Of Conscience

OF CONSCIENCE.

[§. 1] A Mong the many practical errors which are gotten abroad into the world, a very large proportion there is of those which have either sucked their poison from, or disguised it under that specious venerable name of Conscience. That which the Philosophers could call their Guardian Angel, and justify the phrase by vouching none but Angelical dictates from it: That which some good-natured Atheists did so revere that they defined the only deity in the world, and in proportion fancied nothing but God-like of it, is now by some Christians (like the true God among the Heathens) worshipped in so many corporeous shapes, that there is at length scarce anything so vile (Phansie, humor, passion, prepossession, the meanest worldly interest of the ambitious or covetous designer, like the Calves, the Cats, the Crododiles, the Onions, the Leeks of Egypt ) but hath the favor or luck to be mistaken for Conscience, and receive all the respect, that I say, not adoration, that belongs to it.

[§. 2] 'Twill be then but an act of justice and mercy, justice to truth, and mercy to the abused world, and withal a special preparative to a prudent reformation, to rescue so divine a man from such heathenish usage, to restore it to its natural primitive simplicity, and cast out all the false forms which it hath been forced to appear under. To which purpose all that I shall design will be reduced to these two enquiries:

1. What is the proper notion of conscience.

2. What is required to entitle a man to a good conscience.

[§. 3] For the former of these, what is the proper notion of conscience, I shall labor to find out not among the Scholastical definitions or divisions of it among human Writers, but only by observing the force and use of the word in the Scripture, particularly the New Testament. And he that shall meet it there 32 times, and but take a view of it at every meeting, will sure come to some degree of acquaintance with it, and find upon judgment reason to resolve, what for his ease I shall now lay before him.

[§. 4] That the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Conscience, is no more then Science or knowledge, (and therefore being but once used by the Greek Translators of the Old Testament, Eccles. 10. 20. it is there set to express a word which is otherwise by them commonly rendered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) only with a peculiar relation added to it, as that knowledge is in order to action. Thus Tit. 1. 15. when 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , mind and conscience are distinguished, tis obvious to any to discern the ground of that distinction, that former being properly the denotation of the faculty merely speculative, or intellectual; this latter, of the practical judgment, or that whether act or faculty of the understanding soul, which extendeth to practice; the Apostle by that phrase, [ the mind and conscience are defiled ] meaning distinctly this, that this error in men's judgments, (which is the defiling of their mind) carries Un-Christian practice along with it, (which is the defiling of the practical faculty) this Judaical mistake in th •• r understanding is attended with Judaizing actions in their lives; the former apportioned to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the false Judaical doctrines, which relate to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the mind, the second to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the commands of men perverting the truth, v. 14. which relate to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Conscience.

[§. 5] For the clearing of which (that it is such a practical knowledge in the acception of the Scripture) if there need any light, you may have it from the survey of every place severally, and in special from this one, 1 Pet. 2. 19. This is thank-worthy, if 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for Conscience of God a man suffer grief, &c. i. e. if for this obediential practical knowledge of God (this knowledge of truth attended with a resolution not to disobey God, though it cost a man never so dear) he suffer g • iefe, &c.

[§. 6] This being premised, there is but one thing more to be added to this matter, and it is this; That we take notice of the several ways of aspect that Conscience hath upon practice; One forward in the direct line, another backward, or by way of reflection; which are ordinarily expressed by the double office of Conscience, 1. as a custos or monitor, advising and instructing and keeping us to our duty; 2. as a witness testifying to ourselves and to God what we have done; which is in plainer terms no more but this, That there are two sorts of Conscience; 1. Conscience of duty to be performed, or full persuasion that such a thing ought to be done, or not to be done by me, a being resolved of the necessity or unlawfulness of anything, and 2. conscience of having performed, or not performed it, a knowing or judging myself to have done well or ill. And under these two notions, all the severals in the New Testament, (and the one sole place of the apocryphal books of the Old) will be contained, If you please, you may see how.

[§. 7] To the former kind belongs that famous place, Rom. 13. 5. You must be subject (to the Supreame powers, v. 1.) not only for wrath, i. e. fear or danger of punishment, the effect of wrath (the Magistrate being God's Minister, an avenger for wrath, or punishment to him that doth evil, v. 4.) but also 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for or because of Conscience, i. e. because it is the command of God, and consequently that which all inferiors ( every soul ) may, if they be not willfully blind, know to be their duty, [ to be thus subject. ]

[§. 8] So 1 Cor. 8. 7. For some with conscience of the Idol, i. e. being resolved in mind, that it is not lawful to eat or taste of any 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , part or portion of the Idol-feast (whether 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , at the idol table, or having bought it at the Shambles, as it seems, was the fashion for those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ▪ to be sold there at second hand c. 10. 25.) accounting it unlawful to eat any meat consecrated to that use, do yet eat that which is of this nature, and by so doing, their weak i. e. uninstructed conscience is polluted, i. e. they sin against their conscience, do that which they are persuaded they may not do, which although it be never so innocent a harmless thing in it self (an idol being simply nothing ) yet to them which do it, when they think it unlawful ( and all have not knowledge, saith he in the beginning of the verse, i. e. are not sufficiently instructed in their duty) it is pollution or sin, according to the fore-mentioned place Tit. 1. 15. To the pure all things are pure [ all things ] i. e. all things of that nature of which he there speaks, though in themselves indifferent, [ are pure ] i. e. may lawfully be used [ by the pure ] i. e. by them which are rightly instructed, but to the polluted and unbelievers ( i. e. to them that are misled by Jewish fables, or by the dogmatizing of false teachers, and brought to believe things to be prohibited by God, which are not prohibited) to them that are guilty of this kind of Judaism, and (as it is interpretative ) unbelief there is nothing pure, but their mind and conscience are polluted, both their understanding is in an error, taking falsity for truth, and their practical resolution is sinful also, nay obliged to sin, which way soever they turn themselves, whether they abstain superstitiously, when they are not bound by God to abstain, (which is the sin of those that are subject to ordinances, Col. 2. 20. of which I have spoken at large in another place) or whether they abstain not, when they are persuaded that they ought to abstain, which is sin against conscience.

[§. 9] From whence by the way you may observe the miserable lot of those which have not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 knowledge in the beginning of that verse, which are missed to think anything unlawful which is lawful, and continue in that error without seeking of light, which are thus impure (for to such 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 nothing is pure ) they are, as long as they remain so, obliged to sin, which way soever they take to, abstain or not abstain. For though in things indifferent and uncommanded, simply to abstain were no sin, yet then to abstain 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as from a thing abominable or unlawful, is both by Scripture and the ancient Councils, in case of marriage and meats, everywhere condemned as sinful: and yet on the other side to eat without, or against Faith, i. e. being doubtful whether it be lawful or no, or being persuaded it is unlawful is sin, (saith the Apostle) and there is great necessity to such of seeking, (and in others great charity of helping them to) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 instruction, or right information in this case, which is the only cure for this unfortunate malady.

[§. 10] So again ver. 10. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the conscience of him that is weak, or (which is the same) v. 7. and v. 12. the weak conscience ] signifies the false persuasion of him that is in an error, an erroneous Conscience, weakness noting sickness in the Scripture style John 5. 14. 1 Cor 11. 30. and error being the disease or sickness of the soul, and that with a little improvement growing destructive and mortiferous; as in case he that hath that erroneous sick conscience, do act somewhat against conscience, and so add sin unto error, for then 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 v. 11. that sick man dies, perishes of that disease. Soch. 10, 25, 27, 28, 29. the word Conscience is still in the same sense, for conscience or consideration of duty, and so 1 Pet. 2. 19. forementioned.

[§. 11] So likewise 1 Pet. 3. 21. where Baptism is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the answer of a good conscience to Goa, the good conscience signifies conscience rightly instructed in its duty, as in baptizing those of full age it is supposed to be; which Conscience is then to answer and consent to all God's proposals in baptism (or the ministers in God's stead) such as [wilt thou forsake the Devil, &c. ] and so the words will be interpreted in a sense proportionable to that of denying ungodly lusts, Tit. 2. 12. which there the appearing of Christ is said to teach us. For as lust proposes ungodly questions to us, which we are bound to deny; so God in baptism is supposed to propose good questions to us, which we are bound to grant, and stipulate the performance of them, and that is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the answer of a good conscience to God or to his questions proposed in baptism, after the manner of ancient pacts among the Romans made by way of question and answer, as part of the ritus solemns or formalities of them.

[§. 12] But then for the second acception of the word, as it notes conscience of what we have performed, or passing judgment on myself for what I have done, (and that either for any one individual act, or for the main of our lives, our state; and that again either 1 acquitting or 2 condemning or 3 considered in a third notion common to both those, passing sentence in general) so shall you find it in many other places, and indeed in all the rest which we have not hitherto named.

[§. 13] For the first of these three species as it acquitteth, you have it Act. 23. 1. I have lived, (or behaved myself in all my conversation towards men 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in all my politique, or public relations) with or in all good conscience, in such a manner, as I cannot excuse myself of anything done contrary to my Christian profession, or dignity of my Apostolicoll calling. So 1 Cor. 9. 12. the Testimony of our Conscience is expressed by what follows, that in simplicity &c. we had our conversation in the world. So good conscience is taken 1 Tim. 1. 5. and 19. and 3. 9. and 2 Tim. 1. 3. Heb. 13. 18. 1 Pet. 3. 16. but above all you have a special place belonging to this first branch of the second in Act. 24. 16. [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] we render it a Conscience void of offense, the meaning is, a confidence and assurance that he hath done nothing subject so much as to the censure of having scandalized others; for Saint Paul being there accused by the Jews v. 5. 6. for 3 crimes, sedition, heresy, and profaning of the Temple, he answers to the first v. 12. to the second v. 14. to the third v. 16. 18. and his being purified in the Temple after the Jewish manner he makes an evidence of his innocence in that particular, a proof of his not having scandalized any Jew, which to have done would have been a fault in him, whose office it was to become all things to all men, that he might gain or save all, and not to discourage or deter any who might be gained by compliance; and the doing so, is it which is called being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 1 Cor. 10. 32. giving none offense to the Jews, the very word in the place of the Acts.

[§. 14] In the second place, the accusing or condemning conscience is often mentioned also; John 8. 9. Convicted by their conscience, or reproved some for one sin, some for another. So by intimation Heb. 9. 9. where tis said of the Legal sacrifices that they could not make perfect as pertaining to Conscience, where the word [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] rendered to make perfect, signifies in the sacred idiom [to consecrate, ] to make a priest, whose office being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to draw near to God, proportionably 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to perfect or consecrate as pertaining to conscience signifies to give access with boldness to God, by taking off that guilt which formerly lay upon their conscience, the same that v. 14. is called, to purge the conscience from dead works, to wash off that guilt of sin past, which hinders their approach to God, obstructs all entrance to their prayers (for we know that God heareth not sinners, Joh. 9. 31. and Is. 1. 15.) whereupon tis observable, that Heb. 13. 18. when he bespeaks their prayers for him, he adds this reason to encourage them to do so. For we trust we have a good conscience, that good conscience being necessary there to have other men's prayers heard for them, as here to give themselves access to God in prayer. So Heb. 10. 2. Conscience, or conscienciousnes of sins, and v. 22. Evil conscience, and so wisd. 17. 11. there is mention of wickedness condemned by her own witness and pressed by conscience.

[§. 15] And of the last sort, in the latitude common to both, are Rom. 2. 15. Rom. 9. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 2. and 5. 11. and 1 Tim. 4. 2. all clear enough without the help of our paraphrase to add light to them.

[§. 16] Having thus marshalled all these places of Scripture into ranks, and given some hints of general insight into them, it now remains that we return a while to the nearer survey of the two general heads, and first of the former acception of the word, as it imports a monitor, or director of life, by which our actions must be regulated, and from the mistaking of which the chief inconvenience doth arise.

[§. 17] To which end, it will be absolutely necessary to settle and resolve but one question, what is that rule or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of Conscience, from whence it must receive its regulation. For he that draweth a line of direction for another, must have a rule to draw it by, and that a straight exact one, or else the directions will not be authentic, and they which walk 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 exactly or conscientiously, must 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 walk by rule, Phil. 3. 16. and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 have their eye or thought always upon that one thing, their rule of direction, or else be they never such 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the beginning of that verse, such forward proficience, their end may be perdition v. 19. This when once we have done, the difficulty will soon vanish.

And to this purpose I shall take that for granted which in thesi I never heard any doubt of, [§. 18] (though many of our actions look otherwise in hypothest ) that law is this only rule; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , rule and law being words of the same importance, and nothing fit or proper to regulate our actions, but that which the law giver, to whom obedience must be paid, hath thought fit to rule them by. To which purpose it is ordinarily observed that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sin, or aberration from that rule by which we ought to walk (for so that word naturally signifies) is by Saint John▪ 1 Epist. 3. 4. defined 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which we render a transgression of the law. In which place of Saint John, though the truth is, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 denoting more then the bare commission of sin in that Author generally, viz. the willful perpetration of it, and an indulgence in, and habit of so doing) the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 must proportionably also signify not only transgressing, but willful habitual contemning the Law, being an exlex, or without law (as the Idolatrous Atheist is said to be without God in the world ) i. e. without any account or respect of it, (and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Joh. 31. 3. notes the greatest degree of sinfulness, we render it workers of iniquity, and so very frequently in the Septuagint we find 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , where we render the Hebrew by mischief ) yet still the observation stands good, that law is the rule, in aberration from which all sin consists, and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in both senses, the least degree of sin a deviation from the law, and a malicious contentious sinning a malicious contemptuous deviation, or transgression, and so Saint Paul hath also resolved it, that where there is no law, there is no transgression, no 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Rom. 4. 15. no going awry, when there is no rule proposed to go by.

[§. 19] This being so clear in is self, and yet through the mistakes, yea and impieties of the world b • come so necessary to be thus farther cleared; Two things there are which will hence inevitably follow, the first Negative, the second Positive; The first or the Negative, that Whatsoever undertakes to direct, or guide our actions, to tell us our duty, that this we must, that we may not do, and hath not some law, (in force, and still obligatory to us) to authorize those directions by, is not Conscience, whatsoever it is.

[§. 20] First, Humour it may be, to think ourselves bound to do whatsoever we have a strong inclination to do; it being a matter of some difficulty to distinguish between my natural and my spiritual inclinations, the motion of my sensitive appetite, and my diviner principle, my lower, and my upper soul, and the former commonly crying louder, and moving more lively, and impatiently, and earnestly then the other.

[§. 21] Secondly, Phansie it may be, which is a kind of irrational animal Conscience, hath the same relation to sensitive representations ( those laws in the members ) which Conscience hath to intellectual ( those laws of the mind ) and then, as Aristotle saith, that in those creatures which have not reason, fancy supplies the place of reason; so they which have not, or will not have conscience to direct them, fancy most commonly gets into its place. Or

[§. 22] Thirdly, Passion it may be; Our fears will advise us one thing, our animosities another, our zeal a third, and though that be perhaps zeal of God, yet that zeal is a passion still, one of those which Aristotle hath defined in his Rhetoricks, being not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , according to knowledge or conscience, Rom. 10. 2. for the Hebrew word, as I told you, is rendered by those two words promiscuously, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , knowledge and conscience. Or

[§. 23] Fourthly, diabolical suggestion or infusion it may be, an enthusiasm of that black spirit; as it is, (or of something as bad in effect) infallibly, whensoever Rebellion, Sedition, Murder, Rapine, Hatred, Envy, Uncharitableness, Lying, Swearing, Sacrilege, &c. come to us under the disguise of Religion and Conscience; and therefore the Spirits must be searched whether they be of God, or of the Devil; and no surer way to do it, then by these and the like Symptoms, these fruits and productions of that infernal Spirit, which so perfectly represent and own their parent, that none but blind or mad men or daemoniacks can believe them in earnest to come from God. Or

[§. 24] Fifthly, False doctrine it may be, and that again set off either by the authority of the teacher, or by the dignity of some eminent followers and practicers of it, and then the Apostle calls it [ having men's persons in admiration ] or by the earlinesse of its representation, being imbibed and taken in first, swallowed and digested before the truth was offered to us, and then it is prejudice or prepossession, and this again always assisted by the force of that old axiom, [ Intus existens &c. ] and by that which is natural to all habits, to be hardly moveable, and yet further improved sometimes by pride and obstinacy, always by self-love, which makes us think our own opinions ( i. e. which we are already possessed of) the truest; which in this case is in effect to think our luck the best luck, and the same which was observed in one worst sort of Heathens, who, whatsoever they saw first in the morning, worshipped that all the day after; a choosing of persuasions as countrymen choose Valentines, that which they chance to meet with first after their coming abroad.

[§. 25] Besides these, many other things it may be, and so, 1. It is odds enough that it will not be conscience, which pretends to be so, and 2. It is certainly not conscience, unless it produce some law for its rule to direct us by. And this was the Negative or first thing.

[§. 26] The second or the Positive thing which follows from the premises, is this, that Conscience of duty in any particular action is to be ruled by that law which is proper to that action; as for example: The Christian law is the rule of Conscience for Christian actions; the law of reason, or moral saw, for moral; the law national, municipal, or local, for civil; the natural, law of all creatures, for natural actions; and the law of scandal, (a branch of the Christian law) for matters of scandal; and the law of liberty, for indifferent free actions. And as it is very irregular, and unreasonable to measure any action by a rule that belongs not to it, to try the exactness of the circle by the square, which would be done by the compass, and in like manner to judge the Christiannesse of an action, by the law of natural reason, which can only be judged by its conformity with the law of Christ, superior to that of nature; So will there be no just pretence of conscience against anything, but where someone or more of these laws are producible against it; but on the other side, even in the lowest sort of actions, if they be regulated by the law proper to them, and nothing done contrary to any superior law, even by this God shall be glorified, 1 Cor. 10. 31. a kind of glory resulting to God from that readiness of submission and subordination of everything to its proper rule, and law, to which the great Creator hath subjected it, and of all laws to that supreme transcendent one, the law of Christ. And though some touches there are in the Scripture of each of these laws, some fibrae or strings of them discernibly there, so far, that there is nothing almost under any of the heads forementioned, but by the Scripture some general account may be given of it, and again, though that of Scripture be the supreme law of all, and nothing authorizeable by any inferior law, which is contradicted or prohibited by that, yet is not that of Scripture such a particular Code o • Pandect of all laws, as that every thing which is commanded by any other law, should be found commanded there, or be bound to prove its self justifiable from thence, any further then that it is not there prohibited, or thereby justly concluded to be unlawful.

[§. 27] From whence by the way, I conceive direction may be had, and resolution of that difficult practical problem, what a man may do in case he be legally commanded by his lawful superior to do what he may lawfully do, which yet he is persuaded he may not do, or doubteth whether he may or no. For in this case if he be not able to produce some plain prohibition from some superior law, as from that of Scripture, he cannot be truly said to be persuaded in conscience, (which implies knowledge) of the unlawfulness of that thing, nor consequently hath he any plea for disobedience to that lawful command of his Superiors. All that may be said, is, that he may from some obscure place misunderstood have cause or occasion to doubt whether he may do it or no, and then, although doubting simply taken ( i. e. where no command interposes,) may keep me from doing what I doubt, yet it ought not to be of that weight, as to keep me from my lawful Superiors lawful command, because that very command is a sufficient ground to supersede my doubting, when I have no plain prohibition of Scripture to the contrary, (which in this case I am supposed not to have, for if I had, Then, first, it were not a lawful command, and secondly, I should not doubt but be assured) it being my duty, and part of my Christian meekness, in doubtful matters to take my resolution from those whom God hath placed over me, and it being the sin of dogmatizing to affirm anything for me or others to do, which some law of God, &c. still in force, doth not prohibit; which sin being added to that other of disobedience to my lawful Superiors, will s • re never be able to make that commence virtue, which was before so far from any pretensions to that title.

[§. 28] Having proceeded thus far in the search of the ground of Conscience, 'twere now time to reduce this operation to practice, and show you, first, What directions Conscience is able to afford from every of those laws for the ruling of all actions of that kind; and secondly, What an harmony and conspiration there is betwixt all these laws, one mutually aiding and assisting the other, and not violating or destroying. But this were the largest undertaking that could be pitched on in the whole circle of learning, Aerodius's Pandectae rerum ab omni aev • judicaturum, and all the Schoolmens and Casuists volumes, de legibus, de jure & justitia, and on the Decalogue, would be but imperfect parts of this; I shall give you but one taste or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of it, by which the Reader will be persuaded to spare me, or rather himself that trouble.

[§. 29] The prime of these, the Christian law, is the rule of all actions that come within that sphere, sets down the nature of all Christian duties of piety, and love of our brethren in general, and more particularly of Faith, Hope, Charity, Repentance; self-denial, taking up the cross, &c. of humility, meekness, mercifulness, peaceableness, obedience to superiors, patience, contentedness, and the like; and the relation of a Christian being a grand transcendent relation, there is no action imaginable, but may either in respect of the matter, or motive, or principle, or circumstances, offend against one of these, (and then, malum ex qualibet defectu, the least of these defects blemisheth it) and so conscience directed by that rule or law, will direct me either to do it, or not to do it in that manuer, and then tis not any compliance with, or agreeableness to any or all other laws, which will make this action Christian, which hath any such notable defect or blemish in it; Not to pursue this any farther, having thus named it, and shown you the vastness of the sea it leads to, it will suffice to our present design to tell you, that from what is said these 3 corollaries, to omit many others, will be deducible.

[§. 30] 1. That it is not possible for Conscience (be it never so strongly persuaded) to make any action lawful, which is not regulated by those rules, or laws which are proper to it, and reconcilable with the grand rule, the Christian law. Conscience can never transform profaneness into piety, sacrilege into justice or holiness, rebellion into obedience, faction into humility, perjury, or taking of unlawful oaths into religion, rapine into contentedness, inhumanity into mercifulness, adultery, fornication, divorces, (save in case of adultery) or any uncleanness into purity, laboring to shake a Kingdom, (to remove the cross from my own shoulders to another man's) into taking up of the Cross; but contrariwise, if it be truly and univocally Conscience of duty, it will tell me that everyone of these foul titles belongs to every such action (the Scripture being so clear in these particulars, that there is no place or excuse for ignorance or mistake) and by setting before me the terrors of the Lord, persuade me not to venture on any one such action upon any terms; or if I have ventured, it will smite and wound me for it, and drive me to timely repentance; or if it do not, tis either a cauterized insensate conscience, a reprobate mind, or else some of these Images, which even now I mentioned, mistaken for Conscience; or if it be a full persuasion of mind, that what I thus am about, I am obliged to do, (if that be a possible thing in such matters and under so much light) tis then in the calmest style an erroneous Conscience, which is so far from excusing me (unless in case of ignorance truly invincible, which here is not imaginable) that it brings upon me the most unparalleled infelicity in the world, an obligation to sin which way soever I turn myself, on one side appearing and lying at my door the guilt of committing that sin which I have so mistaken, and on the other the guilt of omitting that (though sin) which my Conscience represented to me as duty; and nothing but repentance and reformation of judgment first, and then of practice, will be able to retrive the one or the other.

[§. 31] The second corollary will be this, That it is the most unreasonable insolence in the world, for them that can swallow such Camel-sins as these without any regrets, nay with full approbation, and direction (perhaps) of conscience (it that may be called Conscience which is so divided from, and contrary to knowledge ) yet to scruple and interpose doubts most tremblingly, and most conscientiously in matters of indifferency; not so much as pretended to be against the word of God, (and so within the law of Christian liberty, that they may be done if he will) and yet over and above their natural indifferency commanded by that authority, in subjection to which the Christian virtue of obedience consists; and all this either first upon no ground of conscience at all, but only that it is contrary to their Phansy, their Humour, their Prepossessions; or Secondly because it is a restraint, upon their Christian liberty, which yet Christ never forbid to be restrained quoad exercitium, as far as belongs to the exercise of it, but hath permitted sometime the care of not offending the weak brother, i. e. Charity, and sometime Obedience, to lawful superiors, to restrain it, (for if in things indifferent they may not restrain, there can no obedience be paid to them;) or Thirdly because they are offensive (though not to them, yet) to others, who are persuaded they are unlawful. Whereas I that persuasion of those others is erroneous, and not sufficient to justify disobedience in themselves, much less in other men, in case of lawful human command, And 2 that their censuring of such indifferent actions, i. e. being angry without a cause, may be greater matter of scandal, and so more offensive to others, and more probable to work upon them to bring them by that example to be so argry also, then the doing that indifferent action, mistaken by others, and condemned for unlawful, would be to bring them to transcribe that reprobated samplar, i. e. to do what they thus condemn; all men being far more apt and inclinable to break out into passions, then into acts against conscience, and so more likely to be scandalized or offended, or ensnared, by following the former, then the latter example, to sin (for company or after another man) by censuring whom he censures, which is being angry without a cause; then by doing what they are advised and resolved they ought not to do, which is sinning against conscience. Or fourthly, because they are against their conscience to do, whilst yet they produce no law of God or man against them, and so in effect confess there is nothing in them against conscience; unless, as before was noted, they willfully aequivocate in the word Conscience; which will and skill of theirs, as it will not make anything, unlawful, which before was indifferent, so will it not conclude ought, save only this, that they which are so artificious to impose on others, and form scruples where there were none, would not be thought the likeliest men to swallow gross sins under the disguise of virtues, or if they do so, will have least right to that only Antidote of invincible ignorance to digest them.

[§. 32] The third corollary will be this, that scrupulousnesse of conscience in some lighter less important matters (if it may be supposed excusable, as a weakness of an uninstructed mind, joined with that good symptom of tenderness of quick sense, yet) can never hope to be accepted by God by way of commutation or expiation for grosser sins, so that he that falls foully in any confessed sin, should fare the better at the great day of account, or be in less danger of being cast out of God's favor for the present, because he is over-scrupulous in other things: For sure this were a strange way of supererogation to pay one arreare to God by running into another with him, to discharge a debt by owing more. And yet this is an error which may seem worth the pains of preventing, it being so notoriously seen, that some men, which profess to have care of their ways, and must in charity be believed to have so, go on confidently in grievous sins, which they cannot but know will damn without repentance, (the sentence of not inheriting the Kingdom of God, Gal. 5. being so distinct, and punctual, and absolute, and indispensable against them) and yet have no Antidote to rely on for the averting that danger, but only this of their exactness and scrupulousnesse in things indifferent; which if they shall say they do not confide in, they are then obliged, in conscience, and charity to their brethren (who may follow them to this precipice) either to give over hoping, or to set to purifying, without which there is no true ground of hope. This hint puts me in mind that there is another part of my design still behind, belonging to the second notion of conscience, to examine

[§. 33] What it is that is required to entitle a man to a good conscience; which will briefly be stated by premising what before was mentioned, that the good conscience belongs either to particular single performances, or to the whole state of life and actions. To the first there is no more required, but that that particular action be both for matter and circumstance regulated by the rule, or rules which are proper to it, and have nothing contrary to any superior transcendent rule. As that my meal be with sobriety and thanksgiving, my alms with cheerfulness, liberality, discretion, done in gratitude and obedience to God, and mercifulness to my brother, without reflection on my own gain or praise in this world. But for the Good Conscience, which belongs to the whole state of life and actions, which is called a good Conscience in all things, Heb. 13. 18. or a good Conscience consisting in having a good conversation in all things, (for so the punctation in the Greek will direct rather to render it, [ we have a good conscience, willing to live well, (or have an honest conversation) in all things ] there the difficulty will be greater. And yet two Texts there are which tend much to the clearing and disinvolving of that one, 1 Pet. 3. 16. where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Good Conscience in the beginning of the verse, is explained in the close by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a good conversation in Christ, or a good Christian conversation, or such as now through Christ, by the purport of the second covenant may and shall be accepted for good. Where the word [ conversation ] denoting first the actions and behavior both toward God and man, and secondly, the whole course and frame of those actions, (wherein it seems a good conscience consists, I cannot better be explained then either by the Apostles, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , an accurate exact walking, Eph. 1. 15. or the phrase to Titus, c. 2. 12. living soberly and righteously and godly in this present world; the first respecting our duty to ourselves, or actions, as private men; the second, our duty to our brethren, in our more public capacities; the third, our duty to God as creatures, men, and Christians; or Saint Luke's character of Zacharias and Elizabeth, Luk. 1. 6. Walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord blameless; Walking Blamelesse, In all: Universal sincere obedience, (not entire or perfect without ever sinning, but) considered with the rules of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or moderation of strict law, (which is now part of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Gospel-law, by which a Christian is to be nyed, as equity is a part of the municipal law of this land; Such is mercy for frailties, and infirmities, and grosser lapses recovered and retracted by repentance) now under the Gospel, so as to be acceptable to God in Christ; which was intimated (as in the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Christ, 1 Pet. 3. so) in the former part of that verse, and their character 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , righteous before God: Which phrase [ Before God ] hath a double intimation worth observing in this place, first of the perseverance or perpetuity of that righteousness (as opposed to the temporary of the hypocrite) for the phrase 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [ before him ] refers to the show bread of old, Exod. 25. 30. which was to be set before God always; and therefore is sometime called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the bread of faces, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 bread before his face, literally 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , before him, and sometimes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 perpetual bread, and secondly, of the acceptation or reception in the sight of God, for that again was the end of setting the bread always before God, that God looking on it might accept them; and so righteousness before God, is such righteousness as God will please in the Gospel to accept of, as when visiting the fatherless, &c. Jac. 1. 27. is called, religion pure and undefiled before God the Father; it noteth such a degree of unblemisht purity, not as excluded all sin, but as God in Christ would (or hath promised to) accept of. And the same phrase therefore is in another place of the same Chapter, Luk. 1. 75. rendered by our Church in the Gospel for Midsummer day by these words, such as may be acceptable for him.

[§. 34] Which being all taken into the description of a good conscience, that it is such a continued good conversation as God now under the Gospel promiseth to accept of; the only difficulty behind will be, what that is which God promiseth to accept of; To which end, it will be very instrumental to take in that other place which I promised, and that is that forementioned, Heb. 13. 18. where the Good Conscience is evidenced (or the ground of confidence that he hath a good conscience, demonstrated) by this [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] willing, or resolving, or endeavoring to live honestly, or to have honest conversation in all things. From whence the only thing which I desire to collect is this, That the sincere resolution or endeavor to live honestly in all things (which I remember, one of our ancientest Church-writers Saint Cyril of Jerusalem calls, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and opposes it to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , works) is the Scripture nomination of a good Conscience, or the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that great treasure of confidence to all which have it; that ground of mature persuasion for any, that he hath, or shall by God be allowed, and acknowledged to have a good conscience.

[§. 35] And if it be farther demanded what is necessarily required, (and how much will be sufficient) to denominate a man Such, what is the minimum quod sic of this sincere resolution, or endeavor, although that, I confess, will be hard if not impossible, to define in such a manner, as shall come home to every particular, (the proportions of more or less, knowledge or strength, the inequality of the talents of illuminating and assisting grace still interposing and making a variation) yet will it not be matter of much difficulty to give some general advertisements, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which will be acknowledged as soon as mentioned, and being put together, and by each man single applied to his particular case, by way of self examination, will be able to tell him in some measure, whether he hath a good conscience or no. And the first of these will be, That

[§. 36] Acts and habits of sin in the former (heathen or unregenerate) part of the life, of what nature (and clothed with what aggravations) soever, if they are now retracted and renounced by repentance (as that signifies not only a sorrow, but a thorough change ) are reconcilable with a good conscience. The truth of which is clear, first, because the Gospel allows place for repentance, and promises rest to the heavy laden, so he come unto Christ, and mercy to him that confesseth and forsaketh. Secondly, because the sincerity of resolution and endeavor now, (which is all that is required to a present good conscience) is reconcilable with past sins, even of the largest size. Thirdly, because Saint Paul himself, which was once a Saul, can yet say confidently, that he hath a good conscience. And fourthly, because (which I shall a little enlarge on) the sin against the holy Ghost, which alone is by the Gospel made uncapable of remission, is, as I conceive, no act, no nor course of any special sin, but a state of final impenitence, a continued persevering resistance of all those saving methods which are consequent to the descent, and are part of the office of the holy Ghost.

[§. 37] To which purpose I shall give you one hint which may persuade the preferring of this opinion before the contrary, and it is by observing the occasion of Christ's delivering those words concerning the irremissiblenesse of speaking against the holy Ghost. Those words are delivered by Christ both in Saint Matthew and Saint Mark upon occasion of that speech of the Jews, that Christ cast out Devils, by the Prince of Devils, which was clearly a blaspheming or speaking contumeliously against Christ himself, or the son of man, and there is no passage in the Text which can conclude that that speech of theirs was by Christ called the blasphemy against the holy Ghost, but rather the contrary that it was a blasphemy only against the son of man; for tis apparent that Christ Mat. 12. 15. for the space of six verses sets himself to convince them of the falsity of that speech (which probably he would not have done, if they, to whom he spake had been in an irrecoverable irreversible estate of blasphemy. For that he should take such pains only to leave them inexcusable, 1. there was no great need, in this case they were so already. 2. it is a mistake to think that Christ doth so at any time, they are bowels of mercy and not designs of mischieving, or accumulating their sin, and judgments, which incline him to call and knock, and labor to convince sinners) and having done that, doth both invite them to repentance by showing them the possibility of pardon yet, and give them an admonition able to shake them out of all impenitence, by telling them the danger which attended, if the only last method of working on them which was yet behind, did not prosper with or work upon them, This is the importance of that 31 and 32 verse concerning the speaking a word, i. e. standing out against the son of man on one side, and the Holy Ghost on the other; the sum of which is this, there shall be by the coming of the Holy Ghost a possibility of pardon and means of reformation for those that resist and hold out and even crucify Christ (as by the coming of Christ, there was for those that should believe on him, though they had formerly lived disobedient unto God the Father, resisted those methods of mercy used on them under the Old Testament) for them that speak a word. i. e. by an Hebraism do an action (of affront, of injury, of contumely) against Christ, yea that resist and believe not on him, but conceive and affirm him to cast out Devils by the power of Beelzebub, (which was as contumelious a thing as could be said of him) but when Christ shall be taken from the earth, and the Holy Ghost shall be sent down to convince the world of that great sin of crucifying Christ, and to settle in the Church of God such an orderly use of all Gospel-means that may tend to the bringing sinners to repentance (the use both of the word and sacrament and censures and all other things necessary to that great end of working on the most contumacious) that if this prevail not, there is little hope left of ever working on such perverseness, then it is to be resolved, that those that thus stand out against all those saving methods of God's last economy, shall be left uncapable of any good, of any whether means of yet-farther working on them, or of pardon either in the Church or in heaven, there being no more persons in the God-head now behind (unless we will change the Christians Trinity into Pythagorasses 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) nor consequently means in the providence of God, for the reducing of, or obtaining mercy for such. By this it will appear that this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not any one act no nor habit of sin (particularly not that speaking against Christ there, which you will also guess by Saint Luke, who mentions not that speech of theirs concerning his casting-out Devils by the Prince of Devils, and yet sets down this speech of Christ, of the irremissibility of this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, Luke 12. 10. which argues that this hath no near relation to that) but a final holding out against, and resisting the whole office of the Holy Ghost, and all those gracious methods consequent to it.

[§. 38] To which I shall only add in reference to my present purpose (that there may be no place of doubting even to him which will not receive my interpretation of this place) that even by those which conceive it to be some special kind of sin, yet the unpardonablenesse of it is acknowledged to arise from thence, that it is impossible for any such to repent, yet not for any that repents to find pardon and mercy, which is sufficient for the confirmation of my present proposition.

'It is true indeed, that he that is sold a slave of sin, the unregenerate carnal man, is, whilst he is so, in a most hopeless, comfortless estate, and if he have any natural conscience left him, it must needs be a kind of seind and fury with him, No peace to such wicked, saith my God, and it is as true that the recovery of such a man out of the grave of rottenness, that Lazarstate in sin, is a miracle of the first magnitude, a work of greatest difficulty (Christ groans at the raising of him that was 4 days dead and putrefied in the grave ) and costs the sinner much dearer to be raised out of it. Saul is struck down in his march towards Damascus, blind and trembling before his conversion; but yet still when this conversion is wrought, he may have a good Conscience what ever his foregoing sins were.

[§. 39] And although the Apostles Censure Heb. 6. 6. and 10. 26. light yet heavier upon those who after the knowledge of the truth and gust of the life to come, and participation of the holy spirit relapse to their former sins, it being there affirmed that there is no possibility to renew them, or (as the Greeks read it) for them to renew or recover to repentance, and consequently the sacrifice for sin [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] no longer belonging to or remaining for them, yet doth not this hinder the truth of the present proposition; for I those places to the Hebrews belong not to the sins of the unregenerate life, which only now we speak of, but of the relapse after the knowledge of the truth, 2. even in those places speaking of those sins, the doctrine is not, that there shall be any difficulty of obtaining pardon for them upon repentance, (for the Subject of the Apostles Propositions is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 men considered exclusively to repentance, as abiding in sin unreformed impenitent, and to such we design not to allow mercy) but that this is so great a grieving and quenching of the spirit of God, that it becometh very difficult, and in ordinary course impossible for them that are guilty of it to repent, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 again to recover to repentance: It being just and ordinary with God upon such sins of those to whom he hath given grace, to withdraw that grace again, according to his method and economy of providence expressed in the parable of the talents, [ from him that hath not made use of the grace or talent given, shall be taken away even that which he hath ] and Wisd. 1. 5. the holy spirit of discipline will not abide where unrighteousness cometh in; and so being thus deprived of that grace, it is consequently impossible that those should 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in a neutral sense, renew and recover, or in an active reciprocal renew or recover themselves to repentance, though yet for God to give a new stock of grace it is not impossible, but only a thing which he hath not by revealed promise obliged himself to do; and therefore whether he will do it or no, is merely in his own hand and dispositive power, and that which no man hath ground to hope and title to challenge from him. All which notwithstanding our present proposition stands firm, that where there is repentance, or true thorough change, those former retracted acts or habits are reconcilable with good Conscience.

[§. 40] The second this, that Sins of weakness of all kinds, whether first, of ignorance, or secondly, of natural infirmity, the one for want of light, the other for want of grace, or thirdly, of sudden surreption, such as both by the law of [ Si quis praecipiti calore ] in the Code of Justinian, and by the municipal laws of most nations, are matter of extenuation to some crimes, to discharge them from capital punishment, at least to make them capable of pardon, or fourthly, of daily continual incursion, either for want of space to deliberate at all, or because it is morally impossible to be upon the guard to be deliberate always, ( opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum ) or fifthly, which through levity of the matter passes by undiscerned, and the like, are irreconcilable with a good conscience, because again, be a man never so sincerely resolute and industrious in endeavor to abstain from all sin, yet as long as he carries flesh about him, (which is such a principle of weakness, that ordinarily in the New Testament, the word flesh, is set to signify weakness ) such weaknesses he will be subject to, such frailties will be sure to drop from him. This, I remember, Parisiensis illustrates handsomely, first, by the similitude of an armed man provided with strength and prowess, and wrestling with another in lubrico, on a slippery ground, who though neither weapons nor strength nor courage fail him, yet may be very probably fall, the slipperiness of the footing will betray him to that; or secondly by an horseman mounted on an unmanaged or tender-mouthed horse, who cannot with all his skill and caution secure himself: from all misadventures, the beast may upon a check come over with him, or getting the bit into the mouth run into the enemies quarters; or thirdly, by a City that is provided for a siege with works, and men, and victuals, and ammunition, and yet by a treacherous party within may be betrayed into the enemies hands; there is a principle of weakness within like that slippery pavement, that tender-mouthed beast, that insidious party, which will make us still liable to such miscarriages, and nothing in this contrary either to courage or diligence, to resolution, or endeavor. And for such as these frailties, ignorances, infirmities, &c. So they be labored against, and the means of preventing or overcoming them sincerely used (which if it be done, you shall find them daily wain in you, and if they do not so in some measure, you have reason to suspect, and to double your diligence) there is sure mercy in Christ to be had, obtaineable, by daily confession, and sorrow, and prayer for forgiveness of trespasses) without any complete conquest achieved over them in this life. It being Saint Paul's affirmation, very exactly and critically set down, Rom. 5. 6. that Christ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , we being weak, died for the ungodly, to note the universal benefit of his death for such weak ones and such sins as these to which mere weakness betrays them. The very doctrine which from that text at the beginning of our reformation our Reverend Bishop Martyr did assert in his excellent Preface to his explication of the commandments.

[§. 41] To which purpose I shall only add one proof more, taken from the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or rational importance of Saint Paul's exhortation Rom. 15. 1. We that are strong, saith he, mus bear the weaknesses, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of them which are not strong, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and not please ourselves, for v. 3. Christ did not so, but &c. which reason sure must come home to both parts, the affirmative as well as the negative (or else the Logic will not be good) and so the affirmative be that Christ bare the infirmities of the weak; and so again v. 7. [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] applied to the same matter he took us up when we were thus fallen. I might add more, but I hope rather that I have said too much in so plain a point, and abundantly evinced the irreconcileablenesse of such frailties with a good conscience.

[§. 42] A third thing is, that The lusting of the flesh against the spirit is reconcilable with a good conscience, so it be in him that walketh in the spirit, obeys the desires and dictates of that, and fulfilleth not the lusts of the flesh, Gal. 5. 16, 17. There is no spiritually good thing that a man ever doth in his life, but the flesh hath some mutinyings, lustings, and objections against it, there being such a contrariety betwixt the commands of Christ and the desires of the flesh, that no man, which hath those two within him, doth the things that he would. (For so tis, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that you do not, not that you cannot do) [ The things that he would ] ( i. e. the things, which either he resolves to do, or takes delight in) those he doth not, i. e. either purely without some mixture, or still without some opposition of the contrary, or (as again the place may be rendered) this opposition of these two one against another tendeth to this, that we may not do, or to hinder us from doing everything that we would, as indeed we should do, were there not that opposition within our own breasts. This is the meaning of that 17 verse, which notwithstanding it follows verse 18. that if we be led by the spirit, if that be victorious over the contrary pretender (as it may, though tother lust against it) if the production be not works of the flesh, adultery, &c. v. 19. but the fruit of the spirit love, peace, &c. v. 22. against such there is no law, no condemnation, no accusation of conscience here, or hereafter.

[§. 43] For it must be observed, that there is great difference betwixt this lusting of the flesh against the spirit in them that are led by the spirit, Gal. 5. and the warring of the law in the members against the law in the mind, which bringeth into captivity to the law of sin, i. e. to it self, Rom. 7. For those in whom that latter is to be found, are there said to be carnal, sold under sin (as a slave was wont sub hasta to be sold) and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be led by the flesh and fulfill the lusts of the flesh, which is of all things most irreconcilable with that man's state; against whom there is no condemnation in Christ, Rom. 8. 1. and so with a good Conscience.

[§. 44] And if the resistance of the mind, or the law moral, of the spirit, or the law Christian, be sufficient to excuse that action or habitual course which is committed and lived in, in opposition to both of these, or while both of these check and contradict, then sure are sins against conscience become (if not the most excusable sins, yet) the more excusable for this, that they are against conscience; that woulding or contending of the mind, or the law of the mind being no other but the dictate of the instructed conscience, (in them which know the law, Rom. 7. 1. which he that obeys not, but follows the law or command of sin against it, hath not sure a good conscience, in our second sense as that signifies a Conscience of well-doing or doing nothing against rule of Conscience, for that this man in terminis is supposed to do.

[§. 45] Having now proceeded thus far in the affirmative part in showing what sins are reconcilable with a good Conscience, I should now proceed to the negative part and show what are not reconcilable therewith. But before I advance to that, there is one classis or head of sins, about which there is some question and difficulty of resolving, to which of the extremes it should be reduced, i. e. whether it be reconcilable, or irreconcilable with a good Conscience. And that is the single Commission of some act of known sin, which hath not the Apology of weakness to excuse it, and yet is not indulged or persisted, or continued in, (for of those that are so, you shall hear anon in the 8 Proposition) but without delay retracted by humiliation and reformation; For the stating and fatisfying of which it will be necessary first, to observe that

[§. 46] Any such act of willful sin First, hath in it self a being, and so is capable of a notion abstracted from the retraction of it. Yea secondly, is a work of some time, and though it be never so suddenly retracted by repentance, yet some space there is before that retraction; and if we speak of that time or space, there is no doubt, but that act, first, is contrary to good conscience, and contracts a guilt, and consequent to that, the displeasure of God and obligation to punishment, which nothing but repentance can do away; yea and secondly, is a natural means of weakening that habit of good, of sauciating and wounding the soul, and for that time putting it in a bloody direful condition, and should God before repentance strike, for ought we know there would be no remission, and so, fearful would be the end of that soul.

[§. 47] But then secondly, if before God thus visit in justice, repentance interpose, (as in this present case we suppose it doth) if this plank be caught hold on instantly upon the shipwreck, if he that hath committed this act of carnality, &c. lie not down (after the manner of the Grecian horses in Saint Ambroses expression, qui cum ceciderint, quandam tenent quietis & patientiae disciplinam, are taught, when they fall in the race, not to strive or endeavor to get up again, lie still on the ground with great stillness and patience) walk not after the flesh, Ro. 8. 1. Then presently is he set right again in God's favor, upon (performance of the solemnities, as it were, payment of the fees of the Court) humiliation, contrition, confession, and lowly supplications to God for pardon in Christ, and so then to him thus repaired there is no condemnation; beside the forementioned effects that attended that sin at the time there is no future arrear behind in the other world.

[§. 48] As for the other effect of sin in this life, the wasting of the Conscience, or provoking of God to withdraw his grace; though any such act of willful sin may justly be thought to do that also in some degree, first, to stop God from going on in his current of liberality, and secondly, to cast us back from that plenitude and abundance, which before in the riches of God's bounty in Christ was afforded, and so much weaken our stock of grace, leave us much more infirm then we were before the Commission; yet we find not any threat in Scripture that God will, upon this provocation of one single act not persisted in, presently withdraw all grace, but we have reason to hope what the Article of our Church supposes, that in this case he leaves sufficient grace to enable that child of his, that thus falls, by that his grace to return again.

[§. 49] And if that sad presage, Heb. 6. 6. seem to any to withstand this, the answer will be prompt and easy, by observing that the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , there [ the fallers away ] signifies more then someone single act of sin presently retracted again, even a general Apostasy in their practice, (if not in their faith) a return to their former unregenerate sins, (as the phrase 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , [ they being entangled are overcome ] notes 2 Pet. 2. 20. a place perfectly parallel to this, and) as in this place the ancients have generally interpreted. And then though such indulgence in sin, such returning to the vomit or mire again in that other place, do provoke God to withdraw his grace necessary to enable them to repent, yea and cast them back into a worse estate then they were in, not only before such sinning, but even before their conversion, 2 Pet. 2. 20. Yet that God will so punish with total desertion any one act or commission presently retracted again, it is not affirmed here nor anywhere else, that I have observed, but rather on the contrary, that he will visit them with chastisements which are a grace and a means to recall them, without any utter for saking or taking of his loving kindness from them, Psal, 89. 33. 35.

[§. 50] That this matter may be thoroughly cleared, I shall suppose this objection made against what hath hitherto been said of it, that it may seem by this doctrine, [that the regenerate man may be under God's displeasure] that he that remains sanctified may be unjustified, for so he will be, if all his sins be not forgiven him, which they are not, if this act of sin not yet repented of, be not forgiven. In answer to this, I shall reinforce my affirmation, that of necessity it must be granted, if we believe the Scripture, that any such act of sin unretracted by repentance, doth certainly stand upon the sinners score unremitted; for that God (as some affirm) doth at the first act of my being justified, forgive all my sins not only past, present, but also future too; cannot be said, but upon a supposition that that man will never commit any such sin against which the Gospel threatens perishing, i. e. any deliberate presumptuous sin, (which supposition if it were true, would infer an impossibility of the regenerate man's thus sinning, not an assurance of his pardon without (or abstracted from the consideration of) his repentance, which is the only point, in hand) for if he do, then upon confession and forsaking there is promise of mercy, and not otherwise; and in brief, without repentance there is no remission: and therefore it is observable, that they which thus affirm, find themselves enforced to fly to God's omnipotence and immensity, to whom all things are present; by help of which they can conceive and resolve that at the time of that sins being upon him unrepented of, God yet seeing his future repentance as present, may scale his pardon, and then may by the same reason do so also before the commission; the weakness of which arguing, I shall no farther demonstrate then by this rejoinder, that by the same reason it might be said, that a man is justified before he is borne, which yet the objectors do not affirm, but that at the time of his first conversion, be it at such a Sermon or the like, he was justified, and then all his sins past, present, and to come forgiven him, which is as contrary to the notion of all things being present with God, as to say that this act of commission is not forgiven till it be repented of, for sure the time before that man's birth, and the time after it, are as truly present to God before all eternity, as the time of this commission and that repentance.

[§. 51] The only way for us to understand ourselves or anything that belongs to God's actions concerning us, is that which the Scripture supposes and commands us to walk in, not the way of God's secret counsels, (which if we knew, were no longer secret) not the way of God's immensity, (which if it were intelligible by us, were not immensity) but the way of his revealed will, which is, that whensoever the sinner repenteth him of his sin, and amends his life, he shall have his sin blotted out and put out of God's remembrance, i. e. forgiven unto him and not till then: and to suppose he may have remission before such repentance, is to suppose God perjured who swears he shall not, and to lay falsity to the charge of the whole Gospel, which resolves, Except ye repent, ye shall all perish.

[§. 52] To all this I might farther add that God's justifying the faithful man, is the approving his fidelity upon trial of it, and so acquitting him (upon a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or probation) from suspicion of hypocrisy, pronouncing him faithful, or Evangelically righteous, and upon that, owning him as a friend, entering into League with him, as might appear by God's justifying Abraham and calling him friend (in the sense wherein they are Christ's friends, which do whatsoever be commands them, so approve themselves unto him) if it were now seasonable to examine that business. This being supposed, it would be most evident, that such an act of known deliberate sin committed in time of trial, is quite contrary to justification, even as contrary as Abraham's refusing to believe God's promise first, or after to sacrifice Isaac, you may suppose would have been. Of which the least that can be said, will be this, that such a failing is a shrewd blemish to sincerity, which will make it necessary for him that is guilty of it, to repair his credit with God by expressing a great sense of his miscarriage, and by many future performances of constancy, and resolution, if ever he hope to be approved, or justified by him.

[§. 53] But now having thus far confirmed this, and so rather strengthened, then weakened the objection, the next thing I shall desire may be observed is this, that every non-remission of a sin for some time, every displeasure of God's, every not-imputing to righteousness, is not an utter intercision of justification, is not a calling all the former forgotten sins to remembrance, for to such only an Apostasy, or continued falling away from God betrays the soul. For, the whole current of my life may approve my fidelity to God, though someone action be very contrary to it: Nay secondly, a Father may be displeased with his Son for someone fault, and yet not difinherit him, nay upon farther provocation he may cast him out of his family, and yet afterward receive him into it again.

[§. 54] So that there are three degrees observable in this matter, first displeasure, secondly wrath, thirdly fury. First withdrawing of the Fathers favor, suspension of pardon, so tis in case of any such single act of sin presently repented of, considered before its retractation. Second, casting out of the family, total intercision of mercy for that present, so tis in case of such sin persisted in indulgently. Third, utter final irreversible abdication, so tis in case of final obduration.

[§. 55] This may be illustrated, 1. by a vulgar, then by an ecclesiastical resemblance. Among friends 1. there may be a matter of quarrel, dislike, displeasure, and one friend justly frown upon the other, yea and keep some distance from him, and be really angry with him, for some act of injury done by him, contrary to the laws of friendship, which till he hath some way repaired, the friend may justly not pardon him, and so abstain for that present from the former degree of familiarity with him: but then 2. the injurious friend may continue as injurious still, and go on and persist in that course of falseness or unfriendlinesse, and then the injured friend wholly forsakes his company, breaks off those bands of friendship with him, yet so as that upon the others relenting and amending, he may yet again return to him, and so that total separation prove no final one, 3. there is, upon obduration or no manner of relenting, a final irreversible breach.

[§. 56] The ecclesiastical resemblance is, that of the three degrees of excommunication among the Jews, the first or lowest, was niddui separation, not total turning out of either sacred or civil society, but remotion to a distance, that the offender should not come within four Cubits of any other, and so be denied the peace of the Church, and the familiar kind of communion, which others enjoy. Above this there was cherem which was a total exclusion or distermination with anathemas or execrations joined with it, but yet was not final, then thirdly there was Schammatha giving up to destruction or desolation, delivering up to God's coming in judgment, and that was irreversible.

[§. 57] Now for the full satisfying of the argument, (having already shown you the state of this offender in respect of justification) it will only be necessary to add one thing more, that the state of the same man as it respects sanctification, is parallel and fully proportionable to the state as it respecteth justification, and so the objection will quite fall to the ground.

[§. 58] To the clearing of which you must know that sanctification may be conceived in a double notion: 1. as a gift of God's, 2. as a duty of man's. To prevent mistake, this I mean, God gives the grace of conversion and sanctification, and he that is effectually wrought on by that grace, is converted and sanctified, this is it which I mean, by the first notion of sanctification, as it is a gift of God's: But the man thus converted and sanctified, i. e. thus wrought on and effectually changed by the Spirit of God, is bound by the Gospl-law, to operate according to this principle, to use this talent, and this is called, to have grace, Heb. 12. 28. i. e. to make use of it to the purpose there specified of serving God 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ( i. e. either well pleasedly, cheerfully, willingly, or well pleasingly, so as God may and will accept) in righteousness and godly fear, according to the notion of Having in the parable of the talents, where tis said that to him that hath shall be given, i. e. to him which makes use of the talent entrusted to him, operates accordingly, doth what that enables him to do, offends not against it by idleness, or by commission of contrary sins, which he that doth, is the non habens, he that hath not there, from which shall be taken away, &c. And this having of grace is it which I mean by the second notion of sanctification, as it is a duty of man's, which I conceive is meant by the Apostle, when he saith, this is the will of God, even your Sanctification, and he which hath this hope purifies himself, and let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness perfecting holiness, all which places suppose the thing spoken of, to be the duty of man, which by the help of Christ strengthening him, he is able to perform, and therefore upon the supposition of God's working in him both to will and to do, to will, by sanctifying, to do, by assisting grace, he is incited and exhorted by the Apostle, to work out his own salvation.

[§. 59] This being thus cleared, twill be easily granted in the second place, that every such act of deliberate commission as we now speak of, is contrary to sanctification in this latter notion, contrary to the duty of the sanctified man, from which breach of duty it was, that we bound him before under that guilt, which nothing but repentance could rid him of, and if you mark it, that is the only thing which contracts a guile, the doing somewhat contrary to duty, and so the want of this second notion of Sanctification it is, the want of sanctified operations, which interposes any rubs in the business of our justification, and not so properly that wherein God only was concerned, his not giving grace, guilt being still a result from sin, and sin being a breach of the law, a contrariety to duty and not to guilt; and though he that hath not received the gift of sanctification be not justified, yet the cause of his non-justification then, is not, in proper speaking, God's not having given him grace to sanctify, (for that is but a negative thing, and cannot produce non-justification, which is in effect a positive thing by interpretation, signifying condemnation, two negatives making an affirmative, non-justifying being non-remitting of sin, and that the actual imputing of it to condemnation) but the sins of his former and present impenitent unsanctified life.

[§. 60] This also being thus cleared, I shall only add a third thing, and then conclude this matter, that in the same proportion that any such act of sin doth unjustifie, it doth unsanctifie also, i. e. shake and waste, though not utttrly destroy, that sanctified state that before the man was in, by the gift and grace of God.

[§. 61] For as there were three degrees of provocation in the matter of justification, so are there also in this of sanctification, the first, grieving the Spirit of God, Eph. 4. 30. resisting it, trashing of God in his course of grace and bounty towards us, putting ourselves under niddui, as it were, in respect of God's grace, as well as his favor, and so weakening our stock of sanctity, and this the deliberate act of sin may be thought to do. The second, is quenching of the Spirit, 1 Thes. 5. 19. putting it quite out, rebelling and vexing his holy Spirit, Is. 63. 10. a total extinction of grace, the Cherem that brings the present curse, or anathema along with it; and this is not done by one sin not persisted in, but only by a habit or indulgent course of sin; and the third, is the despighting, or doing despite to the spirit of grace, Heb. 10. 29. that which is proportioned to Schammatha, that makes the final irreversible separation between us and God's sanctifying grace, the first did not wholly deprive the sinner of all grace, no nor of sufficient to enable to repent; the second, did so for the present; the third did so finally also.

[§. 62] If you will now demand what are the effects and consequents of that displeasure of God, which this single act of sin brngs upon the offender; I answer, that I have in some measure answered that already, shown you at the beginning many lugubrious effects of it; and if that be not sufficient to satisfy you, or to show the non-remission of such sin till it be recracted by repentance, I shall then proceed one degree farther yet, to tell you,

[§. 63] That the method of God's dealing in this case (of such single acts of commission) seemeth by the Scripture to be after this manner. Upon any such commission, Satan is wont to accuse that man before God, [such or such a regenerate child of thine is fallen into such a sin, and so into my hands as the lictor) then to desire, or require solemnly, to have him to winnow, by inflicting punishments upon him, and God yields many times to this demand of Satan's, delivers the offender up to him in some limited manner.

[§. 64] To which delivering though temptations (or afflictions which ordinarily are signified by temptations in Scripture) are constantly consequent, yet not utter desertion or withdrawing of grace, but allowing of strength sufficient to victory, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ability to bear, 1. Cor. 10. 13. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , passage out of those difficulties in that same place, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sufficient grace, 2. Cor. 12. 9. and assistance of his faith, that it fail not totally, (which is the importance of Christ's having prayed for Peter, Luk. 22. 32. his intercession being a powerful intercession (as may appear by his [ Father, I knew that thou hearest me always, Job. 11. 24] and so in effect, the obtaining from his Father, and actual conferring on his Disciples the grace which he prays for) And therefore it is observable, that as those which are thus accused and demanded by Satan are generally such as, were it not for this present particular commission, would pass both with God and him, for faithful Disciples, and good Christians, and therefore do still retain that title (as appears by the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , when Satan is called the accuser of them, Rev. 12. 10. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the accuser of the brethren, or the faithful, it seems they are faithful still, though they have been guilty of some act, for which he thus accuseth them, and so he is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , 1 Pet. 5. 8. the plaintiff or enemy, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of you, i. e. the elect, to whom he writes, c. 1. • .) so the end of yielding to Satan's request in delivering them up to him is also fatherly and gracious 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that they may be disciplined, or taught not to blaspheme, 1 Tim. 1. 20. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that he may be ashamed, 2. Thes. 3. 14. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that the spirit may be saved, 1. Cor. 5. 5. Whereupon it is, that the Fathers so clearly resolve it far better, and more eligible to be delivered up to Satan, then to be delivered up to ones self, or ones own affections or desires; the first of them being the ordinary punishment of some act, or acts of sin on purpose to recall to repentance; the second being the great plague of spiritual desertion, inflicted on indulgent continuers in fin, the first of them a mark of their not-yet-total abdication, their continuance in son-ship whom God thus chastens here, that he may not condemn them with the world; the second, of their being cut off from that prerogative, whom God thus forsakes.

[§. 65] To which purpose, of God's dealing mercifully with his servants in case of single trespasses presently retracted by repentance, (so far as not to inflict any grand spiritual punishment upon them, such as absolute desertion, or utter disinherizon) I conceive an Image represented to us in Christ's command to his Disciples, how oft they should forgive the trespassing brother, Luk. 17. 4. If he trespass against thee seven times a day, and seven times a day return again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive; where trespassing seven times is a phrase, for [how oft soever he trespass] the word [ forgive ] notes the obligation to punishment without forgiveness, and the interposing the word [ Repent ] proportioned to every trespass, shows the necessity of that condition to wash off that guilt; and the word [ Turn ] prefixed to that, argues the Repentance unavailable, if it contain not turning in it; upon which, forgiveness being there commanded, if we shall now add that other place Mat. 6. 36. where God's mercy to us is made the measure of our mercy to our brethren, the argument will come home to prove that God doth so deal with us, and consequently that every such act of sin contracts a guilt, which is never pardoned but upon repentance, that upon the speedy performance of that duty the patient is preserved from any heavy spiritual punishment, which would otherwise attend that sin.

[§. 66] What we have hitherto said on this particular, will show the danger of every act of deliberate sin, and yet withal the difference betwixt such single acts presently retracted by repentance, and the like persisted, or continued in. To which purpose it will be worth the while to behold what we find recorded of David. He, we know, had been guilty of several acts of sin, marked and censured in the Word of God; and some of them such, as for them he was in a manner delivered up to Satan to be contumeliously used (as he seems to conceive from Shimei's cursing of him, 2 Sam. 16. 10. For Shimei being an instrument of Satan's in cursing, and Satan thereto permitted by God upon some crime, for which he had accused him to God, he there calls it, God's saying to Shimei, Curse David, ) And yet because he continued not with indulgence in any of them, (his heart presently smiting him, as in the case of numbering the people, and recalling him to instant reformation) save only in that concerning Uriah the Hittite (wherein it appears that he continued near the space of a year, from before the conception till after the birth of the child, as is clear by the time of Nathan's coming to him, 2 Sam. 12. 1.) tis therefore left upon record by God, That David did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, 1 King. 15. 5.

[§. 67] From whence although I shall not conclude, that God saw no other sin in David but that in the matter of Uriah, (because I know he saw and punished that of numbering the People, and for that other though not acted, yet designed under oath against Nabal. 1 Sam. 25. 22. Abigail discerns that it was a causeless shedding of blood, and an act of revenge, v. 31. (and so no small sin in God's sight) yet tis clear, that the sin in the matter of Uriah, that only sin continued in for any long time, made another manner of separation between God and David, contracted another kind of guilt, (and was a far greater waster to conscience) then any of those other more speedily retracted sins did, was the only remarkable 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 drawing back, or turning aside from obedience to God, the only grand defection, shaking off God's yoke, and so the only chasme in his regenerate state.

[§. 68] These 4 Propositions being premised, whereof 3 were affirmative, and this last of a middle nature, The rest will be negative; As

[§. 69] Fifthly, Hypocrisy is not reconcilable with a good conscience. I mean not Hypocrisy which consists in the concealing from the eyes of men the sins or frailties he is guilty of: for supposing those frailties to be what they are, i. e. acknowledging in them a guilt proportionate to their nature, I cannot see why the bare desire to conceal them from the eyes of men (separated from the sins or frailties themselves, and from any treacherous design in such concealing) should be thought to superadd any farther degree of guilt; when on the other side the publicness of a sin is an aggravation of it, makes it more scandalous, and so more criminous also. Nor again do I mean that hypocrisy, which is the taking in any thought of the praise of men (and the like) in our best actions: for as long as we have flesh about us, some degrees of this will go near sometimes to insinuate themselves, and then though they prove blemishes to those best actions, and by anticipating the payment and taking it here before hand, rob us of that heavenly reward hereafter, which would otherwise be rendered to us according to those works, yet still being but spots of sons, reconcilable with a regenerate estate, (as the straw and combustible superstruction, is (in Saint Paul ) compatible with the true substantial foundation,) they will be reconcilable with good conscience also, which is always commensurate to a regenerate estate.

[§. 70] But the hypocrisy which I mean, is, first, that which is opposite to (and compatible with) Sincerity: first, the deceiving of men, with a pretence of piety, putting off the most Un-Christian sins, having no more of Christianity then will serve to mischieve others, i. e. only the pretence of it to disguise the poison of a bitter heart. Secondly, the deceiving of God, or thirdly, his own soul, not dealing uprightly with either, and nothing more contrary then this to a good conscience.

[§. 71] Secondly, the maimed mutilate obedience, the compounding betwixt God and Satan, the Samaritans fearing the Lord and serving their own God's, joining others with God, and paying to them a respect equal or superior to that which they pay to God, serving Mammon and God, or Mammon more then God. Or

[§. 72] Thirdly, the formal profession, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or outside-garb of Godliness, not joining the inward, but making a mere pageant of piety, denying the power thereof. Or

[§. 73] Fourthly, the hypocrisy of the wisher and woulder, that could wish he were better then he is, could be well pleased to die the death of the righteous, to have all the gainful part, the revenue and crown of a good Conscience, but will not be at the charge of a conscientious life; Or

[§. 74] Fifthly, the hypocrisy of the partial obedient, that is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of duty, chooses out the easy, smooth, pliable doctrines of Christianity, the cheap or costlesse performances, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , will serve the Lord his God of that which costs him nothing, will do some things that have nothing contrary to passions in general, or particularly to his passions, like Herod that could hear John the Baptist gladly, be present at as many Sermons as he could wish, (and many the like painlesse performances) but when the weightier matters of the law expect to be taken up also, cannot submit to such burdens. Or

[§. 75] Sixthly, the hypocrisy of the temporary, which abstains only as long as the punishment is over his head, and awes him to it, or as long as he meets with no temptations to the contrary; both which what place they have in the death-bed repentance even when it is not only a sorrow for sin, but a resolution of amendment also, I leave it to be considered. Or

[§. 76] Seventhly, the hypocrisy of those which commit evil that good may come of it, who venture on the most Vn Christian fins for God's glory, accept the person of the Almighty, do injustice for his sake, or rather suppose him impotent, and fetch in the Devil or their own vile lusts to relieve and assist God, of whom the Apostle pronounceth their damnation is just, Rom. 3. 8. Or

[§. 77] Lastly, the hypocrisy of him which keeps any one close undeposited sin upon his soul. These are each of them contrary to some part of the ground of good Conscience, to the foundation of Christian confidence, some to the sincerity, some to the resolution, and some to the obedience, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in all, and some to the perseverance which is absolutely necessary to the good Conscience.

[§. 78] A sixth Proposition is, that a supine willful course of negligence and sloth, whether in duties of man's particular calling, or more especially in the duties of the general calling as we are Christians, that sin of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , is not reconcilable with a good Conscience, (Omissions being destructive, such they may be as well as commissions) whether it be omission of the performance of moral or Christian precepts (Christ's improvements of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, being not only as Counsels, but Precepts obligatory to Christians) or whether it be only the willful supine slothful neglecting the means of knowledge, such as are agreeable to my course of life: Or the neglecting to make use of those means which are necessary to enable me to get out of any sin: (One act of which nature was by Christ noted and censured in his Disciples, Their not fasting and praying to cast out that Devil that would not otherwise be cast out. ) Or the not avoiding such occasions which are apt to betray me to it; Such acts as these, are (as Christ saith to those Disciples) acts of faithlesnesse and perverseness, Mat. 17. 17. and cosequently the continued course of them contrary to the sincerity of endeavor, and so irreconcilable with a good conscience.

[§. 79] The seventh Proposition is, that all habitual customary obdurate sinning is irreconcilable utterly with a good Conscience. I add the word [ Obdurate ] which signifies the hardening of the heart against the knowledge of the truth, against exhortations, against threats of God's word, against checks of natural Conscience, or illuminations of grace, against resolutions and vows to the contrary, for this will make any habit certainly irreconcilable with a good Conscience; Whereas it is possible that some Customary sinning may be through ignorance of the duty, and that ignorance if it be not contracted by some willfulness of mine may be matter of excuse to me, and so reconcilable with a good conscience by force of the second Proposition. But the obdurate holding out against God's spirit, either knocking for admittance but not opened to, or checking and restraining from sin after conversion, and not hearkened to, resisting all God's methods of working on us and still resolutely walking after the flesh, this is by no means reconcilable with a good conscience, nay nor any habit of sin simply taken (for that is exclusive of the habit of piety necessary to the good coscience) unless it have that authentic plea of faultless ignorance to excuse it.

[§. 80] The eighth proposit on is, that any deliberate presumptuous act or commission of any sin, against which damnation, or not inheriting the Kingdom of heaven, is pronounced in the New Testament, being not immediately retracted by repentance, humiliation, and all the effects of godly sorrow, 2 Cor. 7. 11. is wholly irreconcilable with a good conscience. Such are Gal. 5. 19. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, (four distinct degrees of incontinence) Idolatry, witchcraft, (two degrees of impiety) hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings, murders, (nine degrees of the pride of life, or that other branch of carnality flowing from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or the irascible faculty) drunkenness, revelling, (the species of intemperance) and such like: and the same with some variation and addition, 1 Cor. 6. 9, 10. and Eph 5. 5. Everyone of these at the very commission have the nature of peccata sauciantia, wounding the Sinner to the heart, letting out a great deal of good blood and vital spirits, and weakening the habit of Christian virtue, of peccata clamantia, crying sins, the voice of conscience so wronged by them, calling to heaven for judgment against such oppressors, or perhaps Satan carrying an accusation thither against such offenders; and if upon this they be not straight retracted by an earnest contrition, humiliation and repentance, they then proceed farther to be (any one act of them) peccata vastantia conscientiam, Sins wasting & despoiling the conscience, betraying to some sadder punishment, even desertion, and withdrawing of grace, and delivering up to our own hearts lusts, a consequent of which are all vile affections, Rom. 1. and that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , cursing, Heb. 6. 8.

[§. 81] Just as it was the manner of the Jews Judicatures. He that was punished by their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 separation or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (not permirted to come near any man within four cubits) if he did not thereupon show and approve his repentance within the space of two months, on that contumacy was then smitten with their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the anathemation or execration, and sometimes cast into prison. So is God's dealing with the sinner remaining imperitent for such a space, subtraction of God's grace and spirit, the curse of the Gospel is his portion.

[§. 82] For the clearing of which truth yet fa • therr, twill be observable that the danger that arises from one sin of the first magnitude, against which the sentence is pronounced, that they who are guilty of such, shall never inherit eternal life, is or may be to him that after the knowledge of the truth relapses into it as great as that which is incurred by many lesser sins, or by a relapsing into a generality of impure life, and therefore the remaining in that one sin, will be as irreconcilable with a regenerate estate, as the remaining in many other, and proportionably one act of it as noxious and wasting to conscience, as apt to provoke God to withdraw his spirit, as many acts of those lesser sins, and though neither any single act either of lesser or greater sin in a sincere lover of Christ, presently retracted, (as it will be if he continue so) doth so grieve, as to quench God's spirit utterly, so provoke God, as to make him wholly withdraw his grace and totally desert him; yet if that one sin be continued in, favored and indulged to, either by multiplying more acts of it, or by no: expressing repentance for it by all those means which the Apostle requires of his incestuous Corinthian, or which are named as effects of godly sorrow, 2 Cor. 7. 11. this direful punishment of desertion is then to be expected as the reward of any one such sin, and from thence will follow any impossibility for that man so diserted ever to return to repentance again, God's speciallayde, which is now withdrawn, being absolutely necessary to that.

[§. 83] Where yet of those, that thus remain in any such sin, there is some difference; For some that so remain in sin, do so remain that they desire not to get out of it, hate to be reformed; others thoughensnared so in sin that they cannot get out, yet are very earnest and solicitous to find out some means to break through and escape out of those snares, and then this latter state of soul though it be not sufficient to give claim or right to mercy, (the victory over the world, the actual forsaking of all such sins being necessary to that, and not only our wishes that we were victorious) yet is it a nearer and more hopeful capacity of the grace of repentance, more likely to be blessed by the returning of God's spirit enabling to repent, then that former state of contemptuous continuers in the same sin appears to be.

[§. 84] For though in both these states there is no repenting without God's new gift of grace, and no absolute promise that God will be so gracious to such sinners, yet there is a place, 1 John 5. 16. which makes a difference between sin unto death, and sin not unto death (both of them states of impenitence and persisting in sin, but differing as the two latter degrees of excommunication did among the Jews, Cherem and Scammatha both noting a total separation, but the latter a final also, and by the composition of the word intimating death or desolation, giving up the sinner to divine vengeance, as hopeless or contumacious, in reference to which the phrase is here used, a sin unto death, whereas the other, of impenitence, not arrived to that desperate contumacy, is a state of curse under cherem and anathema, but not unto death yet▪ and allows this privilege to the prayers of faithful men for others, that they shall obtain life for those that have sinned not unto death, where that [the not being to death ] of a sin, is to be taken not from the matter of the sin, but from the disposition of the sinner, and so from this desiring to get out, though he remain in it, or somewhat answerable to that, might, if any doubt were made of it, be proved as by other arguments so by putting together the peculiar use of the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in that Author, for abiding and continuing in sin, and the no extenuation that such abiding is capable of (so far as to make one such abiding so much less then another such abiding, as that one should be called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the other not) save only this of wishing and heaving and laboring to get out, (which supposes some remainder of exciting, though not of Sanctifying or assisting grace) while the other goes on without any care or love or desire of reformation.

[§. 85] And though still there be no promise that such a relapst unreformed sinners prayers shall be heard for himself upon that bare desire to get out, which his praying for grace will suppose (there being no such promise of grace to the relapst person upon his prayer, as there is to any else) yet it is clear from that place of Saint John, that this privilege belongs to the prayers of other faithful penitents, for such a more moderate degree of unfaithful impenitents upon their request God will give life to such, i. e. such a degree of grace as shall be sufficient to enable them to recover back to repentance, of which being given them upon the others prayers, if they make use, (as infallibly they will if they were and continue to be really solicitous to get out of that state) they shall undoubtedly live eternally.

[§. 86] The practice of which doctrine of Saint John's thus explained, you shall see everywhere in the stories of, or canons for the paenitents, where they that for any sin of Ecclesiastical cognizance were excommunicated, did return to the peace of the Church, (an image of the peace of God) by several degrees, of which the first was, to stay and oft lie without the Church doors, and in the portch at hours of prayer; and desire those that retained the honor of being accounted faithful, and so had liberty to go into the Church, to pray to God for them. Which as the secure supine negligent impaenitent was not likely to do, so was he not to expect the benefit of it, nor the Christian brother obliged to pray for him, though yet by Saint John's [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 I say not of that or concerning that state of sin that he shall pray] I am not convinced that it were unlawful so to do.

[§. 87] By all this thus set and bounded with its due limitations, the truth of my eight Proposition will appear, of the unreconcileablenesse of such presumptuous acts of such branded sins unretracted, with a regenerate estate or good Conscience, as being indeed quite contrary to every part and branch of the premised ground of a good Conscience.

[§. 88] To which all that I shall add is only this, that he that tenders but the comforts of this life, i. e. of a Good Conscience, will be sure never to comm •• deliberately and presumptuously, or having by surreption fallen, never to lie down or continue one minuit unhumbled unreformed in any such sin, on which that direful fate is by Christ or his Apostles inscribed [shall not inherit the Kingdom of heaven] where yet as I shall not affirm that non • shall subject us to that danger but those which are there specified, (for there is added and such like, and other sins there may be committed with the like deliberation and presumption, and so as contrary to Conscience ) so shall I not say that all that commit any one act of any of these without that deliberation and presumption, or that are presen • lie by their own heart smitten and brought to repentance for them, shall incur that danger; for the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the doers and committers of them signify the deliberate committing and indulgent yielding to them, contrary to which the use of surreption▪ at the time and the instant subsequent retractation of them (by contrition, confession, forsaking, and reinforcement of greater care and vigilance for the future) will be sure means to deliver from that danger.

[§. 89] Whereto yet this caution must be annexed which may pass for

[§. 90] A ninth Proposition. That the frequency or repetition of any such acts after such contrition and resolution is an argument of the unsincerity of that contrition, of the deceavablenesse of that pretended greater care, and so a symptom of an ill conscience, as the spreading of the scall or leprosy after the Priests inspection is sufficient to pronounce the patient unclean. Levite. 13. and as that disease in the relapse may be mortal which at first was not.

[§. 91] Other more particular niceties I confess there are, the distinguishing of which might be useful for some men's states, and help disabuse them both out of an erroneous and a secure, yea and an over trembling conscience. But because that which would be thus proper to one, being laid down in common, or cast into the lottery, might have the ill hap to be drawn by him to whom it is not proper, (as that physic which would purge out a distemper from one, will breed a weakness in another) and because no wise man ever thought fit to take laws out of generalities, I shall resolve rather to obey such reasons, and to be directed by such examples, not to descend to particulars, then to be in danger first of tempting the Readers patience, then of interrupting his peace.