A09400:264
A discourse of conscience wherein is set down the nature, properties, and differences thereofA discourse of conscience wherein is set downe the nature, properties, and differences thereof
A discourse of conscience wherein is set down the nature, properties, and differences thereof: as also the way to get and keep good conscience.A discourse of conscience wherein is set downe the nature, properties, and differences thereof: as also the way to get and keepe good conscience.
Cambridge: printed by John Legate, 1596Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legate, 1596
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The seared conscience is that which doeth 1not accuse for any sin; no not for great sins. It is compared by Paul, 1. Tim. 4. v. 2. to the part of a mans body which is not only bereft of sense, life, & motion by the gangrene, but also ⟨p. 153⟩is burnt with a searing iron: and therefore must needs be utterly past all feeling.
The seared conscience is that which doeth 1not accuse for any sinne; no not for great sinnes. It is compared by Paul, 1. Tim. 4. v. 2. to the parte of a mans body which is not onely berefe of sense, life, & motion by the gangrene, but also ⟨p. 153⟩is burnt with a searing yron: and therefore must needes be vtterly past all feeling.
- 1Seared conscience.
This kind of conscience is not in all men, but in such persons as are become obstinate heretics and notorious malefactors. And it is not in them by nature, but by an increase of the corruption of nature; and that by certain steppes and degrees. For naturally every man hath in him blindness of mind, and obstinacy or frowardness of heart; yet so, as with the blindness and ignorance of mind, are joined some remnants of the light of nature, showing us what is good and evil. Now the heart of man being exceedingly obstinate and perverse, carrieth him to commit sins even against the light of nature and common conscience: by practise of such sins the light of nature is extinguished: and then cometh the reprobate mi […], which judgeth evil good, and good evil after this follows the seared conscience, in which there is no feeling or remorse: and after this comes an exceeding greediness to all manner of sin.