorantia Iuris speaking of Natural Moral Right to give excuse to Sin Since all such Ignorance is voluntary and therefore culpable for as much as it was in every Man's Power to have prevented it by a due Improvement of the Light of Nature and the Seeds of Moral Honesty sown in his Heart If it be here demanded Whether a Man may not remain ignorant of his Duty after he has used the utmost means to inform himself of it I answer That so much of Duty as is absolutely necessary to save him he shall upon the use of such a Course come to know and that which he continues ignorant of having done the utmost lying in his Power that he might not be ignorant of it shall never damn him Which Assertion is proved thus The Gospel damns no body for being ignorant of that which he is not obliged to know but that which upon the Improvement of a Man's utmost Power he cannot know he is not obliged to know for that otherwise he would be obliged to an Impossibility since that
of Intercourse with God as Papists and Fanaticks who in most Things copy from one another as well as rail at one another do usually boast of But certainly if the Evil Spirit may and often does suggest wicked and vile Thoughts to the Minds of Men as all do and must grant and is sufficiently proved from the Devil 's putting it into the Heart of Iudas to betray Christ John 13. 2. And his filling the Heart of Ananias to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5. 3. It cannot after this with any Colour of Reason be doubted but that the Holy Spirit of God whose Power and Influence to Good is much greater than that of the wicked Spirit to Evil does frequently inject into and imprint upon the Soul many blessed Motions and Impulses to Duty and many powerfull Avocations from Sin So that a Man shall not only as the Prophet says hear a Voice behind him but also a Voice within him telling him which way he ought to go For doubtless there is something more in those Expressions of being led by the Spirit and being taught by the Spirit and the like than meer Tropes and Metaphors and nothing less is or can be imported by them than that God sometimes speaks to and converses with the Hearts of Men immediately by himself And happy those who by thus hearing him speak in a still Voice shall prevent his speaking to them in Thunder But you will here ask perhaps how we shall distinguish in such Motions which of them proceed immediately from the Spirit of God and which from the Conscience In answer to which I must confess that I know no certain Mark of Discrimination to distinguish them by save only in general that such as proceed immediately from God use to strike the Mind suddenly and very powerfully But then I add also that as the Knowledge of this in Point of Speculation is so nice and difficult so thanks be to God in Point of Practice it is not necessary But let a Man universally observe and obey every good Motion rising in his Heart knowing that every such Motion proceeds from God either mediately or immediately and that whether God speaks immediately by himself to the Conscience or mediately by the Conscience to the Soul the Authority is the same in both and the Contempt of either is Rebellion Now the Thing which I drive at under this Head of Discourse is to shew That as God is sometimes pleased to address himself in this Manner to the Hearts of Men so if the Heart will receive and answer such Motions by a ready and obsequious Compliance with them there is no doubt but they will both return more frequently and still more and more powerfully till at length they produce such a Degree of Light in the Conscience as shall give a Man both a clear Sight of his Duty and a certain Iudgment of his Condition On the contrary as all Resistance whatsoever of the Dictates of Conscience even in the Way of Natural Efficiency brings a kind of Hardness and Stupefaction upon it So the Resistance of these peculiar Suggestions of the Spirit will cause in it also a Iudicial Hardness which is yet worse than the other So that God shall withdraw from such an Heart and the Spirit being grieved shall depart and these blessed Motions shall cease and affect and visit it no more The Consequence of which is very terrible as rendring a Man past feeling And then the less he feels in this World the more he shall be sure to feel in the next But 3. Because the Light of Natural Conscience is in many Things defective and dimn and the Internal Voice of God's Spirit not always distinguishable above all let a Man attend to the Mind of God uttered in his Revealed Word I say his Revealed Word By which I do not mean that Mysterious Extraordinary and of late so much studied Book called the Revelation and which perhaps the more it is studied the less 't is understood as generally either finding a Man crack'd or making him so But I mean those other Writings of the Prophets and Apostles which exhibit to us a plain sure perfect and intelligible Rule a Rule that will neither fail nor distract such as make use of it A Rule to judge of the two former Rules by For nothing that contradicts the Revealed Word of God is either the Voice of Right Reason or of the Spirit of God nor is it possible that it should be so without God's contradicting himself And therefore we see what high Elogies are given to the Written Word by the inspired Pen-men of both Testaments It giveth Understanding to the simple says David in Psalm 119. 130. And that you will say is no such easie Matter to doe It is able to make the Man of God perfect says St. Paul 2 Tim. 3. 17. It is quick and powerfull and sharper than any Two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and is a Discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart Heb. 4. 12. Now what a Force and Fulness what a Vigour and Emphasis is there in all these Expressions Enough one would think to recommend and endear the Scriptures even to the Papists themselves For if as the Text says They give understanding to the simple I know none more concerned to read and study them than their Popes Wherefore since the Light and Energy of the Written Word is so mighty let a Man bring and hold his Conscience to this steady Rule the unalterable Rectitude of which will infallibly discover the Rectitude or Obliquity of whatsoever it is applied to We shall find it a Rule both to instruct us what to doe and to assure us in what we have done For though Natural Conscience ought to be listned to yet it is Revelation alone that is to be relied upon As we may observe in the Works of Art a Judicious Artist will indeed use his Eye but he will trust only to his Rule There is not any one Action whatsoever which a Man ought to doe or to forbear but the Scripture will give him a clear Precept or Prohibition for it So that if a Man will commit such Rules to his Memory and stock his Mind with Portions of Scripture answerable to all the Heads of Duty and Practice his Conscience can never be at a Loss either for a Direction of his Actions or an Answer to a Temptation It was the very Course which our Saviour himself took when the Devil plied him with Temptation upon Temptation Still he had a sutable Scripture ready to repell and baffle them all one after another Every pertinent Text urged home being a direct Stabb to a Temptation Let a Man therefore consider and recount with himself the several Duties and Vertues of a Christian. Such as Temperance Meekness Charity Purity of Heart Pardoning of Enemies Patience I had almost said Passive Obedience too but that such old fashioned Christianity seems as
and Measures of Conscience IN A SERMON ON 1 IOHN III. 21. PREACHED Before the UNIVERSITY at Christ-Church Oxon Octob. 30. 1692. 1 JOHN III. 21. Beloved if our Heart condemn us not we have Confidence towards God I Have discoursed once already upon these Words in this place In which Discourse after I had set down four several false Grounds upon which Men in judging of the safety of their Spiritual Estate were apt to found a wrong Confidence towards God and shewn the Falsity of them all and that there was nothing but a Man 's own Heart or Conscience which in this great Concern he could with any safety rely upon I did in the next place cast the further Prosecution of the Words under these four following Particulars 1. To shew How the Heart or Conscience ought to be Informed in order to its founding in us a Rational Confidence towards God 2. To shew How and by what means we may get our Conscience thus informed and afterwards preserve and keep it so 3. To shew Whence it is that the Testimony of Conscience thus informed comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relied upon And 4ly and Lastly To assign some particular Cases or Instances in which the Confidence suggested by it does most eminently shew and exert it self Upon the first of which Heads to wit How the Heart or Conscience ought to be Informed in order to its founding in us a Rational Confidence towards God after I had premised something about an Erroneous Conscience and shewn both what Influence that ought to have upon us and what Regard we ought to have to that in this matter I gathered the Result of all into this one Conclusion Namely That such a Conscience as has not been wanting to it self in endeavouring the utmost Knowledge of its Duty and the clearest Information about the Will of God that its Power Advantages and Opportunities could afford it is that great Internal Iudge whose Absolution is a Rational and sure Ground of Confidence towards God This I then insisted upon at large and from thence proceeded to the 2 d. Particular Which was to shew How and by what means we might get our Conscience thus Informed and afterwards preserve and keep it so Where amongst those many Ways and Methods which might no doubt have been assigned as highly conducing to this purpose I singled out and insisted upon only these Four As 1 st That the Voice of Reason in all the Dictates of Natural Morality was still carefully to be attended to by a strict observance of what it commanded but especially of what it forbad 2 ly That every Pious Motion from the Spirit of God was tenderly to be cherished and by no means quenched or checked either by Resistance or Neglect 3 ly That Conscience was still to be kept close to the Rule of God's written Word And 4 ly and Lastly That it was frequently to be examined and severely accounted with These things also I then more fully enlarged upon and so closed up all with a double Caution and that of no small Importance as to the Case then before us As First That no man should reckon every doubting or mis-giving of his Heart about the safety of his Spiritual Estate inconsistent with that Confidence towards God which is here spoken of in the Text And secondly That no man should account a bare silence of Conscience in not accusing or disturbing him a sufficient ground for such a Confidence Of both which I then shew the Fatal Consequence And so not to trouble you with any more Repetitions than these which were just necessary to lay before you the Coherence of one thing with another I shall now pass to the Third of those Four Particulars first proposed Which was to shew Whence it is that the Testimony of Conscience concerning a man's Spiritual Estate comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relied upon Now the force and credit of its Testimony stands upon this double Ground 1. The High Office which it holds immediately from God himself in the Soul of Man And 2 ly Those Properties or Qualities which peculiarly fit it for the discharge of this High Office in all Things relating to the Soul 1. And first for its Office It is no less than God's Vicegerent or Deputy doing all things by immediate Commission from Him It commands and dictates every thing in God's Name and stamps every word with an Almighty Authority So that it is as it were a kind of Copy or Transcript of the Divine Sentence and an Interpreter of the Sense of Heaven And from hence it is that Sins against Conscience as all Sins against Light and Conviction are by way of Eminence so called are of so peculiar and transcendent a guilt For that every such Sin is a daring and direct Defiance of the Divine Authority as it is signified and reported to a man by his Conscience and thereby ultimately terminates in God himself Nay and this Vicegerent of God has one Prerogative above all God's other Earthly Vicegerents to wit that it can never be deposed Such a strange sacred and inviolable Majesty has God imprinted upon this Faculty not indeed as upon an Absolute Independent Soveraign but yet with so great a Communication of something next to Soveraignty that while it keeps within its proper compass it is controllable by no mortal Power upon Earth For not the greatest Monarch in the World can countermand Conscience so far as to make it condemn where it would otherwise acquit or acquit where it would otherwise condemn No neither Sword not Scepter can come at it but it is above and beyond the reach of both And if it were not for this Awful and Majestick Character which it bears whence could it be that the stoutest and bravest Hearts droop and sneak when Conscience frowns and the most abject and afflicted Wretch feels an unspeakable and even triumphant Joy when the Iudge within absolves and applauds him When a man has done any villainous Act though under Countenance of the highest Place and Power and under Covert of the closest Secrecy his Conscience for all that strikes him like a clap of Thunder and depresses him to a perpetual Trepidation Horror and Poorness of Spirit So that like Nero though surrounded with his Roman Legions and Pretorian Bands he yet sculks and hides himself and is ready to fly to every thing for Refuge though he sees nothing to fly from And all this because he has heard a condemning Sentence from within which the secret fore-bodings of his Mind tell him will be ratified by a sad and certain Execution from above on the other side what makes a man so chearfull so bright and confident in his Comforts but because he finds himself acquitted by God's High Commissioner and Deputy Which is as much as a Pardon under God's own Hand under the Broad Seal of Heaven as I may so express it For a King never Condemns any whom his
the Throne of Grace and his Boldness is not greater than his Welcome God recognizes the voice of his own Spirit interceding within him and his Prayers are not only followed but even prevented with an Answer 2ly A Second Instance in which this Confidence towards God does so remarkably shew it self is at the Time of some notable Tryal or sharp Affliction When a Man's Friends shall desert him his Relations disown him and all Dependencies fail him and in a word the whole World frown upon him certainly it will then be of some moment to have a Friend in the Court of Conscience which shall as it were buoy up his sinking Spirits and speak greater Things for him than all these together can Declaim against him For it is most certain that no Height of Honour nor affluence of Fortune can keep a Man from being Miserable nor indeed Contemptible when an enraged Conscience shall fly at him and take him by the Throat so it is also as certain that no Temporal Adversities can cut off those inward secret invincible Supplies of Comfort which Conscience shall pour in upon distressed Innocence in spight and in defiance of all Worldly Calamities Naturalists observe that when the Frost seizes upon Wine they are onely the slighter and more waterish parts of it that are subject to be congealed but still there is a mighty Spirit which can retreat into it self and there within its own Compass lie secure from the freezing impression of the Element round about it And just so it is with the Spirit of a Man while a good Conscience makes it firm and impenetrable An outward Affliction can no more benumb or quell it than a blast of Wind can freeze up the Bloud in a Man's Veins or a little Showr of Rain soak into his Heart and there quench the Principle of Life it self Take the two greatest Instances of Misery which I think are incident to Humane Nature to wit Poverty and Shame and I dare oppose Conscience to them both And first for Poverty Suppose a Man stripped of all driven out of House and Home and perhaps out of his Countrey too which having within our memory happened to so many may too easily God knows be supposed again yet if his Conscience shall tell him that it was not for any failure in his own Duty but from the success of anothers Villainy that all this befell him why then his Banishment becomes his Preferment his Rags his Trophies his Nakedness his Ornament and so long as his Innocence is his Repast he feasts and banquets upon Bread and Water He has disarmed his Afflictions unstung his Miseries and though he has not the proper Happiness of the World yet he has the greatest that is to be enjoyed in it And for this we might appeal to the Experience of those great and good Men who in the late Times of Rebellion and Confusion were forced into foreign Countries for their unshaken Firmness and Fidelity to the oppressed Cause of Majesty and Religion whether their Conscience did not like a Fidus Achates still bear them company stick close to them and suggest Comfort even when the Causes of Comfort were invisible and in a word verify that great saying of the Apostle in their Mouths We have nothing and yet we possess all Things For it is not barely a Man's Abridgement in his External Accommodations which makes him miserable but when his Conscience shall hit him in the Teeth and tell him that it was his Sin and his Folly which brought him under these Abridgements That his present scanty Meals are but the natural Effects of his former over full ones That it was his Taylor and his Cook his fine Fashions and his French Ragou's which sequestred him and in a word that he came by his Poverty as sinfully as some usually do by their Riches and consequently that Providence treats him with all these Severities not by way of Trial but by way of Punishment and Revenge The Mind surely of it self can feel none of the Burnings of a Fever but if my Fever be occasioned by a Surfeit and that Surfeit caused by my Sin it is that which adds Fuel to the fiery Disease and Rage to the Distemper 2 ly Let us consider also the Case of Calumny and Disgrace Doubtless the Sting of every reproachfull Speech is the Truth of it and to be conscious is that which gives an Edge and Keenness to the Invective Otherwise when Conscience shall plead not guilty to the Charge a Man entertains it not as an Endictment but as a Libel He hears all such Calumnies with a generous Unconcernment and receiving them at one Ear gives them a free and easie Passage through the other They fall upon him like Rain or Hail upon an oiled Garment they may make a Noise indeed but can find no Entrance The very Whispers of an acquitting Conscience will drown the Voice of the loudest Slander What a long Charge of Hypocrisie and many other base Things did Iob's Friends draw up against him But he regarded it no more than the Dunghill which he sate upon while his Conscience enabled him to appeal even to God Himself and in Spight of Calumny to assert and hold fast his Integrity And did not Ioseph lie under as black an Infamy as the Charge of the highest Ingratitude and the lewdest Villainy could fasten upon him Yet his Conscience raised him so much above it that he scorned so much as to clear himself or to recriminate the Strumpet by a true Narrative of the Matter For we read nothing of that in the whole Story Such Confidence such Greatness of Spirit does a clear Conscience give a Man always making him more solicitous to preserve his Innocence than concerned to prove it And so we come now to the 3 d. and last Instance in which above all others this Confidence towards God does most eminently shew and exert it self and that is at the Time of Death Which surely gives the grand Opportunity of trying both the Strength and Worth of every Principle When a Man shall be just about to quit the Stage of this World to put off his Mortality and to deliver up his last Accounts to God at which sad Time his Memory shall serve him for little else but to terrify him with a frightfull Review of his past Life and his former Extravagances stripped of all their Pleasure but retaining their Guilt What is it then that can promise him a fair Passage into the other World or a comfortable Appearance before his dreadfull Judge when he is there Not all the Friends and Interests all the Riches and Honours under Heaven can speak so much as a Word for him or one Word of Comfort to him in that Condition they may possibly reproach but they cannot relieve him No at this disconsolate Time when the busie Tempter shall be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him and the Pains of a dying Body to hinder and discompose him