®92 W.,1.S 2¢. Iv. 12.4 we could hear their language, would very readily bid us beware to thwart with our Confceence, and to make it our enemy ? Wo to them that take an evil Confcience with them to their grave, it will be a worm that will gnaw eternally, and an inward potion and venom, flinging, burning, and inflaming the very bowels (as it were) and all that is within the man, beyond what is here concei- vable. We would therefore earnefily befèech and ob- teft you foberly to think on it ; for there are many of you whom this challenge and reproof will reach : And if we fhould fay otherwife to you, who never had it for your aim, to keep a good Confcience, and who were never exercifed to, nor ferioufly taken up with, religion, we would but cheat and beguile you. Is it poffible that ye can thwart with the law of God, and not allo thwart with your own Confcience ? Or, can you thwart with your light, and your Confcience be $ill filent ? Or, {hall the having and keeping of a good Confience be an exercife to Paul, and do you think to come fo eafily, and with- out all labour, to it ? Thefe, and other fuch,are palpable evidences of an ill Confcience : It is not Pure a good Con- fcience that yieldeth you peace and quietnefs in fuch a cafè, but it is your deep fecurity, and your being re- gardlefs of what Confcience faith, that lull and rock you alleep. For the ad, How cometh this to pals, or how can it be that men and women thus thwart with their Con fci.. ence ? mfwer, a fl. It needeth not at all to feem {frange, feeing God and his word are thwarted with : Will they think we, (land in awe of Confcience, who Hand not in awe of God, and who do not lay weight on his word, to regulate their Confcience by it ? This is the great ground of peoples thwarting with their Confcience, and of their regardtefiiefs of it, even their nor ftanding in awe of God. idly, The moil part never confider their obligation to Confcience, nor what is the confequence of thwarting with, or of going crofs to their Confcience; therefore it is, that they care not what Confcience faith. Is there ally confiderable number of perlons, who think, that thwarting their Confcience is filch a terrible thing, as it indeod, ant as one day it will be found to be ? Many had
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