case for after all He may do what he will as I have clearly shewn But what is fit for us to do and what we have reason to expect if notwithstanding a plain and express threatning of the vengeance of eternal fire we still go on to treasure up to our selves wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous Judgment of God and will desperately put it to the hazard whether and how far God will execute his threatnings upon Sinners in another World And therefore there is no need why we should be very sollicitously concern'd for the honour of God's Justice or Goodness in this matter Let us but take care to believe and avoid the Threatnings of God and then how terrible soever they are no harm can come to us And as for God let us not doubt but that he will take care of his own Honour and that He who is holy in all his ways and righteous in all his works will do nothing that is repugnant to his eternal Goodness and Righteousness and that He will certainly so manage things at the Judgment of the Great Day as to be justified in his sayings and to be righteous when we are judged For notwithstanding his Threatnings he hath reserved Power enough in his own hands to do right to all his Perfections So that we may rest assur'd that he will judge the world in righteousness and if it be any-wise inconsistent either with Righteousness or Goodness which He knows much better than we do to make Sinners miserable for ever that He will not do it nor is it credible that he would threaten Sinners with a Punishment which he could not justly execute upon them Therefore Sinners ought always to be afraid of it and reckon upon it And always to remember that there is great Goodness and Mercy in the severity of God's Threatnings and that nothing will more justify the infliction of eternal Torments than the foolish presumption of Sinners in venturing upon them notwithstanding such plain and terrible Threatnings This I am sure is a good Argument to all of us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling and with all possible care to endeavour the prevention of that misery which is so terribly severe that at present we can hardly tell how to reconcile it with the Justice and Goodness of God This God heartily desires we would do and hath solemnly sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live So that here is all imaginable care taken to prevent our miscarriage and all the assurance that the God of Truth can give us of his unwillingness to bring this misery upon us And both these I am sure are arguments of great Goodness For what can Goodness do more than to warn us of this misery and earnestly to persuade us to prevent it and to threaten us so very terribly on purpose to deterr us from so great a danger And if this will not prevail with us but we will still go on to despise the riches of God's goodness and long suffering and forbearance what in reason remains for us but a fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation to consume us And what almost can Justice or even Goodness it self do less than to inflict that punishment upon us which with eyes open we would wilfully run upon and which no warning no persuasion no importunity could prevail with us to avoid And when as the Apostle says knowing the Judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death yet for all that we would venture to commit them And therefore whatever we suffer we do but inherit our own choice and have no reason to complain of God who hath set before us Life and Death eternal Happiness and Misery and hath left us to be the Carvers of our own Fortune And if after all this we will obstinately refuse this happiness and wilfully run upon this Misery Wo unto us for we have rewarded evil to our selves You see then by all that hath been said upon this Argument what we have all reason to expect if we will still go on in our Sins and will not be brought to Repentance You have heard what a terrible Punishment the just God hath threatned to the Workers of Iniquity and that in as plain words as can be used to express anything These that is the wicked shall go away into everlasting Punishment but the righteous into Life eternal Here are Life and Death Happiness and Misery set before us Not this frail and mortal Life which is hardly worth the having were it not in order to a better and happier Life nor a temporal Death to get above the dread whereof should not methinks be difficult to us were it not for the bitter and terrible consequences of it But an eternal Life and an eternal enjoyment of all things which can render Life pleasant and happy and a perpetual Death which will for ever torment us but never make an end of us These God propounds to our choice And if the consideration of them will not prevail with us to leave our sins and to reform our lives what will Weightier Motives cannot be propos'd to the understanding of Man than everlasting Punishment and Life eternal than the greatest and most durable happiness and the most intolerable and lasting misery that human Nature is capable of Now considering in what terms the Threatnings of the Gospel are express'd we have all the reason in the world to believe that the Punishment of Sinners in another world will be everlasting However we cannot be certain of the contrary time enough to prevent it not till we come there and find by experience how it is And if it prove so it will then be too late either to prevent that terrible Doom or to get it revers'd Some comfort themselves with the uncomfortable and uncertain hope of being discharg'd out of Being and reduc'd to their first Nothing at least after the tedious and terrible suffering of the most grievous and exquisite Torments for innumerable Ages And if this should happen to be true good God! how feeble how cold a comfort is this Where is the Reason and Understanding of Men to make this their last Refuge and Hope and to lean upon it as a matter of mighty consolation that they shall be miserable beyond all imagination and beyond all patience for God knows how many Ages Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge No right sense and judgment of things No consideration and care of themselves no concernment for their own lasting Interest and Happiness Origen I know not for what good reason is said to have been of opinion That the punishment of Devils and wicked men after the Day of Judgment will continue but for a thousand years and that after that time they shall all be finally saved I can very hardly persuade my self that so wise
an instant and with the greatest ease and no created Power can put any difficulty in his way much less make any effectual resistance because Omnipotency can check and countermand and bear down before it all other Powers So that if God be on our side who can be against us We may safely commit our Souls into his hands for he is able to keep that which is committed to him He can give us all good things and deliver us from all evil for his is the Kingdom and the glorious Power Though all Creatures should fail us we may rely upon God and live upon his All-sufficiency for our supply and may say with the Prophet Though the Fig-tree should not blossom neither Fruit be in the Vine though the labour of the Olive should fail and the Fields should yield no meat though the Flock should be cut off from the Fold and there should be no Herd in the Stalls yet would I rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my Salvation Secondly As God is an All-sufficient Good so He is perfect Goodness He is willing to communicate happiness to us and to employ his Power and Wisdom for our good He made us that he might make us happy and nothing can hinder us from being so but our selves Such is his goodness that he would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth And when we have provoked him by our sins he is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance For he delighteth not in the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live So that if any of us be miserable it is our own choice if we perish our destruction is of our selves For as the Wiseman in one of the Apocryphal Books says excellently God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living But men seek death in the error of their life and pull destruction upon themselves with the works of their own hands So great is the goodness of God to mankind that he hath omitted nothing that is necessary to our happiness He design'd it for us at first and to that end he hath endowed us with Powers and Faculties whereby we are capable of knowing and loving and obeying and enjoying Him the chief Good And when we had forfeited all this by the wilful transgression and disobedience of the first Parents of mankind and were miserably bruised and maimed by their fall God of his infinite mercy was pleas'd to restore us to a new capacity of happiness by sending his only Son to suffer in our nature and in our stead and thereby to become a Propitiation for the sins of the whole World and the Author of eternal Salvation to them that believe and obey him And he hath likewise promised to give us his Holy Spirit to enable us to that Faith and Obedience which the Gospel requires of us as the necessary conditions of our eternal Salvation Thirdly God is also a firm and unchangeable Good Notwithstanding his infinite Wisdom and Power and Goodness we might be miserable if God were mutable For that cannot be a happiness which depends upon uncertainties and perhaps one of the greatest aggravations of misery is to fall from happiness to have been once happy and afterwards to cease to be so And that would unavoidably happen to us if the cause of our happiness could change and the foundation of it be removed If God could be otherwise than powerful and wise and good all our hopes of happiness would be shaken and would fall to the ground But the Divine nature is not subject to any change As he is the Father of lights and the Author of every good and perfect gift so with him is no variableness neither shadow of turning All the things of this World are mutable and for that reason had they no other imperfection belonging to them cannot make us happy Fourthly God is such a good as none can deprive us of and take away from us If the things of this World were unchangeable in their nature and not liable to any decay yet they cannot make us happy because we may be cheated of them by fraud or robb'd of them by violence But God cannot be taken from us Nothing but our Sins can part God and us Who shall separate us saith the Apostle from the love of God shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword We may be stripp'd of all our worldly Comforts and Enjoyments by the violence of men but none of all these can separate us from God I am persuaded as the Apostle goes on with great triumph that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor heighth nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nor any other Creature Here is a sufficient induction of particulars and nothing left out of this Catalogue but one and that is Sin which is none of God's Creatures but our own This indeed deliberately consented to and wilfully continued in will finally part God and us and for ever hinder us from being happy But if we be careful to avoid this which only can separate between God and us nothing can deprive us of Him The aids and influences of his Grace none can intercept and hinder the joys and comforts of his Holy Spirit none can take from us All other things may leave us and forsake us We may be debarr'd of our best friends and banish'd from all our acquaintance but men can send us no whither from the presence of God Our Communication with Heaven cannot be prevented or interrupted Our Prayers and our Souls will always find the way thither from the uttermost parts of the Earth Fifthly God is an eternal God And nothing but what is so can make us happy Man having an immortal Spirit and being design'd for an endless duration must have a happiness proportionable For which reason nothing in this World can make us happy because we shall abide and remain after it When a very few years are past and gone and much sooner for any thing we know all the things of this World will leave us or else we shall be taken away from them But God is from everlasting to everlasting He is the same and his years fail not Therefore well might David fix his happiness upon God alone and say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee When my heart faileth and my strength faileth God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Sixthly God is able to support and comfort us in every condition and under all the accidents and adversities of humane Life Outward afflictions may hurt our Body but they cannot reach our
and that men who are resolv'd to continue in an evil course are glad to be of a Church which will assure Salvation to men upon such terms The great difficulty is for men to believe that things which are so apparently absurd and unreasonable can be true and to persuade themselves that they can impose upon God by such pretences of service and obedience as no wise Prince or Father upon earth is to be deluded withal by his Subjects or Children We ought to have worthier thoughts of God and to consider that He is a great King and will be obey'd and observ'd by his creatures in his own way and make them happy upon his own terms and that obedience to what he commands is better and more acceptable to him than any other sacrifice that we can offer which he hath not required at our hands and likewise that he is infinitely wise and good and therefore that the Laws which he hath given us to live by are much more likely and certain means of our happiness than any inventions and devices of our own Thirdly I observe that even the better and more considerate sort of Christians are not so careful and watchful as they ought to prepare themselves for Death and Judgment whilst the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept Even the Disciples of our Saviour whilst he was yet personally present with them and after a particular charge given them from his own mouth Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation yet did not keep that guard upon themselves as to watch with him for one hour In many things says St. James we offend all even the best of us And who is there that doth not some time or other remit of his vigilancy and care so as to give the Devil an advantage and to lye open to temptation for want of a continual guard upon himself But then the difference between the wise and foolish Virgins was this that tho they both slept yet the wise did not let their Lamps go out they neither quitted their Profession nor did they extinguish it by a bad life and tho when the Bridegroom came suddenly upon them they were not so actually prepar'd to meet him by a continual vigilancy yet they were habitually prepar'd by the good disposition of their minds and the general course of a holy life Their Lamps might burn dim for want of continual trimming but they had Oyl in their Vessels to supply their Lamps which the foolish Virgins had taken no care to provide But surely the greatest wisdom of all is to maintain a continual watchfulness that so we may not be surpriz'd by the coming of the Bridegroom and be in a confusion when Death or Judgment shall overtake us And blessed are those Servants and wise indeed whose Lamps always burn bright and whom the Bridegroom when he comes shall find watching and in a fit posture and preparation to meet Him Fourthly I observe likewise how little is to be done by us to any good purpose in this great work of Preparation when it is deferr'd and put off to the last And thus the foolish Virgins did but what a sad confusion and hurry they were in at the sudden coming of the Bridegroom when they were not only asleep but when after they were awaken'd they found themselves altogether unprovided of that which was necessary to trim their Lamps and to put them in a posture to meet the Bridegroom When they wanted that which was necessary at that very instant but could not be provided in an instant I say what a tumult and confusion they were in being thus surpriz'd the Parable represents to us at large vers 6 7 8 9. and at midnight there was a cry made Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him Then all those Virgins arose and trimmed their Lamps that is they went about it as well as they could and the foolish said unto the wise give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are gone out At midnight there was a cry made that is at the most dismal and unseasonable time of all other when they were fast asleep and suddenly awaken'd in great terror when they could not on the sudden recollect themselves and consider what to do when the summons was so very short that they had neither time to consider what was fit to be done nor time to do it in And such is the Case of those who put off their Repentance and Preparation for another World till they are surpriz'd by Death or Judgment for it comes all to one in the issue which of them it be The Parable indeed seems more particularly to point at our Lord 's coming to Judgment but the case is much the same as to those who are surpriz'd by sudden Death such as gives them but little or not sufficient time for so great a work because such as Death leaves them Judgment will certainly find them And what a miserable confusion must they needs be in who are thus surpriz'd either by the one or the other How unfit should we be if the general Judgment of the World should come upon us on the sudden to meet that great Judge at his coming if we have made no preparation for it before that time What shall we then be able to do in that great and universal consternation when the Son of man shall appear in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory when the Sun shall be darken'd and the Moon turned into blood and all the powers of Heaven shall be shaken when all Nature shall feel such violent pangs and convulsions and the whole World shall be in a combustion flaming and cracking about our ears When the Heavens shall be shrivel'd up as a Scroll when it is roll'd together and the Earth shall be toss'd from its Center and every Mountain and Island shall be removed What thoughts can the wisest men then have about them in the midst of so much noise and terror Or if they could have any what time will there then be to put them in execution when they shall see the Angel that standeth upon the Sea and upon the Earth lifting up his hand to Heaven and swearing by Him that liveth for ever and ever that Time shall be no longer as this dreadful Day is described Rev. 10.5 6. and chap. 6.15 where Sinners are represented at the Appearance of this Great Judge not as flying to God in hopes of mercy but as flying from Him in utter despair of finding mercy with Him The Kings of the Earth and the Great Men and the Mighty Men and the Rich Men and the Great Captains hid themselves in the Dens and in the Rocks of the Earth and said to the Mountains and Rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb For the Great Day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand The biggest and the boldest Sinners
not enter into his Rest yet we are to consider that both the tenour of the Sentence which our Blessed Saviour hath assur'd us will be pass'd upon them at the Judgment of the Great Day Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire and likewise this Declaration in the Text that the Wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment though they do not restrain God from doing what he pleases yet they cut off from the Sinner all reasonable hopes of the relaxation or mitigation of them For since the great Judge of the World hath made so plain and express a Declaration and will certainly pass such a Sentence it would be the greatest folly and madness in the world for the Sinner to entertain any hope of escaping it and to venture his soul upon that hope I know but one thing more commonly said upon this Argument that seems material And that is this That the words death and destruction and perishing whereby the punishment of wicked men in the other World is most frequently express'd in Scripture do most properly import annihilation and an utter end of Being and therefore may reasonably be so understood in the matter of which we are now speaking To this I answer that these words and those which answer them in other Languages are often both in Scripture and other Authors used to signify a state of great misery and suffering without the utter extinction of the miserable Thus God is often in Scripture said to bring destruction upon a Nation when he sends great Judgments upon them though they do not exterminate and make an utter end of them And nothing is more common in most Languages than by perishing to express a person's being undone and made very miserable As in that known passage in Tiberius his Letter to the Roman Senate Let all the Gods and Goddesses saith he destroy me worse than at this very time I feel my self to perish c. in which Saying the words destroy and perish are both of them us'd to express the miserable anguish and torment which at that time he felt in his mind as Tacitus tells us at large And as for the word Death a state of misery which is as bad or worse than death may properly enough be call'd by that name And for this reason the punishment of wicked men after the Day of Judgment is in the Book of the Revelation so frequently and fitly call'd the second death And the Lake of fire into which the wicked shall be cast to be tormented in it is expresly call'd the second death But besides this they that argue from the force of these words that the punishment of wicked men in the other world shall be nothing else but an utter end of their Being do necessarily fall into two great inconveniencies First That hereby they exclude all positive punishment and torment of Sinners For if the second death and to be destroy'd and to perish signify nothing else but the Annihilation of Sinners and an utter extinction of their Being and if this be all the effect of that dreadful Sentence which shall be pass'd upon them at the Day of Judgment then the Fire of Hell is quench'd all at once and is only a frightful Metaphor without any meaning But this is directly contrary to the tenour of Scripture which doth so often describe the punishment of wicked men in Hell by positive torments And particularly our Blessed Saviour describing the lamentable state of the damned in Hell expresly says that there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which cannot be if Annihilation be all the meaning and effect of the Sentence of the Great Day Secondly Another inconvenience of this Opinion is that if Annihilation be all the punishment of Sinners in the other World then the punishment of all Sinners must of necessity be equal because there are no degrees of Annihilation or not-being But this also is most directly contrary to Scripture as I have already shewn I know very well that some who are of this Opinion do allow a very long and tedious time of the most terrible and intolerable torment of Sinners and after that they believe that there shall be an utter end of their Being But then they must not argue this from the force of the Words before mentioned because the plain inference from thence is that Annihilation is all the punishment that wicked men shall undergo in the next Life And if that be not true as I have plainly shewn that it is not I do not see from what other words or expressions in Scripture they can find the least ground for this Opinion that the torment of wicked men shall at last end in their Annihilation And yet admitting all this for which I think there is no ground at all in Scripture I cannot see what great comfort Sinners can take in the thought of a tedious time of terrible torment ending at last in Annihilation and the utter extinction of their Beings Thirdly We may consider further that the primary end of all Threatnings is not punishment but the prevention of it For God does not threaten that men may sin and be punish'd but that they may not sin and so may escape the punishment threaten'd And therefore the higher the threatning runs so much the more mercy and goodness there is in it because it is so much the more likely to hinder men from incurring the penalty that is threatned Fourthly Let it be consider'd likewise that when it is is so very plain that God hath threatned eternal misery to impenitent Sinners all the prudence in the World obliges men to believe that he is in good earnest and will execute these threatnings upon them if they will obstinately stand it out with him and will not be brought to Repentance And therefore in all reason we ought so to demean our selves and so to perswade others as knowing the terrour of the Lord and that they who wilfully break his Laws are in danger of eternal Death To which I will add in the Fifth and last place That if we suppose that God did intend that his threatnings should have their effect to deterr men from the breach of his Laws it cannot be imagin'd that in the same Revelation which declares these threatnings any intimation should be given of the abatement or non-execution of them For by this God would have weaken'd his own Laws and have taken off the edge and terror of his threatnings Because a threatning hath quite lost its force if we once come to believe that it will not be executed And consequently it would be a very impious design to go about to teach or perswade any thing to the contrary and a betraying men into that misery which had it been firmly believ'd might have been avoided We are all bound to preach and You and I are all bound to believe the terrors of the Lord. Not so as sawcily to determine and pronounce what God must do in this
Sir Thomas Pilkington Lord-Mayor of the City of London AND THE Court of Aldermen MY LORD IN Obedience to Your Commands I have publish'd this Sermon lately preach'd before You and do now humbly present you with it heartily wishing it may have that good effect for the reformation of our Lives and reconciliation of our unhappy Differences which was sincerely intended by MY LORD Your most Faithful and Humble Servant JOHN TILLOTSON The way to prevent the Ruin of a Sinful People Jeremiah VI. 8 Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a land not inhabited THese Words are a merciful warning from God to the People of Israel by the Prophet Jeremiah the last Prophet that God sent to them before their Captivity in Babylon The time of his Prophecy was of a long continuance above the space of forty years viz. from the thirteenth year of King Josiah to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah the year in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon This I observe to shew the great patience of God to a sinful Nation And this is much the same space of time that God gave warning by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles to the same People of the Jews concerning their final Destruction For it was about forty years after the Prediction of our Saviour concerning it just before his Death that the terrible Destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation was executed upon them by the Romans or rather chiefly by themselves as I shall presently shew Of which dreadful Desolation the first taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and their Captivity into Babylon was a kind of Type and Forerunner For as Josephus observes the taking of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian did happen in the very same Month and on the very same Day of the Month in which Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar viz. upon our tenth of August And it is not unworthy of our observation that the time of God's warning is wont to hold some sort of proportion with the extent of his Judgments Before the universal Deluge which destroyed the whole World Noah and his Family only excepted God gave a much longer warning by the preaching of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years Before the destruction of a particular Nation if we may judge by God's dealing with the Jews his time of warning is forty years And before the destruction of a particular City if we may conclude any thing from the single example of Niniveh the time of God's warning is yet much shorter the space of forty days And now to what end doth God exercise so much patience and threaten so long beforehand but that by the terror of his threatnings men may be brought to repentance and by repentance may prevent the execution of them For all the while that God by his Prophet threatens ruin and destruction to the People of Israel he earnestly invites and urges them to repentance that by this means they might escape the ruin that was denounced against them This being a condition perpetually implyed in the denunciation of publick judgments that if a People repent of the evil of their doings God also will repent of the evil which he said he would do unto them as he expresly declares chap. 18. vers 7 8. At what instant I speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it if that Nation against whom I have pronounc'd turn from their evil I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them And here in the Text after God had threaten'd destruction to Jerusalem because of the overflowing of all manner of wickedness and oppression in the midst of her he gives her a merciful warning to prevent this ruin and desolation by repentance vers 6 7. Thus hath the Lord of Hosts said Hew ye down trees and cast a mount against Jerusalem this is a City to be visited she is wholly oppression in the midst of her As a fountain casteth out waters so she casteth out her wickedness Before me continually is grief and wounds And yet when he had pronounced this fearful Sentence upon her he tells her that all this misery and desolation might yet be prevented if they would but hearken to the counsel of God and be instructed by him concerning the things of their peace For so it follows in the next words Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a land not inhabited Be thou instructed O Jerusalem that is do but now at last take that counsel and warning which hath so often and so long been tender'd to thee by my servant the Prophet who hath now for the space of forty years continually and that with great earnestness and importunity been warning thee of this danger and calling thee to repentance and a better mind Lest my soul depart from thee In the Hebrew it is Lest my soul be loosened and disjointed from thee as it is in the margin of your Bibles hereby signifying in the most emphatical manner the wonderful affection and kindness which God had for his People and how strongly his soul was link'd to them and how loth he was to withdraw his love from them it was like the tearing off of a limb or the plucking of a joint in sunder so unwilling is God to come to extremity so hardly is he brought to resolve upon the ruin even of a sinful Nation How much rather would he that they would be instructed and receive correction and hearken to the things of their peace But if they will not be persuaded if no warning will work upon them his spirit will not always strive with them but his soul will at last though with great unwillingness and reluctancy depart from them And then no intercession will prevail for them as he threatens by the same Prophet chap. 15. verse 1. Then said the Lord unto me though Moses and Samuel stood before me yet my mind could not be towards this People cast them out of my sight and let them go forth away with them into Captivity for they have lost my heart and no intercession of others for them nothing but their own repentance can recover it And when his Soul is once departed from a People and his heart turn'd against them then all sorts of evils and calamities will be let loose upon them as we may read in the next verse of that Chapter And it shall come to pass if they say unto thee whither shall we go forth Then shalt thou tell them Thus saith the Lord such as are for death to death and such as are for the sword to the sword and such as are for the famine to the famine and such as are for the captivity to the captivity For then God will be weary of repenting as he tells them verse 6. Thou hast forsaken me saith the Lord thou art
Place to consider the principle and immediate Guide of our Actions which St. Paul here tells us was his Conscience I exercise my self to have always a conscience void of offence By which he does not only mean a resolution to follow the dictate and direction of his Conscience but likewise a due care to inform his Conscience aright that he might not in any thing transgress the Law of God and his Duty Conscience is the great Principle of moral Actions and our Guide in matter of Sin and Duty It is not the Law and Rule of our Actions that the Law of God only is but it is our immediate Guide and Directour telling us what is the Law of God and our Duty But because Conscience is a word of a very large and various signification I shall endeavour very briefly to give you the true notion of it Now in common speech concerning Conscience every man is represented as having a kind of Court and Tribunal in his own breast where he tries himself and all his Actions And Conscience under one Notion or other sustains all parts in this Tryal The Court is call'd the Court of a man's Conscience and the Barr at which the Sinner stands impleaded is call'd the Barr of Conscience Conscience also is the Accuser and it is the Record and Register of our Crimes in which the memory of them is preserv'd And it is the Witness which gives testimony for or against us hence are those expressions of the testimony of our Consciences and that a man 's own Conscience is to him instead of a thousand Witnesses And it is likewise the Judge which declares the Law and what we ought or ought not to have done in such or such a Case and accordingly passeth Sentence upon us by acquitting or condemning us Thus according to common use of Speech Conscience sustains all imaginable parts in this Spiritual Court It is the Court and the Bench and the Barr the Accuser and Witness and Register and all But I shall only at present consider Conscience in the most common and famous Notion of it as it is the Principle or Faculty whereby we judge of moral Good and Evil and do accordingly direct and govern our Actions So that in short Conscience is nothing else but the Judgment of a man 's own mind concerning the morality of his actions that is the Good or Evil or Indifferency of them telling us what things are commanded by God and consequently are our Duty what things are forbidden by Him and consequently are sinful what things are neither commanded nor forbidden and consequently are indifferent I proceed in the V th Place to give some Rules and Directions for the keeping of a conscience void of offence And they shall be these following First Never in any case to act contrary to the persuasion and conviction of our Conscience For that certainly is a great Sin and that which properly offends the Conscience and renders us guilty guilt being nothing else but trouble arising in our minds from a consciousness of having done contrary to what we are verily persuaded was our Duty And though perhaps this persuasion is not always well grounded yet the guilt is the same so long as this persuasion continues because every man's Conscience is a kind of God to him and accuseth or absolves him according to the present persuasion of it And therefore we ought to take great care not to offend against the light and conviction of our own mind Secondly We should be very careful to inform our Consciences aright that we may not mistake concerning our Duty or if we do that our errour and mistake may not be grosly wilful and faulty And this Rule is the more necessary to be consider'd and regarded by us because generally men are apt to think it a sufficient excuse for any thing that they did it according to their Conscience But this will appear to be a dangerous mistake and of very pernicious consequence to the Souls of men if we consider these two things 1 st That men may be guilty of the most heinous Sins in following an erroneous Conscience 2 ly And these Sins may prove damnable without a particular repentance for them 1 st That men may be guilty of the most heinous Sins in following an erroneous Conscience Men may neglect and abuse themselves so far as to do some of the worst and wickedest things in the World with a persuasion that they do well Our Saviour tells his Disciples that the time should come when the Jews should put them to death thinking they did God good service Nay the Jews murthered the Son of God himself through ignorance and a false perswasion of mind Father forgive them says our Blessed Lord when he was breathing out his Soul upon the Cross for they know not what they do And St. Peter after he had charged the Jews with killing the Prince of Life he presently adds I wote that through ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers And St. Paul in mitigation of that great Crime says Had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory And concerning himself he tells us That he verily thought with himself that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus of Nazareth And yet notwithstanding that he acted herein according to the persuasion of his Conscience he tells us that he had been a blasphemer and a persecutour and injurious and a murtherer and in a word the greatest of Sinners So that Men may be guilty of the greatest Sins in following an erroneous Conscience And 2ly These Sins may prove damnable without a particular repentance for them Where the ignorance and mistake is not grosly wilful there God will accept of a general repentance but where it is grosly wilful great Sins committed upon it are not pardon'd without a particular Repentance for them And an errour which proceeds from want of ordinary human care and due Government of a man's self is in a great degree wilful As when it proceeds from an unreasonable and obstinate prejudice from great pride and self-conceit and contempt of counsel and instruction or from a visible byass of self-interest or when it is accompanied with a furious passion and zeal prompting men to cruel and horrible things contrary to the light of nature and the common sense of humanity An errour proceeding from such causes and producing such effects is wilful in so high a degree that whatever evil is done in vertue of it is almost equally faulty with a direct and wilful violation of the Law of God The ignorance and mistake doth indeed make the person so mistaken more capable of forgiveness which is the ground of our Saviour's Prayer for his Murtherers Father forgive them for they know not what they do St. Paul likewise tells us that he found mercy upon this account Nevertheless says he I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and in