Pfal. xxxvii. 37. The end of that man is peace. In contemplation of this felicity it was that Balaam uttered that with, Let my laft end be like bis. This peace is the refult of a man's integrity and obedience to the voice of confcience, this being the evidence we can most fafely rely upon of our uprightnefs and intereft in Chrift; but the refult of fuch violations and abuses to thy conscience, cannot be peace to thy foul. It is true, fome wicked men die in feeming peace, and fome good men in trouble, but both the one and the other are miftaken the firft, as to the good eftate he fancies himself in, and the other as to his bad eftate; and a few moments will clear up the mistake of both. Mative 7. Obedience to conviction will not only produce peace at death, but it will give you prefent eafe, prefent relief and refreshment in hand. No fooner did David refolve to obey the voice of conscience, in confefling his fin, but he had fenfible cafe in his own fpirit, Pfal. xxxii. 5. So Ifa. xxxii. 17. "The fruit of righteoufnefs is peace, quietness and affurance for ever." On the contrary, you find in Job xx. 20. wicked men have no reft in their bellies, that is, in their confciences: for guilt lies boking there as a thorn in the flesh. And what is life worth without cafe? To live ever in pain, to live upon the rack, is not worth while to live. If then you love ease and quietnefs, obey your confciences; pull out that thorn, I mean that fin that sticks fast in thy foul, and aches in thy confcience. Who would endure so much anguifh for all the flattering pleafures of fin? ·་ Motive 8. Convictions followed home and obeyed, are the inlets to Chrift, and eternal falvation by him; they are the first leading work of the Spirit, in order to union with Chrift, John xvi. 8. Till you obey and yield up yourfelves to them, Christ is shut out of your fouls; he knocks, but finds no entrance. At your peril therefore be obedient to their calls: all the while you parley with your convictions, and demur to their demands, Chrift ftands without, offering himself graciously to you, but not admitted; fo that no less than your eternal happiness or mifery depends on your obedience or difobedience to the voices and calls of your convic tions. Motive 9. Obey your convictions, honour their voices, and reftrain them not; then fhall your confciences give a fair teftimony for you at the judgment-feat of Chrift. You read, 1 Pet. iii. 21. "Of the answer of a good confcience towards God;" than which nothing can be more comfortable: this gives a man boldness in the day of judgment, 1 John iv. 17. Believe it, firs, it is not your baptifm, your church privileges, the opinion men have of you; but the teftimony of your confciences that must be your comfort. I know men are not juftified at God's par by their own obedience, nor any exactness of life, it is only Chrift's righteoufnefs that is the finner's plea; but yet your obedience to the calls and voices of God and confcience, are your evidence that you are in Chrift. Motive 10. Laftly, confider what a choice mercy it is to be under fuch calls and convictions of confcience as are yet capable of being obeyed: it is not fo with men's convictions after this life. Confcience convinceth in hell as well as here, but all its convictions there are for torment, not recovery. O it is a choice mercy your convictions are yet medicinal, not purely penal; that you are not malo obfirmati, fo fixed in the state of fin and mifery as the damned are, but yet enjoy the faving benefit of your convictions; but this you will not enjoy long, therefore I beseech you, by all that is dear and valuable in your eyes, reverence your confciences, and let go the Lord's prifoners that lie bound within you. III. Use. I next come to expoftulate the matter with your consciences, and propound a few convictive queries to your fouls this day: I cannot but look upon this affembly with fear, jealoufy, and compaffion. I am afraid there be many of you in this wretched cafe, men and women, that hold the truths of God in unrighteousness, though the wrath of God be revealed from heaven against all them that do fo. Let me demand, Demand 1. Do not fome of you ftand convinced by your own confciences this day, that your hearts and lives, your principles and practices, are vastly different from the people of God among whom you live, and whofe characters your read in Scripture? Do not your own confciences tell you, that you never took that pains for your falvation you fee them daily take; that there be fome it may be in your families, nay, poffibly in your bofoms, that are serious and heavenly, whilft you are vain and earthly; that are in their chambers upon their knees, wrestling with God, whilft you are in your beds, or about the things of the world? And doth not confcience fometimes whifper thus into thine ear, Soul, thou art not right; fomething is wanting to make thee a Chriftian; thou wanteft that which others have; and except fomething further be done upon thee, thou wilt be undone for ever? If it be fo, let me advise thee to hearken diligently to this voice of conscience : do not dare to venture to the judgment-feat of God in fuch a cafe: ponder that text, Mat. xxi. 32. and let the disparity your confcience fhews you betwixt your own courfe and that of others, awaken you to more diligence and seriousness about your own falvation: how canft thou come from the alehoufe, or thy vain recreations, and find a wife or child in prayer, and thy confcience not fmite thee? It may be they have been mourning for thy fins, whilft thou hast been committing them. It may be there lives not far from thee a godly, poor man, who out of his hard and preffing labours redeems more time for his foul in a week, than ever thou didst in thy life. O hearken to the voice of thy confcience! elfe thou art he that holdest truth in unrighteoufnefs. Demand 2. Did thy confcience never meet thee in the way of fin, as the angel of the Lord met Balaam, with a drawn fword, brandishing the threatnings of God against thee? Did it not fay to thee, as a captain once faid to his foldiers about to retreat, he caft himself down in their way, faying, If you go this way, you fhall go over your captain, you shall trample him first under your feet? Stop, foul, ftop, faid thy confcience; this and that word of God is against thee: if thou proceed, thou must trample upon the fovereign authority of God, in this or that command; yet thy impetuous lufts have hurried thee forward: thou wouldst not fairly debate the cafe with thy confcience; and then did not thy confcience fay to thee, as Reuben fpake to his brethren, Gen. xlii. 22. "Spake I not unto you, faying, Do not fin against the child, "but you would not hear; therefore alfo his blood is required of "you?" If this has been your courfe of finning, verily you are the perfons that have held the truths of God in unrighteousness, and against you the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Demand 3. Have you not feen the wrath of God revealed from heaven against other finners that have gone before you in the very fame track and courfe of fin in which you now go, and yet you perfift in it, notwithstanding fuch dreadful warnings? Thus did Beltefhazzar, though he faw all that the God of heaven had done to his father, Dan. v. 20, 21, 22. You have feen great estates scattered, and their owners that got them by fraud and oppreffion reduced to beggary; and yet when a temptation is before you, you cannot forbear to take the advantage (as you call it) to get the gain of oppreffion. You have feen drunkards clothed with rags, and brought to miferable ends: adulterers feverely punished, their names and eftates, fouls and bodies blasted, and wasted by a fecret, but just stroke of God. Have you taken warning by these strokes of God, and hearkened to the monitions and cautions your consciences have thereupon given you? If not, thou art the man that holdeft the truth of God in unrighteousness. Demand 4. Do not you inwardly hate, and do not your hearts rife against neceffary and due reproofs given you by thofe that love your fouls better than yourfelves? If you hate a faithful reprover, though you know you justly deferve the reproof, and are guilty of the fin he reproves; if you recriminate, or deny in fuch 1 cafes, you are certainly fo far confederates with Satan against your own fouls, and imprison your own convictions. Demand 5. Have not fome of you apoftatized from your firft profeffion, and are not thofe hopeful bloffoms that once appeared upon your fouls blafted and gone? You had quick convictions, and melting affections, tendernets in your confciences, and zeal for duties but all is now vanished; your affections are grown cold, your duties omitted, though confcience often bids you remember from whence you are fallen, and do your firft works. You are the perfons guilty of this fin. Demand 6. Do none of you prefume upon future repentance, and fo make bold with your confciences for prefent, thinking to compound that way with it? This argues thee to be a felf-condemned man, and one that holdeft truth in unrighteoufnefs: thy fin is prefent and certain, thy repentance but a peradventure, 2 Tim. ii. 25. This is an high and a caring way of prefumptuous finning. Demand 7. Laftly, Have none of you taken the vows of God upon you, to reform your courfe, and break off your iniquities by repentance, when you have been under dangerous ficknefs on fhore, or dreadful tempefts at fea? Have you not faid, Lord, if thou wilt but spare and fave me this once, I will never live at the rate I have lived any more: try me, O Lord, this once; and yet when that affliction hath vanished, your purposes and promifes to God have vanifhed with it: you are the perfons that hold the known truths of God prifoners in your fouls; and to all these seven forts of finners, this text may juftly be as the hand-writing upon the wall once was, even a Mene Tekel, that may make thy very loins to shake. IV. Use. This doctrine winds up and finishes in directions for the prevention of fuch prefumptuous fins in men for time to come, that truth may have its free courfe through your fouls. Direction 1. And to this end my first counsel and direction is, that you fail not to put every conviction into speedy execution. Do not delay, it is a very critical hour, and delays are exceeding hazardous: convictions are fixed and fecured in men's fouls four ways. 1. By deep and ferious confideration, Pfal. cxix. 59. "I thought "upon my ways, and turned my feet to thy teftimonies." 2. By earneft prayer; thus Saul, under his first convictions, fell presently on his knees, Acts ix. 11. Behold, he prayeth: The warm breath of prayer foments and nourishes the fparks of conviction, that they be not extinct. 3. By diligent attendance on the word. The word begets it, and the word can, through God's bleffing preferve it, James i. 23, 24. 4. Prefent execution, falling, without delay, on the duty thou art convinced of. James i. 24. "Be not forgetful "hearers, but doers of the word; otherwife a man is as one that "looks into a glafs, and ftraightway forgets what manner of man "he was." Take the fenfe thus, a man looks into the glass in the morning, and there perhaps he fees a fpot on his face, a diforder in his hair, or clothes; and thinks with himfelf, well, I will rectify it anon; but being gone from the place, one thing or other diverts his mind, he forgets what he faw, and goes all the day with the spot on his face, never minding it any more. O brethren, delays are dangerous, fin is deceitful, Heb. iii. 13. Satan is fubtle, 2 Cor. xi. 3. and this way gains his point. This motto may be written on the tomb of moft that perith, Here lies one that was defroyed by delays. Your life is immediately uncertain, fo are the ftrivings of the Spirit alfo. Befides, there is a mighty advantage in the primus impetus, the firft heat of the foul. When thy heart is once up in warm affections and refolutions, the work may be eafily done; as a bell, if once up, goes easily, but is hard to raise when down. See 2 Chron. xxix. 35. what advantage there is in a prefent warm frame! Befide, the nature of these things is too ferious and weighty to be postponed and delayed. You cannot get out of the danger of hell, or into Chrift too foon. Moreover, every repetition of fin after conviction greatly aggravates it. For it is in finning as it is in numbering, if the first be one, the fecond is ten, the third a hundred, and the fourth a thousand. And to conclude, think what you will, you can never have a fitter season than the prefent: the fame difficulties you have to-day, you will have to-morrow, and it may be greater. Fall on prefently, therefore to execute your convictions. Direct. 2. If you would be clear from this great wickedness of holding the truth in unrighteoufnefs, then fee that you reverence the voice, and ftand in awe of the authority of your own confciences; and refolve with Job, "My heart fhall not reproach me "as long as I live," Job xxvii. 6. There are two confiderations apt to beget reverence in men to the voice of their own confciences. 1. It is our best friend when pure and unviolated. 2. It is our worst enemy, when wounded and affronted. 1. Confcience obeyed, and kept pure and inviolate, is thy best friend on earth. 2 Cor. i. 12. "This is our rejoicing, "the teftimony of our confciences." The very athens could fay, |