tv driwfie SAINTS, if he can, when he fees it goes again his profit, or his cafe, or his credit, for he knows if he yeeld it to be a eonamandernent of God, his Conlcience will come over him and fay, why then ye mutt doe it ; as we read of the Priefla and the Elders, they would not mid that !ohms Baptifme was fiona heaven ; O if we lhould yceld that, why then, Chrift will fay, wk, ice ,et not be/eeve ? Math.ar ,a§. Mark the confcience comes o- vera man in all that he knowes God hath commanded, and it layes it to his charge ; and you mull doe this, and you nauft doe that, this is your duty; now when men fee this, they are apt to conclude that theirconfcience is alive; they thinke this is the life of their conleience to lay Gods commandments to their charge. Alas brethren, the con! ienee may be lead for all this, you fee this in people that are dead ira trefpates and lhlanes. All that the Lard frealtres, rbat avn5 !glee, Num.%3. 26. It was the fpeech of a very wretch ; thou mayll have this principle in thy Confeience, all that the Lord bids me, that muff I doe ; and yetbe a dead man. O how does this beguile people : bccaufe they feel: fach a principle in their confcience a dayes I O thinkes on all that the Lord bids me, that mull doe ; when people feele fuch a principle as this, they thinke they are well ; now if they doe offend at any time, they hold it to be but their infirmity ; and there's an end. But this is very falle ; the Confcienee may have this principle in it and be dead. Thirdly,a Confciencefomewhat awakened, may be trou- bled about his hones ; he may be troubled before he commits, he may be very loth to commit them ; as we fee there in Herod when he was betrayed with his rafla Oath, and he was now tempted to behead *John the Baptift, his Confcience made him very loth to doe it ; the Text Cayes, Ht mar exceeding farrow - fmll, Mark.6.a6. And the context fhewcs it was meerely, be- caufe he thought in his Cetsfcience, he fhould doe very ill to behead fo good a man, and therefore he was very loth ; he was troubled in conleiencc about it ; fo was Darius, when the Princes had wound him to caft David into the Lions Den, M na lie :65 i
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