A ?yreatife of G`onfcience. 22 knowledge. As good have no confcience at all , as confcience without knowledge ; for it cannot a c and performe its office. This is the reafon why fo many thoufands go on in their fumes without repentance, becaufe being ignorant they have no con- fcience to prick them thereunto; as Ter. 8, 6. No man repenteth him of his wickednejfe , laying , what have I done? Why, what was the reafon that confcience did not prick them, and fay, This thou haft done and that, Thus ye have rebelled, The text anfwereth in the next verle, My people know not the judgment of the Lord. The StorkkaoWeth her time, and the Turtle, and the Swallow; but my people do not know their duties. Another ufe is, to exhort us that we would labour to perfetì the light of confcience, that it may be able to guide us and di- rer} us unto heaven. Our confcience bath knowledge enough by the light of nature to make us inexcufable, and to clear the juftice ofGod though he fhould damne us for ever; but there muff be a greater light then that, that muff guide us to heaven. O let us pray to Chrift the true light to let up this light in us, that we may never be at a lofle in our way to happineffe, never ftep out of the right path but our confcience may be able to put us in again, never go (lowly but our confcience may fpurre us on faffer; that our confcience may not be like the fnuff of a candle in a locket, that flamech up now and then, and then is dark again, and again itilamech out and is dark again : A man may lee his book by it, but he cannot fee to read ; he may fee his his pen and ink by it, but he cannot fee to write; a woman may fee her needle and cloth by it, but the cannot fee to work; fo it is with fome mens confciences; Their light is fo dimme that they can fee the duties,but they cannot fee to do them;they can fee the commandments of God,but they cannot fee to obey them, O labour to perfeet the light of your confciences, that ye may lee to walk by them, And thus much alto of the fecond propofition , The light that con[ience atleth by is knowledge, Now I fhould come to the third propoftion, which as I firff propounded them was this,the bond that biandes confcience ú Gods Lam; But winnow a little alter the method, and make the other 7Jfe 2.
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