Two things make you confederates with the devil against your own souls : (1.) Your consent to this project for your damnation ; for so your own consciences out of the scriptures inform you it is : consent makes you a party. (2.) Your concealment of this plot brings you in as a party with him. Confess thy sin, and bewail it, saith conscience ; not so, saith pride and shame, how shall I look men in tlie face if* I do so ? Do not you, in all this, believe Satan, and make God a liar ? Do not you act as men that hate your own souls, and love death ? Prov. viii. 36. O it is a dreadful thing for men to be accessory to their own eternal ruin, and that after fair
9&6 AS APPENDIX TO EKGLA^Vs DUTY.
warning and notice given them by their own consciences. Satan (be his power what it will) cannot destroy you without your own consent.
Motive 4. Whilst you go on stifling your own convictions, and turning away your ears from its calls to repentance and reforma- tion, you cannot be pardoned ; you are in your sins, and the guilt of them all lies at your door. You may see what the terms of remission are, Isa. Iv. 7. " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous '* nian his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, and he will " have mercy on him ; and to our God, and he will abundantly *' pardon."" So agrai\, Prov. xxviii, 13. " He that hardeneth his *' neck shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh shall <* ihi?. moi-cy." You see by these, and may see by many more plain scripture-testimonies, there can be no hope of remission whilst you go on in this path of rebellion ; concealing, yea, and persisting in your known wickedness. There is a necessary and inseparable con- ne-'tion betwixt repentance and remission. Acts v. 31. and Luke x:> iv. 47. and can you endure guilt to be your bed-fellow during lil'., and your grave-fellow after death ?
Motive 5. You can never have peace with your OAvn consciences wlVilst you keep comdctions prisoners. Now a man's conscience is his best friend, or his worst enemy : thence are the sweetest com- forts, and thence are the bitterest sorrows. It is a dreadful thing for a man to he with a cold sweating horror upon his panting bosom. Turn palV'da mens e-'it criminihus, tacita sudant prcecordia culpa. And this (or which is worse) obduration and stupidity must be the case of them that hold the truth in unrighteousness. There can be no sounding a retreat to these terrors till Sheba's head be thrown over the walls ; I mean, till that sin your conscience convinceth you of, be delivered up. As Israel could have no peace till Achan was destroyed ; so thou shalt have no peace whijst thy sin is covered and hid. Men may cry peace, peace, to themselves whilst they continue in sin, Deut. xxix. 18, 19. but the sharpest troubles of conscience are better than such peace. Deliver up thyself, man, if thou love peace, into the hands of thy own convictions, and thou art in the true way to peace. Thy rejoicing must be in the testimony of thine own conscience, as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. i. 12. or thou rejoicest in a dream, in a delusion, in a thmg of nought.
Motive 6. What dreadful charges are you like to meet with upon your death-beds, on the account of those sins you have lived in, against knowledge and conviction ! conscience is never more active aad vigoious than in the last hours and moments of hfe. N )'iv it will be stifled and over-ruled no longer. It whispered before, bat now it thunders. If a man have a clear and quiet con- Bcience, his evening is clear, and his sun sets without clouds. See
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Psal. xxxvii. 37. The end of that man is peace. In contemplation of this felicity it was that Balaam uttered that wish, Let my last end be like his. This peace is the result of a man's integrity and obedience to the voice of conscience, this being the evidence we can most safely rely upon of our uprightness and interest in Christ ; but the result of such violations and abuses to thy conscience, cannot be peace to thy soul. It is true, some wicked men die in seeming peace, and some good men in trouble, but both the one and the other are mistalcen : the first, as to the good estate he fancies himself in, and the other as to his bad estate ; and a few moments will clear up the mistake of both.
Motive 7. Obedience to conviction will not only produce peace at death, but it will give you present ease, present relief and re- freshment in hand. No sooner did David resolve to obey the voice of conscience, in confessing his sin, but he had sensible ease in his own spirit, Psal. xxxii. 5. So Isa. xxxii. 17. " The fruit of righte- " ousness is peace, quietness, and assiu'ance for ever." On the contrary, you find in Job xx. 20. wicked men have no rest in their bellies, that is, in their consciences : for guilt lies boking there as a thorn in the flesh. And what is life worth without ease ? To live ever in pain, to live upon the rack, is not worth while to live. If then you love ease and quietness, obey your consciences ; pull out that thorn, I mean that sin that sticks fast in thy soul, and aches in thy conscience. Who would endure so mqch anguish for all th^ flattering pleasures of sin ?■
Motive 8. Convictions followed home and obeyed, are the inlets to Christ, and eternal salvation by him ; they are the first lead- ing work of the Spirit, in order to union with Christ, John xvi. 8. Till you obey and yield up yourselves to them, Christ is shut out of your souls ; 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, Christ stands without, offering himself graciously to you, but not admitted ; so that no less than your eternal happiness or misery depends on your obedience or disobedience to the voices and calls of your convic- tions.
Motive 9. Obey your convictions, honour their voices, and re- strain them not; then shall your consciences give a fair testimony for you at the judgment-seat of Christ. You read, 1 Pet. iii. 21. " Of the answer of a good conscience 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, sirs, it is not your baptism, your church privileges, the opinion men have of you ; but the testimony of your ccmsciences that must be your comfort. I know men are not justified at God's bar by their own
AN APPENDIX TO ENGLAND*S DUTY.
obedience, nor any exactness of life, it is only Christ's righteous- ness that is the sinner's plea ; but yet your obedience to the calls and voices of God and conscience, are your evidence that you are in Christ.