ety and devotion towards God; chafte and temperate in reference to ourselves; just and honest, kind and charitable, humble and meek, patient and peaceable, towards all men; fubmiffive and obedient to our fuperiors, natural, civil, and fpiritual. A due regard to these great virtues of the Christian life, is the way to keep a confcience void of offence toward God, and toward men. And furely the best means to have our doubts cleared about matters of leffer moment in religion, is, heartily to fet about the practice of the great and unquestionable duties of it. So our blessed Saviour hath affured us, that if any man will do the will of God, he shall know of his doctrine whether it be of God, John vii. 17. I come now, in the

VI. Sixth and last place, to confider the great motive and encouragement to this confcientious care of our lives and actions; which St. Paul here tells us was, his belief of a refurrection, and of the rewards and punishments confequent upon it: I have hope (fays he) towards God, that there fhall be a refurrection both of the just and unjust : for this caufe, therefore, I exercife myself to have always a confcience void of offence toward God, and toward men.

If we believe the refurrection of the dead and a future judgment, we ought to be very careful to discharge a good confcience now, in order to the rendering of a good account hereafter; that we may be fincere and without offence, with respect to the day of Chrift, as the Apostle expreffeth it. For when that great day of recompences fhall come, we shall most affuredly find, that no-thing will then raise our hearts, and make us to lift up our heads with joy, like the witness of a good confcience and therefore we fhould make that our conftant care and companion now, which will then be our great comfort and rejoicing, a good confcience, and the teftimony of it, that in all fimplicity and godly fincerity we have had our converfation in the world.

And, on the contrary, when we come to appear before the great judge of the world, nothing will fill our minds with fo much terror, and our faces with fo muchconfufion, as the clamorous accufations of a guilty confcience; which will be more than a thousand witneffes against us, and will anticipate our condemnation, and

Ff3

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pass almost as severe a sentence upon us as the judge himself can.

This is that which will make the finner to droop, and to hang down his head for ever. And one of the principal ingredients of his mifery and torment will be, the perpetual regret and remorfe of his own mind for his wilful wickedness and folly; which will kindle a fire within him as hot as that without him, and as hard to be quenched.

This confideration ought to have a mighty operation upon us, to make us very careful to have confciences void of offence now, that they may be free from torment and anguish hereafter; that when we fhall come into the other world, we may not be eternally displeased with ourselves, and enraged at our own doings; but may carry with us thither confciences clear of all guilt, either by innocency, or by repentance.

The firm belief of a future ftate of eternal happiness or mifery in another world, is the great weight or fpring that fets a-going those two powerful principles of human activity, the hopes and the fears of men; and is in its nature fo fitted to raise these passions to that degree, that, did not experience fhew us the contrary, one would think it morally impossible for human nature to resist the mighty force of it."

All men are fenfible, more or lefs, at one time or other, of the true force of thefe arguments: but the mifchief is, that in fome perfons they work quite the wrong way; and, instead of leading men to repentance, they drive them to infidelity. They cannot deny the force of these arguments, if they were true; but, that they may avoid the force of them, they will not believe them to be true. And fo far they are in the right, that, granting these things to be true, they cannot but acknowledge that they ought to live otherwife than they do. But here is their fatal miscarriage, that being refolved upon an evil course, fince they cannot reconcile their practice with fuch principles as thefe, they will fit their principles to their practice; and fo they will believe nothing at all of the rewards and punifliments of another world, left this fhould difturb them in their courfe. Vain men! as if heaven and hell muft needs

vanish and disappear, because fome witty, but wicked men, have no mind to believe them.

These men are infidels in their own defence, and merely for the quiet of their own minds, that their confciences may not perpetually rate them, and fly in their faces. For a right belief and an evil confcience are but unfuitable companions; they are quarrelfome neighbours, and muft needs live very uneafily by one another. He that believes the principles of religion, and yet is confcious to himself, that he hath lived contrary to them, and still continues to do fo, how can he poffibly have any peace and quiet in his mind; unlefs, like Jonah, he can fleep in a form, and his confcience be, as it were, feared with a hot iron? for if his confcience be awake, and in any degree fenfible, the evident danger of eternal ruin continually hanging over him, must in reason either drive him to repentance or to defpair. If fo forcible and violent an argument can make no impreffion upon us, we are stupid and bewitched, we are loft and undone, we are wretched and miferable for ever.

But, befides the future reward of a holy and confcientious course, which is unfpeakable and full of glory; it hath alfo this prefent fruit, this earneft, as I may fay, and ready money in hand, the peace and fatisfaction of our own minds, which is much more valuable than thoufands of gold and filver; the unfpeakable comfort whereof every man will then find when he hath most need of it: for it will be matter of great joy to him, not only under the forest afflictions and calamities of life, but even at the hour of death; when the miferies of life opprefs him, and the forrows of death compass him about, and the pangs of it are ready to take hold of him.

There is certainly no fuch comfort under the evils and afflictions of this life, as a faithful witnefs in our breasts of our own innocency and integrity. When we are afflicted by God, or perfecuted and reviled by men, it cannot but be a mighty confolation to us, to be conscious to ourselves of our own fincerity. For though no man can acquit and juftify himself before God as to the perfect innocency of his life, in which fenfe St. Paul fays, I Cor. iv. 4. that though he knew nothing by himfelf, yet was be not thereby juftified; I fay, though no man can plead

perfect

perfect innocency, yet, as to the general courfe and tenor of an unblameable life, a good man may appeal to God, and even when he afflicts him, may look upon him as a tender and compassionate father, and not as an angry and revengeful judge.

With this, holy and patient Job, under all those terrible difafters and calamities which befel him, was able in fome measure to comfort himself. After he had loft all, and he had a great deal to lofe, when he was forfaken of all other comfort, even the charitable opinion of his beit friends concerning his fincerity: in these fad and difconfolate circumftances, what was it that bore up his tpirit? Nothing but the confcience of his own integrity. See with what refolution and conftancy of mind he afferts and maintains it: Job xxvii. 5. 6. I will not (fays he) remove mine integrity from me. My righteoufnefs will I hold fast, and will not let it go: mine heart jhall not reproach me fo long as I live. You fee, that when every thing elfe was gone, his integrity stuck by him, and fupported him to the last.

And as to perfecutions and fufferings from men, our own innocency, and the goodness of our caufe, will be our belt comfort under them; when we are not guilty to ourselves, that we have deferved them from men, and are inwardly affured, that whatever we patiently fuffer for God and a good confcience, will all turn to our account another day, and work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

This was that which fupported the first Christians, that noble army of martyrs, under all those bitter and cruel perfecutions, which had otherwife been beyond all human patience to have endured; this comforted them in all their tribulations: Our rejoicing (fays St. Paul) is this, the teftimony of our confciences, that in fimplicity and godly fincerity we have had our converfation in the world.

So likewise under that inferior, but equally malicious fort of perfecution, of which this age is fo very profufe and prodigal; I mean, the caufelefs calumnies and reproaches of men: if under thefe we can but approve our confciences to God, the uncharitable cenfures of men are not so much to be regarded by us. Some impreffion they will make upon a tender mind; but we must not, if we

can

can help it, let them fink too deep into our fpirits. If our hearts condemn us not, we may have confidence towards God, 1 John iii. 21.; and then furely much more towards men. If God and our own confciences do but acquit us, methinks it should be no fuch difficult matter to bear the flanders and hard cenfures of men.

But, above all other times, the comfort of a good confcience is most sensible and most confiderable at the hour. of death! For as nothing dejects a man's fpirits more, and fends him down with fo much forrow to the grave, as the guilt of an evil confcience; what terror and anguifh, what rage and defpair, do feize upon a finner at that time, when he reflects upon what he hath done, and confiders what he is like to fuffer? fo, on the other hand, there is nothing that revives and raises the fainting fpirits of a dying man, like the confcience of a holy and useful life, which hath brought glory to God, and good to men. The wicked (fays Solomon, Prov. xiv. 32.) is driven away in his wickedness; that is, he is carried out of the world, as it were, in a ftorm and tempeft: but the righteous bath hope in his death; he ufually dies calmly and comfortably. Mark the perfect man, (fays David, Pfal. xxxvii. 37.), and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace.

If a man be confcious to himself, that he hath fincerely endeavoured to keep the commandments of God, and to do the things which please him; if he hath lived inoffenfively, and, as St. Paul (Acts xxiii. 1.) fays of himfelf, in all good confcience before God and men; what an unfpeakable confolation must it be to him, in that dark and gloomy time, and when he is walking through the val ley of the fhadow of death, then to fear no evil? and to be able, with our bleffed Saviour, to fay, though in a much inferior measure and degree, Father, I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou haft given me to do? John xvii. 4.; and to be able to look death in the face with the like courage and conftancy of mind, as St. Paul did when he faw it approaching to wards him: I am now (fays he, Tim. iv. 6. 7. 8.) ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown