The Morning exercise [at] Cri[ppleg]ate, or, Several cases of conscience practically resolved

2. By compliance, by consenting and complying with Sin and Sinners, so a man makes himself partaker, though he has no hand in't, yet if he has a heart in't, though he does not act it, yet if he likes it, and loves it, and approves it, though he does not persecute Gods Saints and Ministers, yet if he saith, Aha! aha! so would we have it, 'tis enough to make him guilty before God.

Saul, he had no hand in Saint Stephens death, he did not cast one stone at him; but because he looked on with approbation, and stood by with consent, Acts 8.1. Saul was consenting unto his death, therefore was he esteemed guilty of his blood and murder, and so himself confesses, when God had awakened him, and humbled him to repentance, Acts 22.20. When the blood of thy Martyr Stephen was shed, I was consenting to his death, and so charges himself as guilty of it.

God looks not upon the outward man so much as upon the heart, according ⟨p. 165⟩to the frame and inclination of the heart, according as the pulse of the heart beats, so is every man in the account & esteem of God, if Sin has once stormed the Fort-Royal of the heart, though it never appears in the out-works, the Garrison is lost: That which is upon the stage of the heart after consent, is as truly acted in the sight of God, as that which appears in the outward man by commission. Matth 15.19. Out of the heart proceeds murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. Why beloved, from the hand proceeds Murders and Thefts, Eph 4.28. from the eye proceeds Adulteries and Fornications,