A Treatip o f Con f cience. God. A mancan never go againft his confcience but he fin- neth, a. Becaufe confcience is our guide : It is our inward and our infeparable guide : we can never come by any direetion but by confcience; we can never let in the Commandment of God but only by confcience : and therefore the Lord hath made it a very foveraign thing, 2, Becaufe we break a com- mandment through the loyns of a finne, when we go againft confcience. efljax light upon a beaft and flew it : his confci ence thought verily it was a man ; Kill it not, faith confcience, it is a man : he goeth againft his confcience and killeth it. His confcience here was in an errour, yet he as truly guilty of mur- der before God as if he had indeed tlain a man,becaufe he flew a man through the loyns of this beaft : His bloody mind look- ed at a man, and (mote at a man, and flew a man. So when confcience is erroneous, and thinketh this is a Commandment of God; it is not fo, but he thinketh it fo in his confcience : if he do contrary he breaketh aCommandment though it be none, becaufe the errour of his confcience made it one to him. Was not tiered truly guilty of the murder of Chrift ? He thought in hisconfcience that Chrift had been among the infants Rain at Bethlehem. Thus confcience is a fuveraign thing : It is always a finne to go againft it,erre or not erre ; and Wit be a finne to go againft confcience when it erreth, what a finne is it to ao a- gainft it, when it doth not erre. If. 'This may ferve for a word of exhortation, to exhort men to beware lea they finne againft confcience ; efpecially when confcience is in the right. Confcience is as Gods face in a man : when confcience looketh on thee, the Lord looketh on thee. It is true, the Lord looketh on thee always : but thou maya fee the Lords looking upon thee when confcience look - eth on thee : And therefore thou never finned again[ confci- ence but thou provoke[ the Lord to his face, when not only God feeth thee, but thou feat him. Thy confcience fheweth thee the Lord ; it prefentethGod before thine eyes, comman- ding or forbidding, Wilt thou do the evil now ? Wilt thou omit the goodduty now ? When confcience findeth fault thou doll now provoke
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