Durham - BV4615 D87 1732

zd, A too large and graft Confcience, which we fear is the foreft and rifeft ficknefs among Confciences, a Con- Pence that can eafily digeft many things, which being laid to the rule, would be found finful. A grofs Confci- ence is oppofite to tendernefs, and can hear of fin threat- ned, without fear, which it is lying under, it flandeth not on the offence of others ; As in Corinth, there were tome that went on in the ufe of their liberty without re- gard of their weak brethren, not caring whether they offended them or not ; it regardeth not other folks Confci- ence in indifferent things : It will not only confidently come near to ill, but hazard Qri ill, whereas all appearance of evil fhould be abftain'd from : As a narrow Confcience abideth over far aback; fo a grofs Confcience cometh over near ; it will put perfons to eat, to drink, and to, be clo- thed too liberally, prodigally and vainly ; becaufe thefe things are lawful. The following 3d, 4th, 5th fort of Confcience are degrees of one and the fame kind, fome whereof are in.- cident to believers, force not. The 3d is a fleepy Confcience, fuch as was in David, in a great meafure, when he fell in adultery, murder, and in the fin of vain numbring the people. Oppofite to this, is a wakned Confcience, that crieth loud, and knocketh hard ; the more fleepy and droufy that Confci- ence path been, it rappeth the louder and harder when it is wakned; therefore men had need to be fo much the more aware of the former grofs Confcience, that it draw not on a fleepy Confcience : And when Confcience fpeak- eth not, but is filent, now know that for the time there is ground to fear its being fallen afleep. A 4th fort is a hardned Confcience, which is, when, not only the Confcience is fleeping, but the life is much put out of it by habitual finning : And when men thus put our the light and life of their Confcience by finning, God is provoked to put it out by judicial hardning (as we fee in Pharaoh) that no challenge bites on him : There are Idler meafures and lower degrees of this that are incident even to the godly, and not only to feveral reprobates which come not to Pharaoh his height. A 5th fort is a cauterized Confcience' that is laid in the r

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